How to Refuse Surrender to Your Age

Author’s note: I first published this essay on Medium and am sharing it here on Vital Sassy Seniors as the original author.

Halfway through my morning walk, a sudden, ghostly emptiness hit me — the kind that makes your skin crawl before you even know why.

The sun dimmed, as if someone had pulled a shade over the sky. I stopped, turned in a full circle, and thought, Where is everyone?

It’s March. The snowbirds are still here. But out of 242 homes, only a handful of people are outside — in their yards, on their lanais, walking dogs through the park. Even the benches are empty.

God, it’s lonely here.

I live in a 55+ community where most people are retired. I’ve walked this park for nearly two years now, morning and night. It makes me feel good. Alive. Energized.

But lately, something feels different.

Emptier.

Wrong.

The stillness is like the world hit the pause button and forgot to press play.

The quiet is almost deafening.

The lifelessness is god-awful depressing.

What’s happening?

My neighbors are moving through life with walkers, wheelchairs, and oxygen tanks, hoses trailing behind them. In the middle of the night, sirens split the dark, and red lights bounce off the walls as ambulances come and go like clockwork.

I find myself wondering, whose house is it this time?

I’m 76 years old. Am I supposed to believe this is just life after 70?

I walk every day. I stay active. Because I want to thrive, not just survive.

So How Did We Get Here?

How did frailty become normal?

How did decline become expected?

Could it be Big Food? Big Pharma? The lie that everything is fine “in moderation”? The fantasy that pharmaceuticals can fix everything? The learned helplessness that tells people aging means surrender?

Poppycock.

I stopped buying that story years ago, and I’m glad I did.

Because that walker could be mine.

That wheelchair could be mine.

That oxygen tank could be my lifeline.

Those sirens could be for me.

And I refuse to hand myself over that easily.

A preheated mindset from long ago is baked into our heads. Who wrote this recipe? It sure wasn’t anyone who wanted humanity to thrive. It’s more like a template than a recipe to thrive.

Take a Look:

We’re born.
We prepare for school, then college, or a job or career.
We work. We raise families. We pay bills.
We retire in our 60s.
Then, in our 70s, we’re expected to start breaking down.
If we make it to 80, we’re told to be thankful and not ask for more.
After that, well, it’s all downhill anyway.

That’s the mixture.

And most of us swallowed it whole without ever questioning who was stirring the pot.

So why not go with the flow?

Eat whatever we want.

Drink whatever we want.

Smoke until the cows come home.

Couch-root until we need a chair lift.

And forget stooping down to grab the tomato that just slithered out of that Big Mac. Too hard to get up.

But we’ll still manage a big bowl of chocolate chip ice cream or a nice slab of white-flour cake after dinner.

Because our bodies are obviously crying out for more sugar, more chemicals, more fake food, and more inflammation.

Have you ever seen a dog that’s been poked with a stick half its life — snout wrinkled back, teeth showing, hackles raised, ready to fight back?

That’s me.

I’m that dog.

I’m outraged by the food industry lining store shelves with cardboard-like junk loaded with sugar, fructose, aspartame, seed oils, and other garbage, then labeling it “food.” I’m just as sick of the broader system that helps create the damage, then acts surprised when people wind up sick, swollen, foggy, breathless, and falling apart.

Our grocers have dedicated aisles to seed oils, bottles lining shelf after shelf. They even come in jugs.

Pour some of that over your salad.

Fry your chicken in it.

And your insides will look like that rusty gardening tool you forgot to put away before the snowfall.

That rusting has a name: oxidative stress.

Too much bad food going in. Not enough real food coming to the rescue.

Our bodies will keep trying to compensate for a while.

Then one day it won’t do it anymore. Some call it aging. I call it poor lifestyle.

The Toddler Walk

We notice our gait changing. We’re walking like we’ve got a load of poop in our pants. Our stance widens. Then comes the cane.

Soon, our grocery cart becomes a medical device. We lean on it just to get down the aisle. Walking hurts. Everything creaks.

That’s when the alarm finally rings.

Time for a Lab Check

So we go to the doctor. We tell him our story. He orders the labs. And then, out comes the prescription pad.

Fasting blood sugar is 128.

LDL is climbing.

Here comes the plaque buildup. I call it a carbohydrate-sugar bomb waiting to explode.

Our bodies have been waving a red flag for years, and now the paperwork is telling.

The Entrance to the Medical Maze

This is where we enter the medical maze: one diagnosis, then another. One pill, then another. One side effect, then something else to manage its side effects.

That’s how comorbidity and polypharmacy start moving in and unpacking their bags.

Not overnight.

Not out of nowhere.

But one meal, one habit, one excuse, one decade at a time.

And that’s the part nobody wants to say out loud anymore, because apparently, personal responsibility is rude now.

Well, that’s not the whole story.

No, not every illness is self-inflicted. No, life is not fair. No, some people are hit with burdens they never chose, and I know that.

But deep down, we know better and keep doing damage anyway.

And yes, at some point, that becomes our fault.

Unless we turn it around.

I Wanted to Turn It Around

So I fought back by reading books and listening to health-and-wellness webinars from top doctors over the last 15 years.

That’s how I uncovered this sinister entity. Sugar.

I call it the white demon.

Sugar messes with my brain. You know how your glasses fog up when you step out of your air-conditioned car into 95-degree heat?

That’s my brain on sugar.

It took me a long time to figure that out because the effects didn’t always show up right away. Sometimes I’d eat something too sugary and not feel the effects for 2 or 3 days. So, it was hard to connect the dots.

It was depressing.

And sugar wasn’t the only villain.

If I ate aged cheese, the next day, my nasal passages would lock the gate on my air supply.

That’s not just getting older.

That’s information.

I was 60 years old and always tired, always foggy. Anxiety began to set in. It was depressing, and something in me finally said, “This is hogwash.”

I’m not one to ask for permission to feel well.

I searched beyond mainstream medicine. I became my own advocate.

That was 15 years ago.

I still research.

I still learn.

I still test.

And I turned it around.

I felt better in my 60s than I had in years.

Be Free

I’m 76 years old now and prescription drug-free. I pray, I walk, I stay active. Because without action, hope is just a word.

Do I have tired days? Yes.
Do I crave sugary junk sometimes? Not so much.
Do I still want a Big Mac? Oh yes. And when my son brought me one when he came to visit, I ate it.

But those moments are rare now.

So please — do your own research. Become your own advocate. Nobody knows you better than you do.

Even PartnerMD’s healthy aging article points back to the same plain truth: build your meals around real food — protein, colorful plants, and healthy fats — and your body has a better chance to keep up with you.

I’m not selling anything.

I’m not a farmer.

I don’t even have a garden.

But I do have access to a grocery store, and I shop the perimeter.

And it isn’t boring anymore. I’m drawn to the beauty of real, simple food.

Deep purple beets. No ingredient list.

A bag of colorful bell peppers. No ingredient list.

Blackberries. No ingredient list.

Cauliflower, cabbage, onions — full of sulfur for the brain. No ingredient list.

A whole world of gorgeous greens. No ingredient list. No labels. Just food.

Go shopping.
Be active.
Take control of your own life.

Closing Thoughts

I’m not deluding myself. I know one day my spirit will abandon me and leave this beautiful world. But I prefer later rather sooner, if I can help it…

Avoiding months, let alone years, in a horizontal position, ill, from what may have been preventable. I hope to breathe my last breath vertically — doing what I love.

Maybe life doesn’t have to become quiet, empty, or lifeless well before our time — if we choose differently while we still can.

This message is not for those facing rare genetic diseases or conditions no amount of lifestyle change can undo. Their path is often harsh and unfair, and they walk it with a bravery I deeply admire.

But for the rest of us?

It’s time to stop pretending we have no say.