Healthy at 80

They say that setting goals is a good thing. I have a goal: “Healthy at 80” (actually, I stole this goal from Tiff, but it’s a good one, and I’ve made it my own).

81-year-old Joy Johnson finished the NYC Marathon in seven hours

“Healthy”… What exactly does it mean to be healthy? I suspect that different people have different ways of judging whether or not they (or someone else) is “healthy.” For me, it means more than just being free of disease (though that is important). For me, it means that I want to be physically capable of taking care of myself when I’m 80 (and beyond). I want to live independently: to walk to the store to get groceries; to climb the stairs of my own house; to cook for myself, do my laundry, make the bed. I want to be able to partake of life: travel; go to the movies; have dinner with friends. There are 80-year-olds out there running marathons: certainly I should be able to climb a flight of stairs when I’m 80, no?

So far (I’m 42 now), I’ve been lucky enough to be basically healthy without any effort to speak of: I have no chronic illnesses or conditions (save a degenerating disc in my back); I’m not obese; I’m actually reasonably strong “for a girl” thanks to on-and-off weight training for many years. But I know that to accomplish my goal of “healthy at 80” as I define it, I’m going to have to start paying a bit more attention. I’m at a stage of life that my physiology is starting to change, and the small effort I’ve been making so far will likely not continue to suffice.

So what do you want to be doing when you’re 80?