Читать книгу The GI Walking Diet: Lose 10lbs and Look 10 Years Younger in 6 Weeks - Joanna Hall - Страница 11

Nobody wants their body to age, but the great news is that you can slow down the rate of ageing. In fact, ageing can a positive experience, not the negative one many of us feel and dread.

In physical terms, the ageing process results in a gradual loss of coordination, flexibility, strength, power and endurance. These physiological changes can have a significant impact on our emotions, our ability to lead independent lives and our energy and self-esteem.

Whether you like it or not, your body will go through a number of changes as it ages. How these changes affect you is partly dependent on your genes, diet, and how physically active you have been through your life. Think about how your parents or siblings have aged and you’ll have a good indication of how your body is affected by your genes. The geneticist Claude Bouchard believes that genes determine 60 to 80 per cent of the body’s rate of physical change; other factors, such as diet and the amount and type of physical activity we take, can change our bodies by 20 to 40 per cent.

Fortunately, evidence suggests that your physical activity levels after the age of 35 can have a more significant effect on how you age than the amount of exercise taken in earlier years. Although you may not be able to reverse declines in physical function, they can be slowed down. Understanding what is happening to your body can help you appreciate how your diet and activity levels can positively impact upon your weight, energy, posture and, most importantly, how you look and feel about yourself.

A fit man at 70 is the same as an unfit man at 40.

Much of the deterioration attributed to ageing is now linked to physical inactivity. Our goal is to push back frailty to a very small part of life experience. Or, as the philosopher Ashley Montagne has urged, ‘To die young as late in life as possible.’

You can do this without spending masses of time exercising, waving goodbye to your existing lifestyle or surviving on a diet of bizarre foods. And you can do this in just six weeks.