Revelations about healthy aging from my 25th Reunion
I spent last weekend in Kingston celebrating my 25th Queen's University Homecoming Reunion. I had the best time with my former housemates remembering how fun my four years there were. Something happened while I was there that sparked a little revelation for me and I wanted to share it with you…
For decades until quite recently, it's been very popular at Queen's to wear a leather jacket with our graduating year and what we were studying on the sleeve. Since graduation, that jacket has been tucked away in my closet, but at Homecoming it made its appearance again! As I walked around campus and downtown Kingston reminiscing with 5 of my former housemates (we even got a tour of our old house from the 6 males who live there now - let's just say it's changed a bit! ), it's very easy to tell what year someone graduated from the number on their jacket.
My girlfriends found it entertaining that I kept being surprised that people who I thought looked older graduated around the same time as us ! In my mind, we still look much younger. As the weekend went on, I realized it doesn't matter if that's reality or just my imagination - the point is that I don't FEEL like I'm almost 50.
We can't stop the passage of time, but we do have some control over how we feel as time passes. I like to think it of it as we have the power to age boldly.
Here are 3 steps you can take that have real scientific backing to help you feel younger, healthier and more energetic:
Lift weights for 30 minutes 3x/week - this is essential to keep you moving more easily in your daily life. Doing things like getting up and down off the ground. Carrying groceries from the car into the house. Or like I did last weekend, be able to walk 20ish thousand steps in a day and not wake up tired and achy the day after. Increasing your heart rate with cardiovascular exercise is also important, but not as much as strength training as you age.
Eat enough protein - you want to consume at least 100 grams/day spread out throughout your meals. Almost all of my FASTer Way clients find this is an area they can improve on when they start my new client groups. With the tips and recipes that are provided to help them reach the personalized protein goal this is calculated for them, they are able to increase their intake.
Hormone changes cause muscle mass to break down more rapidly starting in your 40's, but this can be reversed by eating enough protein and strength training.
Tracking how much protein you eat may not be sexy, but doing that is the best way to find out where you're at, and what eating to your goal looks like.
Get enough good quality sleep - some people require less or more, but for many, that's 7-8 hours per night. The good quality part is key too. If you are waking up more than once and/or taking a long time to fall asleep, then you likely aren't getting enough deep, restorative rest. This plays an important role in protecting cognitive function (your brain actually clears waste products while you sleep!), strengthens your immune function, contributes to hormone balance, reduces your risk of high blood pressure and heart disease, and slows down skin aging by giving it time to regenerate and repair… in addition to the obvious effect it has on your energy level.
So many of the ladies I work with start out experiencing problems either falling asleep or staying asleep or both. If that's you, it's definitely not something you have to just accept! There are several different pathways that can be involved with disrupted sleep and there are many different natural supplement options that can help with each pathway. Sometimes it takes trying a few different approaches to figure out which pathway is affected for an individual.
That's why melatonin doesn't work for everyone - it can be helpful if the issue is in the serotonin/melatonin pathway, but not if it's one of the others… or if the dose is too high or too low or if the timing of it isn't right or frequent enough.
The good news is that when it comes to sleep, a response is typically seen within 1-2 weeks of taking a supplement. If there is no change, then I move to suggesting something from a different pathway. And when sleep does get better… it's life changing!
My weekend walking around campus helped me realize something powerful: while I'm not the same person I was in my 20's, I feel really good where I am right now. I want to help you tap into that feeling too, no matter where you are in life. Because it's not about age—it's about the energy and spirit we bring to each day.
If you're interested in seeing what you can do to age more boldly or energetically, I'm here to help! If you're looking to find a sustainable approach to improve your fitness and nutrition (which has a positive impact helping SO many symptoms!), I have another FASTer Way round starting Monday (that's tomorrow!). Click here for more info. The focus is progress over perfection as we lead into the holiday season… you don't have to wait until the new year to start feeling better! AND when you sign up for Monday's round, you get a FREE box of the Hydration product (if you'd like a refresher on why electrolytes are so helpful, read my blog article here)!!!
If you'd like a one on one naturopathic consult to help with your sleep, have comprehensive nutritional blood work done and/or explore another area, you can book a consult here. I also offer complimentary discovery calls if you have some questions you'd like to ask first.
Here's to feeling as young as we want to feel, inside and out!