Ladies of a certain age, listen up. Life isn’t over yet. Authors Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge, MD have a powerful message for older women. We don’t have to morph into pathetic old ladies who shrink, get tired, sick, fat, and accident-prone. The worst things turn out to be voluntary — about 70% voluntary, says Crowley. There’s no rule forcing you to feel old and to act old. Instead, why not make the last third of your life a really terrific experience?
The secret of staying younger than your chronological age is to change the signals you give to your body. There are two basic types of signals, the signal to grow and the signal to decay. Both types of signals get transmitted through the nervous and circulatory systems. And both types of signals have the potential to change your body, your brain, and your emotional outlook.
Decay is the default signal, which means it’s the message that automatically takes over without any conscious effort or thought, whereas the signal to grow has to be deliberately stimulated. This stimulation is achieved in three ways: through exercise, nutrition, and caring about someone or something. The authors claim that the physical messages you send by being consciously and steadily active, and the emotional messages you send by being engaged in the great hunt of life, can override the default message.
While three signal-changing tools are recommended, by far the biggest emphasis is on exercise. This is not the woosie kind of exercise you half-heartedly do once every great while. Serious, big-sweat exercise is what’s called for. To get the life-saving and life-enhancing effects of exercise, you must join a gym and you must exercise six days a week for the rest of your life... until you die. It’s your most important job. Both aerobic and strength training are prescribed. Aerobic exercise saves your life; strength training makes it worth living. To make exercise more interesting and fun, Crowley and Lodge introduce the reader to the concept of kedging, which is using a big goal to do something out of the ordinary, like using a yoga retreat or an adventure vacation as a reason to train harder.
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