by Jane Fonda
Flexibility
How important it is to keep our muscles, tendons, and ligaments flexible is the final point I want to make about physical fitness in the Third Act. Flexibility can protect us from injury no matter our age, but it is especially critical when all these body parts are beginning to lose their mobility and to stiffen. It is best to stretch after working out, and to hold each stretch for at least twenty seconds. It takes that long for the muscle to fully relax and release. Yoga can be an excellent way to maintain flexibility, although you should start with a gentle form. So can Pilates and tai chi.
PILATES
The Pilates method seeks to develop controlled movement from a strong core; it does this using a range of apparatuses to guide and train the body. Each piece of equipment has its own repertoire of exercises, and most of the exercises involve resistance training, since they make use of springs to provide additional resistance.
TAI CHI
The ancient art of tai chi uses gentle, flowing movements to reduce stress, improve balance, and help with a variety of other health conditions. Each posture flows rhythmically into the next without pause, ensuring that your body is in constant motion. The movements are coordinated with your breathing to help you achieve a sense of inner calm. The concentration required for tai chi forces you to live in the present moment, putting aside distressing thoughts.
Tips on Walking
Walking can be as good for weight loss as running. Here’s one comparison: Say you are a 145-pound, sixty-year-old woman. If you run for 30 minutes at 5 miles per hour, you will burn about 285 calories. If you walk for 30 minutes at 4 miles per hour, you will burn 165 calories on a level surface, 225 calories on a slight incline, and 360 calories on a 10 percent incline. Don’t underestimate the power of a brisk walk!
Posture is key: Your shoulders should be back and down, your head high and directly over your neck. Look straight ahead (to anticipate obstacles) and take long, smooth strides, with your arms swinging freely. Be sure to breathe.
Wear lightweight, breathable, supportive, comfortable shoes with a flexible, cushioned sole to absorb impact. Different shoes work better for different feet.
Warm up for a few minutes before you begin your walk.
Try using walking poles. They help with balance, take a little weight off your joints, and encourage you to use more muscle groups, so you will burn more calories. Good ones have rubber tips and wrist straps. (Go to leki.com, bdel.com, or anwa.us for more information about walking with poles, which is sometimes called “Nordic walking.”)
Here-and-There Exercise
It’s not simply doing thirty or forty minutes of moderate exercise every day that will keep you healthy. What you do, here and there, during the remaining fifteen or so waking hours of your day matters just as much!
Physiologists have grown perplexed about the rapid increase in obesity in the developed world. How, they ask, can this be so, when the percentage of people who perform the minimum half hour of daily moderate activity has remained relatively stable? This phenomenon has led scientists to define a new health risk called inactivity physiology.
It is now believed that even if you devote thirty to forty minutes daily to exercise, if the rest of your day is spent in a sedentary position, you are at risk of poor health. Well, it’s no secret that too many of us spend too much of our time sitting. We sit in our cars or on buses to get to work; we sit at desks once we’re there; and we sit in front of the television when we get home. The average adult spends 9.3 (61 percent) of their waking hours sitting. Scientists are starting to believe that simply getting up and walking a few steps every hour can mitigate the negative effects of this inactivity.
In airports, I always walk rather than take the “moving sidewalk” and use the stairs rather than the escalator. And if I do have to take an escalator, I walk up it instead of just riding passively. These little decisions can really add up to your becoming more physically active.
Interoception: The Deeper Meaning of Body Awareness
I feel strongly that this is the time in our lives when getting “into” our bodies is less about being into our bodies in the “How do I look?” sense, though that is a part of it. But there can also be a psychic effect of physical activity.
So many of us have, to greater or lesser extents, become numb and cut off from our bodies. This lack of connection often increases as we age. We may be saying to ourselves, “Why deal with our bodies now? We’re through having children. We’re beyond trying to appeal to someone else. We don’t even appeal to ourselves!” Numbness especially occurs with people who have been abused or are burdened with obesity, but it is more widespread than that. We can be alienated from feeling our muscles, our heartbeat, our breath within the body. Obviously we are aware of these things, but it can be only on a superficial, disembodied level.
My friend Joan Halifax, a Zen master, has challenged me to consider a deeper significance of body awareness. “We think the mind is between the two ears and is the expression of the brain,” she told me. “But neuroscience shows us that the mind isn’t just in the head; it is throughout the entire body, informing the entire organism.” When we are cut off from our bodies, our thinking becomes disembodied.
I know what that feels like. For years, I suffered from anorexia and bulimia. Food addicts, like all addicts, are inevitably disembodied. By the time I started my Workout business I was not engaging in my food addiction, but I was not healed, either. I guess I was the equivalent of a dry drunk (but for food, not alcohol): one who is sober but has not worked through a twelve-step program. The result was that I spent a lot of time taking up residence next door to myself—disembodied. As I look back over those years of building the Workout business, I think I was instinctively searching for a way to heal myself, to get back into my body. Discovering that I could be in control of my body through exercise, and thereby learning to accept and even love my body, was a first step in making that happen.
I ask you, right now, to put your index and middle fingers on the artery at the side of your throat and feel your pulse. In a moment, I’m going to ask you to stop reading, close your eyes, and sink into your body. When you do, be aware of your breathing, the rise and fall of your chest, your pulse, the sensations inside your body, the feeling of the flesh of your buttocks against the seat, the bottoms of your feet. Don’t rush and don’t forget to breathe. And, with your breath, bring forgiveness into your body for perhaps not being everything you wish it was. Smile into your body. It’s gotten you this far. It deserves your love, respect, and attention. Now close your eyes for a minute and experience your body.
Assuming you did the above, you were, for a moment, present in your body. When we get into the habit of body awareness through meditation, attentive, deliberate exercise, or yoga, we can nurture what Joan Halifax says is our ability to be interoceptive—we have the capacity to sense or experience the body, including our ability to sense our body temperature, feel our hunger or sexual urgency, be in touch with the gut, the lungs, the heart, and so forth. Another way of saying this is that we develop an image of our body’s internal state. What I find most interesting is that interoception allows self-empathy. Empathy means we feel the suffering (or other emotions) of others, which can lead to kindness. We can’t feel empathy and kindness for others if we lack it for ourselves. Self-empathy starts with our embodiment—being in our bodies, our muscles, our cells, our breath. You have to love and be kind to your body.
Taking it a step further, Joan Halifax says that while empathy is about feeling for others, “compassion means feeling the suffering of others but with an attendant aspiration to transform the suffering. Compassion is the most important mental quality we can cultivate.”9
Very different than pity, which masquerades as compassion and drains us and the other person, compassion energizes us and others. It activates an impulse to outward action. This is what I see as the beautiful sequence: from visceral, attentive, nonjudgmental body awareness, to empathy f
or self, extended out to empathy for others, to compassion for others, and then to universal compassion, an expression of compassion that is unbiased, all-inclusive.
Deep inner to wide outer.
My challenge to you to become physically active and attentive to your body is also a call to become both embodied and compassionate. You have the time—now more than ever—to do this work. You need to make time and develop the guts to get into your guts—to feel, accept, love, and be present in your body.
In Conclusion
Even if you have never been active a day in your life, you can start now. The MacArthur Foundation Study of Successful Aging concluded that physical activity is “perhaps the single most important thing an older person can do to remain healthy … the crux of successful aging, regardless of other factors.”10
It’s not too late, but the sooner you begin, the better. You have to get up and “just do it.” And chances are, once you do, you’ll be motivated to keep on doing it, as you start experiencing how much better it makes you feel. You’ll actually come to miss exercise when you have to skip it. Now’s the time.
CHAPTER 7
Now More than Ever, You Are What You Eat
Had I known I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself.
—EUBIE BLAKE, JAZZ PIANIST, AT AGE 102
My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four; unless there are three other people.
—ORSON WELLES
I MENTOR A FORTY-YEAR-OLD WOMAN, KELLY, WHO HAS HAD A very challenging life. We correspond by email. A while back, she wrote and told me what her usual diet consisted of: Kool-Aid, Doritos, pizza, whatever was cheap. I was horrified! Of course, her “normal” diet was the same as many people’s, especially poor people. So I sent her a little money and told her to go to a store and buy chicken, broccoli, and fresh fruit, and I explained how to cook the chicken. After several months of her new diet, she sent me this email:
My situation caused me to become depressed (no job, constant setbacks, etc.). It seemed no matter what I did or tried nothing ever worked. I was isolated, angry, and depressed. Then you wrote me those magic words, “Get out of your head and into your body.” You told me to just try eating healthy. I really didn’t want to but I did anyway. I began to notice a change. I began to feel better. Then when I finally got my food stamps I was able to afford to buy healthy foods. (Before the food stamps I tried to conserve money by buying cheap food that would last the longest. I was trying to stretch a dollar—but that food was horrible.)
So, running and eating healthy actually changed not only how I feel physically but how I feel mentally—and it goes further than that. It changed how I react to things. I get upset sometimes but I don’t STAY upset. My emotional state is stronger and getting stronger. I know it has something to do with the fact that I’m no longer eating sugar, dyes, chemicals, artificial this or that, or preservatives. I am able to sleep better and I feel less fidgety and hyper.
Jogging and eating healthy is not gonna make unemployment, racism, discrimination, poverty, violence, the system, or any of the other stuff disappear from my life but I tell you one thing, working out and eating right is like armor. It makes me feel stronger and better able to deal with the tough stuff.
Well, getting older is “tough stuff,” and to handle it and keep our body, our “container,” as healthy and strong as possible, we need to pay more attention to how we eat.
Back when I was ten or eleven years old, on the mornings when I expected a school test, I would always eat oatmeal for breakfast (not the instant kind—I don’t think that even existed then—but the traditional kind, which takes a while to cook). To this day, I think I scored well on those tests due to the oatmeal, because if I’d forget and eat sugary cereals, I wouldn’t do as well. I’d be fidgety and hyper, just like my friend Kelly said. There’s a reason for this, which I’ll explain in a moment.
As I got older, I stopped eating breakfast altogether because I was always on some diet or other—or in between bouts of bulimia and anorexia. Sometimes I’d go for days—weeks, even—without drinking water or eating anything green or any fruit and never feel affected by it.
Most of us did all sorts of injustices to our bodies earlier in life, out of ignorance and a feeling of immortality. Our bodies were still young and resilient, so, beyond the immediate effects, we didn’t really notice. The rate of our body’s breakdown and repair on the cellular level were essentially equal. Our cells may have gotten damaged from what we ate or didn’t eat, but our repair mechanisms kicked in right away. It felt like a free ride.
But by midlife, our cellular self-restoration processes begin to fall behind, and as we grow older, what we eat determines a lot about who and how we are. Now, for better or worse, we tend to notice it. This is because, with age, the ability of our cells to utilize life-sustaining nutrients and eliminate waste products so as to remain robust is diminished. We become more vulnerable to diseases. Of course, the speed of the breakdown process varies widely, depending on a person’s overall health and her or his exposure to external toxins such as cigarette smoke, air pollution, pesticides, poor diet, radioactivity, and anesthetics, as well as excessive stress, time in the sun, and alcohol intake, all of which compound the normal damage.
This chapter is about how the quality of what we eat and how much we eat can intervene to slow down the cellular damage and keep us healthy for as long as possible. (Avoiding the external toxins I just mentioned is also very important, so it might be good to reread that list.)
Calories
A moderate calorie-restricted diet is especially good for us now, and not just as a weight-reduction strategy. So try to keep your caloric intake within a range that is appropriate for your age and level of physical activity. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans published by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services, a woman over fifty who is sedentary should eat only 1,600 calories a day. If she is moderately active, she can consume 1,800 calories per day, and if she is active, 2,000 to 2,200 a day is appropriate. A sedentary man over fifty can eat 2,000 calories a day; a moderately active man can have 2,200 to 2,400, and an active man can consume 2,400 to 2,800. The more calories you burn up though activity, the more you can consume safely. The main challenge for us now is keeping the calories we consume under control while still meeting our nutrient requirements. This means that every calorie has to count! They have to come from nutritious, fresh foods. We mustn’t squander our daily allotment on the wrong foods, such as soft drinks and typical restaurant fare, which can offer little nutritional value and a lot of sugar, fat, and sodium. These days, the old adage “You are what you eat” takes on added significance.
Five Key Things to Watch
Five key things you should cut down on or cut out of your Third Act are:
ADDED SUGARS
Americans today consume 50 percent more sugar than we did in 1910. The sugar industry now produces about 130 pounds of sugar per person each year! This is more than a third of a pound daily for every woman, man, and child. A major Harvard study notes that, besides being devoid of nutrients, excess sugar promotes obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and tooth decay; the study singles out sugary beverages in particular. The label might say corn syrup, dextrose, maltose, glucose, or invert sugar, but, honey, it’s all sugar! So don’t eat those sugary muffins and cereals for breakfast! Don’t snack on candy. Cut back on the sweet desserts. Try to consume less than 30 grams of sugar a day—but don’t worry about the naturally occurring sugars in fruits, vegetables, milk, and yogurt.
FAT
Fat is an essential nutrient. Without enough fat, the skin deteriorates and vitamin deficiencies flourish. Fat is a carrier of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, and aids in the digestion and absorption of important disease-fighting plant components called phytonutrients (phyton is “plant” in Greek). Those substances include carotenoids, lycopene, and lutein, which may help prevent inflammation, cellu
lar oxidation, and ailments such as macular degeneration (the major cause of blindness with aging), cancer, and heart disease.
To many people, the term “healthy fat” seems like an oxymoron. Evolving science is finding that there is a minimum level of fat you must eat to maintain health, but the type of fat you choose is crucial.
Fat is our second most important source of energy after carbohydrates, but there are good fats and bad fats, and the bad ones are a potential dietary time bomb.
Trans Fats
Artificial trans fat (from partially hydrogenated oils) is, gram for gram, the most harmful fat in the food supply. It both raises the “bad” LDL cholesterol and lowers the “good” HDL cholesterol in our blood. Thankfully, the amount of this artificial fat created by the food industry (it’s cheap and so very profitable—at our expense!) is now required to be stated on food labels—and most large food manufacturers and restaurants have stopped using it. (In fact, California, New York City, and other jurisdictions have largely banned it from restaurant foods!) The amount of trans fat in the food supply has declined by at least half since 2004, but trans fats are still found in some brands of microwave popcorn, fried foods, pies, cookies, and pastries. Check out the labels carefully (or ask a baker), and you’ll see. Your goal should be to eliminate trans fats from your diet altogether. (Beef and cheese have small amounts of naturally occurring trans fat; you’ll avoid most of that if you choose low-fat meat and dairy products.)
