On Tuesday morning I made my way downstairs from my hotel room at the Celtic Manor Resort and attended a keynote presentation by Dr James Rouse.
I’ve written about James before; he was speaking at the Institute of Financial Planning annual conference and, in anticipation of hearing his presentation, I recently read his new book, Think Eat Move Thrive.
At this point, you might be wondering why a room full of Financial Planners would be listening to an enthusiastic American talking about nutrition, exercise and living high-performance lives.
The simple answer is this; Financial Planning is about so much more than just money.
James explained during his presentation that self-care is a form of social activism. He sees our role as Financial Planners as stewarding the very good life.
Which begs the question, how long are your telomeres?
For the uninitiated, a telomere is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromatid, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusion with neighbouring chromosomes (thank you, Wikipedia).
They are a bit like the plastic caps on the end of shoelaces, and, in our bodies, prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other.
Over time, due to each cell division, the telomere ends become shorter.
If we can encourage our telomere ends to become longer, we can slow the aging process and even protect against cancer.
One way to boost this anti-aging secret is through strength training. In fact, loss of lean muscle mass is the number one marker for unhealthy aging.
James explained that by working out three times a week with resistance exercises, we can maintain long and strong telomeres, resulting in a longer and healthier life.
This was a bit of a wake-up call for me. My own exercise regime is focused on endurance; mostly running ridiculously long distances and swimming moderately long distances, with the occasional bit of cycling.
Despite owning a set of dumbbells and a kettlebell, they rarely get much use.
My goal for the rest of this year is to form the habit of weight training at least three times a week, whether using these weights or my own bodyweight.
It’s never too late to add some lean muscle, increase telomere length and increase the prospects of healthier aging.
