My life after 50

I thought the first week would be the hardest.

After getting the news that, at 53, my cholesterol was high and I was at risk for diabetes, I embarked on a serious fitness program. As I described in last week’s article, I chose a modified Zone Diet (basically, low-carb), combined with 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day.

Frankly, I was concerned that such a radical change in my relatively sedentary, meat-and-potatoes lifestyle would prove difficult, if not impossible. Especially as I filled a grocery cart with skinless chicken breasts, cartons of blueberries and strawberries, and enough leafy green vegetables to start my own produce business. All in preparation for Monday -- Day One of my new regimen.

Then Monday came -- and, to my utter surprise, it was a breeze. As was Tuesday, and the whole rest of that first week. I was not only motivated, but almost exhilarated to find myself restricted to five small meals a day. As well as the half-hour every evening on the treadmill, watching CNN and keeping track of my heart rate.

I couldn’t believe it. Rather than feeling deprived, I felt empowered. Suddenly, I viewed fried foods, rich sauces and sugar-laden desserts with scorn. Commercials for fast-food restaurants filled me with disgust. Physically, I could swear I already felt lighter, better -- a lean, mean fitness machine.

Sure, there was some unsightly huffing and puffing whenever I dared increase the speed gauge on the treadmill, some middle-aged aches and pains during the stretches afterward. And, yes, at mealtime, giving up second helpings often had a decidedly Dickensian quality.

Then came the second week.

All of a sudden, like an overconfident marathon runner, I hit the proverbial wall. What had seemed an exciting challenge, in service of laudable health goals, had lost its self-congratulatory fervor. I realized that my reward for a week of dietary discipline was just going to be another week of dietary discipline.

I faced the sober reality that any fitness program, to be effective in the long term, required the adoption of new habits. Not just a weeklong vacation from old ones, but the slow, insistent development of new ones.

This highlights a salient issue of midlife: Most of us, regardless of circumstance, have become pretty set in our ways by the time we reach our 50s. We cling to our habits, prejudices, even small pleasures; in a way, they’ve come to define us. That is why change is so difficult, even when we aspire to do so.

There were other setbacks. At every party, it seemed, danger lurked. Spring rolls and tortilla chips, like tiny assassins, would leap up from innocent-looking buffet tables. Even the carrot and celery sticks were invariably situated next to deadly dipping sauces.

There were times when I really felt like just chucking the whole thing. What was I trying to prove, anyway? I wasn’t training for the Olympics. It was way too late for me to make up for not getting on the track team in high school. I felt suddenly foolish, a 53-year-old professional man reduced to trimming the fat from a hockey-puck-sized piece of steak after a hard day’s work.

Then I remembered my doctor’s sober face, looking down at the results of my physical.

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A gift, not a chore

So I redoubled my efforts to stay the course. I developed a simple maxim: “If it’s white, don’t bite,” referring to refined sugars, potatoes, bread and other carbs. Of course, the 12 seconds of gratification that came from devising this helpful tool were no match for the feelings of self-pity and irritability caused by actually following this credo every day.

But I did it. Week after week, month after month. How?

First, I challenged myself to be aware of my real feelings at any given time: Was that emptiness in my stomach hunger, or just anger at some work-related problem; or sadness at some loss; or fear about some future event?

The psychologist Carl Jung said drug use could be seen as a spiritual issue, in the sense of an emptiness in the soul. Using food as self-medication might be seen similarly.

The second thing any lifestyle change requires is commitment, though you have to be careful how you use that word. I learned that if I saw fitness as just another onerous task in a day full of tasks, I’d resent something that was actually for my benefit. So I framed it as a gift I was giving myself. And I stopped thinking merely in terms of goals.

When I finally let myself sink into the day-to-day journey of my fitness program, rather than obsess about weight goals and target training rates, the whole enterprise became easier.

To return to our marathon runner: The “runner’s high,” or second wind, happens not at the finish line, but deep in the middle of the race, when he or she achieves a kind of “flow” state, not thinking about much, merely lost in the motion of running.

I think something like that is what happened with me.

Somewhere in the second month, it no longer became a fitness program, but rather just what I did. I had long since lost the excitement of some new venture, but neither did I feel like some kid struggling with a perpetual, self-denying homework assignment.

Not that there haven’t been lessons along the way. Some deep and important, like the value of delayed gratification and the satisfaction of mastering something difficult. Some more mundane, like learning what a reasonable portion of food should be.

But perhaps the hardest lesson is learning you’re never really finished. That true good health is the result of a daily attention to who you are, how you feel and the choices you make.

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Five months later

Five months after starting my fitness regimen, I had another physical. To my great relief, my glucose levels were now in the normal range and my cholesterol was fine.

Most gratifying of all, perhaps, was that my first response on hearing the good news wasn’t to run down to the Krispy Kreme to celebrate.

Maybe because the most striking result of all my efforts was a new relationship with myself in terms of diet and exercise.

If I had to put a name to it, I’d call it my “80-20 system.” I try to stay within my fitness guidelines 80% of the time. The other 20%, usually reserved for vacations, social functions and the like, I allow myself (in moderation) to re-experience a baked potato, the occasional slice of French bread, the profound joy of a fish taco.

But I listen to my body now. Which is a lot easier and less stressful than listening to my doctor, those eight months ago, as he explained, in clinical terms, how I was essentially going to hell in a handbasket.

Given the choice, I’d rather spend the future listening to my body.

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Dennis Palumbo is a psychotherapist in Los Angeles and the author of “Writing From the Inside Out” (John Wiley & Sons, 2000).