Tag Archive for: nutrition

What’s the Hardest Thing You’ve Done? | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 7

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What’s the Hardest Thing You’ve Done?

Seven days. Six nights. 17000+/- ft. of elevation. 41 miles. 45 lbs. Minus 2 toenails. One of the hardest things I’ve done. The Grand Canyon.

I wanted to test myself. What a better place to do that than the Grand Canyon. It was 2009. I was 52 years old, and I’d been backpacking for four years and had gone down and come out of the Canyon four times. 

Nothing is easy about doing the canyon. If you think hiking down into the Grand Canyon is easy, you’d would be wrong. Think about walking down stairs for 8 to 10 miles. With 45 lbs. on your back.

You have to prepare by putting on a backpack and putting in the mileage with 30-40 lbs. in that pack.  

The Canyon is one of my favorite places on the earth. I love walking up to the edge of the South Rim at Grand Canyon Village, after being away for a year, and feeling overwhelmed by the view. You can see nearly 20 miles from the South Rim to the North Rim, almost forever. It’s most beautiful when it’s just snowed and it’s cloudy. Especially in January and February when the clouds are hanging around.

I planned a 7 day, 6 night solo backpacking trip. All by myself.

Day One: 5-mile hike down to Havasu Campground and the loss of 3000 feet. 

On one of my trips to the Canyon one of the regulars that I backpack with had invited a friend to “do the canyon.” This was the year my son was graduating from high school, and he was invited. They were 15 of us. A ritual was to weigh our packs at Babbage’s, the outfitting store. My pack weighed 42 pounds and my son’s was 30 pounds. We had both trained hard for this trip. 

The new invitee was 50+ years old and had just quit smoking the year before and was celebrating it with the backpacking trip into the Grand Canyon. Her pack weighed 45 pounds. I glanced at my son, and we both had that, “She’s not gonna make it,“ look.  And in fact, she arrived at Havasu Garden Campground without a pack. She said her legs had turned to rubber. She had dropped her pack halfway down. The next day she and her husband chose to hike out and hired a teenager to haul her pack back up to the South Rim. The Canyon is unforgiving.
I arrived at Havasu Garden CG on this trip in 3 hours, set up my camp, and slept well.

Day Two: Eleven miles on the Tonto West trail to Monument Creek CG.

This is a long 11-mile hike because you were hiking in an out of side canyons. Easily a six- or seven-hour hike. Total exposure to the sun. Day two ends at Monument Creek Campground, which is the payoff for the long hike. The bathroom is three wooden walls. No ceiling. One beautiful view.

Day Three: Nine miles. 4000 feet of elevation gain on the Hermit’s Rest Trail.

It was grueling. Remember my pack was 40+ pounds.

I had planned to hike back 11 miles to Havasu Garden Campground but changed my mind and decided to hike out the Hermit’s Rest Trail back to the South Rim. The problem was that I was going to have to walk 10 miles back to the trailhead and to my car. When I arrived at the rim, I was absolutely, exhausted. Remember I had hiked 25 miles in the past three days. I was lucky to meet a man who agreed to take me back to the trailhead but made me agree to listen to his story about going through a divorce, and how he was traveling from city to city in an RV looking for a new city to live in and call home. You can’t make something like this up. So, I listened.  I stayed at the Bright Angel Lodge, took a shower, and slept in a bed.

Day Four: I hiked down the Kaibab Trail to Phantom Ranch.

8 miles. 5200 feet of elevation loss. The good news: I was fresh and rested. The bad news: I was wearing new boots that rubbed the top of my toenails and remember it was 8 miles of descent, and it resulted in blisters under my toenails. That’s right blisters, not on my toes, but under my toenails
I set up my camp at Bright Angel Campground at the bottom of the Canyon and went to bed.

Day Five and Six: My plan was to hike out to Ribbon Falls (13 miles round trip)

Instead, I popped the blisters under my toenails and laid around for two days.

The thing about the Canyon is, if you go down into the Canyon, you have to get yourself up out of the Canyon. There are mules. There are helicopters. But unless you’re almost dying, you have to get yourself out. So, I cut the toes out of my new boots and hiked 8 miles and 5200 feet up out of the Canyon.

Seven days. Six nights. 17000+/- ft. 41 miles. 45 lbs. Minus 2 toenails. One of the hardest things I’ve done.

“All Bets Are Off”

Betsy Hartley‘s book, “All Bets Are Off,” has a grueling story in it. Don’t let me confuse you here. She ran a 100-mile race in under 30 hours. I didn’t do that. 

I’ve done a couple marathons. And all the training to prepare for them, but not 100 miles. 

I was exhausted after reading about this race. Geez! It was one of the most grueling accounts of a race that I’ve ever read. But this is not the real story of her book. 

Her story is about losing 220 pounds. Not an easy feat. 

Her plan: Eat less, move more. 

She started this plan in July 2011. Five years later, 220 lbs. lighter. 

That was the most grueling thing she did. Imagine. Five years. 44 pounds per year. Then run 100 miles in 30 hours. 

Honestly, one of the most impressive things I’ve heard or seen was she broke up with food and stayed broke up. That’s what this season of Healthy Aging is about. How to break up with food… How to change your relationship with food. 

What was the turning point in her life? What were her agents of change? 

What Didn’t Help?

Hartley spent 40 years of her life living with obesity, and with the “well-meaning” comments from family and friends. People were concerned for her health and safety, but no matter how tactful, and no matter how loving the comments about her weight, none of them helped. It only made her feel more ashamed. 

Shame is not a good change agent! 

Here’s why: shame makes you want to eat more, because food has become your drug of choice to address your shame, your guilt, and your depression. We feel bad, we eat, we feel better. It’s a never-ending cycle of “food comforting negative feelings!!!!” 

Stop and read this again!

What Did Help?

If it wasn’t all the noise in her environment about her weight, then what changed her? It was that still small voice that came from within her consciousness, her shadow, her true self, and her authentic self, that evoked the change to lose weight and begin living.

The Push and the Pull

Betsy’s willingness to listen to the still small voice from within helped her decided that she had had enough. That was the push in her life and the pull was that she wanted a life without diabetes, a life of mobility, and a life of running. 

It takes a push and a pull to change. Change comes when you take some time and listen to the voice within. “The biggest mystery for me,” she writes, “in my whole crazy adventure is why I finally chose to listen to that little voice, which I smothered for so long. And I work every day on making that voice, stronger and louder.”  

The Still Small Voice

There are a lot of takeaways from her book, but the still small voice struck a chord with me. The voice was saying to her, “It’s time to love yourself. It’s time to lose some weight and begin caring for yourself. It’s time to become something else, a more authentic something else.”

What helped her stay broke up was not the love of running, but what running represented. Running represented her domination over her appetites and over her body. Running, summiting Mount Sherman in Colorado, doing the Grand Canyon, cycling across Indiana, or anything else you do is telling your body, “Eff you! You’re gonna do what I tell you to do!”

That’s what I was doing in 2009 on my Solo Backpacking Trip. 

It’s more than that. It’s the beauty and majesty of all you see and experience while dominating your body.

But that its core it’s about telling your body it’s going to do what you tell it to do and not the other way around.

It’s the process of total domination as Nandor from “What We Do in the Shadows,” says to the zoning commission on Staten Island. The total domination, not of you, but of your body! That’s what we admire about athletes. They have worked their bodies into almost complete domination.

We regular people, like Betsy Hartley, fall short of total domination, but attempting feats of strength is our way of joining the fray. This next weekend I’m headed to the Smoky Mountains to do Mount Sterling. It’s not for the faint hearted. Three days. Two nights. 18 miles. 7000+ minus feet of elevation, hopefully not losing my toenails. Not the Canyon but a challenge. The second day will be grueling. I do it in part because I can but also do it because I want to send a clear message to my body that it will do as it’s told. I struggle every day for total domination and to stay broke-up with food. Hartley is a wonderful example of the person who wrestled with obesity for 50+ years and continues to work toward total domination of her body.

Those are my takeaways from her book. Breaking up is all about listening to that still small voice and staying broke up is all about taking charge of your body and telling it what it’s going to do. It is a wonderful challenge and a wonderful strategy in life.

How about you? Are you a Betsy Hartley?

I have a hard time finding people to Backpack with me, especially as I get older. It’s rare for me to find people that are up to the challenge. But I keep pushing on, and I keep dominating my body, and I work very diligently at staying broke up with food. 

How about you?

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

To purchase or view “All Bets are Off,” By Betsy Hartley at Carmichael’s Book Store, click here

All Bets Are Off: My journey of losing 200 pounds, a showdown with diabetes, and falling in love with running (Paperback)

Why it’s so Difficult Breaking up with Food (Part Two) | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 6

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Keep It Simple Stupid

“What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

How many diets are there? Lots! Wikipedia has a page entitled, List of Diets.

 There are belief-based diets. Buddhist diet. Jain diet. Islamic diet. Kosher diet. 70 Adventist diet.
There are low-calorie diet. Time Restricted Eating. Cookie Diet. Nutrisystem’s. Weight Watchers.

Very low-calorie diets. The Last Chance Diet, I love that. Tongue patch diet.

Low fat diet. McDougall Starch Diet.

Crash diets. Beverly Hills Diet. Cabbage Soup Diet. New Trophic diets. Subway Diet.

Detox diets. Juice Diet, Master Cleanse Diet.

Geez. I could go on and on.

Four or five years ago, I read 75 to 100 books on nutrition, but really they were all about diets. 

I haven’t even mentioned, Paleo, Carnivore, Whole Food Diet, Keto, or Dash Diets. After reading many, many books on most of the diets that are out there, what did I learn? 

Two things: They all work and none of them work

Most of them have some truth, some effectiveness. Most of them help you lose weight. But all of them fail to help you sustain your weight loss. In other words, they help you break up with food, but failed to help you maintain that break up.

Honestly, the Diet Industrial Complex has confused the hell out of me and I’m sure you too.

Take eggs. I am so confused about eggs. Should I eat them? Should I avoid them? Thing is, eggs have almost every macro and micronutrient you need. 

That leads to the question about foods high in saturated fats like red meat. Eat, or avoid, or as some would say, limit red meat.

And there is a question about grains. Can I eat any kind of whole grain? Should I avoid them?

How about simplicity? I was reading an email from AllTrails about Global Dog Day. Who knew? It was entitled, Trails and Tails Belong Together.

They gave what they called petiqutte.

Three simple guidelines. 

1. Respect leashing rules for everyone’s safety. 2. Leave no trace means scoop that poop. (This reminds me of my hikes in Broad Run Park where I walk past flowerbeds and it smells like a dog toilet.) 3. Don’t forget to bring water for your dog. I’ve seen people break this rule when they’ve been attempting to climb The Incline in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It’s a 1-mile trail that gains 2000 feet of elevation. I would shake my head wondering what people were thinking when they brought their dog and no water.

What’s a simple way of looking at nutrition? Michael Pollan gives three rules that I think help simplify the matter. His rules are: 

Eat real food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

This past week I read, “Nature Wants Us to be Fat,” by Richard Johnson, MD.

Honestly, it had some good stuff, but it was a convoluted mess. In the interest of simplicity, I’ll share two takeaways.
Both takeaways are important in understanding why it’s difficult to break up with food, and stay broke up.

Just a reminder, this is part two of “Why is Breaking up with Food so Hard to Do?”

Here is my first take away in Johnson’s book:

The reason why it is so difficult to break up and stay, broke up with food is because we are genetically engineered as a species, to easily and quickly put on weight. And we are genetically designed to keep that weight on.
Imagine if that weren’t true. Humans would be extinct.

We had to be able to put on adipose tissue, which is fat, easily and keep it on during those times of famine or lack of food.

The human species spent six months a year putting on weight by seeking out calorie dense, rich food, which included fat and sugar in the form of fruit. This genetic predisposition also included having an appetite for those calorie dense foods.

Our bodies have a regulatory system comprised mainly of hormones. That system worked very well with our early ancestors. Today it is a curse!

Almost no civilization today in the modern world has to deal with famines. But because food is abundant year-round, it’s as if the “weight gaining function” of our survival system is stuck in the on position.

The survival system is so strong that most of us could put on 10 pounds in two weeks. It is so strong that it will overwhelm your willpower, your reason, and your moral values. Richard Johnson is right, we have a difficult time breaking up with food, and staying broke up because every part of your genetic engineering and evolutionary make up is working against us. “It wants us fat,” as Johnson states in his book,  “and it wants us to stay fat.”
That’s my first take away from Johnson’s book which he takes three chapters to describe.

My second take away: Johnson tells us to stop eating sugar

I’ve written a lot about sugar and all its forms, to include added sugar, in several blogs 3-4 years ago. I could not agree more with Dr. Johnson. If there is a culprit in the awful history of obesity, it’s sugar. Johnson traces the increased manufacture and consumption of sugar and its associated increase in obesity.

If our history was from The Lord of the Rings, sugar would be Sauron. Sauron is the stuff of nightmares throughout that trilogy.
Sugar is our Darth Vader, except sugar will never come back to the side of the Force like Vader did.
Sugar is the Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men.” I cringed when I think of him.
Sugar is the Voldemort from the Harry Potter series. Voldemort’s command of dark magic is so complete he can fly without a broom. A bad dude.

KISS

Back in my Air Force days the acronym KISS came up a lot. There are several versions of what this acronym expresses. Maybe it’s not PC to express it in the USAF way, but it communicates well.

Keep it Simple Stupid

And so, here is my KISS diet, which could be stated in more simple terms, “Eat Real Food.”

1. Quit eating sugar in all its forms, except for fruit
2. Eat fruits, and vegetables. This is where we get micro-nutrients or vitamins and fiber. How much should we eat? I don’t think anyone gets enough, so eat as much as you want. How simple is that?
3. Easy lean protein. What kind of protein? Lean protein (Pork, chicken, beef, or plant-based). Most people don’t get enough protein. You should be getting .36 g for every pound. I weigh 195 pounds. That means I should be getting at least 70 g of protein. Keep it simple. Eat lean protein.
4. Get plenty of omega-3 fats. In other words, stay away from vegetable oils.
5. Stay away from processed food. All of it!

No sugar. Fruits and vegetables. Lean proteins. Omega-3 fatty acids.

Keep it Simple Stupid.

That’s the KISS Diet. It’s free. It’s been around for centuries and millennia.  You can tweak your diet with time-restricted eating. You can abstain from alcohol. You can do all kinds of things that you want to do to make your diet work, but keep it simple stupid!

Honestly, Johnson has a plan in his book that is very similar to the plan that I’ve just mentioned. It just took 270 pages to explain it. And $26.95.

It looks a lot like the Mediterranean diet. Check it out.

There is so much background noise and confusion out there about nutrition, and I believe Johnson contributes a little bit to that background noise.

One of the reasons we have a difficult time breaking up with food is all the noise and over-complication that’s been created because of peoples need for notoriety.

Everyone wants attention so they come up with a new diet.
Everyone wants a click or “like” so they come up with a novel nutritional idea and post it.
Everyone wants to make a buck so they write a book.
Everyone wants to be in the spotlight so they create a fine point that frustrates everyone, like telling you to not skip breakfast!

If you want to break up with food, and stay broke up, my recommendation is KISS!

Keep it Simple Stupid!

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

To purchase or view “Nature Wants Us to be Fat” by Richard J Johnson, MD at Carmichael’s Book Store, click here.

The Best “Breakup Strategy” You’ll Ever Use: The Push and Pull Principle! | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 5

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Why is Breaking Up with Food so Hard to Do? (Part One)

I confess. I love the series, The Office. In the past, Rommie (my wife) and I would start watching it on December 21, the first day of winter and try to stretch it out throughout the winter until March 21. We hated the dark winter and I’m sure experience, SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. The office was the Sun that we needed to survive the dark evenings.

Jim and Pam. That’s the series in a nutshell. But before there was Jim and Pam, there was Pam and Roy. For the first three seasons, Pam and Roy were on again, off again. Pam and Jim finally kissed in season 2 episode 22. I’m sure that the whole country was cheering on February 9, 2005 when they kissed, but it takes another complete season for Pam to break up with Roy.

The Push and Pull Principle

I want to introduce you to a concept that I learned 40+ years ago from a wizened professor at the college I attended, which is now Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon. I was having a difficult time leaving a church that I was attending. I was a pastoral student and the church I was attending just wasn’t nurturing me. My Professor’s advice: seek out new opportunities to serve throughout the city. He said you’ve experienced a push, but you don’t have a pull. I sought out new opportunities and found a church that was more suited to my spiritual needs.

Push and Pull with Pam and Roy. 

What were the things that pushed and pulled Pam into finally breaking up with Roy:

The Push: Roy’s mockery of her desire to go to art school. His failure to encourage her to have other relationships. And ultimately his aggression.
The Pulls: Living her dream, being independent, and being free to pursue healthy relationships.

Breaking up with people, places, and things is difficult because it takes time, energy, self-awareness, and experience to recognize the pushes in the pulls, the dysfunction versus the well-being.

I want to focus on the push of breaking up with food in this blog. Why is it so difficult to break up and change your relationships with food? It’s because our relationship with food is at times, dysfunctional and difficult to change and sometimes it’s difficult to see that dysfunction.

When we have a clear picture of the push, then we are able to respond to the pulls of a healthy lifestyle.

Here are some of my thoughts about why it’s so difficult to break up with food and recognize that dysfunction.

1. Food is everywhere. It’s everywhere and it’s abundant. For most people reading this, food is on the feast side of the feast/famine, continuum. And it’s cheap. Especially food that is full of sugar because sugar is cheap to raise.

Food is at most social functions. We are having a 10th anniversary of our company, Sage Support Services, and guess what? There will be food at the reception. Food is at weddings, birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, family, reunions, company trainings, wakes, baptisms, baby showers, and I can go on and on. It’s like you break up with your partner and see them everywhere you go, every day. That’s why it’s so hard to break up with food.

2. It’s hard to break up with food because food is engineered to taste so damn good. Sugar, salt, fat. If you add one or all of these three ingredients to food, it is irresistible. The food industry knows this. Maybe you’re one of those people that doesn’t like fast food. I don’t eat it because I know it’s a trap. I love eating out but limit how often I eat out because I would weigh a ton after six months. I love restaurant food. I love Panera breakfast sandwiches. I love McDonald’s sausage biscuit with egg. I love microwave popcorn. I love chocolate candy bars. Which one? All of them! The reason that food is hard to break up with is because it taste so damn good. Maybe there was that boyfriend or girlfriend that you had a really big crush on when you were young. Being with them was an adrenaline rush . But you broke up and you were tempted to call them and get back together 1000 times. Food is that person.

3. Why is it so hard to break up with food? Partly because it requires willpower and believe it or not, you have a limited supply willpower. I wrote about it in a blog in October 2019, entitled, Seduced by Sugar. Read it here.

I share a couple of books on willpower in that blog, and here are my takeaways.

Willpower is more affective if you’re not tempted by the presence of sugar. This is the Out of sight Out of mind principle.

Willpower is less effective when working on more than one task. Willpower over food is weakened because you have a life. Duh!

There is a reservoir of willpower, but it usually it’s exhausted by the end of the day when you need it the most.

Dieting can affect your blood sugar levels which lower your willpower. How ironic. Trying to display willpower over food will make it more difficult to break up with food.

4. It’s hard to break up with food because of our emotional connections with food. Food is a mood stabilizer. Food comforts us. That’s why we call some food, comfort food. Food makes us happy. We eat when we are bored, when we are anxious, when we are lonely. And it makes us feel better. It’s hard to break up with food because food is like our BFF. No one breaks up easily with their BFF.

5. The fifth reason why it’s difficult to break up with food is because of the delayed negative results of being in a toxic relationship with the thing we eat. In other words, just like with cigarettes, there is no immediate punishment for our over consumption of food. It takes months and years to develop a weight issue. My son and I were out hiking in the Jefferson Memorial Forest this past week and we both think we could put on 10 pounds in a week if we weren’t careful. I’m going to have a separate blog on this topic based on the book, “Nature Wants Us to be Fat.”

But that’s still a week delay in the consequence of overeating. If you consume 500 extra calories during on a given day, guess what? No punishment. Nada. Nothing. We probably won’t even feel guilty, which would be a form of punishment. 

I’m guessing that if you felt pretty bad, I mean “Covid Bad” or death-of-a-pet-bad every time you over consumed food, or ate sugar, you would, or might cut back, or eliminate sugar all together.

 Because the negative consequences are delayed, 2 to 3 pounds a turns into 20 or 30 in a decade, and because the positive consequences are immediate, as in it taste so damn good, it makes breaking up with the food very difficult.

So what’s one to do? Being overweight is very prevalent in our North American culture, but not everyone is overweight, in fact, many people have escaped their dysfunctional or toxic relationship with food and maintained a healthy weight.

I’ll be sharing eight or 10 strategies in an upcoming blog.

But first, there is a part two to this blog entitled: Keep it Simple Stupid

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

Image of tattoos showing a map; a theme in the Healthy Aging Series by Mark Neese

How to Climb Mount Grow-The-Eff-Up | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 4

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“The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America,” by Tommy Tomlinson

 I have tattoos. Don’t ask me why. I started getting them in my early 50s. Maybe I am a bit of a rebel. My son gave me my first two tattoos. He was learning to be a tattoo artist. He thinks one looks like a prison tat. I love them both. I have one that’s a quote from Larry McMurtry’s book, “Lonesome Dove.” It’s the Latin quote that Gus McCray put on the livery-stable sign, “Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit.” People ask me what it means, and I answer, “It doesn’t mean anything.” That’s why I love.

The tattoo that I get asked most about is on my left forearm. It’s the solar system. The earth is blue. People ask, “What is it?”  I answer, “It’s a map for when you get lost. Just look for the blue planet.” They smile.

I love maps. I have close to a hundred. My office has them hanging from several walls. I have never felt more helpless than being lost without a map. I tried hiking a trail a few years ago in the Jefferson Memorial Forest. The trail was the Mitch McConnell Trail (no kidding). It had been decommissioned in lieu of a new horse-friendly trail. I had no map. I got lost.

Maps help me find order. Maps comfort me. They help me plan my hike and not only tell me where I’m going but tell me where I’ve been.

The Elephant in the Room

Tommy Tomlinson’s memoir, “The Elephant in the Room“ was a kind of map for me. The map might have been in titled, “How do you Find a New Thinner You?” Maybe not thinner, but at least healthier. Tomlinson weighed 460 pounds on December 31, 2014. He ends with his “Destination Weight” on Thanksgiving of 2017 at 375 pounds.

Food is an important topic of his book. I underlined every mention of and I’m guessing I underlined food in over 200 of the 243 pages. He writes a lot about food.

But his memoir is not a map for weight loss. It’s a map for self-discovery.

That’s what makes this such a good map. Tomlinson was lost in the obesity wilderness for 50+ years. He had a destination marked on the map: Mt. Weight Loss. He started out on that trail to the summit. He lost weight, but he ended up at a place that was unexpected. In the process of writing his story of obesity, his “fat story“ (his words), Thomason finds healing.

This is the second obesity memoir I’ve read for this season. I have three or four more to read. Thus far they are stories of healing from past trauma, and they are stories of personal growth that eventually lead to weight loss. What Tomlinson discovered was that he had  difficulty adjusting to the idea of being an adult.

“This in the end,“ he writes, “is what it’s all about for me. To control my weight, to get in shape, to become the person I am supposed to be, I have to shake the habits that I had clung to me since I was a kid.”

Tomlinson points out what Thomas Wolfe called a “loose life“ meaning, a life with shaky morals, bad habits, and ready-made excuses or a life that is lived without any concern for consequences.

For Tomlinson, the loose life, meant that all he wanted was with food, because food had given him more pleasure than anything else. “I knew how much it would cost me later,” he writes, “but I craved that moment of joy now.”

On top of that mountain with the thin air and 50 mph winds, with the unencumbered, 360° vista, he discovered, “That’s the way a child thinks.”

The name of this mountain: Mount Grow-the-Eff-up.

“I have lived to realize,“ he writes, “that Adulting is the only way I can beat my addiction to food.“

All of this is on pages 222 to 223. Brilliant insight. It took a year of wandering, or maybe 50 years of wandering. For Tomlinson, it felt like a year of hiking through those mucky sloughs and struggling through all those wicked switchbacks and backtracking to re-acquire the trail, and finally summiting the mountain that only those with courage attempt.

This past week I hiked Mount Sherman, which is 14,043 feet in elevation.

Afterwards, while changing clothes in the parking lot at the trailhead (people have no modesty at trailheads), I spoke with a couple about my age about the hike. We all agreed: 14ers, suck especially the last half mile. But afterwards, when you’ve finished, when you’re back at the trailhead, high fiving each other, you feel such a sense of pride in yourself, and may stronger. And then you start planning for another!

I’m not going to summarize Tomlinson’s memoir. He’s a professional writer. It’s good stuff. Lots of insight. Lots of pain. Lots of shame and embarrassment.

I am not obese, but I do struggle with weight management. I also struggle with personal growth. I struggle with not acting like a child sometimes. I’m 67 but act like six or seven at times. I’m at the mercy of the moment. Most of our problems, most of our addictions, most of our pain and turmoil our produced by self-manufactured misery, rooted in our childish appetites, and expectations or maybe what Wolfe calls, loose living.

Maybe it’s time to take out your map.

Mark a trail that leads to a place of growth. A mountain maybe.

Maybe a mountain called Mt. Grow-the-Eff-up!

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

Dysfunctional Relationship With Food Characteristics

Is your Relationship with Food Dysfunctional? | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 3

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It’s not easy to determine when a relationship with food or even with people is dysfunctional.

Why is that?

First, there are different kinds of relationships. You have friendships, and family relationships, 

and romantic partnerships, as well as business partnerships. If you use the amount of intimacy to determine whether they are dysfunctional, many of these would likely be dysfunctional.

Second, there are no assessments to determine what is dysfunctional, especially when it comes to food. We will look at some criteria that will help with this.

Third, there’s a continuum of dysfunctional when it comes to relationships. In other words, your relationship with others, and with food could be mildly dysfunctional or severely dysfunctional.

Of course, there are extreme examples of dysfunctional, which would include abuse, an out-of-balance power differential, conflict, disloyalty, and chronic resentment.

That’s not an exhaustive list, but I hope you get the point.

The Intuition Test

There is an intuitive way of determining whether you’re in a dysfunctional relationship with others or with food, and that is simply to ask, “Are you happy with that relationship?”

If you’re not happy with your relationship, then it’s likely dysfunctional.

Many years ago, one of my mentors shared why their first marriage failed. They had been part of a book club, and we’re reading. “As I Day dying,“ by William Faulkner. Not an easy read. “We separated, because I just didn’t agree with his interpretation of the book.“ I’m guessing that there were many other issues and it’s likely that this was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

What does a dysfunctional relationship with food look like? I think the place to start is, are you happy with that relationship.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Am I frustrated by constant overeating and weight gain?
  • Am I frustrated that I eat the types of food that I know aren’t good for me?
  • Do I feel guilty regularly because I impulse eat?
  • Am I dissatisfied with my body? Note: most of us would say yes, but it’s still an important question to ask. 
  • Do I feel helpless avoiding sweets regularly?
  • How do I feel about food?

The answers to these questions provide data points that are more intuitive and would provide insight into the type of relationship that you have with food.

Bio Metrics Tests

What about other more concrete data points? Are there biometrics/biomarkers that indicate that your relationship with food is dysfunctional?

BMI

First, the most obvious biometric would be your BMI. I know, BMI seems to be geared toward insurance companies and their desire to keep people thin, lowering their risk factors for early death, but still, it’s not a bad biometric.

My BMI is over 25. If you look at the weight charts, a BMI over 25 put you in the overweight category. Most people would look at me and laugh if I told them that I was overweight. Yes, I am carrying around some extra fat around my waist, but I also think as you age, you should carry a little bit more fat. In fact, having a lower BMI  can create a situation that put you at risk for some neurological disorders. I’ll share more about that later when I share some other neurological disorders. 

Having said that, if you have a BMI of over 30, you are likely overweight. Some charts would even put you at obese.  So, one biometric that would indicate a dysfunctional relationship with food would be your BMI.

Type 2 Diabetes

Second, Type 2 Diabetes, or an elevated A1C. Typically, Type 2 Diabetes is an insulin-resistance metabolic disorder, and it is most likely the result of a dysfunctional relationship with food. I know there are exceptions, but, if you have a high A1C, or have been diagnosed with either pre-Type 2 Diabetes, or Type 2 Diabetes, you need to seriously consider changing your relationship with food. We all have a love affair with sugar. But that love affair is killing you.

Blood Work

Third, blood work. I see my doctor twice a year and she orders bloodwork once a year. Sometimes twice depending on the results from the previous bloodwork. I don’t want to get into the details here because I’m not a medical professional, but your bloodwork is likely to indicate whether your relationship with food is dysfunctional. This would include things like your blood glucose levels, triglycerides, and HDL\LDL cholesterol results.

Your blood work will not lie about whether you have a dysfunctional relationship with food. Just ask it. And then listen.

I know there’s a lot of controversy around a lot of these types of measurements and biometrics, but they reflect what you eat. My close friend, Sam, is constantly reminding me of Barry Sears’ book, “The Zone,” and likes to point out that Barry Sears sees food as medicine.  I like that comparison. But I also like looking at the relationship I have with food. Dysfunctional relationships with people often display physical markers, unfortunately. And your dysfunctional relationship with food will show up in your blood work .

Vascular Screening

Fourth, vascular screening. About three years ago my doctor recommended a vascular screening because my cholesterol was indicating that I was at a high risk for a cardiac event within the next 10 years. There’s a lot of controversy about cholesterol and longevity, and the need for statins, but I want to respect her advice, so I agreed to the vascular screening. The vascular screening is rated from 0 to 400. My vascular screening was below 100, probably in the 30 range so it put me at mild risk for cardiac event. Therefore, she said that she would simply recommend a Staten but would not push it.  Vascular screenings are another biometric that indicate the relationship that you have with food. It looks at blood flow through your carotid arteries and how much calcium or plaque is built up in and around your heart. If you want to know if your relationship with food is dysfunctional, a vascular screening might help.

Your Fitness Level

Fifth, although your level of fitness is not directly tied to your relationship with food, your relationship with food can influence your total level of fitness. So, it might be a good biometric to test yourself physically to see where you are. Here is a link for an online fitness test from the Mayo Clinic:   https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/fitness/art-20046433

My Fitness Biomarkers

I have a couple of fitness exams that I give myself. One is in the Smoky Mountains. I  hike Mount LeConte each summer and then ask myself, “How did I do?” The other test I put myself through is a hike in Colorado near my son’s home called The Manitou Incline. It’s a 1-mile hike which has an elevation gain of 2000 feet. I generally can do it in 75 minutes.  I might add the Grand Canyon as well. I do a general assessment of myself after hiking out of the Grand Canyon to determine my level of fitness. These “test“ indicate how well am I taking care of my body. There isn’t much difference in having a dysfunctional relationship with food.  A dysfunctional relationship with food generally would indicate that you’re not taking care of your body.

Sugar, Salt, Saturated Fat

Six, your choice of foods. Fat. Salt. Sugar. I’ve read a lot about all three of these macro and micronutrients. Sometimes, hanging out with people can be dysfunctional, even though we enjoy their company at times. I think the same thing holds true for food. Salt, sugar, and fat make us feel good. They make everything taste better. Unfortunately, they aren’t good friends. Sugar for sure. Saturated fats as well. And excessive amount of salt is unhealthy. If you regularly choose to “hang out“ with these foods, it’s likely that you have a dysfunctional relationship with food.

OK, that’s a good starting point. Is your relationship with food dysfunctional???

The next question that I want to ask, which I’ll answer in Episode 5, is: Why is it so difficult to break up with food?

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

Our Country’s Greatest Scourge – Reflections on “It was Me all Along: A Memoir,” by Andie Mitchell | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 2

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I am a cyclist. I don’t ride as much as I used to ride because my primary sport is backpacking and I’m usually preparing for backpacking trips to places like the Red River Gorge, the Smokies, the Grand Canyon, Colorado, or Utah.

When I was 55, I rode my bicycle across the state of Indiana in one day. They call it the RAIN Ride. It was on my birthday, and it started in Terre Haute, my birthplace. Pretty cool.

A year later, I flew to DC, took my bike, and rode the Vernon trail from Mount Vernon to DC, about 20 miles. I rode through the District Columbia and hooked up with a couple of local cyclists that guided me to the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, and finally to the Tryst Coffee Chop next to the Madam’s Organ Bar. Also, a cool trip.

It was a memorable trip, because of the conversation that I had with a musician I met near downtown Alexandria, just off the Vernon trail. I had stopped to take a bathroom break and struck up a conversation with a gentleman setting up his glass harp. He shared information about his life. He had immigrated as a young child from Eastern Europe. He told the story about how his father had a problem with alcohol. That they lost the family home and everything they owned because of his drinking problem. “Alcohol is the scourge of this country,” he declared.

My heart broke for him. It’s not the first time I’d heard a story like this. My son’s great-great grandfather lost his ranch to alcoholism.

But I beg to differ with him. 

The Real Scourge in this Country

There’s no doubt that alcoholism is a devastating social problem in our country and in the world, but I have come to believe that there is a more devastating scourge in this country, and that is childhood obesity.

According to the Center for Disease Control, for children 2 to 19 years old, from 2017 to 2020, 1 in 5 are obese or about 14.7 million. We are not talking about being overweight but being obese or having a BMI of over 30. Compare that to the obesity rate of 1 in 20, in 1974, the year I graduated from High School. Some of the reasons for this increase are easy access to high-calorie junk food, few opportunities for physical activity, a lack of parks and playgrounds, and at least one parent who is obese.

Here’s a kicker: obese children and adolescents are five times more likely to be obese adults then those who are not obese as children or adolescents. And obesity can leave emotional as well as physical scars.

I recently read, “It was Me all Along,“ by Andie Mitchell, a story about growing up obese and overcoming it in her early 20s.

One take away that I gleaned from this memoir, and it confirmed my beliefs, was that childhood obesity is a scourge in this country. There is an increased risk mortality in early adulthood for individuals who were obese as children. Obesity in adolescence is significantly associated with increased cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders, such as Type 2 Diabetes in adulthood. There have been recent studies that show a higher BMI during adolescence increases the risk for several malignancies, such as leukemia, Hodgkin’s Disease, colorectal, cancer, and breast cancer in adulthood. These are some of the physical scars.

Andie Mitchell’s story has a difficult trajectory, but she struggled through years of trauma and shame as a child and adolescent suffering from obesity. 

I want to separate this blog into two episodes. Part one will look at childhood obesity through the eyes of Andie Mitchell. I think it’s helpful not just to look at the data but look at the damage caused by childhood obesity.

Part two will look at Andie’s break up with food. First, what motivated her to break up. I think her break up reinforces everything I write about in this season, and second, how did she maintain her breakup.

Andie Mitchell’s Childhood
Childhood obesity left an impression on Andie Mitchell that has continued throughout her life, even though she’s no longer obese. Obesity changes you and it is difficult to escape the physical and emotional scars.

Andie, in her 20s, had surgery to remove the excess skin that resulted from years of accommodating her obesity. Those scars are with her today at 32. But the emotional scars that obesity left, I’m certain, are deeper and at times painful reminders of her shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. She suffered at a time when social inclusion and acceptance by her peers was so important.

“The boys in my class called me fat,” she writes, “while the girls looked on, smiling.” 

Here’s what she learned as a child and teenager.

“I learned that if I made fun of myself for being fat, then the other kids couldn’t do it first. I learned that being funny, especially with the boys, made it much less likely they’d call me things like “wide load” or “lard butt.”

Recalling those moments, she writes, “The sadness I felt then and even sometimes now blares within me. It’s an all-encompassing, piercing sound – a fire alarm. It shrieks so loudly, I cower. I seek refuge by covering my ears. I think briefly about ducking beneath the stairwell, hoping its shrillness will be muffled if I hide from it. But it finds me always. It finds me when I am in the shower or walking on a treadmill; it wakes me suddenly in the night. It forces me to uncover my ears. And I hear it while trying not to listen to what it means. The pain, the sound – it’s deafening.”

“Eating,” she later rights, “made me forget.”

Through these years, Andie developed a relationship with food. She depended on it, not as fuel, but for companionship, someone to be comforted by and feel connected with. “Food came to exist as the only thing in my life that was mine, and mine alone.“

Andie’s most heartbreaking story happened as a freshman at the University of Massachusetts. I’ll share the story in her words.

“We decided to take a different route back to the dorm and in doing so, passed by a row of off-campus houses, hosting rowdy parties of their own. Inside the house, just ahead of on our right, people could be seen in every window and rap music thundered out of the front door. A group of guys stood out front. Feeling friendly Nicole called out,“Heey!“ As we slowed our stride, the guys turned around, and the tallest one stepped forward, immediately returning Nicole‘s enthusiasm. What are you girls up to? We stopped here on the sidewalk while Nicole explained in her friendly way that we just left  SigEp and that we were on our way back to our dorms. It was a gift of hers to create conversation with anyone, and it seemed her charm had found us a new party to Rock. That is, until one of the guys on the lawn shouted to us. “Hey you!” His eyes were on me. I smiled and started to toss a hello back his way. “No Fatties allowed!!“ It was a swift kick to my stomach.“

There are many, many things that affect us as children. Crooked or discolored teeth, facial scars, or birthmarks, a cleft palate, not to mention skin color, a gender assignment that mismatches with one’s identification, a first or last name, and I could go on and on. 

People can be Thoughtless, Mean, and Cruel

Children, high school peers, and adults can be thoughtless, mean, and cruel. Their actions dehumanize us. They make us into that one thing that is different about us. 

With childhood obesity, children begin seeing themselves as a body, not as a person with feelings, hopes, needs, intellectual gifts, whit, and other amazing interests. Consequently, everything is seen through that lens. They see themselves as powerless to change and learn to hate themselves. They begin to equate beauty with thin and become obsessed with the idea that they will never be beautiful. They begin to hate food. 

Complexes

The inner scars from childhood obesity can run deep. Dr. Carl Jung, the founder of Analytical Psychology describes this as a complex, an unconscious, organized set of memories, associations, fantasies, expectations, and behavioral patterns or tendencies around a core theme, which is accompanied by strong emotion. 

Childhood obesity develops a complex within a child’s unconscious that possesses and controls them throughout their life, which can lead to neuroses, depression, and self-loathing, if not treated . 

Getting Help with Obesity

Andie Mitchell got help from a therapist and a nutritionist. They didn’t heal her because individuation, the process of becoming your true self, is a lifelong process. She lost weight, changed her relationship with food, changed the way she looked at food and is now helping people through her website, “Can You Stay for Dinner.“

Part two will come later in the season and look at how Andie broke up with food and maintained that breakup for years.

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

Breaking Up (with Food) is Hard to Do – The Mark Neese Version | Healthy Aging Series: Season 9, Episode 1

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[Verse 1]
Don’t take my food away from me!
Don’t you leave my stomach in misery?
If it goes then I’ll be blue!
‘Cuz breaking up (with food) is hard to do.

[Verse 2]
Remembering how it taste so good.
I even dream of full plates of food.
Think of all that we’ve been through.
And breaking up with food is hard to do!

[Chorus]
They say that breaking up with food is hard to do,
Now, I know, I know that it’s true!
I lost some weight, but now it’s back!
Instead of breaking up, I think I’ll have another stack (of cookies)!

[Verse 3]
I beg of you, don’t say goodbye!
Why can’t I have another piece of pie?
Come on, donuts, let’s start a new!
‘Cuz breaking up (with food) is hard to do!

[Chorus]

They say that breaking up with food is hard to do
Now, I know, I know that it’s true!
Why can’t I keep off all those pounds!
Instead of breaking up, I think I’ll have another Mounds (Bar)

[Verse 4]
I beg of you, don’t say goodbye!
Can’t I have another order of fries?
Come on, sugar, let’s start anew!
‘Cuz breaking up with food is hard to do

The original “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” is a song recorded by Neil Sedaka, co-written by Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. Sedaka recorded this song twice, in 1962 and 1975, in two significantly different arrangements, and it is considered to be his signature song. -Wikipedia

Why is it so hard to lose weight AND keep it off? 

You know the drill. Over the course of 3 or 4 years, you put on an extra 20 lbs. You get tired of seeing yourself in the mirror. You muster up the motivation to start a weight reduction diet, something healthy like the Whole 30 Diet. There are several healthy diets, but the Whole 30 has worked for me.

You set a goal to lose 20 lbs. and give yourself 8 to 12 weeks to lose those pounds.

You struggle. You experience diet fatigue. You add an exercise regimen to the weight loss plan. And slowly, you lose the weight. As each week goes by, you’re amazed that your clothes are fitting better and you’re able to wear clothes that you never thought you’d wear again. You feel great. You’ve been able to show discipline over your appetites and control over food.

Now comes the depressing part. 

A year later you gained all the weight back. All of it. In fact, you settle in at the same weight that you were when you started the diet.

And this isn’t the first time you’ve done this. You’ve lost weight before. Six months or a year later you’re back at the same weight. It feels like a yo-yo.

There are some that refer to this weight that you always come back to as your Set Weight Point (SWP).

There was a recent Ted Talk that attempted to explain the SWP. The speaker explained that the SWP is mostly genetic and is “hard-wired” into our bodies. 

“The set point theory says that the body will settle at a specific weight where it likes to be,” says MD Anderson Senior Exercise Physiologist Carol Harrison. “And it will defend itself so that it stays at this specific weight.”

“The set point is established over a long period of time,” says Harrison. “It’s a very complex thing, but it appears that it is your body’s attempt to regulate itself, and that attempt results in a certain weight.”

I want to propose a different way of looking at SWP. Your SWP reflects the kind relationship that you have with food.

Your SWP reflects the patterns and routines that you develop with food over the course of your life. These patterns include what you eat, how much you eat, where you eat, how often you eat, who you eat with.

Food comforts us. It brings us pleasure. Much of our social life revolves around food. We think about it even when we’re not hungry. We eat when we are angry, or sad, or happy. We have an emotional attachment to food.

At times, we have a toxic or dysfunctional relationship with food! And it’s a difficult relationship to change. 

If you want to change the how, what, when, where, and why about food, then you must change your relationship with food.

Maybe we need to have a “break up” with food and by break up I mean changing how we live our lives with food.

Think about being in a toxic friendship. You can’t simply keep seeing the person, talking to them, and spending time with them and then expect that it’s going improve without addressing the things about that friendship that make it toxic.

Maybe your relationship with food isn’t toxic but, at a minimum, it’s dysfunctional.

This season was originally intended to be one episode in Season 9 but as I read and wrote, the episodes grew and there will be at least 12 episodes. 

I’ve included several episodes from “obesity memoirs,” from people who struggled with obesity, had a breakup with food and maintained that breakup.

There are two books that I devoured (sorry for the pun) during my reading this season. One helps you change the way you think about food and yourself, “The Beck Diet.” And the other is “Dopamine Nation,” which will help you understand that you can be addicted to food.

In Episode 3, I explain what it means to have a dysfunctional relationship with food.

In Episode 5, I explain why is so difficult to break up with food.

Starting with Episode 7, I give several cognitive-behavioral strategies that will help you in the breakup process.

In Episode 2, my next episode I share an “obesity memoir” entitled, “It was Me all Along,” by Andie Mitchell. A wonderful story about a woman’s breakup with food.

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

Healthy Aging Series by Mark Neese

How to Have a Killer Retirement: 3 Principles for “Writing Your Own Script” | Healthy Aging Series: Part 18

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I was sitting at a McDonald’s a few years ago and overheard a conversation between two men. Both men were in their early 60’s. I recall that one of them had already retired and he was trying to convince the other man to retire. His argument was that when you retire, your time is your own.

It’s interesting the way we are programmed about retirement. Work all your adult life until you turn sixty-five. Stop working. Live on your retirement income. End of story. That’s how it’s written. I get it. I can’t imagine working a job when I’m eighty or ninety. Or maybe I can. I met with a couple this morning. They’re owners of an agency called, “The Center for Conscious Aging.” Chris, who is seventy-three, has a mother who is ninety-three. She retired at eighty-seven. Chris is still working. Maybe, that’s not how it’s written.

My brother-in-law is eighty-four and still working. People continue to work into their seventies and eighties for several reasons. They want to make a difference. They need to supplement their retirement income. They need to stay connected with people. They simple love what they do. Lots of reason. There is no right way or wrong way to spend your senior years. Retirement is a social construct. It’s a pre-written script that many, many individuals during retirement age refuse to follow. Maybe, we can write our own script for retirement.

I’ve been reading a lot of books on aging and one phrase that has come up a few times is: “You need to write your own script.” Maybe the word ‘narrative’ resonates with people today. 

Creating Your Own Script/Narrative.

The beauty of the retirement years is you get to decide what they look like. They are YOUR retirement years. Not mine. Not your children’s. Not your co-worker’s. Not your wife’s. You only get one crack at your senior years. Maybe thirty or thirty-five years if you’ve taken care of yourself and if you’re lucky. You get the chance to craft a life for yourself that will bring you happiness and contentment. Sure, there are limits to what you can do, limits to what your narrative will look like, but still, regardless of your limits, you can craft a life that suits you. You can write a script that mirrors what you value and what you find important.

How does one write their own script?

For some of you reading this, it’s too soon to start writing you script. You’re in your forties and fifties. The last thing you’re thinking about is retirement. But it’s not too soon to start dreaming about your future self, about what your life might look like in your seventies and eighties.

But if you’re in your late fifties or early sixties, it’s time to start, and here are some principles that I have used to write my script.

First Principle: What Gives Me Meaning and Purpose in Life?

My script reflects my desire to make a difference in this world. I can’t imagine not doing what I do. I get up each week, knowing that I help people face and solve their problems. It’s tiresome at times, but a good kind of tiresome. I work with a teen that is struggling with gender identity issues. I work with an elderly woman that lost her husband. I work with a young man that has lost his way. And a woman that struggles with her life choices. My script involves working  as long as I’m able to listen and express care and concern. What gives you meaning and purpose? Making furniture? Volunteering at the local homeless shelter? Crafting? Being a mentor to young people in your church, synagogue, or neighborhood? Being a Friendly Visitor? Whatever it is, write those things into your script.

Second Principle: What do I value?

My Script reflects the relationships that I value. I value my relationship with my wife. No surprise there! I value my relationship with my sons, with my grandchildren, and with my friends. My script reflects the people that I value. My script has me home most of the time with my wife. My script has me spending some evenings during the month with my son, Derrick, and every three months with my other son, Trevor, and my two granddaughters, Sophie and Harper. My script has me hiking with my good friend, Sam, and a couple of young men that challenge the hell out of me, Chris and Stacy. I have written people into my script.

Third Principle: Taking care of Myself.

My script reflects the importance of taking care of myself. I remember visiting my father after a very long and grueling backpacking trip in the Sierra Mountains. His response was, “Kimberly (the name he called me), that doesn’t seem like fun to me!” I said, “We’ll Dad, it wasn’t fun. That’s not why I do it!” His script didn’t involve challenging himself, mentally and physically that way. Mine did.

My script involves hiking, biking, and lifting weights. It involves limiting my sugar intake. Watching my weight. Reading self-help books. It involves watching very stupid movies like Sharknado and watching funny series like “What we do in the Shadows.”
My script involves spending time with my extended family. It involves walking every Thursday with my friend Gordon. It involves having some good collegial friends that I can call and consult with about tough cases.

My script involves what we call, self-care. I tell the newer therapists that I supervise, if they want to continue doing what they are doing for the next 25 or 30 years, they need to take care of themselves. How are they going to take care of others, their family, and friends, and their clients, if they are spent? I have written Self-Care into my script. Maybe this is where I should have started.

Writing your own script doesn’t mean that you are literally writing a script. What it means is, you are living the life that you want regardless of what others say. It means following your own compass in your senior years, your True North.

I love the movie, “Citizen Kane.”  The character played by Orson Welles, is on his deathbed, and with his last breath says, “Rosebud.” The reporter that witnessed his death spends the rest of movie trying to figure out, who was Rosebud. I won’t spoil the ending, other than to say that Rosebud was important to him. His final word reflected the script that he had been living.

What will you say on your deathbed? What is your Rosebud? Are you living a script that you’ve written?

I’m not sure what my last words will be in my script. I haven’t written them yet. Maybe they’ll be, “Game over, man!” (I love the movie Aliens) Or, maybe I’ll write something else. Maybe I’ll write what McMurtry wrote into Gus McCrae’s last words, into his script in Lonesome Dove. “It’s been quite a party, ain’t it, Woodrow.”

This is part eighteen in the Healthy Aging Series, written by Mark Neese, LCSW, BCBA. To see more entries in this series, click here.

Heathy Aging Series: How to Clean up after Yourself, before You Die

How to Clean Up After Yourself, Before You Die | Healthy Aging Series: Part 17

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I think about dying almost every day. I know it sounds a little morbid. It’s actually hard to not think about it. I’m not quite pushing 70 but I’m closer to 70 then I am to 60. I have signs that I’m aging and in fact dying. Graying hair. White whiskers. Organs and body parts not working as well as they used to. When my senior friends and I get together, those meetings turn out to be what some referred to as an “organ recitals.” Comparing the last lab work, or doctor visit, or health insurance.

What do I think about when I think about dying? 

At times, I think about how I’m going to get rid of all the junk that I have accumulated over the years. I’ve begun to see my senior years is it time to start divesting myself of material things.  That’s why Margaretta Magnusson’s book, “The gentle art of Swedish Death Cleaning,“ caught my eye. I’m sure we’ve all witnessed death cleaning. My mother cleaned up after my grandfather when he died. I wasn’t living at home at the time, but I remember mom talking about how painful it was. When my paternal grandfather died, I remember my father getting grandpa’s Remington 16-gauge shotgun. I think there was a lottery process that grandma used to distribute his things. That was Death Cleaning. 

What is that cleaning? It’s the act of getting rid of the things that people accumulated during their life after they die. In some ways, it means cleaning up the mess that people made while they were living. Often, Death Cleaning falls on wives and daughters. They clean up after their family members when they die. 

Magnusson suggest a different approach to death cleaning, one that shows compassion to the ones we leave behind. She advocates that we “clean up after ourselves before we die.” Here are her or her gentle guidelines for the art of doing your own death cleaning. 

First, Magnusson reminds us that there is no sadness in thinking about or doing your own death cleaning. There is no sadness in visiting the things you accumulated one last time before finding them a new home. There is no sadness when you introduce your things to a new owner who will use them and appreciate them. I had a kayak and a mountain bike sitting in my garage. Neither one had been used for five years. I found them new homes with new owners that would use them and appreciate them. There was nothing sad about that desk cleaning. 

Magnusson‘s second gentle guideline involves getting started. Getting started generally involves three phases: 

PHASE ONE OF DEATH CLEANING

Go through your things. Do a survey. During this beginning phase you must get past your sentimentality. I don’t work with hoarders but I’m guessing that it’s sentimentality that creates the problem of accumulating all the things they have. It’s probably the answer to the question: Why do I keep my things and why did I accumulate them in the first place. As you do your survey of things, think about the boxes and boxes of things you have in your basement and in your garage and in your attic. The boxes of your children’s elementary school papers, and childhood toys, old Hallmark cards, childhood books, baby blankets, old tools, old dishes, the small appliances that you haven’t use for the past five years, bicycles you never ride, gifts you’ve never taken out of the boxes, clothing you never wear anymore, and the list can go on and on. Survey your storage unit if you have one. 

Why are all the new storage units being built? They are going up everywhere! And they are full of the things you’ve accumulated because of sentimentality. And it is sentimentality that is creating this hold on you and prevents you from getting rid of them. People who invest in building storage unts are counting on it. Think about how much people are willing to spend to nurture their sentimentality. Typically, a small unit is $75-$100 per month. Phase One: survey all of the things that you’ve accumulated and keep in mind the reason why you still have them. Sentimentality.

PHASE TWO OF DEATH CLEANING

Sort your Things. In your mind start two piles: The things you want to keep and the things you want to find a new home. Magnusson goes through the survey and begins with clothing. I do this regularly. I pull out totes with clothes that I haven’t worn for the past year or two. I have “keep and giveaway” piles. The giveaway pile I bag up and take to Goodwill. I have three criteria and deciding what goes into which pile. 

Do they fit anymore? Yes or no. Have I worn them in the past year? Yes or no. Would I wear them again? Do I still like them? Yes or no. Keep or give away.

Books. I love books and seeing them on bookshelves in my office. I have developed a new Death Cleaning policy for buying books. For every new book I buy I get rid of a book. I periodically go through my books and ask:

Why do I have this book? If it’s purely sentimental it’s going into the “giveaway“ pile.

I have a problem with coffee cups. I get cups from places I’ve visited. The Starbucks in San Francisco, Phoenix, Grand Canyon, make it hard for me to walk away without a cup. I’ve picked up cups in most national parks. I a new cup from the great Smoky Mountains national Park. I like to drink out of cups from places I’ve been. I’m kind of sentimental about that. But our kitchen cabinet can only handle so many cups. We have boxes of cups we never use. It’s time to sort through them. Two piles. Keep or give away.

PHASE THREE OF DEATH CLEANING

Get rid of the “find a new home“ pile. Magnusson has a couple of suggestions that make it a little easier on us as we confront our sentimentality. First, she suggests we take our time. This process can take place over a period of years. I’ve set aside some books my mother gave me for my granddaughters. I’ll give them the books. in a few years. I gave away four guitars to my sons. I think the important part of phase 3 is to begin the process of finding your things a new home. Her second suggestion is to start with less sentimental items and slowly move toward the more sentimental things. This helps “prime the pump.” You experience the satisfaction of getting rid of things that are less sentimental, and then you’re willing to try it with more sentimental things to experience the same satisfaction.

Stop accumulating things!

One of the best ways to begin cleaning up after yourself before you die is to avoid making a mess of things before you die. 

Quit buying things you don’t need!

Quit accumulating sentimental things that have no practical value.

Start finding things a new owner by never giving them a new home in the first place. 

Resist your sentimentality.

My Mother’s Death Cleaning

The day my mother died, I stayed in her little apartment. She didn’t have much. She had already given away most of her things. I had asked for her Gladys Tabor books a few years earlier and they had found a new home. I had given her Joseph Campbell’s, “Hero with a Thousand Faces,“ for her birthday a few years earlier. I did a little Death Cleaning and took it with me along with a knitted blanket and Clock. Her grandchildren were invited over a day or two later to claim the things they wanted. 

Mom made it easy for us because she had cleaned up after herself before she died.

I have a lot of stuff, a lot of things. I’m guessing you do, too. Do the loving and considerate thing and start the process of Death Cleaning now. 

Avoid making a mess in your life, that someone else will be forced to clean up, by walking away from the things you never needed in the first place. And give the rest away!

This is part seventeen in the Healthy Aging Series, written by Mark Neese, LCSW, BCBA. To see more entries in this series, click here.

Healthy Aging Series Which Old Woman Will You Be?: A Book Review (Really My Reflections on a Book)

Which Old Woman Will You Be? A Book Review | Healthy Aging Series: Part 16

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In this week’s entry to the Healthy Aging Series, I offer my thoughts concerning Debbie Hensleigh’s book, Which Old Woman Will You Be? Do’s and Don’ts for Living Your ThirdThird on Purpose.

Which Old Woman Will You Be?: Do's and Don'ts to Live Your Best ThirdThird on Purpose by Debbie Hensleigh

Image via Goodreads

Hensleigh writes:

“Start being that old woman you want to be… on purpose. Determined to live on purpose, intentionally forecasting which old woman you will become.”

I enjoyed this book. Simple. To the point. I use the slogan, “You’ve got to prepare for the last
10 years of your life.” Hensleigh agrees. She begins her book talking about an experience at a
nursing home where she meets two of the residents. One woman is somebody that she admires
and the other woman, she finds annoying and even offensive. She asks herself, which old woman
will I become. Maybe a trip to the nursing home would benefit all of us.

I shared an experience in an earlier blog about an elderly man that I called “Kroger Man,” an
individual that demonstrates that there are people who have reached their 70s and 80s, that none
of us want to become. Hensleigh’s book provides a very simple but meaningful outline of
do’s and don’ts that you can begin implementing right now if you’re in your 40s and 50s to
ensure that  your senior years will be meaningful and happy. I’ve used the “You have to
prepare for the last 10 years of your life” slogan because people tend to be mesmerized into
thinking that they’re never going to be old and they’re never going to have trouble as they get
older.

Hensleigh‘s book is an optimistic and positive approach to looking at preparing for your senior
years.  I liked it. I keep saying that. She has seven do’s and don’ts that I believe are a wonderful
outline for preparing for those last 10 years.

The Do’s and Don’ts

1. Quit Comparing Yourself to Others.

I think we’re living in a day and age where competition and comparison are toxic. They create a
frame of mind that can ruin your happiness and well-being. Life isn’t a competition. We should
strive to become our Authentic Selves. This means living a life that is based on your values and
beliefs, living a life that is completely distinct from what you think other people want for you, or
what others want you to be. It’s liberating!

Many writers that address the issue of aging talk about the idea of writing your own script.
Don’t allow others to write the aging script for you. Be true to yourself. Don’t allow yourself to
fall victim to the social pressures of comparing your body, or your finances, or your children to
those of others. Stop!!!!

This chapter was very helpful in looking at that life that is lived on its own terms and not on the
terms of others.

2. Being More Interesting.

I remember when I was in my early 50s. I found myself to be a rather uninteresting person and I
made a commitment to becoming more interesting and started with the area of music. My son
had downloaded many songs on our computer in the 90s. He left in the 2000s and  I started
exploring the computer and discovered thousands of wonderful songs and music that inspired me
to become a more interesting person.

I’ve begun the process of exploring life and exploring the world and exploring people. I’ve done
some studies on archetypes and one of my archetypes is an intellectual. I’ve discovered as a feed
that intellectual archetype I am more in tune with who I am and more satisfied with my life. 
Being interesting means broadening your life and your life interest to explore this wonderful and
beautiful world and culture that we live in.

3. Refuse to Be Lonely.

Early in my educational process, one of my professors disclosed that all his relationships were
intentional. I think he meant that he had relationships, not based on the idea of numbers but,
based on what he needed  and how those friendships met that need.

My mom, as she aged, developed relationships around a Hardee’s restaurant down the street
from where she lived. She would walk there every morning and spend a couple hours talking to
her friends and having coffee and a sausage biscuit. Those friends became a very important
part of her life.

I’ve developed a community of people in my life that revolve around my interest. My wife and I
share our travels, our personal development time, our TV series, and kitties. I have hiker friends.
I have intellectual friends. Of course, I have my extended family and my work family. Surround
yourself with good people.

4. Read Books

Hensleigh encourages people to be readers. I love books. Not in the same way that I love my
wife, children, and grandchildren, but I love books. Books are a way of exploring for me. My
mother introduced me to books when I was in high school, and I’ve been reading books ever
since. My office is full of books. I love buying books. I love reading books.  Books scratch me
where I itch. Hensleigh suggests that books are important for personal growth and broadening
ourselves as individuals. I agree.

5. Don’t Be Boring (Or Maybe, Don’t be Bored)

I think what she is suggesting here is that we  provide nourishment to our brain. She talks about
learning new things. She reminds us that nurturing our brain and providing nutrition for a brain
must be intentional.

6. Know Your Purpose

I’ve spent most of my adult life in the helping profession and certainly this is very important to
me.  I work with young men largely. But I also work with people within my own agency and
love watching and helping them grow and develop as clinicians and as supervisors. I would say
that helping others is a big part of my purpose in life. I believe as you age, you’re going to lose
opportunities to be involved professionally with other people. The word Elder, or Eldership
becomes more meaningful during this time. I hear a lot of older adults talk about their
grandchildren and how important that relationship is. Eldership is utilizing the experience and
the wisdom that you have and helping others benefit from your wisdom.

I believe it’s important to have a reason to get up  every morning. There’s lots of research to
suggest that having a purpose and meaning of life is very important as your age. Hensleigh has
provided several opportunities or ideas on ways to develop that purpose.

7. Don’t Get Stuck

The way to avoid getting stuck is to become more resilient. I’ve shared in the earlier blogs
about resiliency and how resiliency is the ability to bounce back from adversity. I believe this is
what Hensleigh is talking about. Developing resiliency is a very important part of aging and one
that we would all do well to begin focusing on as were younger.

Hensleigh‘s book is the Cliff Notes version of aging. Simple and to the point.
She hits on a high note. She shared some of her experiences with her physical fitness and
wellness and would probably do well to spend more time talking about that. But as far as her
focus on mental and psychological  resiliency, I think she’s done a wonderful job.

Who are you becoming? I want to be the type of older man that attracts, rather than repels
others. People tend to become more isolated as they age. Maybe it because it’s partly due to
the kind of person you’ve become.

This is part sixteen in the Healthy Aging Series, written by Mark Neese, LCSW, BCBA. To see more entries in this series, click here.