Younger Next Year

So here's the scoop on the Cath's Getting Smaller on the Eat Less Move More Diet.

Once I got down to having lost 15 pounds, I decided to take a break. I was heading into a long vacation, the launch of a new blog, and the holidays. My new and necessary goal: maintenance. And, I'll be honest. Posting my weight and everything I'd eaten each day had lost its shine.

Now I'll be really honest. I have never been able to maintain the weight I've lost on any diet. I always end up gaining what I lost back and then some. So, I wanted to slow down and learn to trust that I could stay at my base weight minus fifteen before I tried to lose any more.

Is that a rationalization? A cop-out?  Since it's been a month ago today since I posted my last weight and I've completely maintained my weight loss, I say it is an attempt to learn to trust myself and know for sure that I've changed a lot of bad habits.

At the same time that I was having that conversation with myself in my brain, I started reading this book, which pretty much caused another major epiphany:

Here's why:

• Unless we are hit by a truck or are stricken with disease, those of us who are 40 and older will probably live into our nineties, whether we like it or not. Those of you under 40 will live longer. When you consider this fact, quality of life becomes a really big deal.
• New scientific research has shown that our bodies are dynamic, literally replacing themselves as old cells are destroyed and new ones are grown:
  • Thigh muscle cells are completely replaced about every four months
  • Blood cells are completely replaced every three months, your platelets every ten days
  • Bones are replaced every couple of years
  • Taste buds are replaced every day
• Exercise helps you grow more cells than what you replace, therefore slowing down the aging process, even at first reversing it, then leveling it off, until it drops sharply at the very end. The aging model we are currently used to: Once you turn 40, without exercise your body decays at a regular pace until you die. I prefer the former.
• Through exercise, 70% of the "normal" decay associated with aging (weakness, sore joints, poor balance, sluggishness) can be forestalled until the end--the end being the nineties.
• Ready for this? This one's astounding: 50% of all illness and injuries in the last third of your life (type II diabetes, certain kinds of cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, etc.) can be eliminated by changing your lifestyle in the manner this book suggests. That's big. I mean really big.
• If you are over 40, you can become younger next year at any age. Even into your nineties.

Here's how:

• Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life. Recommendation: an hour a day.
• Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life.
• Do serious weight training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
• Don't eat crap.

I have been doing this for 4 weeks now, although I haven't added the weights yet, and I have never felt better in my life. An hour a day, six days a week.  And while I haven't dipped below the 15-pound mark, the interim jeans are starting to fit a little lose through the seat.

Is it hard to exercise an hour a day? I was already doing 45-50 minutes a day, four or five days a week, so to add the extra 10 or 15 minutes was not a big change for me. BUT, the extra calories that you burn in that extra 10 or 15 minutes adds up fast. Now it is a regular part of my routine and I don't really even think about not doing it anymore. In fact, I've reached that blessed point where I am extremely unhappy if I am unable to work out. (Who is this girl? I hardly recognize her!)

There are more particulars to this regimen, of course, but just like when I realized that there are 3500 calories in a pound, I can either work them off or not eat them in the first place, this new information on how we age, and more importantly, how we can delay it, has changed my life. Pick up the book. It's an easy read. Give it to yourself for Christmas. I'd love for all of us to be younger next year.

Comments

[Alice]

Hey Cath - just wanted to pop in quickly and say how proud I am of you - those goals sound like something to shoot for. I've been working my way up to 45 minutes/4 days a week...I think I'll set my New Year's goal to getting to 60 minutes/5 or 6 days. Somedays it is really hard to squeeze it in though, isn't it? Have a happy turkey day!