Eat Joyfully and Live Longer, with Lynne Bowman (Ep. 28)

0:00 Isn't it crazy how many rules and I'm doing air quotes when I say rules there are about how to be healthy. Oh my goodness, I can open any social media, turn on the TV, open the magazine, whatever and there's somebody telling me and I know you've had this experience, of course how to be healthier, how exactly to exercise, how I'm supposed to eat, what I'm not supposed to eat, and all these things are so that we can. We can live longer and be healthier, and that's great that there's all that advice out there.

0:46 And I guess the opposite of that wouldn't be good, would it? We don't want to have no idea what to do, but it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming for me, which tells me it's probably overwhelming for you. So let's see if we can simplify. So let's see if we can simplify. Welcome to Mind your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife.

1:33 This is the Mind your Midlife podcast. When I hit midlife and the way I'm defining that is grown up, kids who are out of the house, at least kind of part of the time. You know college and beyond, as well as into the mid 40s, 50s, maybe even early 60s. Obviously, your timeline might be a little different than mine, be a little different than mine, but when I hit midlife, I realized that I want to be healthy, I want to exercise and feel good about my body and eat well so that I feel good.

2:17 And I, at this point, I know what things I should eat if I want to have energy that day and what things will make me sleepy. And you know we've learned these things about ourselves so far. Right, but I'm also at the point that was a long intro to what I wanted to say where I want quality of life to be factored in, and I had a conversation with my friend just two days ago where she was saying you know, I know that I could lose a bunch of weight if I was just so, so, so strict with what I was eating and I didn't let myself ever have, you know, anything out of the ordinary and I exercised an hour a day and I just ramped everything up, but she was saying I don't want to live like that, it's too hard.

3:09 And I think sometimes then we extrapolate from that and we say, well, living healthy in general is too hard, so I don't want to do it. Or if you're not heading down the forget it, it's too hard pathway, maybe you're heading down the. Well, somebody just tell me. Just tell me the best thing to do, Keep it simple. Just tell me what to do. I want to feel good. Sure, I want to live long, I want this period to be the middle and have all that time ahead of me. But just somebody tell me what to do. So I fall into these traps all the time. I bet you do too.

3:50 So my guest today is such a cool person. So Lynne Bowman is, as she says, in her 80th year. She's going to tell us that she is 79. She is living proof that you can cook, eat, sleep, laugh and walk your way out of type 2 diabetes, and that is her wording. She has a best-selling book called Brownies for Breakfast, a cookbook for diabetics and the people who love them. And she is just a cool grandma, mother, businesswoman, and so I am super excited because we're going to try to make this simple, and she is going to, I think, speak about eating and longevity and health, maybe with a little bit different angle than you have heard recently.

4:44 So welcome Lynne. I am so happy that everything's working and we're here. Let's do this. Technology is amazing. It's amazing. So let's just start with this how did you end up with such a focus on longevity and eating healthy for longevity on longevity and eating healthy for longevity. It was totally an accident. It happened to me. I didn't happen to it, but I think it goes back, cheryl, to way back when, and the more we read about this and study this, the more we realize that we kind of come out of the chute and arrive on earth with a program, whether we like it or not. If you're a parent, I think you've seen it in your kids.

5:26 No matter what you'd like to project on them, you know, no matter what you think, they get here with something they want to do or something they need to do. And it's not always what you think. But in my case, my mom died when I was very young, I was 18, and he had been ill most of my life. She had chronic kidney disease and in fact and this is an interesting thing that's come up lately In fact she was advised not to have me. She was advised to get an abortion because of her health, and I've just now been hearing from a couple of different sources. There is a theory I guess. I don't know how well proven it is, but among Native American peoples apparently there's this idea that when a mother's life is threatened for some reason or another, the child that's born, the female child that's born is a warrior, and there is science behind there being some kind of a thing that happens chemically to women, who are stressed in a certain way during their pregnancy that removes fear in their children.

6:36 And that sounds creepy, right, but I've asked the question. My youngest, particularly my youngest, is a daughter, and she was one of those babies that I could not take my eyes off her for one minute because she was afraid of nothing. She went straight out in the pasture after the cattle, she went straight up the hill after the cat. This kid, as soon as she could walk, was gone. And this is the five diamond, black diamond, snowboarding, going to Costa Rica, diving under it and so on. And you have to go. Okay, maybe there is something, maybe there is a thing that happens to us. Interesting. Chemical, maybe it's spiritual, maybe it's both, who knows the mix.

7:19 But so I grew up with a mother who was impaired with this and she died when I was 18. So I came into adulthood understanding a little bit more than a lot of people do about one, how temporary life is. Two, you're on your own and you better figure it out, whatever it is. So when my children were born, I was told my son was about 10 pounds and I was told and we were talking earlier about the medical teams that we were dealing with in those days, and this is in the South and it's like well, ms Bauman, you know you're, your kids, 10 pounds, you're probably you got a gestational diabetes.

8:00 I do. Well, they hadn't thought to test me, or in those days it was not a thing that you were about Right. So they did say you're going to have to watch your weight and you're going to, and when you're in your forties you will probably have type two diabetes. So, and I also, at the same time, um, I had one of the worst marriages ever. Another story a vet who had come back from Vietnam, marine, and so part of trying to stay alive was that I had to leave North Carolina with my two-year-old, three-year-old and four-year-old and come to California to survive. But all of this, your life becomes about staying on your feet, and some of us to a greater degree than others, but all of us are doing this.

8:50 You know, whether we're doing it consciously or not, and in my case it was conscious. I was not going to leave my kids, and so I just started doing everything that I could do to be as healthy as I could be. I didn't have the money to be sick either, you know, and I didn't have the support to be sick. So my defense was take care of yourself. And I did my best and I educated myself about it. And also, when you're a single mom, you know and you're making way, however, you can do it. Cooking and eating, of course, is a big part of what you're doing, and so I developed some skills in the kitchen to make it fast, cheap and healthy.

9:35 I love that, yeah, and it just turned into this longevity thing, because people were always asking me. First of all, in this book that I most recently did, people wanted to know how I did it, because it seemed it was like a superpower To me. It was quite ordinary. You're just slinging hash, you're putting it on the table, but in my case it had to be healthy. It had to be something that was not going to make me sick and make my kids sick, but it was about me staying alive so I could keep them alive. So it just sort of developed over the years. And then now what's happening? First of all, when I was talking sugar-free, even five years ago, nobody wanted to hear it Like, oh no, no, thank you.

10:23 We were in the fat-free kick back then. Well, and just, there was something about sugar-free. First of all, it says deprivation. Nobody wants to be deprived of yummy, delicious, sweet food. And also, I think people had got kind of a bad idea about sugar substitutes, with good reason, because they were some lousy ones. They made your tummy hurt and they weren't you know. They gave people cancer or whatever. You know what I, I. There's a meme out there that I remember seeing that, something like you know the processed food is cheaper now and the healthy food is expensive, but not as expensive as being sick for 20 years is, or something. You know, something like that.

11:04 Yeah, not as expensive, as being sick for 20 years is, or something like that. Yeah, yes, and we are all noticing how expensive I mean. You buy a sandwich out anywhere and it's 15 bucks. 20 bucks with tax, you know, 25 with tip. Food has gone up, and not necessarily great food either. So one of the keys then is cutting the sugar. Are there any other major keys to the way we eat and how it affects longevity? Yes, the most important one is who you eat with. All right, tell me more about that. Well, food, first of all, is not just fuel, it's connection, it's a sacrament, it's community, it's all these other things that are human and we seem to think that eating something out of a bag, in the back of a car or behind a steering wheel is food.

11:55 It's not. Humans are meant to share food and when we take food in, we're not just throwing stuff down Well, we are throwing it down our gullet. But we're not just throwing stuff down Well, we are throwing it down our gullet. But what we're made to do is look at it, see what it is, smell it, see how it smells, feel it, taste it, because those are the things that tell us it's okay and those are the things that allow our body to go oh, she's going to throw something down. You're ready, you know you've got this whole system about eating. It's not just throwing it down your throat and that hopefully, it will land in your liver and you know, go on out the other end.

12:39 I mean it's a whole system that needs to receive your food and people. I think just don't even think about that. It's also connected, deeply connected, to how you sleep and if you sleep and in middle age, women are constantly. I love you, darling, but I know what you're doing. You're whining about not sleeping at night, all of you. If you're listening, I wonder is she telling the truth? Yeah, we talk about sleep a lot. I know you ate pizza in front of Jimmy Kimmel. Last night I saw you and then there was a little bit of ice cream, wasn't there. So the problem is not I mean the pizza.

13:23 Yeah, I'll tell you. I can tell you how to make the best pizza ever, and it's fabulous food and you can eat it. But you can't order pizza and eat it and have it be good food. I'm sorry, you have to make it. So there's that and of course, the ice cream we've already talked about. But the Jimmy Kimmel part and Jimmy love you honey, but you must. You must go to bed at a decent hour and you must quit eating three to four hours, have your last bite three to four hours before you sleep and you've probably heard this already and you're, you're going. Yeah, yada, yada, yada. But it does make a huge difference in how your food is processed and how your whole body is allowed to do what it needs to do.

14:07 Have you talked about autophagy on your podcast? No, I have not. Good, because it's going to be our word of the day. Excellent Word of the day. Hey, I love that. So I'm going to be Miss Yvonne for a minute. Autophagy. You know it's autophagy. Self eating sounds pretty grody, but what it is is your cells want to recycle each other, clean out the bad ones and strengthen the good ones. They are genius, the little devils in there. They know how to do this. Genius, the little devils in there, they know how to do this. But you have to leave them alone to do the work. You cannot continue to shovel food in because they can only work after something like 14 to 16 hours foodless has gone by in your body, which, of course, you're thinking okay, wait, if I have pizza at 11 o'clock at night, you know that's right.

15:02 You can't. You have to stop eating. The earlier the better. Old crusty people like me can stop at four or five in the afternoon, which I do. I often eat my last meal at two in the afternoon. It's fine, because I'm accustomed to it and I know how important it is. And, plus, I'm a recreational sleeper, Cheryl, Do you know what I'm saying by that? You enjoy it, I love to sleep and you know it's all about the pillow. I actually iron my pillowcases. I know that's how sick I am, but I mean I want my bed lovely and I want the room light, just so, and I want it quiet and so on, and it's a whole ritual and I would wish for anyone that you enjoy that as much as I do, or maybe more because you got to do it every day.

15:48 Why not make it fun, you know? Why not think of it as a lovely thing to do, not a capitulation, you know, because you're tired. That's a great point, because we do. I'm speaking for my age group. Overall we do complain about sleeping a lot, we talk about it a lot you're totally right about that and maybe because we're having hot flashes and having interrupted sleep and that's something we hadn't dealt with before. But I don't think I've ever had a conversation with somebody related to sleep where we talked about really trying to make it a whole experience. That was wonderful and enjoyable and it's the intention, right, and maybe it's the same thing with eating. It's the intention, Absolutely.

16:30 And with sleeping. You know you can't talk about that without talking about dreaming, and there's so much wonderful stuff out there to read about how important dreams are, what the spiritual elements of dreaming are, what Native American or Central American dream. Get into it, Enjoy it. It's an aspect of your life. You don't just go dead for six hours or eight hours. You're alive and things are happening. So groove on it a little bit and hope. Maybe the next morning you remember some of it, which is hard for me, I don't. I mean, I sleep deeply and long and wake up the next morning going huh.

17:13 Well, I can remember my dreams sometimes, but they're usually so strange that you know who knows. Oh strange is good, it's good. You just need to think about well why you know who knows. Oh strange is good, it's good. You just need to think about well, why you know was that strange and what? Who was that character, and so on. So that just food isn't just food. Sleep isn't just sleep, it's ritual, it's life. And you, your question, your basic question, was what is it about? That's most important longevity wise about food. And it is who you eat with. If you're not eating with people you want to eat with now, fix that honey. Right now. It's time to fix it. And I'm not going to name names. You know who. You are out there.

17:54 You've been eating with them for how long and hating it and complaining about it. Fix it. I know people and I'm not going to mention names here who recently bought the home next to their home so they could live separately, but next door to their husband. Wow, she's very happy. There are things you can do to make your life just exactly what you want, and some of them involve money and some of them don't. Some of them just involve courage. So longevity, I mean, all of the studies will tell you that the people who live the longest are the happiest people, the people who are best connected, whether it's with friends or community or family, but who have deep connections that make them happy.

18:41 That's what makes you live long. Yes, I agree fully and you're right. There have been plenty of studies about this and actually I'm going to put in the show notes, if you're listening now, a link to an episode I did about how we sometimes end up isolating ourselves in midlife, because that is part of this problem that we're talking about and it's really important that we figure a way out of that. Yes, community is a big deal and it's been so odd in the past five years because of the pandemic and everything, so there's so many variables there. Yeah, yeah and right. In my book I said, and I'll say it again if you're eating alone, put down your fork, go down the hall, knock on a door.

19:23 You know, mrs Johnson want to come have some soup. You know, larry, are you hungry? I mean, you got to reach out and sometimes you think, well, I don't really want to, and you know what, shut up, just do it, just do it. It doesn't matter if your house is a little bit upside down. People love to be invited and I will never forget the first time. I think I was in college, still very young, and a friend invited a couple of us over to her house, her apartment she was a couple of years older to have a meal. And we got there and the table was all set and there were candles on it and napkins and I thought she really wanted us to be here, she was expecting us and because I had come to maturity without my mom doing a lot of these things and I was just swept away with how loved it made me feel to have someone expect me and set a table for me and then share a meal with me.

20:27 Now, did I care and do I even remember what the food was? No, it didn't matter. But to feel that embrace is life-giving for people, literally. It's life-giving which brings up the question of hospital food. How in the world can hospitals get away with feeding people what they do? Oh my God, it's not life-giving, yeah, no. So that brings us back to food, which is perfect, because as soon as we start talking in any conversation about eating healthy, I think people have some amount of stress, that kind of like everybody's telling me how to eat healthy, everybody's given me a rule, and I got to cook for an hour every day if I want it to be healthy, and it's very complicated.

21:23 I don't know who to listen to, and I can see your face as I'm saying this, and so you've simplified it. So tell us more about that. First of all, I am an impatient, messy cook. I don't measure very well, I don't write anything down, I don't journal, I don't count calories, I don't count macros, none of that. I just cook and my beliefs are kind of simple One eat what you have, open up your fridge and pull the stuff out and figure out how to make a meal out of it. It's usually pretty easy. It's almost always soup in the book and there are a couple of basic things that you do to start a pot of soup.

22:06 And then you take that kale that you meant well when you bought it, and then you didn't know any, and you take the spinach out and you take the celery. All this stuff comes out Plus. I made a meal yesterday and I thought you know, I'm going to talk about this with people because there's a way to make a bowl of I don't know what am I going to call it. I need to come up with a great name for it, but it's everything in it. Pasta is what it is. You've got some meat and you have some vegetables and you have some cheese. It's whatever you had in the fridge, but with a couple of little tweaks it turns out to be this gorgeous casserole that you've made with and here's my new tweak pasta made with chickpeas.

22:53 Are you eating chickpea pasta yet? Okay, high protein, very, very wonderful food profile. It's, of course, strictly. You know, it's no meat, it's vegan, vegetarian and high fiber Great food. But what's even greater about it is don't make it the way it says to make it on the package. You've got a big, sloppy skillet full of meat and vegetables and you pour some broth in it or some water in it, and so you've made this juice with all your good tasting stuff. Then you just dump that pasta in there uncooked and let it soak up the flavor of all that other stuff, and it cooks beautifully.

23:38 Just give it eight or nine minutes with a low heat under it so that it can soak it all up. And now you've got a gorgeous great big skillet full of and I'm using meat usually, but you don't need meat. Whatever you're going to make your gooey mess out of. Oh, and I'll make. It was Trader Joe's tomato and feta soup. I had about a half a thing left of it and, of course, the broth. I had some hamburger that I just sauteed. In the bottom I had half a red pepper onions. Chop them up, throw them in there, saute them. I'm forgetting a lot of it, I don't know, but you get the drift yes, Trust me, it's fabulous.

24:21 Okay, so that has just changed the way my husband and I are going to eat dinner. Let me just tell you I love it and I have eaten various types of gluten free pasta for a long time. Maybe it's made from brown rice, maybe chickpeas, maybe whatever else, but it never occurred to me to try to create a situation where I could just throw it in and let it cook with whatever I was using it with, and I can see how that would make it amazing. Pot, no draining, no, nothing, I mean hello. So that's how I cook in 15 minutes, one pot. I'm talking the whole time and waving my arms and giving orders and you know it should be fun, it should be communal.

25:02 And you know everybody's watching TV about cooking, cooking shows on TV with some angry chef and you know, tight t-shirt and giving you know no, no, you know I've got. I have recipes in my book show that are two ingredients and I can give you one right now. You're going to love this. That are two ingredients and I can give you one right now. You're going to love this. Buy the best balsamic vinegar you can find and I've got two local ones that I love. It's a Gravenstein apple one and then an apricot one from a market close by Sigona's market. But have a really good, a little bit sweet balsamic vinegar and then tahini, a jar of tahini. All it is is ground up sesame seeds.

25:44 So really good food, very good for you. The bottom of the salad bowl you put some tahini in there, you put some of the balsamic in there, you mix it up, there's your dressing, you're done, and then whatever greens you have, whatever you're going to make yourself, and then just toss them. So you have not made a separate bowl, you haven't ground anything up, you have tossed two things in the bottom of your salad bowl and, trust me, it's as good as any dressing you've ever had in your life. So good If it's a good balsamic and good tahini. I love it. I'm going to try that Absolutely, absolutely Because I love it. I'm going to try that Absolutely, absolutely, because I love to eat salad and there are some dressings I really love and I've always said I'm not going to get rid of everything.

26:28 I know they're not ideal for me, but I'm just going to eat them anyway. I can try this. If you buy them in a jar, they're probably not good for you. I mean, you know, that's the thing. And a lot of us fall down when it comes to salad dressing Because if you really read the label, they've all got sugar, they've all got oils that you really don't want to eat. I mean, they're full of crap. So why not just make your own in two seconds and have it way better and have your guests go oh my goodness, what is this? It's so Say, oh well, it's something you know. I threw it together, I whipped up yeah, so say, oh well, it's something you know I. I threw it up. Yeah, I love it, I love it. And that was actually my question for you is what are some of your favorite easy recipes? So there we go, I just gave it away, right.

27:11 But this the thing is you do not. Not only are you not going to be deprived, you are going to be eating better than you've ever eaten. Because guess why, when you get rid of all the stupid white stuff, the ground up stuff, and you're left with okay, now, what am I? It opens up this whole wonderful world of colorful, healthful, delicious, wonderful, smelling stuff that you didn't even think about eating before because you were so busy with that stupid croissant that you get every morning. And you know what? I want to add something here, because I like what you just said for a particular reason. It's also about how we're thinking about this and kind of our mindset about it, Absolutely, I mean, if you want to be deprived.

27:57 You're going to find a way to feel deprived, but I don't want to be deprived of my last 20 years, you know. And here's another thing about midlife it gets so much better after 50. And I'm not the only person who feels this way. I mean, I got girlfriends, you know, many of whom are in their nineties, and I won't say many, but I have a few, and they're cool, they're artists. But the point is that we are sort of taught that when our menstrual cycles end, so does our life. No, no, not even close. I don't know who made up that, but it's wrong when you get that stuff behind you and your kids sort of pretty well launched, you and your kids sort of pretty well launched.

28:45 And in my case I was 50 when I moved to where I am now, which we bought this money pit, broken down old farm on the coast of California just fell madly in love with this the light, the trees, the ocean, all of it. I feel so grounded and happy. It's a magical place. But 50, I think of that in my life, as that was when everything kind of started to really go my way. You know, I could make choices, I could, I could be where I wanted to be. Up until then it had been so much about the kids, the career, the husband, the, you know everything. And I really do think that, husband, the, you know everything. And I really do think that I mean we're stronger in many ways, absolutely.

29:30 You know our, our. We certainly are more experienced and, um, the brain power is there not impaired by a lot of what has to happen earlier in your life? Life is so interesting in so many ways and it just gets more interesting, and to be this age is is weird. I mean, and I'll repeat it, I, I have had my 79th birthday. So I'm saying to myself, girl, this is your 80th year. What I'm doing? Strength training. I'm working out four days a week with an adorable trainer, who's really wonderful, and with my girlfriends. That's my social life is in this little gym in town, but I never had the freedom, the ability to do that in the past.

30:12 Four days a week, I get to do that Four mornings, yay. And, by the way, girls, that's how you keep your bones strong. Yes, yes, it's not with pharmaceuticals, it's at the gym doing strength training, and I am now dead lifting 50, 60, 70 pounds, depending on the day, I think my limit. I did 95 one day and you can too. And then it was explained to me that all of the noise about when you fall you're going to break a bone and you don't want to have brittle bones because falling and so on, what prevents falls is having muscles. If you have muscles, you're not going to bust a brittle bone.

30:54 So the combination is very important. Also, hormones yes, let's talk about it. I am doing a regime, and have been for a couple of years, of topically applied bio-identical estradiol and progesterone. Yeah, yeah, I definitely believe in the power of that, for sure. Not recommending it. Not a doctor, okay, and we have to do all those disclaimers Absolutely, see your doctor, yeah, and I'm doing it under the care of Dr Selma Rashid, who's wonderful, but I think it's a gift. I think it's a wonderful thing Also in part because we have females doing the prescribing now.

31:40 Yeah, yeah, that's a big change for sure. Okay, wow. So we've gone in all different directions, but they have all fit together and that's amazing. Where can people find your book? What's the name of your book? What would they be getting and where could they find you? Okay, so just be sure you spell my name right, because it's L-Y-N-N-E-B-O-W-M-A-N. My middle name and my author name is Lynn Parmiter Bowman, but that's kind of hard. It's P-A-R-M-I-T-E-R, but if you search Lynn Bowman, I'm usually the first Lynn Bowman who will pop up. The book is Brownies for Breakfast. Oh yes, a cookbook for diabetics and the people who love them.

32:27 That's why I wrote it. But then I realized that, that's everybody, well fair. Everybody, pretty much. We've got a diabetic somewhere that we love. And also it's the same exact recommendation for people with heart disease or who don't want heart disease Uh, people who want to protect their liver, whatever. It's just granny sensible. Here's how to eat and there's no biochemistry in it. It's just all simple. Here's what you do. Love it. And then, of course, I do tell some stories, but I love pretty food. Yes, I love pretty food, and the point is I want you to know that you can make stuff that's going to look exactly like this.

33:12 Oh boy, isn't that a big deal with a cookbook? Yeah, so the brownies are made from canned pumpkin. Yes, nut butter you can use any kind you want. Cocoa, which is a health food. Chocolate is a health food if you don't put sugar in it and some other things, some cinnamon and some baking soda and some stuff not much and you can use eggs or egg substitutes. So everything in the book you can do vegan, vegetarian or put meat in it. Boom. Amazing, amazing. And when we talked before we recorded this, you told me about the pumpkin, and I've been fascinated about it ever since, so I will be trying some of the recipes, for sure.

33:55 Good, good. And then I hope I always want you to send me pictures and give me feedback. It's like, well, it looked like it was burning around the edge and so I reduced the heat. Yes, good idea, you know, um it's. They're very, very simple. But if you're not cooking at all, you know you, you may be a little hesitant about, uh, just baking anything. But there's, there's pumpkin bars in there. There's orange snack cake, where you take a whole orange and put it in the blender. What fun is that? Oh yeah, and if you're listening, tell us on social media or wherever, if you try some of these recipes as well. Yeah. Okay, and the contact stuff.

34:35 Okay, I'm on Substack, lynn Bowmansubstackcom, and that's kind of new, but I'm having fun with it. I love hearing from people. But yeah, you'll find me if you search for me and I hope you do and then my website it has everything on it, it's just lynnbowmancom absolutely okay, then let's wrap up with. I always like to talk about the omg Like the thing that we have to remember that's so important. From this whole conversation, what do you think is really the thing that people need to keep in mind? Eat joyfully, nice, I love it. Eat joyfully. It's not just about the food, it's not just about the time, it's about all of it.

35:19 All of it the company. You know the intention all of it. Perfect way to wrap up. Well, lynn, thank you so much for joining me today. Oh, this has been big, big fun. Wow. For me, that OMG moment was perfect and it kind of pulled together everything I was hearing in this conversation about intention. Yes, what she said is less sugar, community eating, community in life, sleep, and let it be good sleep, let it be fun, something you look forward to.

36:09 It was all based in changing our attitude and our intention behind what we're doing, and you know, I love that. It's the mindset that underscores this entire thing. And so midlife, it's the middle. We have a long and amazing and fun way to go, and I hope you heard that today. Now make sure you've hit the follow button, because next week on the podcast, we're going to stay in this healthy theme for another week and we're going to talk about walking, and I'm not just going to say to you you should walk, I'm going to tell you why and I'm going to tell you how, and so stick with me, I'll see you then. Oh, my goodness, let's keep creating confidence and success, one thought at a time.