Following the post about 99 Year Old Gertrude Brown, this subject seemed like a natural place to go.

Dr. Mark Hyman (www.drhyman.com) a blogger I follow commented this week on why our biological age is different from the actual age of our body. We certainly witness that with Gertrude.

Dr. Hyman’s post led me to take a 100 question test to determine my real age. According to that test, my actual body is 1.5 years younger than my biological age! I was hoping for a better score (I am very competitive even with myself) but I’ll take that and then plan to double it by year-end. If I am able to change my actual body age to make me 3 years younger by the end of this year that would be so wicked awesome – don’t you think?

I urge every one of my blog followers to go and take this test at www.realage.com. Before you do that though let me give you a little background information about the site and test and what I learned about myself.

‘Real Age’ Site Background  

I was somewhat shocked to learn that 30 million people have already taken this test. The site and logic behind it were developed by Dr. Mehmet Oz (you see him on the Tube all the time) and Dr. Mike Roizen. The questions and post test advice you get are summarized in 4 categories – health, feelings, diet and fitness. The advice that it provides is customized to you and how you answered the questions.

I thought it was extra cool that they present your current habit consequences in terms of what you are practicing now that makes you both older and younger!

For me, I’m making me younger categories were Feelings and Fitness. My health category was somewhat neutral.  My “I’m making me older” category was Diet. This makes a lot of sense to me since for the past six months I have focused on improving my exercise habits and having a positive outlook on life.  My diet gets little of my attention.

The advice the site gives is practical and focused. I need to add more grains and fruits, vary my veggies and go easy on the junk food. I got good marks from the fact that I take Vitamin D and a few other supplements, I don’t eat much red meat and my diet is pretty diverse. According to the test, I apparently should keep petting my cat, taking my low dose aspirin and eating breakfast daily. It also suggested that I focus on adding strength building exercises to tighten and tone my flabby spots I guess.

Enough about me – go take the test and please report back to our community about what you learned about yourself. On the site you will find other helpful website links to www.sharecare.com to get advice from experts and www.dailystrength.org  which provides information about a variety of support groups.

If any of you learn that your actual body is five + years younger than your biological body then you can win a $20 LL Bean gift card.cs Simply tell us here at Boomer For Life what you are doing that helped you achieve that score and I’ll send you the gift card.

 Go ahead take the test – I dare you!  No, I double dare you. Hmm – one of those once a boomer, always a boomer things of mine.