Chris Crowley > Quotes

“Remember, aerobic exercise saves your life; strength training makes it worth living.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“optimism. Lean, fit, happy, optimistic, energetic, brimming with vim and vigor: these”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“I am fundamentally optimistic about the possibility that we can change the way we eat and move. We have to change, we are going to change, and I would like to be part of that because the way we live now is not sustainable. Here’s some important news: I am absolutely certain that exercise is as important as food when it comes to weight loss and long-term weight maintenance, as well as being the single most important component for your overall health, energy, and wellness. We do both here, obviously—eat great food and exercise hard. But if you find yourself in a difficult food predicament, keep the exercise going. Regular exercise promotes a desire to fuel your body healthily in addition to keeping you on track with some nutritional leeway, meaning that occasional celebratory indulgences won’t affect your bottom line as much as they would a sedentary person. Exercise really is the flywheel of the good life.”
― Chris Crowley, Thinner This Year: A Younger Next Year Book

“These are big, fat women who have to take a deep breath in the middle of each sentence. Hopelessly puff-faced pudgies who obviously couldn’t run a step. Women in such hideously bad shape, it’s scary. They all tell me that they agree entirely about exercise and are already hard at it. Well, that is nonsense! Outrageous nonsense! Please, please, please, whatever you tell me, whatever you tell Old Fred, whatever you tell your God . . . quit lying to yourself! You are not doing anywhere near enough if you’re fat as butter. If you’re short of breath. If you look like hell. Do not lie! You are getting in your own way.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“For those who are given to excess, abstinence is easier than moderation.”—John Drybred.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Biologically, there is no such thing as retirement, or even aging. There is only growth or decay. And your body looks to you to choose between them.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Kedging Let’s admit it. It’s not easy to keep doing exercise six days a week, year in and year out. Sometimes we falter, sometimes we slip off the bike, we get bored, and sometimes we need help. We all do. So Harry and I have come up with just the thing: “kedging.” Originally, it was a nautical term: When sailors were becalmed and drifting toward the rocks, they would literally pull themselves forward (using a small boat to set a small anchor) to get out of danger. They called kedging. It’s what you have to do when you’re tempted to say “the hell with it” and never exercise again. For our purposes, kedging means climbing out of the ordinary by setting a terrific goal for yourself (with a reward at the end) and working like crazy to get there. Make a long-range plan, maybe with a group of friends in some wonderful place, and then do it. It’s demanding but fun, like signing up for a serious “adventure trip.” Maybe one of those great bike trips in Europe, or a white-water rafting adventure, or a yoga retreat, or maybe a week at an interesting spa. Think about walking or running for a cause and get a friend to train with you. Most of these “kedges” mean training beforehand. But the training and anticipation perk us up and give shape and purpose to our daily training. And there’s that great reward at the end. The Rich Hours”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: The Exercise Program: Use the Power of Exercise to Reverse Aging and Stay Strong, Fit, and Sexy

“Bill Fabrocini in The Younger Next Year Exercise Book or Thinner This Year.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond

“research has shown that we have a remarkable ability to think and feel our way into happier or more depressed states, regardless of external reality, and you can train yourself to live in either an optimistic or a pessimistic frame of mind regardless of your external circumstances.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“A lot of people unconsciously assume that they will get-old-and-die: one phrase, almost one word, and certainly one seamless concept. That when they get old and infirm, they will die soon after, so a deteriorating quality of life does not matter. That is a deeply mistaken idea and a dangerous premise for planning your life. In fact, you will probably get-old-and-live. You can get decrepit, if you like, but you are not likely to die; you are likely to live like that for a long, long time. Most Americans today will live into their mid-eighties, whether they’re in great shape or shuffling around on walkers. And that number is rising over time, too, so you may well live into your nineties, whether you like it or not. Which is good reason to make the Last Third of your life terrific—and not a dreary panoply of obesity, sore joints, and apathy.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Your body reads idleness as a sign that you are starving to death as slowly as possible, no matter how much you eat. Exercise”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“You’re a grown-up, right? Then don’t be a dope. The gadgets, or the weights, do not do the work. You do. Okay, go to a decent gym and hire the nicest, smartest man or woman you can find.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“The price of fitness is eternal vigilance, and the greatest spur to diligence is the daily log.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Biologists now believe that most cells in your body are designed to fall apart after relatively short life spans, partly to let you adapt to new circumstances and partly because older cells tend to get cancer, making immortal cells not such a great idea.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Remember, without your input, your body will constantly misinterpret the signals of today’s world. It will trigger the “default to decay” setting. You’ll start to deteriorate, to die”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, Sexy, and Smart—Until You're 80 and Beyond

“You should also know that omega-3s (alpha linolenic acid) are found in walnuts, flaxseeds, green leafy vegetables, soybean, canola, and flaxseed oil. The omega-3s from plant sources are a little different from the omega-3s in fish, but both convey health benefits. Take-home message: Taking fish oil supplements is unnecessary. Eat two 4- to 6-ounce servings of fish per week, and balance it by adding some walnuts or flaxseeds to your salad, and cook with canola, soybean, and flaxseed oils.”
― Chris Crowley, Thinner This Year: A Younger Next Year Book

“The keys to overriding the decay code are daily exercise, emotional commitment, reasonable nutrition and a real engagement with living. But it starts with exercise.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Thing is, you need to do something every day to tell your body it’s springtime.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Harry’s Sixth Rule. Harry’s Sixth Rule reads, in its entirety: Care. Care”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Warm up, of course; that never changes. Then up to 60–65 percent of your max for five or ten minutes. Then crank it up to 70–75 percent and hold at that level for five or ten minutes. Feel your way. That’s intense enough for your high-endurance work in the early stages and maybe forever. Then back down for recovery at 60–65 percent.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond

“The muscle cells in your thigh are completely replaced, one at a time, day and night, about every four months. Brand-new muscles, three times a year. The solid leg you’ve stood on so securely since childhood is mostly new since last summer. Your blood cells are replaced every three months, your platelets every ten days, your bones every couple of years. Your taste buds”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Understandably, our Darwinian bodies and primitive brains are not going to catch up with this astonishing state of affairs. We live, in this new safety, in this new time of plenty, like drunken sailors freshly delivered from terrible peril.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“You need to reconnect directly to your physical brain. You’ve shut it in the closet long enough. After days at the office, nights in front of the TV, this miracle machine is waiting for you to take it out for a spin. To not do this is a dangerous waste. Because there is also a dark side; there is also decay. Life is energy. That’s all that matters to nature. For 3,500 million years, life has walked a”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“We used it every winter, and in every time of drought or famine. We survived by getting depressed. Not clinically depressed, or Prozac depressed, but survival depressed, as in let’s slow down the metabolism, build up the fat stores, withdraw, turn inward, hibernate, cut everything back to bare minimum. Shut down and survive by letting all but the most critical systems atrophy and decay. In fact, all chronic stress works the same way.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“So how do we keep ourselves from decaying? By changing the signals we send to our bodies. The keys to overriding the decay code are daily exercise, emotional commitment, reasonable nutrition, and a real engagement with living. But it starts with exercise.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, Sexy, and Smart—Until You're 80 and Beyond

“And not much around in this society, with its nutty insistence on the nuclear family and faceless cities and no roots, to take up the slack. We should change the way we’ve organized society so that we make better use of the Next Third of our lives. We should foster commitments and communities that will last a lifetime, and I believe we will. Because it’s so obvious. But not in time for you. American society has been rushing down this weird, atomizing, isolating track for a hundred years now—making us into rounder, smoother pieces for the global economy we’re all so nuts about—and it’s not going to stop on a dime, even though it should.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“I was with Hilary’s pal Lois, because Hilary hasn’t been able to ski this stuff ever since she broke her neck (not doing exercise!) seven years ago. She’s fine, but she can’t do this. Lois, forty-four, has an excellent job, an excellent husband and two fine children, but not that morning. That morning, it was his turn to stay home with the kids, and, for her, “Powder Rules Apply.” That’s the sign they put up in shop windows when they lock the door and head for the mountain. All bets are off, and appointments will not be kept. Ecstasy trumps care. Lois”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“A Note About Sitting Sitting, it turns out, is full of dark perils (groan). First, we do too much of it. It is a superb idea to get up and move around. Every fifteen minutes, say. Indeed, any movement, including small movement, is a great idea. Oh, and here is some more dreary news: Even when you are sitting, remember your posture––keep your feet on the floor and knees aligned over ankles, your spine neutral. And get out of the habit of crossing your knees—it pulls the spine out of alignment. I do it once in a while just for the hell of it. But I am bad.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: The Exercise Program: Use the Power of Exercise to Reverse Aging and Stay Strong, Fit, and Sexy

“It goes on and on. Studies showing that the lonely are twice as likely to have ulcers. Studies showing that unmarried men are two or even three times as likely to die of heart attacks as their married brethren. One of the great questions, it turns out is: Does your wife show you her love? If the answer is yes, you’re in much better shape. So tell your partner you love her. Ask her to give you a pat, and you give her one. You both need it. You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond

“Aerobic exercise is primarily about your muscles’ ability to endure. Strength training is primarily about your muscles’ ability to deliver power, which, surprisingly, has as much to do with a special form of neural coordination as actual strength. That’s a critical point. Strength training causes muscle growth, and that’s important, but it’s the hidden increase in coordination that changes your physical life. This is not eye-hand coordination;”
― Chris Crowley, Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond