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I just fell down, hard!

I went out to the garage, in the rain, and slipped on the mud around our new sidewalk landscaping project. It’s been dry here for so long that I think I forgot how to walk on mud, and my legs shot up in the air and I crashed down on my back. I was fine, and so just got what I came out for, and went back in the house.

But it got me thinking: I’m 71 years old now. Such a fall might have laid up many folks, and severely shaken many others, so that their back, knees, or other body parts would need medical attention.

And that is my point- I am perfectly fine, although a bit dirty. In fact, upon reflection, I realize that physically, I can do anything I could do when I was 35, or 25. In fact, I am actually quite a bit stronger and more flexible than I was at those younger ages, and a m quite resilient overall. Mentally and physically, I can do anything I want to, and never even consider my age in choosing activities to participate in.

I say this not to brag, but to point out that any of us- all of us- should be in this condition for our entire lives! Not that I expect my mother, who is 97, to still be so capable as when she was younger; or her brother, Uncle Bob, at age 101 definitely can’t do everything he’d like…. But, both of them (and my Aunt Janie, at 99) can all still get around and are largely independent in their homes.

I plan to follow in their footsteps, even if I do occasionally fall down, and I suggest that you do likewise.

What is it that they do daily, and that I also do, that keeps us all going along with such resilience, both mentally and physically?

1. Eat a diet of real foods: avoid fast foods and processed foods, relying instead on meats, cheeses, small amounts of vegetables and fruits, and nuts. Wild game and seafood, rather than grains, jellies, and cakes. Cook your food yourself, whether on the stove or the grill. Use a good sea salt for flavor, like Redmond’s Real Salt from the dead seas of Utah. ( I have no affiliation with that company).

2. Work out every day. Stretch, flex virtually, do calisthenics, get on the floor and stretch some more. Massage your feet, and exercise them, along with self-resisted neck exercises as well. Do it first thing daily. Do it in front of the TV- Every Day!

Also, do serious strength training 2 to 3X per week, in the afternoons. Gymnastic rings are a wonderful mainstay for this, as is a Power Rack!

3. Eat a large breakfast. It doesn’t need to be right when you get up, after your stretching workout is better. 3 or 4 eggs is ideal! Coffee with cream is a wonderful addition; you can even have some as you work out in front of the television set.

4. Do your own manual labor. Don’t hire it out, just because you can- provide for yourself as much as you can! Keep your own house, tend your own garden, yard, and woods. Make your home as meticulously as you make yourself, body and mind and soul.

5. Read daily. Walk and meditate every day, walk in the woods and in nature. Walk backwards. Live as rurally as you can, and relish it. This is the birthright of the European race, and we abandon it at our peril.

6. Go to church, and attend to your immortal soul as you do to your mortal self. They both add up to YOU! Don’t emulate someone as shallow as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says an afterlife is a fantasy. He should know better- and so should you…

And there you have it. How to fall down and not get hurt!

With some digressions…

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