At 85 years young, Jim Owen believes he’s only getting better with age.
Technically, he’s only really in the early stages of his fitness journey, having gone from a “35lb overweight couch potato” at 70 to a 10-time San Diego Senior Games gold medal winner.
Those past 15 years have proven to him that it’s never too late to take control of your health and fitness, and he’s spreading the message with a short film, The Virtuous Circle: A Geezer’s Guide to Successful Aging, which premieres on PBS on May 17.
Now, the former Wall Street executive has a set of daily rituals or habits he adheres to, which he believes help him “live young” and “fight off old age”.
1. He starts the day with shadow boxing
Owen starts every day the same way: he looks in the mirror, puts his hands up and starts throwing jabs.
“It’s the first thing I do every morning,” he tells Fit&Well.
“Call me crazy. I do shadow boxing. I’ve got boxing gloves. People say, ‘Jim, what the hell are you doing?’ Well, to me, old age is about seven feet tall and he weighs 300 pounds.
“I say, ‘Someday sucker, you’re going to win, but it ain’t going to be today.’ That’s how I start my day off, just laughing, just having fun with it.”
This simple act, he says, is a reminder to never take yourself too seriously.
2. He does an hour of exercise six days a week
Owen says it took roughly five years to build a foundation of strength and fitness that made exercise shift from tough to fun.
“When I started out at 70 it was tough, I’m not going to say it was easy,” he says.
“But you don’t have to lift heavy weights. You don’t have to have a gym or a trainer. But you have to move.”
Owen says there is “nothing fancy” about his typical routine, which cycles through strength, cardio and mobility workouts for roughly an hour a day, six days a week.
“I do whole-body workouts. I work on balance, cardio. I do strength training. I do agility. I work on my weaknesses. To this day I have tight hips and weak glutes.
“But the key is you just got to keep moving.”
This mantra, he says, helped him lose 35lb. “But more importantly, I’ve kept it off.”
3. He takes regular strolls with his wife
Two out of three weekly cardio sessions involve walking uphill to go easy on his joints while still challenging his respiratory system.
But every day he’ll find time to take a stroll with his wife, Stanya.
“We work out together,” he says.
“We love walking on the beach together. I live in California, in San Diego. We have a great time, it’s a fun aspect of exercising.”
Sharing this time together, Owen says, means exercise never feels like a chore.
“I’m her biggest cheerleader. I clap when she does something, like getting a personal best. The fun from getting a personal best is a real pick-up in your life,” he says.
“For me, the whole day just goes better, it goes smoother from then on.”
4. He practices gratitude
Lastly, Owen tries to remind himself that being able to “just move” is a privilege not to be taken for granted.
“It’s never like, ‘Oh my god, I have to work out.’ You choose to work out,” he says.
“If you do that, I promise, anyone is going to feel better, and maybe even look better. But the payoff, I believe, is a positive attitude.”
Owen believes committing to walk, even for just 10 minutes a day, or doing an hour workout six days a week, or entering the San Diego Senior Games is “at least 80% attitude,” he says.
That mindset sustains him on days when he doesn’t have much energy.
“On those days, I cut back. Fewer reps, less weight.
“And guess what? I feel so much better.”