We start out young. 
If we stay alive long enough, we get old. 
Then we die.
This is the inescapable truth about Life.

When I think of growing old gracefully, the image of Aunt Bee of Mayberry comes to mind.  Aunt Bee’s common and comfortable look was similar to most of the older ladies in my 1950’s childhood world.  And I don't know anyone who doesn't love the warm and caring character portrayed as Aunt Bee.

During past times, it seemed to be common knowledge that what was appropriate was....

Young people were to look fresh and trim,
..............and
Older people were to be comfortable in their own plump skin, wrinkles and all.

But, Nowadays….

The article below says it really well.


Growing Old Gracefully?
         by Patricia Brozinsky

What does it mean to "grow old gracefully?"  I recently saw a television commercial which gave me the idea for this article.

In the commercial a dermatologist and his wife, a psychotherapist, emphasize that they want to "grow old gracefully" thus explaining the reason they each swallow 25 supplements per day.

I don't believe swallowing pills will make us graceful, which is defined as “lithe, agile, dainty, pretty, delicate, handsome and trim”. Thus, their meaning of "growing old gracefully" eluded me.

Unless we die young most of us will eventually look old. And, people who look old …. gray haired and wrinkled, gnarled arthritic fingers and toes, bent over from osteoporosis, and because of age-related-slow-metabolism or water retention have gained weight …. are regrettably not considered among the in-group who are "growing old gracefully." These poor folks are rarely portrayed in the commercials.

So, does "growing old gracefully" really mean to "look good," and "to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye”?

Let's never forget the precious message of the fox from, Antoine de Saint-Exupery's children's book, The Little Prince. The fox said, "What is essential is invisible to the eye."

Being lithe, agile, dainty, pretty, delicate, handsome and trim are qualities usually no longer available to the elderly among us. Let's face it even some younger members of society will never possess these qualities.

So, maybe now is a good time for us to reconsider what's important in life. Suddenly my mind fills with an the images of: being gracious; accepting conditions; being charitable; acting kindly; caring; having compassion; behaving lovingly; and being generous. These are but a few of the many ways to express "grace". Then the phrase "growing old gracefully" would metamorphose into "growing old with grace".

The implication from advertisements is that to "grow old gracefully"  you must have few if any wrinkles (you've had a face-lift, Botox or collagen injections), your hair has color (because you dye it- highlights and low-lights), you're thin (probably had liposuction, diet fanatically, and spend all your time at the gym), you have great physical prowess (good for you - for now), your body is well proportioned (you work out and diet excessively or you've had implants), and you swallow upwards of 25 supplements per day (hey, someone has to fund the industry).

"Growing old with grace" means knowing your limitations and shifting your activities when your aging body cries out "enough!" as it begs you to change from the strenuous sport your ego loves, to an activity it can more easily tolerate.

And, more importantly, grace would mean that you would finally accept your new limitations.

Maybe "growing old with tolerance" would be an even more accurate way to describe what our society craves. This would mean that we would grow old and become broadminded, open-minded, lenient, accepting and patient.

According to Erik Erikson, the German psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on human social development, our lifetime spans eight stages.  Stage 8 involves age 65 to death - Integrity vs. Despair, where the optimal potential solution is "Wisdom," which, among other things, is the acceptance of one's life.

“Wisdom” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “knowledge, insight and judgment”. I do do not believe that swallowing supplements would ever provide any of us with the quality of  "wisdom".

Nowadays, when people say they want to "grow old gracefully" they really mean that as the years pass and their birthdays tell the story of their timeline, that they will do anything to look young and convince others to believe that they are young.

In the 2010s, age is unfortunately seen as a curse.
And, the greater evil is that we do not venerate our elderly.

Is there anything graceful about desperately clinging to youth - causing us to swallow 25 pills per day, subjecting our bodies to cosmetic surgery, obsessively exercising, fanatically dieting, sometimes binging and purging, wearing clothes designed for adolescents, and even mimicking the verbal expressions, facial and hand gestures of the youth - the very generation born to replace us?

So what does 'growing old gracefully' really mean? 

Examine your reasons for dieting and exercising until you're a size one for an aging woman and a 32 waist for an aging man;
Examine why you would subject your body to a myriad of cosmetic surgical procedures;
Examine why you would purchase all kinds of anti-wrinkle creams; 
Examine why you would wear tight low-cut Capri-pants that expose your belly, along with midriff tops that expose your upper "six-pack" abdomen.

Are you really 'growing old gracefully'?

Or, as the years pass, which they do for everyone (if you're lucky), and the adding machine calculates (which it does) is your psyche really denying the meaning behind all this?

...That no matter how desperately you cling to youth, you will die.

...We all die.

'What does 'growing old gracefully' mean to you? And, what do you suppose it means to others who are aging as you are aging?


Does the mirror, mirror on the wall really tell it all?

Are you really "growing old gracefully" at sixty years old, when WHAT you see in the mirror looking back at you is "yourself at forty"?

Whom have you really deceived - are you really still forty?

Or, when you lie in your coffin will you merely be masquerading as a forty year old?
And, those who attend your wake, waiting their turn, whisper among themselves how well-preserved you are!

There’s an old saying:  "A rose is a rose is a rose." I believe that our chronological age ........ despite our body's appearance, despite the sums of money we spend, the amount of exercise we do, or amount of self-denial we engage in, ........... remains our chronological age.

In other words, "Your age is your age is your age."
And, no matter what you do, you can't fool Mother Nature!

Patricia Brozinsky, Ph.D. is a New York psychotherapist. She co-authored along with James A. Gibson, "Eat or Be Eaten: The Truth About Our Species, the Marriage of Darwin and Machiavelli," a book about human behavior.
 

“Healthism,” is the moral righteousness we attribute to a lifestyle that prioritizes health and fitness over anything else.

Put bluntly, healthism involves seeing health as an individual matter, a primary value, and a moral index: basically, "if you get sick, it’s your fault."
 
Health-related social stigma, … unfairly judging the character of ourselves or others based on health status or health choices, … has become a problem within our present culture.
 
“I’m doing this for my health” has become the standard new-age bullshit excuse for whatever dieting or eating behaviors we choose for ourselves.   Like, no matter how bizarre that behavior might be, how could any reasonable person ever object to such a Noble Purpose?

We make judgment calls based on what we assume health is.  We condemn and bless and decide who is with us and who is against us. We cast out the sinners,  embrace the saints of Healthism, and preach it on every street corner.

In our culture human beings now have the duty to be perceived as “Healthy” individuals.  Healthy is the new good. Unhealthy is bad.  Celebrities, athletes, and nutrition gurus are our idols and preachers. Fast food places and fat or unhealthy people are our outcasts and enemies.

There is nothing wrong with desiring to be healthy.  That is a normal wish for a happy life.  However, it becomes a problem when we turn being healthy into an obligation … making it a standard that applies to everyone in our culture.

Turning health into an obligation, or a standard of morality, belittles people who fail to measure up to the standard of whatever might be considered healthy. Whether or not a person is healthy is NOT something that each of us gets to decide.  Some of us are born with disabilities, others with chronic illnesses, others fall sick later in life or have trauma or mental health issues.

Most of the people who suffer from these conditions would rather have them gone, but the fact is that many people are forced to live with the fact that … for them  … poor health is here to stay. 
 
An unhealthy person isn’t always the fat person in a wheelchair that you saw go into McDonalds. Even if it was, how do you KNOW if they are unhealthy because they are fat or if they were born unable to walk and became fat because of it?

WHY a person is unhealthy should not matter. THAT a person is unhealthy should not matter. WHAT should matter is that unhealthy people want to live their life just like everyone else, without the added difficulty of having to prove that they are not to blame for their condition.

Nowadays, even people born with disabilities are told that they would be better if they just think positive, exercise more or eat differently. Millions of dollars are being made by milking ‘cures’ for conditions like Autism, Down Syndrome etc, even though they are known to be genetic conditions. A diet won’t change a genetic condition. By shifting our focus toward the Behavior of the disabled, we make them responsible for their condition. We tell ourselves that if the disabled really wanted to be healthy they would change.

Our culture has an obsession with weight loss and thinness.

People are told they should attempt weight loss “for health reasons”.  Why?  Since there is no actual scientific proof that weight actually CAUSES any health issues, exactly how would losing weight be a way to CURE health issues?

There is no level of “unhealthy” that requires anyone to diet or to hate their body, and there’s also no reason to believe that either dieting or self-hatred will help them become healthier or happier. 

The fact is that most dieters are NOT successful at losing a lot of weight, ... and more than 95% of those few dieters who ARE successful at losing a lot of weight ... cannot keep that weight off long-term.

This means that weight loss fails almost all the time.  When a prescription fails almost all the time, … consistently for more than 50 years, … the solution is not to keep prescribing it as a “healthy” intervention.  The solution is not to tell people to try harder, or to rename that prescription by changing its name from “Diet” to “Lifestyle change”.

No one has a duty to be fit and lean; to become thin; or to have a BMI inside the “normal” range. 

People get to prioritize their own health.  That means they are allowed to drink like a fish, jump out of helicopters wearing skis, take stressful jobs, not get enough sleep, eat what they choose, and be sedentary at whatever weight they happen to be. 

There are many people of very different weights that have the very same diet and exercise routines, as well as people of the same weight who have very different diet and exercise routines. 

Acting as if all fat people are unhealthy because they engage in unhealthy behaviors, and that all thin people are healthy because they have healthy habits, is not supported by the evidence.  It is stereotyping and bigotry, pure and simple.

In our culture, Health has become the holy grail. Everyone is chasing it, but few hold it, and even those who hold it only have it for a short while.  Every human being will experience death, and people who live long enough will eventually fall into the darkness and ‘sin’ of ill health. 

Health is the modern religion.

People convert to different sects in droves … committing fervently to a dietary path of choice … and truly believing that "this way of eating" will save them.

People cling steadfastly to the beliefs...

.....that they can make themselves “pure” or even immortal...

....that they can outsmart disease and death by making “correct” food choices …

.....spending hours studying the literature and listening to gurus in their search for that golden key.

The idea that we can outsmart disease and death … that we can effectively prevent “bad things” from happening to us if we make the “right” food choices … is particularly interesting, considering how incredibly faith-based, and un-scientific, this sentiment really is.

Food isn’t even close to the top of the list of things that will likely kill us. 

Genetics, environment, age, and various factors outside of our control are far better predictors of illness or death … yet we cling desperately to the delusion that food is the primary determinant of our fate, frantically trying to “play God” through our food choices.

Of course, this belief puts an enormous amount of pressure on our food choices, which inevitably leads to anxiety, frustration, and guilt whenever we “slip,” eat the “wrong” thing, or even when we become ill.

We might be able to avoid these anxieties if we embraced the Uncertainty of Life. If we remembered that the human body is Designed to break down over time; that Death is an inevitability, not a punishment that can be avoided through righteousness.

Here is the Truth:  Health is not an obligation; a barometer of our worthiness; entirely within our control; or guaranteed under any circumstances.

We don’t have to make our self-confidence, our self-esteem, or our self-worth contingent on our health.   We are worthy, no matter what.

Video Below:  Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac

It is very difficult
to manipulate one’s body size.

Most obese people find this to be
a laborious task in the short-term.
(short-term = a few years)

As a long-term task,
it is so eternally grueling
that it is almost impossible
for most reduced-obese people.
(long-term = many years). 

Weight-loss is HARD.
Maintaining weight-loss is HARD. 
Being fat is HARD. 

Everyone, … very thin, normal-weight, over-weight, fat, or super-fat, … has the Right to Choose which HARD they can best manage to live with.

I’ve found this past 12+ years of maintaining a very large weight-loss to be a consistently grueling task that has become more difficult each and every year so far.  Keeping my reduced-obese body at or near a “normal” size still requires continual ongoing vigilance and sometimes almost super-human willpower.  Maintaining weight-loss is the HARD that I am currently choosing, but that doesn’t make me superior to other people who choose to live their lives differently.

Here’s an excellent article written from the perspective of someone who has made the choice to Stop Dieting and to Accept and Live With their Body’s Fat.

“It’s Not a Diet,
It’s a Lifestyle Change” is Bullshit.
               
by Ragen Chastain, danceswithfat

You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it. Back in my dieting days - before I did my research  - I believed it.

The secret to lasting weight loss, they say, is that you can’t go on a diet, you have to make a lifestyle change.

This is total, complete, utter bullshit. It’s a lifestyle change alright – you change to a lifestyle where you’re dieting all the time, and it still doesn’t work. 

One of the big issues that the weight loss industry has created is a world where any weight loss claim said with authority that sounds even remotely plausible is accepted and repeated as proven fact.  Even in the world of peer-reviewed research, incredible liberties are given to weight loss research when it comes to not having to support their assumptions with evidence.

I was on a panel at a very prestigious school for their Eating Disorder Awareness Week.

At one point the school’s dietitian who was on the panel said that the reason people don’t maintain weight loss is that they lose the weight too fast, that you you should lose 1/2 pound a week and then you would keep the weight off.

I wasn’t surprised to hear it, there have been versions of this going around since I was a kid.

I knew that the students at the school were super smart and data driven so I said “I must have missed those studies, who conducted the research?”  She stammered for a moment, then said “Oh, there isn’t any research.”

Had I not been there those students would have heard only from a professional dietitian employed by their school, authoritatively telling them that they could achieve lasting weight loss by losing 1/2 pound a week -- as if she was stating a fact, despite having not a shred of evidence to back up her claim.

I think that one of the hardest things we have to come to grips with (as we get off the diet roller coaster and start a non-diet path), is the sheer number of times we’ve been lied to, and the extraordinary breadth and depth of people who have done the lying.  

Some Lie because they Believe the lies, some because they Want to Believe the lies (despite that fact that they’ve been weight cycling for years), and many, many of them for Profit.

I hear about far too many people who, on their death bed, regret having spent their entire life dieting.

In order to break free of the diet and weight loss paradigm that holds us down we have to see it for what it is – a lie, created on lies, supported by lies, and perpetuated by those who lie for profit. 

It’s a Galileo issue. = The idea that

"anyone who tries hard enough
to lose weight can do it"

is widely believed, supported fervently
with religious zeal, and
not at all supported by the evidence.



My life got better immensely and immediately
when I stopped buying the lies that I could manipulate my body size,
and that doing so was a worthy pursuit in the first place.
When it comes to diet culture, that’s the only lifestyle change that I’m interested in.

                               

I’ve grown weary of the opinions that are stated by all of the various Diet Experts… including those who are in the medical profession.  Every single one of them has some type of personal marketing agenda which is designed to provide THEM with money or recognition or both. They want to Help Themselves, by getting me to believe and accept their claim that following their advice will help ME.

To make myself clear, when I say,  “Weary”, I mean:

burnt-out, done-in, fatigued, played-out, spent, tapped-out, tired, wiped-out, worn-out, bored, fed-up, jaded, sick-and-tired, glutted, apathetic, demoralized, discouraged, disheartened, dispirited, drained, exhausted, annoyed, exasperated, frustrated, irritated, disgusted, and repulsed.

I’m weary of what Diet Experts tell me.  Things like: 

• Eat more food.
• Ignore Calories.
  
• Fast intermittently. Cycle periods of fasting with periods of eating.
• Follow a carefully timed eating schedule.
  
• Lose all the weight you want fast, fast, fast.
  
• It worked for me.  It will work for you.
  
• Thousands of my patients are proof my plan works.
  
• Lose up to 10 pounds in 2 weeks.
  
• Lose up to 40 pounds in 2 months.

Often “diet experts” want us to believe there are no restrictions on foods you can eat on their plan.  But, there is always a “but”.  For their plan to work, …. at least some of the time … we must omit, avoid or restrict at least one of the following:

• Fats
• Fruits & vegetables
  
• Legumes
  
• Proteins
  
• Carbohydrates

Diet experts start with claims that appear reasonable, and possibly correct, but then, unsatisfied with simple, basic, and verifiable truths, those “experts” then go on to spout additional information which is based solely on their own individual Pseudo Science beliefs. Even the most knowledgeable medical diet expert tends to express opinions which are ... at the most ... only about 80% Fact, with the remaining 20% merely Guesswork based on wishful thinking.

Today, diet creators claim that their plan “has the science supporting it.”
It doesn’t matter if the diet plan is high carb, low carb, high fat, high protein, low protein, or no food, they ALL have science supporting their plan.
   
Diet and nutrition science is competitive, manipulated, and highly profitable.
Having spent the past 50 years reading, observing, and personally experiencing just about everything available in the diet and non-diet nutrition world, I’ve come to a point… at this particular moment… where I find myself unable to believe a great deal of the claims that are made by any diet expert, including those who have medical degrees; who have become well-known authors; and who appear to be respected by those who are in agreement with their stated opinions.

That doesn’t mean that I’ve given up hope for long-term, weight-loss maintenance. It means that my own success requires me to personally develop an ongoing sustainable diet plan that works for me individually. It reminds me of that John Prine song: “We are Here Together, All Alone.”  Each person must follow their own path on their journey through life.  What works for me won’t necessarily work for you, and vice versa.

Any diet that gets a person to take in less food energy than their body uses will lose weight.   Any diet that gets a person to take in exactly the amount of food energy that their body uses will maintain weight-loss. Our bodies do what our bodies do.  Metabolism is based on involuntary factors, and people have almost no control over their individual metabolic rates.  Metabolic rates differ from person to person, AND from time to time.  Even people who have bodies that are the same age, size, and activity levels don't all use the same amount of energy, AND no one's body uses the same amount of energy all of the time.

Unfortunately for those of us who want to lose weight and maintain weight-loss, the bodies of Fat people are intrinsically designed to stay Fat.  Here is both our Joy and our Sorrow: food that smells good, looks good, and tastes good is Delicious, and our bodies' survival mechanisms make us desperately want to eat lots of delicious food whenever it is available.

Anyone can be a weight-loss diet creator.  Here’s a diet I just made up.  I call it the Prisoner-of-War diet (P.O.W. diet).  To follow the P.O.W diet, all you need to do is eat ONLY - every day - between 0 to 3 meals that are made up of only very small-amounts of inexpensive, very bad-tasting food.  

How long do you think anyone could stay on the diet that I just created? Probably only for as long as they are locked up, without the ability to access any additional food.  When the prisoners are released, the diet will end, and when that forced food restriction ends, the former prisoners will naturally choose to eat delicious food until their bodies feel satisfied, which will ultimately cause all of their lost weight to return.

So you see, the ultimate results of the P.O.W. diet is similar to that of every other diet. 

Here’s a diet expert’s opinion that I agree with: "at the end of the day if you don't like the life you're living while you're losing weight, you're virtually certain to gain it back.”

NOTE: Originally posted 9/28/2016.  Bumped up for new viewers.