Prime Time

ALSO BY
J
ANE
F
ONDA

Jane Fonda’s Workout Book

Jane Fonda’s New Workout & Weight-Loss Program

Women Coming of Age
(with Mignon McCarthy)

My Life So Far

Prime Time
is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed.

No book can replace the diagnostic expertise and medical advice of a trusted physician. Please be certain to consult with your doctor before making any decisions that affect your health, particularly if you suffer from any medical condition or have any symptom that may require treatment. Note as well that this book proposes a program of exercise recommendations for the reader to follow. However, you should consult a qualified medical professional (and, if you are pregnant, your ob/gyn) before starting this or any other fitness program. As with any diet or exercise program, if at any time you experience any discomfort, stop immediately and consult your physician.

As of press time, the URLs displayed in this book link or refer to existing websites on the Internet. Random House, Inc., is not responsible for, and should not be deemed to endorse or recommend, any website other than its own or any content available on the Internet (including without limitation at any website, blog page, information page) that is not created by Random House.

Copyright © 2011 by Jane Fonda
Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Angela Martini

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Permission credits for previously published material are located on
this page
.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Fonda, Jane
Prime time / by Jane Fonda.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-64387-6
1. Aging—Prevention. 2. Aging—Psychological aspects. 3. Rejuvenation. 4. Fonda, Jane, 1937–—Health. 5. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States—Biography. I. Title.
RA776.75.F655 2011      612.3—dc22      2011007454

Part-title page credits: © 2011 Brigitte Lacombe (
this page
), Justin Marcel Lubin (
this page
), Lee Celano/AFP/Getty Images (
this page
), Scott Gries/Getty Images (
this page
), © 2011 Brigitte Lacombe (
this page
)

www.atrandom.com

v3.1_r2

Contents

        
Cover

        
Other Books by This Author

        
Title Page

        
Copyright

        
PREFACE
The Arch and the Staircase

PART ONE

S
ETTING THE
S
TAGE FOR THE
R
EST OF
Y
OUR
L
IFE

  
CHAPTER 1
Act III: Becoming Whole

  
CHAPTER 2
A Life Review: Looking Back to See the Road Ahead

  
CHAPTER 3
Act I: A Time for Gathering

  
CHAPTER 4
Act II: A Time of Building and of In-Betweenness

  
CHAPTER 5
Eleven Ingredients for Successful Aging

PART TWO

B
ODY,
B
RAIN, AND
A
TTITUDE

  
CHAPTER 6
The Workout

  
CHAPTER 7
Now More than Ever, You Are What You Eat

  
CHAPTER 8
You and Your Brain: Use It or Lose It

  
CHAPTER 9
Positivity: The Good News Is You’re Getting Older!

CHAPTER 10
Actually Doing a Life Review

PART THREE

F
RIENDSHIP,
L
OVE, AND
S
EX

CHAPTER 11
The Importance of Friendship

CHAPTER 12
Love in the Third Act

CHAPTER 13
The Changing Landscape of Sex When You’re Over the Hill

CHAPTER 14
The Lowdown on Getting It Up in the Third Act

CHAPTER 15
Meeting New People When You’re Looking for Love

PART FOUR

P
ILGRIMS OF THE
F
UTURE

CHAPTER 16
Generativity: Leaving Footprints

CHAPTER 17
Ripening the Time: A Challenge for Women

CHAPTER 18
Don’t Put Off Preparing for the Inevitable: One of These Days Is Right Now

CHAPTER 19
Let’s Hear It for Revolution!

CHAPTER 20
Facing Mortality

PART FIVE

T
HE
S
PIRAL OF
B
ECOMING

CHAPTER 21
The Work In

CHAPTER 22
Full Tilt to the End

Bonus Photos

     
APPENDIX I SUMMARY OF MAIN AREAS OF ANTI-AGING RESEARCH

    
APPENDIX II PRIME TIME EXERCISES

   
APPENDIX III BASIC EXERCISE PRESCRIPTION

   
APPENDIX IV TIPS FOR HEALTHY EATING

    
APPENDIX V GUIDE TO MINDFUL MEDITATION

    
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    
NOTES

    
PERMISSION CREDITS

    
INDEX

    
About the Author

PREFACE

The Arch and the Staircase

The past empowers the present, and the groping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.
¹

—MARY CATHERINE BATESON

S
EVERAL YEARS AGO, I WAS COMING TO THE END OF MY SIXTIES and facing my seventies, the second decade of what I thought of as the Third Act of my life—Act III, which, as I see it, begins at age sixty. I was worried. Being in my sixties was one thing. Given good health, we can fudge our sixties. But seventy—now, that’s serious. In our grandparents’ time, people in their seventies were considered part of the “old old”…on their way out.

However, a revolution has occurred within the last century—a longevity revolution. Studies show that, on average, thirty-four years have been added to human life expectancy, moving it from an average of forty-six years to eighty! This addition represents an entire second adult lifetime, and whether we choose to confront it or not, it changes everything, including what it means to be human.

Adding a Room

The social anthropologist (and a friend of mine) Mary Catherine Bateson has a metaphor for living with this longer life span in view. She writes in her recent book
Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom,
“We have not added decades to life expectancy by simply extending old age; instead, we have opened up a new space partway through the life course, a second and different kind of adulthood that precedes old age, and as a result every stage of life is undergoing change.”
²
Bateson uses the identifiable metaphor of what happens when a new room is added to your home. It isn’t just the new room that is different; every other part of the house and how it is used is altered a bit by the addition of this room.

In the house that is our life, things such as planning, marriage, love, finances, parenting, travel, education, physical fitness, work, retirement—our very identities, even!—all take on new meaning now that we can expect to be vital into our eighties and nineties … or longer.

But our culture has not come to grips with the ways the longevity revolution has altered our lives. Institutionally, so much of how we do things is the same as it was early in the twentieth century, with our lives segregated into age-specific silos: During the first third we learn, during the second third we produce, and the last third we presumably spend on leisure. Consider, instead, how it would look if we tore down the silos and integrated the activities. For example, let’s begin to think of learning and working as a lifelong challenge instead of something that ends when you retire. What if the wonderfully empowering feeling of being productive can be experienced by children early in life, and if they know from first grade that education will be an expected part of their entire lives? What if the second, traditionally productive silo is braided with leisure and education? And seniors, with twenty or more productive years left, can enjoy leisure time while remaining in the workforce in some form and attending to education if for no other reason than to challenge their minds? Envisioned this way, longevity becomes like a symphony with echoes of different times recurring with slight modifications, as in music, across the life arc.