A Ripe Old Age
The right foods, moderate exercise, and regular medical checkups can add years to your life
Congratulations, you've saved for retirement or are well on your way. Now you just need to stay healthy in order to enjoy the rewards. The good news: You can do a few things that will significantly reduce your chances of dying prematurely, while making your golden years shine more brightly.
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The bad news is that even the simplest steps prove too difficult for many to follow. That includes exercising, eating a balanced, low-to-moderate-fat diet, quitting smoking, and getting regular medical screenings and checkups. That's too bad, as retirement is not just a time for slowing down. It's also the time when many serious health problems--including heart disease, cancer, and strokes, the top three causes of death for people over 65--increasingly show up.
Tim Gormley of Bow, N.H., learned this the hard way. Now 65, Gormley escaped a close brush with death in 1998, which forced him into early retirement. A former school superintendent, Gormley rarely saw a doctor and considered himself healthy, even though he worked long hours, didn't exercise, gorged on red meat, and indulged a weakness for eating whole pies with crusts made of lard.
While shoveling snow one day, Gormley suffered a heart attack. He underwent a quintuple heart bypass and later had a pacemaker installed. "It was a big-time wake-up call," he says. Gormley replaced the red meat with chicken, turkey, and salmon and began eating more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain breads. He became an avid walker and began meditating. He lost nearly 35 pounds, dropped from a 38-inch to a 35-inch waist, and says, "I have a lot more energy and stamina now than I probably had 10 years before [the heart attack]."
Living longer. Americans' life expectancy has increased dramatically over the past century, from 47 years for someone born in 1900 to 77.3 years for those born in 2002. Reach age 65, and you can expect to live on average an additional 18.2 years. Changing bad lifestyle habits in your 50s and 60s and even beyond can reduce or prevent suffering from the diseases older people face, as well as make you feel better.
"People tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, laser, or high-tech surgical procedure," says Dean Ornish, founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco and bestselling author. "They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle--what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and support--can be as powerful as drugs and surgery, but they often are."
Leon Atkind, 90, of Clifton, N.J., cites "eating sensibly and keeping exercising" as two key reasons he stays healthy and loves life. While recent hip and knee replacements have kept him off the golf course longer than he prefers, the former owner of a menswear chain and current chairman of Smart Cars USA still swims daily. Throughout his adult life, he has been active, playing tennis, handball, and golf. He also says his mother fixed healthful meals for her family, cooking with whole-wheat flour and brown rice, for example, rather than refined white counterparts.
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