Middle-Age Musings
Nothing is as easy as you want it to be. By Teresa Pesce
“It’s Easy!” No it’s not. It never was. And it gets harder as time goes on. But what do you expect weight-loss marketers to tell you? You’ll lose weight with this special drink or magic pill if you also drastically reduce your calories and work out beyond your comfort zone five days a week? Use this exercise device and develop abs (arms, thighs, buns) of steel if you also drastically reduce your calories and work out beyond your comfort zone five days a week?
If they said those things, some day it would occur to you that you don’t need to pay for the special drink, special pills or special exercise unit - you just need to eat less and work out more. Then all the weight-loss marketers would be out of business, and would sit home, eat too much and get fat and out of shape, surrounded by crates of their unsold pills, drinks and exercise machines.
Losing weight is hard because eating is easy, pleasant, satisfying, and immediately rewarding and comforting. It’s also a lovely companion to sedentary pursuits like reading and watching TV. “Exercise” is a polite word for the crude process of pushing yourself as you pour sweat. Which would YOU rather do? And as our metabolism slows, the effects of eating double while the effects of exercise dwindle! The perfect in-shape middle-aged life? Less food than ever, more exercise than ever. It’s not easy. It never was. And it’s harder now. So respect the heck out of yourself for rising from your recliner to meet the challenge. I certainly do.
The Day You Can’t Do It Anymore
A man I knew was a terrific tennis player, and he and his son played often. Then, as his son got older, the father noticed it was taking more out of him to win the matches. One day he confided to a friend that he just wanted to be able to win until his son was 16 years old. Then he would gracefully consent to losing.
Bill Cosby’s TV character, Dr. Cliff Huckstable, came home from jogging one day and said to his wife, “I saw nineteen today.” He meant he was jogging around the track, doing well, when he felt a machine-precision presence moving up behind him and
then passing him, breathing at an even pace. It was a young man, 19 years old. And while Cliff Huckstable was still able to run, he couldn’t run like that anymore. His wife smiled and said, “Cliff, do you want to be nineteen again?” He replied, “Only if you’ll be nineteen with me.”
It’s not that we want to go back, it’s just that we’re a little surprised that we are not who we were. What do you do on the day you realize you can’t keep up with your former self? I asked a lovely woman in her eighties how she dealt with aging. She said, “I was just glad I could do what I could do whenever I could do it.” This modern age of youth-worship makes us a little more disappointed in our older selves, I think.
We judge our new selves harshly. We experience guilt and embarrassment. We exercise too hard or give up completely. And what is “too old?” For athletes, it can be 30. For some Olympians, it’s their late teens! Physically, men supposedly peak at 18! Play the numbers game and you will lose. It’s not a matter of lowering your expectations; it’s a matter of your expectations being realistic.
Abilities change but you can always be the best version of you, now. That’s enough of a challenge at any age! I’m no longer my harshest critic. Neither should you be yours.
