I had a near-death health emergency 5 years ago in my late 30s, which turned out to be due to a chronic but perfectly manageable set of conditions I didn't know I had been developing.
Part of that management is a commitment to healthy living: daily vigorous exercise, dietary restrictions, and sleep optimization. I was on and off in shape before then, but the motivation to avoid sliding into a very marked decline due to those conditions has resulted in my achieving better health and higher fitness now in my early 40s than I had for most of my 30s (even some of my 20s), and the numbers don't lie.
Ceteris paribus, if I had adopted this lifestyle in my 20s and 30s I'd probably have then outperformed my current self, and I certainly cannot recover as quickly now from overexertion, but that's besides the point. Do we look at people in their 20s with cystic fibrosis or in 30s with multiple sclerosis and say they're doing "better" than the average person in their 40s or 50s optimizing their health?
Part of that management is a commitment to healthy living: daily vigorous exercise, dietary restrictions, and sleep optimization. I was on and off in shape before then, but the motivation to avoid sliding into a very marked decline due to those conditions has resulted in my achieving better health and higher fitness now in my early 40s than I had for most of my 30s (even some of my 20s), and the numbers don't lie.
Ceteris paribus, if I had adopted this lifestyle in my 20s and 30s I'd probably have then outperformed my current self, and I certainly cannot recover as quickly now from overexertion, but that's besides the point. Do we look at people in their 20s with cystic fibrosis or in 30s with multiple sclerosis and say they're doing "better" than the average person in their 40s or 50s optimizing their health?