Email
PrintOlder, but better
Three vibrant Tulsa women prove that age really is just a number.
Nicole Tobias, 39
Will be 40 in December. Tulsa native. Yoga instructor/co-owner of The Yoga Room on Brookside. Married, no kids. Advocates conscious living. Remains a waitress at heart.
Nicole Tobias has a relaxed wisdom and a body most 25-year-olds would envy. That may be because she’s a 10-year veteran of Vinyasa, or “flow yoga,” a yoga method known for calming the mind and sculpting a light, strong physique.
Tobias and her husband discovered yoga while living in California and, in 2001, opened their own Tulsa studio. Always interested in fitness and healthy eating, Tobias was first attracted to the discipline’s physical benefits, but she eventually experienced much more.
Before yoga, Tobias says her life mirrored most Americans’: addiction to “the rush,” planning her next vacation while on vacation and always looking for “what’s next.” Like many of her clients today, she initially wondered whether yoga might soften her too much. However, Tobias and many others actually have experienced the opposite.
“(With yoga) you get a sharper edge because there’s the balance where you’re strong, but it’s like a peaceful warrior instead of being an aggressive maniac,” she says but points out that yoga is both physically and mentally challenging. “Your lifestyle and your upbringing have brought you to a place where you have to do things fast, be productive — you have no time for yourself.
“Yoga is completely the opposite. You have to kind of start over and relearn how to work, how to listen, how to live in the moment.”
While Tobias concedes some genetic help, she attributes most of her youthfulness to her playful life and simply being happy. In addition to yoga, she sleeps eight to nine hours each night and drinks a lot of water. She also walks her dog often and runs several days a week, although she doesn’t look for results; it’s more about the experience. Tobias’ diet isn’t strict, but she prefers fresh foods “in their own packaging” and eats vegetarian, with the exception of fish.
Despite her muscular body and evident centeredness, Tobias doesn’t claim to have reached nirvana. A longtime waitress, she still fights the innate desire to be everywhere at once and anticipate what’s just around the corner. But overall, she just lets things happen.
“When you’re wired, there are very few moments of clear happiness because you’re wound up in what happened and what’s going to happen and judging what’s happening now,” she says. “You don’t really get to truly enjoy something.”
Yoga has helped Tobias sleep deeper and made her calmer and less worried. There also are spiritual benefits: The quiet nature of yoga can improve one’s connection with God, she explains. At yoga conferences, Tobias also notices that older practitioners look much younger than their chronological age, which bodes well for her. And she’s OK with aging, as long as she continues to feel this great.
“I actually am so much happier now at 40 than I was at 30, and that’s inspiring to me,” she says. “It’s like, wow, it keeps getting better.”
Ann Walton, 50
From Tulsa. Director of St. John Health Club. Married with two stepchildren, one grandchild. Survived the Jane Fonda aerobics era, spandex and all. Hearts the Food Network.
For someone who describes herself as “not a natural athlete,” Ann Walton has done pretty well making a career out of fitness. Although she didn’t excel at team sports growing up, the health club director tried an aerobics class after college and has been hooked on exercise ever since.
“This whole idea that anyone could come and ‘do’ exercising — I felt kind of empowered that there were some athletic things I could do,” says Walton, who was prompted to join an aerobics class after backpacking through Europe one summer, gaining 20 pounds in the process.
She was surprised to see how quickly consistent aerobic activity could tone and contour her body. She began to see the weight drop off, even without changing her eating habits much. Today, Walton is quick to point out that this method doesn’t work as well at 50 as it did at 20. In fact, she works to keep her diet “very clean.” She tries not to eat packaged foods to cut down on her salt intake, which is often responsible for keeping women thick around the waist, she says.
She also has discovered that — because of huge portions and breadbaskets — eating out often leads to overeating. So although she doesn’t claim to be an accomplished chef, she prepares most of her own meals at home, using quick, healthy recipes she finds online or via her favorite TV cooking shows. But Walton clarifies that she’s not an over-zealous fitness or nutrition fanatic.
“I use exercise to offset the part of life I really enjoy — a glass of wine, a bowl of fettuccini Alfredo and a piece of baked fudge smothered with ice cream,” she says.
Walton, who owned a personal-training studio for 12 years, now stays in shape with about an hour of cardio five to six times a week. Her activities include teaching a spin class and power-walking four to five miles at a time. In addition to maintaining her weight, exercise also works wonders as her stress reliever and mood enhancer. She jokes that her husband and co-workers are “very aware when I have blown off my exercise regime.”
Although she lives a healthy lifestyle, Walton admits that getting older brings with it interesting physical challenges, something she’s experienced since reaching 50.
“Before, I never really thought I was aging, and then, all of a sudden with these body changes, I feel like I am now middle-aged and beyond,” she says. “That’s tough, but only the sense that it’s just odd. You watch women age now, and (you hear) ‘50 is the new 40,’ ‘60 is the new 50,’ and it really is the truth. I think how active you stay just with people, with moving, will make all the difference in the world.
“I don’t really feel like I’m heading down this road of being decrepit or where I’m becoming an old person; I just have to face the fact I’m going through the aging process.”
Rajeanna Amini, 52
Oklahoma City transplant. Accountant/co-owner of Amini’s Galleria in south Tulsa. Married with four children, two grandkids. Inspired by Oprah’s 1988 “fat wagon” episode. Believes in the power of positive words.
Most people look forward to their next vacation so they can be lazy, eat whatever they want and veg out. Rajeanna Amini can’t wait to try out the hotel gym. In fact, fitness amenities are a top concern when she and her husband, Mack, book travel accommodations.
“(Working out) is part of my life, and it’s a priority,” explains Amini, who has exercised consistently for the past two decades. “I told myself about 10 years ago that I want to be the youngest, oldest grandmother. I want to be there for my grandkids and be able to do things with them.”
Working out six days a week might get old for some, but Amini mixes up her routine daily to “wake the body up,” she says, going from the elliptical machine to circuit training to the treadmill. She saw firsthand the importance of an active lifestyle eight years ago when Mack had a major heart attack, although he’s since made a full recovery. Amini credits this recovery to their dedication to leading a healthy lifestyle every day. In addition to her own workouts, the couple meet together with a personal trainer several days a week.
Amini also enjoys a good challenge and the internal and external results exercise produces. She especially touts weight training for completely changing the look of her body by adding contours and getting rid of the dreaded “mom-jeans” look.
But good health is not only about activity. Amini knows how to eat right, too. Her diet includes a lot of whole grains, fish, produce and fresh juices; her average meal might balance a salad with protein and a little bit of fat.
“Most of my lifestyle is an effort to prevent disease and aging,” she says, noting that she wasn’t as well-versed on fitness and nutrition growing up. “We know so much more now as to how to keep ourselves healthy, strong and young inside and out.”
Amini hasn’t always been so fit. In her early 30s, she was 30 pounds overweight, but she was encouraged to make a change when a newly slim Oprah Winfrey showed off the infamous wagon full of animal fat representing her weight loss.
Using Nutrisystem, a program with portion-controlled meals, Amini dropped nearly all her weight but admits she was “starving” throughout the diet. Vowing to never try a starvation diet again, she was drawn to exercise, a longer-term, healthier habit. A Jazzercise group initially brought her fitness, fun and friendship; today, she continues to work out frequently with girlfriends.
As time passes, Amini chooses to focus not on aging but on “renewing her youth,” she says. In addition to exercising and eating right, that also means staying positive, says Amini, whose spiritual life centers her.
“I believe your words create your life, so I put out positive words,” she says. “You create your own world.”
