I shrink a little more each day. I am among a rather small percentage of men who suffer from severe osteoporosis. That along with three compression fractures that were caused by falling on ice about eight years ago has caused me to lose more than three inches in height. But now it seems I am also losing muscle mass as well. Here is an interesting article about that subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/health/research/31muscle.html?ref=business

Below is a quote from the article:

Why muscles wither with age is captivating a growing number of scientists, drug and food companies, let alone aging baby boomers who, despite having spent years sweating in the gym, are confronting the body’s natural loss of muscle tone over time.

It seems that the ever diminishing senior is a fact of life for me. I go to the YMCA on a regular basis, but maybe not as regular as I should lately, but as the quote above says it doesn’t seem to do a lot of good.   Maybe I can look forward to yet another pill that will stop this trend. 😉

To get to the point of this post, what are the lessons to be learned from these types of things.  I think they are several:

• Despite all the medical advances the aging process will not be denied. We seniors need to accept that as time goes by we will be less mobile than we are now.

• Realizing that aging is a natural phenomenon don’t put off things that you might not be able to do in the coming years. If you have dreams of doing something rather physical in nature you should consider doing them sooner rather than later. I know personally my mind thinks I am still a thirty-something but, of course, my body constantly reminds me otherwise. Listen to your body.

• Accept that you will have increasing infirmities as the years advance. Yes, some of us will be fortunate enough to live well into our nineties with little or no physical limitations but don’t count on that happening.

• We need to keep up a regiment of regular exercise and a good diet in our senior years but even though that might postpone some conditions it will likely not prevent them from happening.

The media and the advertisers are constantly telling us seniors to: dye out the grey in our hair, remove the wrinkles from under our eyes, make our teeth ridiculously white.  They tell us that if we do this we will be young again. Don’t buy into that rhetoric. It is like chasing the wind. You will never catch it. Besides I have earned every one of my grey hairs so why deny them?

My favorite Mark Twain quote is:

I am old; I recognize it but I don’t realize it. I wonder if a person ever really ceases to feel young. I mean for a whole day at a time

I wonder if I will ever feel my age?