If you look at my driver’s license it shows that I was born in 1963, so easily you can figure out my age. But, how “old” am I really? That’s a different story.
Back in the early 1990s, I had the great experience of attending a four-day live Tony Robbins’ event. At that point I was vegan for three years, but I was a “junk food vegan.” The most prominent message that hit me was that “aging is the process of toxicity consuming the body,” which is what I call “olding.”
“Olding” is characterized by…
- Lack of energy
- Lack of stamina
- Lack of flexibility
- Muscle atrophy
- Stiffness
- Loss of posture
- Loss of balance
- Metabolic diseases
Can we decelerate the onslaught of those “inevitable” characteristics to the extent where our lifestyles are not greatly degraded? Raymond Francis wrote in “Never Be Sick Again” that there is only one disease: cellular malfunction, which is caused by deficiency and toxicity. My mission has always been to address two of the pathways between health and disease: what we eat and how we exercise.
The quest is for your biological age (how old your cells are) to be lower than your chronological age (e.g., you’re 50 with a 35-year-old body). Telomere vitality is the key. Think of telomeres as the caps on shoelaces. When they become frayed, they can no longer do their job. If your telomeres become frayed, they are unable to protect the strands of your DNA, your cells can’t do their job and cellular malfunction is inevitable. Meat products and processed food fray your telomeres; however, plant-based eating can protect them. There’s no need to fear “olding” as long as plants are the foundation of your diet.
