Feet

When I was growing up in the 1950s I was always told, "Take good care of your Feet and your teeth" if you want to live to be old. It is as true today as it was then. If you don't take good care of your teeth you can't chew good food and you might begin to lose your health. If you don't take good care of your feet you can't walk right and if you can't walk right or at all you can't properly exercise or possibly do your job and that contributes to your unhappiness and demise as well. So, taking care of your feet is as important as your teeth.

Since my 40's I have had more problems with my teeth and my feet. I presently have around 7 to 10 root canals and at least that many capped teeth that look like normal teeth by design. I have only had to have one adult tooth pulled (outside of wisdom teeth at 18) because it was impossible to root canal it so I had a tooth implant put in which for me has been sort of a slightly ongoing problem for about 2 years now. Hopefully, my bodies reaction to a titanium bolt into my upper jaw will cease soon so I don't have to take another course of antibiotics again within the next 6 months. However, I hear that front teeth (the front upper 6 teeth) can be the most problematic for tooth implants whereas side molars are usually easier to make work well.

In my 20s and 30s I jogged about 1 to 5 miles a day. Starting in the 1980s since my wife then was an  alternate for the butterfly in the Olympics I used to jog with her through the forests and ocean near to where we lived then. But then I got my first bone spur and found it to be too painful to run on anymore. Because I couldn't run I found I started to gain a little weight and then found I couldn't just throw the weight off like I always could jogging. Then I had my feet x-rayed and found that I had all sorts of fractures in my feet from jumping off of roofs when I was 10 to 15 years old trying to out macho other boys. So, though the fractures had all healed nicely as I aged there was more pain and other problems in my feet. So, I tried to use and exercycle more and walking more and mountain biking more to reduce the food impact of being big boned and almost 6 foot 5 and now into my late 40s and 50s. Now at 63 I have tried a whole lot of things to lose weight but most of them haven't worked very well. What has worked is to keep about and 85% vegetarian diet going with almost all organic and healthy foods and to keep my core muscles strong like when I was young by weight lifting and walking and using an  exercycle and now running in the water chest deep at a specially designed pool at the physical therapists. So, running on an underwater treadmill can expend the same amount of calories as running a mile on ground without all the impact problems of running over 40 or 50 for many or most people. So, protecting your feet ongoing and your teeth will likely allow you to live to old age with the proper diet and exercise while you are feeling healthy and alert as long as possible.