Photo By Tom Servias

Don’t you love it when a good plan comes together. Over the last three months I’ve notched one successful come-back (back injury) on my belt. Sure my plan evolved, and changed a bit, and that is to be expected. To Monitor and adjust one’s actions until one achieves one’s goals is as a good a mantra as any.

The question of attaining happiness in retirement has been on my mind for quite some time. As reported by AARP recently, as you get older “you know bad things are going to pass” according to Laura Cartenesen PHD. Director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Older and wiser perhaps we can better handle the stress in our lives. Perhaps in retirement we are better able to reduce stress by changing our work or living situation.

However attaining happiness in retirement for an aging athlete can be a bit more complicated than for a non athletes. This is due to the fact that all Aging Athletes need ongoing competition to be happy. Whether competing with one’s self by increasing the number of reps one completes or competing against others in games and sports, the Aging Athlete must continue to compete to find true happiness. Card and board games, computer games, pool, ping pong can help but an Aging Athlete typically needs more than that.

Starting with the end in mind, my need to compete,  I began with this “BEER” framework a few months ago and I’m happy to report excellent progress. I start training specifically for snow skiing next month.

Why beer? It’s easy to remember and often times in one’s mind towards the end of a good work-out.

B – Balance

E – Energy

E – Exercise

R – Rest

Balance is key for 40+ athletes because it impacts so many athletic endeavors. It also enhances one’s rhythm which helps one to better get into the flow of life. Finally it helps prevent falling, and debilitating injuries the number one enemy of the 40+ athlete.

Energy is central to a 40+ athletes because they need to stay active daily. As one gets older energy seems to be in shorter supply and we benefit from healthy ways of increasing it.

Exercise resulting in physical conditioning (staying in shape) is “core” for the 40+ athlete. Good decisions regarding types and durations of exercise are often times the difference between failure and success.

Rest and rehabilitation (making comebacks) are often times the least understood and underestimated factors in the longevity of the 40+ athlete.

Quarterly Updates and Analysis

B – Balance

I’ve progressed to the point now where I’m just doing maintenance. I walk daily the length of a long log 5 times in a row quickly to test my abilities. I can easily see if I’m not as smooth as the day previous. I’m also able to test myself on my bike rides going hands-free etc. So far so good. In the event I see my performance worsen I’ll return to the balance exercises and train tracks. Dancing to music has proven to me I have regained my footwork.

The single biggest aha moment was when I realized what I was doing with my head while walking. At that moment I realized I was actually making my balance worse by restricting the amount of information available to my balance system. This missing information was needed for my balance system to function properly. This was a huge was a turning point for me.

Somehow I had got it into my head I was being safer, wiser by looking down my body at my feet while walking. Maybe it was a habit I’d developed or maybe it came from executing lengthy comebacks in recent years, I’m not sure.

Like an aircraft controller needs accurate flight information to make good decisions your balance system needs accurate information to make good decisions. Asking an aircraft controller to sit in the basement and do their job instead of in the tower would certainly cause a strike. No matter how talented and hard working; they simply can’t get the information they need to do their job down there in the basement, they have to be in the tower to see what’s really going on.

It is the same for the aging athlete. Each degree one lowers one’s head and consequently one’s vision we rob our balance system of the vital information it needs to make good decisions. Our balance system has been receiving information in one place for the better part of our lives and all of a sudden is expected to receive it somewhere else. Understandably one’s balance system fails from time to time under this information starved regime. These failures result in a lack of confidence and increased looking down the body towards the feet resulting in poorer and poorer results. A Catch 22.

In addition to the initial balance training, I’ve learned to keep my head up, hydrate, bend over more slowly while bending my knees more, breathe more deeply, and use orthotics in all my shoes. I recently got winter boots with removable soles for ice. So when things get slippery this winter I’m ready instantly with with metal studded soles for extra traction.

Way down the road someday I’ll likely sleep downstairs instead of up and invest in bathroom safety. Until that day arrives I’m good to go.

E – Energy

I’ve made progress but it is an area of constant challenge. The biggest difference is I changed my diet, I eat healthy now. I am not on a diet trying to loose weight. It took me quite some time to make this distinction having dieted regularly over my lifetime always losing weight sometimes as much as 30 pounds and eventually gaining it back plus a bit more back each time.

I experimented during critical times and used 5 Hour energy shots with decent results. I had poor results with the Red Bull types of drinks. The reality is in our 50’s our metabolism slows from 3-5%. This occurs again in our 60’s and again in our 70’s.

So what’s an aging athlete to do? Eat healthy foods as much as possible, denser foods release energy more evenly throughout the day. Eating healthy has been a significant change for me. You would be hard pressed to find anyone with a worst track record when it comes to eating right. However eating healthy, cooking healthy is time consuming and more expensive than not. I have virtually eliminated waste, un – eaten food saving me 40% of my food budget.  Suddenly the local grocery store is an every other day visit. Trader Joe’s and Costco is a once a month. Fortunately healthy food is becoming easier and easier to get. I use ceramic pots and pans eliminating the need to use oils much, if at all. A positive attitude is required. Fresh, chemical free, non processed food is great but it requires an concerted effort. It can be fun to shop & cook so really it is a matter of how one approaches it.

The single biggest advantage of eating healthy besides feeling better and living longer and preventing costly diseases is one’s digestion. I saw much greater improvement, faster in this area compared to energy enhancement.

I’ve learned to eat around the same times each day, the earlier the better. I take a probiotic, and a super enzyme (health food store) and a multi-vitamin daily. That’s it.

Here is a sample of what I’m eating now.

Fresh, no Canned or Processed Foods

Organic Eggs, Almond Milk, 2% milk, organic ½ & ½

Organic Free – Range Turkey, chicken

Cod, Halibut, Salmon, Snapper, Trout, Steelhead

Fresh bananas, apples, tangerines, tangelos, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, peaches, cantaloupe, pears, dried fruit- cranberries & apricots, frozen berries & smoothies galore

Orange and cranberry Juice, hot herbal tea & cold Lipton tea, coffee

Salad Bar, avocado, cucumbers, carrots, sugar snap peas, green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, olives black & green, pickles, shallots, red peppers, romaine lettuce, limes & lemons, capers

Sprouted wheat bread,wild brown rice,oatmeal, Kashi cereal, raw almonds, sunflower seeds,cashews,walnuts,pine nuts,organic energy bars, organic p-nut butter, organic honey, raw sugar, organic maple syrup, organic whole wheat pancake mix, sea salt

Sprouted whole grain bread, Bulk Bins nuts, granola, trail mix, dark chocolate

Butter, virgin olive oil, virgin coconut oil, ketchup, avocado, local organic mustard,  Dijon mustard, homemade salad dressing (Balsamic vinegrette)

Alternative Foods – Occasional Foods

Philadelphia cooking crème cheese, Wolf Gang Puck Tomato sauce, cheddar & Gouda cheese, James Ranch cheese

Home Made Croutons, Blue corn chips (Kale hips are Horrid), whole wheat tortillas

Mozzarella/provolone, string cheese, Fresh Parmesan Cheese

Canadian bacon

Barbeque Sauce

Home Made Chili (lean beef)

For a guy like me this is really healthy compared to what I used to eat. I have a salad everyday and stir fried veggies pretty regularly but I’m weak on veggies and I know it. I have a couple of local restaurants that only use locally grown fresh ingredients and free range meats which I sometimes frequent. Once a month I treat myself to dinner out, anything I want, but to my dismay I still go pretty healthy, seems my appetite has changed for the better. Foods in the past I craved are simply not that attractive now.

I miss cheese, French fries, ice cream, and bakery goods like a dead brother. At the height of my retired eating madness I could trace 85% of what I was eating to dairy products.

Today I eat better and feel better with a slight increase in energy but nothing to write home about. Perhaps eating healthier is nothing more than the placebo effect increasing one’s energy. I’m cool with this as potential  placebo effect. Perhaps it’s more than that, perhaps it will take more time to see more significant improvement in energy. This will likely be offset by our slowing metabolisms naturally. Perhaps it’s in part psychological. Perhaps it is part environmental, even a learned response. Is there a scientific correlation between one’s age, football, couches, retirement, and one’s energy levels?

You would be hard pressed to find a retiree happier in retirement than myself. However I would remiss if I did not acknowledge that one does loose some energy as one ages. All the positive spin in the universe won’t change that. In my view how one chooses to respond to losing energy is what counts most. Taking a brisk walk after big meals won’t hurt. As a not so famous guy once said “You know what sucks about getting older?” Getting older!

E – Exercise

I’m still following my every other day schedule. The big change was incorporating exercises aimed at stretching the small muscles in my back on my sports activities days. These exercises take 30-45 minutes to complete and have produced miraculous results for me. I highly recommend the Book “ Foundations by Dr. Eric Goodman and Peter Park and is available on Amazon. A dear 60 something friend turned me on to this book (back exercises) which he now uses after 10 years of 200 stomach crunches each and every morning. I could no more do 200 stomach crunches each morning for 10 years than climb Mount Everest. But I can do these back exercise and will for the next 10 years.

I’m not one to hype stuff like this but everybody I know that is retired deals with some sort of back pain. Back pain drains one’s energy, encourages crankiness, and limits one’s movement, often times leading to serious injury and or slowed comebacks. This book is a great place to start with an aging athlete’s back good or bad. These exercises work. The other key point of this book is the importance of recovery time. Enough said.

R – Rest

I’m still following my seven hours of sleep a night schedule. Light eating only (if at all) after 6:00 PM. I’m careful not to0 drink too many liquids late evening so as to avoid the getting up in the night to use the bathroom routine. I love my Temperpedic bed.

I’m in a pretty regular sleep routine now. Lights are off when I enter my bedroom. I start the going to sleep process with a quick 2 – 3 mediation to quiet my mind. Then I start my nightly massage; a great feature of my bed, turn on Letterman low volume on smaller TV mounted on the wall offering a sleep timer (20-30 minutes). Typically I ease into sleep before my massage is over and fall into actual sleep when the sleep timer turns off the TV. I awaken before dawn each morning more refreshed and enjoy the opportunity to watch the sun rise. I’m getting more deep sleep now, and feel subtle differences because of it.

I still believe in the power of the nap but getting some additional deep sleep on a regular basis is priceless. Proper rest helps reduce stress. Reduced stress increases the likely-hood of increased deep sleep.

Deep sleep provides one’s with better vitality, improved moods,  and better endurance when exercising regularly. Regular exercise helps you sleep better. Sweet dreams!