Did You Make Good Choices for Your Body? Life Lessons Pt. 2

Can the choices we made in the past really shape our health in the future? Join me, Bill Monty, as I navigate the complex journey of aging with a bad hip, weight gain, and challenges from my bouts with COVID. Through heartfelt reflections and vivid stories from the past, I highlight the lasting impacts of youthful habits on our aging bodies. From my trials with diets like Atkins and Weight Watchers to the limits imposed by my bad hip, I urge listeners in their 40s and 50s to think critically about how their current lifestyles could influence their later years. Together, let's share our strategies and experiences, fostering a community of support and insight.

On a lighter note, I open up about the vibrant role you play in the podcasting universe. Your dedication helps introduce "Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older" and "Tales from South Florida" to new listeners, and I'm immensely grateful for it. Sharing these episodes is more than just a hobby; it's a passion project fueled by the joy of connecting and exchanging valuable wisdom. Special shout-out to my listener in New York. I appreciate you taking the time to write me.

Remember to carry kindness and safety with you until we meet again.
Don't forget, LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

Chapters

• 0:00 Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older
• 10:37 Promoting Bill Monty's Podcasts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older. I'm your host, bill Monty. In this episode we're going to continue with the series of life lessons you know, those lessons that are taught to you as you age. And a reminder this podcast is not about being old, it's about getting older, which is something all of us are doing every single day. If you're not getting older, check your pulse. We'll be back in just one moment, but for right now, cue the music. Welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older.

Speaker 1: 0:42

I saw something recently on social media that said I don't mind getting older. It's the side effects that are killing me. I can relate. One of the things that you've heard me talk about before is slowing down is one of the hard pills you have to swallow as you age. So this is kind of for some of our younger listeners here, and by younger I just mean you might even be in your 40s still, or your 50s, but the life lesson we're going to talk about today is your body keeps score.

Speaker 1: 1:15

The effects of our lifestyle choices are not always immediate, but we eventually learn that our body remembers everything. We realize the importance of taking care of ourselves now for better health, but this knowledge often motivates us to make healthier choices in our daily lives. Yeah, as we get older, that's when I started realizing I should be taking better care of myself. Unfortunately, this is not the lesson that I knew or the knowledge that I had when I was younger. And look, I grew up in the 70s, so there were a lot of things that I did from a recreational point of view, shall we say that probably were not the most healthy for my body, for even my brain, my mind. It was the time. I'm not going to make excuses and I'm not going to apologize to anybody for it, but it's just the way it was. Back then, not everybody did it, but me and my friends, and the attitude that I had was we're going to party, we're going to have a good time.

Speaker 1: 2:19

Now come the 80s, that started changing. I became a performer. I was actively performing, dancing, a lot of high-energy exercise, if you will, because my body had to be in shape. I used to jog a lot. My knees will now tell you maybe that wasn't the greatest idea, or maybe I didn't have the right shoes, or whatever. I was never one to invest in proper jogging shoes, and all that If I had sneakers, you know that was good enough for me, but as I started aging, some problems started creeping up. One of them is one of the effects that I had from COVID is I seemed to and maybe it's coincidence, you know, it might just very well be that COVID came along at the same time that my body started changing.

Speaker 1: 3:09

My metabolism started slowing, but I find it impossible now to lose weight and very easy to gain weight. I can watch a commercial about a hamburger and gain weight watching it. Oddly enough, though, if I watch a commercial about losing weight, nothing happens whatsoever, and yes, that's an extreme example, but I will tell you that the weight gain came on right after I had COVID. Now, I got COVID right when it first started March of 2020. I've had it a couple times since then.

Speaker 1: 3:40

I am a victim of long COVID, so I still have the effects of it in some ways the fatigue, the issues with brain fog. Every now and then they seem to come back For no reason whatsoever. These cause issues and problems, but I now can't do the exercise that's required To help me lose the weight that I need to lose. So I have issues with some or I had issues with, like high cholesterol, blood pressure. Taking pills has helped that. But my doctor and I both agree that if I could lose weight I wouldn't have to take the pills, and maybe if I could lose weight I would find exercise a little bit easier to do. And maybe if I could lose weight I would find exercise a little bit easier to do. My problem is that I have a bad right hip and it makes it very difficult for me to walk. I walk with a cane now, so running or doing anything, even knee bends of any kind, something like that is impossible. I'm not very steady on my feet these days.

Speaker 1: 4:42

So if you have been experiencing any of this, I hope that you will maybe drop me a line Let me know how you're dealing with it. Are you experiencing the same things? Even for those of you who really took care of your bodies as you were getting older, as you were aging, you know, are you experiencing the same things now? What has worked for you? Now, before you tell me about keto and Atkins and Weight Watchers, I've tried them all. So, yes, and I know if I ate 1500 calories a day then I would lose weight. That's what they say. But I will tell you, I did Atkins back around 1995. It was very successful. I lost about 20 pounds in space of maybe four to six weeks. I tried it again recently and, because I no longer eat as much meat as I used to, it didn't work as well.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Weight Watchers changes, it seems, about every year. They come out with something new. You couldn't eat this before, but now you can. I don't really have confidence. They know what they're doing, but I did it. I paid for it. I did the whole six months with Weight Watchers and gained 10 pounds and I stuck to the plan. I did what I was supposed to do.

Speaker 1: 5:51

So these are some of the issues that I have had. I wish I had stayed in better shape from when I was younger and I know now, as I've talked about in the past on this show, that I may not have the time now to get back in shape. So of course, I'm like every other American. If I could just take a pill or a shot in my stomach or something, I wish I could do that, but I can't, because in this country we've decided to make it impossible for people to afford medicines that could actually help them. Yes, we have Wigovi and we have Ozempic, we have all these things. But who can afford it? I am on Medicare, and Medicare doesn't pay for it because you have to be diabetic, because the medicine was developed to help diabetics. So, even though it's been recognized that it does help people lose weight, medicare won't do anything with it for that. So if you are younger, if you are doing the wild things, if you're not taking care, you are doing the wild things if you're not taking care of yourself the way you should and by that I mean going to the dentist and going for annual checkups, doing all that sort of thing do it. Take care of your body. You don't get a second one.

Speaker 1: 7:02

And in my time, we grew up believing that medicine would be able to cure most everything, unless it was extreme and I'm talking no cancer or ALS or muscular dystrophy or something like that. But if problems came along just because you were older, medicine would be able to take care of it. Now I don't know if that was just a lie that we believed and now we know the truth or if it did used to be that way. But now, because, in my opinion, medicine is controlled by big pharma and doctors are no longer in control of their own practices the way they used to be. That medicine is not able to do what it used to be able to, it can do miracles. Absolutely it can perform miracles. I know people that have performed miracles for, but there's a lot that it still can't do. So don't rely on the government or the medical community to be able to cure you when, right now, you can do something which is eat right, watch your weight, get the exercise. I know I sound like all those boring commercials that people used to tell me the same thing to do.

Speaker 1: 8:08

The life lesson here that I have learned as I got older was I should have listened. I thought I knew everything. How odd I didn't, and I still don't. This is all about getting older. That's why I call it a guide for getting older. I learn new things every single day, things that I thought I knew and that I had my mindset on. I've now found that I can change that mindset to do what needs to be done. So don't get so set in your ways, too, that you can't latch on to a new idea or a new perspective or a new way of thinking. Okay, so that is our lesson for today. We'll be continuing this series. The next time up we're going to be talking about empathy and what life teaches you about that.

Speaker 1: 8:54

I would like to take just a moment to reach out to all of you who have reached out to me. I got a very nice note after the last episode from someone from New York I don't know if you're a man or a woman, there was no name with it, but just thanking me for starting the series up again. As I mentioned last episode, I had taken a short break around June for June, july and August, as I was concentrating on my other podcast, tales from South Florida, and this person wrote just to let me know how great it was, and I really appreciate that. So if you scroll down, whatever app you're listening through, you will find a text bill, a message or text, a message link, and you can just send it. You don't have to go on through your phone. It's not going to charge you anything. If you're on a laptop, you can do it.

Speaker 1: 9:40

However you're listening, you can do it, and I would appreciate you just giving me your thoughts on on the show, how you heard about it and what you're going through as you are getting older and again, I'm not talking about what you're going through as you are old, but as you are getting older, so, even if you're in your 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s, what are the thoughts that you're having? What are you doing to take care of yourself, what are the problems that you're running into and what are the solutions that you're finding? I really do appreciate that. My friends, please remember to hit the like and comment and share and subscribe with whatever app you're listening on. All of this helps me to keep the podcast going and I love hearing from you and I love your feedback Until next time. This is Bill Monte saying be safe and be kind.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Friends, those of you who listened all the way to the end of this episode, that means so much to me how nice it is to have you listen all the way. You know in the podcasting world, the way that they send episodes out to new people. If you listen all the way through, then they're going to recommend the podcast to other people because they're going to say, hey, people are sticking with this from start to finish and they're not bailing after the first two minutes or five minutes or whatever it might be. So it really means a lot to me that you're listening as I wrap up the show and I just wanted to say thank you once again. Thank you for that.

Speaker 1: 11:15

I hope you'll tell your friends, your co-workers, your family about Bill Monty's guide for getting older and if you want to throw in Tales from South Florida, because that's my other podcast, these are my hobbies. I'm not making any money doing this, but I have information that I think is important to share, and one of the things that as I get older is you want things to do, you want to be able to keep your mind active. So for me, it's Wordle. I got it in three today, people, and it's my podcast. So thank you once again. Really enjoyed talking with you and I hope you're enjoying the program too. As I said previously, until next time, be safe and be kind.