Living Long Life Point #22, More Inspiration

In my previous post I mentioned the 20 lifestyle points that are recommended to insure a long and healthy life. At the end I added my own extending the count to 21 points. Now one of our faithful readers, Ironman Greg Hogan, has sent number 22 and thought it should be included. I agreed with him completely and even wondered why it wasn't on the original thoughts list. So, point #22 will be faith as one of the ingredients to a long and prosperous life. As I talk and visit with people much older than myself I find that faith is one of the main topics they relate to their longevity, plus a trust in God. While Webster talks about faith as an unquestioned belief in a religion, I would like to expand on that a tad bit and say that faith with strong spirituality is a must in a long healthy life. I have found that religions, since they are founded by man and administered by man, have a tendency to overlook spirituality as the perfect sidekick to faith and therefore let man's actions create stress to its' members and defeat their purpose. Bottom line here is faith/spirituality are perfect partners for a long life. After all, as the song says, "everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die to get there," exemplifies the need for a strong faith in our lives.

Prior to the White Rock marathon in Dallas I came across a very inspirational article about a woman who, after years of obesity lost 178 lbs. and became a marathon runner. At 43 Ms. Pat Metcalf is half the woman she once was. Since 2003 she has lost 178 pounds and completed a marathon(26.2 miles). She is also healthier than she's ever been. This past weekend she volunteered to be a pacer for a group that was running their first half-marathon(13.1 miles) in Dallas. The pacer for this group was to keep this inexperienced running group on a pace to finish in 2 hours and 30 minutes. She did a great job of doing this and she has related her story of obesity and weight loss as she pursues her goals of doing more races across the country. Metcalf says that she doesn't remember not being overweight, even as a child. As we see obesity running wild within our young people no one would be surprised at this statement either. Five years ago and the advice of her doctor it was recommended that she have gastric bypass surgery. After this successful surgery she started to lose weight, so she now wanted a way to keep herself in shape so she decided to take up running. At first she didn't like it but then got into a routine, made new friends, and it became part of her lifestyle. Typically she decided to do a half marathon and completed two within three years after her training started. She actually got to a point of enjoying running so much that she experienced that ever loving runners high. Along the way she enjoyed the running community and even found she could eat a chocolate or two and not gain weight, as long as she trained. She also has enjoyed helping others get started in a running routine, plus she is much more active and energetic. She says that she sleeps better, no longer has high blood pressure, high cholesterol or hypertension. The other things that she can do now are reach down and paint her toenails and she doesn't have to squeeze into a theatre seat. She continually reminds herself of the past 342 pound person that she no long resembles, by looking at a past photo taken at her brothers wedding. She really enjoys her current lifestyle and looks forward to each new day. Here is what we can learn from Ms. Metcalf: she recognized her problem, set her realistic goal to do something about it, achieved her goal, and now lives every day with a great attitude, lots of energy, and is a great role model for taking charge of your body for good healths' sake. Congrats Ms. Metcalf, you are an inspiration to all of us.

Mike Greer