Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond
By Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge, M.D.
Workman, $24.95
320 pages, ISBN 0761134239

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Learn how to feel younger as you age

If you're convinced that getting older means going downhill, consider this axiom: aging is inevitable, but decay is optional. That principle is at the heart of a fascinating new book by Chris Crowley, a retired lawyer, and Henry Lodge, M.D., a New York internist who counts Crowley among his patients. The two teamed up to write Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond. In alternating chapters, Crowley and Lodge explain the seven rules of fitness, nutrition and connection that can lead to a happier, healthier life (Rule #1: Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life). The active, perpetually upbeat septuagenarian Crowley had just returned from a trip to Maine when BookPage caught up with him to find out more.

BookPage: Who are you hoping to reach with this book?
Chris Crowley: In theory, it's a book for Baby Boom men and beyond—up to death. Guys in their 50s, 60s and so on. In fact, we've sent a ton of these books out to "test readers," and as many women as men read it.

Shouldn't I be a tough guy, suck it up and accept the fact that I'm getting older?
Tough guy? NO! Good grief, no, of course not. The whole point of the book is that we have an amazing degree of control over whether and how we age. We're actually in charge, whether we decide to go to pot or to live a great life.

OK, say I'm a 50-year-old, non-athletic type who's been sedentary for years and I'm at least a little overweight—is it too late for me?
Too late at 50? Are you kidding? It's not too late at 90. Seriously. And the guys who are in the worst shape are the ones who are truly going to be younger next year. And for a long time to come. In a funny way, it's easier for the guys who are a mess because their expectations are so low and their prospects—if they can believe it—are so bright.

What's the best way to get started?
Don't start gradually. Take a deep breath, make a deep commitment and go for it. Full tilt. Maybe take a "jump start" vacation—with a serious exercise component, like a bike trip or a hike. Whatever. But go for it, big time. No sticking your toe in.

What do you tell yourself when it's 5:00 a.m. and you really don't want to head out the door to the gym?
You say what you always say—do your job. This is like going to work; it's not an option. Just do it. Develop a routine and a habit as soon as you can, and it gets easy. Till then, just DO IT! Your life's at stake here. This is a tiny commitment, when you think of the consequences.

Isn't the way we age determined mostly by genetics?
Genetics is 20 percent. That leaves 80 percent of how you age and how you feel for the rest of your life up to you. You may have a heart attack and die even if you work out six days a week. But you have an 80 percent chance of overcoming that, and 80 percent is not bad.

How has aging changed for the current generation of 50-plus men?
It hasn't. Yet. But it is going to, big time. Well, that's not quite right. It has changed in the sense that we all have the prospect of living longer than our parents did, through the magic of improving medicine. But how you live during that longer span is the real point, and on that front we haven't done much yet. We live like dopes and let ourselves go to hell for no reason. What's different is that we know—in ways we did not suspect before—how aging works and why, at the molecular level. And we know what we can do about it. That's a big change. It hasn't sunk in yet, but it's going to and it's going to change a lot of lives.

What has been the toughest part of getting older for you personally?
Retirement from the job. It's hard not to have any duties, any place where you have to be. So you just make it up. Create a new life with new and often very different—and sometimes not terribly important—duties. Not so easy but you gotta do it. The bigger a deal you were in your old life, the harder. But it can be done.