I celebrated my golden jubilee earlier this year. Yes, that significant birthday that we are warned so much about. Bad things happen when you turn 50. Whatever you eat goes to your hips. Your skin gets crepey. You get bingo arms. Everything hurts.
Well, I’m happy to report that rumours of precipitous decline at 50 are greatly exaggerated. Somewhat to my surprise, and greatly to my relief, the whole thing was a non-event. Loathe as I am to admit it, I attribute this sanguinity largely to exercise. Let’s be clear, I hate exercise. Haunted by the spectre of my mother, however, who suffered her first of several heart attacks at age 44, and died at age 74, hunched over like a question mark from severe osteoporosis, I embarked on a modest exercise regime just before I turned 40. Employing the philosophy that I’d do whatever was reasonably within my control to ward off a similar fate, I grudgingly accepted that there seemed no way around it. Having put it off as long as I possibly could, exercise, regrettably, now seemed unavoidable.
The office where I worked offered a small gym for the use of the staff, and my friend Pauline persuaded me to join her and a trainer there two mornings a week. We could split the cost. OK then. That didn’t sound too terrible; thirty minutes twice a week. The first hurdle was overcoming a profound reluctance to sweat in public, to say nothing of appearing in a cotton/lycra outfit in front of my colleagues and staff. Not an image I fancied. Making the commitment to Pauline and the trainer was an important step, however. There was no way I was going to let her down, or blow the money by not showing up. For the next a year and a half I worked out with weights only. Our family has always had dogs, usually several, and their requirement for walking was sufficient to meet my cardio requirement, I told myself. No need to get carried away with this exercise business. Enough was enough.
Sometime later I switched firms, and had to find a new exercise arrangement. I knew if I let too much time elapse, I’d drop right back to my indolent ways, so I quickly checked out a local gym and signed up. Much to my surprise, my husband Glenn agreed to join me. We found a trainer we both liked, and twice a week we’d go over at 6:30 in the morning. Another couple of years passed before I confessed to him that my cardio commitment was somewhat sketchy. I described the hit and miss routine with the dogs. He gave me the hairy eyeball and asked how this was consistent with my goal of warding off cardiovascular disease. Busted. For the next two months he stood beside me for 20 minutes, inexorably increasing the slope of the treadmill, or the level of intensity on the elliptical. It was brutal. And then one day it wasn’t. I learned that once the first five minutes had passed and my body switched gears, it became quite tolerable.
Somewhere in here I came across Younger Next Year by Henry Lodge and Chris Crowley. Written with compassion and self-deprecating humour, the authors describe how much of what we think of the as the ravages of old age are actually the effects of ill-health, mostly due to lack of exercise.
Reading the book inspired me to up my exercise to the recommended 45 minutes a day, six days a week; four of cardio; two of weights, and if I get my act together, a yoga class as well. I bought an elliptical machine for home so I didn’t have to go to the gym every day. I found myself sleeping soundly and predictably. Anxiety was much easier to manage, and I was able to cope with my clients’ anxiety during the economic meltdown of 2008 with more grace and aplomb than I had previously thought possible. I sent copies of the book to my clients at Christmas that year, and it got rave reviews. I got e-mails and phone calls from clients astounded to see previously inactive spouses take up, and more importantly, keep up the exercise habit with enthusiasm.
Today I bought a pedometer. At the end of the month I will finish my thirty-year career in the investment industry and will no longer be going to an office downtown. I’m concerned that sedentariness will sneak up on me; the pedometer will keep me honest. Glenn and I still work out with Tim, mostly for weight training. Sometimes I slack off and skip a few days of cardio, but I don’t like the feeling of free-floating anxiety and mild sense of impending doom that accompanies this. I don’t sleep as well, either.
I’m startled to realize that a decade has passed since I began, tentatively and modestly at first, to the point that I actually don’t feel quite right unless I get some form of exercise every day. It’s here to stay. It probably won’t ever be effort or discipline-free, but the higher quality of life now and in years to come is worth the work. Getting older is inevitable. Becoming decrepit is optional.