Lessons for Longevity: Investing in Your Physical Well being

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Greetings to everyone joining us today for today's podcast. You're listening to the Living to 100 Club, and I'm your host, Joseph Casciani. You can find this conversation and all past recordings on our website, livingto100.club. In addition to my podcasting, I'm a public speaker and I present to community organizations and senior groups on topics related to aging well and managing setback. And on my website, you'll see options to sign up for one-on-one resilience coaching for anyone wanting more personal time to talk. I also provide consulting and training on clinical topics like depression and dementia. Now to our podcast where we discuss successful aging, staying positive, and making more informed decisions. Our guest for today is David Frost. We'll be talking about investing in your physical well-being, lessons for longevity. First, a little background on David. David earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the US Naval Academy. And his Master of Systems Management degree from the University of Southern California with a focus on human factors, and also trained at the Naval War College and the National Defense University. He's a national and world champion masters rower, which directly aligns with his fitness training. Dave provides certified group, one-on-one, online training sessions for athletes of all ages who add life to their years and years to their lives. After decorated careers in the U.S. Navy and the business world, he founded Well Past 40 LLC to promote wellness and longevity. He specializes in nutrition, endurance, and strength training, adapting sessions for people dealing with cancer, MS, Parkinson's, cerebral palsy, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.. He's a volunteer coach for Veterans and Wounded Warrior and Freedom Rose projects. David, welcome to our program.

Joe, thank you for going through that kind of bio of mine. I've been around a few blocks a few times, so I'm honored to be a member of the Encore Club, and I hope to aspire to become a member of your club, the Living to 100 Club, but it is aspirational. I'm not there yet.

Yes, it is entirely aspirational, whatever age you're at. Yeah, you've got a beautiful rich history there, David. I can see you've been around the block a few times.

That is true, Joe. That is true.

I always like to begin by asking our guests to tell us briefly about the journey that brought you to where you are today.

Golly, I was born on the crest of a wave and rocked into the cradle of the deep. Seaweed and barnacles are me clothes, every hair on me head is hemp. No, I'm just kidding. That was a song That's something I had to memorize at the Naval Academy, oh, 50 years ago for plebe summer. But I'm a Vermonter by birth, and I am honored to be in the same family tree. I guess all of us are, but I'm in the same family tree as a poet named Frost and a prolific writer who spoke of the felicities of age, among other things.

Really?

Ralph Waldo Emerson. So in fact, I'd like to claim that we still own the property next to Concord Bridge, which was Emerson's Anderson property, where things get really interesting for the colonies back on Patriots' Day, April 19th, 1775. But I matriculated to the Naval Academy in 1971. I served as a surface warfare officer, trying to be not quite as rowdy as John Paul Jones, but to be a swashbuckler of sorts, rocking the boat a little and learning how to lead people. And I guess I was successful. It wasn't all Ronald Reagan. The Russians don't seem to be coming anymore. So I think I did my job and we are in uniform. I went into the defense and aerospace industry working for small, medium, and large companies until I decided maybe I could hire myself as my own boss and see how I do in small business. So I got very interested in fitness as a Boy Scout when I couldn't do a single pull-up. I was told to be very interested in physical and whole body fitness as a midshipman at the Naval Academy. I learned that things like stamina and strength did kind of go into your leadership kit as a naval officer. And I, after having a few setbacks in my own Joe, including spinal fusion work for my L5-S1 back in September of 2001, which of course some people think of for other things. It's coincidental. That's when I blew out my back and required spinal fusion surgery. But as, as the world was changing, I was certainly changing. I was damaged goods. And my journey for the last 20 years has been trying to aspire to your club as a centenarian. So honored to live in San Diego where Every day that ends in Y is a great day to work out because I truly believe in people smarter and more published than I am, such as Daniel Levitan, share the key point: physical activity equates to mental health. And I challenge anyone to dispute that. Motion is medicine. Queen Elizabeth recently said after her husband passed away at the age of 99— she's a young 95— she said, when you stop, you drop. So, uh, I— boy, I, I want to take that to my physical bank, and we can perhaps chat about that physical bank. But that's me.

That's, uh, that's probably more than your listeners would like to hear, but, um, no, I saw a chapter in your book, Movement is Medicine, and I strongly endorse that same theme. And, you know, I always like to reference the book by Twyla Tharp the dancer and choreographer, and her latest book is called Keep It Moving. Her principles is non-stop engagement, you know, wherever we are on our path, non-stop engagement is the key to successful aging. So we are coming from the same background here. I can see that. So how do you spend your professional time now, David?

Well, every day is a different day, but every day, as I shared, Joe, is a great day to move. And I think of movement as 4, in 4 categories. In fact, these are 4 of the 7 elements of the Physical Bank Model that I believe is pretty darn comprehensive and works for everybody. And when I say everybody, I mean everybody. As you shared earlier, my argument is that if you can get up from a chair and breathe, you're an athlete. This is a physical bank for everyone, damaged, in perfect health, young, older, not so young. Strength, stability, stamina, and stretching are the ways I love to spend my physical time. I also try to stretch the muscle between my ears regularly too. I try to socialize because we know that that's a great life extender and life enhancer. It's not just the pickleball or the golf or the, uh, the tennis. It's those social interactions that help us thrive and strive. So I, uh, I am, as you mentioned in your nice, uh, sharing of my background, I am a fitness instructor. I work with individuals, buddies, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers, daughters, and groups, groups to try to encourage them to get their heart going, get their joints moving if they can, and to contract their muscles. And most importantly, figure out how for them to get sugar and oxygen to their brains, which is— it's my— as a layman, I firmly believe that getting oxygen to your brain can help with what the folks at the Salk Institute called neuroplasticity, which relates to memory and avoiding dementia-related diseases and so on. I acknowledge that some things are genetic, and it's hard to beat genes. We can't hire new parents. We kind of are stuck with the ones we had or have. But I, I will stop strangers to tell them how important oxygen is to offset, or perhaps never even consider a dementia-related disease because your hippocampi, those shrimp-shaped deep memory organs in your brain, are getting what they need to stay active, to not clog up and grow proteins that inhibit memory and that sort of thing. So motion is medicine. Yeah.

Sure, sure. And I know you do a lot of writing, and I'd like to ask you about your book. The title is Kaboomer: Thriving and Striving into Your 90s. So, let's just jump right into it. What is a kaboomer, David?

Well, two answers. One, former President Obama mentioned the term kaboomer in one of his many eloquent speeches. And the idea, it's a baby boomer, and that is somebody who was born between the calendar years of 1946 and '64. It used to be the largest population demographic in the United States. I believe that now 1 out of every 6 Americans is 65 or older. I'm there. I think you might be there, Joe. I am. We think we're a pretty good segment of this amazing American population.. And I dispute the OK boomer stuff that was floating around about a year or so ago. I don't look down at anybody, and I hope people look at us for our age and treachery and our experiences and our felicities of age. But anyway, President Obama, if you Dr. Google kaboomer, you'll see that President Obama used it in a speech. But I found that the website was available, and I like the idea of dynamic things like a kaboom. And I also like knock-knock jokes. That's my shtick, my humor. So, one answer to your question, Joe, is if a kaboomer and a boomer go to the door and knock on it, knock-knock, who's there? A boomer and a kaboomer. A boomer and a kaboomer who? Well, a boomer who may take 2 prescription pills at a time and a kaboomer who loves to take steps 2 at a time.

Uh-huh.

So there's two answers for Kaboomer. President Obama's being different, be first, be better, be different, and the knock knock, which suggests that maybe exercise can limit polypharmacy and maybe exercise could do wonderful natural things like generate happy hormones that we know that science tells us we can and hopefully offset costly medications, which our kids and grandkids apparently are going to bear the cost of as we reach palliative age.

Sure.

So, sure.

Yeah. So look for the solutions to be internal rather than external, our own initiative rather than help of some, some medications. Not to put medications down, but if the incentive is there first, I think we were ahead of the eight ball, so to speak. Yeah.

Oh, sure. And if we go to the root cause, I will never dispute the fact that we are blessed to have lots of medications available. I mean, yes, we do. I mean, we only have to look at the creation of a whole new type of dealing with viruses. Whoever would've thunk in a year we could come up with a novel way to treat novel viruses, not treat, not solve, but treat, or at least address. So our amazing machine of research and development and science and fielding things is astounding. And I sometimes think we don't give the system credit. However, I'm not an MD, I'm not a PhD, but when you don't get to know a patient, when you see a patient for 5 minutes and prescribe something for a pain or chronic condition, Do we really know what the root cause is? And is there an alternative to prescription drugs? I have seen it in my own parents and my in-laws. My parents lived to 89. My sainted in-laws almost made it to your club. My father-in-law passed at 98 from, I think dementia was a big cause of his demise. And my mother-in-law, I think, just wore out. It almost made it, 99 and a half. I think she had some strokes that was not confirmed, but she's vital to the end. Her mental health was pretty darn good. I wish that I— she had listened to her son-in-law, the physi— personal trainer, because I think if she had kept her body going a little bit better, that maybe she would have had a little bit more quality time with us. But anyway, Kaboomers are pretty special because they ask, "Why not?" They don't ask why. They don't watch things happen. They make things happen. And I just think that's wonderful.

I read through a lot of your book, Dave. You do make some nice comparisons there about people who are more trendsetting and take on more initiative. About themselves and their future. So let me ask you, a lot of it is on maintaining our strength and our willpower and our drive with aging. And you talk a lot about stamina, and I love your word stamina, stamina. Yeah.

Not to be cute, it's a compound word that does imply that that's, that's the longevity, isn't it? Your cardio. What's the number one cause of death in America? It's not COVID, it's not cancer. Is cardiovascular death. And a lot of that is avoidable or mitigated or preventable if we move. And of course, it's diet related as well. James Galduffini, that wonderful author, died in his early 50s because he ate to excess, ate the wrong things, had bad genes. You can't, you can't do anything about the genes yet. You certainly can do something about bad diet and being sedentary. So Stamina 90 was an attempt to add a little shtick, I suppose. But the, the point is stamina is the bedrock, the foundation of your physical bank. It is the way to add years to your life. There are more elements that can add life into those years, but it's nice to have a long life. And if you can have a life limited, uh, not limited by how many pills you take, how many steps you So the best habits for maintaining stamina? Ha! Our U.S. government says 30 minutes a day of moderate, light to moderate activity, which could range from raking the leaves that now pretend they're falling in San Diego, or gardening, or playing with the grandkids. The idea is to get your heart rate elevated, and not to get too technical, but if you get your heart rate elevated to about two-thirds of your maximum heart rate for a period of 30 minutes, you are going to cause the right kind of cytokine streams, not storms, not COVID storms, but cytokine streams, which trigger some amazing restoration, rebuilding, recovery, and better things for your bodies. But you have to move to sweat or to the right level of intensity to achieve the benefits of stamina. It takes a long time to make marked strides or advances in stamina. In fact, of strength, stability, stretching, stamina takes the longest. It can take a year to make a marked improvement in your ability to do something for an extended period of time, be it a swim, a bike ride, a jog, or in my case, a row., it just takes a while. Your body actually builds new mitochondria in your, those little powerhouses in each of our, our cells. And it also helps build new capillaries to fuel those mitochondria. So it takes time to build capacity, but Staminine-T is the capacity to add years to your life.

Yeah. And, and it also has an effect on balance and stability and By inference, it reduces accidents and injuries. Would you say that?

I would definitely say that it's interrelated. The more of the move, hopefully the more you realize ways to be kid-like and avoid falling. You know it because you're in the industry, and I know it because I work with many clients who fall because of physical or medical conditions. Can we do our best to help them avert falls, by things as simple yet hard as how they do their gaits. Have they been compensating and leaning instead of lifting with their glutes and their leg muscles to have a good stride? Are they using their great toes to lift and not get a heel drag or a toe drag? Uh, are they being kid-like? It's interesting. What are the marks for longevity, uh, that I'd love to share if you don't mind, Joe?

Yes, please.

A couple. One stamina-related for people of almost any age. How many times can you sit and get up from a chair in a minute? Simple yet hard. How many can you do it? Are you decent? Are you good? Are you great? Or is that something you really should work on? Because it is a cardiorespiratory and a muscular thing to do. So that's number one, getting up from a chair. Another is grip strength.

What's a good benchmark for up and down from a chair? In a minute.

Depending on age and gender, a guy that's, uh, 65 certainly should do more than most 90-year-old women, uh, but in the 20s, and it comes with practice, it's, it's balance. Like you said, it's stretching, stability, and strength, and you're working your cardiorespiratory system as well. So that is a simple yet hard thing. Some doctors use it. The Mayo Clinic talks about it. There's more involvement, that is, how quickly can you walk a mile and a half.

Yes.

That's a classic Mayo Clinic one. But some people say, well, I'm not a walker. Well, there's alternatives for swimming or other endurance activities. Another one that I absolutely love, now, not everybody in their 90s, as they approach the 100 club, I don't expect them to get up from the ground without using their hands. But the classic sit-to-rise test, Joe, is a, it's again, because of strength, stability, and stretching. If you can get up from the ground, sitting cross-legged, exhale and drive up straight, uh, without using your hands, you've proven that you have a pretty darn good, um, uh, physical, uh, specimen, uh, to be kid-like and live longer and avoid falls, as you mentioned. So that's another one, the sit-to-rise test. Believe it or not, another one is grip strength. Well published that folks with strong grip were less likely to die from COVID I, I can find that source, but I saw it more than one, and I believe it to be credible, reliable, and it was published. Uh, grip strength is— it tends to be a very good indicator of overall strength and constitution. And can you get that can of peanut butter open so you can— or jar of peanut butter so you can have lunch, or do you have to call someone else to do it? So grip strength does help with quality of life activities of daily life. That's another one. So we have—

measure that I'm sorry, any way to measure that other than—

Yes, a handheld dynamometer. Oh sure, you could pay hundreds of dollars, uh, or go to a physical therapist to do it, or you can go to Amazon and get one for $28 or $30. Yeah, it's measured in pounds per square inch. Uh, I don't think anyone on earth has, uh, with their hand strength has the grip of a German Shepherd jaw, but we're not measured against a German Shepherd jaw. Uh, but, um, being in the strong category, again, it's gender dependent, age dependent. But if you have a strong grip strength that expresses amazing things about the whole neuromuscular system from your fingertips all the way to where the radial nerve goes to your spinal column, it's a fascinating yet a simple yet, uh, fascinating measure of potentially longevity. And that's kind of what we're talking about for your club, isn't it?

And what about walking speed? Again, you said, what's the time limit, the metric for a mile or a mile and a half?

Yes. The Mayo Clinic's test, there are some others, there are step tests and other things where it's how can you, it's kind of like there's a step test is akin to getting up from a chair, rise and sit from a chair. But the Mayo Clinic says a mile and a half is a long enough distance. The quicker you can walk that, the more vital you are, and you're probably going to live longer. I mean, barring an accident or a—

all things being equal.

Yeah. So again, it's age, and, uh, I can certainly send those to you if you have Post notes. Um, but Mayo Clinic does offer, um, um, criteria for decent, good, and great for your decade of age and for your gender.

Right. You know, I've seen where fast walkers tend to outlive people who walk more slowly. I mean, all things being equal, of course.

And, uh, you know, that kind of— and we can get— we can chase a couple of these fascinating rabbit holes. The Norwegians have one of the best estimators of longevity that I've ever found. A team in Trondheim, Norway developed an algorithm that says that the better you can process oxygen, the longer you're going to live. And I can send you that link, but it's called VO2, V for maximum, O2 for oxygen. How can your heart, lungs, and plumbing system process oxygen to fuel your activities. So VO2 max, the more, what is, my grandfather was a country doctor in Vermont. He used to call pneumonia the gentleman's friend because a lot of older folks do pass with pneumonia as a secondary cause, if not a primary cause of, you know, just conceding to age.. But your vital capacity of your lungs, I mean, we're not, we're not anaerobic creatures. We're not bacteria. We're air breathers. So the more we can breathe air, the better we're gonna be. So the Norwegians have a wonderful estimator. And if your listeners haven't heard of Dr. Thomas Perls, P-E-R-L-S, he's website has a, with the possible exception of a baby aspirin, which I understand is a pretty recent change. If you haven't been taking a baby aspirin for, you know, helping out with the flow of blood, maybe you shouldn't start because of inflammation. I heard that recently. Right. But anyway, Thomas Pearls has compiled lifestyle, medical, family history, and physical vitality measures in a brief questionnaire which is pretty darn reliable and kind of pegs your chances for getting to 100, which current statistics say is only 2% of us. Maybe you and I will compare notes in 3 decades and see if we are, you know, the senior members of your club.

Yeah, I'll try not to be in that other 98%.

That's right. That's right. We want to— that's one where we want to be in the minority if that's what our goal is, to live longer and live better. Um, but, um, um, the World Health Organization suggests that, uh, people alive today, at least 2% are gonna be, um, centenarians.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and hopefully not only do they live to 100, but they're vital, like people on Sardinia or Guam or in Loma Linda, California, in those mythical but not mythical blue zones.

Blue zones, of course.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

How about boosting our immunity? Of course, we hear a lot about our immune systems today. Is it a matter of the right diet, or are there other things we can do to boost our immunity?

Well, from Dave Frost's perspective, Joe, I— let me see if I can count to 5. Sunlight, which I always love, is natural vitamin D, and D3. Isn't it interesting that vitamin D3 really isn't a vitamin, but we want it anyway? You know, it's a a wonderful fat-soluble compound that with the right amount of sunlight, and our listeners shouldn't— your listeners shouldn't worry too much. Hands and face 20 minutes in the San Diego conditions on a normal day is probably about enough so that your skin absorbs the, the energy from the sun and is able to stimulate the, um, what, uh, what Dr. Fauci says is one of the major immunity factors vitamin D3. And I'd also share, it's not what you ingest or get, it's what you absorb. So I really get concerned that folks may pop vitamins or multivitamins or supplements, but if it doesn't get absorbed in your body, it's expensive urine, which isn't that bad. It's a try. But I hope people do become conscious of how absorption works and how important it is to make sure that what you're thinking you're getting into your body is being absorbed by your body. Sunlight and vitamin D3. If you happen to live on the South Pole or the North Pole, certainly supplements are safe and can do that. So sunlight, exercise, restorative sleep, which also generates happy hormones as well as preparing your body to fight invaders like viruses or fungi or bacteria or environmental toxins also. Isn't it amazing what our livers have to do these days with environmental toxins that we face? So sunlight, exercise, sleep, certainly no smoking, moderate alcohol, the lifestyle. But you know what also is in there? Humor. If you think of Jay Leno, I think, you know, humming, laughing, humor, humming are just extraordinarily important for generating positive chemical flows in our bodies. And, you know, Patch Adams said laughter is pretty darn good medicine, and I won't dispute it. So did I get to 5? I think I did. Sunlight, exercise, sleep, humor, and lifestyle.

Lifestyle— smoking, no smoking, alcohol moderation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that said, things happen. I had the Shingrix vaccine. I had chickenpox as a kid. I had the Shing— I was given the Shingrix vaccine some time ago, and I believe I had both, but I can't prove it. That was in military medicine. Guess who came down with shingles 4 or 5 months ago? However, I believe that my symptoms and my awful afters were lessened because I did have the vaccine. So I hope folks know that just because— not just because— if we have a vaccine, that doesn't mean we won't get, reinfected, but we may hopefully have lesser symptoms. So, um, I, uh, and if, uh, you, you hear some horror stories about how bad shingles can be, I think I was pretty lucky. But for 4 weeks, I was either getting kicked in the ribs or ice picked in the ribs.

I've had a bout of shingles myself, and I can attest to that.

No, I've heard 1 in 3, by the way, 1 in 3 of all adults will get it. And I believe that means whether you get the vaccine or not. So that's, uh, but, um, so my immunity wasn't quite right to offset a childhood virus, chickenpox, a second time, uh, yet, um, my, you know, I was able to, um, continue my activities of daily life, although I wasn't quite a happy camper.

Yeah, it may have been mitigated somewhat, right, by your immune system.

I hope so.

So, um, let me ask you, I'm just thinking about people who are not physically active, maybe they've kind of reduced in their physical movement. And what do you recommend for somebody who maybe, you know, if they start to walk, they have a lot of pain in their hips, or, you know, they just get worn out? What do you recommend for small startup steps?

Wonderful. Uh, underscore small, right, Joe?

Yeah.

We want people to be, um, let me back up. We're in a time of year when we're facing that mythical New Year's resolution, aren't we? And why do 80% of New Year's resolutions fail? Well, there are a lot of compound or simple reasons, but one of the reasons that is so sad is people don't pick the right goals. So for someone who has some aches and pains, minor, medium, or major, is motion still good medicine? Absolutely. And can we find a bespoke tailored program for that person to move. If I may give an example, I watched my sainted mother-in-law, she had one hip replaced and two hips replaced. Don't know if it was mandatory, but she had it done. Orthopedic surgeons tend to be pretty busy, don't they, unfortunately, or fortunately. But she, I don't think the walker that she was fitted with was a good one. She ended up with PMR, Uh, polymyalgic, it's an acquired, uh, deficiency from triggered in her case by the walker that made her hunch her neck and so on.

Sure.

Polymyalgic rheumat— rheumatism, I think it is. PMR. So that was acquired and I believe it was triggered by a walker that was not ergonomically fit for her. So for somebody to be excited or not excited about getting started, The goals that someone chooses should be achievable, should be realistic, and they should be time-bound so that we could determine that was successful. We're ready to overload your muscles and go to the next level. People in their 80s can still build muscle. Uh, there may be discomfort in the joints. I hear bone on bone probably once a week from clients, and I say, I'm sorry about that, but the stronger your muscles supporting your connective tissue and the stronger your connective tissue are, hopefully the less irritation from bone on bone in your knee or whatever. So, start small. If you cannot pick goals on your own, find a workout buddy. Maybe there's a program like SilverSneakers. I'm honored to work with the AARP Silver Planet program. So, there are support networks out there. You know, the old Hillary Clinton, "It takes a village to raise a child." Well, I say it takes whatever it takes for people to become athletic. They are athletic, they just have to be kid-like again. For almost everybody, there's some— today's paper, there was a gentleman with no arms and no legs. He's a football coach at a local high school. He's extraordinary. And thank goodness we don't have a whole population of people without arms and legs. But if you can literally get up from the chair and move and breathe, you are an athlete. We just have to— not just, but we need to design the right program to make that athlete successful.

Yeah, that's a good point. Small, small steps, small goals, realistic goals. And I always add that once you start taking those steps and you see some reward, then you can maintain that. You build up some momentum because you're seeing some payoff. Even if they're small steps, you're seeing that reinforcement and it keeps you going. That's how the momentum builds and we keep taking more steps and maybe bigger steps.

Success begets success, doesn't it?

Sure.

But as you wrote in your book very wonderfully, life is not without its speed bumps, potholes, dangers, but that's life, isn't it?

Yeah.

So, and how you deal with them is a big part of keep on keeping on, right? What did Churchill say? If you're walking through hell, keep going. And God bless him. Didn't have a healthy lifestyle, but he kept going on momentum and gin and cigars, I guess. But certainly the right gen at the right time to inspire a nation to—

That's right.

So, if you're walking through hell, keep going. And I don't mean that glibly. It is so important, I believe, there's lifespan and your club is inspiring folks to have lifespan. But something I've written about and something I've recorded on my little— it's been a while since I've done a podcast, but one I did way back in April 2020 when COVID-19 was coming out was let's consider healthspan vis-à-vis lifespan. And are we vital? Are we thriving and striving? Are we playing with the grandkids? Are we sitting on the couch? That's up to each individual in some cases. In some cases, unfortunate souls may not have the ability to move and and be in a blue zone playing with grandkids. But for most of us, we can, but will we? And as you summarized, picking the right goals and making success a habit. What did Admiral McRaven say? What's a great success criterion for a Navy SEAL, which is a pretty special creature on the face of the earth? Make your bed, even though the rest of the day goes to hell in a handbasket. If you made the perfect rack, the bed, your day started it off on a good note. So we'd like to liken that to, uh, how you think about a stamina or an exercise program. You have to do the work. I'm sorry, uh, the people at the Salk Institute apparently found an exercise pill. Which is not allowed in the Olympic Games. You can't take a pill instead of working because we don't understand if that's a good thing for our bodies or not. I personally hope it's never available to the general public because of all the other benefits of exercise, being out in nature, socializing. If I just sit down in a closet and eat a pill and say, well, that was my exercise, that isn't life in my humble opinion. That's Dr. Ron Evans over at the Salk Institute. Who found a way to chemically, biochemically, uh, have the body think it just exercised. I would rather have the body know it exercised.

Sure, sure. Yeah, the other healthspan, healthspan. Yeah, the other point I like to add as we change behaviors or take on some new behavior, I always like to say, look, we can't let yesterday define who we are today. And if we've got years or decades of being inactive or, you know, slow, that can be set aside. We can define ourselves today as to what our goals are today. Yes, how true. Find who we are today.

How true. Uh, Philip Rivers, I'm sorry he's not a San Diego Charger, and I'm sorry he's still not around because he's just a great gentleman that used to be one of our, uh, city, uh, neighbors effectively, um, before he moved back home to Bama or Georgia. Philip Rivers used to wear a hat that had the Latin phrase, "Nunc Coepi," C-O-E-P-I, "Begin anew." So, every day, the Navy SEALs say, "The only easy day was yesterday," which is a tongue-in-cheek way to say, "Get on with it. Make your bed and get on with it." But isn't it true that no matter what the baggage is, what the hassles you've had in the past, that doesn't necessarily predetermine your future.

Exactly. Yeah, we're all capable of changing and shifting that identity and kind of redefining ourselves, reinventing ourselves, whatever we want to call it. But it's all new starting today.

And, and what we— as the more we learn about these amazing noggins, and maybe my mind isn't amazing, but many, many people's brains are amazing. We unfortunately learned from tens of thousands of returning veterans who suffered traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder, uh, very terrible things on the nation's behalf, uh, from those shocks. And the VA is very, very big on a technique called cognitive behavior training, and that is, can I find something positive in life instead of dwelling on the negative and try to help that shape your future. It's certainly not for amateurs to talk about doing that, but all of us can go back to that wonderful platitude: whether you think you can or cannot, you're right. Yeah, how true is that?

You know, the mindset is so powerful, and what we say to ourselves and how that colors our ability to move forward. I mean, that's so important. Dave, you've, you've had a wealth of, uh, information you've shared with us. I'm, I'm so appreciative. What would you want our listeners to take away from today's show?

Uh, I don't know. Well, if I may ask, and you, you may have a feel, how many of your listeners have seen or know of Star Wars? Uh, and it's probably a minority, but my point is there's a wonderful quote from either Lucas or Spielberg That little green guy, Yoda, who certainly was over a century. I don't know how many centuries he was, but that little Yoda said, "Do or do not. There is no try." And isn't that aspirational? My kind of my point, not to play Yoda, but kind of my point is we can all do things that we either know we should or never knew we could. But let's make a run at it. You know, we're going to be in an urn or underground for a very, very long time. I don't want my epitaph to say, you know, I worked too long and hard for Lockheed Martin. Just kidding. That was one of my employers. But I don't want my epitaph to say I worked too hard and didn't enjoy the experiences of life. To me, Fitness is a labor of love. It does take work. It does take time. And yet there's no better thing, I believe, that you can do to help better your odds to be in that 2% of living to 100.

Yeah. I love that. I love that. That's great advice. Do or do not. There is no try. I like that.

I wish it was mine, but it wasn't.

Doesn't matter. Yeah. So it looks like we're out of time for today, but Before we wrap up, I just want to remind our listeners about our co-sponsor for my program. It's A Mighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to engage and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. It's a one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over. It's free to search and it's free to post amightygoodtime.com. And be sure to visit the Living to 100 Club website to sign up for our weekly podcast announcements and newsletters. And while there, be sure to download a free copy of my 9 Tips for Living Longer. Lastly, pick up a copy of my book, Living Longer Is the New Normal, on Amazon in ebook or hard copy. We've been talking with David Frost about his book Kaboomer Thriving and Striving into Your 90s. Dave, that's available on Amazon, I take it?

It is. And we joke, wherever fine books are sold.

That's great. That's good. And if anyone would like to contact you, how can they best do that?

Well, uh, the website is wellpast40 spelled out, W-E-L-L-P-A-S-T-F-O-R-T-Y.com. And that's my email address, Dave at wellpast40.com. And I would certainly be honored to share what I think I know about this journey and how we can, the prudent things we can do to thrive and strive as we try to become lifetime members of your club.

Yeah, it's a fun ride, isn't it?

Oh, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks so much for being on our program today. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know our listeners enjoyed it as well. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.

It's time to rethink, renew, and reimagine retirement. Hey everybody, Jared Sebasta here, host of Retire Repurposed. Now, this podcast is about the non-financial parts of retirement, which many times can be even more challenging than the financial. We believe retirement is not the end, rather the beginning of what could be the most impactful, purposeful, and fulfilling season of a person's life. So, don't retire, become repurposed. To listen now, search Retire Repurposed on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.