As much as it may pain or please us, when we look at our parents or older relatives we see glimpses of what is to come. “I am the ghost of your future body” I have my mother’s hands and feet, and she has her mother’s. As a little girl I would look at my grandmother’s hands riddled with arthritis and shiver at the thought that those gnarled twisted phalanges would at some point belong to me. There are some of us who know that our bodies will probably bounce back from childbirth and those who have witnessed the inevitable post baby spread in aunts and our own mother’s. Looking down at teen aged photos of them thin happy with their whole lives (and us) ahead of them we look to the portly, serious minded mother we have always known and say “Mom, that’s you?”

We see our future faces in our parents, aunts and uncles, where the age will begin to settle and show, perhaps it is in our skin that will show a road map of our lives lived, or in our bones with the stoop of the shoulders, perhaps we will get bonier and frail, or plump and round. We see if it will land in our bellies or our hips or both…more importantly and far more seriously we see what we are medically predisposed to. I have a friend whose family is highly prone to strokes, or perhaps in your family it’s heart disease, cancer, or maybe your people are built like tanks impervious to all ills that swarm around them.

Today with more knowledge, better medical care and technically enhanced products we have opportunities that generations before us never had when it come to prevention both medical and cosmetic. We can be genetically tested for cancer, we can be diligent about making certain our blood pressure, sugar levels and hearts are healthier both through monitoring by a doctor and through a healthy lifestyle and diet. We know that the adage, “Move it or Lose it is true” the importance of exercise at all ages is a key to health and mobility and strength. Yogi says “You are only as young as your spine”

Debbie is a young woman who had looked at the mirror of her family and decided she wanted to take some things in hand (before they possibly get outta hand). Here is her story and her plan!!

To see her journal