Take the RealAge(r) test at the Realage website to see how old your body is in terms of how you take care of it, how healthy you are, and other contributing factors. I am happy to say, I am feeling 6 years younger today.

After you take the test, you can find out what’s making you younger and older. There are Health, Habits, Relationships, Diet and Fitness recommendations you can follow to help improve your score. It’s amazing what flossing, drinking red wine with dinner, and owning a dog can do for your body! But it also told me to buy that silver SUV we’ve been looking at (larger vehicles provide more protection and apparently silver vehicles are 50% less likely to be involved in serious accidents. Who knew?) I don’t know if we can swing that since unemployment checks don’t fly as income.

Here’s something else I had a sneaky suspicion about. The quiz results say I work out TOO MUCH. It says, “In fact, your workout is at the level of an athlete” and then offers strategies to slow down a little bit. I’ve programmed myself to find exercise opportunities in all those extra daily minutes, like one segment of the 10-minute Solution DVD before work, then walk to work, walk briskly with a friend at lunch, walk home, and fit in a more intense workout and strength sessions MWF, and then sneak in a few more walks and workouts on the weekend. I loathe sitting around, what can I say?

But it seemed like after I had my baby, breastfed, and walked slowly with him, weight fell off my body faster than it ever did before. Perhaps less is more.

It’s kind of funny, because after a health assessment at work one time, the nurse insisted that I get more exercise. I repeated how much I worked out several times and she kept saying I needed to do more. I just rolled my eyes. I always knew it was the food holding me back, not the exercise.

I also learned from the quiz that my target heart rate for working out is about 194 (220-age). I think I’ll try to keep track of this tomorrow and request a heart rate monitor for Christmas:)