Retirement Myth #3: If you’re not healthy when you retire, there’s little you can do about it.

“Nature is remarkably forgiving,” writes Dr. John Rowe (Successful Aging). “Research shows that it is almost never too late to begin healthy habits such as smoking cessation, sensible diet, exercise, and the like.”

Rowe goes on to say that it’s not too late to benefit from those changes either. For instance, the risk of heart disease “begins to fall almost as soon as you quit smoking—no matter how long you’ve smoked.” “In five years, an ex-smoker is not much more likely to have heart disease than a person who has never smoked.”

And the same goes for other unhealthy practices. When obese folks lose 10 percent of their body weight, they lower their risk of heart disease, no matter how old they are.

Hmm. I wonder how long a person would have to forgo the onion rings at Dyer’s Bar-B-Q to have the cholesterol level of a normal person.

Just sayin’.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about exercise.