Imagine being 78 and looking like you're 50. Imagine being in your mid 60s and people assume you are a 30-something.
Sounds impossible? Not if you are Doris Campbell or Joan A. Liddell, two longtime South End residents who have maintained their health and wellness through daily exercise, rain or shine.
Forget Atkins, the Zone, or South Beach. Forget Weight Watchers or Overeaters Anonymous. Both Doris and Joan have kept their youthful shapes simply by making exercise a way of life, not a means to an end. We recently caught up with these two (puff! whew!) to learn their secrets for staying trim.
Doris Campbell
Doris Campbell stands 4 feet10 inches and weighs 112 pounds dripping wet, with long snowy white hair braided on top of her head. She is the proud mother of five kids, grandmother to 11,and now a great grandmother. Before retiring nine years ago, she spent a career in medical office records. She is an avid walker and biker. Over the past year alone she has logged over 1,400 miles by foot and 3,000 miles by bike.
Doris says that walking and biking was always a part of her life.
"I always went walking," she says. "My father felt it was good for you and my mother had bad feet so she didn't do it. But I did. Once I even walked in a blizzard! That's the great thing about walking-you don't need any special clothes, it doesn't cost anything and you can do it anywhere."
When she was 21 she and a girlfriend biked from Milwaukee to Mexico, a trip that took them six months. On that same trip they walked the length of Guatemala. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "It's no big deal."
During her marriage, money was tight, but walking and biking were still regular parts of her routine.
"I never tried for any distance," she says. "I just went out there and did it because I enjoy it." Up until a year ago she regularly walked the trails at Tiger and Cougar mountains with her trusty Chihuahua Herkle or another neighborhood dog in tow. All the while she kept walking, making two daily trips down to Martha Washington Park and Mount Baker Park, a distance of two miles per trip, seven days a week. That's 28 miles a week, 1,456 miles per year, or 32,032 miles over the past 22 years that she's lived in Rainier Valley.
When told about the number of miles she's walked, Doris brushed the fact aside.
"It's nothing, really. Please don't make a fuss. I do it because I enjoy it. I like to walk."
About 10 years ago, when riding the bike was becoming a problem, she bought a kayak.
"My skin started breaking down and I felt dizzy," she says. "So I bought the boat. It was something I could handle all by myself."
Then two years ago she discovered recumbent bikes-and promptly bought one.
"I was so frustrated at not being able to ride my bike," she says. "The recumbent makes it so easy. I really love it."
Perhaps you've seen her down at Seward Park, her braids tucked neatly under her helmet, a windshield protecting her face. During the summer she bikes the paved loop road seven days a week.
"I like to go around eight times when I am there, a distance of 16 miles per day," Campbell says. "Of course, one time I lost track and wound up going around 16 times. I couldn't understand why I was so tired! . Oh well, that's what happens when you get old. Plus I am getting fat."
Fat?
Hardly.
Does the 78-year-old have any other tips for staying so trim and energetic?
"I eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day,' she offers. "I avoid sugar because there is no nutritional value, but I do love Coke. Of course, raising five kids, we never had money for stuff like that so I didn't drink it. But really, any diet will work. There's a balance. If you eat lots of food with calories in it then you will gain weight. Anything will work. You can even lose weight with Coke. It's just a matter of what goes in must go out. Really, if you must know the truth, I hate exercise."
When she's not walking or riding her recumbent bicycle, Doris enjoys listening to the classics, watching Court TV and surfing the Web, something she's done for the past eight years.
What's her secret? Really, there is none.
"Believe me, any day, no matter what I am doing, is better than jury duty," she says.
Joan A. Liddell
When you meet Joan A. Liddell you think: "Nordstrom executive." She is poised and polished in her pink Capris. She could easily pass for 38. A mother of one and now a grandmother to two, Joanie, as she likes to be called, is in her "mid-60's,"as she puts it. She put in 32 years as a supervisor with the state's Department of Emplyment Security. For the past 28 years, rain or shine, this woman has run 20 miles a week. If you do the math, something Joanie modestly says she has never done, that's 1,040 miles a year or 29,120 miles in all. And, that's just a conservative estimate.
"I started jogging in 1972 when our son, Derek, was born. The doctor said I had high blood pressure. But I got bored with jogging. So in 1976 a girlfriend and I started to run together. We'd meet at 4:30 a.m. at Franklin High School. At first we only could run half the track, then the entire track, then four times around. In 1977 I started running by myself along Seward Park Avenue. My husband, Jim, who was the first African-American executive at National Bank of Commerce, which became Rainier Bank, would follow me in the car to make sure I was safe."
In the late 1970s Jim became ill with a neurological disease (from which he made a full recovery) and running became an outlet for Joanie as she struggled to care for him and Derek. She increased her running to five miles per day, four days per week.
"Running helped me keep the stress down when Jim was sick those two years. I cried when I ran. It really helped me cope."
During this time she added the Seward Park loop, running an additional 7.5 miles on the weekend. These days she keeps to her four-days-a-week schedule, rain or shine. On those days she limits her sweets. But on the days off it's a different story.
"I eat whatever I want," she says. "This past weekend I had two pints of Haagen-Dazs ice cream! I'm a real chocoholic. I don't watch my portions."
Eat whatever you want and still look fabulous? What about counting calories and carbs? Shouldn't you do that?
"I don't count carbs or fat," Liddell says. "See, I love these white chocolate macadamia nut cookies the PCC sells. I love seafood and steak. If I want bread, I have it. I eat whatever I want and I run four days per week. Running makes me maintain my weight. I'm in really good health. My doctor says I should run until I can't run anymore."
Any other tips?
"Consistency," says Joanie. "Be consistent. My family all exercises, but people aren't consistent. This won't help you lose weight. I run even if it's raining. I love to run in the rain. Who cares about the rain?"
Joanie says that running gives her energy for work around the house and garden, and helps her get a good night's sleep. It's also a time for her to pray
"I say, 'Lord let me be able to run the rest of my life and enjoy it,'" she says. " 'Lord, keep me happy, safe, and in good health.' The time I spend running is decision-making time. It helps me make decisions and come to conclusions about what to do."
But chocolate, steak, and carb-loaded bread? Isn't that a little ... dangerous?
Joanie leans forward, and in a conspiratorial tone says: "My mother was the best dessert maker. She would make these cakes and pies to die for, to die for! So, why deprive yourself? Don't diet. Stay healthy and enjoy yourself. Look at people who go on diets. They lose the weight and then they gain it all back double. Running is a part of my day, of my daily routine. I would miss it if I gave it up."
And after 28 years and 29,120 miles, this 60-something woman with a trim figure, a devoted husband, and a serious sweet tooth, just might be right, after all.
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