Boomer Banter, Caregiving, Purpose, Connection

The Hey, Boomer guest today is Stella Fosse, writer, advocate for older women's empowerment and workshop leader. 

Our topic today was Sexy Stories for and about Women Over Sixty. Stella reinvented herself from a technical writer, to a writer of erotica for and about older women. Her first book, Aphrodite's Pen: The Power of Writing Erotica after Midlife, includes lots of how to's and prompts to get your started. Her latest book, "Brilliant Charming Bastard" was released this year.

We talked about claiming our narrative at this stage of our lives. 

We discussed the difference between Elderotica and Seasoned Romance Stories. 

When I asked about being objectified as sexual beings, Stella turned that around to finding the freedom of being able to walk down the street without being harassed, and the freedom to be more playful in our relationships.

We talked about the benefit of finding supportive writers groups, both in person and online. 

It was a fun discussion. I think you will enjoy it.

Episode Takeaways:

1. Read books, and watch movies that show possibilities of this part of life.

2. Find ways to build creativity into this part of your life.

3. Enjoy your body.

4. Learning and sex until rigor mortis. 

Thanks so much for listening.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

– Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.” Find out more about Wendy’s 6-week “What’s Next Transition” Coaching workshop

– You can find Stella at stellafosse.com or email her at [email protected] 

Other resources mentioned

Writing Open the Mind by Andy Couturier 

Fifty First Dates After Fifty by Carolyn Lee Arnold 

Fear of Dying by Erica Jong

Naked at our Age by Joan Price 

Forever 51 by Pamela Skjolsvik

============================================

Show transcript

And welcome to the Hey Boomer Show, which is live every Monday at 1:00 Eastern on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. My name is Wendy Green and I am your host for Hey Boomer. And hey, Boomer is a show for those of us who believe we are never too old to set another goal or dream, a new dream. It is for lifelong learners who want to find meaning and purpose in their lives and live the best part of their life in this next chapter. Every year I put together an Alzheimer's walk team and every year I get a bunch of people that come and walk with me and we raise money. Last year, we hit the championship level. We raised over 1000. So this year I am asking you to join our team. There's a couple of ways you can do this. You can join the local team here in Greenville, South Carolina, and walk with us and help raise money for that. Or you can join our our hey boomer team and walk in your community. So for now, I have a Greenville team. I have a hey boomer team in California and I have a Hey Boomer team in Maryland. And anybody that joins our team, I'm going to give them this cute, hey, boomer hat so that you can wear that when you walk and you can wear it afterwards proudly as a member of Hey, Boomer. So all you have to do is go to act.Alz.org/goto/HeyBoomer, join our team and support the hopeful end of Alzheimer's.

I also want to say that I am not anti retirement. anti retirement, but I don't recommend it for almost anybody because retirement means withdrawal. And if you withdraw from life, you really are giving up on life. And what happens is that every day starts to run into the next. You become bored and lethargic. You find yourself spending more time on the couch than doing just about anything else. And I want to encourage you, as I said in the opening, this show is about living your best life in this next chapter. So I have a six-week group program called What's Next? And you can find it and get more information about it on HeyBoomer.Biz/coaching. There you'll find a synopsis of what the group coaching experience is about. A little video from me and an opportunity to sign up for a free 20 minute consultation so that I can learn more about you. You can learn more about me. And then we can make a decision whether this is a good fit for you or not. So there's no obligation. Check it out at heyboomer/coaching and get set or get your mojo back if you feel like you've lost it.

Now to talk about what's coming up. Kathleen, A Berry PhD and coeditor of "Unmasked: Women write about sex and intimacy after 50" said, "When we think of erotica, we don't usually link it together with middle aged women."

In fact, it is middle aged women who are finally liberated to fully experience the sensuous delight of erotica. They have reached the point in their lives when they are no longer encumbered by the risk of pregnancy, nor zapped by the physical ramifications of menopause.

And there's another aspect to this topic. Ageist thinking says that older women become matronly and we lose our beauty. And the idea of older women having sex seems almost unappealing in our society. There are a few examples of women over 50 being sexual in the media. I'm sure that or I hope that you all have seen Grace and Frankie with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. And there's a new movie out with Emma Thompson called Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. And in this movie, Emma Thompson plays a widow who has never had a satisfying sex life. She is curious and she's nervous. She hires a sex worker. This movie explores her journey to becoming comfortable with her own sexuality. It is available on Hulu. Good luck to you, Leo Grande. So today we're going to talk about the idea that we are all sensual beings into our sixties, seventies, eighties and beyond, and that we can all make our own decisions about what is right for us regarding sex at this stage of our life, really at any stage of our life. So let me bring Stella on and introduce you. Hello, Stella.

I want to thank. Thanks for having.

Me. Oh, I've been looking forward to this. And so is the audience. I've heard a lot of people say, Oh, I'm going to watch.

I'm going to watch.

So brief bio. Stella is a former biotechnology writer who advocates for the creative power of older women. Her books include "Aphrodite's Pen: The Power of Writing Erotica After Midlife", "The Erotic Pandemic Ball,"

And ooh, did you hear the Thunder? And her debut novel at age 68, "Brilliant, Charming Bastard." She is currently teaching romance writing to seniors and writing a book about creative retirement. Stella lives with her partner in North Carolina. You can follow her on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, and she blogs on her website, which we will get to, and I'll share all of her contact information later. So, Stella.

Yes.

So, you know, in my coaching practice, I always talk to people about reinvention. And many people have a really hard time thinking about what they're going to do next. They had their career and That was that was who they defined themselves as they didn't have an idea of what was next. So I'm curious about your reinvention journey from tech writer to writer of erotica and the ups and downs of that.

Oh Well, I always wanted to be a writer. In fact, my childhood goal was to write my first novel by the time I was 25. So I missed that by 50 years. As you said, it's never too late. So I went to college in the early seventies when there was a total double standard about writing anything sexual. Philip Roth's novels were literature. Erica Jong's novels were trash. And so that's that's what it was like when I came up. And I certainly never thought about writing erotica back then after college, after I got my degree in creative writing, which when I moved to New York, I was told would get me. If I had that plus $0.25, I could get a ride in the subway. So I went back to school, got a master's in biology, and had a career writing FDA submissions, which are about as asexual as you can get. And when I was starting to think about graduating from that career, if we don't like the word retirement, maybe we can. Graduation. I happened to read an article in the New York Times Book Review section by a romance author who was also in her late fifties, who was advising her sister writers that if they wanted to get published, they should write romance characters in their twenties. And I thought, that's pretty outrageous. Why should women of a certain age have to closet themselves when they write? And around that time, a friend of mine Linx Cannon started a reading series at an Oakland bookstore called Dirty Old Women, and she invited all her friends to write erotic stories and come and read them before an audience. And I thought, Well, why not? So that's that's how this started.

So I mean, I think if you asked me to come to a book reading and writing erotic stuff called Dirty Old Women, I would probably be pretty nervous. Were you nervous at first?

Yeah, I sure was. But, you know, we had a great crowd every time, and it was really a mixed age crowd. There were a lot of younger women in the audience who would come up to us afterwards and thank us and say, you know, we we thought that part of life ended around age 40. So thank you for showing us that that's not the case. I've come to think of this kind of writing as a political act, really, as part of our part of liberating ourselves.

So a political act and an educational act in a sense, for the young people that there is. You can continue to look forward to this.

That's right. This doesn't just there's not a not a cutoff date.

Right. Right. So in Aphrodite's pen, you talk about the power of writing erotica. As older women, what do you mean by that power?

I think I think there are a couple of kinds of power involved. One is the power to claim back our narrative for ourselves. You mentioned earlier that there's this there's this idea in the culture. There's this sexist age trope that older women have outlived their own sexuality. And when we write, even if even if a woman writes a story and saves it for herself, she's reclaiming her own agency because, you know, sexuality isn't something society gives us or something society can take away. It's innate in us. And when we write, we reclaim that for ourselves. And if we decide to publish a story, then we're pushing back on this big cultural narrative. I think of. I think of culture as sort of like an ocean liner. You know, it's going in one direction. It's big, has a lot of there's a lot of inertia. But if if everybody gets out their teaspoon, writes their story and starts, you know, pushing the water, we can we can start turning the culture in a better direction if a lot of us are writing our stories.

Well, if you've never written anything like that before. Yeah, how would you even get started?

Well, I think, you know, if you're not in a community that has a dirty old women reading series, you can still you can certainly get a copy of Aphrodite's Pen, which has exercise, writing exercises, writing prompts, all kinds of ideas for how to create characters, how to mine your own life experience. Because by now all of us have lots and lots of experience that we can draw from in creating plots and creating characters. And then the book also has interviews with women, older women who write erotica, talking about their experience and examples of stories that they've written. So you can really get a sense of of this what I think of as a developing crone culture.

Hmm. Hmm. So I, I have to tell you, I mean, I was so a naive, I guess is the right word about all of this. You know, I was I was thinking, well, there's not really going to be much of a plot. It's just going to be one sexual act after another. And and when I read your book, Brilliant, Charming Bastard, there was quite an involved plot there and not nearly as much sex as I expected there to be. And it was tastefully managed. So it was a big surprise to me. And you called this form of this genre of writing. Like, what did you call it?

Elderotica.

Elderotica. And and the way they categorize it.

So seasoned, well there is a category of seasoned romance. Seasoned romance. So when I was speaking earlier about that article, I read by that the woman advising other women writers to make their characters young. She was writing romance, which is a really structured form. And I sort of thought I was writing romance when I wrote Brilliant Charming Bastard. But now that I'm teaching about romance, I realized that I did not follow the rules. Romance. Romance has a very set structure for how you set up your plot and how your characters interact and what happens at the end. And it's really about a happily ever after ending. And my book is more a lot of people hate the phrase women's literature. But I think mine is more like seasoned women's literature. But there is a whole category now called season romance. Publishers are realizing that we are a big market. There are a lot of people now, more and more people in their fifties, sixties and seventies. And we don't necessarily want to read about people in their twenties.

Right. So what's the difference then between Seasoned Romance and Elderotica?

Oh, that's a good question. So. So if you think about again, if you think about what romance is, it's it's really centered around one relationship between two people and they have to have a happily ever after ending. Erotica is more like how one person develops, one main character develops through her sexual experiences and and becomes a more fully developed person by the end of the story. So it's it's it's a different it's a different genre. And then there's porn, which is a whole different thing.

Right, right, right. So I would say that Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is Elderotica. Have you seen it?

Oh, I love that movie. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Because she definitely develops into a more fuller person.

Yes. And she's really developing her relationship with herself.

Yes.

Not that the other person is objectified because he's not. I think he's he's he's a fully developed character in his own right. But but the the real theme of the story is that she comes into her own, as you said earlier. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is sort of. It is elder erotica. I hadn't thought of that. Yeah.

Yeah, I loved it. It is. I mean, at first I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but yeah, it was so brave.

Yes.

So so talking about objectification. Yeah. Right. So when we're young, you know, society, I mean, sex sells and ads, right? They encourage young women to dress sexy, wear the highest heels, you know. And it is a very objectified way of gaining attention as older women, of course, we still want to look lovely and sexy. And how do we how do we do that so that our minds are not telling us? Yeah, but that's just objectifying yourself.

That's a really interesting question. I think. I think there comes a point in most of our lives where we can walk past a construction site without being harassed. And and, you know, that is, you know, people talk about invisibility of older women. There is that upside. There is that freedom. And in that freedom, I really think there's an opportunity, again, to to look at our own agency, to claim our own sexual being and to not feel like we're always having to fend off unwanted attention. So I like to look at the freedom side of it. And and once we've once we're kind of in that state, once we're in that stage, when we reclaimed our freedom, then I think it gives us room to be more playful in our relationships because because we have freed ourselves of that concern about being objectified. Not that I mean, you can you can play with objectification in a consensual relationship. That's something there's that wonderful book, Mating in Captivity, that talks about talks about that. But but again, I really think that this notion of invisibility has a huge positive aspect for us as a women.

It's a great way to phrase it. Yeah, because we don't have to. We don't have to be harassed walking down the street. No, but we can be free and playful on our own terms when we want to. With whom we want to.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

I know. We've got a big thunderstorm coming up here.

Thor Agrees with you.

That's right. So so talking about the women's movement and the whole discussion about ageism. Now, you and I have both been involved in in those discussions in larger forums and, you know, the societal myth of women losing their sexuality like you talked about with the young people. So I'm curious how you think writing about sexuality or erotica or reading about it even can can help in that, dispelling some of those ageist myths?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, we all grew up with women our age, grew up swimming in this gender age group without even realizing it. I mean, think about, you know, Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent. Think about Cinderella and the wicked stepmother. I mean, we we absorbed a lot of that before. We were old enough to have maybe have clear thinking about the fact that we weren't always going to be Cinderella's age someday. We were going to be the age of the stepmother. And what did that mean for us? So. So when we step back from those myths and start creating our own myths, I think that really gives us a lot of power and it gives us a new voice that's important for us as older women. So I think it's key to seek out as a reader, as a watcher of movies and shows. I mean, you mentioned some really powerful, significant shows. There are a lot of great books out there. I mentioned Erica Jong earlier. She wrote Fear of Flying as a young woman. She wrote Fear of Dying as an older woman, which is a great novel with a lot of sexuality about being in our sixties. These are ways that we can reclaim our our power through reading and writing and kind of we can reprogram ourselves away from all that sexist age stuff that we were exposed to when...

There are a few subjects that most of us avoid talking about with friends and family, really with just about everyone. Money, politics and death.

The statistics show that 75% of Americans want to die at home, but only 25% actually do. The statistics show that more bankruptcies occur due to medical expenses, particularly end of life expenses.

Not having the conversation about how you want to die can be a costly omission as well as a missed opportunity for bonding and closeness between family and friends.

Michael Hebb, founder of deathoverdinner.org has created a way to host a dinner conversation about death while breaking bread and building connection.

He has found that deep interpersonal relationships are formed when talking about difficult topics. Having a dinner is easy! We walked through the process and even tried a sample question.

Let's Talk about Death is Michael's book about the subject and the process.

Episode Takeaways:

1. Don't be discouraged when loved ones show resistance to talking about death over dinner. Think of it as a courtship. Be patient and gentle

2. Thinking about generations over dinner, how "generation diverse" are you? Could you invite 3, 4, 7 generations to dinner. 

3. Talking about our mortality is the thing that gives us the most clarity, vitality and sense of purpose.

Thanks so much for listening.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

– Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.” Find out more about Wendy’s 6-week “What’s Next Transition” Coaching workshop

– You can find Michael Hebb at hebb.life 

- deathoverdinner.org 

- generationsoverdinner.com (launching in Sept. 2020 )

Glacier National Park! It is breathtaking. There is crystal blue waters, and peaks made even more fantastic because of the erosion caused by the glaciers and the runoff. There are mountain goats and big horn sheep. And there are 25 glaciers left. There were arond 140 when the park was established in 1910. 

On my trip with Road Scholar to Glacier National Park, I wanted to interview some of the guests, to learn their stories, to hear about how these people, ages 60's - 80's are staying engaged and living their lives.

This show is a series of interviews with some of these people and with the group leader. Each one is different and each one is interesting and interested in what life offers.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Episode Takeaways:

1. Whatever your passions are, go for it.

2. Be a lifelong learner

3. Be open to new experiences

4. Visit our National Parks

Thanks so much for listening.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

– Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.” Find out more about Wendy’s 6-week “What’s Next Transition” Coaching workshop

 - Check out some of the Road Scholar trips at www.roadscholar.org/heyboomer 

Pastor Jim Dant was married for 30 years. He is the father of 3 daughters. His childhood had been tumultuous. He had 2 mothers, 7 fathers and numerous half or step siblings. He had sworn to himself that he would never divorce and never put his kids through what he went through.

He spent a couple of years in therapy and talking to others in the ministry before he was ready to make the decision to end the marriage. He also had a "mystical experience" that gave him added spiritual assurance that God would not abandon him or his ex-wife.

In this episode we talked about the loss of friendships and some family. We talked about reshaping our lives as separate from a couple. We talked about rebuilidng community. We talked about the importance of getting to know who you are and what is important to you. And of course we talked about the spiritual aspect of divorce and how God could understand divorce and how there does not have to be shame in making a promise we could not keep.

Episode Takeaways:

1. Every life can be reshaped. Whatever you are going through, there is a way to cut a new path, there is a way to reshape your life, there is a way to find meaning and purpose.

2. Divine presence in your life is always there, whichever choice you make.

Thanks so much for listening.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

– Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.” Find out more about Wendy’s 6-week “What’s Next Transition” Coaching workshop

– You can find Jim at [email protected] 

RoadScholar.org/heyboomer 

Real Eats: 40% off n ext 4 orders with code JULY4

Dani Baker was a practicing clinical psychologist and at the end of her career she was doing work with the prison system in Upstate NY. She had also developed a "side hustle" as a photographer and won several awards for her photography.

As someone who does not do well with idle time, Dani was concerned about how she would fill her time once she retired. So she and her partner bought 100 acres of land that had been used as a dairy farm. Her original thought was that she would wander around, do some landscaping and have access to outdoor recreation. That lasted about a year, and then they started a small garden. They grew enough vegetables to begin selling them, and the garden expanded.

Seven years into this journey, Dani took a course on permaculture, and by the end of the course she knew she wanted to create an Edible Forest. In this episode we talk about her transition to farming and then to creating and maintaining the Enchanted Edible Forest. We learn about a typical day on a working farm. We talked about her nature photography and how it has enhanced her new book, The Home Scale Forest Garden: how to plan, plant and tend a resilient edible landscape.

Finally, with the recognition that at 73 she is slowing down some, we talked about how she is reinventing herself again, with the new book.

Episode Takeaways:

1. Take what you loved as a child and bring it forward into this next stage of life.

2. You can't control life or a garden, learn to accept what is.

3. Follow your passion

4. Pay attention to your health, physical, emotional and spiritual health

Thanks so much for listening.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

– Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.” Find out more about Wendy’s 6-week “What’s Next Transition” Coaching workshop

– You can find Dani and the Enchanted Edible Forest at Enchanted Edible Forest 

- RoadScholar.org/heyboomer 

- Real Eats 

In this episode we are talking about transformation and cultivating courage. 

Deb Beroset had built a career in corporate as a journalist and a PR executive. She liked her work. She was good at her work, but she kept hearing a call for something else that she was meant to be doing. She tells us about the defining moment when she knew she had to step away from her corporate job and begin her own path.

We also talked about "every day courage." This is the courage that we find when we show up as we are, when we can live our own truth. It can be our thoughts and our fears that get in the way of living with every day courage. Learning to be a "friendly witness" of the thoughts in our head and finding another thought to replace it with can be helpful.

When facing a big transformation, we may perceive with fear what might be. That is a time to ask yourself the question, "what might happen if I don't do this thing?" You won't know exactly how things will unfold or evolve. Take the step anyway.

Episode Takeaways:

1. It is never too late to be the person you were born to be

2. Trust yourself, you are way bigger than you realize

3. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it

4. Life gives big payoffs to those of us who are willing to take that step; willing to evolve and grow.

Deb is offering a Courage Kit to anyone who sends her an email with Courage Kit in the subject line. Also, if you write a note about what you want courage for, Deb will chose one winner to join her SOUL CARE MASTER CLASS!

Entries must be in by June 25.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

Road Scholar: roadscholar.org/heyboomer 

Real Eats: https://bit.ly/3aPQ1vb 

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

– Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.” Find out more about Wendy’s 6-week “What’s Next Transition” Coaching workshop

– You can find Deb at [email protected]. 

Celebrating my 100th episode with Paul Long, from a New Way Forward. Of course I had to ask, if you knew you would live to 100, how would you want to live it? The discussion went on from there.

We talked about how we may be looking at life with old, outdated beliefs. These beliefs may be stopping us from the living the life we want to live. It is time to recognize it is "My Time" and start reimaging and reinventing the life you want to live.

The real story about getting older has to do with your attitudes, passions, purpose and beliefs more than it has to do with your chronological age.

We talked about the small (or large) voices in our heads that come from our own inner ageist. These voices that tell us why we can't do the things we want to do, and shared some ideas on how to address those voices.

And we talked about fear. When looking at the next 20-30 years of your life, what do you fear? Paul talked about the fear of regret, looking back at the end of life and regretting the life you did not live. 

1.  Where attention goes focus flows

Thanks so much for listening.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

– Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.” Find out more about Wendy’s 6-week “What’s Next Transition” Coaching workshop. The next workshop begins on August 2.

– You can find Paul at [email protected] or on his website at newwayfwd.com 

 Bernadette Wagner started Prime Time for Women in 2018. She was in her late 50's and wondering about healthy aging. After some research, her intuition was confirmed. Positive social connections have a larger impact on our wellbeing as we age, and these connections are particularly important for women.

The program started with a live TV show in Hagerstown, MD. Since that time it has grown into a nonprofit that provides numerous activities to encourage social engagement and help local charities.

One of the slogans of Prime Time for Women is "every woman deserves to be seen and heard." To this end, there is a book club for members, hikes, walking for wellness, cooking opportunities. 

One of the activites that we talked about were the Grandma Gatewood Hikes. The story Bernadette tells about Grandma Gatewood's determination to be the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail at the age of 67 has many takeaway lessons for all of us.

• Don't let people tell you what you can't do

We also talked about the neurochemcials of happiness and that positive emotional connections that get planted in our brains can bring back the originial sense of joy that they brought us.

Episode Takeaways:

1. Do it your way! Figure out your interests and then think about how you can benefit somebody else while pursuing your interest.

2. Why benefit someone else? Because when you feel purposeful you have a greater opportunity for improved health

3. Positive social connections have a greater impact on physical health and emotional wellbeing than diet and exercise combined.

Thanks so much for listening.

Please support our sponsor at RoadScholar.org/heyboomer 

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

– Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.” Find out more about Wendy’s 6-week "What's Next" workshop that begins on August 2. Let's chat.

– You can find Prime Time for Women at primetimeforwomen.org. 

– Email Bernadette at [email protected] 

Check out Lifeboost Coffee, one of our aff iliate marketing partners

Randye Kaye, author of Happier Made Simple, has been divorced and remarried, lost the use of one leg and has since regained her mobility, and she is the mother of a young man suffering from schizophrenia.

Any day could be a good day or a bad day, but somehow Randye seemed to find a way to stay mostly optimistic and hopeful. Friends, physicians and others she worked with would ask her how she found a way to be happy. Her book, Happier Made Simple explains how.

What I love about this book is the realism and the humor that is part of it. Randye does not pretend that we can be happy all the time. Sometimes life sucks. But she gives you an acronym, BREATHE, that gives you seven core phrases that will help you find ways to be happier.

1. It's not a competition, you are not supposed to be happy every single hours, ever single second of the day.

2. Finding ways to be happier by what we tell ourselves will give us more energy to revitalize us, help us reach our goals and meet our challenges.

3. Are we the victim or the victor in our stories? It is all in the way we tell our stories.

4. Nobody is perfect. Each day is an opportunity to learn

Thanks so much for listening.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

Visit our sponsor at roadscholar.org/heyboomer 

– You can find Randye at randyekaye.com or at happiermadesimple.com 

"I used to be thin, and now I'm not. I eat the same, exercise ... what's up?"

This is a familiar refrain of many of us as we move into our 50's, 60's and 70's. Our bodies change and most of the diet books and research is focused on people in their 20's - 40's. 

The Whole Body Reset is for us, in midlife and beyond. Heidi Skolnik, coauthor and a nutritionist and exercise physiologist, talks to us about the importance of protein timing and maintaining muscle as we age to maintain our health and wellbeing. 

We blow up the idea that our metabolism slows down as we age, it is about having fewer metabolically active cells as we lose muscle.

We talked about the role fiber plays in providing nutrients and maintaining gut health. Healthy fats play a role in helpting to aborb fat soluble vitamins. Dairy is nutrient rich, maintains bone health and provide the amino acid luceine, a "spark plug for muscle building." And of course, we talked about exercise, and the importance of resistance and strength training.

The Whole Body Reset diet is easily adaptable to your life style, whether you are a vegan or a carnivore. 

Episode Takeaways:

1. Start with one goal that is doable for you. Maybe breakfast tomorrow that hits the protein mark. Small changes can have big impacts.

2. Look at your fiber choices and begin to swap out some with foods you might not think about but that you will really like.

3. Begin to move and add resistance training.

Thanks so much for listening.

Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Stitcher , Google Podcast. or Spotify and please rate and review the episode.

Follow up on Facebook and Instagram

You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]

https://www.roadscholar.org/heyboomer 

– You can find Heidi at her website at heidiskolnik.com or on Instagram and Twitter at @heidiskolnik