Age is Just a Number

I was reading Women's Health online last night, thinking maybe, just maybe this time I'd find something worth blogging about. As I scrolled through the Soothe Stress page and clicked on a link to the article "How Old are You Really?", the Garth Brooks song "Much too Young to Feel this Damn Old" came up on my iTunes shuffle. A coincidence? Yes. A little creepy? Uh huh. A testament to my bad taste in music? No doubt.

The good news is, according to Dr. Michael Roizen, M.D., aging is "governed by our actions;" he says genes aren't the only things that factor in, so do your diet, exercise habits and even sex life.

Roizen claims 70 percent of aging is determined by our choices (most experts say it's probably closer to 40 percent). Not surprisingly, he's also got a book out, RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?, and says that if you follow his advice, you might add up to 29 years to your life. Right.

I decided to take the RealAge quiz to see "the biological age of my body based on how well I've maintained it." I have to admit, it's a downer to scrutinize and self-evaluate your fitness habits; the quiz covered medical history, lifestyle, stress/social support and nutrition. It was even more depressing to see my RealAge--26.6. Over five years OLDER? I think Women's Health made a mistake putting this on the Soothe Stress page . . .

I'm pretty sure the quiz and the results are partially a ploy to get me to subscribe to the newsletter, buy the book and start the RealAge program (denial is more than a river in Egypt), because my results assure me that I'll look and feel younger if I start my 90 day plan today.

My results did point out some areas that I can improve though, like vegetable intake, folic acid intake and taking a daily vitamin. Kind of the 'no-duh' stuff that I'll get around to when I get older, which, according to RealAge, may be sooner than I think.