Walking the Anti-Aging Talk

It’s two weeks until the official publication of Counterclockwise: My Year of Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-Aging, and I have a confession to make:  I am a hypocrite.  I am currently doing a number of things I tell readers not to do in the book, some key things I  learned not to do during my turn-back-the-clock year.  In short:  I am not walking the talk.

Oh readers, hear my sins:

I am sitting on my butt way too many hours.  Yes, I am sweating every day, crunching, lifting, pumping, curling, cycling, Tabata-ing, whatevering, for an hour, maybe an hour and a half…but that’s it.  The rest of the time it is seat of the pants to seat of the chair (or, in my case, the red stability ball).  I put in my gym time – hooray for me! — but, as I learned when I researched the book, one strenuous hour a day doesn’t cut it.  You’ve got to integrate physical activity into your daily life.  You have to create an active lifestyle, not compartmentalize exercise and check it off like a chore every day.  Keeping yourself relatively fit is one thing.  And a good thing.  But working to reverse the biological clock…well, that’s another level of commitment.  That’s a game-changer, not something you pencil into your date book.

I am skipping meals.  I am happy to say that it is not breakfast I’m skipping – so that’s a good thing (it truly is the most important meal of the day) – but skipping any meal is very much less than ideal.  Food stokes the metabolic furnace.  Not eating signals your body to store any food you do eat, and by “store” I mean convert to fat and plant on your hips.  And by “your hips,” I mean my hips.  Not eating makes you cranky.  Not eating makes you starving for the next meal so you overeat.  If I’m so damned smart, why am I skipping lunch?  Good question.

I am deafening myself with negative self-talk… like:  If you’re so damned smart why are you acting so  dumb?  Why aren’t you doing all those things you know are good for you?  All those things you discovered are good for you after a long year of deep research and sweaty guinea-pig involvement.  What’s up with you?  And while we’re at it:  Why haven’t you learned to nix the negative self-talk?  How about that compassion self-test you took (and failed) during research for the book and the lessons you supposedly learned from that?

What happened?  I have allowed a three-week trip to Europe and deadlines for other work and the shoulder injury of one of the Sweat Chicas (my work-out buds) and the challenges of living with a teen and a broken lawn mower and the daily seductions of Mr. Internet – in other words, the push and pull of daily life — to lead me astray.

But do not fear, readers.  I see the righteous path before me. And I’m on it.  Or I will be.  Tune in next week to see how I do.