I went to my GP a few weeks back for my annual checkup. I’ve gone once a year since I turned fifty. I am now sixty-three.
He asked me if I had any problems eating, sleeping, going to the toilet, etc. No.
I take no prescribed medication.
I am in good shape for my age, about the same weight I was when I was twenty-five, i.e. seventy-six kilos, with a visible six pack.
He listened to my chest with a stethoscope. Got me to breathe noisily, pant and cough. All good.
He took my blood pressure. 114/78. Right in the normal range.
He sent me to the local pathology centre for blood tests. Sixteen Haematology indicators, eighteen biochemistry indicators, four lipids and HDL (cholesterol) indicators, glucose, PSA (prostate), all within the normal ranges.
Except for the HDL cholesterol, which is slightly above the normal range, but that’s the “good” cholesterol, so that is perfectly fine.
I have regular bowel cancer checks as well, the details of which I will spare you. All good, to date.
I attribute my good fortune here to, well, good fortune – to a large degree.
My wife Pat is largely responsible for my diet, and I think she plans healthy meals and prepares them well.
I don’t consciously avoid many foods because of potential health impacts. Every time I’ve tried a serious fashionable diet, I’ve gotten sick, was unable to get some of the necessary ingredients, or something else went wrong. So we eat fairly conventionally. Meat and three veg. I like kombucha, and changed my snacking regimen during the drive home from training from “muesli” bars to raw unsalted mixed nuts. But obviously, not an avid clean eater, keto guy, or paleo freak.
I eat as much as I want, which isn’t generally a huge amount. I could probably eat cleaner and better than I do, had I a good reason to do so, or a good reason NOT to do otherwise. I drink alcohol, and one could always drink less.
The rest is a lifestyle in which martial arts practice plays an integral part.
Not just going to regular classes, but all the other things we do to stay healthy, and get stronger, more mobile, agile, and enduring, to be able to do more training at different intensities, more often.
As well as my formal stylistic practice and randori, I do qigong and other breathwork, much of which I got from Steve Maxwell, directly or indirectly. Steve, at 65, is definitely my Mr Jiu Jitsu for a Lifetime.
My current reasons for training definitely involve self defence – in the wider sense, not just physical, but also financial, emotional, and guarding against sickness and the ravages of time for as long as possible. Looking at it another way, I train martial arts to be able to keep training martial arts as long as possible. The other health benefits are consequences, not necessarily unintended.
I want to move well into advanced age. Avoid muscle wasting and reduced bone density as far as possible. Stay agile, mobile, and nimble enough to avoid the damaging falls that seem to signal the beginning of the end for many old people.
(Just so you know, “old” means bout ten years older than me. It’s been this way since I was about forty-five).
This is not a boast. I am no superman. I am not preaching, but testifying. This lifestyle has, to date, worked very well for me.