5 Easy Ways You Can Beat The Aging Process

I am refusing to get old

“I’m not against aging, I’m against getting old” — Dr Jeffry Life

I turn 40 this year and whilst I don’t feel much different from when I started my 30's I do look different. I am heavier, less able to lose weight and I look tired.

Last night I was looking through my google photos at some pics of me in 2014. I was so lean, my eyes were sparkling, alive. I was in my prime and I didn’t even know it.

Since then I have let myself go. Slowly — one choice at a time— over the years until I am now almost 10 kilos heavier than I was. I refuse to let this become who and what I am.

It is not just age, it is life and gravity and the forces of inertia constantly knocking on the door. Creeping in when my back is turned. These forces are relentless, they take their toll.

It’s time to fight back. There are many men and women who look fantastic at 40, 50, 60, 70 and beyond. They still have the sparkle in their eyes and power over their life choices.

These are the people who refuse to play the game of falling apart year after year and sliding into its acceptance. They don’t accept. They put health first and they look and live better for it.

They have chosen a different path and the choice is available to all of us.

I choose from this day forward to look after myself, take care of myself in all ways and put my health first, for the rest of my life.

Here are the cornerstones that I will be working on moving forward and that are known to be effective. Living the promise I’ve made to myself.

Getting and Staying Lean

What this means to each of us is slightly different. To me, it means keeping my body weight at 88/89 kilos whilst maintaining the muscle I already have. Being lean is not just about looking good. Whilst it is nice to look good naked, especially for our self-esteem, leaner is healthier too. It is a well-known correlation that lean people are generally less prone to diabetes and other obesity-related diseases. Staying lean requires activity that beats the sedentary lifestyle every time.

High-Quality Supplements and Antioxidants

The availability of high-quality nutrients lessens every year. The tomatoes our grandparents ate and the soil that produced them may as well have come from a different planet. Intensive and industrial farming has stripped the goodness out of most foods and not all of us can afford organic — if those labels can even be trusted. The antidote to this is supplementation. I take some staples that work for me and I will continue to take them. Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin B3 and B6, Zinc, Magnesium, Biotin, Collagen and gut bacteria. I also cycle Alpha Lipoic Acid and Creatine when leaning down. This may sound like a lot and expensive but I don’t drink alcohol so I am saving. Investing in supplements is an act of self-love that will pay dividends later. If you don’t know anything about them, you can search here for good unbiased info. (Not an affiliate link)

Stress Reduction

A daily practice that allows you to relax, even for just five minutes a day is priceless. There are a whole bunch of things you can learn but the most effective of all is Mindfulness. Not mysterious, not inaccessible and doesn’t take years to understand. It is a practice that brings you gifts and allows you to step back from whatever is happening and to witness it from a different place. It’s hard to explain, but if you give it 30 days of 20 mins a day, you will most likely continue. It is not psychotherapy, it will not deal with your childhood trauma or give you any insight but it will give you something more valuable. Peace of mind and acceptance of life as it is. I am deepening my practice and will for life.

New Challenges

Our brains do not stop working unless we do. New hobbies, new languages and new challenges all aid in neurogenesis. The ability to rewire and reshape your brain. You are far more in control of this than you may think and you can get smarter, more interesting and sharper as you age. Cognitive decline is due to physical and mental inaction, and perhaps not having anything to live for. Even the crossword — that keeps my 90-year old grandmother sharp as a knife — is effective. Novelty and new things, boredom is the enemy, which leads to the final piece.

Mindset

Refusing to allow your age to dictate your choices. If you are 50 and want to take up kung fu or jiu-jitsu, do it. Want to skydive on your 90th birthday, do it, it is not uncommon. The worst thing we can ever allow ourselves to think or say, is that I am too old. This is only an opinion and it is not fact, whatever you think you are too old to do I promise you there is someone 15 years older than you starting and loving it.

We live in a world of invisible fences that control the paths we use to move through the world. What we say, do and feel. There’s a multitude of age-appropriate and age-inappropriate concepts that we need to tear up and rewrite for ourselves. It may be uncomfortable and it will be embarrassing but on the other side is a glory that can only be lived by getting through it.

The youngest older people are the youngest at heart. I intend to be one of them. I choose to be one of them.