I’d like to make a confession. I remember jumping into my 1939 V8 Coupe and speeding up to my mates place in Titirangi, 9am Saturday morning. Then sitting on the bonnet, with the fizz of a bottle of beer being opened – proud of the pot-belly I had already developed through drinking, at the age of seventeen.
Clearly, I hadn’t ever heard the words ‘wellness’, ‘holistic’ or ‘health-span’, so prevelant today.
Around the age of twenty, Ian Mc Intosh, who later became a prominent Rugby League Coach, raved to me about a new gym opening in Auckland City. It was Clive Green’s Health Studio. We went to see it during our lunch break in Federal Street. Green carpets, chrome machines, mirrors, weights, spa pool and sauna. I joined immediately and the place quickly became my second home.
Clive himself was hugely inspiring to me. Aged around forty, he had a highly positive attitude, was well muscled and liked by everybody. Clive was a picture of ‘health’. He remained one of my idols until a few years later when I spotted him smoking in an alleyway. I was shocked. My image of him was shattered. I probably was too judgemental, but, didn’t everyone know that regular smokers have a 50% risk of lung cancer?
Sadly, I went to Clive’s funeral later in life. He had, by then been living with Dementia. I wouldn’t blame this on the smoking, but it surely would have contributed to it.
Please don’t get me wrong, A Swedish study found that anxiety about which health foods to eat was proven to be more harmful than eating unhealthy foods. So, we do need to chill a bit with our healthy living passions.
That said, it would be very helpful to your ‘health-span’ to be aware of how to live a healthy life and to make holistic choices.
A shock statistic I heard last week was that the average person endures ELEVEN YEARS OF THEIR LIFE living with disease or in poor health. How does this happen? To a large degree, poor lifestyle choices, loneliness, lack of exercise and people’s nutritional (or lack of) choices.
If you feel that you are making good selections, and that you do look after your health, front up to the next school reunion. It can be a real eye-opener.
The point is, rather than focusing on your age and how long you will live, it could be better to be aware of the actions that will contribute to your ‘Health Span’.
Incidently, Clive came third in the Mr Universe Contest, London 1961 (above left). Center is Bill Pearl (1st) and on the right, Earl Maynard (2nd). Tina and I met Bill Pearl, an American Indian, ex-military. He was a vegetarian and owned a ranch in Pasadina. He had a substantial gym on his ranch and he told us that he and his wife would typically rise at 4am each day to workout. Bill authored the encylopdia – Secrets of the Inner Universe.
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