Thurston column: Your first lecture of 2012

Since a New Year is here, it seems appropriate to give some advice for those who are looking for resolutions to make.

I asked my Tai Chi master a question one night. I asked him why, in a country where baby boomers are turning 60 at the rate of about 330 every hour, more people aren’t taking Tai Chi. He gave me a perplexed look and allowed as how he couldn’t understand it either.

We got talking about fitness. “The seniors seem to have the worst attitude,” he said. “I have spoken to senior groups; done demonstrations…they take the position that since they are falling apart anyway, there is no point in trying to stay fit.”

In other words, they can’t exercise because they are in poor shape – and they are in poor shape because they don’t exercise.

Psychologists probably have a formal name for it, but I offer you my own. I call it “The Death Spiral”.

I once had this conversation with a young man:

He: “I am really depressed these days.”

Me: “And why is that?”

He: “I just lost my third job this month!”

Me: “Good heavens, what is happening?”

He: “Too many missed days, they said.”

Me: “What’s the reason for that?”

He: “Well, I have this drinking problem...”

Me: “Hmmmm. Wouldn’t surprise me if you were depressed...”

Do you see a pattern here? Okay, you haven’t had a lecture in a while, so here goes.

(I confess to a little selfish motive -- I need all the senior readers I can get!)

There are hundreds of fitness books for us mature (my wife prefers “well-seasoned”) folks, and I won’t presume to recommend one for you. I will say, though, that you had better get busy. And you had better not use your age or condition as an excuse. We can all do something — at some level or other. As Dr. Harry Lodge, an expert on gerontology, recently wrote, “Aging is inevitable, but decay is optional.”

I’ll take it a step further. Don’t look at it as beginning a “program” or a “regimen” or a “diet.” It is a lifestyle, cohorts – and you are on it for the rest of yours, in the same way that you brush your teeth every morning. Your goal is to get to the point where – as my wife recently put it -- “It would seem strange not to do something when I get up in the morning.” She is talking about exercise, friends.

You don’t need a gym membership or expensive equipment. A treadmill or stationary bike is nice, especially when the weather is bad, but walking is fine. You can pick up cheap dumbbells that others have dropped off at the Salvation Army store, after the first flush of their New Year’s resolutions wore off. As my Tai Chi instructor also says, “The exercise that works is the one you do.”

Start slow and gradually build up your strength and stamina. You aren’t in training for the Olympics. You are in training for life. You are training to avoid osteoporosis, or heart problems or stroke or the million other afflictions of old age. You say you already have osteoporosis; you’ve had your heart attack? That’s a shame, but it doesn’t have to be a show-stopper. Check with your doctor and then get crankin’ — at your own pace.

Next Monday would be great. Tomorrow morning would be better.

End of lecture.

Chuck Thurston is semi-retired and lives in Kannapolis, NC. His email address is cthurston@ctc.net