Let’s Go Crazy In Our 50s

The urge to shift gears is strong at midlife.

After the dissatisfaction of our 40s (often seemingly for no reason), we realize we were already in a transitional phase.

The question is, will you keep going with it?

Once we hit 50 we come out of the funk of our 40s, but we’re not the same as before. We realize that a lot of choices we’ve made in life were for the benefit of other people, not ourselves.

Choices made for the benefit of our families fill us with satisfaction, regardless of sacrifice. Choices made for social status or purely economic reasons — not so much.

But if you go ahead and roll with the new version of you … here they come. They will say you’re having a crisis. They’ll even suggest you’re crazy.

Who are they? Generally they’re someone your own age. Maybe you went to high school with them. One thing is clear, they’re likely the one with the problem more than you.

They probably want to change as well, but they’re scared to death. They’re scared of what others will think, so they instead criticize and ridicule you. If you don’t change, they’ll feel better about their own fear and stasis.

Don’t give in. This is your life, and it’s not a dress rehearsal. Taking a new path that provides you with meaning and purpose is not about risk, it’s the reason you’re here.

Carry on with the adventure of your life. Maybe they will come around (send them to Further, we’ll do our best).

5 Freedoms That Make Your 50s Absolutely Fabulous

Keep going-

Brian Clark

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Burn Notice

All you have to do to maintain a healthy weight is ensure that the number of calories you ingest stays the same as the number of calories you expend, right? More and more it’s turning out that this simply isn’t true.

The New Science on How We Burn Calories (New York Times)

Fasted Times at Treadmill High

A sports nutritionist and certified personal trainer breaks down the meat and the myths of fasted cardio. Spoiler: it likely doesn’t matter one way or the other.

Running On Empty: Is Fasted Cardio Beneficial or BS? (Greatist)

Snooze Control

Research shows that the majority of adults report waking up feeling tired at least one day a week — especially during the pandemic. Here are seven of the main reasons why we might be waking up sleepy, and what to do about them.

Always Want To Sleep In? 7 Things Your Body Could Be Telling You (Mind Body Green)

Seriously … Just Say No

If you want to be more effective, if you want to “get more done,” or even if you just want some breathing room in your life, you need to say no more often. While it should be a simple task, the inability to say no is one of the things that contributes the most to overwhelm.

How to Get Better at Saying No (Chris Guillebeau)

Food for Thought About the Healthiest Diet for You

By Trudi Roth

I have a favorite saying from the philosopher Howard Thurman:

The contradictions of life are not final or ultimate.

That sentiment is both accurate and annoying, particularly when making “healthy” food choices.

Is it about engineering more nutritious foods? After all, we have the technology. But aren’t processed foods bad for you?

Whole foods may be better. But don’t high-sugar fruits and red meat contribute to illnesses like diabetes and heart disease?

Yes, to all of the above. This reveals a deeper truth: what we eat is as much about personal values as individual health.

Nutritionism vs. Essentialism

Nutrition science is relatively new. While the ancients knew foods like citrus and leafy vegetables helped prevent ailments like scurvy and beriberi, it wasn’t until 1911 that scientists began linking diseases with nutritional lack. By the 1950s, there was scientific proof that vitamins are critical to bodily functions, and the era of enriched foods was on.

Cut to 60 years later, when biohacking techies looking to save time and money began developing nutrient-rich powders to replace meals. Proponents of “nutritionism” like Huel creator Julian Heard say:

In an ideal world, I think everybody should have one or two meals a day of food that has a long shelf life, that is vegan, with less carbon emissions and less wastage.

Essentialists like food politics and policy professor Gyorgy Scrinis, on the other hand, reject nutritionism for myriad reasons, including how it reduces food to a collection of nutrients, overestimates the scientific understanding of nutrition, and underestimates how corporations use chemical additives to claim junk food is healthy.

Our bodies can detect what a healthful food is. Our bodies are telling us that the most healthful foods are whole foods.

Again, yes, and that’s a puritanical response. For example, artificial sweeteners, which aren’t conclusively proven as harmful and can help people lose weight, are negated by essentialism.

As it always is with food, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

You Are What You Eat

It’s human to judge others for their choices. But both sides of the food wars have merit, pointing to a greater truth that can help us clarify what we should eat.

Our choice of what we put inside us physically represents what we want inside ourselves spiritually, and that varies so much from person to person.

Moralizing and fear-inducing tactics aside, maybe it’s time to recognize reality. Aaron Carroll, a physician and columnist at The New York Times, argues that humans are perhaps the healthiest they’ve ever been since the dawn of time.

Since we’re lucky enough to have food choices, here’s something to chew on: maybe your values are as nourishing and sustaining as what you put in your body. And that bite-sized wisdom might be the healthiest way to make the best food choices for you.

The Food Wars (Aeon)