Don’t Adopt a Middle-age or Even a Senior Mentality When You Become a Sexagenarian

Well it was bound to happen. Your favorite Boomer has turned 60. The big Six-O, the third trimester of life. Frankly, it doesn’t bother me a bit. I’ve already done more than I ever thought I would. I know, and I am at peace with my Creator, and look forward to seeing His face. I look at other Baby Boomers and while we share many of the same concerns and beliefs, diet and health is often not one of them. While I seem to have taken mine more seriously as we have aged, many have done quite the opposite.

At 60+ years of age, your adherence to the rules and practices of proper diet and health must become almost religion-like. The goal is not necessarily to extend your life to 70, 80, 90 or longer, but to simply be more comfortable, more functional, and more capable in the years you have left. Yes, it’s not uncommon to need a medication or two at this age….but you shouldn’t need twenty different meds just to get through the day!

Now, it goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway as a form of CYA, the thoughts and boomer opinions expressed here are just that, my opinions. Your diet and health journey starts with your doctor and your own professional health education outside of my little world.

Diet and Health – The Medication Fallacy

Today, Doctors are more apt to prescribe medications to solve problems. This is not entirely their fault. If they tell you the truth; “Hey…lose 30-40 pounds and start exercising and eating healthy, all of these problems will go away” it may be all you need to get motivated.

More often then not, they get chastised by patients armed with the almighty power of the online review. Insurance companies and “big pharma” get involved too, asking “how come your prescription rates are so much lower than the others?”

Television commercials pound it into the heads of viewers that one simple pill will let you eat all the pepperoni pizza you want without heartburn. Overweight dancers proclaim diabetes be damned with this pill or that pill, instead of a proper, sensible diet and health care.

Patients walk in the door already expecting such-and-such a medication to help them lose weight, instead of actual effort. Yes, some drugs are needed, but they should be used only after all natural or normal solutions have been explored…not instead.

Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Media allow and push bad food and bad pharma, while bad media promotes it all as good. No wonder we are unhealthy and obesity costs the United States health and medical communities trillions…much of which ends up in the pockets of Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Media.

But I digress. At any age, you CAN control your own health. Once you hit 60 however, diet and health must take a front seat, and you will have to make sacrifices if you want to stay healthy.

The Challenges to Good Health at 60

While always pretty healthy and slim-ish my whole life, I’ve had two periods of lax. The first was in the 90’s during the dawn of the computer age. I spent a LOT of time behind a keyboard and in front of a screen. As a skier and skateboarder, I had never been out of shape before. Suddenly I hit my early thirties combined with zero exercise and before I knew it…I was bigger than I had ever been, and not necessarily in places I would have preferred.

My First Wake Up Call

The wake up call I needed was a required health check to onboard my company’s health insurance. My youthful metabolism was fading, and the days of eating whatever and whenever were now in the rear view mirror. I had no regular primary care doctor at the time (that should tell you something) and the rent-a-doc at the care center I went to laid it out straight; “Lose 30 pounds immediately and deal with this cholesterol or you won’t be around to see your kids graduate”.

Wow. To this day, I don’t know if he was having a good day or a bad day. I only wish I could find him and thank him. That hard reality was what I needed at the time, and sent me on a diet and health awareness journey that’s lasted me nearly 30 years now. Fueled then by the “information super highway” this was really my first foray into understanding health, medication, and exercise. Over the years I determined to understand my body, my health, and the ramifications of ignoring either.

Living The Good Life, And Paying For It

As we near retirement age, many of us are in less physically demanding jobs, and more “thinking” positions. I hesitate to use the term white collar here, because even if you are in a blue collar field, at 60+ you may be a foreman or a project manager or some other position with more benefits, and less feet time. You are walking less, moving less, lifting less….if at all.

If you are of the white collar ilk, you have more lunches, meetings, golf outings and cocktail hours. At the end of the day your brain is tired, and a glass of wine or three makes takes the edge off. Unfortunately…it all adds up to less than ideal diet and health. You aren’t eating the right food, consuming too much alcohol, and not getting near enough exercise. Worst of all, we also know better, and we just ignore it.

Second Wake Up Call

My second journey into the diet and health landscape came at the age of 60, and is the thrust of this article. The last few years leading up to this epiphany I had knowingly, perhaps willingly, let myself go. I enjoyed wine-thirty after a long day at the keyboard, and other than weekend chores, didn’t have a diligent exercise regiment. I stress the word diligent, because I was hitting the gym 2-3 times a week, but I was just kind of mailing it in with no actual effort.

Sadly I was also fueling those gym visits with plenty of bread and delicious desserts, and no real regard for calories. The combination of calories, plenty of wine, plenty of carbs and little exercise did exactly what you might think they would do, and I found myself again with 30-lbs to lose. There were other factors as well regarding my wife’s health (historically bad) and the mental exhaustion around that, but that’s only pertinent to the cause, not my response and following actions.

A Diet and Health Renaissance at Sixty

As I said, maintaining proper health at any age can, for a time, require an almost religion-like commitment. Rather than turning to more doctors and medications however, you can and should stick to the boring, repetitive mantra that used to be called out in large letters, and is now relegated to micro text on drug ads…”should be accompanied by frequent exercise and a low-carb, high-protein diet.”

As it turns out, this actually works, it’s just a little hard to do with the “normal” American diet unless you put some real effort in. Once you really get into the swing however, it’s surprisingly easy. The key is, you must want change, more than you want anything else, and that’s where I was. It’s easy to say this was a New Year’s resolution, because that is more or less when it began, but it started with the mental preparation a full month or more before then. Here then are my 9 steps to a healthier 60 and beyond.

1) Face The Truth about Diet and Health

At some point, you simple have to face the fact that whatever lifestyle you have been living needs to change. It doesn’t matter what it was…only what it will be. Don’t beat yourself up over where you are, it is what it is and you can’t change what has already happened. The harder part of the facing the truth, is understanding that diet and health must now take a front seat in your life. Start preparing mentally for saying no, frequently….at least for awhile. No to dessert, alcohol, 2nd helpings, and skipping the gym.

You must come to the place mentally where getting healthy becomes one of, if not the most important thing in your life, at least for a while. There is a saying in the concealed carry community that says; Your Body Can’t Go Where Your Mind Hasn’t Been. It certainly applies here. When you get to the place where you can’t wait to get started, you think about it all day, and its on your daily prayer list…you are ready.

2) Add Something New

You need to add something new to your repertoire to jump start things. This can be a new vitamin regimen, a new supplement, perhaps new running shoes or a new Apple Watch. It should be something that serves as a daily reminder of the new journey you are on.

For me, it was a new natural supplement. Whether it actually fueled my success biologically or acted as a placebo is unknown, but my mind thinks it did, and it was a daily reminder every morning of my long-term goals. I already had some good processes in place, but this was something brand new. For those wondering, it was this supplement. It seemed be a good mix of all the individual components that often come up as natural diet aids or appetite suppressants.

3) Count Calories and Protein

Counting calories is a tried and true method of setting baselines for your diet and health, and you are going to have to do it. Bite the bullet now and just accept it. I have good news though, it’s much easier than it used to be. While there are a plethora of apps out there, I instead opted to keep a Google Sheet. This way I could do most of the work on my Mac, and then use my iPhone when I wasn’t near the computer. I used the additional real estate of the spreadsheet to add a couple of motivational pictures, generated by A.I., and some other info I’ll speak about later.

I tried my absolute hardest to stick to 2,000 calories or under, regardless of how hard or often I have worked out that day. Get a scale that does ounces and grams. You don’t need to use it a ton, because of the help of A.I. as described below, but you will find it handy and at times, necessary. I opted to track protein grams as well, shooting for a minimum of 80gms per day. This was unbelievably helpful to my journey.

Finding Calories & Protein

On the subject of A.I, as you go through your calorie counting journey, using Google (and thus A.I.) to ask questions like, “Calories and protein in a large, loaded baked potato“, or “Calories and protein in a medium beef filet“. It’s extremely helpful, and to me at least, much easier then using and paying for a variety of apps to find the same info. I like to make big salads at home, so sometimes I’ll ask, “Calories and protein in a large restaurant salad with chicken and Feta cheese and olives.“

Of course when you are making dinner, snacks, or other meals…look on the packages and note the calories and protein. Assuming your phone is handy, you can record the values while you are making the meal. If you are in a big hurry, take a picture of the label and put the info together later.

Tracking Common Items for Diet and Health

Also on the spreadsheet is a break down of some of the common food items I often put together. For example, I like oatmeal, but I always add nuts, cranberries, honey, and a protein powder. I end up with a delicious, filling, high-protein oatmeal that I love. I took the time to measure and record everything once, and then documented it on my spreadsheet, so whenever I have it, I have the proper calories and protein grams handy. I’ve done the same with a little peanut butter, almond, and honey treat I have sometime.

Warning…peanut butter is great, but is surprisingly high in calories…you must measure!

This also helps set expectations. If I’m hungry, but I don’t have the calories to spare, I know what things I can and can’t eat so as not to go over my goal of 2,000 calories. This forces me to choose a low-cal, high -protein option like jerky or fruit. I’ve gotten surprisingly attached to grapes and mandarin oranges during this journey.

4) The Truth About Carbs

In the past, I never subscribed to or believed in the Keto nonsense or the zero-carb mentality. The one time I tried it, rather radically with no structure or thought, I got so weak I couldn’t move. I didn’t do it properly at that time, and didn’t supplement my diet with proper alternatives. Besides, I thought, if bread was good enough for Jesus every day, that it was good enough for me!

That was a long time ago, and this go around I had an eye towards reducing carbs, but found myself ditching quite a lot of them, as a byproduct of looking for more protein. I was never hooked too much on empty carbs, though pretzels would be the one snack food I would gravitate towards. Rather it was the breads and deserts. Lovely, fancy dinner breads dipped in olive oil with spices. Yards of steaming garlic bread with mounds of pasta. Delicious layer cakes and tiramisu…mmmmmm.

Here again, I wanted to change my diet and health, my habits, and my behavior more than I wanted those goodies. You have to be mentally strong and make a commitment.

The Carb Tipping Point

For me the reduction in carbs was just a math problem. So many of these carb-heavy items are high in calories and low in protein. Why have 6 crackers, when I could eat a nice serving of lean jerky or a big plate of grapes? Why eat half a loaf of dinner bread when I could have a cup of chicken salad? In variably, I moved away from carbs to get more protein and less calories. Swap those pretzels for grapes or jerky. Eat almonds instead of Cheetos.

Once I began to see the results in my diet and health and feel the difference, avoiding carbs now became a deciding factor in my food choices. Note that I didn’t get all wrapped up on counting carbs or worrying about “net carbs” or any of that. I avoided carbs when possible and enjoyed them when necessary. By choosing high-protein options, you reduce your carb footprint by default.

A word of warning however, protein bars are full of carbs, so don’t make those your first or even second choice to getting protein. A friend of mine from the gym offered some sage advice: Try to avoid any food that has more carbs than protein and you can’t go wrong.

5) Avoid Alcohol

Avoiding alcohol serves multiple purposes. Baby Boomers need to face the reality that it’s ok to stop or severely cut their consumption of alcohol to improve their diet and health. We had our run, and it was a good one. It’s time to hang up those corkscrews and move on. Sure, the rare special occasion will come along, but it should be just that…rare. Not every night, or every weekend, or really ever month even.

Your metabolism will improve, you’ll sleep better, you’ll balance your water intake better, and you won’t fall prey to eating poorly when your decision making is altered. Like the phrase, “sitting is the new smoking” losing 30 pounds and feeling fantastic is “the new alcohol”, at at 60+ years of ages, being strong and fit feels as good as a few drinks…and it’s more lasting, with no headache in the morning.

Maybe that’s a stretch, but I found the older I got, the less enjoyable drinking was. It was as much a chore more than anything, and took a day or two to recover depending on how much was imbibed. It’s just not worth it anymore. I get a pretty good high going to the gym and doing more pull-ups than the young bucks that are there.

6) Be Prepared With Proper Foods and Snacks

If looking at your health like a religion doesn’t make sense to you, look at it like a job. Just like you prepare for success in your career by being prepared, you need to do the same with your diet and health regimen. Go grocery shopping and plan ahead for meals and snacks. Do some calorie research ahead of time so if you are forced to go fast food, you can make choices. Going to Chick Fil A? Skip the sandwich and get chicken strips and the Kale Crunch salad instead. Both are delicious, and far less carbs and calories that a regular sandwich with waffle fries.

Make sure you have whatever you need when hunger hits. Protein bars are better than candy bars, and jerky is better than both. Nuts, grapes, mandarine oranges, apples, and carrots are all better alternatives. It sounds incredibly cliche but if you have these handy, you are hungry enough, and you are determined to manage your diet and health and lose weight, you will be glad you have these.

7) Break the Habit Cycle with Intermittent Fasting

I don’t know the science behind intermittent fasting and in truth, I didn’t really even set out to do this. What I found was, that in my quest to break certain habits, I found myself doing some intermittent fasting and found both success and enjoyment in it.

In the mental preparation leading up to my serious diet and health efforts, I realized I often would eat simply because, that’s what I did at that time of day. I would eat breakfast because for the last 59 years, that’s what I did in the morning, whether I was hungry or not. I would eat lunch at mid-day because that’s what Americans did, as dictated by the FDA and Sesame Street…even if I wasn’t hungry. Food is good and nice to eat, and since this is what we boomers were taught to do at specific times of the day…so I did it.

Changing Regular Habits

As any good program (weight loss, drug addition, alcohol abuse, etc.) will tell you, changing your habits is crucial to change. Most diet programs will tell you that very often, you are thirsty, not hungry. This is where I started. I stopped making myself eat breakfast at a specific time, and instead, I had another enjoyable cup of coffee or two. I knew I would need to eat at some point, especially after a good workout, but I did not make myself eat because of habit.

Around lunch time, before I decided to eat anything, I drank a green tea or had an energy drink and went back to work. If I was still feeling hunger 30 minutes later, I grabbed some of the healthy items mentioned above. It’s time, as baby boomers, that we said goodbye to the food pyramid and the three square meals crap we were brought up on. You don’t need to have a giant lunch just because it’s “what people do!” Those “people” aren’t going to pay for your doctor bills or medications.

I always have a big glass of ice water handy as well. When you get used to have it close by, it’s rather enjoyable and helps all your systems run perfectly. If you just get bored, and you will, have a glass of Peach Tea or a Monster Zero Sugar to change things up. So much of this is a mental game than you can win without eating.

Changing Dessert Habits

Every good diet and health program has to deal with dessert at some point. After a hard day of watching your diet, going to the gym, and working your day job…we all feel like we deserve a glass of wine and piece of cheesecake. Maybe you do deserve it, but if you really want to get healthy, you should pass.

But there is good news…you can find or create alternatives. For me, a greek yogurt with added nuts and honey drizzled on provides the same decedent taste, texture, and sweetness at only 250 calories, and 16 grams of protein…and only 6 grams of carbs. Not too shabby, and I feel like I’ve eaten an expensive restaurant dessert.

Salads are Surprisingly Good

I had to throw a blurb in here about salads and their role in your diet and health. I’ve gotten fully addicted many of the pre-packaged, chopped salads available today, which have a lot more chopped or shredded veggies in them than just lettuce. Adding feta cheese, almond slices, chicken, and maybe a few cranberries or raisins turns any salad into a full meal. It’s delicious and filling and offers fiber, protein, and is by nature of course, low carb. Be sure to skip the croutons or fried crunchy bits…you don’t need those. Don’t sweat the dressing either. Use whatever the heck you want, just don’t be stupid with the quantity.

Work Hard and Be Creative

Yes, you will need to do a little work and be creative to find the right diet and health combinations that work for you. Your reward will be success, and good health, both physically and mentally.

8) Exercise to Round out Your Diet and Heath

You knew this was coming, and it’s not going to be pretty. Get off your ass. You can start slow, but you can’t mail it in, you can’t give up, and you MUST sweat! If you aren’t used to regular exercise, and perhaps even if you are, there is no initial substitute for walking.

With comfortable proper shoes, you should be able to walk 3 miles. Anytime, anywhere, at the drop of the hat. If you walk out of the office, or church, or wherever and your spouse or friend is standing there with your walking shoes and says, “We’re walking 3 miles right now”, you should be able to do it. If you cannot, you have work to do, so get started. When you are at the point where the walking no longer an challenge, try walking faster. Can you do 4 miles in one hour? If not, make it so.

Running or Jogging

Once you can walk sufficiently, it’s time to mix in some running or jogging. Run a quarter mile once or twice during your walk. Work up to 1/2 mile, then 1 mile, then 1 1/2, etc. Set a goal to be able to run a 5k, which is 3.1 miles. It may take you a year to reach that goal, but those incremental improvements will keep you motivated. If you can mix in walking and running and get those 4 miles done in 45 minutes, that is a SOLID accommplishment.

Every human should be able to at least run 1-mile, non-stop…yes, even at 60+ years old.

If you are lifting weights, doing pull-ups, yoga, pickleball….whatever your vice, at some point you had better sweat, and not because it’s hot outside. If you aren’t sweating, you aren’t working hard enough, so find something else, or something in addition to those activities to ensure you are getting enough cardio.

Track Your Time and Your Heart

Your time at the gym should be more than a social outing. Wear a heart-tracking watch of some kind and get your heart rate up. Your target heart rate in your 60’s is 80-136 bpm, according to Mayo Clinic. In fact that Mayo page has a lot of great information, which really isn’t my overall focus here, so visit that page in depth when you have a chance.

My point I suppose is that all of this information is available, has been for decades, and you already know most of these things. It all comes down to our very first step, mental preparation, and barring some radical physical or mental disability, there are no excuses. My goal with this article is to catalogue my thoughts and maybe motivate someone else.

9) Set Specific Goals and Check Them

Last here, but ultimately first or second on your list, will be setting goals. I have included it last to give you a good site picture before you realize what’s in front of you. Now it’s time to set goals. Set a weight loss goal, and don’t be shy about it. If your doctor said 30 pounds, don’t set it for 10. More than likely your doctor meant 40 pounds anyway.

I was able to lose 27 pounds in 4 months, and that felt about right, but I was also very diligent. If you are uncertain, 30 pounds in 6 months should be very attainable, assuming you are able-bodied. My goal is 30 pounds, so I’m almost there. I’ve already set a new goal of 190lbs, which would actually be 36lbs, which is likely the most I could lose realistically and healthily.

I also set exercise goals, most notably, working towards being able to run a 5k, which I had done a few years ago. I didn’t have any specific weight-lifting goals, other than being able to do 10 pull ups. My starting number of pull-ups as only 3 (ouch), but now I’m up to 8, with 10 not too far down the road. The more weight lost, the easier the pull-up. I’m doing other strengthening exercises as well of course, but this is an easy-to-measure metric.

Check the Scale

I did weigh myself a lot…perhaps every 3 days. The reduction of numbers on the scale was HUGE motivation for me. If I had a particularly rough few days…perhaps missed a workout or two and had a big family dinner or something, I would wait a few days to weigh. A little extra exercise and less eating for a day or two always put me back on track and the scale would comply.

On the aforementioned spreadsheet I used for tracking, I also kept a log of weight, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation, with a formula that showed how much weight I lost from my starting weight. Sometimes water weight skews results, and I simply didn’t record those. What I mean is, if I weighed 204 lbs 3 times in a row and then the next day weighed 206, I figured it was an anomaly and didn’t record it. I did however mentally watch my eating more and workout a little harder. A day or two later I was back to 204, or even down to 203.

The point was, I didn’t let those temporary false-positives to negatively affect me. You will reach plateaus, and have to fight through those. Once you have dropped 10 or 15 pounds however, your confidence will soar and your motivation will skyrocket, especially when you start to see it in the clothes you wear and your looking for your “skinny” belt or jeans.

Much of managing diet and health is a mind game. It be easy to jump on the scale and be up a pound or two and lose motivation. Watch your intake, work hard, and stay at it. You’ll be motivated by those “declining numbers at a even rate”.

Boomers – It’s Not Just The Sound We Make When Walking!

As a Baby Boomer, you have seen a lot of change in your lifetime. Medical changes, technology changes, and socio-economic change. Most all of these have been changes for good, though the music changes are crap…we can all agree on that. Many of these changes will help (or cause) you to live another 20 years. How you choose to enjoy those 20-years is up to you. Manage your diet and health properly and you’ll be healthy enough to enjoy them.