Unbecoming

Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe its about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.

Paulo Coelho

I finished reading Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity by Dr. Peter Attia. I got hooked on Dr. Attia from my health coach, Karen Wick. I’ve been working with Karen for almost two years now and she has helped me to change how I think about health, wellness, and aging. In fact, she is one of the people who inspired me to begin this new journey.

Dr. Attia’s book is about rethinking medicine to live better longer. He talks about the concept of healthspan vs. lifespan. Lifespan is how long we live, while healthspan is a way to maximize the quality of our lifespan by living stronger, for longer, and avoiding disease. I’m 54 now and watched how both of my parents lived through what Dr. Attia calls the Marginal Decade. These are typically the last 10 years of your life where your health declines drastically, as does your quality of life. This is the thing I fear most in life and what jump started my weight loss, strength training, and working with Karen. I told her when I first met her that I want to be strong enough as I age to take care of myself and never have to ask anyone to take me to the restroom. I have finally gotten over the fact that like everyone else, aging is inevitable, but I want to maintain my strength and my ability to live actively as I grow old.

Dr. Attia believes that the current healthcare system (Medicine 2.0) is ill-equipped to improve healthspan. He promotes the idea of Medicine 3.0, which focuses on prevention based on a person’s individual risk factors. Medicine 2.0’s approach to aging is treating the symptoms of disease; Medicine 3.0 uses a combination of data and an individual’s specific results to treat what many of us “healthcare people” call the root cause. Everyone in healthcare jumps on the root cause analysis (RCA) band wagon when there is an adverse event. We initiate performance projects and measure results based on the baseline of that adverse event. Why is it that the bad scenario becomes the baseline? Why don’t we look at things before they happen and find ways to prevent them from happening?

That’s how I feel about my health and my aging process. I want to not only be present but be able to actively enjoy aging. And, I want the people around me, who I care about and enjoy spending time with, to do the same. I want us to spend that time together and enjoy our later years. I have things I have always looked forward to doing when “I have the chance” or when “I have the time” and I realized over the last couple of years that I always have the chance and the time; I just have to decide to prioritize those things. Taking it one step further, even as I start to prioritize these things, I still have to ensure I have the ability to do those things. It takes both mind and body.

This week has been a week overshadowed by demerits for me. It wasn’t until I finished the last chapter of Outlive and read Paulo’s quote that I finally pulled myself out of my spiral. I chose to make a change this year. I want to make a change. So it’s time to unbecome what I thought I was supposed to be. It’s time to become what I was meant to be.

It’s my choice. It’s your choice. Let’s do this together.