Baby Boomer Fitness
By Tommie Weber

What is the point?

Would you like to feel better and look better?

Would you like to be active and stay younger longer?

Aging is a learned response, it’s not inevitable.

We don’t want disease to over take and take over.

There is a fountain of youth called exercise and proper nutrition.

Water and Air are the basis of health not Advil, Nexium and Valium.

After so many years of running our bodies to the point of exhaustion and for some, to extinction, why bother with fitness?  If you’re not dead and you’d like to be younger internally, read on.

If you think your life needs to change and slow down simply because you’ve turned fifty you’re mistaken.  This is the beginning of a new adventure. The kids are growing and going.   We are suppose to be getting a little more freedom and should be looking forward to this new stage.  So why is it so frightening to so many of us?

The majority of small businesses being opened in the United States are opened by people over fifty.  It is a magical time of life full of freedom and exploration.  Why not spend it being well and active? Why not pay attention to the God given temple we walk around in?  Why not look in the mirror and take stock of all the damage we’ve done and begin again? I did. 

I looked in the mirror several months ago after a lifetime of fitness and health activities and smiled.  I didn’t smile because I was looking good; I smiled because the chubby little man I saw staring back at me wasn’t who I am.  It was who I allowed myself to become.  That chubby guy was about to undergo a reclamation project along the lines of what I preached and expected of others.  Now, thirty pounds lighter, able to bike fifty miles comfortably with younger stronger legs, lower pressure and more muscle I still have a ways to go.  So, take a look, take stock and take control of your life, your health and your expectations.  You have to want and expect to succeed.  You also have to be creative and make it for and about you and your needs. 

Over ninety percent of individuals, especially, “Baby Boomers,” have some part of a slow metabolism.  We aren’t the ones who can eat cookies, cake and ice cream and never store an ounce of fat. It is what it is folks and we need to work with what we have not what someone else expects us to accomplish. 

Never exercise to exhaustion.  You often won’t come back and your body won’t like you.  It will let you know all the damage you are inflicting.  Forget the “No pain, no gain nonsense.” Work within your ability to the point of relaxation and come back again and again.  Soon you will be leaner, stronger and eager to continue your own transformation. 

We have the ability to turn back the clock on aging.  We can be younger biologically and we can age more gracefully.  I do not want to “watch” my grandchildren swim and surf, I want to swim and surf with them.  I do not want to slow down and dodder around waiting to be medicated in order to breathe, stand or go to the bathroom.  I don’t want to take foreign substances in ever increasing amounts until I no longer know or care where I am.  This is not living and it isn’t the way it is suppose to be.

Squirrels climb trees to the last day of their lives.  I never noticed one wearing a diaper or an oxygen tank.  It is medical fact that a sedentary sixty year old who starts exercising and paying attention to what they are putting in their mouth can make themselves years and sometimes decades younger.

Today it is estimated that 10,000 people a day turn sixty.  One turns fifty every seven seconds.  What does this all mean?  For most, instead of it being a time of exploration and activity it is a time of fear and frustration.  There are many reasons and one of the primary ones is most people are afraid they will out-live their savings.  The answer is to stay younger, work a little, play more and add to your savings.  And these are all things you can accomplish with Xooma’s products and business plan.

We have become a society which looks to others to fix our problems.  It doesn’t matter whether they are socio-economic, physical, emotional or even spiritual, for some reason we look to others to solve them. The people are the most powerful giving force on this planet and it is time we take a look at ourselves and look to care for our society.  In order to do this we need to examine what we’ve done or not done and start to change.

Oh, there it is the dreaded “C” word.  Not cancer or car insurance.  CHANGE.  In this case it is relevant to look back and examine our mistakes because the past is truly a school. We can learn from it and change our present and also our view to the future. We can’t change the past but we can learn from it.  If we combine all the technological advances over the past seven decades and add some simple wisdom, CHANGE is not so difficult because some of it involves changing back.  Self reliance, self awareness, compassion, kindness, faith and belief in ourselves never go out of style.  We can choose to look forward in fear or look to the future with vitality and hope.  We can change the future for others just by correcting our own mistakes. 

Society actually programs us to get old.  We stop moving, climbing dancing, skating and skiing because we might injure ourselves.  I think we should start to embrace the bumps and bruises of living a full life more and the heart operations less.

Growing old is not a learned response and sixty should be “middle age.”  If we practice some simple precepts we might solve a whole host of problems all at once.

I am fifty-seven years old.  I have been working since I was eleven.  I have never had health insurance.  I do not go to the doctor to look for things that are wrong.  I figure I didn’t look when I was fourteen why should I look now. This thinking is not for everyone.  It is my choice and perhaps I am too stubborn. There is a huge value in all we have learned about our bodies through medical research and I would be a fool if I was in an accident not to avail myself or my family of what is now known. It should be my choice. I don’t want the media, the government and the pharmaceutical companies deciding what is best for me or my family.  I don’t want them deciding what I can or cannot eat. Why drink an energy drink when science shows exercise and water will give you more energy than you need?  Why take an anti-depressant when science shows water and exercise are more effective for depression and anxiety than the three leading drugs? Drugs are not food and they are not natural.  They should only be used as a last resort not as a first response. 

So the choice is ours.  We can get old and feeble or we can get old and active.  To me there is no choice.  I don’t ever want to see that chubby man staring back at me from the mirror again. 

My final thoughts....Don’t get down on yourself. Don’t quit. Give yourself a break.  Life is supposed to be fun. Laugh at yourself; it is a workout for your stomach. Smile at your own humanity and start over.  Do it for you first and those you love second.  In the end, we all will be enriched by your effort.

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