What's Your Real Age?

This stretch of the year, from July through August, is always a tough on my fitness. I don’t know if it’s the heat or what, but it’s hard for me to stay motivated. The last thing I want to do is go for a bike ride or run in 90+ degree heat. This, coupled with the usual uptick in training intensity prescribed by my fitness program (60-minute rides become 90-minute rides with several long sprints thrown in), has me finding other uses for my time, such as tracking the downfall of my fantasy baseball team.

So right now I don’t feel so fit. Or healthy. Or energized. I need something to remind myself that I’m doing a solid job at living the life and not pissing it away on pizza and Xbox. Surprise, surprise, I found just what I needed at realage.com, a healthy living website built around a thorough test designed to supply my age based on lifestyle, diet, health, and fitness history. Much to my pleasure, I discovered that my current lifestyle knocks over five years off my life, from 39 to 34. Essentially I’m living a much younger man’s life right now.

If you’ve got a spare lunch hour, it wouldn’t hurt to try the test yourself (note: the questionnaire is lengthy and realage.com’s servers are super slow). You might learn some easy way to slash a couple of months off your age (You’d be amazed at how much younger you become when you drive the speed limit and quit talking on your cell phone in the car.).

Living the life of a man five years younger is the kind of news I need to boost my morale and get me over the hump to Labor Day weekend. I can now trick myself into heading out into the heat of the day for a lunchtime workout because, “Damnit, I’m a 34-year-old.” Call me shallow, call me vain, call the test a crock of s**t—I don’t care. This test has gone a long way towards restoring my mojo.