Is Anti-Aging a Realistic Possibility?

I've been giving a lot of thought to this because every time I turn on my computer or my TV, I see ads for anti-aging x, y, and z products.

Is anti aging possible? Is it a reality?

In short - I don't think so. I'll post more thoughts about this topic over time but wanted to get my starting thoughts written down here today.

Aging is a process that starts when we are born - we get older every day! It's that plain and simple.

Aging, as a process, has a beginning, a middle and an end. My focus in this blog is that giant middle - the part of life when we start to see and feel some of the inevitable declines that happen with age...but where we can still make choices about how well we will live in our own futures.

I don't think we can stop the process - except when we die - nor can we reverse the process and go backwards.

What we can do is slow down the process by making intelligent decisions. It's all about the choices we make!

Intelligent people can choose to be well informed and make choices to compensate for problems with our air and food and take a long hard look at these products being made available to us and then - with facts in hand - we can ask: Is it an intelligent choice for me to take these supplements?

That's very different than asking will this reverse or stop my aging process...

My mother's voice is in my head - "You know - you aren't 20 anymore."

I am heavily invested in politics and this is election season. So last week I had meetings and campaigning to do - and I did it..all week - day and night for 7 days!

The upshot was that Monday my body said "No way we are getting out of bed for the cycling class." I tried fighting back but my body won and so we slept in for a while longer.

When I got up I heard my mother's voice saying "You know - you aren't 20 anymore." And that's still in my head today. I'm sure there are other of her sayings that appear from time to time but the 20 anymore is the one that comes back with some regularity - especially when I am doing "things" that we ancient elders are not "supposed" to be doing :-).

My mom started on that mantra when I was in my 40's and began playing competitive slow pitch softball, touch football and learned to play squash. All of these sports came with the possibility of injuries and I was not immune. Broken finger, twisted ankles, sore quads, and when I pitched - hit by line drives! Ouch...but I did not stop - my mantra was to continue playing when injured....finished a double header with the broken finger and only stopped after the orthopod asked if we were in contention to win the division - when I said no - he suggested I stop for the season as another break would result in my not being able to easily type at my computer...and we know that would not be a good idea. [If we were in contention he would have figured a way to protect that finger but with no promises. ]

Through all this - when I would tell my mother of my latest games - injuries or not - she would repeat her mantra. It became a regular laughing point of our conversations...and she admitted she wished she still could do what I was doing! Her mantra continued until she died when I was in my early 60's - still playing softball and still skiing.

So when I had my exhausting week - her words rang in my head.....and I wondered if she was still somewhere shaking her head thinking "that daughter of mine" and saying "You know - you aren't 20 anymore."

It's October Again

Last year I wrote about the sort-of-meaning of Octobers in my life.

I still have not come up with a good reason for my mental affair with this month :-) but it's happening again.

It's been a pleasant month here [not much rain], the temperatures are mild and I am loving this October....

We in the United States are also into the last weeks of what has been a very long election season [season equaling years it seems] and I have been busy doing lots of campaign activities.

For whatever the reasons - be they real, imagined, political, friends, or family, my optimism about life is quite high and so is my energy. I am feeling great and I want to keep feeling this way forever...[well - I'd go along with an increase in this great feeling...]

Just as I said last year about that being my best October - I'm now betting that this is my best October - and November and December and on into 2009!

Isn't it a great internal smile when you know that life is just going to keep getting better and better? Maybe that's why I called this blog grow older better. Names or titles just pop into my head from my unconscious - and over the decades I've learned to trust my unconscious [After all - I am an Aquarian :-)]. So even when some said but grow older better is not grammatical - I liked it... And now it seems even more appropriate as I age and grow older better - and better, etc.

This is funny

This is funny - and even funnier is that the person who sent it to me probably has zero idea of the cable words used :-) - and he is younger than I.....

I'm not making fun of "older" people - but I think each of us knows someone who will have this very reaction :-)

Good News! Search the Internet!

For those of us who are on the Internet - we are boosting our brain power!

[See full article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7667610.stm]

It seems that searching the web searching the web "stimulates ceneres in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning." This finding, though, seems to work better if one is more experienced at searching the Internet...

Wow... What does this mean that those of us who blog and those of us who regularly look for information on blogs and other web sites ? Interesting to contemplate...

You are never too old to learn new technology and use it! And now we see it helps with healthy aging...
[and to think some have said it's a waste of time :-(]

Fending Off Fall

Not sure how many people play this game ... My friends here do not play this game - so it’s not that universal.

What game? Each Fall I play “How late into Fall I can go without turning on the heat.”

I think it’s more of a North East “thing” because having lived a large chunk of my adult life in New England – you learn very quickly that once that once you turn on the heat – it’s on seemingly forever ☺ - and in Vermont “forever” often extended into the following May or June!

While in the Boston area my friends and I sometimes made it into September before turning on the furnace. And even then we made it well into later Fall before leaving the heat on all day. We did this by turning up the heat in the AM to take the chill off the house and then turning the thermostat way back down. In Vermont the furnace usually had to get cranked up in September - sometimes before the official start of Fall and the taking the chill off began then as well.

In D.C. it was never a game I played, as it would stay warm well into November [even into December] and that took the fun out of it....

In Portland I have gas heat - and in the past when I have had gas heat I turn the pilot light off in the summer...never could see the point of paying the local gas company for something I was not using ☺.

So here the game is when do I turn the pilot back on...In the days of cable TV – I watch the weather channel and if it looks like the week ahead is dipping into the mid to low 40’s at night – I turn the pilot light on. Sometimes that alone is enough to warm up the house...but it’s also then ready if I need to turn on the heat for the morning warm up....

The odd bit about living in a floating home is that the river is part of the “game.” If the river stays warm for a period of time, I can keep the heat totally off or just live with the pilot......

I turned on the pilot light last week and so far have had to do the warm up on two mornings. But it is October and officially Fall...and as we warm up this week I won’t need to do the AM heat for a while.

Game on? Does it change as we get older?

Let me know if you play this game or some others that help you fend off Fall.

Wow - even more energy!

I, a sometimes cynic, am totally impressed with the energy I have of late.

In my cycling class, for the first time since I started over 2 years ago, I kept up with most of what the instructor was doing - I usually can not. [And she was into standing runs and sprints which I do not like and they generally wear me out quickly.]

But not now....I have been running - I am waking up very early which is an odd Fall pattern for me as I generally only wake up this early in the summer...

Where is all this energy coming from? The only change I have made in my life was to start taking a new fat loss product. It spares lean muscle as it targets fat. I can only guess that in losing fat [another inch in the waist and hips] I am changing something in my body balance and that is producing the energy....and I am exercising more strenuously because I have that energy...so I am burning more calories and ... and ... and .... Some of the ability to maintain the higher level of exercise may be the few accumulated months of taking another product that helps reduce soreness and stiffness due to physical activity or overexertion. It just may be that from now on it WILL take longer for me to wear out when I bike...We'll see - and I'll keep you posted.

I also tried an experiment for a few days last week. After exercising in the AM - I kept my heart rate monitor on for several hours. It's true - exercising does keep you burning calories for hours afterwards - 200 calories an hour for me - up to 5 hours later [when I took off the monitor as the chest strap gets annoying.] I put the monitor on one day when I did not exercise in the AM.. I burned substantially fewer calories that day when all else was the same except for not exercising.

My body is functioning much better these days and I ain't getting younger :-) so it's got to be something else. I'll keep taking the products because I assume it is they that are doing the good things for me as they are creating my personal version of healthy aging.

And I really have to add this - it's making me money ! I am an associate for the company that markets the fat loss product. Neighbors are joining my business and/or just buying the product. They are impressed with my noticeable increase in energy and the lost inches! And in this economy - they love the idea that they too can make money...so it's a win win win. Why ? This business model works well in a recession... right now who can't use extra money every month?

[You can learn more about the product and the potential income by clicking on the link at the top right on this page.]

Watch Out! Take Care! It's Your Money They Want!

I know my readers are an intelligent group of people but I still feel obligated to mention the rash of new scams and potential new scams that are going on or likely to go on.

The USA is in a financial mess and it is affecting most all of us here and around the world. I won't go into my take on this in this blog - that I'll save it for another blog...

But the scammers are out in full force trying to take your money away form you in the form of "helping" you.

I have gotten calls on my business line about accounts I do not have, I get emails about helping me sell my house, and I see signs all over my neighborhood along the lines of: "Need Cash? We will sell your house in x days!"

There are more emails about "my" bank accounts needing to be reconciled.......

These are all scams and are designed to have you turn your bank accounts and houses over to a scammer!.

Please ride out the ups and downs of this financial mess....Do not make impulsive decisions about your property or your money.

Do not be embarrassed if you start to fall for one of these scams - people do it all the time....Don't let embarrassment stop you from asking or calling for help!