The Road Ahead of Us

I’m not sure when Ken and I were teenagers that we set in stone any goals for our future. We just knew we wanted to be with each other until the end of our time. We have spent the biggest part of our lives together and the funny thing is that as our timeline gets shorter we seem to be focusing more on goals. Some might call this their bucket list, though we have not gone there.

Three main goals keep popping up:  Get out of debt, retire, and full time RV.

We know we have some work to do to get there and each day try to take a step in that direction. We have become frugal, have done lots of talking about which way we want to go with the full time RV experience, and we look forward to retirement. Each of those items requires diligence and planning. We think more before purchasing things, we plan how to pay down debt so we have none when we retire, and we watch our 401K plans and social security benefits to know what to expect in retirement income.

Another major concern in our plans is our health. Without health, that road in retirement may run out of pavement before we are ready, or we may never take a step on it if our health fails us.  So another goal we need to achieve is better health and maintaining it for a long time.

There is a lot of information out there on diets, exercise, health issues, this program or that. We can turn on the tv and see Dr. Oz lamenting about our weight or body fat or any number of issues that can scare us to death. The Doctors are there to help us too with their white coats, experiments and audience. We can Google any question about health we want and hope that the person who wrote it really knows what they are talking about. The bookstore is full of written material on the subject.

Ultimately though, it comes back to us. It is up to us to improve and keep our health. The decisions we make in our lifestyle of eating, exercise, sleep and activities we participate in factor into the end result. Why is that when we are young we feel so invincible, immortal? Then as we get older health becomes a big issue. I remember when I was young watching “old” people refuse certain foods because it had too much fat – “I’m watching my cholesterol” – or too much sugar or carbohydrates. They wouldn’t eat red meat often and limited their consumption of both food and drink. I remember thinking that this is what old people do. Well guess what? Now I need to do that. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t consider myself old yet. I just want to get to the stage where people consider my age old.

I want to be like those retired people you see in the commercials. You know, the ones riding bikes in the country, dancing with their spouses, at the beach, being active wherever they are and smiling because they are happy. I know that without health those things would not be the same.

Does anyone have any good tips to keep me motivated? What do you do to improve or maintain your health?