Episode 25: Will your 70 year-old-self thank you? Mastering the Art of Healthy Aging

In this episode we dive into aging healthily (is that a word?). I ask the question, "What am I doing TODAY that 70 year old Kathy will thank me for?"

I'll be your guide on this journey towards aging success, focusing on how to prevent the four horsemen of diseases (as coined by per Dr. Peter Attia) - cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative disease. You'll hear about my personal journey with exercise, from my strength training days in my twenties, to my current focused approach in my forties, with a goal to inspire you to make strength training an integral part of your life.

As we navigate through the realm of aging, I'll highlight the importance of real food nutrition and maintaining mental health, underlining that staying healthy in your golden years is about fueling your body with the right food vs. treating your body like a trash can! I'll also share a link to my free 5-day protein challenge to help you kick-start your wellness journey. 

Lastly, we'll talk about taking control of our future health by making intentional choices, and leveraging our current abilities and knowledge. So, sit back, tune in, and allow me to guide you through these golden tips to ensure a healthier future. 

Let's age successfully, together!

Follow me on IG: @kathy_mead_fronheiser

Check out my website: www.kathymeadfronheiser.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:14

Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to the Fun Over 40 podcast. This is Kathy. I'm your host. I am excited to chat with you today. No interviews today, just me back up on my soapbox Talking about another topic I feel passionate about. So get ready, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:33

So if you do not know me in real life, you may not know that my mom suffers from dementia, and guess what Her mother did too. So guess what? That's what we call a genetic predisposition, if you didn't know. So I have a sister as well, so we talk about this a lot.

Speaker 1: 1:59

So a lot of my thinking lately has been about 70 year old Kathy. What can I do today to set her up for success? What habits can I put on repeat so that 70 year old Kathy can live the life she wants to live? She isn't taking a bunch of medications, she isn't a mobile and unable to travel. She's active, she reads books, she hangs out with her friends All the things that make life enjoyable to me at least. Right, we're all a little different life. There's going to be other things in life that are enjoyable to you, but basically, like, what am I doing today to set myself up for success 20, 30, 40 plus years from now? Ps, I just turned 47. So that's why, you know, I say 20, 30 years from now.

Speaker 1: 2:55

So I've been reading and researching about how to age well, how to prevent the diseases that afflict us as we age. If you're familiar at all with Dr Pia Peter, I can't talk Dr Peter Atia. He calls these the four horsemen, and those are cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, cancer and neurodegenerative disease. He has an amazing podcast as well I will link in the show notes and he really does talk a lot about these four horsemen that lead to most death, at least in the United States. He also has a book that just came out called Outlive. That's great. So luckily the topic of longevity is a really popular one these days. So if that's a topic you're interested in, you don't really have to look far to find people that are talking about that. But be a little careful about the people that you listen to, the people you trust. I'm not super interested in like kooky biohacking type stuff, just real world habits that can improve my chances to be strong and sharp as possible in 30 years and beyond. So I've always enjoyed recommendations that actually have some sort of research basis. So that's why I really like Dr Peter Atia. He is a doctor, obviously by his name and like a medical doctor, and so his recommendations are all based on research. There's other people out there as well Dr Gabrielle Lyon I'm probably pronouncing her last name wrong L-Y-O-N. She's great as well. She has a podcast too, so I'll link both of those, both of those podcasts, so you can get more information.

Speaker 1: 4:44

But if you are still training to fit into your genes, ladies, and look good in a bathing suit, that's fine, but I would challenge you to think about training so that your future self, 20, 30 plus years from now, will thank you. So what will help and what does that, you know, even look like? Well, you know the first thing I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about three things. I should set myself up here so you're prepared. Number one you know the first thing I'm going to talk about is exercise. If you know anything about me, if you don't, fyi, exercise is my love language. I have a master's degree in exercise science. I love exercise. You know I'll be super honest with you guys. I was just talking to somebody about this recently and I don't know if I've ever really been super honest about this with you guys.

Speaker 1: 5:39

The reason that I originally got into exercising so much. I mean, I grew up in athletes I'm not really talking about like go into sports practice but when I got into my twenties, got to college and then into my twenties, I worked out a lot. And when I say worked out, I mean the traditional like I was a gym rat, went to the gym, spent hours in the gym, cardio, strength group exercise classes, working out on my own. Whatever the reason I got into that so much was because I was scared to death. I was going to gain weight, especially in college. You know you would hear all this stuff about the freshman 15. And I was so afraid Because, to be perfectly honest, the women in my family that I tend to favor are what I like to call strong, sturdy Lebanese women, and they are, and that's not a bad thing. As I've gotten older I've realized I'd rather favor strong, sturdy women than frail women, right? So anyway, but I was so fearful of gaining weight that I exercised a lot.

Speaker 1: 6:38

But what I will also say is that, unknowingly, I probably really set myself up for success in a good place because I packed on so much muscle. I mean, I already started with a lot of muscle because I was a gymnast growing up and then I was a cheerleader and I was a cheerleader that like lifted people up over my head. So I was basically doing squat presses with over 100 pounds ie people, women, girls. So I started with a lot of muscle. I'll be totally honest, I'm lucky that I am. I made that way. But I continued through my 20s and into my 30s. Now in my 30s I got into more endurance training and the strength training kind of dropped off, and so now in my late 40s I mean this probably started really early to mid 40s I've really refocused my efforts on strength training. So that's just a little bit of history about me. But I set myself up for success by doing so much weightlifting and heavy weightlifting in my late teens and my entire 20s through my early 30s.

Speaker 1: 7:52

That was my main source of exercise. So that is going to be my first recommendation for you ladies. Listening to this is going to be something exercise related, so hopefully you're not shocked about that. And exercise has been shown to be the number one way to improve our likelihood of aging better, more healthfully. I don't know if that's a word, but it makes sense to me when I say it.

Speaker 1: 8:18

So cardiovascular exercise helps our cardiovascular system shocker. That is why it's called the cardiovascular exercise. So that's any kind of exercise that elevates your heart rate for a steady, steady period of time. So like going walking, it may be a little bit of a faster clip. You want to be able to talk, but it might not be super comfortable. If you can just talk and talk and talk and talk, you may not be pushing yourself hard enough, and I do that, to be totally honest, when I do my neighborhood walks, a lot of times I'm not pushing myself hard enough. But for me, my neighborhood walks are just as much about mental health which we'll get to as they are about physical health. I'm just saying there's different kinds of exercise and cardiovascular exercise getting your heart rate elevated, keeping it elevated for an extended period of time, is a great way to improve your cardiovascular health, which is your heart health, but also just like your vascular system, which runs throughout your entire body. So it actually improves your neurological health as well, because we want to keep our vascular health good in our brain as well.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Okay, strength training helps us stay strong so that we will continue living independently. We can continue living independently and it also keeps our bones healthy, so that if we fall, that fall doesn't spiral into like our demise, which happens often. And maybe you're not at that age yet, if you're in your 40s or 50s, but I'm sure you know someone a parent, a grandparent, a friend, whatever who had a fall and really that was kind of the end of it. I mean, they didn't necessarily die after the fall, but it just spiraled. Maybe then they were in the hospital and then they got an infection or they lost so much muscle after being bedbound or bedridden or whatever because of the fall that they literally just could never recover from it. Okay, so that happens a lot. So a huge goal as we age is to not fall.

Speaker 1: 10:44

How can we prevent falls? Well, one of them is to stay strong and to keep your muscles healthy, which will keep your bones healthy. Let me tell you how many falls I've had, and I mean I have hit the ground hard, like later in life, not just when I was a kid and a gymnast and all that, but as I've gotten older, when I got into exercise and when I was an adult, everyone kept me on and on and on more endurance activities what I mostly got into with cycling, and I have had some pretty major accidents. I mean, luckily, knock on wood, I've never had a broken bone. Amazingly, last year I fell and, you know, put my arm down because that's what you do, that's just what you automatically do, and I did injure my wrist slightly. It's just a slight strain, but nothing, bro. It's amazing. It's amazing that I've never broken anything. And I say last year it was on my 46th birthday, so I was not quite the spring chicken.

Speaker 1: 11:42

So strength training for strong bones, so that if you do fall it doesn't spiral. Okay, strength training also improves our insulin resistance, which helps to keep us metabolically healthy. So if you don't know what that means, you can look it up. But you may know what it means because there's a lot of folks out there that are really struggling with insulin sensitivity. Stretching and balance training also helps to prevent falls. So that's another one, right, like if you don't lose your balance, you're not gonna fall.

Speaker 1: 12:23

So some ways that you can do that, you can improve your balance and stretching. You know yoga is great for that Tai Chi. But even simply and this is gonna sound so simple, but I promise you it is challenging take your shoes off and try to stand on one foot and whatever foot you pick, like let's say you're standing on your right foot and you pick your left foot up, don't put your left foot on your right leg, like we're not doing. I mean, you could do that, but try to keep it separate and if that's not challenging for you, that's great. Now I want you to close your eyes and do it. Now, all of a sudden, when you take that away your sight away it becomes much more challenging. So you don't even have to do yoga or Tai Chi or you know some specific type of workout you can practice standing on one leg, literally, and actually I should say one of my favorite strength training exercises is great for balance.

Speaker 1: 13:23

There's several that are good for balance, but lunges if you are familiar with those, which some of you probably are they are great for strength training, lower body strength training, but they are really good for balance. So if you haven't done lunges in a while, add those to your strength training routine and if you feel a little imbalanced, that's okay. Just keep doing them and you'll find that you pretty quickly improve your balance with that exercise, which is a great feeling. Of course, stretching can be yoga, but it can also, honestly just be like old-school stretching, you know, sit on the floor, try to touch your toes, so it doesn't have to be anything complicated. But if you're like me and you sit at a desk a lot or you just sit a lot during the day, make sure you're stretching. Okay, let's see where we're at. So Interestingly, and most interesting to me, given my family history, both strength training and cardiovascular exercise have been shown to help with neurodegenerative diseases.

Speaker 1: 15:42

So strength training improves neural pathways, cognitive function and brain tissue volume. Cardiovascular exercise of course helps with that vascular, you know, improving your vascular health, I guess I could say, like I mentioned before. So, needless to say, if you are not moving your body by getting your heart rate up with some cardio, working against a resistance of some kind that's the strength training component and practicing balance and you're over 40, the time is now. You're never too old. So even if you're over 60 or over 70, you're never too old to start moving your body. Okay, so you can make improvements from like wherever. Your starting point is Okay, but that's exercise.

Speaker 1: 16:32

I'm going to take a quick sip of water. Hold on, okay, number two. So exercise is number one. What else is going to help us? What else is going to help 70-year-old Kathy be proud of 47-year-old Kathy? Okay, that's the question here. Dun dun dun. 70-year-old Kathy is going to be real cute. I'm going to tell you that right now she's going to have gray hair. This is beside the point, but she's going to have curly gray hair and she's going to be spunky and wear real bright jewelry.

Speaker 1: 17:04

And if you guys know, may not know this about me, I love the Great British Baking Show and one of the current judges and she has been for a few years is Prue Leith. She is my style icon. I love, love, love her and not just her clothes. Just like her, everything. I just love her. She's just fabulous, and I know she's. She might be in her 80s, I know she's at least in her 70s, but like everything she wears is big and colorful and fun, cute little sneakers and I just love her.

Speaker 1: 17:31

Okay, anywho, back on track number two nutrition focus. Ladies, stop treating your body like a trash. Can? I probably said that super loud. Sorry about that, but I want you to eat real food, because it has nutrients, because it will make you feel better and more energized, because you're going to feel satisfied and you're not going to want to eat junk food because it'll help you poop regularly, because it will help you get strong, while you are also doing all of that resistance training that I know you're going to start doing if you aren't already.

Speaker 1: 18:10

Okay, but you got to have food, food or fuel as sort of like your foundation for your strength training, to build muscle. So stop thinking that charcuterie is a meal Okay, like cheese and crackers is not a meal, ladies, and that you quote deserve a glass of wine or a piece of cake after a hard day at work. What you really deserve is to fuel your body, to treat it with respect, to treat it as the temple that it is and, as cliche as it sounds, it is the only body you get. So stop treating it like you're mad at it. Stop dumping junk down your gullet, okay? Does this mean that you never get to eat cake or have a glass of wine? Of course not, and I don't wanna villainize any food, but it just is what it is Real food you know is gonna be more nutritious for you than cake.

Speaker 1: 19:14

I love cake. By the way, you just heard me talk about the Great British Peking Show. I love cake, I eat cake. I love wine, I drink wine, but that is a very small portion of my day and of my intake. So the thing is is you are not just like a toddler who can have gummy worms all day and thrive. You know toddlers, you can probably feed them anything and they're gonna run around and feel energy. You not so much. You're gonna hit a wall. You are a grown woman who is basically like running a marathon every day.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Right, you know, many of you are moms, you're career women, you've got a side hustle, whatever. You got lots of stuff going on. You have got to fuel your bodies, ladies. You've got to, and, by the way, this means vegetables, fruits, whole grains and, yes, protein, which we've had a whole episode on. So don't forget that. I have that free five day protein challenge to help you increase your daily protein intake. The link is in my Instagram bio and I'll put it in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 20:20

But you guys, you've got to eat real food. Okay, like it came out of the ground, it came off a tree, it had a mother. Those are the ways you know it's real food, okay, and you've got to eat enough of it. If you don't know what this looks like, send me a DM, let's discuss, but some of you were walking around thinking something's wrong with you. You're so dang exhausted when really you're just not eating enough food and or not quality food, like you are not getting the nutrients you need. And you're probably not drinking water either. I didn't even put that on here. Okay, drink water, ps, drink water. If you think you've had too much, drink some more. So I promise that you will feel like a new human once you actually start eating the amount of food your body needs.

Speaker 1: 21:17

Okay, so again, we are working to thrive in 20, 30 years and beyond. So starving yourself now is gonna deplete your energy. And guess what? You're gonna lose muscle too. Ding ding, ding, ding, ding. Not good, okay, because you are already naturally losing muscle, because that's just what happens as we age naturally losing muscle. So then, if you're not giving your body enough food, guess what your body's like? Mm. That muscle can fuel me. So let me just chomp, chomp, chomp on that, okay so, ps. And if you lose muscle, you lose strength, and if you lose strength, you can't live by yourself anymore because you can't get off the toilet. I'm just being real, real with you guys today. Okay, so now you're in a nursing home, okay, and is that what you want? I don't think so, and that is not what I want for you and it's not what I want for me.

Speaker 1: 22:17

This whole podcast episode is about how you know, 70 plus year old you is gonna thank you right now for the things that you are implementing, the habits you are implementing to make her thrive. She's not gonna thrive if you're eating junk. Done Mic drop. I don't even need to tell you, number three, I'm going to do it anyway, but y'all just got to get real with this stuff and stop being too busy to feed yourself and I don't care if it's just you, guess what. You deserve real food, because I hear that a lot it's just me. I don't want to cook for just me, because the kids have left the house or whatever. Guess what. You deserve real food. You need to eat real food, or those kids are going to have to take care of you, and I know that's not what you want either.

Speaker 1: 23:11

Okay, number three, I want you to mind your mental health. This has been a big one for me lately. You have got to stop worrying about things that you cannot control, ladies. You have got to stop worrying about what other people think. Mic drop. Again, I'm just kidding and I know this is way easier said than done. I mean, I get it, I really do. So if you struggle, you got to find ways to work on this. Okay. So maybe it's just practicing some deep breathing when you're overwhelmed by feelings of like anxiety or just worry. That could be a super simple, quick, free thing you can do Just practice deep breathing. Maybe it's talking to a friend or a therapist, maybe it's medication, maybe it's a combination of all of those. Right, but work on that. It's so important. You've got to figure out some ways to have fun. Fun is not a four letter word.

Speaker 1: 24:19

Okay, I know that being an adult can be super stressful, right, like it's funny. I was just talking to someone the other day and I'm like remember how, when we were kids, we just couldn't wait to be adults? And now I'm like can I just go back and live with my parents again? But anyway, so I know, I get it. Being an adult can be super stressful. I mean, I've had two job losses in the past year. So I get it, I really do. But I honestly do not think that the goal of growing up is to work your entire life and then just die right. So the older I get, the more I realize how short life really is, and I think that's what's been affecting my mental health mostly these days is just really coming to that realization and just working through that.

Speaker 1: 25:09

So do we still have to work and be responsible? Of course, all right. Like we got to still pay the bills, you know, you got kids you got to take care of, you got a job you got to go to. But can we still find ways to have fun? Yes, yes. So you have to give yourself that permission, right.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Like many of you might look at your life and literally not know when the last time was you had fun. When was the last time you laughed? When was the last time that you did something that used to really bring you joy, you know, and you just stopped doing it. So maybe it's little things. Like for me, my personal fave walk around the block. I love taking walks in my neighborhood. I still have to push myself out the door. Isn't it funny how, like even something you love doing, you're still like have to push yourself to do it? Weird. Anyway, maybe it's like a big something big like an annual vacation every year and you really enjoy planning that or looking forward to it, or it's another one of my favorites a massage every month.

Speaker 1: 26:13

Whatever it is, do it Okay. Find, find small things that are free, painting your nails, whatever. I mean like whatever. It is Great British Baking Show. That's not totally free, but it's on Netflix. So you know, lower cost. You know, find some like middle cost and then maybe some big ones like the vacation or something like that, but I just I want you to do it. You know life is meant to be lived Okay, and relieving some of that stress and anxiety actually will improve your longevity, right, because mental health is so important. So I think that's all I've got for you today.

Speaker 1: 26:54

This. I thought this was going to be a short episode. This might be one of my longer episodes, but I just wanted to share my passion, clearly, for aging into a strong, capable woman. You're already a strong, capable woman now, I'm sure of it, but I want you to age into an even more strong and more capable woman, and I want that for me, I want that for you, because here's the thing it's no fun if I'm out here traveling the world as a 70 plus year old woman and you can't come along. So I want you to be strong, capable, healthy as well.

Speaker 1: 27:28

And yes, it is a process. It takes work, it takes perseverance and you have to be super intentional with your time. But I know that if you're listening to this podcast, you can do it. You've already achieved hard things in your life. You can do this too, okay. So don't say that you don't have time or you don't know what to do or whatever, because you do. You just have to decide. You just have to decide, and doesn't it feel good to know that it's in your power.

Speaker 1: 28:04

I think that's really exciting. I mean, yes, do I have a genetic predisposition to dementia? Yep, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to get it, because there's also a lot more information out there now of the ways that I can work and the things that I can control to improve my odds. So you do have control over your future health, but you've just you've got to start now, wherever you are, whatever your age is. So you know I'm always open for questions, right? So if you have any questions or comments about this episode, please shoot me a DM on Instagram. I would love to chat, or, if you're on my email list, you can always any of the emails I send you, you can just hit reply and then your response will come back to me. So I would love to hear from you your thoughts on this, any questions, and let's all grow strong and capable together and enjoy our golden years. Ladies, all right, have a great day. Bye.