Day 91 – Too Old To Change? I’m Not Buying It.

“Human communities depend upon a diversity of talents, not a singular conception of what we ought to be.”

~ Sir Ken Robinson

183.4 lbs.

I went to the pictures today to catch How To Train your Dragon once more before it goes to DVD (home 3D, with those old fashioned red and blue cardboard goggles, just isn’t the same).It’s a well-crafted bit of film; if you’ve not seen it, get thee to the cinema! You can come back and read this article later.

For the rest of you who have seen it, and those just getting back home and of course dashing back to this blog,let’s continue.

So there I was sitting with a friend of mine and her mother, having the usual “how have you been” conversation while waiting  for the show to start, when the topic turned to this blog. “It’s very interesting” said the mother, “I’d like to see a woman who has had kids, or is post-menopausal, try it.”

By “it” she didn’t mean 100 days of starvation. That would be a really stupid thing to do. The context was about making changes to become more healthy.

While Demi Moore (@mrskutcher) is too young to be post menopausal, she has had kids – yet remains femininely bufftastic. And it’s not making Hollywood-sized buckets of coin that gets you from here to there . Look at Val Kilmer, Bill Shatner, et al. And it’s not a girl thing; while Demi earns her figure by the sweat of her brow, some other actresses ideas of a workout involves lifting the credit card from the clutch and handing it to the surgeon.

But while Mrs. Kutcher keeps svelte by working out and watching what she eats (staying a semi-Demi, ba-dum bum. No? Tough crowd) surely it isn’t that easy far below the Mount Olympus that is the entertainment industry, where the rest of us live?

Well, easy is relative. If it really were easy, one of those magic pills the diet or supplement industry sells would do the trick.  You actually have to get in motion, at least 10 to 20 minutes a day, and make smart food choices.

Some readers have emailed me saying “yes, yes, that’s all very good-  but I’m in my [insert age here - 50's, 40's, even 30's in the case of some drama queens] and it’s too late for me. If I’d known this in my [insert younger age here - 30's 20's...] I could have done something then.”

Presumably the 30somethings who write in with this complaint wish they’d known this stuff when they were a fetus or something. Bee tee doubleyou, I’m 37, so there’s proof that… on second thought, scratch that. If I use me as an example, the 40-or-50somethings can still smugly say “wait ’till your my age.”

All right, I see your 50 years of age and raise you one. In fact,  I raise you four and a half. As in decades.

Merrill Matzinger -would probably tell you to zip it, since he does cardio, lifts weights and starts his daily workouts with 1,500 crunches. And he’s 95 years old. That’s the same age as Jack Lalanne, who has been a fitness guru since before they were called gurus.

“All the doctors that have treated me can’t believe what they’re seeing,” Merrill recounts. “That’s encouraging, to go to the doctor and have compliments rather than prescriptions.” He went on to say he’d only missed one workout in the past 20 years. That makes me feel like a slacker sitting on a cusioned chair as I type this, even though I got home from the gym less than an hour ago.

Oh, and did I mention he does all this while being legally blind? Merrill, you’re making us look bad!

Actually, if we’re not following his example we’re making ourselves look bad. I don’t mean everyone should do 1,500 crunches a day – I mean we should all make the effort to be active and eat right. The occasional treat indulgence or reclining slothfully for a relaxing afternoon is okay, but do that all the time and next thing you know you’re watching your enemies escape the sarlacc and blowing up your sail barge while some tart in a metal bikini strangles you with a chain.

(more after the vid)

You don’t have to live in the gym; you can make a big difference with as little as 20 minutes a day of cardio, whether it’s a jog, skipping, jumping jacks, etc. and some basic resistance training (lifting up heavy things and putting them down again, a.k.a. weight lifting).  If we eat well and get even a modest level of exercise, we’re not “dieting.” Our bodies naturally find the correct weight for us as individuals.

For women, being post-menopausal, or having had kids, is no barrier (or excuse). For all of us, it’s never too late in life to start changing for the better.