319. Age Gracefully, Eat Mindfully: Overcoming Unhealthy Eating Habits - Mark Barnes

Kara Goodwin: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Meditation Conversation, the podcast to support your spiritual revolution. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin, and today I'm joined by Mark Barnes. Mark is a longtime educator, entrepreneur, and co-author of Hacking Life After 50 10 ways to beat father time and live a long, healthy joy-filled life.

He is on a quest to live past 100 and to bring along anyone interested for the ride. 

Mark shares, great insights in this episode about how to take control over your wellbeing to increase your longevity. Not only is he passionate about helping people to get to 100 years old? But he wants to make sure there is quality to that life. Not just quantity. He gives us lots of practical advice of small changes that you can implement right away to start [00:01:00] creating a healthier, more vibrant life. So let's dive in. As soon as I make a quick mention about my website. Check out Kara goodwin.com for all of my resources, to help you connect to a higher version of yourself. I'm getting so much enjoyment 

in creating personal energy transmissions. These are recorded meditations that are uniquely designed for each person based on what they're wanting to work on and their specific life. And I say meditations, but they are truly a transfer of energy wrapped up in an audio guided meditation. These are being used for recovery from surgery, increasing intuition, overcoming PTSD. Strengthening the personal energy field, just as some examples. These are really valuable resources. So be sure you check it out at karagoodwin.com. And now enjoy this episode Episode.

Kara Goodwin: So welcome, mark. I'm so happy to have you here today.

Mark Barnes: Hey Kara, thank you very much. I appreciate the, invite, the [00:02:00] introduction and I'm excited to be here to talk about after.

Kara Goodwin: Well, so you're in pursuit of not just a healthy after 50 life, but pursuing a healthy arian life. So can you tell us about how this became a focus for you?

Mark Barnes: Yeah. Yeah. I, right about the time I got to 50, had, two young kids. I had elderly parents know what, I, my parents both lived in their nineties, so, I felt like I had good genes regard to, aging, getting old, I should say, or getting to that, maybe healthy a hundred, except for the fact that in their last few years they really weren't that healthy. Both my parents

had. Dementia, Alzheimer's. they spent the last few years, really struggling, with cognition. Their memory was bad, and in the last couple years it got really bad. So, I noticed that and I thought, [00:03:00] boy, I'd love to get to nineties and beyond, but, I wanna live a healthy life.

I wanna be here for my kids. and who knows if they have kids and maybe grandkids. And, there's so much in life to live for and to explore and to live. And I wanna, my spouse and I, envision traveling and just enjoying life. So thought, man, I wanna, I want to do this the right way. So that was it. That's when my journey really began and I started doing a lot of research and exploration into health and longevity and, both mentally, physically,all of that. my co-author Jim who was also an educator, he and I talked all the time. We used to talk a lot about education primarily.

And then, he's 60, 61 now, and he started, he's very healthy. And we started just talking about our journeys, and, next thing you know, we found out that we were very like-minded when it came to health and fitness and the quest to live to a healthy hundred. And, that's how we got to now, about a year ago, we started writing it down.

Kara Goodwin: Oh wow, that's, that seems really [00:04:00] quick to have gotten and published your book and

Mark Barnes: Well, we're, we're both experienced authors.

Kara Goodwin: Jim's written I think five or six books now that are primarily for educators. And then I wrote some books at, when I was a classroom teacher my last couple of years I started dabbling with writing and, and did a book on, sort of my journey as an educator. That's what led me to leave the classroom. So, we're both, fairly experienced writers, and then when you work together, we're always better together than we are apart. So, we just plowed ahead 

Mark Barnes: And, 

Kara Goodwin: It sounds like it.

Mark Barnes: when you're passionate about something, you know that, the passion to share a message as you do, when you're passionate about something, you tend to get to the end pretty quickly.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. Beautiful. Well, what can you share with us about hacking life after 50 and, any tips, any or even why, why it is so important?

Mark Barnes: Yeah, well, the why is important and,I've talked to people before and when they hear me talk about living to a hundred, [00:05:00] I've had people say, why would you even wanna do that? there,there's this sort of stigma around aging, so tend to look at the elderly as sort of feeble and wasting away. and again, I saw a little bit of that with my parents, but really there, there's so much new science and practice now around health and fitness and longevity has become a really popular topic. we've researched a lot of the popular stuff that's out there. We talk about the Blue Zones, which right now is really popular because there's a whole show around it on Netflix. Dan Butner has written many books on that, studied, centenarians all around the world and looked at the commonalities there. So, there's that stigma that we want to eliminate. so that was one thing we talked about was the mindset that, uh, aging can I is not good.

And that, when you get to a certain age, it's like all downhill. So we really started our book with that whole [00:06:00] idea, about mindset and about purpose and in fact the first chapter in the book, which we refer to as hacks in Hacking Life after 50, is to find your purpose. get to after 50 and you start your transition to. Maybe a new career or maybe retirement, or maybe you're gonna be an empty nester and your kids are gone. sometimes we have to sort of think, okay, what's next for me?

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Mark Barnes: a lot about that. We talk about looking at the things that you loved in life before 50, using those to set new goals, and again, to create that purpose. So when we talked to about the facets of after fifties life and beyond, 60, 70, 80 and all of that, Jim and I had a lot of conversations about what's important we looked at ourselves as practitioners of health and 

Detached audio: fitness 

Mark Barnes: and we said, well, the things we need to talk about, certainly the physical, we need to talk about the mental and the emotional, the soul, all of the things that bring [00:07:00] joy because, joy is a really big part. Our journey and our book. It's not just, it's not a diet book. we talk about diet, it's not a weightlifting book. We talk about strength training. it's a book about living a long, healthy, joy-filled life. So, that, that's the journey.

Kara Goodwin: Hmm. Well, I love what you're saying about how sometimes the, . , the response that you get from people is like, well, why would you want to even do that? Why would you wanna live so long? And your point about elders and the role of elders in our society, and it's so true how there does from a society standpoint, it's kind of this like discount of what you know they have to offer.

What I find, I'm so struck by how quickly culture is changing in the West. You know how however much academia is behind that, especially higher education, but,[00:08:00] for better or worse, right? But it is very quickly changing the focus of culture. And again, better or worse, it's like, Maybe both. And I can imagine that because I find it that my head is almost spinning.

It's like you have to be so careful about what you say and so many things that I watch shows from the nineties, like a comedy, a sitcom or something from the nineties. and I'm like, oh, you could never do that now. And these are like really popular shows. Friends, the office, parks and Rec, things that I'm like, wow.

And it's really quick how constrained we've gotten and how narrow the path is in terms of like what is okay to say and think and do and whatever. again, for better or worse, like there were some improvements that were needed. Maybe we're tipping [00:09:00] too far in the other direction in a lot of ways, but,what have you found in your research and in your practice that kind of helps with that mindset of like, I am worthy and in, in a Western culture.

I, and I, I want to keep going and contribute and so forth.

Yeah. Well, what we've really found again is that there is, there's sort of a stigma around it Mm.

Mark Barnes: in western society, it isn't looked upon,aging. It's not looked upon as a good thing. The elderly are not perceived as, having value.

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Mark Barnes: and in eastern culture it's much different from that. we really came at this from that perspective and we said, not only do we wanna help people, Live a long, healthy life, but we also would like to change that narrative. And that is this, it's a great topic. It's one, I've talked a lot on interviews like this just in the last month. this idea that can [00:10:00] create the narrative, and so we do that through things like this, through talking about it, through the research, through modeling. And we said, we wanna model for our younger generation, that Elderly people still have value and they have a lot to give. we need to embrace experience. We've talked to a lot of people about this, and we have found many people, in their after fifties life, into their seventies, eighties, and beyond.

And you talked about the positive and negatives out there's so much negative on social media, and we talk about this in the book, but we say there, there's two sides to look at it. One, avoid the negativity as much as possible. on the mental and emotional wellbeing side, there's almost nothing worse than stress. And stress is created from a toxic world. So we talk about avoiding that, but then we also share some strategies for using social media value. now we are seeing, [00:11:00] a whole lot more of this narrative of health and fitness well into your, after fifties into your seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond, and into a hundred, we're on that quest to get to a healthy hundred, and it's important to say that word healthy So we find and refer to a lot of people that we have discovered on social channels who are promoting this lifestyle. we started a, our own Facebook page, months ago called after fifties Life. We're sharing a lot of our own strategies. We're sharing videos and some of the resources from the book, but we're also then following the people who are sharing the good messages and sharing, really positive information and impactful information about, mental and physical wellbeing. So I think that's what we have to do, is we have to model we have to really generate, the narrative and share the narrative. I. About the value of living a long [00:12:00] and healthy life, and the idea that it, the longer I can go, the more 

Detached audio: I 

Mark Barnes: can do. and that goes back to purpose. Or purpose doesn't end, if you're retired or if you are an empty nester or whatever. and no matter how old you are, you still can do new things as long as you stay fit physically, emotionally, the world's your oyster.

Kara Goodwin: Well, and I was curious in the very beginning, you talked about the importance of the soul as well, because you were like, it's not just the body, not just the mind, not just the emotions. what role does the soul play in your work? Because I feel that, as we age, The end does start to become, even if we're wa you know, intentionally wanting to have a longer life, you do start to confront the end more.

It, because you're just seeing that, wow, I've lived a long life now and it doesn't go on forever.[00:13:00] for me, I think that the. acceptance of the soul, the exploration of the soul, the connection to the soul, and seeing the world more from that lens helps to come to terms and flesh out some of that fear about dying because we, the physical body may perish, but the soul is eternal.

what do you, how does it play into your work?

Mark Barnes: Well, we talk about, we, we share strategies for things that we have researched and practiced, like meditation, like the breath and how to breathe the right way and to combine those things. I think that we try to debunk some of the mythology around meditation. we talk about, the narrative in around meditation is one that, for people who don't understand it can be a bit scary. I tried meditation decades ago, at the urging of a friend, and, I didn't stick with it because I didn't know enough about it.[00:14:00] one of the things we talk about at lot here is we say, we remind people throughout the book, right from the introduction and throughout, we mentioned numerous times as a reminder that we are not physicians, we're not licensed nutritionists or meditation experts. are researchers and practitioners. So we've looked at tons of different things and then we try them and we also urge people to find what works best for them. When we're in this section about the mind and the mind and the spirit and the soul. It's not religious at all, we do say that, as you alluded to, a moment ago, that you well into your after fifties and you start thinking, we use a phrase in the book about your, you've got less road ahead than you have behind.

Kara Goodwin: yeah.

Mark Barnes: and people start to realize that, and that can be frightening.

So what we talk about is embracing whatever you believe in to nurture [00:15:00] the emotion, and your soul. So for us, we talk about nature, we talk about getting outside sunshine, meditation, and we think that these are the things that bring a sense of calm. if you can get to that place where you have that sense of calm and that sense of peace. Then from there we talk about opening your mind to new things and to things that you believe in. And it is important to believe that there's something else. And again, we don't get deep into that. It's not a religious book. it's not all that much spiritual other than the fact that we're talking about that things that we believe nurture spirit.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. Beautiful. I love that. Well, you mentioned some of the things that, some of the simple strategies that can be done to help with like the mental . And emotional. You just talked about that with nature and meditation and so forth. What are some simple strategies on the physical side?

Mark Barnes: Yeah, we have,we do talk [00:16:00] about diet, although we try not to make it so much diet per se, as much as we do about meal planning. In fact, the name of that hack is master meal planning, and Jim and I both have been on a journey to really discover what works best for us in terms of diet. So we promote is the idea that, for one, you should always listen to your doctor. I mean, that's what we believe, that you should listen to your doctor. you've got a long time general care physician, they probably know you as well as you know yourself, and they can tell you what's good and what's not good. What we do then is again, we reflect on the research and across the medical profession, almost universally It's believed that if you put things in your body that are, that have grown in the ground for one, better for you. We don't, we're not saying you have to be a vegetarian or a vegan [00:17:00] or anything like that. we say is that we believe in an 80 20 plan, and this is what's worked for us. I share a story about how, I have epilepsy and I take anti-seizure medication. The anti-seizure medication, fortunately works for me. I'm seizure free, but the huge heavy side effects, that's a big part of my own journey, is I had to do everything I could to manage these side effects, of which was weight gain. And, a long time, well not that long ago, 5, 6, 7 years ago, I was about 30 pounds heavier than I am right now.

Kara Goodwin: and, and I'm not a huge guy. But that extra 30 pounds made a big difference, and I didn't feel good and irritable. And that's another side effect of the medication is, you can be quick to anger and very irritable frustration sets in and fly off the handle. these are all things that I wanted to get under control as a part of, my health and fitness journey. So, with the [00:18:00] diet, what I, we started researching and Jim and I talked a lot about different things. We were trying and different things at work. And again, we both found that we like to eat, the standard American food once in a while, little pizza, a burger, ice cream. we don't say don't ever have these things, but again, across the profession, in the medical field, most people say If you are balanced and you, and the balance is not 50 50, but it's more toward the healthy side, then you're gonna, you're gonna feel better. And if it's a weight, again, our book's not about losing weight, if that's a goal of yours, I have found that it's really not that difficult to do once you change and we talk about, the right now strategies.

Mark Barnes: So we're not saying it's a five year plan or, this, I'm gonna say it was about four to six months and so people would say that, right? It sounds like the, that TV show The Biggest Loser, right? and people might hear that and go, well, that, that's just, that's a ridiculous [00:19:00] change. You had to have done things, but I didn't, what I did was, I just, I cut out

of the things I was having daily. That the research this is really not good for you. Not only is it not good for a lot of other reasons than weight, but it certainly is gonna put weight on.

Kara Goodwin: Mm.

Mark Barnes: I mean, this isn't new. it, sugars, refined carbohydrates. these are the things that make the difference.

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Mark Barnes: what I did is I said, I'm gonna, I went to my cupboard and Jim and I talked about this because he's a big fan of this and said he did the exact same thing. Two like-minded people, right? went to the cupboard and said, is something in here that I know is not healthy, that I know is refined? Carbs, sugars, all the things that are gonna add weight that I have a lot of. And for me it was chips, it was potato chips and tortilla chips, toritos, all that kind of stuff. [00:20:00] And again, does it taste good? Sure. So, if that's what you love. I'm not saying don't ever have it, but what I did is I got rid of it. I said, this is something that I go to daily and I'm just gonna cut this out. I'm not ever, I'm not saying I'm never gonna have it again, but I'm gonna get rid of it.

I took it out. and I, went to my spouse for help. And this is another thing we promote. You do need a community whatever you're doing. If it's, if it involves change, You need your,your like-minded people, your friends, your family to support you. and actually you should, try to gravitate away from people who contribute to the negative side. So, I said, Hey, I can't have this in here because I, my willpower's not good enough. I can't stay away from it. so that, that's a good place to start. we say, find one thing that you can get rid of right now. So that was a big one. and then, just on the flip side of the coin, I said, how can I get more fruits and vegetables into my diet?

Because I, I didn't eat them. I really was, I was almost anti fruits and vegetables. I [00:21:00] would say that I hate those. we talk about some ways to work those things into your diet in a way that, anyone can enjoy. So then, and there's some nuance to that. it's not rocket science.

You know, our book's pretty simple.

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Mark Barnes: taking a lot of ideas and sort of combining them in ways that we think most people haven't seen, and that's kind of the essence of hack learning.

Kara Goodwin: I love it. And you did allude to the meal planning piece, but we didn't really talk much about that. Why is the meal planning so important? I.

Mark Barnes: Yeah, that's a great question and I love to talk about, so you know, again, we talk about the standard American diet in the book. We actually start off, every chapter starts with this, the problem under that title. So if it's about meal planning, first part under that is the problem. The problem is we live in a standard American diet and it's killer. and that's just a fact. So, we talk about how to,what that is first of all here are the things that are parts of it. And the,[00:22:00] if you, people have never heard that, I mean, just think of your fast food places. your coffee shops and, I don't like to mention big retail or big restaurant names. 'cause I don't want anybody coming after me and saying, Hey, you should say that. But you know, people know the places that you go to, that you gravitate to or that we gravitate to as a society. outline those, what you do in the grocery store, the kinds of aisles that you spend your time in. We talk about those and we do, we do allude to the research. So, again, what we wanna do is, plan our own meals. So we talk about becoming your own like dietician. 

 When you're plan your own meals, you are no longer a slave to the standard American diet. what you do is you think about the things again that are, your Achilles heel. What are the things that you go to too often are bad for you? And we want to cut those down. And we believe in incrementalism. [00:23:00] We don't ever say cut this out. What we say is start with one day. you're a soda drinker, it's one of the worst things. If you're a soda drinker and you're drinking your sodas daily, start with one day. Literally start with one day, say on this day, I'm not gonna have any, that for a week. then you're maybe cut another day and guess what? In the long run, you keep a day. And we have talked to many people who have tried this. I. They say ultimately they go, I got to a point where I started feeling better without it and I just cut it out completely. So again, you're controlling your own diet, you're mastering your meal plan, and you start at the beginning of the week and you say, I'm gonna identify things that I'm not gonna include on these days. Those are out, and then I'm gonna include the things work for me. And a lot of that also is exploring. Exploring what works. I talked about fruits and vegetables. Again, it's a cornerstone of a healthy diet is to get more fruits and vegetables. We talk about how [00:24:00] to do that, in a way that's palatable. So we talk about your smoothies, your wraps, things that you can do, that you can work in, and also how to add, other things to fruits and vegetables that make them more desirable. there's, you can, there's a whole lot of things you can do with spices and, and with. Omelets. I mean, there's just,

it's not a diet book, so we don't have a whole

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. Yeah,

Mark Barnes: But we mention these things and we talk about, here's things that we did that really made a difference. Become your own meal planner the goal of, if your goal's to lose weight, that's fine. But with, for me, the goal was be healthy. You know,

came off. But

real goal was, I wanna be healthy because I wanna live a longer life, and I wanna also manage the stress that comes with. Medication and this is a big part of it along with a lot of the, mental stuff that we talk about.

Kara Goodwin: Well, I love that kind of, what's the low hanging fruit [00:25:00] here in terms of like, is there something, because I mean, I look at my habits and I get in these habits of nighttime snacking of like, I'll just have a little bit of ice cream and then, oh, that was, remember last night when I had that little bit of ice cream?

It was nice. I'll do that again. And it's really funny how quickly it just becomes this habit of like, . Something that we just had this little treat and it was a nice little treat, and then it suddenly becomes this thing that we just are doing all the time and then it takes away from that because I mean, I would even argue you don't even enjoy it as much if you're just doing it because it's time to do it.

You know, it's, you're not really, are you really tasting it? Are you really like enjoying it because it's something special and different, or are you just . . It's just time to have my ice cream now. You know

Mark Barnes: yeah. and where. That's what I was gonna ask you, Kara, is where does it start? What's the trigger to, I'm gonna go get that ice cream, [00:26:00] because that's that whole concept of working in small increments is talk about, look for the triggers, look

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Mark Barnes: That get you to that place. We have One of my favorite strategies in hacking life after 50 in this meal planning section is to,when you're in your car, whether you're on your way to work or the salon or to wherever to visit family, you're just in your car and daily somewhere you tend to drive into the place. That has the stuff that you shouldn't have. so for you it was ice cream and that might just be in your refrigerator. but if you're in your car, we say a different route. And, this

my own, this is my own practice. When I was working daily, five days a week, I used to pull into the fast food place in the morning that had that breakfast sandwich that I liked,

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Mark Barnes: Then, we've all heard, I don't know how much they do this in today's world, , but a decade ago it was that the [00:27:00] fast food places love to give you the two for $2,

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Mark Barnes: you can't get one, you might as well get the two, So

I found that I was doing this daily and

wow. when I got to that point where I realized that I didn't feel good and that I had really packed on some pounds, and I said, I need change. And again, thinking, what can I do that'll stick?

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Mark Barnes: changed my route. I went a

so I didn't pass that place. And it took me maybe a minute out of my way. I.

that, that's a, again, that's a practical solution.

So that's why I asked you the question about what's the trigger to the ice cream. So for

passing the place and my car just sort of steered itself in there.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Mark Barnes: I gotta go another way.

So, thing we talk about is what are the, what leads to getting to the place where you're, again, where you're having ice cream every day, and what can you do to say it's okay to have it periodically?

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Mark Barnes: to get back to not doing it every day.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. I love that.[00:28:00] You, it's it, you have so many, like practical and again, like the low hanging fruit it in terms of it doesn't have to be this huge knock down all the walls and, become a totally new person. but it's the, the bit by bit little change by little change, which can . I think, lead to easier success for more people.

So can you help listeners know how they can find you and your book and your work?

Mark Barnes: Yeah, well, we're talking about after fifties life, so we've made it simple. We're at after fifties life.com. our

Kara Goodwin: Is that with a five zero or the word spell?

Mark Barnes: yeah. Thanks for asking

that's, it's funny, the first time I've mentioned that to my wife, she couldn't find it I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're the first person that's asked me that.

And she kept saying, and I said, well, lemme see what you're doing. And

the word 50 That's great. that. Yeah. [00:29:00] after50slife.Com. our Facebook page is also after fifties, the number after fifties life. On our website, there's links to the book.

There's links to my co-author Jim Sterhan, and to me, if you wanna learn more about us and our journey and other things we've done this space, it's all there. But, hacking Life after 50 is, is available now and everywhere. Amazon stores, if you go to a store near you and they don't have it, you can ask them and they can order it, and they have it there in a couple days.

Kara Goodwin: Wonderful. Well, I'll have the links in the show notes as well, so if you didn't catch that, you can link it in there. Well, thank you so much, mark. It's been really a joy to talk to you today.

Mark Barnes: Yeah.

I, love it. I love the conversation. I appreciate you having me on, and let's do it again sometime.

Kara Goodwin: wonderful. Thanks so much.

Mark Barnes: All right.

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