Kevin:  [00:00:00]I'll tell pretty much anyone who will listen that I'm in the best shape of my life at age 57. And I feel that the best is yet to come. And now to be fair, I never set the bar very high earlier in my life from a fitness perspective. But if you act even just a little bit interested, maybe you're just being polite. I'll tell you all about how I did it.

And what I've learned along the way, and you might in fact find it difficult to shut me up. I just can't help myself. I'm very passionate about healthy aging, and I want to spread the message. And while it might be impressive to be in the best shape of your life in your fifties. What about someone in their sixties?

Or maybe even in their seventies now that would be remarkable. But what about an 80 year old? Is it possible to be 80 and to be in the best shape of your life?

[00:01:00]Hello, and welcome to the over 50 health and wellness show. I'm your host, Kevin English. I'm a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach. In my mission is to help you get into the best shape of your life. No matter your age, we have a great show for you today. Jim Owens is with us and he's going to share his personal fitness journey along with his traits of super agers.

But before we get to that, I want to let you know that today's show is being brought to you by the silver edge. The silver edge is my online personal training and nutrition coaching business. Where I help you get off the exercise and diet hamster wheel and start making permanent healthy lifestyle changes so that you can enjoy the second half of your life with strength and confidence so that you can become the healthiest, strongest, most vital version of yourself. No matter your age.

If you're interested in learning more. Shoot me an email@coachatsilveredgefitness.com. And we'll start a conversation. [00:02:00] My promise to you is no hard sales pitch. No annoying incessant follow-up emails. Just an introductory conversation about your personal fitness goals. Okay. Enough of that. Let's get on with today's show.

 

My guest today is James P. Owen. After a successful 35 year wall street career, Jim found new purpose as an author speaker and social entrepreneur.

His book cowboy ethics has sold over 160,000 copies in is still going strong. But despite all of Jim's successes. He found himself at 70 years old, in very poor health. He was close to 50 pounds, overweight [00:03:00] and suffered from crippling back pain. Today at age 80, Jim is in the best shape of his life and has become an evangelist for healthy aging.

He is the author of the book, just move a new approach to fitness after 50. And the producer of the docu series titled the art of aging well. But before we jump into Jim's current work on aging, I was curious about his cowboy ethics days.

Jim: I spent my whole career in the investment world, managing portfolios. And I was always proud to be in that industry, but then along in the early two thousands, as you may remember, every week, there was a new scandal and it's not that I'm a goody goody two shoe guys. It's not that, it's just that if you lose the trust of your clients and investment business, what else do you have except trust?

And I'm afraid that wall street lost the [00:04:00] trust of a big swath of people with all of these corporate scandals. And I always thought, call me naive that the industry put its clients' interests first. No, no, they, don't not really.

And so I said, what can I do? I'm just one guy and written a couple of books and felt very confident in my writing and one book did real well  you know, 30, 40 years ago, I guess it was. And  I came across the idea of Cowboys. We all need heroes, Kevin, we don't have many heroes in our culture anymore.

Politician. People the cloth corporate executive is like one by one. So let us down. But then there's that cowboy? The iconic cowboy. He was a gem. This is a myth. My friend. Well, myths can be good. Myths can be inspiring. So came up with this [00:05:00] idea of cowboy ethics. I have no idea where the name came from. I just made it up.

And I wrote down these 10 principles to live by Kevin. We thought the book might sell 500 copies book has sold a 160,000 copies is still going strong. So if, if your listeners just Google cowboy ethics, I wrote that book in 2004 that's what's amazing about it. And then wrote a 10 year anniversary. They shouldn't get 12.

But it's really created a movement. And I was very proud of that. And now we're on the lecture circuit and Kevin, I stopped counting at 300 speeches. Was never happier my life with what I was doing, except for one thing, it damn near killed me physically. Boston on Monday, Miami on Tuesday. [00:06:00] San Francisco on Wednesday.

Yes. I love talking about cowboy ethics but the travel, the late night dinners, the early get to the airport at five o'clock in the morning, terrible food, that kind of stuff. And so  I said, when I turned 70, I'm assuming we have the rest day, Kevin looked in the mirror and said, my God, I'm an old man.

Lower back pain was excruciating now not to say you're tired. Oh, your back hurt? No, Kevin, I'm talking about on the bathroom crawling kind of pain agony. Okay. Both knees were shot. Right rotator cuff was frozen. If that weren't enough. I was about 20, 25 pounds overweight. And.  The worst part about actually was the low energy.

I had no energy at all. And I remember all my [00:07:00] seventieth birthday and I came across one statistic that changed my life. I dunno, I was Mayo clinic. It said, if you have a very large population, if you make it to seven.

Statistically, you can expect to live another 15 years and I've thought, Jim Bo, if you feel this bad now, can you imagine 15 years from now, I'll be in a bent over, die with a Walker, as I got, gotta do something. And so I started on my fitness journey and now I'm now 80 years old. I'm in better shape today.

I'll be 81, by the way, October Kevin I'm in better shape today than I was when I was 60, 50, 40, even in high school. And it's amazing. And I'm not anybody special. It's not like I was a Navy seal. I've been working out [00:08:00] for 50 years. I'm just an average guy. Is that what can I do? I made a lot of mistakes. And there was, it was a quick fix.

I never found it. So that's sort of my story. My journey started 70. I've got 10 years now doing this and I'm just passionate about spreading the message, not about me, but you can do it to anybody in ours will say, Jim, do you have any certifications? Sure do. I was a certified couch potato. That's it? You don't have a personal trainer?

No. Are you a no, some life coach. Oh, oh wait, you have a degree in kinesiology, gerontology. No, no. I knew nothing about this stuff. And hence, I made a lot of mistakes. This was, this is not a, a trend that goes up like this and the up and down and up and down. [00:09:00] Four years, I guess Kevin, I had no pain at all.

Today at 80. I will call it 81. I have zero back pain. Now. What's that? I don't know, it's worth a lot of my, more than mine to me. I can tell

Kevin: you that. thank you for sharing that. That's a fantastic story. And I think it's one that a lot of people can relate to. Right.  A lot of folks get immersed in their career, their families  especially that busy executive lifestyle, that constant travel, those late nights  entertainment and dinners.

And we find that self care is on the back burner. And in your, case, you said you, you know, all of a sudden you wake up you're 70. Your overweight, your probably not in the best of health, you have no energy and you've got this crippling back pain and you read this statistic somewhere that says, Hey, if I make it to 70, I've probably got another 15 years, statistically speaking, what's that going to look like if you don't make a change?

So that was the catalyst. It sounds like for [00:10:00] some Pretty radical change. So you go from that at 70 to 80 being in what you say is the best shape of your life. So that's fantastic. that's a story of never too late, never too old to start kind of thing. Right. Talk to us a little bit about that journey those early days. Did you start. Nutrition, just start with diet. Did you overhaul your lifestyle? What did that look like early on?

Jim: Yeah, that's a great question. I've never asked that question to be honest about it.

Kevin, I started off  working out and not went to the gym and   somebody said Jim  let's, let's do five pushups. I said five pushups. I could not do one. Is that embarrassing presented bears today? I don't do 50 pushups every day, but I, you know, I, I bang out 50 probably once a week and that's that I don't go beyond that, [00:11:00] but I learned early on it's about the effort.

It's not about the outcome and that's what most people don't understand. What I learned pretty quickly was I am going to, I can go into any gym in the country. I could be around bodybuilders and people who are fit and, you know, look great in a bathing suit. All that stuff, all they cared about was made the effort and they knew it and they could just tell.

And that was the respect that I learned. Did you have to have him to get when you, if you want to go on this journey, it's not the outcome. Doesn't matter whether I did five pushups or ten I didn't do 50 in six months. Believe me at the end of six months, maybe I did seven right day one. I couldn't do one real pushup.

Maybe [00:12:00] took me a week or two to do one that's a good one said, Hey, you know, celebrate. Right. So my point is that it's, a slow, but sure. Steady. It's just making small changes in your lifestyle. As I say, it's small steps that add up and really can make a pretty impressive transformation.

There is no quick fix. Kevin, if there was a pill, I'm like anybody else, I'd say I'm going to take a pill. Thank you very much. Now there may be a pill of someday. I don't think it's there a day. My motivation was very clear. It wasn't a me, Mr. America. It was, I want to get rid of this pain goes it's, it's crippling.

And it's just kind of ruining my life from my attitude [00:13:00] toward life in general. And the attitude is so important and I want to stress this to your, to your listeners. Kevin  attitude is so important. And this whole working out this whole transformation, this whole journey of mine, it's really more about attitude than anything else.

And I know people though, what are you talking about? Well, it is, if I only workout on days, I feel terrific. Is that one day a week?

Kevin: Yeah. Right.

Jim: Maybe yeah. Workouts. Come on days that won't feel that. Low energy. We all, as you get older, you have low energy. You can't help it. That's it. 80 when they looked low energy days, that's when I do my best workouts, that makes that work out for maybe 20 minutes.

And before you know it, Hey God, I feel so much better. I've never one time left the gym [00:14:00] and not felt better, not one time. And so  and I also want to point out that. Fitness in general, starts with physically fit. That's what I believe it. Can you not want to say I'm a Mr. America or miss America? I'm just talking about free of aches and pains and being mobile.

Okay. Being able to move. And so when I talk to folks, I don't even use the word exercise, like a four-letter word. I use the term movement. Our bodies are meant to move what you'll find is when you move period. So the first step for me was becoming physically active. I've got to tell you if I may, Kevin, I want to share with you and your listeners or story.

When I turned 75, I said, you know, I want to share what I've learned with my, with people [00:15:00] that there's no reason everybody has to go through my process. Yeah, I wrote this book called just move. I'm very proud of bragging with the wall street journal pick. This is one of the five best books, or they called it healthy aging.

It was a category for 2017 and I was very proud of that. And so that got me thinking about what can I do as an individual to help other people get off the couch and. If you're in the investment world, Kevin, you better like research. You don't want you in the wrong business. Okay. Right. And so I've always loved research on it doesn't matter what I do.

And so what I did, Kevin, I looked around me and when I was writing this book and I said, you know, it's interesting, Kevin you're people who are 60 who look and move like they're 80. And that people who are 80 who look and move like they're 60 I see what a [00:16:00] folks know in this second group.

And what I found was that there's, I think there are six traits and I call these folks super agers or people who are not, they're not, it's not 20 or 30 or 40 people who are 75, 80, 85, even 90 or 90. Now, no one, Kevin, I want to stress this shares that I found share all six of these traits. Okay. But the first one is every one was physically active and that doesn't mean a gym membership doesn't mean a personal trainer.

It doesn't mean they're a gym rat just means physically active. That means they do something. They walk 10,000 steps. They play tennis. You go on bike rides, but they don't just sit. I believe it's true. That sitting is the new smoking. I believe that's [00:17:00] true. So the average, the average adult sits eight to 11 hours a day, hunched over a computer. Watching TV, maybe reading a book who knows. Right. And it's killing us. And the, the most obvious way it shows up, I'm not laughing. It's just true. We have the distinction.

We are number one in one field. You know what it is? I do not. It's not, it's not education. We are the most obese country

Kevin: in

Jim: So here's the statistic again, this is through our real research. Seven out of 10 American adults are. Overweight. I'm not talking about Kevin.

You need to lose five pounds. I'm telling about losing 40 pounds. Okay. Or clinically obese [00:18:00] and so out of 10 American adults are either overweight or obese and then wonder about these underlying health conditions.

And I trace it back to again. You don't have to have a personal trainer. You don't have a gym membership. No, no, no, no, no, but you have to be active. Swimming. Terrific. Say, well, Jim, what do you think is best? What's the answer, the one that you will do

do all day long that isn't being it's right for you. So there are a lot of paths to this thing, and these weren't hesitant. You have to find your own path. All I can do is tell you what I do, but that is a mean is what you should do. But being physically active was the one trait out of the six. Every single one, I call [00:19:00] super agers my term for this.

Shares. Everyone is no exception. I never saw or met a 90 year old, who was what I call a super ager who didn't do something. Maybe they swim. Maybe they walked in thousands of, and they didn't make into a big deal. The second trait of bank is that the ate sensibly. I'm not saying that everyone did, but this is one of the six when I called traits.

And I never really thought much about this. I used to love to eat bacon, bacon almost every day, even when I was working or working out until my cholesterol came in and that's why I want to strongly recommend your audience, please, please, please get that physical checkup every year. It's critical as you get older.

Yeah, absolutely. Of you're 40. Maybe you don't need to. I don't know, [00:20:00] but boy were 70, 75 or 80 or 65, whatever you better get that checkup. In my case, my cholesterol level was in the high level. That's all I can say. Yeah. So I was all getting the talk, the doctor. Okay. What am I eating? Okay. So keep a journal now of every single thing I put in my mouth, I can tell you, Kevin, what I ate two weeks ago.

Okay. So boring. Boring. It may be what's. What's kept me at not, I weigh now about 1 55, 1 54, maybe not a good one. But I, I weighed 2 0 5 at my height sub well, I've lost 50 pounds. Yeah. It's not hard losing the weight. What's really tough is keeping it off a hundred percent. And the reason being when you get older, your metabolism slows down and that's the [00:21:00] challenge slows down.

You're losing muscle mass. And we all have the same problems we'll have to really, so I keep a journal of every single thing I eat. I can look back and say, yeah, sure. I had a piece of chocolate cake. It's not gonna kill you, but I basically follow a Mediterranean diet  . I love red meat. I could eat red meat every day, all day, but I don't twice a week.

Okay, great. And when I do that, I'm very big on portion control. I'm not a fanatic doesn't mean what? I think that for me, what worked was 80, 20, 80% of the time I really, really eat healthy and terms of the tire probably don't eat quite as healthy. That's not kill. Yeah. I mean, thing is that consistency. And so the second thing was eating sensibly

and Kevin, I want to share with your audience. I'm [00:22:00] not the only person like this. I love red wine. Well, red wine, having a glass. Maybe that's not going to hurt you when you get older. Maybe a sec. I found myself every night having maybe more than two glasses, let's just put it that way. And so

cold Turkey three years ago, April one and said, that's it. I'm not going to do this anymore. Not I feel a lot better. And that's just a personal story. I'm not proud of it. That's no, we all have issues. The next thing was managing stress. And what I learned was you can exercise all day long. Okay. But the stress can undo all of that. So you've got to have some way of managing stress and I don't have a secret to it and I'm not a MD. I don't, all I can say is for [00:23:00] me, exercise is the best way that I know of personal working off that stress. And I've found that when I do work out, my stress level goes way down.

So that's, that's another reason why. The fourth thing I would talk about quickly is, is getting sufficient sleep. We don't think about this when we're younger and when boy, when you're 30 years old, you can do all nighters or whatever. Well, you live in older, it's going to bed and waking up at the same time.

You know, I started getting up to that six o'clock in the morning and go to bed probably around 10. eight hours, maybe Kevin, you get by you telling me you get by on less

Kevin: no, I do not. In fact, I'm a big fan of sleep and the restorative power of sleep and have recently doubled down on my sleep routine.

So I hear what you're saying is that sleep consistency, finding that [00:24:00] consistent bedtime, that consistent wake time. I've got a little pre-bed ritual, but yeah, sleep is, and it's also one of the most anabolic things that you could do for your body. We obviously there's a lot of brain health that happens in the REM portion of our sleep, but there's a lot of physical restoration.

That's where we're actually building muscle. Is in that deep phase of sleep. So there's yeah. To your point, there's wonderful things that happen from maintaining a good, healthy sleep hygiene, if you will.

Jim: I like that. So I know two more things and one that I was fascinating. Again, I'm talking now about super agers.

Those people who are 85 or 90, who are sharp, you know, mentally sharp or what, what the heck do they know? And Kevin, not everyone, but another common trait along with being physically active, almost every one of these people, men and women have a [00:25:00] positive outlook on life I call it positivity. They're not naysayers.

You're not cynical people. I don't know where it comes from. Mother nature. I, you don't know, but I see that every day now I live, I live in a the, you now San Diego, Southern California. I'm in a, what you might call a retirement home. But I see it right here that there are people who every day complainant, oh, my shoulder her my advice, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

In there, people who same age have a positive, in a difference that tweak on the mix is like positive energy is what I call it. And that attracts positive energy. And so. Can you work at this? Yeah.  I think you can maybe, maybe it's so rich here. I really don't know, but if I can share one [00:26:00] story, Kevin, with you and you're in your audience when I turned 70 and I talk about my back pain and this and that as not the full story, there's another part of the story that I don't talk much about.

But I've been very engaged, listening to you. And I do watch your podcast by the way, Kevin down deep.  Believe that my best days were over. That's an awful, awful, awful feeling. And I can't tell you how many people I know who are older who feel that way, that they talk about their prep school. Can you talk about what they did in college and they Telegraph there.

They're never talking about tomorrow the next day. So they're living in the past. And so I kind of had to work at this to be honest about it, but  and I [00:27:00] put it all down to this transformation. Okay. Going from a couch potato to being fit, so to speak. I honestly believe Kevin, my best days still lie ahead I believe in the heart of hearts and that's what keeps me going.

And the reason I'm doing this interview, I'm not selling anything.  I'm not selling protein powders out. I'm not a life coach. What keeps me going is the belief that I can inspire other adults to make small changes in their personal behavior, lifestyle changes like, all right, they can really overtime, dramatically change their life.

I've asked that you can learn this stuff, and that's why I'm doing in that kind of leads to that sense of purpose. I'm just built this way. I need that. [00:28:00] Of purpose in my life. That's why I'm doing this interview and I have nothing to sell.  You don't to buy the book, you don't need to do any of this stuff.

I'm just a guy with a story, but the purpose is, is my personal mission to spread this message. And that's what I'm saying, like a fitness ambassador.  And this led me about a way to what I'm doing. That I'm very proud. I came up with the idea, which is, I like this book. Just move. If you really want to touch people on an emotional basis, there's no better way than through the film is a medium.

I that's been my experience. So I have a buddy of mine. His name is Jim Havey H A V E Y. Jim has won three. Emmys  And it's not because of his technical expertise, Kevin it's because he makes an emotional connection with an audience.

So I pitched him. I said, I have an idea. [00:29:00] I want to do a film with you, Jim. And we call this the art of aging well, and it's a, what they call a docu series, , if we're successful, becomes a series.

And so the first one we filmed took about two years to put it together. So I'm the producer. That means Raise the money. All right. Hire are the people oversee the quality. I don't, I'm willing about the actual filming part. And I was all set to go in, of course, along came the COVID-19 the pandemic as, oh my God, I can't get on planes.

I can't do what I do best, which is the speech stuff. So I said, Jim, I need a fall back position. Or you're not wasted a lot of money in two years of our lives. If you were the idea of PBS, I said, I'm going to pitch PBS and just see if they're interested [00:30:00] or do you normally about PBS? I mean, I watch the news, but I don't have that in Kevin.

And what I found was there two distributors one's in Boston, one's in South Carolina, so I'm going to pitch these guys.  And. Lo and behold, both these distributors wanted this 27 and a half minute documentary.

So I'm very proud to say this Kevin your audience. We've been on 122 PBS stations in the last year. We've been in 25 states and we're still going strong. And so we're now doing the second document. It's on quote super-agers, I'm just fascinated by the concept. Why are some people no, 90 years old, sharp as a tack and so on.

And other people are just struggling and down. Try. Why is that? And what can we learn from these people? And that's what we're doing. It's called the art of aging [00:31:00] well, and  sometimes super agent. No Cape required. And what I've learned is none of these people that I am, I needed to be to all to people.

None of them meet all have all six of these trips. They all share some ones they're all physically active. I would say    the all have that positive outlook. And along with that, they probably work on this eating sensibly. And the reason I'm telling you all this stories that suggest to your audience that anybody can do this. Just take them one at a time.  I think the foundation is to be physically active. So of foundation from me. Physical fitness, but Kevin, this is important point.

I meant to your audience  emotional strength and mental strength is every bit as important [00:32:00] and people who let's say a woman has lost her husband of many years, often, lots of yourself. So to speak in a room in our apartment, never gets. It's cut off and this leads to loneliness. And then fortunately down the road often leads to serious issues like Alzheimers dementia, and my message to that person is you've got to get out and you don't need to be the most outgoing person.

You just need to have a friend, one friend. Okay. Maybe. Okay. And so this to me is a message I want to just give your audience. Is that in the relationships, healthy relationships is such a big part. Also are Kevin make the point? I don't want your audience to think for a second that [00:33:00] people who are super agers don't have issues.

Please don't think that. Okay. I've got issues. Okay.  It's just that being in good shape. I feel confident that I can better weather these issues. So if I do need to have a heart attack or stroke or whatever happens to me, I will come out of it better than if I was 60 pounds overweight.

Kevin: Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. So, Jim, let me just back up just a little bit, cause I got your six traits of super-agers. We had physical activity, eating sensibly, managing stress  sleep, and certainly the positivity and the positive outlook  which is the sixth.

Jim: The shakes one is that sense of

Kevin: purpose.

Sense of purpose. Okay, great.

Jim: I'm one of those guys   I don't know where it comes from and I don't want you [00:34:00] always to think that I believe I'm somebody special. I'm not anybody special beliefs. What I need that reason to get out of bed in the morning and looked forward to it. And when I don't have.

I'm not the same person. I know that from my history, from a career and so on, I need that purpose. A reason to get a reason. Why would I want to do this call with you without the purpose? I don't think so. No. Do something else? Maybe. Nope. I need that. And I found out. Not everyone, not every super age or Kevin, but it was a very common trait, a neighbor of mine.

And I don't want to embarrass him down the hall  an amazing intelligent person  highly educated and that kind of stuff never talks about his past. Never, never does it just that's the past. Okay. Took up golf [00:35:00] at 75. I never knew anybody that did that plays three times a week, seven o'clock tee times walks the course at 92 is a what?

That's fantastic. Yeah, it's fantastic. It certainly is a group of guys. We started playing together.  15 years ago, whatever the math is. And he said, no, no, they're dying off, but I can just tell from him, he never looks back. He never says no, just lives in the future. And now I just take my hat off to him and say, boy, if I'm half the guy, he is, I'm not going to embarrass him.

Can you imagine being that age and that active, mentally sharp, and he is mentally sharp as you are. Let's put it that way. He is [00:36:00] creating stuff every day, Writing a book or something. I don't get too personal. He's writing a book of some kind. Wow. That's somebody that we can all try to emulate.

So that sets a purpose. Is really, really  important. Now having said that Kevin, this does not mean

jumping into a burning building and saving somebody or whatever. No, you can be semi and says, look, I know you're working. Let me take care of the kids for you while you're working. So it's just, we'd have to be a small. having a good smile and a good share that to me is having a sense of purpose every day.

Well, you seem so happy that doesn't mean a person doesn't have serious health issues. It means that every day they make it their point to try to make somebodys eyes, life a little. It's not a cute, a little bit better. And I bought my [00:37:00] hat goes off. I think it's a fantastic trait to have just a little bit better.

And the person that says good morning, Kevin, they don't say that a good word. Hey Kevin, good morning. And that smile to you. If you've had a bad night, for whatever reason, okay. Can pick up your day in this changing lives. So let's best sort of what I'm.

Hope I can be with it as I get older is to be a positive change in somebody's life. But don't for a second thing that people who are  super-agers don't have health issues. We all have, it may be a child, maybe one of my wife and I have been married 52 years. One of our children has some issues, autism, well.

That's that's a tough one. You know, I'll tell you what now that's tough. And so do the best we can. [00:38:00]  but we all have something that we're having to deal with.

So I'm trying to say, so don't look at some more like this and think their life is so wonderful. Yeah. They make it positive. But your health issues.

Kevin: Sure. And that's what it means to be human, right. There's nobody without issues. I think we're all, we all have that in common.

Certainly some people have more than their fair share and other people maybe not so much, but certainly we all have things to deal with, but I think we can both agree that taking care of let's just use these six traits of super-agers. If you're hitting. All of those I think that that spills over into all other areas of your life.

And you're, to your point, you're more capable of handling what life is throwing at you  be that positive or negative, right?

Jim: Well, you're absolutely right, Kevin and I want to, I want to echo what you're saying to me when I couldn't do one pushup and I can [00:39:00] say I do. It's not the 50 pushups is that if I can do that, what else can I do?

So to me, fitness gives you a real  positive thing that you can hang on to and build upon that's that's the point. So it's not like they do it, so, okay, so you can do 30 or 40. It doesn't matter. It's the confidence building. If I can do this. Going to do so I don't mind, I like taking risks  at my age.

I don't mean crazy risks, but I mean, I don't mind doing a film and people that, oh God, your film was awful Jim I couldn't get past two minutes and that's no, thank you. So I like that also like collaboration that's like where you've been wonderful with your program and what you do, and you, by your personnel, you encourage collaboration.

And I think that's so [00:40:00] critical in relationships. We're all in this together. And  I like that team building stuff, even say as corny, whatever. None of us are one, you know, we're, we're all part of a community. And one of the best things about you and what you're doing is you have built a community and there's a common bond of people who listen to you.

And  I'm just wonderful. That's all I can say. Well, well

Kevin: thank you. And I, I would echo that 100%. We are stronger together than we are alone. And having that sense of community gives us, it feeds into what again, what it means to be a human. We need that connection and.  The more of us that are out here amplifying this message of the benefits of healthy aging.

The more likely others are to hear it and to come on board. And ultimately, I think that's both of our missions, right? We both have this passion for the, it can be a tough sell to somebody to say, [00:41:00] Hey, I want you to do these tough things. I want you to make these tough choices every day for the rest of your life.

So that, that can be tough. That's a tough sell, but  I think as well. Making those lifestyle changes. And I love it that you've alluded to multiple times here today in this, brief talk we've had that it, it's not that you're completely overhauling your lifestyle today.

You're making these small lifestyle changes. And I think you said something along the lines of these small changes when done consistently, they can have a huge impact. And I think that's something that a lot of folks, especially maybe older folks that are intimidated with starting something like an exercise program, or maybe have dieted in the past unsuccessfully.

And they're thinking about nutrition changes, they might be intimidated by these big changes. Well, they don't have to be big changes cause even small changes, small steps in the right direction can have a huge payoff down the road.

Jim: Kevin, you said it better than I did. I [00:42:00] think small steps. Done consistently over time, add up.

And it doesn't matter where you were lose weight, get more fit. Doesn't matter what it is. If you say, look I've wanted that three months for don't even think that there aren't, there is no quick fix. There is no one formula. If there was. I would share the formula with your audience.

Kevin: Yeah. Well, we'd all be healthy and fit if there was one easier way to do it.

Jim: Right. What works for you in my own philosophy of this organ and talking about it is if it works, keep on doing it. If it doesn't work, try something else. Yeah. That's how I approach all this stuff. If it doesn't work. Hey, other stuff. And so I do want to share one common    what should be an embarrassing [00:43:00] story?

You know, I don't tell is I'm doing, it's almost like I would tell you without, and not your audience, Kevin.

Kevin: Well, careful we're recording here Jim. So fair warning.

Jim: It was, is it, do you have a secret about fitness that nobody else knows? Yeah, I actually, I do. Okay. The first day. I was overweight, bought a compression short.

I

Kevin: think I know where this is going. Yes, I do. People

Jim: look to be in sit and they didn't say it, but I could say that on your face, this guy must have no shame at all

right now. I'm wearing me. Well, I'm worn the law. Should we head back, hanging over. It was a gym. How'd you get motivated  by compression t-shirts if you think I could [00:44:00] put on five pounds and wear this shirt? Oh, my fats. So that's, that was the only I'll laugh about it.

but that's what I did, to be honest about it. The people said this guy was to have no pride at all. One year, two years, three years, almost four years ago, I was said, Hey, you know, I'm not wearing a double, extra large, whatever it is, I'm wearing a medium. And that's about the tightest I can wear. I wear it every day.

Can you see this? My t-shirt I cannot know. Okay. It says geezer fitness.

Kevin: And that's what I call geezer fitness. Yeah,

Jim: that's right. My routine. I said, Jim, what, what's your routine? Well, I'll call it geezer fitness. So I have a lot of fun and part of this whole thing is making it fun.

And one thing I do for fun was working out. I work out my wife and [00:45:00] I we're going to Stanya SGA. N Y we work out together probably three days. Hmm. And you know, if it's strength training, I probably do more than she does. Sure. But good form. I'm Tonya flexibility. And this girl took it up five years ago. And what happened was she overheard one of her closest friends, Kevin said to her, you know, Jim used to be a couch potato, which Tonya said, yeah, you say, well, now he's gone from a spud

to a stud. There you

Kevin: go. Love it. Spud to stud. I think

Jim: you're onto something fell out of her chair. Laughing said to herself,  if I want to keep up with Jim, maybe I need it. So we started working out. We started walking, we walked three days a week. At least we'd be walking this afternoon. We hold hands and we have a blast.

Like we were like teenage and [00:46:00] laugh and have fun. So part of that. Can you find a fun factor if you take this too seriously, we'd we don't, we have fun doing it. And  that's kind of the story. I hope this is a story that resonates with, some people in your audience and even inspire some by to, get started to re that's.

That's what my goal is to try. Encourage people to just give it a try, but if it doesn't work we're to be lost, but what's, I'm going to close the one idea. Kevin, what's interesting that older people who don't exercise don't understand is results come pretty quickly when you are older and you're new to it.

It's we all hit a wall. I hit a wall white today. Can not do 60 or 80 pushups. I don't think so. Who would want to do that? Okay. [00:47:00] And so, but in the beginning  I say it took three, four years to get rid of aches and pains, but it's amazing how quickly you're going to feel better looking better. Well, that's a, that's a side effect was feeling better.

I guarantee all you do is walk. You're going to feel. And that's, that's kind of the message. Just, just move, get off the couch, be active or whatever thing, if you enjoy bicycling, hiking or whatever it is, give it a shot and you'll be surprised how much better you feel. And then from there, you may want to think about changing, making other small behavioral change.

What I call lifestyle changes, maybe wor eat a little bit better, more sensibly like maybe. We're getting better sleep habits, that kind of stuff. So that's my story

Kevin: yeah, that's a great story. And thank you so much for sharing that with us. And for folks [00:48:00] listening, I'll put links into the show notes here on my website, and you can find  the art of aging

well, the documentary film that Jim had mentioned, and you can, view that online now.  Also just move the book and the other resources that we talked about. So. Jim, as we're wrapping up here today, where can people connect with you and learn more about you? What's the best way for people to follow along?

Jim: Well, the best thing is probably, this film is a good place to start. A book is a good place to start. You just called the Latin at the bottom, but just go to the library and so on. But I have a website and  but. No, I'm fairly visible and through my writing and through these films.

So I don't want to get too promotional on that, but you can just Google my name and stuff pops up there. Huh? Interesting. Let me just check this out. So that's who I am and that's what I do. And I thank you for the, for your time today. You've inspired me after [00:49:00] tech. So

Kevin: Thank you so much for coming on and taking the time, sharing your wisdom, your inspiration, your story with us. You are a fantastic ambassador for healthy aging, and certainly wish you all the best in all your future endeavors. Thank you, Kara.

 

Well, that's our show for today. Folks. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. You can find all of the show notes over at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode 62. You can also continue the conversation over there. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. But before you go, I do have two favors to ask.

One, would you please give this show a review on whatever platform you're listening on. In two, would you please consider forwarding this episode to anyone who you think [00:50:00] might be interested? It could be a family member, a friend, or a coworker. The easiest way to do this is just send them a link to this episode. And again, that's silver edge fitness.com/episode 62.

Thanks again for spending time with me today. And until next time, stay strong.