If you are a baseball fan, you may remember the movie – “61*” It is a 2001 sports drama film written by Hank Steinberg and directed by Billy Crystal. It stars Barry Pepper as Roger Maris and Thomas Jane as Mickey Mantle on their quest to break Babe Ruth‘s 1927 single-season home run record of 60 during the 1961 season of the New York Yankees. It’s a great movie and was a worthy goal for two of my childhood hero’s to try and break!
Today, 61 has additional meaning for me! I’m a year older and yep – I made it through 60 and jumped into 61 today. Admittedly, 60 was an adjustment. Something in me began to feel old when I left the 50’s and moved into 60. But this jump to 61 … eh … no big deal! I continue to feel better and appreciate the REAL things of life more than ever like my faith in my creator, a wonderful wife, my kids and now those energetic Poppy loving (lucky me!) grandkids (9 going on 10 to be exact)! I’m grateful for a wonderful insurance business that I still truly enjoy after 36 years. It continues to grow and prosper in spite of me! And there are so many friends to love, support, understand and put up with me for many of these 61 years. Nothing matters more today than all of that!
One of my core components as I get older is my belief in physical fitness and clean nutrition. I’ve acquired the nutrition piece later in life – like in the last 3 years. I’m what I would call flexitarian with a strong leaning to vegan! I’ve told my kids I’m not a tree-hugging, animal saving Poppy even though I think all of those issues discussed in this lifestyle are extremely important. I just want to live clean and eat clean foods for better health and quality of life. It is definitely working for me and I truly believe in it’s benefits! My health numbers (BP, CHOL, weight, and the rest of the benchmarks the medical community uses) have never been better! Yes – I’m a juicer and I do my best to run from processed foods. I just think my body deserves to be fueled with the best foods and it’s reacting to this fuel in many positive ways! My doctor continues to be quite baffled at my journey of physical improvement! I have never felt better and I continue to workout 5 days each week at 5:00 am – even at age 61.
When it comes to working out, I use videos as my instruction! Why? Because I’m lazy! When you get up at 4AM .. slumber over to the gym and start the workout at 5A, I don’t want to look up some list, figure out what routine etc. I just turn on the video player on my tablet – put in the Bluetooth earbuds and let someone tell me what to do. I’m a fan of Tony Horton (P90X, X2 and X3). I’ve done all 3-X’s several times. He motivates me because he is about 5 years younger than me and says…”getting old is for dummies!” I agree and live that way. I also venture into the younger age brackets with Shaun T (Insanity, T25) and am challenged by working out with those 20- to 30-somethings! My goal is to keep up with them and about 90% of the time, I do! The results of all of this has been quite amazing! (can you say – BP – 110/55 and resting pulse – 52!)
Take today for instance! Martha & I are on vacation at a resort in Cabo San Lucas! Martha decided to document what I was doing this morning on this special day with some photos! This is me doing one of the more challenging routines in T25. As you can see, it’s not hard to be motivated to do it with this view I have. And to top it off today, I decided to do TWO routines – Speed 2.0 AND Speed 3.0 just to prove to me I could do it! I did them and burned 830 calories 50 minutes of cardio later! Old? I’m not subscribing to it!
I guess I write this to say … age is in your head! It surely is for me! I have told many that I feel much better and am more physically in shape and conditioned than I ever was in my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s or 50’s. Life can truly begin when you change some habits and work consistently hard to extend your life naturally by doing the things your body is made to do – eat the right foods and work out with a good balance of weights and cardio!
Babe Ruth hit those 60 home runs! Mantle and Maris tried to pass him! But they’ve got nothing on me! I hope to be chasing great health for a long time to come regardless of what the chronological age is! Join me!
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