You may have realized that being healthy feels different than it did in the past, now that you're over 50. If you want to maximize your health potential, but don't have time to read through overwhelming pages of Google links, this is the show for you. Welcome to HealthyTips After 50. We love doing the research, finding solutions, talking to health experts, and learning what works and what doesn't.
Now, your host, she spent the last 25 years dedicated to feeling her best, and is here share her best findings with you, Susan Rosen. Hello, everyone. This is your host, Susan Rosen, and I have a very exciting guest to have on today. Today, and her name is Jean Amlore.
She's going to be talking about a subject, and I'll have her tell you a little bit more about it as well, that she and I are both very excited about and that isn't the normal health subject that she talks about when she goes on podcast. So this is even something new for her. Exactly. Yeah. So welcome, Jean. And like I said, tell us a little bit more about yourself and your other interest. Okay. My real life. Exactly.
I'm a multimillion dollar business coach for coaches and consultants, and I also have another very high-end offer for high-level CEOs to find purpose and fix whatever's going on. Okay, so that's the business side, and I'm passionate about that. I love how many people to thrive. Yeah, I understand that.
That's one of my main purpose in life, and I have a 40-year purpose now that I started at the age I'm 59, that's going to take me through year 99, is my purpose is to help more people, millions of people, to thrive in all ways. And health does come into that, but I'm not a health coach, although I was excited to be on the show because nobody ever has me on a show talking about health, but it's one of my passions. So I'm thrilled to be able to talk about this.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I think like we were talking before we got started that we were like, okay, now, wait a minute. Why is she on the show? And then when we figured it out, we were both like, oh, great. Excuse me. So the energy on this should be really good. Great. Yeah, exactly. So why don't we start by talking about how you got really into all the health because it's relatively new that you've gotten to that point, right? Or no? Has it been a while?
No, I've been into health my whole life, but I have a new mission with my health lately. But I've been into health I was 17. I used to go to health food stores because we didn't have internet. We just had libraries and health food stores. The only real health information you could get was at health food stores. I still live in Australia. I grew up in Australia. You I get those little pamphlets about vitamins, and I'd be reading all.
Very limited, but it was what they had as far as scientific information was these little pamphlets on the importance of vitamins and very limited. But I'd go and devour all that, and I'd go to the and whatever was written. There wasn't a lot then because I grew up in the '70s and '80s, right? Very little. Because I'm 59. I'm older than you, so I remember it very well.
Then I did pick up a book that my dad happened to have in his library called White Poison when I was 20, which was about how bad sugar is. I read the book, which probably is out of print now because it was from the '60s. Probably worth a lot of money. I don't know, but I picked it up and I thought, Oh, is sugar that bad for you? It educated me way ahead of other people because nobody was really saying how bad sugar was. They were all talking about how bad butter was.
And then they'd have you eat margarine, which is way worse than butter. All these things that you should eat only on margarine because it's... And then they realized butter is way better than... All that stuff, just the misinformation. But I read the book and I thought, this makes sense to me. And I cut out sugar for a whole year when I was in college. I just said, I'm not eating this bad for you. So I was always health-minded.
At that point, I was eating... I eat sweets, but I tried to eat a lot of vegetables and tried to work out when I could. But I was way more health... I never bought junk food, ever. A college person that never bought junk food. I realized before everybody else did, this is not food. I would say to my family, this is not food. Well, yes, it is. No, it's not food. It's sugar. It look at me like you're a nutcase. Can we know junk food is not healthy, but it's food.
I'm like, no, it's actually not food. And I was way ahead of my time. Then as lots of years pass, it's like, well, gee, that isn't actually food. Then I just had a really good diet. I lived in Paris for six years, and I just ate a pretty good diet. I take wine. I was eating sweets, but it wasn't a bad diet at all. It was just normal. I always ate a lot of vegetables, brown rice. I didn't eat a lot. I didn't eat meat for a lot. I haven't eaten red meat in 100 years.
I gave up red meat when I left home after college in the '80s. Interesting. In 1980, I think '7, I said, I'm not eating meat anymore. I don't think it's good for you. I still ate chicken and fish. I have not eaten red meat, I think since 1989. Okay. But then we went through all these different diets, all the different diets we all went through. I forget what we call them now. Anyway, but then recently, I was eating a lot of sweets.
The one thing that I really like that's not good is I am a sugar addict. Okay. So I'm 59. I went and did a bunch of blood tests recently. It's called functionhealth. Com, by the way. It's Dr. Mark Hyman. Okay. You Oh, yeah. You get over 100 blood tests for $500 times two. So it's amazing to kick control of your health. And every time I go to the doctor, my joke is I just go to the doctor to get the blood tests. That's how I think.
Okay, because I usually Google stuff and I usually figure out stuff more than my doctor. I'm sorry, but that's the thought. Me too. Exactly. I went and got these blood tests and I realized that there was a lot of problems coming up, like five biomarkers for cardiovascular disease. And I thought, Oh, my gosh, I could have been one of those people that looks healthy and just has a heart attack out of the blue. Oh, my God. Yeah. I have drastically changed my diet.
I am doing way more exercise, not like over exercise because- No, because you don't want to do that either. Yeah. Over-exercise is bad for you at a certain age, and it actually depletes your immune system. So now is not the time for us to go do marathons, and that's not healthy endurance because I have Hashimotos. So I'm being I'm really not overdoing it, but I've decided I'm going to fix everything. So I cut out sugar, I cut out all white flour, all dairy.
And I'm eating much more protein because we can't synthesize protein. And my mission is to build as much muscle as I possibly can so I don't get sarcopenia because the people that don't have muscle, they're the weak ones that fall. So I'm like, now I still have a chance to build muscle, and I'm Luckily, genetically, I build muscle very quickly. So my mission is build as much muscle, stock that up, quit the sugar. I don't drink alcohol ever now. We stopped that as well.
And get more protein and do more exercise. And I'm taking certain supplements and blah, blah, blah. So now I've adopted because I heard this and this changed my mindset. What changed it was this. One of my colleagues said, he said, One of my colleagues who's really a health expert, he said, We I have to adopt the mindset that exercise is our religion when you turn into your 15. And I already have a religion. I said, okay, now I have a second religion.
He said, that shifted something in me that is not negotiable. It is not, Gee, I think I'll work out a bit. And I thought, okay, now I get it. It's a lifestyle. So I started doing various types. I got a trainer. He trains me two days a week in. I'm building muscle. I swim, I walk, I bike. I started tennis again. I'm going to do Pilates. So I'm just mixing it up. So it's fun. And I'm like, What do I do today? And I started wearing a weighted vest when I walked to build a bone mass.
That's That's what I'm doing right now. Well, that's a lot. And it's probably 50 times more than the average person. And that's probably underestimating. Right. But the thing is we only have one body. That's very true. And medicine is getting better. Pharma is not the whole answer, but there are some drugs that are saving lives. Let's be real. Okay? And People are living longer, but they're not living better. When I die, I die. When God wants to take me, I'm going to go, right?
That's it. I'm not trying to live way longer. I just want to be having a good life while I'm alive and I'm enjoying it, not sick in a wheelchair and weak and hating my life. Yeah, exactly. And you're not out there doing it so you can run a mile faster and beat everybody else, all the other people of your own age bracket. It's like, No, not going there. No, I agree. I know even myself, I'm eating better. I started eating better, my God, 30 years ago?
No, it got to be longer than that. 40 years ago? Or you're 50. I don't know. I'm almost 70. It was a long time ago. I developed a whole, in my language, shitload of allergies. And so there was a list of only about this long things I could still eat. That was very easy to lose weight on. The other thing is it just helps your mental... So I have mental health, too. The exercise helps the mental health. But I also work on my mental health every day because I have a challenge with anxiety.
And I don't take anxiety drugs, but I've figured out certain mindset things to just naturally verb that. And my whole thing is, here, I'll show you my Post-it. I want to live with zero stress. Yes. How nice. Also, I want to do everything with pure joy. And I think that I have these reminders that we are letting ourselves settle for a stressful life, when if you just say, I don't accept any bad stress.
And once I started thinking this way, I was like, wait a minute, but I don't accept stressful situations anymore. If they happen out of the blue because I'm evacuating because of the hurricane, well, that's unavoidable, right? But still, I kept myself not stressed about it. And it's also about mental health. Exercise helps the mental health, but we do have to work on our mental health every day. I do. I know. Yes. Yeah. Well, just the balance.
The balance, the whole thing is something that it's really easy to get out of balance, and then you have to notice it, and then you have to bring yourself back into balance. If you don't do all of that, then you can get stuck in the off-balance area. You know what I do to make sure I'm noticing it? I wake up in the morning and I do a scan. I say, Okay, what's bothering me? Because usually there's something underlying because nobody has a perfect life.
And it might be something small, like, Oh, I forgot to pay that bill, which I don't usually, or, Oh, I got to do that for my kid, or a big problem, or a client problem, or something, or something bad that's happened, like I lost a lot of money in an investment. It's bugging me. So I do a scan and I wake up and I go, Okay, is there any feeling of ickiness? And I'm like, Okay, there's that underlying anxiety or stress.
And I bring it to the forefront front, because if you don't, it's there in the back of your mind, ruining your day somehow because you don't... When I'm in bed, I bring it to the forefront and I go, Okay, only feel this feeling of that worry or stress, and I breathe into it. And the more I breathe into it and not avoid it, it regulates your emotions because you're not pretending. And then I'm like, okay, I'm breathing into it. I'm fully breathing into it. I'm not pretending.
I'm not pushing it aside. And then once you do that, and I have a little thing I do that deletes it. Once I do that, I'm like, okay, I've acknowledged what that is, wake up in the morning, what it was, and several things sometimes. Just, okay, clear it. And then I'm like, okay, I'm clear for the day. I know what that was. And then I do some gratitude. It's very important, I think, to get to the dark side first before you do the Polyana stuff, right?
Because if you just do the gratitude, you're forgetting, Wait, there are these issues that are bothering me. Bring those out. And it's also dark journaling also works. When you just write down everything is not good in the morning, get it out. Then you do your gratitude because then it's not like shutting up the bad stuff. I hadn't heard that one before. Oh, yeah. You want to get- Oh, yeah. You want to get- I like that.
That's what's missing with some of these happiness experts is they're not acknowledging that there are things that are bugging us. Listen, It's get it all out there. Neutralize it. Okay, that's it. Now we do our gratitude instead of polyana-ing everything because it's great to be positive, but you also want to look at the shadow side, what's going on, right? Well, yeah. I mean, there are some things you just have to deal with. Yeah. You can't say, oh, I'm happy all the time.
I'm happy all the time. It's like, well, no. The bathtub overflowed and whatever. I mean, there's a car accident. I'm going to go further, though, because I have another thing called what. And that's the other thing. You can be happy no matter what. It might not be as soon as you hear something horrible, but you can take a moment and then you can get past that and say, you know what?
My thing is I want to be happy no matter what, not just when my day is perfect and the sun is shining and everything's wonderful and paying on time and my kids are angels. Otherwise, we are waiting for that perfect day to be happy. If we could just say, I'm going to be happy. I told my sister this, and she said, That is actually a really good philosophy. In spite of. No matter what. So this is not perfect. And it shocked me for the moment because that's not good. Okay, processed it quickly.
And I'm happy now. I'm going to be happy no matter what happens. If everybody could do that, we would have great lives. Or even half of it. Yeah. I mean, half the time, right? Yeah. Now, I haven't mastered it completely, but at least I'm catching myself and going, okay, oh, but I'm going to be happy no matter what. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Just because I said that, I'm seeing that I have a blue, beautiful bay in front of me and I eat well.
And I think the more that we look at the glass half full, happier we are. Because the wealthiest people that have so much, some of them are miserable. A lot None of them are miserable. Because they haven't mastered this. Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think the other issue with them is that they have this fear of losing it, that it's all going to go away. So they got to hold on tight Titer and tighter and tighter. Right. Or there's that fear of not having enough, still not having enough.
But also I think that it's a lack of seeing how much they have. If we start writing down and I do this, every single thing we're grateful for, it just goes on and on. That I have food in my fridge. We live here, that I can do whatever I want, that we're all healthy, that we have friends, that we're not sick today. There's so much to be grateful for when you just keep digging in. And most people, if you said to them, Oh, you have such a miserable life, but wait a minute, what is going well?
Well, do you have a good marriage? Yes, I do. I didn't. Okay, you have a good marriage. That's something to be grateful for. Yeah, you're right. Do you eat every day? Yeah, I do. Great. Do you eat good food? Yeah, we do actually eat pretty well. If you're paying your mortgage every month? Yeah, we are. Do you have a good... We like our house. Are any of your kids ill? No. Grandkids ill? No. Wow. That's already a lot, isn't it? Yeah. A lot of people don't have that. Yeah, that's very, very true.
And most of those people People, as you're pointing out, don't even appreciate it. And no judgment. I think we just get- No, it's humanity. I mean, it is. But people were surprised when I said, I'm grateful there's leftover Ivers in my fridge. They're like, You're grateful? Yeah, because I don't have to cook tonight. I'm grateful that there's food in my fridge at all because I went through many years where I had no money at all. So for me, coming from deep, not working Working.
It wasn't working. Five years ago, I was in deep debt as a single mom. It wasn't working. Turned my life around. So I'm super grateful more than most people because I know what lack is. I know what it is to not have what just average Americans have. Does that make sense? I had a lot of debt. I was floating with debt, but I thought, if I did not have credit cards, we would have been on the streets. Thank goodness for credit debt. That's the other thing. I was grateful for my credit debt.
And most people go, Oh, I have so much credit debt. I said, I was grateful that I had credit debt. That saved us. So it's how you look at it. People go, I have so much credit debt. I said, Lucky you. And they're like, Huh? Lucky you, you have credit. Where would you be without that credit? They're like, I never thought of it that way. Yeah. It turned out not very rosy, right?
Yeah. And it is so interesting with people because I don't know what part of human nature That's a part of is that the majority of people always want to look on the negative side first. They never start with the positive side. Human beings love complaining. It's It's like, get an adrenaline kick out of that. I don't know why. It's just a thing. Human beings love gossiping, and they love complaining. So I'm trying to be like an Uber human that doesn't love any of that. And I'm working on.
When I see myself complaining, I'm like, Stop complaining, because that's not helping your mindset. It's just negative. Yeah. Oh, no, exactly. Now you have that responsibility of having one or two kids, children, child, two kids. It's just as important to instill that in them so they can start out earlier than you did. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to instill the health thing in them. They're not buying it. No, they never do. At some point, they might model it, at least it's there.
But how come they don't care? Because they're young. They're young. But at least later on, they can't say, Well, my mom didn't tell us that exercise and eating was important. I've done my bit. Yeah. No. And probably it's there. They just don't need it yet. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I know myself. I was a fat kid, that teenager. My mother had me on Weight Watchers, and there weren't many diet things around when I was that age.
And it's interesting because I ended up becoming allergic to half the world. Wow. And it's amazing how fast you can lose weight when you're not eating most of the things you are already. Yeah. Amazing because it's usually the sugar and the bad stuff that's putting the weight on it anyway. Although I must say, protein is very calorific. Now that I'm eating just more protein, It is very...
I'm like, wow, I'm eating better, but I'm definitely not losing weight because the protein is more calories than the bad stuff I was eating, actually. Well, that's part of it, though. But if you're also working When you're eating out and you're building muscle, muscle weighs a lot more than fat. Yeah, I'm not overweight, but I just thought, Gee, eating so well, I'm probably going to lose some weight. But the muscle is taking it over. It's all good. My goal is not to look skinny anymore.
My goal is to build as much muscle as possible. It's a different goal. I look good, but I'm just going to build as much muscle as possible. I never used to think visually that I wanted to be a muscle person. Now I don't care. It's about health now, which is very new for me, is to just focus It's just on the health. Of course, you look better when you're healthy, though. It's true. Absolutely. How long now have you been doing this?
I started with the, I'm going to build muscle January of this year. I thought, I'm doing this. And then I thought, I start that. You can't do everything at once. And then I went off sugar, and then I went back on it, And then I did the health blood test, and that was a wake up call. I thought, whoa. But there was stuff I didn't know. But now I know. Knowledge is power. I'm like, oh, these are things I should be taking, and I've got to stop eating this and do this and this.
And that was very empowering just to get better data. And we don't have a lot of good data just from going to the doctor with the very minimal blood test. Oh, God, no. They don't either. No. A minimal blood test is not a true snapshot of what's really going on in your health. And also I did some microbiome test for my gut health. Yeah, I did two. So apparently, like you, if I did it all together, I would be eating nothing because you're not supposed to eat this. And they all came out different.
So I'm just doing what I feel I should be doing and cutting out most of the bad stuff or all the bad stuff, but then other stuff that's not bad, but they don't think is good for me. So I have done a very vast testing. Microbiome testing is very important. Gut health. There's the blood test, but you also need to do gut health because the blood test cannot see what's in your gut. So that's super important. And that was enlightening, too, for me. I thought, Oh, there's this happening.
Because the gut bacteria, they're figuring out that that's got more to do with our health than anything else is our gut. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. It is interesting, too, because a lot of times you can develop. There are things that don't agree with you, but you don't know that they're not agreeing with you. You know what I mean? And you're not eating enough of that one particular thing away from everything else to know that that's the problem. And you just feel rotten.
So that's the other thing I think that people need to understand, is that sometimes it can just be one thing that you're allergic to or just doesn't agree with you or whatever. Or just sensitivity. It's just not digesting properly. That's right. Absolutely. It's important to get more testing done just to see what's going on, because I wouldn't have been able to do all this without that data. When I have a plan, I'm good. I'm just go for it. So I'm integrated more.
But I also want to enjoy my life. But I actually like exercising. I don't love working out of the gym. I don't. But I force myself to go there because my trainer is there and he's like, Okay, we're going to do that. And you really do need to do weights. You got to do the weights. I know. I need to do that. After COVID, midway through COVID, I stopped going to the gym. My husband's still going there. And I keep talking about it and talking about it, and we won't go down that avenue.
But in fact, I told somebody, I said, This week, I am going over to the Y, and I'm going to sign up at the Y and start doing some exercises, whether it's classes. I've never been big on classes, but maybe it would say. Maybe it's motivating. But once you stop, then you have to go. So that's the good thing. Yeah. Yes, that's what I figured. And it's only on the other side of the freeway. You're good. And I work from home, so there you go. Yeah. Go do it. Yeah.
Luckily, there's a general... Exactly. Luckily, in the complex I live in, there's a rural I have no excuse. I have zero excuse. Yeah. Yeah. No, exactly. So what do your kids think about your... Are they like, Oh, Mom, are you making that again? Kind of thing, or are they actually liking what they're doing? We've had very help. We eat greens every night salad. It's like, Oh, it's another one of your green, sloppy dishes. And I'm like, Yep. So they have to eat a certain away when I'm cooking.
But then I can't make them not eat sweets. But I did try to limit their sweet eating during their lives. In fact, my first daughter had never had an ice cream cone until she was two. And I just thought, why give her sweets? Why create that? And the first time she had an ice cream cone, she was just like, wow, because it's like, don't. Can I have another one? She's just like, what is this? Wow. I tried to limit the formative years of not having so much sugar.
We didn't have desserts all the time at home. They had other stuff, fruit, and of course, they had eat, but it wasn't that junk food. No, they were really healthy. When they were younger, they had organic everything. I made their own baby food. So yeah, I mean, we are more... Obviously, we're still eating quite well, but they're going to eat... You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. You can't- It's better than most households. You can't guard them when they're not around you.
Right. And also, they got to have some fun food. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. And there's actually some fun food that's pretty good for you as well. Don't worry. I've tried to work it all out. Oh, I have no problem. I'm just for our people that are going to be watching. But they love sweets. So I didn't buy sugar for the longest time. They said, Mom, could you please buy some sugar? We want to make some cookies. I said, Oh, all right. But I felt like, Why are we buying sugar?
For years, I never bought sugar. We didn't have it in our house. Why I'd end up throwing it out. I want to do more baking. I said, okay, so I bought the sugar, but I had to make some concessions. Just to learn how to bake. Okay. So, yeah, I crumpled a little bit because we did make sweets when I was growing up. Too many. And then I say, okay, we're not buying sugar for a while. And then, okay, mom. And then I'll say, okay, we'll buy it again. So I do that anyway. It could be worse. This is true.
They're conscious It's a good diet since they were born, they're conscious, and that's more than most people are. So that's good. Yeah. Oh, no, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So I'm guessing that you're happy with how everything has turned out for you since you started on your diet? I've been on this strict diet for probably maybe six weeks or so. Okay. There's a really strict one. I was eating well. I eat a lot of vegetables. I've always eaten a lot of vegetables, a lot of greens.
But the main thing was cutting out the sugar and the white flour and the dairy. It wasn't as big a change for me as most people because I was eating really healthy except for the dairy, white flour and gluten and blah, blah, blah, and the sugar. I think I feel less tired not eating sugar, actually. I think. I feel good that I'm doing something that's preventative of diabetes. What I'm doing is a preventative of cutting all that out. And also, red is not good for diabetes as well.
So I don't eat bread anymore, anything with white flour, anything like that. If I'm going to eat a starch, it's going to be like brown rice or beans or something like that or yams. I eat purple yams. So all that's gone by the wayside. I'll eat a little bit of potato here and there if I'm at a dinner and they just have potato. So break it a little bit, but it's not enough to really make a problem.
It's Yeah. So yeah, I think that cutting out sweets and all the bad stuff, all the bad fats, you're getting rid of all the fake fats in the sweets with the fake fructrose or whatever, sugar and flour, all of that and chemicals, you're getting rid of all of those bad things, not just sugar. No, it's true. I'm allergic to wheat, so that's easy for me. Oh, that's good for you. Exactly. I was just going to say, so no problem staying away from that. But I do get some bread that's...
Obviously, none of this is helping my memory, but I'm trying to think what it's called. Oh, well, anyways, it's not made with any- Not wheat. Not wheat. Yeah. They make it from some... I don't think it's a bean. Belt? I don't know. No, it's not spelt. Yeah, you're right. Spelt is still weak. Yeah, I can't have that either. But there's rice bread out there that's not bad either, which is still rice. But it's still giving a sugar response in your body because of the starch.
And white rice, I don't eat white rice. That is not good for you. That's just like sugar in your body. Oh, yeah. If I eat any rice, it's the brown rice. Yeah. But Yeah. It's so interesting in response to all of this, all of the new products over the past 10 years or so that have all of a sudden shown up on the shelves in regular I'm in the supermarket. Yeah, just because there's no gluten in it has all this other stuff in it. Thank you. It's really about wholefood.
So I try to do a wholefood approach, except I am taking protein powder now, even though I'm not supposed to eat And these aren't good for you. So I tried to find one without pea because I am- Pees have a lot of sugar in them, actually. Pees are just not very good for you. They're not a happy- Yeah, but all these protein powders, almost all of them have pea. So I found one that has no pea in it. So that's good.
I am trying to figure out ways of getting more protein without eating tons of fish every day because that gets boring. So, yeah, that's the challenge is I eat a lot of nuts. Lots of nuts, and I eat dried beans, but that's not a complete protein unless you add the rice, blah, blah, blah. So this is the whole thing. So, yeah, it's good. Nothing's perfect, but I do feel I've done a good job in getting more protein in my body, which helps you build muscle. Yeah. No, absolutely.
Well, that sounds really interesting. Since you've now been through all of this, what takeaways would you give to my audience to say, watch out for these things? The takeaway is it's not just white sugar that is really causing sugar response in your body. It's white bread. It's white flour.
So I think that if you're in your 50s, you really want to start looking forward and realize that three major problems growing old are immune, muscle mass, sarcopenia, and mental health, becoming senile and demented. Those are the three. I didn't make that up. So when you think about it, okay, I want to look after all that. What do I do? I start working. You build as much muscle as you possibly can before your body is almost completely unable to produce muscle. And that's different for everybody.
But old people, they just have bone and skin, and there is no muscle and a little fat, right? That's why they're weak, because they have no muscles to lift, and that's the problem. Then you've got... There's things you can take for that, for the mental part, not to become senile. There's folate. There's things to take. And I'm not a doctor, but you can Google this. What do I take to support me not becoming demented or having Alzheimer's? There's all sorts of things you can take.
Also, meditation is good for that as well. Things like playing chess and doing crossword puzzles. But that is not enough. So there's some supplementation And the other thing is immune, using your immune system while doing more exercise helps your immune system if you don't know. So all of this helps. Those are the three things I thought, Okay, immune? How do I build immune? I'm taking certain things for that. Building the muscle. Sleep is vital. So I started getting to I'm in bed earlier.
And even though I wake up more, I wake up a lot. At least being in bed earlier, I do feel I'm arrested in the morning because I've just been in bed longer. It's just somehow. So it's made me less tired just because I've gotten to bed earlier. So I have a mission to get to bed at 9: 30. Now, it's not easy because I'm a night owl, but I've been pretty okay. So it's 9: 30, and sometimes like, and then it'll be 10, but at least it's not 12 or 1.
So my takeaway is focus on movement all the time, building muscle, getting sleep, thinking about what you want to do to boost your immune. There's lots of things you can do and boosting your mental cognitive, not going down the Alzheimer's senility because you could have a lot of muscle and become senile. Those are the three dangers. I'm like, Okay, I'm on it. How do I do that? Because I'm serious about my health. You can get away with a lot when you're young, a ton.
We get away with a lot of abuse, not complete abuse, but not sleeping. You can get away with it. But as you get older, there's no free pass. There isn't. I know. It's not easy. Most people aren't motivated because they don't love their life enough. So then you want to focus on your happiness so you care enough to want to live a good life. People say, oh, being human is not hard. I think being human is pretty hard. Let's just be real. I do. I agree. It's It's hard to live your life.
And then also you're practicing a religion. You do the practice of that or a practice of meditation or whatever it is people are practicing or piano or the practices of sports. Practicing, you have to just keep doing it, whatever that is, whether it's a religion, whether it's manifestation, whether it's, you know, or meditation or playing the piano or whatever. Those practices They build... I think any practice is helpful because it's just the repetition. And I think that is super helpful.
But I don't know all the answers. This is just I'm a business. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. This is my point of view. But the good thing is they've realized that genetics play as little as seven % on your health. We used to think, oh, genetics, genetics. Genetics are not as important as we think as far as our own health. They play a much smaller role than we ever realize that we can... That is good news. Oh, yeah. Right? It used to be, Oh, it's in your genes.
Then the I did this out recently, that we have way more control over our health than we ever knew. That's empowering. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I think there's just a very There's a few things that you can inherit that you can't probably do very much about. But there's very few, really. But certainly, you can get cancer because your family has it, but there's things you can do Even that. But there's certain genetic diseases that kids get at birth. There's nothing you can do.
I mean, there's nothing you can do about not getting it, but there's more you can do with certain things to help it. Let's face it, somebody was born with polio, they're born with polio. There's nothing you can do to cure that. You can try to make yourself more comfortable. That's just the roll of the dice. That's something else. Yeah. Exactly. Which is thinking about it, it's interesting. My mother, actually, she was probably in her 40s or so, developed a whole bunch of allergies.
And she would walk into places and she'd have an allergy attack from the cleaning, the thing that they did on the rugs. Then there's four kids in the family, every one of us has allergies. So there's the same things, but we all have allergies. Right. So that is genetic. Yeah. But it's still only a certain %? Yeah. A percentage, right? Yeah. You probably didn't get everything everybody in your family has. So that probably is genetic if you all got it. Yeah. But how you handle it.
Now we're learning you can handle it different ways. There's nothing I can do. My thing is do what you can to take control. Absolutely. That's it. That's right. Some things you have no To make your life better. There's no such thing as a perfect life. No. People that have diseases that there is nothing that they can... They're doing everything they can. There's no judgment because that's just the roll of the dice. Right? Yeah, absolutely.
What the problem is, is that people are generally healthy and they ruin their health. That's the problem. That's where it's a sad thing. You're right. You were healthy, and because of the way you ate, now you become a diabetic. And this is real. A lot of people are creating their own bad health, and that's where people could do better. And again, there's no judgment because people aren't educated. They're not educated about it. They're not motivated.
Maybe they're miserable. It's like, well, why do I care? So that's why the happiness has to come in. We have to have some purpose where we want to be healthier. Why do we want to be healthier? That's the thing. I want to be healthy. I want to play with my grandchildren. I don't want to be this old... I want to be able to play with my grandchildren. I mean, actively go bike and do stuff with them. So that's very motivating for me. And maybe my great grandchildren.
I'd love to be able to play with my great grandchildren. That's even better. So I got to keep in good shape for that. It is true. You do. Yes. Yeah, no, exactly. Sorry, I was just thinking about my husband's grandchildren. Do you play with them? Not anymore. The younger one just graduated from college, and the other one graduated two years before. That's what started me thinking, Oh, my God, there may be great grandchildren I don't think I can.
Well, the thing is, do you want to play with them and not be like, Oh, on my back. No, exactly. I'm just saying it's just funny how your brain goes down. It's funny. Anyways. Okay. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about? I think we've covered pretty much. All of my amateur health and And mine. Philosophy. I don't have any licenses to this either. So there you go. No. And I will say, okay, everybody, I'm not a licensed health professional.
Everything I said was merely an opinion. There you go. They can't come and say, well, I'm not. I cover all of that at the end of the program. Yes, exactly. Yes. In fact, I don't even remember anymore. Now it's been so long since I did this. Yeah. So this is not to be seen as medical advice. And if you are having a problem, please go and see your own doctor and get someone who has been educated and licensed to practice. Unlike us. Unlike us. Unlike us. Yes. But we're so much nicer to listen to.
So there you go. Merely an opinion. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So thank you very much, Jean, for being on. And with that, I will say goodbye. This has been HealthyTips After 50 with Susan Rosen. To stay on the cutting edge of the most effective health strategies, subscribe to this podcast and let us know what you thought of the show with a comment or like on iTunes. Visit healthytipsafter50. Com for this episode's show notes, more resources and free offers.