Chris Crowley - Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until Youre 80 and Beyond

by Chris Crowley & Henry S. Lodge, M.D.

Workman Publishing New York

To Hilary Cooper, and to Chris, Tim and Ranie.

C.C.

To my patients: for entrusting me with their care, for being my most important teachers, and for the warmth and fulfillment they have brought to my life.

H.S.L.

First, special thanks to Harry. Everyone warned that collaboration is a horror and a collaboration with me would be much, much worse. Harry prevented all that... just would not have it. Our collaboration, and now our friendship, has been among the great pleasures of my life.

We have had a world of wonderful help on this book, but a handful of people deserve special mention. My list starts with Alexandra Penney, who got it the minute she heard the idea and helped me from there on out. Laura Yorke of the Carol Mann Agency went way beyond the normal agents role to get the book launched. She is a great editor, a terrific friend and a super agent. Our editor, Susan Bolotin, also got it from the outset and was a genius at dealing with two slightly strong personalities and imposing order on a complicated book. Special thanks, too, to Lynn Strong, our copy editor. She has been at this for a while, shes awfully good at it and she has a major sense of humor, which helps plenty. Finally, thanks to Megan Nicolay, person-of-all-work at Workman, who, among other things, drew the indispensable Healthy... Dead! charts.

A number of friends and loved ones read the manuscript, but the following were especially helpful: Jimmy Benkard, Terry Considine, Joan Crowley, Frankie FitzGerald, Hazard Gillespie, Emmett Holden, Fritz Link, Tony Robinson, Lorenzo Semple, Jim Sterba and Jack Tigue. My beloved sisters, Ranie, Kitty and Petie, all commented usefully. Eric Von Frolich, my cruel trainer, was a great help on my strength-training and aerobics chapters. Audrey at Sports Club L.A. in New York has struggled to keep me fit, at least until the book tour is over.

My children, Chris, Tim and Ranie, were endlessly interested, endlessly supportive, endlessly kind. They are old people themselves nowChris will be fifty this falland they just keep getting better.

The book is dedicated to Hilary Cooper and with good reason. She got me started in the first place. She was unflagging in her support, intense in her interest and sound in her judgment. As with my life, she made all the difference.C.C.

I owe a very special debt to Chris for his unstinting generosity, for the sheer fun of our partnership, and for the deep affection and friendship that have grown between us, and to his wife, Hilary, for all her support. Thanks also to my colleagues at Columbia University and New York Physicians, my professional family for more than twenty years. I could not think of a better group of people to spend a career with. To John Postley, M.D., and Seth Lederman, M.D., who have been mentors and friends for a long, long time and who gave invaluable comments on the manuscript. To my brothers and sister, and especially to my parents, who were always there, providing editorial advice and unfailing support in every way, as they always do and always have. To Carol Mann, who understood this book from the start and who wisely sold it to Workman Publishing, where everyone we have met and worked with has been outstanding. To Susan Bolotin, an extraordinary editor, who was not only a true partner in this, but played the role of Solomon to perfection when Chris and I disagreed. Finally, to Laura Yorke, not just my agent but my partner in love and in life, and to my children, Madeleine and Samantha, my fountains of joy.

Thank you all for everything.H.S.L.

From Chriss perspective...

The three years since Younger Next Year came out have been an awful lot of fun for Harry and me. Harry still has his day job, saving lives and whatnot, but I have this terrific new job. I travel around the country and have a wonderful timedespite my vast agespeaking to groups and generally beating the drum for this Revolution in Aging we talk about. The nicest part? I get to meet a lot of readers of our books and listen to how weve changed their lives.

Thats what we both hear, actually, whether its from the wife of an old friend at a dinner party in New York... or a formerly fat lawyer at a lecture in Tyler, Texas... or a newly fit guy who makes me ski with him in Aspen so I can see what hes done with himself. And always in that language: You guys changed my life... thanks so much.

They love to talk about it. Three strangers in Colorado insist I come see their friend Billy and hear how they intervened (made him read the book). Look at him now! they say, and Billy grins and pats his tummy. An optometrist and his wife show up at my door in Aspen to get their books signedand tell their story. A newly handsome CPA outside Philadelphia says his blood pressure and cholesterol have dropped enough so that his doctor has taken him off drugs... and, oh, by the way, he lost 20 percent of his body weight. A beautiful old woman from the South says her husband has gone to hell, wont ski with her anymore, so she puts the dog in the car, drives 860 miles to Wolf Pass, Colorado, and skis her socks off. Shes seventy-one and will I sign her book? Sign it? Is she kidding? She should be on the cover.

Believe me, we dont hear these stories once in a while; we hear them all the time. And the report is always delivered with passion, surprise, and delight. I love it. Its like having a Newfoundland dog lick your face for twenty minutes every few days. A bit much for Harry, I suspect, but about right for me.

And these people are not just readers; they are missionaries: Ive read it six times myself, and Ive given away twenty copies. I read it straight through twice and got a copy for my father and my father-in-law. I made my husband sit down and read it. Im your biggest fan. I gave away thirty copies. But that last guy is not our biggest fan. One fellow, a quiet engineer, astonished me by saying that he had given away 200 copies and started a YNY supper club for a bunch of friends. Health clubs give away thousands... an unexpected gift for new members. The president of a huge food company makes his top employees read it. Lots of type Aslots of executives of all kindshand it out all over the place and talk about it all the time.

Quite the little movement. All word-of-mouth, but quite a few mouths by now. And its spreading. We hope this paperback edition will make it easier. The way we age now isnt just dumb; its criminal. We are wrecking our own lives, wrecking the lives of those who love us, wrecking the economy. Gotta quit living like dopes.

One of the nice things is that the people who come up and say that their lives have changed are so tickled. They are proud as punch because they did it all themselves. And they are often just a tad surprised. Because it was easier and faster than theyd assumed. And because theyd lost a gang of weight along the way, which we had not promised. (We still dont, though it sure does happen a lot.) But the real pleasure is that they are so damn happy. The great bottom line was summed up by a website comment: Life is fun again. There you go... life is fun again!

And heres the other part of my terrific new job. I dont just tell people this is the only way to live. I show them. I ski the steeps and deeps. I do Ride the Rockies on my bike... six days over the tops with old friends. I row in old-boy races. Hike the hills. Stay in touch.