Breaking Up With Food: Season Finale | Healthy Aging Series: S9 E24

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Beginnings, Middles, and Ends.

What is your favorite season or series finale? Seinfeld? The Office? Breaking Bad?

I love these series and I hated to see them come to an end. I hate endings.

Sometimes I re-watch series and save the season or series finale for maybe a month or two. I did that with the new Star Trek series: Picard. I knew the series was ending, so I watched it in it’s entirely, except for the last three episodes. And then I savored them over the course of six weeks.

One of my Social Work professors, Dr. Timothy Johnson, explained that life, and really therapy, is made up of beginnings, middles, and ends. “You have to attend to each phase,” he would say.

Beginnings: build relationships, introduce new ideas, develop a roadmap.
Middles: revisit the map and goals you have set. Begin the discharge process.
Ends: review progress and develop relapse prevention.

This is the season nine finale, and I wanted to end it with a review, and maybe not relapse prevention, but more looking at excuses for why people fail to break up with food.

First, the Review

I hope I sold you on the idea that you have a relationship with food, and it’s likely that it’s a little dysfunctional. 

We looked at ways of determining if it’s dysfunctional.

I discussed the need for breaking up with food and why it’s so difficult.

Throughout this season, I shared four Obesity Memoirs from people who broke up and stayed broke up with food. These were heroic journeys.

I did an interview with Terri, a healthy ager.

I had six episodes that walked you through strategies for breaking up with food.

I finished up the season, providing you with the importance of hope and self-love for breaking up with food

I ended the season with advice for writing a love letter to yourself.

24 episodes.

Ready But Excuses

I was talking about this season with my wife, and she suggested sharing several excuses that keep people from breaking up with food and developing a new lifestyle.

Before I come up with excuses, I want to first say that some people don’t break up with food because they’re not ready. “The lesson begins when the student is ready.”

It usually takes some kind of crisis or life event to break up with food. It could be a lab report. It could be a book. That’s the case with me. 30 years ago my father gave me, “Turning Back the Clock,” by Dr. Bob Arnot. It changed the way I think about fitness.

It could be the loss of a mentor or friend to a preventable disease. It could be that still small voice that you listen to that’s telling you to do something else or you’re going to die.

OK, so let’s assume you’re ready. These are what I call “Ready But Excuses.” You’re ready but….

Ready But Excuse #1

“I don’t have time.” I get home and it’s dark. The mornings are busy getting ready for work and a long commute. My mornings are taken up with kids. I’m exhausted by the weekend, and I just want to relax.

My Advice: Start slow, 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Tag team child rearing with your partner. Alternate resistance training with cardio training. Put exercise on your calendar.

Ready But Excuse #2

“I don’t know how to start.”

Here’s some suggestions:
Join a fitness gym,
Hire a Trainer,
Read books on exercising and nutrition,
Carve out a physical space in your home to workout,
Buy some basic fitness tools. Dumbbells and a bench are a good start.

Ready But Excuse #3

“I don’t enjoy working out.”

My Advice: Try different gyms, classes, groups, activities. I love hiking. It requires almost no skills or equipment. Read episode 21. My wife loves Jazzercise. I cycle during the warmer months. Find something you love. Gyms can be boring.

Ready But Excuse #4

“I’m embarrassed about my appearance and my lack of athleticism.”

Advice: Everyone started there. Everyone was a little embarrassed, not knowing what to do in a gym or being seen walking in the neighborhood.

Here are my thoughts on this excuse: Do you think people are looking at you and thinking, “What a loser!” Nothing could be further from the truth. 99.9% of people who see you are envious because they wish they were working out. Inside they’re saying, “Go girl!”

My second thought is, project yourself out three or six months. You’ll look better, feel stronger, because you started and stayed with it!

Ready But Excuse #5

“I have (fill in the blank) pain.” Your knee. Your hips. Your feet. Your shoulders.

If you’re significantly overweight, your joints are likely suffering from carrying around that extra weight. It may mean you’ll need to focus on the nutrition side of breaking up with food first. You may need to lose 50 to 100 pounds first to take the pressure off your joints. You might need to invest in footwear. I was experiencing Achilles tendon pain. A friend recommended Hokas. Problem solved.

Spend time stretching. The Internet is full of tutorials for stretching.

Ready But Excuse #6

“I hate working out alone.” 

Fortunately, there are lots of group-fitness opportunities. Have I mentioned Jazzercize?
Unfortunately, working out can be a little lonely, but use this time to “get into your head.” Some of my most creative times are when I’m hiking alone.

Ready But Excuse #6

“I’ve tried breaking up with food before, but I usually end up making up. I keep going back.”

I get this. Really, think of life as a series of break ups. We will likely need to break up with food again, and again, and again.
What’s wrong with that?

I have wrestled with my relationship with food for 60+ years. I love food! I love get-togethers where there is food! I love eating sugar! And since I have continued to wrestle with food, I’m not 50 pounds overweight. I maintain a mostly healthy weight because I regularly have to break up with food over and over again.

Well, that’s it. Season Nine. I have thoroughly loved studying this topic and writing about it. I hope it helped you have a relationship change with food.

Next season is entitled “The Aging Brain.” I hope you join me.

Want to Break Up with Food? Write a Dear John Letter! | Healthy Aging Series: S9 E23

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Four days. Five national parks. 1400 miles. Utah.

I shared in an earlier episode that my son and I did a road trip this fall through Utah. 

During our trip, we listened to Edward Abbey’s book, “Desert Solitaire.” After all, it is Abbey’s Country. Abbey can be a little crusty. Sort of a curmudgeon. My son and I were remarking that his suggestion that they limit entrance to the national parks to walkers, bicycles, horses, and pigs was stupid. We got it. He wrote his book in the 60’s when cars were becoming ubiquitous. He worried about the damage that automobiles would cause to the wilderness. Note: Most national parks use Entrance Reservations and shuttle buses to lessen the impact of people on the park. Abbey introduced us to the desert mice, the solitude of Arches National Park, the snakes, the trees, the flowers, and the uranium prospectors of the 50’s and 60’s of southeastern Utah. 

Something jumped out at me in the first chapter that I had missed in previous readings. We had been listening to it on Audible. After a cup of coffee, on one of the cold high desert mornings, Abbey announced that he was going to go into his little ranger trailer and write a letter to himself.

The Lost Art of Letter Writing

When was the last time you wrote a letter? Not an email but a handwritten letter. I wrote and typed a few to my sons for Christmas several years ago. During my time in the Air Force, I was stationed at Ozan Air Base for about two years. It was 1976 to 1978. No cell phones. No email, not yet. I had just gotten married to my first wife; I wrote to her and my parents almost every week. I didn’t speak to them for nearly 2 years. Imagine that. Mom and Dad both wrote. I could hear their voices as I read those letters.

I’ve been reading a book about Herman Hesse, and his relationship with Carl Jung. They maintained their relationship with letters. The author of the book, Miguel Serrano maintained his relationship with Jung and Hesse with letters, mostly hand written. 

Maybe it’s time to resurrect the art of letter writing. And maybe the place to start is writing a letter to yourself, your true self. 

Abbey stepped into the little ranger trailer in the middle of Arches National Park to write a letter to himself, or as Carl Jung would say to his true self. People write letters to stay connected. People write letters to provide advice, help solve problems, and even to give hope and inspiration. They are called epistles in the Christian Scriptures. They are love letters and yes, Dear John letters, for breaking up.

What would a letter to your true self look like? 

Writing a love letter to yourself would include sharing how you’re doing. It would include bearing your soul, sharing your struggles, avoiding the pretension and phoniness that you project out in the world, your persona. Letters to your true self would contain your dreams, your prayers, and also your frustrations, failures, and sorrows. And then your struggles and questions about all of those things. And after you’ve written a letter to your true self, maybe you can answer it by having your true self send you a letter. You open your heart and your mind, your conscious, and let the return letter flow to you from your true self.

We’ve been talking about breaking up with food and staying broke up. For some of you, it’s about learning to maintain a healthy weight, stepping away from alcohol, or like me, you’re trying to prepare for the last 10 years of your life. Breaking up with food is a struggle for you. But for some of you, breaking up with food is a life and death fight to avoid Type 2 Diabetes, the loss of mobility, heart disease, and even premature death. 

Maybe your breakup is with alcohol.
I’ve struggled these past nine or 10 months with breaking up with alcohol. Don’t get me wrong. I follow the National Institute of Health guidelines for drinking 1 to 2 drinks if daily, three drinks, if less than daily. But I’ve looked at the effects of alcohol on my judgment. I haven’t decided to abstain from alcohol, but I am looking into ways of moderating my drinking. I’m in the middle of sober October as I write this. Maybe writing a letter to my true self would help settle it once and for all.

Sample letter to my true self about breaking up with food:

Dear True Self, 

I know it’s been a while since I last wrote. It’s hard to find a time. But now I need your help. Maybe I’ve neglected asking for help because I have this pride that keeps me from asking for help. You know me, I think I can solve my problems by myself, I don’t need anyone. But you know that’s not true. I want to be kind. I want to be wise. I want to be strong. But I do things that I think could threaten my well-being. What are those? Things like alcohol. You know I don’t abuse alcohol. But I think I need to get it completely out of my life or at least learn how to moderate it. I go back-and-forth on and off again, mostly on. I need help. I need clarity. I need strength. I need your help. Hope to hear from you soon.

Yours, 

Mark

–

Dear Mark,

It was so good to hear from you. I know you struggle. We all struggle. Life is difficult. I know you’ve made mistakes. You’re human, I know you care about the people in your life. And I know you want to be strong, both mentally and physically. Think about a few things when it comes to alcohol. Why do you want to drink. I know you’ve developed a routine around alcohol. You typically drink from 5 to 7 PM. I know. And it’s become a way to relax. You feel bored. You feel anxious. You feel spent. And then you drink. It’s the same with food. Maybe pushing through those times would help. Maybe it’s time to be honest with yourself. Maybe it’s time to love yourself. I wonder what you would say to a friend or family member or client if they came to you with a struggle and wanted to quit drinking alcohol. Wouldn’t you want to know why? I think you would avoid giving advice. I think you would help them sort through the reasons, maybe get to the root of their desire to quit. So, I want you to stop and think. I think you struggle with quitting because alcohol is a much bigger part of your life then you’re willing to admit. I think you struggle because you don’t want to lose the relationship that you have with alcohol. You know what it does for you. And I think you struggle because it embarrasses you to admit that you have a problem with it, that you don’t have the willpower over it. It’s time to admit that you really enjoy something that is potentially harmful to you, both physically and mentally. Maybe that’s the place to start. I have more to say. Respond back with your feedback on my thoughts. 

Take care, 

Your True Self

And now, maybe it’s time to write that Dear John letter.

Maybe it’s time to write that letter to food and break up with it once and for all. Be honest. The relationship that you have with it is killing you or maybe at best leading to some chronic problems that might not be life-threatening but will control your life for the rest of your life.

Go ahead and vent about that relationship with food. Tell food that it’s not your friend. Not anymore. And that you’re not going to depend on it for your emotional well-being. You’re not going to see it as a source of pleasure, because it’s killing you.

Write a letter to food, break up with it, and then find new relationships that will promote health and well-being in your life.

| To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

 

The Real Reason You Can’t Stay Broke Up with Food | Healthy Aging Series: S9 E22

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“And now abide faith, hope, and love, but the greatest is love.”

 I Corinthians 13:13 KJV.

My heart breaks as I see or watch people in dysfunctional relationships. 

We had a patio party with some friends this past smoky weekend. Smoke from the Canadian forest fires filled the evening sky.

Here’s the story they told. A friend of theirs is married to a man who has a problem with alcohol. Their friend was explaining something complicated to her partner and her alcoholic partner was trying to interject his ideas, and eventually became so angry and told her to “Shut the fuck up!“

 His wife turned around and walked off in embarrassment, shame, or maybe even fear. I wondered why she stays with him. I was a member of Al-Anon for a number of years, and I remember hearing similar stories. Here’s what Al-Anon taught me: 

You cannot love your partner out of their addiction problems, but what you can do is love yourself out of the dysfunction of the relationship.

People who remain in abusive relationships often do so because they fail to love themselves. 

Don’t misunderstand me, these dysfunctional relationships are mired in all kinds of issues: financial dependence, cultural taboos, and religion, just to name a few.

Al-Anon taught me that I can only help others if I first take care of and love myself.

Cover your ears if you don’t want to hear this next part. If you choose to stay in a dysfunctional relationship, it might indicate that you are having lapses of self-love. It’s love gone awry. 

Love gone awry means that the lack of self-love transports you to a land were choice is extinct. There comes a point in life when you are living in a dysfunctional relationship, to say it’s over! I love myself, and the best way to demonstrate love is to break up.  

If this is true for our dysfunctional relationship with people, it might also be true for a relationship with food. We get into trouble breaking up and staying very broke up with food because we have lapses, at least temporary lapses, of self-love. What else could it be? 

Something has to compete with our appetites and cravings. Something has to compete with our addiction to sugar. Something has to break the chain of overeating and binge eating. And maybe that something is self-love. 

It isn’t self-loathing that keeps us in a dysfunctional relationship with food. It’s love that has gone awry. When we love food more than we love ourselves, we love what it does for us. Food makes us forget about us. Food makes us forget about what it’s doing to us, one calorie at a time. Food makes us strong and powerful and creates a new you. It makes us feel good if only for a moment. But food can also rob you of a future with your children, your family, and your friends by shortening your life. 

In the past blog, I’ve told you that in order to have a breakup with food, you have to start thinking differently about food. But first, you have to start thinking differently about yourself. 

Think this: I love me. I don’t want to hurt me. I want to take care of me. Food doesn’t care about me so I need to care about me.  I want to take care of me. I want to be happy and healthy the last 10 years of my life, so I want to take care of myself now. Giving into those cravings might feel good but I want to take care of me. I love me. Those momentary pleasures are not good for me. Self-love is the only thing that can break the spell that food has over you. Self-love is the only thing that can break you out of the trance that food has over you. Self-love is the magic that will make your cravings and appetites disappear. 

Where to Start with Self-Love

In the same way that you would protect your family member from harm, protect yourself from harm. Tell yourself that your relationship with food is hurting you, it’s harming you! Cry!! 

Let yourself feel the pain of food addiction and cry because it hurts you.

Pledge to take care of the most important thing in your life, you and your body. Your body is vulnerable to its appetites. It needs you to love it and shepherd it, to take care of it! Be your body’s champion. Be your body’s protector. It needs you to love it and care for it.

Stop now, and look at your hands, your arms, your body. Find a mirror. Look into it. Look at yourself. Decide now whether or not you love the person you’re looking at, or rather, will you love the person you’re looking at? Will you start loving you? 

In my last blog I talked about magic, not magic in the Harry Potter sense, but magic in the ability for you to change from the inside out. 

Once you start loving yourself, you then need to believe that there is magic within you to change you and transform you. 

Breaking up with food is mostly an inside job! 

My next blog will be about writing a Dear John Letter to food.

| To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

Want to Break Up with Food? Learn to Hike!! | Healthy Aging Series: S9 E21

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I was sitting in Terminal C at the Denver Airport gate 47 recently. I had a five-hour layover. Time to write and observe people. I’ve been noticing something concerning at airports with the past few years. I’ve noticed more and more people needing wheelchair assistance to get to their gates and to board. I researched it and here’s what I found.

First, let me say that many disabled travelers report nightmares when traveling via the airlines. The Department of Transportation cited a 108% increase in complaints from flyers with disabilities in a three-year period from 2019 to 2022. Complaints range from lost or damaged wheelchairs to embarrassment from poor transfers and even physical injury. Traveling with a disability that requires a wheelchair can be a horrific experience. Thankfully, the Air Carrier Access Act prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities. I encourage you to read it and know your rights. It gives flyers with disabilities recourse if their rights are violated. 

Second, I want to ask, “Why has there been an increase in wheelchair use?” Airlines do not keep statistics on wheelchair use, so here are my thoughts. People with physical disabilities and frail older adults are flying more to stay connected with people and places. Boomers are aging. Families are relocating away from their hometowns. Flying helps them stay connected.  But, I also think there has been an increase in people with mobility issues that have resulted from being overweight or obese. Many of those seeking wheelchair assistance can walk short distances, but due to the loss of stability and mobility, they lack the muscle and aerobic endurance to walk through large airports. I don’t want to overgeneralize, and my heart breaks for people with severe mobility issues, but with my Personal Training background, and a specialization in senior fitness, I think it’s fair to make a few assumptions. The real question is, can mobility issues be prevented and improved upon in cases with adults suffering from obesity and physical disabilities?  The answer is yes! Older adults can enlist the help of a professional to regain their mobility. 

I recently read two articles in the New York Times that agree with this conclusion. The first article, “Just Two Minutes of Walking After a Meal is Surprisingly Good for You,” by Rachel Fairbank, looked at walking as a means of managing your blood glucose levels. “In a meta-analysis, recently published in the journal of sports medicine,“ she writes, “researchers looked at the results of seven studies that compare the effects of sitting versus standing or walking on measures of heart health, including insulin and blood sugar levels. They found that light walking after a meal, in increments of as little as 2 to 5 minutes, had a significant impact on moderating blood sugar levels.”
Managing blood glucose is extremely important as a means of reducing the risk of developing type two diabetes. Weight management is extremely important as we age. If we do nothing, it is possible to put on 2 to 3 pounds a year, amounting to 20 or 30 pounds over the period of a decade. We wake up and we’ve gained 30 pounds! It happens. If a 2-to-5-minute walk helps, think about how much more benefit at 20-to-30-minute walk after dinner. 

When the weather permits, my wife and I do three laps in our neighborhood after dinner. That’s about 30 minutes and adds up to 1 mile or 1700 to 1800 steps. Without changing your diet, walking 10,000 steps burns 300 to 800 cal. That adds up to a pound a week. Just walking enhances your mobility.

The second article was about the benefits of hiking. In her article, “Hiking Has all the Benefits of Walking and More. Here’s How to Get Started,“ Danielle Friedman, writes “Hiking offers all the cardiovascular benefits of walking, but the uneven terrain does more to strengthen the legs and core muscles, which in turn, boosts balance and stability. It also burns more calories than walking.”

Because of my Personal Trainer background, I have encouraged aging adults to incorporate instability into their workouts. If you want to be more stable and less prone to falls, you need to activate muscles that do not get activated on even surfaces. I rarely train with trekking poles. I use them as handrails when I’m doing elevation in places like the Smoky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, or hiking in Colorado. Otherwise, I leave them home and allow the terrain to challenge my legs, knees, and ankles. Friedman offered some very good advice for getting started. I’ve got about 30 years of experience hiking, 20+ years of backpacking, and here’s my advice for getting more stable.

These are suggestions and not necessarily in order of importance. Just my random thoughts.

1. Find a park that has trails and maps of those trails. Louisville has lots and lots of parks with trails and maps as well. I hike in the Jefferson Memorial Forest and in the Parklands. Maps are available online or at the visitor center at the Jefferson Memorial Forest. Trail maps for Parklands are typically at the kiosks at the entrances of the park. There is the Bernheim Forest, KY and Hoosier National Forest in Indiana. There’s the Daniel Boone National Forest and the Red River Gorge in the eastern part of the state of Kentucky. I just Googled places to hike in Kentucky and many, many hits. There is no excuse not to hike in Kentucky.

2. Start easy and progress to harder trails. That means, starting with short trails and trails with less elevation. Trails are usually, but not always posted as easy, moderate, or difficult. I would suggest flat or no elevation trails that are 2 miles or less for your first hike. Move at a 30 minute per mile pace. You should finish in one hour.

3. Buy some gear. You’ll need a day pack and some water bottles. Shoes and socks. I always wear smart wool or acrylic socks, and I buy most of my shoes from Quest for the Outdoors. Don’t buy the most expensive shoes but don’t buy the cheapest shoes.

Take with you in your daypack: 

  • Ziploc baggies in case it rains
  • Take an umbrella in case it rains
  • You’ll need insect repellents, mostly for chiggers that you’ll need to put on your ankles
  • You need a map.
  • You’ll need clothing that is determined by the time of year. I buy most of all my clothing at Walmart, Target, and, at Meijer’s. It’s cheaper and good quality wicking material.
  • I use a smart watch to track my hikes. I use a Fitbit because its app works better for me.
  • I take a headlamp, especially if I’m going to be hiking in the evenings.
  • Take some snacks, which typically consist of energy bars.

4. There are lots of hiking groups for hiking and a variety of experience within those groups, so you won’t feel uncomfortable or intimidated. I did a Google search of “hiking groups near me” and found nine groups with links to each group.

5. Get out and enjoy the trails. Hike for your mental and physical health. Some of my most relaxing and creative times have been on the trails. Learn to love the hills. If you hike in Kentucky or Southern Indiana, you will encounter hills. They are your friends. Hills are the HITT experience in the woods.

I am a very even-tempered person, but I find myself getting upset when the weather interferes with my hiking. 

My wife is the same way with Jazzercise. Develop a love for hiking and it will keep you fit, stable, and out of the wheelchair.

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.

2024: Be Your Own Cartographer | Healthy Aging Series: S9 E20

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Trevor, Nicole, and Me in the Maze. The Chocolate Drops in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting to The Maze is half the fun.

The Maze is the western district of Canyonlands National Park. The Ranger station at Hans Flat is 50 miles from the nearest paved road. Think about that. Where can you go in this country that is 50 miles from the nearest paved road. Maybe Maine. Maybe North Dakota.

The Hans Flat Ranger Station is basically a small mobile home in the middle of nowhere. If you want to backpack into The Maze, you have to four-wheel it 30 more miles to the Overlook Trailhead. And then, although the trail down into the canyon is only a mile in length, it takes two hours to get to the bottom.

You have to lower your backpack by rope, shimmy down, lower your backpack down, and shimmy until you get to the bottom. It’s a task worth doing because it is beautiful, and remote, and physically challenging, and then there is the Harvest Scene, pictographs which are 3000 years old left by ancient peoples.

They call this district The Maze, well, because it’s about 175 square miles of canyons that form a maze. The first time I backpacked there I got lost. I had a compass and a topographical map. It’s just easy to get turned around. I learned to keep the Chocolate Drops in sight while I was there as a reference point. On a topographical map, these geological features look like chocolate drops. You need a map and a compass in The Maze.

As we face the new year, 2024 could feel a little bit like The Maze. It could be easy to get turned around and maybe even lost. We are standing at the Overlook, looking out over the next 12 months, 12 months of hidden springs and rock art and majestic buttes. We need a map.

Instead of making resolutions for 2024 maybe consider making a map. I love maps. My office is full of maps. What would a map of 2024 look like for you?

Maybe it’s time to consider yourself a Cartographer, or a map maker.

What would be the destination of my map?

My destination would lead to a stronger, kinder, healthier, wiser, fitter, socially more connected me and maybe a me with a better understanding of who I am and how I came to be me. This is a little lofty, but it is a map, or rather, my map. 

On this map, there should be waypoints. These aren’t goals and objectives. Nope. None of that. They are reference points to let you know where you are and where you’re going. These are points on my map that will guide me to a place that I call Clarity. For me Clarity means paying attention in a new way, seeing things differently. 

Clarity is a superpower, and it comes to those who take care of themselves physically, socially, intellectually, and spiritually or existentially.

My Waypoints to Clarity

My first waypoint is the Healthy Body, Healthy Mind Waypoint.
This waypoint on my map is all about taking care of my body. This past year I have walked almost every week and hiked almost every week. I’ve done hills. I’ve tried to do resistance training every year. I’m pretty consistent. But I’ve gotten a little lazy and I’ve avoided higher intensity workouts. So, I’m increasing the intensity of my workouts by adding one or two HIIT sessions each week. For those of you who aren’t familiar with HIIT workouts, these are high intensity interval training sessions. Typically, you schedule a 30-minute workout. Two minutes high intensity, two minutes low intensity. I have a rowing machine and recumbent-exercise bike. In order for me to find the place called Clarity, I’ll schedule a workout on each of these pieces of equipment each week. Also, I need to increase the intensity of my resistance workouts and make them more aerobic. So, with a help of my Garmin fitness watch, I’ll monitor my resistance workouts to ensure that my pulse stays in the aerobic area. 

Clarity comes from a healthy body. What’s good for the heart is good for the brain.

I know I’m on the right trail to Clarity when I hike in the woods. Clarity comes from the trees, and the smells, and the hills, and the rain, and the Tufted Titmouse singing, and the squirrels playing throughout the woods.
I wasn’t able to ride my bike as much this past year, but I’m going to increase my bike rides to increase my clarity. There is something that happens on my rides through Parkland.

My second waypoint, the next reference point that directs me toward Clarity, has to do with food, but not just food, it has to do with eliminating things that create a cloudiness in my clarity. Here, I’m talking about sugar and alcohol.

Ok, if you eat sugar willy-nilly, are you off trail? Are you lost?? Maybe not in the short run but long-term, yes. Sugar amplifies inflammation, leading to cardiovascular disease, which increases your risk of stroke, and eventually dementia. So, ditch the sugar except for special occasions. 

And then, there is alcohol. I have broken-up and made-up with alcohol many, many times this year. You cannot read any serious studies about alcohol, and not be concerned about the negative effects on your health from consuming even a little alcohol. One drink affects my sleep, which affects my clarity. This past year, I was diagnosed with hyperuricemia, which is one of the causes of gout. As one medical professional said to me, “It’s the alcohol, dummy.” On my map to Clarity, I have written in a waypoint, called abstinence, circled it, and decided that it can take me one step closer to being able to see things differently in 2024.

The third waypoint has to do with reading and writing about folk tales. If you’re reading this, you are aware of my blogs on aging. Folk tales have lots of wisdom for aging or clarity. I plan to read and reflect on 30 to 50 folk tales from various sources, mostly Grimms Fairytales, and share them in my blog and eventually in an eBook.

The fourth waypoint is people. There is a proverb in Hebrew Scriptures that says that people can sharpen each other the same way that iron sharpens iron.
Being around people will sharpen me and take me to Clarity. I don’t have lots of friends. Most of them are liberals. It’s probably because I’m a liberal. No-brainer, I’m a social worker. But I have friends and family members that voted for Trump. I love them and if I’m headed to Clarity, I need them to help me when I’ve lost my way. 

Clarity comes from a diversity of ideas and opinions and not from ideological isolation.

Talk to your friends and family. Listen to your friends and family. Learn from them. Learn to see things differently through them. Find new friends that can guide you to Clarity.

Those are a few the of the waypoints that are on the map that I am drawing. I’m a cartographer. I’ll add a few more as I get into 2024. It’s my map. I can plan some excursions. I can have a layover or two.

When I’m done this year, it’s my hope that I am either closer to or I’ve arrived at a place called Clarity.

I’m excited!

To read more entries in the Healthy Aging series, click here.