Longevity Wellness Planning – Develop a Strategy or…

Greetings!

Longevity Wellness Planning – Develop a Strategy – or – there may not be a later. I am 65 years old and if there is one thing I learned in life, there are always future consequences, either good or bad, for choices or actions we make now. Currently I’m on this journey trying to help others live a longer and healthier life. I didn’t get certified as a Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach to make a lot of money or to build a second career. I really just want to help people get healthy and stay that way. You would think that finding people who want to live longer and healthier would be an easy task and it is… sort of. Everyone wants that right, but the problem is that not everyone is willing to develop a Wellness Plan to help them get there. You can read about that in a previous post Longevity – Do You Have What it Takes?

I don’t want to be melodramatic. I am not trying to scare anyone into doing anything. But, if you don’t have a Longevity Plan, I can almost guarantee that your wellness as you move into your 50s and beyond is going to suffer. So what is a Wellness Plan anyway? I did a search of the internet and, interestingly enough, found a lot on the following sites related to it, but just not hitting the mark as I see it:

  • Retirement Planning
  • Financial Planning
  • Diets and Nutrition
  • How to reverse aging or heart disease
  • Meditation

These are potentially all good things (beware the snake oil salesman or woman!) – but that’s not what I’m getting at. What I want to know is How are YOU going to stay healthy and well from wherever you are (age, current health) to when you die. To start let’s make a table. On the right, put a column with the number 76. That stands for the average lifespan of men and women according to the CDC (statistics can be found here). Then make columns going back to the left decreasing by 10 years. For simplicity – let’s just say 65, 55, 45. Under each of these columns, list the things you want to do at this age. Things like work, travel (be specific – where.. how long), play a certain sport, play with the kids, play with the grandkids, hiking, eating etc.

Wellness Plan

After doing that – think about what your health needs to be to accomplish that at each age. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you love Wine Tasting. What does your health need to be to do that? Well, I recently had a discussion with a client. She is in her 60s and loves wine! She was just told by her doctor that she should not drink wine anymore because of her underlying health. She was bummed to say the least. What could prevent you from drinking wine? Diabetes, Obesity, Cardiovascular or Neurological conditions. So if you want to drink wine into your 70s, you need to PLAN to prevent these conditions from setting in.

These things become you goals. However, you need to ask yourself – how realistic are these goals and what are you doing to meet them. Going back to diabetes. Are you eating the right foods NOW, in the right proportions to help slow the onset of or prevent diabetes? Are you exercising enough to keep your blood sugar healthy? Your Wellness Plan should include all of these! So – how are you going to manage your diet? How are you going to ensure you get enough exercise?

I think you get the idea. Well dive deeper into what you should be doing, to meet the goals of your plan next time.

All the best!

Remember – You are Built For More

JT

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