"Can Exercise Reverse Aging?" Insanity: Day 32 of 60

The comment I hear most often from people who have known me for years, but haven’t seen me in a while, is, “You look ten years younger.”  It feels vain to say this, but I do own a mirror, “I know, right?!”  I never say that.  But inside I want to.  I look younger.  I feel younger.  I feel great.

So, is the aging process changing due to my changes in nutrition and fitness?  The answer is a wholehearted “Yes.”  Just so you know that it’s not solely my personal opinion, there’s plenty of science to back it up.

Aging is something we all experience.  While it is a factor of time it is also a factor of activity.  As we get older, our lives change.  We get more sedate.  We sit more.  We eat more.  Whether you know it or not, the human body is constantly in growth mode.  Your cells regenerate over time and, in your early years when you are most active, your cells “turn over” quickly and at a high rate, causing you to maintain a youthful appearance.  Your cell regeneration is tied to your metabolism.  As we get less active in our latter years, our metabolic rate decreases.  We begin to “turn over” our worn out cells and replace them with new ones at a less rapid pace.  Our youthful appearances slowly fade. 

In addition, we carry more baggage.  As we get less active, we pack on those little globules of energy storage known as fat.  The fat cells also contain particles from every known toxin you have ever ingested or been exposed to.  So, in addition to a slower cell regeneration process, we have to fight off toxic byproducts.  Those byproducts get into the many different cells of our body.  Because those cells hang on longer, we develop growths and tumors as well as have systemic disorders.  It’s easier for cells to get ‘infected’ when they are in your body for prolonged periods.  We begin to break down.

Certain hormones and processes in the body slow down due to time, that’s very true.  Organs that operate the body regenerate slower than does muscle and skin tissue.  But by keeping your metabolic rate up and staying active, you can extend the capability of those organs significantly.  This means that your naturally produced hormones and processes work for longer periods of your life.

We aren’t aging because of ‘time.’  It’s because we stopped moving and we stopped putting the right fuel into the machine.  If you have a car with 200,000 miles on it, but you did the maintenance every 3,000 to 5,000 miles, that car probably runs better than some that were poorly maintained and have 60,000 miles.  I always say, “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.”  With the human body though, it’s slightly different.  “It’s not the years, it’s the maintenance.”  Why?

The human body can be equated to a machine on many levels.  There is one quality of the human body, however, that makes it unique and special.  There is no other machine on the planet that, when fed and used, actually IMPROVES in ability to perform.  No engine’s mileage ever got 50% better because you put the right gas in it and drove it every day.  Every machine ever made gets more worn with use.  Not the human body.  If you fuel the body properly and if you exercise it, it gets better.  Better at processing the fuel..better physically and mechanically…better efficiency.  The human body is the greatest mechanical miracle on the planet yet we continue to ignore it and even destroy it.  How smart is that?  It’s your last car.  There’s no showroom on earth waiting to take a ‘trade in’ on your body after you have just burnt it up.

I am in better shape right now than when I was twenty-five.  I am fifty.  It’s not a miracle.  It’s scientifically possible...if you make better decisions around the care and maintenance of your physical machine.  You can’t reverse time, but you can reverse aging.  How else do you explain a 50 year old machine that performs better than when it was 25?  You can slow the aging so much that, relative to the ‘old folks’ who were born the same year you were, you look younger.  Much younger.  And when that happens, the perception is also that you reversed the aging process.

Hell, if it’s true that perception is reality, then “voila!,” aging has been reversed.

What condition is your physical machine in?  It’s not too late.  We are all fighting the same thing…the illnesses and physical breakdown caused by a lack of focus around our health and fitness.  It’s a war.  You can put the brakes on aging and your body can actually get better.  If you stay active, time chases you.  Don’t let it catch you.

Remember, it’s a war.  As we used to say, when I was in the Army, “Stragglers die in combat.”  Will you be left behind?  We’re waiting for you.