Age is Just a Number

Age is Just a Number

Published by Tim Feeser at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Tim Feeser

Chapter 1: Life's Transition

I think it’s interesting to focus on what happens to us from the time we are born, throughout our lives as children, teenagers, young adults, middle agers and eventually senior citizens. There seems to be a typical American pattern as to what happens to the average person as a result of their lifestyle and eating habits. Unfortunately for the majority of us, we settle into a life of minimal activity and unnecessary weight gain, which could be partly blamed on the busy schedules of dual working families raising kids while trying to meet the increasing demands of our employers.

The hours we are expected to work to achieve financial success seems to be increasing, while the time involved raising kids seems to be expanding at the same pace. Whether it’s cheerleading or soccer, the time commitment involved with your kid’s extra-curricular activities is certainly demanding. With little time for much else, eating turns into several nights out a week at the various fast food establishments, taking in excess calories we don’t need, and fail to burn off.

So how did we get to this point in our lives? Let’s consider some typical transitions we move through from birth to middle age.

Birth

At birth, we may be the healthiest we will ever be. Our wonderful parents are feeding us healthful foods, making sure we get our beauty sleep, and taking us out for nice relaxing walks. We get plenty of exercise crawling around the floor and climbing up onto the furniture, all of which builds up our arms, shoulders and legs. We are extremely flexible and sit in positions our parents can only dream about. We lead stress free pampered lifestyles and we are very healthy.

At 6 months we are doing half pushups, followed soon after by the two-arm crawl. The little rattles are the dumbbells we use to begin turning that baby fat to toned little pipes! Our plyometric workouts in the little bounce chair have us in pre-training for those upcoming gymnastics and soccer teams that mom and dad can’t wait to get us in.

Yep, life doesn’t get any better than this.

Toddlers from 1 to 5

Once we actually have that first year under our belts, we really start to make great strides in our fitness levels. We actually start to perform a deadlift, or at least simulate one by standing up. Like performing deadlifts, lifting the bar up and down, our standing up exercise takes us through a similar motion whereby we standup, balance for a few seconds, then fall down. We get up to our feet again, hold, and then fall down. I wonder how many repetitions we performed to complete a set.

After months of stand ups, we have built up enough strength to take steps, eventually picking up the pace to a walk. Good thing too, because after eating all those jars of puree fruit desserts, we got to start burning some calories! Starting out slow is good, and walking gives us the perfect moderate intensity exercise. However, soon boredom sets in and we won’t progress so we have to change it up, expand our base, so we hit the stair master. This is a bit more complicated, so we take it slow going up and down, holding on to the railing as we go. Soon we have built up good hip and thigh strength and are going up and down the stairs without cheating, or using the railing.

Our youthful exuberance has our sense of adventure soaring to new heights as we learn about the tricycle. Pedaling up and down the street with the occasional trek back up the driveway provides us with that interval hill training, preparing us for our treks in our spinning classes at the gym in our later years.

As we hit five years, we are starting to hit our stride and are in training for all those activities our parents are about to put us in. We are developing our explosive power now as we have discovered hopping. Maybe not over mini hurdles, but the chalk lines of the hopscotch court are plenty challenging for the budding soccer stars.

Elementary School

During the next several years we really pick up the pace, as we are multi-tasking in many aspects of our young lives, from fall, winter and spring sports, not to mention summer boot camp. Trying to stay fit and keep up with the stringent demands of our elementary school teaches can be over whelming at times. School lunches are often not our favorites, except for pizza days, because who doesn’t like pizza. Or there are those who brought that special lunch made by mom, filled with a sandwich and our favorite junk food like chips and hostess Twinkies!

We get our first dose of pressure out at recess. It’s amazing how early the competitive spirit kicks in, along with all the trash talking. From kick ball to dodge ball, it doesn’t really matter what battle the teachers engaged you in, you needed to be on top of your game or face the bragging beat down at the cafeteria. At least you had the cream filled snack cakes to put a smile on your face. Hey, we learned about the benefits of comfort food at a very young age.

After a hard day at school, we rushed home for more delicious junk, and a date with the TV, or maybe today, the Xbox. After all, this is elementary school, and homework is light. After dinner, we are either back on our XBOX, or out making a name for ourselves in our little league sports career.

However, sadly, this is also a time that for some, the excess eating and sedentary lifestyle habit takes hold.

Middle or Junior High School

This is a time where those who may have been more active during elementary years, begin to realize that sports or cheerleading is not their passion, so they tend to lead a more leisurely middle school life. Not only is excess over eating becoming a habit for some, but lack of eating is as well. The pressure to look thin hits the young female population. Also, the flexibility of skipping the pre-prepared school lunch and opting for the free-style version, gave us the option of a milk shake, chips or cookies for lunch versus something with at least a few health benefits within it.

For those staying involved in activities, the good news is those activities are becoming more physically demanding. The bad news is, the eating habits may not be where they need to be at to support the required energy levels. There is so much misinformation out there about how to energize our young youth sports stars. When my daughter fist started playing little league soccer, each team parent had to bring fruit to each game for the half time snack, and the advice was, to bring grapes. What I eventually learned is that grapes were a poor choice as they don’t digest fast enough to be used as energy, and that banana’s would have been the right choice as they digest quickly. Notice how the pro tennis players or Tour de France bikers take a few bites of a banana during competition.

As my daughter aged, and I was coaching basketball, I made sure I always had a bag of banana’s for the players to have after each game during weekend tournaments where they were playing two to four games in a day.

High School

When I think of high school students, I think of the song Invincible by Pat Benatar. When is there ever a time in your life when you feel you have all the answers to life, and feel you are, well, invincible. Like Taylor swift says, We’re not going to make our parent’s mistakes. So as we mature from 16 to 18, we have it figured out. We are entering the prime of our lives, and are going to be better than our parents, even though we still have to listen to them.

We are starting to gain more independence, even though we still have to ask dad for the keys to the car or an extra 40 bucks for our date. Or at dinner, we still endured the balanced meal mom put on our plates, swallowing every last bite so as to not hurt her feelings. I fondly remember one night waiting for dinner. My Mom worked outside the home, yet still took it upon herself to make dinner every night. On this night, she chose to make some sort of hamburger, cheese, mashed potato concoction, mixing it all together into what she called a Polish Goulash. Ah, it looked a bit, well, disgusting, and we all unfortunately expressed our opinion to that effect. Bad idea, as mom hastily removed the dish from the table, and threw, and I mean threw it down the garbage disposal!

I can’t repeat what she said that night after all she is my mother. Needless to say we were on our own for dinner that night.

In school, it is still easy to maintain a reasonable weight, as you are still mainly growing, your metabolism is high, and you are likely the most active you are ever going to be in your life. Maybe you are the three sport athlete, or participating in many of the great high school extra-curricular activities such as marching band, cheerleading, dance line, debate or drama to name a few. Your social life is in full swing as well, not to mention those who had part time jobs. It’s a wonder you have any time to study, but you figure it all out.

We really don’t worry about what we eat, unless we are in sports, training to become the next Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Serena Williams or Mia Hamm. Maybe you are the wrestler or cheerleader who never eats, always worried about your weight. But for most, we eat what mom put out for us, along with our fair share of fast food.

While breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day, the morning reality of high school life has no time for breakfast. You take it on the run, stuffing a donut or pop tart in our mouth as you head out the door, sprinting off to catch the bus.

Whether you packed a lunch, or chose your school’s hot lunch, as we liked to call it in my day, you were still somewhat limited in your choices. Your wonderful mom, out of convenience, likely had a pretty consistent menu stashed in that bag day after day. Maybe a few signature sandwiches, like the old peanut butter and jelly special or ham with cheese. Of course, Mom made sure you had your healthful sides like chips and snack cakes. The school system ensured variety, having at least a few favorites to look forward to a few times a month, like pizza, burger with fries, or pizza burgers, remember those?

Your cafeteria was not to be out done by mom and offered plenty of competing sides as well, from chips, cookies to milk shakes. I remember trying to gain weight for football, and I made sure I enjoyed a chocolate shake every day!

Rationing the amount of junk food snacks at our disposal upon returning home from a long high school day went a long way toward preserving our lean young bodies. If I came home on a Wednesday looking for cream filled oatmeal pies, and they were all gone, I got the standard mom reply, Well I’m sorry you ate them all already, so you’ll just have to wait till grocery shopping day. Of course that was once a week on Saturday!

Depending on the activity level during the week, dinner was anything from a full cooked meal by mom or dad, fast food, or maybe you prepared your frozen favorite in the microwave, such as pizza rolls, a TV diner, or one of those heavenly healthy chicken pot-pies.

Little do we realize that out in the distant future, we will yearn to be young again and crave to have the body we once had in high school!

College

While high school may have been our years of invincibility, college becomes our time of independence. Going away to college provides us our next opportunity for growth, both in our wisdom and our waistlines. No more parents to tell you what to have for breakfast, lunch or dinner. In addition, no more snack rationing. You are on your own and free to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, from the college buffet style cafeteria. No wonder the famed freshman 15 is nearly guaranteed.

Of course, we all hear about the freshman 15 and laugh thinking, won’t happen to me. However, you are your own master now for the first time, face food temptation at every turn, whether it’s the snack shops, vending machines in the dorm hallway, the snack stash at the room, or access to the cafeteria three times a day!

Yes, the college cafeteria has many more selections than your high school cafeteria ever did especially the array of colorful desserts.

Each day starts with the breakfast buffet bursting with all your traditional favorites, including pancakes and French toast with assorted syrups, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, ham and omelets made special just for you! Of course if you are lucky, you may have breakfast potatoes and steak as well.

If none of those were appealing which is hard to imagine, you likely come across the waffle maker next. Pretty easy too, as you just pour the pre-filled cups of batter into the waffle iron, close, press a button. Ding! The timer goes off, then you turn it over, and within a short moment, you lift open the cover to a steaming hot perfectly formed waffle. Soft, warm and fluffy describes the best waffles you will ever have, especially after growing up with store bought frozen waffles! Oh, don’t forget the assorted fruit toppings and whipped cream.

If you miss your favorite Captain don’t worry, as there are usually 20 various sugary cereals to choose from, so they are bound to have your childhood favorite. The oatmeal is there too, but really? You are going to actually put a scope of that thick pasty looking slop in your bowl over any of those colorful tasty cereals? Hey porridge is for the three little bears, you have a tiger sized appetite for a bottomless bowl of Frosted Flakes!

And if none of those selections tickled your fancy, then grab a few sweet rolls and donuts since there are typically trays filled with plenty of varieties.

It’s amazing that after a few morning classes, you are actually hungry again, and make your way back to the cafeteria,