All of us have a chronological age and a health age. One of the hardest tasks we face in the workplace and in life is learning how to manage our health and performance so that the wear and tear of the job doesn’t make us old before our time.
We have all seen men and women who slow down and become old before their time, with a health age much greater than their chronological age. The person who burns the candle at both ends might be fifty but looks and feels like he’s seventy.
On the other hand, we all know incredibly youthful and energetic individuals who might be fifty, but look, feel, and perform like a thirty-year-old. Their health age—their general level of fitness—is below their chronological age. The factors that determine our health age include body fat percentage, resting heart rate, upper body and lower back strength, metabolic rate (normal thyroid), cholesterol, fasting glucose, and triglyceride levels. Those in our society who have a lower health age are the new elite because they have the energy to perform dynamically while others are struggling to maintain the status quo. For example, I have one sixty-seven-year-old
client, Alvin Edinburgh, who is so fit he was chosen to be one of the Olympic torchbearers.
When I turned fifty, my doctor told me I had the health age of a nineteen-year-old. This is not just luck or good genes. It has everything to do with how you manage your greatest asset, your health. Achieving and maintaining optimum health in your thirties, forties, and fifties are governed by very specific lifestyle choices—as are maintaining physical vitality, a good mental outlook, and passion during your last decades of life. The best news is that it is never too late to start.
Doctors used to say that our health was 50 percent heredity and 50 percent environment. They have since revised those percentages to 33 percent heredity and 66 percent environment. So aside from serious injuries or inherited health problems, you have a tremendous amount of control over your health age and, therefore, your performance age.
We have all seen men and women who slow down and become old before their time, with a health age much greater than their chronological age. The person who burns the candle at both ends might be fifty but looks and feels like he’s seventy.
On the other hand, we all know incredibly youthful and energetic individuals who might be fifty, but look, feel, and perform like a thirty-year-old. Their health age—their general level of fitness—is below their chronological age. The factors that determine our health age include body fat percentage, resting heart rate, upper body and lower back strength, metabolic rate (normal thyroid), cholesterol, fasting glucose, and triglyceride levels. Those in our society who have a lower health age are the new elite because they have the energy to perform dynamically while others are struggling to maintain the status quo. For example, I have one sixty-seven-year-old
client, Alvin Edinburgh, who is so fit he was chosen to be one of the Olympic torchbearers.
When I turned fifty, my doctor told me I had the health age of a nineteen-year-old. This is not just luck or good genes. It has everything to do with how you manage your greatest asset, your health. Achieving and maintaining optimum health in your thirties, forties, and fifties are governed by very specific lifestyle choices—as are maintaining physical vitality, a good mental outlook, and passion during your last decades of life. The best news is that it is never too late to start.
Doctors used to say that our health was 50 percent heredity and 50 percent environment. They have since revised those percentages to 33 percent heredity and 66 percent environment. So aside from serious injuries or inherited health problems, you have a tremendous amount of control over your health age and, therefore, your performance age.
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