Thrive Beyond Aging: A Life Review

140 - What would you do if you knew exactly how many weeks you had left to live?

In this birthday-inspired episode, Thrive Beyond Aging: A Life Review, I share how a simple calculation of “weeks remaining” became a powerful wake-up call for living with more health, joy, and purpose. We’ll talk about:

• How to calculate your own remaining weeks (and why it matters).
• The difference between just aging and truly living.
• What to prioritize if you want more energy, vitality, and meaning in midlife and beyond.
• Reflection questions that help you focus on what matters most.

I’ve also created a free resource to help you take this deeper. It includes guided prompts and space to reflect on how you want to spend your remaining weeks with intention. Grab your copy here: Guided Journal

This isn’t about fear — it’s about empowerment. Every “yes” and “no” you make shapes the quality of your future. So don’t just age. Live.

And if you’re realizing that optimizing your health is the key to making the rest of your weeks the best of your weeks, let’s talk. Book a free 20-minute consult with me here: https://www.clarendasempowerment.com/courses/fl

You can always find out more at:

https://www.clarendasempowerment.com/

Transcript

0:00

Don't just age, live. Here's a guide to making the most of your remaining weeks. We all get distracted by the day-to-day challenges and habitual living. If it's healthy and helpful, great, but if your default mode doesn't match up to the optimized way that you want to live in your mind and body, then keep listening. Welcome to episode 140. Today's topic is inspired by something personal: my birthday. I'm pre-recording this 'cause on my actual birthday I'll be on the beach. I'll be hiking and just taking some time to reflect not only for my birthday, but in Canada, it's also the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. But this episode isn't about my birthday - it's about something much bigger than that, and that is the way we want to live our remaining weeks. If you've ever thought about aging gracefully and wonder what that really means, whether it means that you need to just accept things for the way that they are, I want to invite you into a different perspective because I think the truth is we don't want to just age...we want to live. We don't want to just exist, we want to thrive. This conversation is especially for you if you've started to notice some changes as you age. Things like belly fat, just seeming to be there and not budging, or a decrease in your stamina, waking up and not feeling energized, or maybe you've never had health issues before, but now in your fifties and sixties, you're finding it harder to just coast along. This episode is for anyone that wants to live with more vitality, purpose and joy. If you're new to this podcast, I'm so glad you're here because I know that the topics and tips will help you live a more empowered life. I'm Clarenda Price, a Certified Life and Weight Loss Coach, previous Nurse for 21 years, as well as a Personal Trainer. I help women who thrive in many areas, but still struggle with weight loss, stress eating, and decreased energy. I teach them how to make lasting changes that go beyond dieting using simple strategies to get to the root cause of overeating and rebalance their hunger hormones, making weight loss much easier and faster. With my science-based process, clients build sustainable habits without relying on willpower or having to spend hours at the gym. They're thrilled with the results and they feel more confident, in control and comfortable in their clothes and in their birthday suits. This podcast isn't to judge yourself or others, it's to examine yourself. It's to give you the prompts and make you think so that you can become more aware. And you know what? If this episode helps you or another person, that is the best gift that we can give ourselves because if we can wake up ahead of time and not wait for symptoms to happen to wake us up, that is a gift that makes this all worthwhile. Today I want to share a framework that really caught my attention and made me pause. Have you heard of the 4,000 Weeks idea? That's the average human lifespan. For women, it's often longer, and of course there are other variables involved, but for now, let's just stick to this as our average. Are you ready to play with me? This is where it gets real. Choose the age you believe you'll be active until, meaning still traveling, independent mobility, and enjoying life. For me, I believe I'll be active into my nineties. Doing all the things, but let's just say to keep it simple, I'll say 91. I turned 56 today, so 91 minus 56 is 35. 35 years remaining. So times that by 52 and I have 1,820 weeks left to live my life fully. Now I ask myself, how do I want to spend those years and how do I want to feel while I'm doing those things? This is where it gets practical. So I sat down and journaled on a few of the things like, "Who do I want to spend more time with? What do I want more of and what do I want less of? How do I want to feel in my last decade of life, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually? What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind? What countries do I want to explore?" These questions are empowering, but they also land a little differently when you're putting them against the backdrop of a certain amount of weeks. And because I know that you are probably curious as well and would like to dive a little deeper into it, I put this together into a journal prompt for you so you can actually write it down, get clear, and not use it against yourself. Use it for yourself. Use it for living out your remaining years with more purpose and intention and joy. You'll find one prompt that I didn't mention here that has a potential to expand your life and the quality of it exponentially. You'll find the link in this episode's description and use it as a starting point because you can come back to it at any point. Things may change, your priorities may change, so just keep it on hand. It's a tool that you can have in your pocket. It's a tool that you can share with others. So feel free to share this podcast or let them know about the link and share it that way. Here's the part most of us overlook. We can't enjoy those remaining weeks if we aren't in good health. If we don't have the energy and the confidence and the vitality to be fully present and active. It then becomes much harder to live out the things that we've written down. For me, that means things like weight training, clean eating, restorative sleep, navigating or reducing my stress, walks out in nature, connection time, learning, growing, stimulating my mind. And even tracking things like my bone mass and visceral fat. Two weeks ago, I reached my goal that I had set for my birthday to get my visceral fat back down to its lowest point, which is two. It needs to be underneath nine, and also to increase my bone mass. You may have seen, it's maybe two months now, I started using a weighted vest. Not too heavy, but just enough to give that extra boost for myself, so I was able to move it up. I'm still in the excellent range, but up 0.2 points. So those small wins, that's what keeps us going, and that's also what's anti-aging. However, my subcutaneous fat is still higher than I want it to be, so I like using these metrics more than the number on the scale because these numbers, and there's nothing wrong with the number on the scale, but these numbers I find are very empowering because I'm looking at being strong, being fit, being healthy inside and out, and just building resilience for the future. And if you're someone with more weight to lose, don't let this discourage you. Let it encourage you, because we start with building one sustainable habit, and from there that spark, that spark of belief starts to generate within you, and you notice yourself believing more in what's possible. It is very common as we enter into our fifties, sixties, and beyond, to start to become more contemplative of the significance of our being, doing, and having. That's when we start to wonder what is the best use of the remaining weeks I have here on this earth? What do I truly value and what is my mission? I just worked through these steps with a client and her joy and clarity just skyrocketed. She was like, okay, what is my purpose right now in this moment? She's starting to think, when I'm with my family, what is my purpose? Is it to be present? When she's at work, what is her focus? Does this align with my mission and vision? And right now with the way I feel and the way I'm thinking, would it be best for me to unplug and totally recharge? Now, as I mentioned, I think it was in last week's episode, every time we say yes to something, we're saying no to something else because there's only so many minutes in a day, and there's only so many hours in a lifetime. I've realized that having a spotless home isn't a priority for me. Clean, yes, but it doesn't have to be spotless. It's not worth trading going for a walk at the end of a workday. That's what fills me up. For you, it might be different. The key is to notice what drains your energy and what adds to your energy, and then adjust accordingly. Sometimes that means intentionally choosing "I'm going to watch this movie tonight, guilt-free." Other times it's deciding to spend less time on the couch because there are people to see, places to explore and things to accomplish. A simple guiding question is, do I like the way I'm spending my time? Here's the big takeaway. You don't have to wait for your birthday or a health scare or losing someone that you love to take the time to reflect on this. You can start today. Ask yourself, is this what I really want to be doing? And if the answer is no, then what is a shift that I can make starting this week? A shift that will help me align more with what I want in life, more about how I want to experience life.

Remember: 10:00

don't just age and exist, thrive and enjoy all that this big, beautiful life has given us, which includes the pain and the pleasure, the joy and sorrow. If you'd like help making health a priority, the kind of help that supports everything else that you have marked on your list, let's connect. I offer a free 20-minute session where I simply ask you two questions that will help you know what is your best next step for you. You're in the driver's seat, always, but I'd love to be your guide to help you get there faster with more confidence and ease. Feeling supported...being supported is huge in the outcome for you. I believe hard in my clients. I don't give up on them and they borrow my belief at the beginning, but once they realize how much they're capable of, watch out, they're on fire and they love getting the results. It's fun and it's rewarding. This isn't rhetoric AI training, it's me, Clarenda, who has similar thoughts and emotions, life experiences and goals as you have. One of the mindset shifts is loving who you are now AND not settling for what is not serving you in the long run, for what is not helping you become your healthiest self. You don't have to settle. You are worth so much more than that, and it's not selfish to do it. It's actually very unselfish, and your family will thank you for it. So what if you have eighty to a hundred pounds to lose? Again, as I mentioned, we would start by adding in one healthier habit, something that's going to be a needle mover to get you some momentum, to help you to start to think about things in a doable way, like "this is doable" instead of thinking, "this is impossible for me, I'm too far gone." No, it's amazing as you start to crack one belief and start to open up to a new one, how the ripple effect, basically, that it has in the other areas. The key is you just have to start. I know it can be scary, but without that, think about what is more scarier in the long run. And be encouraged to know that it's not just willpower. Willpower is finite so we do not rely on that. It's by understanding that what you've been doing has served you even though it may not have been healthy or served you in a healthy way, it has served you. I can give the example of maybe after a breakup or after a big disappointment or after a super stressful day, you found yourself going through a sleeve or two of cookies. How did that serve you? It gave you some relief. It provided some comfort. It maybe provided a distraction or pleasure. Just having that understanding and compassion for yourself gives you that awareness. Then you get to decide, is that best for me long term? Do I want to change this? If so, how? Those are the questions my clients come to me about and say, how can I do this differently? How can I think differently? As you start to gain perspective and get out of judgment, that's when we can do the deeper work. And that deeper work is the game changers. Thank you for spending part of your week with me. I hope today's episode gave you something to reflect on, and most importantly, a next step so that you can have more ease and joy in your life. Don't forget to grab your free reflection guide. The link for that as well as a consult is in the description notes.

Remember,: 13:46

don't just age, live with vitality.