Lauren Kessler's goal was simple: To reverse her biological age from the inside out.
In essence, to be the canary in the coal mine for all of the rest of us midlife moms who wonder about all the old and new claims for the various anti-aging, look/feel 20 years younger fountains of youth – but who has the time, nerve and energy to try them all and report back from the Fountain of Youth front?
Lauren is a writer, a teacher, a mother and one of the most energetic, productive, engaged, curious and courageous human beings I have ever met. (Full disclosure: Lauren is a former colleague of mine and someone whose work, heart, brain and life I admire greatly. This friendship means I can whole-heartedly recommend her fearless efforts on our behalf.
Seeking Fountain of Internal Youth? Read this
In fact, I offer Lauren and her work as the best gift I can possibly think of for all of the midlife women I know who wonder what else could we be doing to: feel less tired, find more energy, lose the weight, get more fit, eat healthfully, take the right supplements, use the right skin creams, climb every mountain, lift every voice…..find the Fountain of Youth!!!
Secrets of anti-aging revealed
Lauren Kessler is just the gal for the job. What job? Well, I'll let her describe it. In her latest project, a blog and a soon-to-be-released book, Lauren is on the hunt on our behalf. She offers her findings in her blog (soon-to-be-book) Counterclockwise: My Year of: Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate, and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-aging.
Here's the basic idea:
"In this age of lunchtime lifts, wrinkle-erasing injections, furrow fillers, and lip plumpers, there's no question that anyone who aims to look younger easily can. But Lauren Kessler wants something more than to follow the cosmetic path to youthfulness. She wants to live with energy, stamina, vitality, resilience, and health for a very, very long time. Her goal: to reverse her biological age from the inside out.
Guided by both intense curiosity and healthy skepticism, a sense of adventure and a sense of humor, Kessler sets out to discover just what's required to prolong those healthy, vital, and productive years called the "health span." In her yearlong journey, Kessler investigates and fully immerses herself in the hope and hype of the anti-aging movement. She delves into the new science of "biomarkers"—objective, measurable indications of how old you really are on the inside—going as far as getting a muscle biopsy to determine the state of her mitochondria, the parts of cells that control metabolism. She tries Tabata training, calorie restriction, a diet centered on 20 superfoods, hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), hypnosis to achieve a youthful mindset, and much more. In a voice that speaks to every woman who feels her date of birth and sense of self have little in common, Kessler explores her own fears, attitudes, and assumptions about aging. The result is a thoughtful, hilarious, and informative tale of what's really possible when you get serious about taking charge of how well and how quickly you age."
Here are a few of her thoughts from her blog:
"When I defined "anti-aging" for myself, when I spent more than a year researching that world and immersing myself in it for the book I wrote that's what I was after. More years lived well. More years lived at the top of my game."
But that's not what we're being sold, she reports:
"That's what aging has become in America. It's about the extension of life in the absence of health and vitality. It's about living to 80 or 90 but spending the last ten (if you're lucky, more if you're not) years frail, incapacitated, on multiple medications, worried, feeling useless, joyless, disconnected. It's about living long after the thrill of living is gone.
I think that's because our attention has been focused on mitigating the symptoms of illness rather than preventing them, on the extension of lifespan, not healthspan. Lifespan is the number of years you live. Healthspan is the number of years you live well. It's the number of years you live with the physical stamina to do things that make you and others happy, the mental acuity to take on new challenges, the emotional strength to face challenges with learned optimism."
If anybody can dive into the marketing madness that is the anti-aging racket – and come out with some solid truths and great recommendations – it's Lauren.