Are you aging well?
I recently read this article from the New York Times which looked at what it takes to ‘age well’.
Aging well is not just about living the longest but specifically refers to the quality of those years. The take home message from this study was not only that exercise improves health and therefore quality of life but that people who took up exercise in their later years after neglecting it for most of their lives, still significantly reduced their risk of developing chronic disease, dementia and many other health issues often associated with aging.
In my experience, the typical pattern of life for many of us is get educated, start a career, find life partner, get promoted into senior work roles/start a business, have a family, etc, etc. Often, regular exercise gets put on the back burner somewhere between starting a career and moving into senior positions with a lot of responsibility and a couple of young kids thrown in for good measure! We have worked with many people who have followed this pattern and are ‘successful’ but have now reached a point where their health had deteriorated and have decided to start exercising. Over a number of years these clients have worked hard and transformed their health and their waistlines – not to become rippling 1% body fat physical specimens but to significantly impact their health in a positive manner and set up the next 30-40 years of their life.
Bottom line – it’s never too late to start exercising, so take action now and benefit from the improvements to your health.
-Kristin Lewis