Better Check Your Body Age

When mike weeaks was in his early 30s, he took a body age-assessment exam. The test measured the age of Weeaks’ body in terms of health, giving it a specific number different from his actual age. That was bad news for Weeaks, who thought exercise meant channel surfing and health food meant McDonald’s chicken sandwiches.

Sure enough, Weeaks’ body was aging in dog years: It was 47.  

Although still young, 47 is a more acceptable age to have a heart attack than, say, 35, which is when Weeaks suffered his. He had dismissed the age-assessment test, but his 300-plus pounds and sedentary lifestyle wouldn’t be ignored.

“I remember lying on that bed when they told me that’s what it was. It’s quite a wake-up call,” he says. “Death is right around the corner. I’m ready to go to Heaven, and I want to meet Jesus—just not yet.”

It wasn’t just the heart attack that bugged him; it was being unable to perform basic physical tasks. Mowing his yard? That took two days. In a matter of minutes, his pulse would race with heart attack-like RPMs. He was scared to death of what might happen if things didn’t change.

And so it was with mixed emotions that I agreed to take a body age-assessment test, courtesy of Lee Memorial Health System’s Cape Coral Wellness Center and its medical director, Dr. Salvatore Lacagnina. After all, I, like Weeaks, take my body for granted. I punish it with McDonald’s, pizza and certain malt beverages. I’ve been known to watch college football for 12 straight hours, moving only to procure more McDonald’s, pizza and certain malt beverages.

Think of university! Whose body hasn’t aged a few years whilst living the college dream?

So I was scared of what the exam might reveal. Then again, I was
terrified of what might happen if
I stayed ignorant.

What is a body age-assessment test, anyway? I saw visions of myself running on a treadmill in skivvies, attached to blinking machines, surrounded by a group of nefarious-looking scientists in white lab coats. I was overreacting, Lacagnina assured me. The test would evaluate my strength, heart, flexibility, body weight, body mass index and fat percentage through a series of minor exercises, and then label my body’s age based on its ranking compared with other bodies.

“When I look at somebody’s fitness, I like to say, ‘Let me compare you at your age with other people of a similar age,’” Lacagnina says. “Even beyond that, I like to say, ‘How functional are you? How many things in life can you do? Things that you want to do that you can actually do?’

“After that, you can really develop a plan on how to stay healthy.”

Which is the point of the age-assessment test: targeting your body’s specific health needs so you can customize an appropriate fitness regimen. Assigning the patient an actual body age is just a starting point. From there, they must be given directions to the Fountain of Youth.

For instance, Weeaks had been a college athlete, but his sport, football, required bulk. So when he returned to the gym, he worked out in the only manner he understood, adding bulk to his already 300-pound frame through weight training. Also, his nutritional IQ wasn’t … the best.

“It sounds stupid now, but when I’d drive through McDonald’s I’d tell myself, ‘I’m not getting a Big Mac with cheese,’” Weeaks says. “‘I’m getting the chicken sandwich.’ I thought that was healthy.”

Weeaks finally accepted his ignorance last year, around a year after his heart attack, by asking the staff at the Cape Coral Wellness Center for help. The right combination of exercise and nutrition seemed to do the trick. In 10 months, Weeaks has lost 92 pounds. He recently retook the age-assessment test at age 37. His body is now 32.

Maybe the age-assessment test would motivate me to undergo a Weeaks-like recovery. Maybe
I wouldn’t need the heart attack
to repent.

Performing my exam was Heather Sines, a LMHS exercise specialist and the guru of Weeaks’ weight loss. Sines herself has lost more than 70 pounds.

With me in the chair waiting
to be probed, she said that her body’s age is now 18, 10 years younger than her actual age. “But the machine doesn’t go lower than 10 years,” Sines clarifies, with maybe a smidge of what I thought
to be haughtiness.

Here are a few of my test’s
high points:

• My resting heart rate is very slow. The machine beeped crazily at one point, and Sines said it was because the monitor thought I
was dead. (I’ve had dates say the same thing.)

• After outlining my diet and fitness routines, my strength was tested with a bicep curl, except that the bar was attached to a scale that measured pounds of resistance. Before I began, I asked Sines what would happen if my strength was so great that it tore the cord connecting the bar and the scale. She didn’t think I needed to worry about it. She was right.

• The most embarrassing part of the exam is the body-fat assessment. It sounds scientific, but it basically consisted of Sines pinching various parts of my body (thigh, arm, chest, etc.) as if it were Silly Putty, and seeing how much fat she could clamp together with
a vice-like instrument.

Afterward, she outlined my concerns and my strengths. Good blood pressure, too many salty foods, great flexibility (strange) and, oh yeah, pathetic strength. I’m average, and just barely average. But Sines was nice about it: “You do need to lift more weights, you wuss.”

I could tell you the fitness and nutrition prescription Sines recommended for me, but it’s tailored only for me. It wouldn’t do you any good unless you’re an incredibly flexible person with low upper-body strength like me.

But she did give me goals and ideas about how to reach them. And Lacagnina was only too quick to put a serious spin on what could happen if I ignored the age assessment and Sines’ recommendations. In the past year, two of his patients died as a result of chronic illnesses and poor diet and exercise.