An interesting ad caught my eye and it took me to an online “real age” calculator, as oppose to your actual age or calendar age. RealAge.com offers this free calculator that allows you to feel younger than you are or to consider changing some things in your life to feel younger.
At the beginning of the questionnaire to determine my “real age” the information that I had to enter in was my date of birth, my zip code and my gender. Next I had to check topics that interested me and my family. This portion didn’t take long at all and the topics were subcategorized into medical conditions, women’s health, men’s health, cardiovascular conditions, lifestyle, memory and emotion and general body maintenance.
Medical conditions topics consisted of such conditions as allergies, cancer, diabetes, heartburn and insomnia. Woman’s health topics were hormones, menopause and sexual while men’s health topics were hormones, prostate and sexual. Cardiovascular conditions topics were heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Lifestyle topics included fitness and exercise, food and nutrition and parenting. Memory and emotion topics had anxiety, bi-polar and depression listed among others. Lastly general body maintenance had such topics listed as dental care, skin care and eye health.
Some of the other questions that followed, all of which multiple choices, were:
How would you rate your physical health compared to others your chronological age?
On a typical day, about how many hours do you sleep?
What is your height, weight, resting heart rate?
What is your average blood pressure?
What is your total cholesterol level?
What is your HDL cholesterol level?
I was glad that I wasn’t having to get out of my seat to look up medical history. If you don’t know your cholesterol levels or blood pressure exactly, don’t worry the site gives you the option to say low, high and average. At this point I received a little message of encouragement and see that my calculated “real age” was already higher than my calendar age and the questions continued and some of them were:
Is your biological father and biological mother alive?
Have you or your biological mother or sisters, or your father’s mother or sisters, ever had breast cancer?
Have you or your biological mother or sisters, or your father’s mother or sisters, ever had ovarian cancer?
Have you ever had asthma?
Have you ever had a heart attack?
Have you ever had a stroke?
Then I had to do another checklist, but it didn’t take long at all. It lists everything from chest pains to acne to insomnia to anemia and you have to check what applies to you. The things that I checked I was asked about again. Then I was asked some more questions, some of which were:
How many prescription medicines do you take each day?
How many over the counter medicines do you take each day?
Do you need corrective lenses for your eyes?
How often do you floss?
Have you ever had a sunburn that caused blistering?
On a typical day, are you around people who smoke?
During an average day, how many alcoholic drinks do you consume?
What size motor vehicle do you typically drive or ride in?
How often do you use a mobile phone while driving?
I was clicking away but this next question kind of through me, I thought was very peculiar.
Do you provide health or medical information to others or do you provide caregiver services to someone who has a medical condition? If you check any of the choices you will be asked about them later as well. The remainder of the questions went pretty quick, here are what some of the remaining questions were:
What is your annual family income?
How many of your close friends and relatives do you see at least once per month?
If there are children in your household, in what years were they born?
How often do you eat breakfast in a typical week?
Do you take vitamin supplements?
How many servings of high fiber grains do you eat per day?
How many servings of fruit do you eat per day?
How many servings of vegetables do you eat per day?
How many servings of dairy do you eat per week?
How many servings of nuts and legumes do you eat per week?
How many servings of soy products do you eat per week?
How many servings of red meat do you eat per week?
How many servings of fish do you eat per week?
How often do you take vitamin supplements?
time(s) per week
Look at the labels of all the vitamin supplements you take. How much of each vitamin and mineral listed below do they contain?
Calcium (mg)
Folic acid (mcg)
Potassium (mg)
Vitamin C (mg)
Vitamin E (IU)
This was the first and only time that I had to get up, I looked at the bottle of my vitamins and answered the question above. Finally I reached the last page of questions, which included:
On average, how often do you do aerobic exercise?
On average, how often do you do strength training exercise?
On average, how often do you do flexibility training exercise?
On average, how often do you do other strenuous physical activities?
Do you experience any soreness of the joints during or after exercising?
After the questions were all answered, a task that took me about 20 minutes or so, the page explained I would receive my final “real age” result via email in 1-2 hours. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to know instantly but in less than an hour I received that email. If you try this and don’t receive the email within 2 hours you should check your spam folder because that is where my email placed it.
After reading the email I discovered that my “real age” was 5 years older than I really am. I was actually shocked, I consider myself to be very physically healthy. At least I know that I will be living to 91, see what I am talking about at Livingto100.com: Life Expectancy Calculator. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/196095/livingto100com_life_expectancy_calculator.html
Overall I thought that the site was very user friendly and they even explained in my free personalized recommendations how I could grow younger.
