Author: Bob McMillan

You’re an active senior, but like most seniors, you don’t particularly want to spend a lot of time exercising.  And you probably don’t want to spend the time and energy and uncertainty of trying to stick with one of the many fad diets you are bombarded with.

If you’re like most active seniors, you want to live your life without worrying about long, lingering or chronic illness. You want the positive and healthy attitude that goes with a healthy and happy lifestyle.  You want the physical strength, flexibility, and particularly the mobility that will keep you functioning at your highest possible level without going the route of the performance athlete.

That’s why The Come Alive Project was created.  I want to help active seniors like you, develop and maintain the Personal Energy you need to stay physically and mentally active the rest of your life.

Here’s what I  mean.   Paul Harvey the revered newscaster, was still broadcasting until shortly before his death at age 90.  Jack LaLanne was still doing a two hour workout and still actively promoting his juicing machine right up until his death at age 96.  Most of you will remember the PGA Golf Champion, Gary Player, who is still running his farm, travelling around the world doing personal appearances,  and exercising vigorously every day at age 78.  George Burns, the great comedian was still doing “softshoe” until shortly before his death at age 100.  Willie Nelson, the country singer and songwriter, at age 81, still lives much of his time on the road.  According to the August-September issue of the AARP Magazine, he does calisthenics on his bus when on the road, and rides a bike or a horse when he’s not.  Cloris Leachman recently performed on “Dancing with the Stars” TV series at age 88.  I can go on and on and on. All these people are or were active and filled with energy throughout their adult life.

But what about you.  Are you saying things like “I’m too old to live like that” or “I don’t have the time to do what it takes to stay active like that”.  You and I both know deep in our hearts that that’s simply not the reality of it.  The reality is that to live a long, healthy life filled with energy and vitality, and free of long, lingering chronic illness, certain basic principles of health apply.

Here’s a fact! With just a few healthy lifestyle changes, you can stop, or even reverse your downward spiral into the physical and mental deterioration that comes with aging. That’s not something I just made up out of thin air.  Scientific and medical studies have demonstrated over and over again that by moving your body just a little bit more, and by being a little bit more careful about what you eat, you could ignite your vitality and energy and live a longer, more purposeful life. You could stop the aging process in its tracks and even reverse some of the outward and inward signs of aging. Would that be valuable to you?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could feel better at age seventy than you did at age fifty? You can, you know.

Well, here’s something to ponder.  I all starts with the way you’re thinking.  What if you could have an instant “mental shift” that could take you from where you are now, an active senior who needs a little physical conditioning and an mindset of action, to the healthy and fit senior you truly want to be, filled with vitality and energy for living.  That’s the starting point of The Come Alive Project.  That’s where I want to take you.  And isn’t that where, down deep, you want to be.

I’m excited about the future of The Come Alive Project. I’m excited that so many active seniors are taking action to retard the aging process and to make themselves Come Alive again.  How about you, will you join the movement toward health and fitness?  What will you say ten years from now,  “I wish I had”, or “I’m glad I did.”

Thanks for reading.

There are people who can fill a space with light and there are people who can drain the light before it has a chance to shine.

Have you ever noticed how some people radiate positive energy? Others don’t. In fact some seem to dim a room with negative energy.  Who do you prefer being in the room with. You can almost feel the energy in your body change when you’re around these positive people.  Stop for a moment and think. How many people of the former do you know and hang around with. Don’t they also generate positive energy in you?

And when you are around sullen, withdrawn, and negative people, does that tend to rub off a little on you too – and put you in a bit of an attitude of “annoyance” as well? That may be a bit judgmental but that also seems to be the way it is.

Sometimes groups of people can keep you active and energized. According to Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones, being part of a harmonious group of like-minded people can contribute to a longer life. He cites as an example, the small intimate groups of Okinawan seniors who get together for conversation and tea. These are simply intimate groups of like minded people who join together for group activities. They don’t include toxic people in their group. They don’t necessarily discriminate, they just mingle with those they have an affinity with.  Okinawa was one of the areas Buettner cited as having the most people who are over one hundred years old, and he suggests that being a part of small intimate groups is part of the recipe for active longevity.

Real life examples?  Earlier this month, my wife and I went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a week with her old college friends, a group of seven or so.  Husbands had to leave after three days and the girls stayed for four more.  They have a reunion every couple of years in various locations and they all have a ball together.  They always have their reunion of old friends to look forward to and will for years to come.  They are all in their very late sixties.

As I write this, my wife is off to the beach again, this time to Delaware where a group of retired teachers, seven or eight of them, are swapping stories and going shopping and generally having a great time in one another’s company.  Some of them are in their mid-seventies and some are younger.  They have been getting together, just for the sake of getting together, for years and will continue probably until there are none left.  They all energize one another and feed off each other’s vitality.

Can you change other people from negative and toxic to happy, positive and enthusiastic about life. That’s not a topic for this post, but it is something to think about.

Positive people aren’t always happy, and negative people can be happy. We are all different as individuals, and as individuals, we can be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, changing back and forth between the two at different times. But this generally passes and our individual personalities show through most of the time.

Can people can change themselves through individual lifestyle changes? Studies have shown that when a person develops habits of exercise,  good food and the other attributes of good health, they tend to happier and enjoy life more. Is that true in all cases? Of course not.  That should be reason enough on it’s own to exercise and stay away from eating junk.

So what’s the takeaway here? Chances are, if the evidence is correct, that you’ll live a happier and longer life when you associate with like minded people who energize you and avoid the negative and toxic people who drain the energy from you.  Obviously you can’t totally stay away from the grouches, but studies seem to show you’ll be happier and live longer when you do,

Thanks for reading.

There are tons of energy drinks on the market. The most popular is, of course, Red Bull. This is a Health, Fitness and Personal Energy blog and not a critic’s corner so I won’t write about the pros or cons of any of the “so called” energy drinks out there. But at my workshops and seminars, I often mention my own energy drink and am bombarded with requests for the ingredients. So I thought I would write a short blog post about my “drink of choice” and how I make it. Drinking Apple Cider Vinegar may sound a bit weird to you but I’ll share it anyway.

Just for the record, I dropped alcohol out of the mix almost five years ago. No big deal, but I still like something with a little bite to it. I had tried the Apple Cider Vinegar drink even before the end of the alcohol era. I had read Paul Bragg’s little book about Apple Cider Vinegar and sort of got hooked on the idea. You can get the book on Amazon – cheap ($.99, yes 99 cents, for the download version.  The book is called Apple Cider Vinegar, by Paul Bragg. Imagine that. NOTE: If you don’t have the Kindle book download capability on your PC, get it from Amazon – IT’S FREE on the Amazon site and you can read any Kindle book on your PC.

It turns out that even though, outside the body, Vinegar is acidic, once inside the body, it is alkaline in the blood, and that’s where the benefit comes into play. There are a lot of Apple Cider Vinegars on the supermarket shelves, but the one, and only brand to use is Braggs.

So, for those who have asked, here’s how I make my own concoction. I fill 2/3 of a tall, 16 oz. glass with water and add two tablespoons of Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar. Then I add a tiny bit of real Sea Salt or Himalayan Rock Salt. Yes salt. Salt is one of the most important minerals in the body, but most typical table salt has additives that tend to deplete the mineral content of the salt, or are “supposedly” not good for you. Yes I have high blood pressure, controlled by medication, but I don’t use salt on much of anything else except eggs, so I am not concerned about too much salt. Sea salt or Himalayan Rock Salt (Trader Joe’s brand) is supposed to be OK, even with Hypertension, according to some sources.

After the salt, I shake a little cayenne pepper and a little ginger into it and add about a tablespoon of honey. I’m told that raw, unfiltered honey is best, but it is also expensive as. So I use the supermarket brand of honey, usually Wildflower or Clover honey.  Add ice and you’re “good to go”.

Then I drink the stuff.

Like Coke, vinegar can be used as a cleanser and rust remover, and will probably disintegrate a raw steak too.  But apparently Apple Cider Vinegar is on the “good vinegar” list and is OK in the body. Just make sure you use Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar. And no, I am not shilling for Bragg, it’s just that it is the only one the purists use. You would be a heretic if you used some other brand.  Seriously!

You will have to develop a taste for the end result. I have. I actually like the taste and the slight tangy edge to it. When made this way, the concoction acts as an alkalizer for the body and that’s a huge positive.

Give the concoction a try. You will either like it or you won’t.

Has it done me any good? I don’t have the slightest idea, but I haven’t had any digestive problems for years, I feel great, and my personal energy level is higher than ever!

Oh, by the way, you can get Braggs ACV at Whole Foods, MOM’s, most health food stores and many chain supermarkets. Don’t settle for any brand other than Braggs. It’s the one that works.

Thanks for reading.