Seventy Seven Going on Sixty Five

The Lard to Hard Story

Walker Jackson/All Rights Reserved

Written in 2000

I read recently that  'Baby Boomers' are interested in losing weight and remaining young looking. They want to feel healthy. Hallelujah! It's a worthy goal. and well within their grasp. Exercise is the fountain of youth. But you have to make the decision to drink from it. They did.

Marjorie and Walker Jackson live in central Florida. They are seventy years young and healthy. She recently loss over 50 pounds of fat after building a fifty-foot lap pool out back. He loss over fifty pounds twenty-two years ago. She thinks the weight loss saved her life. He thinks the same is true for him. It has certainly added quality of life for twenty-two years. The pool helped his condition as well, but his fountain of youth was found years ago. Let's start at the beginning.

They moved to Florida from Ohio in 1979. He wanted a lifestyle change. Its time had come. In July, he turned forty-nine and weighed in at 238 pounds. Physically, he was pathetic. Gas was expensive, because of the Mid East oil embargo, and to save money, he started riding a newly purchased bicycle two miles to work. Biking was fun, and soon he added 40 miles a week to his exercise routine. The fat started disappearing.

The next ‘gutsy’ move was to dust off his T-2000 racquet. It's the one Jimmy Conners made famous. He'd used it about ten times since purchasing it in 1978. A few hard-earned dollars were shelled out for membership in the community tennis club, and he started playing tennis several times each week. Over the six months that followed this new lifestyle helped him lose 53 pounds of unsightly fat from his six-foot-frame.

His weight loss was accomplished without benefit of dieting, which should be of fervent interest to everyone who loves to eat. Don't get him wrong dieting is an important consideration in the process of losing weight, but with the right exercise most of us can stay lean without the trauma of constant denial. Strenuous exercise three or four times a week is the secret. You burn up the fat and the metabolism improves to help the process.

His physical condition improved miraculously after he started playing tennis in 1979. Here are a few fitness statistics that will attest to that fact.

Blood Chemistry: AUG '83/AUG '86/OCT '88

The statistics in lines A, B, and C reveals his risk for heart attack was cut in half over the five-year period shown above. Fitness experts know exercise improves the good cholesterol (HDLs) shown in line A. This lowers the ratio shown in line B, if total cholesterol does not increase. Line C is the reading from the chart corresponding to the ratio in line B. What it means is that at fifty-eight Walker Jackson had the heart of a young man. Unfortunately, he has no medical records to show how unhealthy he was at forty-nine, but climbing off the sofa was laborious.

Marjorie's story is quite similar. Her weight loss happened in year 2000. She was seventy. Knowing that she had to lose pounds or face death, the couple built a lap pool. After a year of half-hearted commitment, she got serious and started swimming and pool exercises two hours every day. She also adopted a reasonable diet comprised of more vegetables and less meat. Well, six months later she'd loss over 50 pounds of fat. Today she feels much better. Neither of us take prescription medicine and our blood pressure is normal.

Today, he's added five pounds since 1979. He's playing tennis two times each week, including singles. He has never dieted, but they he tries to eat healthy -- less meat more vegetables. After the pool house was sold recently, Marjorie continued losing weigh, but at a slower rate. She thinks this was due to her improved metabolism and her healthy diet.

Inspiring couch potatoes to find the courage to make a start as they did is the motivation for relating these true-life experiences. If tennis, biking or swimming isn’t your cup of tea, start walking, dancing, aerobics, or whatever but, for your sake, find some kind of exercise you can enjoy, and start losing those ugly pounds. When you succeed, you're going to look in the mirror and be proud of the reflection you see. You are going to feel years younger. Let the games begin. Note: FIRST CONSULT A PHYSICIAN about your plans to become very active and obey his or her guidelines.