Q&A: Suzanne Somers on healthy aging

CL: Will the bioidentical hormones have the same effect on someone who lives a typical unhealthy North American lifestyle as on someone who eats well, exercises and gets enough sleep?

SS: I think that it will help a lot -- it will help with the quality of your life. But the fact that you're living these bad lifestyle habits -- you've accelerated the aging process, which means you've accelerated your death. So the hormones are going to give you a better quality of life, but you've probably already shortened your life by your bad lifestyle and diet choices. But I don't think it's ever too late and I think that even after a lifetime of bad eating and not sleeping and stress, if you embrace real food, getting a good night's sleep, replacing hormones, getting an anti-aging doctor, managing your stress -- if you do that, you can make a remarkable turnaround in your health and you can probably extend your life even though you've already done so much damage to yourself.

I don't know why people don't value their bodies. People take better care of their cars than they do of their bodies. We so take it for granted, but it's a machine, and the more finely tuned it is, the better you're going to work. I now really know that aging doesn't mean you have to get fat. You don't have to get senile. You don't have to lose your sex drive. You don't have to lose your vitality, and you not only don't have to lose your brain, but you can improve upon your cognitive abilities by making these changes in your life. My brain is working better now than I think it ever has in my life, and I think the last five or 10 years is the first time I've ever been hormonally balanced in my whole life.

CL: What's a daily routine like for you?

SS: I try to go to bed between nine and 10. I try to only go out two nights a week, and not consecutively. I try to do yoga four times a week and walk the other days. And my hormonal/supplemental routine takes about 20 minutes every morning. I eat real food. And I try to eat organic as much as possible.

CL: If you could go back 30 or 40 years and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be?

SS: I wouldn't change anything. It was all a process of growth. I made a lot of bad choices, a lot of mistakes, but I did a lot of work to improve myself emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. I educated myself and I'm sitting here at 60 years old and I'm really happy with what I've done with my life. And I'm really happy with my family and I don't look over my shoulder wishing I was anybody else. So all the mistakes have been lessons. Even the cancer was a lesson. I don't think I'd change anything.

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