JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: Keep On Keepin’ On

By Jim “Pappy” Moore

Someone once said 90% of life is putting one foot in front of the other. I have found that to be a sound concept. When I began publishing this column I was in my mid-50s. Now I’m in my mid-70s.  As with all of life, there’s a learning curve as we age. 

Growing old is about learning to deal with the loss of various capabilities as time passes. We go from running to play sports, to walking to stay fit, to being careful not to take a bad fall while walking briskly.

We learn that we can overdo it trying to stay in shape, and that going overboard can be worse than doing nothing at all. We have to learn how to reach a happy medium where we do enough but we don’t do too much.

We have to learn what is good for our body and what doesn’t work for us now. I have revamped my food and drink intake dramatically the past twenty years. I gave up alcohol and cigarettes twenty years ago and have been better for it. 

I broke a longstanding addiction to Diet Coke some years ago, slowly going down from eight a day to one day. Then I switched to A&W root beer, with sugar made from cane. I drink a few a week. 

I have practically stopped eating bread of any kind. I stopped eating sandwiches, which were a mainstay in the diet. I have practically stopped eating fast foods at all. I have quit all vegetable and seed oils. I have significantly reduced my fried foods. I try to eat better meats, and I don’t eat any meats not grown in this country. I eat beef, some pork loin, fish, shrimp, crawfish, and crab. 

Water is my go-to drink. All day and at every meal I drink water. It is what a body needs most. I have it in the car, by the bed, in the frig, on the counter, in the cabinet. Room temperature water is my drink. No lemon if I’m out.

I sleep eight of every twenty-four hours. On average. I track it daily. I might get nine hours one day and seven hours the next day, but I average around eight hours per twenty-four hours every month.

I watch my weight daily. First I dropped sixty pounds to get down to a weight not far above my high school weight almost sixty years ago. Then I set out to maintain it. I do so by portion control and following my number one rule: I don’t eat anything I don’t find delicious! I restrict my desserts to the ones I truly love. Brownie with vanilla ice cream, for example. Mrs. Edwards Key Lime pie. These are calories worth eating. 

Being thankful for having a measure of one’s health is important. I cannot run up and down a basketball court any more, but I can ride a recumbent bike. I can walk on a relatively flat surface, but my Achilles tendon will not handle a significant incline. I can walk. I can drive. I can lift a bag of groceries. I can lift 24 bottles of water but not 40 bottles of water. I have learned to pace myself and not overdue things. 

Probably the toughest part of getting older is dealing with the dilemma. After all those years of working hard and raising kids, nephews and nieces, we find ourselves with more time to see them than they have to see us. But we remember what it was like when we were in mid-life and busy working and raising a family. 

Being happy is a choice, and we must choose it. Anger will eat you up inside, that’s why you have to avoid it. Take joy in what you can have, what you can do. And keep on keepin’ on!

Copyright 2024, Jim “Pappy” Moore. All rights reserved.