I just turned sixty- five!

I’m excited about it. Never thought I’d feel this upbeat about an age that many keep secret.

Like so many people, a couple of decades ago, before I “saw the light,” I dreaded aging. And why not? I never saw an aging person who was happy about it. My late then-ninety- year- old auntie Helen said it so well: “It sucks to get old, Sue!”

And who could blame her. Once “full of bullets” as they say—energetic, mischievous, outspoken, confident, and funny— my aunt spent her last years in a nursing home, unable to perform the simple tasks of life. “The food sucks in here,” she would say. “I miss being able to cook for myself.” Forgetful, with unsteady feet that couldn’t feel the ground from neuropathy and bones so brittle that the wrong moves could snap them in two, she was right. It sucked.

Back when I was a kid, sixty- five was ancient. Now I see it as young. But I can remember being at family weddings looking at my old aunts (in their sixties), all of whom had their legs wrapped in support hose to hide their varicose veins and swollen ankles, their feet propped high on chairs to take some of the pressure off them. They had swollen bodies and pendulous breasts, and there was a seeming sexlessness to them. Youth was gone, bones were brittle, memories were foggy; they appeared to be living back in the “I remember whens.”

Next, I noticed that the pills started, tackle boxes full— for memory, for blood pressure, for cholesterol, for bones. Soon they became the ones in the wheelchairs, stooped over, shaking, confused, not quite remembering who they were and, worse, not remembering who they used to be. We patted their heads, kissed them, and told them we loved them. They responded to the affection, but it could have come from anyone, because now in a haze of drugs and loss of self, just being touched and acknowledged, by anyone, felt nice.

When I was a kid and my parents and relatives were still young and full of fun, I remember them partying till all hours of the morning. I was supposed to be in bed, but I would sit with the door cracked open, watching, listening. They had such a good time, laughing nonstop, drinking, and playing cards all night long, then stumbling out of the house hugging and kissing one another good- bye. They were in their forties then; their sixties, seventies, and eighties were coming but none of them gave it a thought. No one back then thought about making a plan for aging well.

We plan for nearly everything else in our lives. Think about all the energy you put into planning a vacation, or any major event. But aging is put out of our minds; we don’t want to acknowledge it; we choose not to “see” the end point. Aging is just something that “happens” and is something we want to avoid. And rarely do people think the fate they see all around in others is going to happen to them.

No one sees the nursing home, hospital, or hospice center as his or her end point. Though we know aging is inevitable, we ignore it. Even the healthiest among us choose instead to think of it as something so far off in the distance that today’s choices are not directly relevant.

But we know deep within, that “time” will come and how terrible it will be if we find ourselves trapped and lost in our particular confinements: wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, knees that won’t hold us up, loss of eyesight and hearing, debilitating diseases. Not us! we say. That’s what happened to our parents, but not to us! But, I ask you,

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE DIFFERENTLY?

Have you taken diet, lifestyle, exercise, supplementation, hormone replacement, or sleep seriously? Have you managed your stress? Answer yourself honestly. This book is trying to change the aging paradigm.

You don’t want to hear your doctor say you have things like “autoimmune disease.” Huh? What’s that? Or conditions like lupus, fibromyalgia, MS, rheumatoid arthritis, and swollen, bloated guts. You don’t want to have systems that don’t work properly, or experience macular degeneration, which can cause blindness or near blindness; stiff joints; brittle bones; weak limbs; damaged hearts; heart disease; minds that aren’t firing; and then there’s cancer. That’s the big one these days. Deep down, we almost expect it. Like it’s some ninja warrior out there, sitting, waiting, ready to strike when we least expect it.

Cancer will soon be the biggest killer in the world, yet we live our lives, despite our inherent fears, as though it doesn’t happen and it certainly won’t happen to us. Cancer isn’t inevitable. You don’t have to get cancer just because you are alive in this millennium. But if you keep eating all those processed, refined, and chemically sprayed foods, you can pretty much be assured you will get cancer. (Don’t skip chapter 15 and the interview with Dr. Burzynski, where he explains the genetic switches that protect us and how you can keep these switches turned on. This is lifesaving, life- affirming information.)

You don’t have to go the way of all those people like my auntie Helen. You can choose a different course. I have. I’m having such a different experience. If this quality of life and health continues, then bring on ninety, or one hundred, or more. I believe it’s all possible. Long life with quality— and I mean long life. This book is the ticket to a vibrant, healthy life. At sixty- five, I feel great. I’m happy, healthy, I have energy, and my bones are so strong I can do a handstand in yoga. I have perfect memory, and best of all, I have a sex drive!

Who knew this would be my sexiest age?

Things have really changed.

No, I changed.

I believe in the judo effect: using forward energy to win— in other words, turning lemons into lemonade. Like everyone, I’ve had a lot of things thrown at me in my life: a violent alcoholic father, an abusive childhood spent in fear. I hid in a closet at night trying to survive in an unsafe environment and experienced a teenage pregnancy and a marriage not of my choosing. I divorced at nineteen when divorce was not acceptable, resulting in immense feelings of shame and the surety that I deserved to be ostracized by family and friends. Life-threatening low self- esteem resulted and an overwhelming feeling that I was not worthy of taking up space on the planet. But I was determined to carry on, to make things better for my beautiful child. I brought him into this world and he deserved a good shot in life, and at the very least he was going to know that he was loved deeply and that he was safe.

I fell in love with a married man, which added to my personal anguish, then my darling five- year- old son was run over by a car, which almost took his life. This led to therapy for both of us with an angel who healed my son’s fears and stopped his nightmares, and in addition taught me to see myself in a different light: that I was worthy, that what had happened in my childhood was not my fault, and that I deserved to be happy and have an incredible life.

I began to visualize it. I saw me: happily married, successful, respected. I kept looking at that vision like it was a “picture in the sky.” I eventually married him and life took an incredible turn. He was— is—the one . . . my dream husband, and now we’ve had forty- four years of being in love, madly and passionately. During those years, along came unexpected incredible success on television, reaching the height of fame. But when I was at the top of my game, I was fired for asking to be paid what men were being paid. I was portrayed as greedy and lost the affection of the public.

What had happened? How could I be brought down at what I thought was the height of my life? What happened to that photo I had up in the sky?

I now realize I hadn’t gone far enough in my visualization. I had more to go through to learn that the goal has to be complete. I had seen blissful marriage and professional success. That’s what I got. But I didn’t go far enough. I didn’t work my plan all the way through. I hadn’t seen how far I wanted my success to go or for how long. I hadn’t seen my end point!

My house burned down, and then on top of that I got cancer, breast cancer. Now I was blind and couldn’t see any picture in the sky whatsoever. One day, lying in my bed looking at the ocean, sicker than sick from radiation treatments that had burned the inside of my esophagus, something caught my eye outside my bedroom window. A huge whale, huge, leaped out of the ocean very close to shore. I called my husband to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating. He saw it, too, and then I saw this whale leap out of the ocean, three times, until he disappeared.

Surely this was a message if I chose to see it as one: leaping, springing forward, joyous, life going on, energy soaring. I took the actions of the whale for the message that they were. The whale was there to show me that life goes on for a purpose, and that I had purpose. I put another picture in the sky; I saw health, great health forever. I saw joy, I saw happiness, I saw us going forward. And I saw love that was endless between my husband and me, and we were old, very old, but we weren’t “old.” We had youthful vitality and health, and I wanted that. So I chose it. That became my new focus. How could I use breast cancer and losing all my possessions as a new and exciting starting point?

This was the pivotal moment in my life where I chose true health and wellness as a lifestyle, as my ticket to my end point. I realized I couldn’t achieve my big picture unless I started the steps to great aging immediately. I realized, too, that I could change the paradigm of aging.

I WAS IN CONTROL OF HOW I AGED!

I had read about people who lived in the high mountains of Yokohama, Japan, who were alive in their early hundreds without disease. What were they doing? What were others around the world who lived the longest and were the healthiest doing?

I began to ask doctors to guide me; I took advantage of my celebrity to get to the best and the brightest to find out what was new. What was the route to successful aging? How do we age without sickness and make aging an advantage? How do we aspire to enjoy aging? Can we see it as a desirable state? And what new medical advances were coming that made all the effort worthwhile? What did the future of medicine have in store for all of us? What you hold in your hands contains the answers those brilliant doctors gave me.

Your body is like a Maserati, the greatest machine ever created. It’s time to start recognizing the care and upkeep it takes to keep a machine of this magnitude running at top efficiency. You would never run a Maserati into the ground; you would never put inferior fuel into a Maserati. Instead, you would be constantly tweaking, fixing, or replacing parts, and checking and fine- tuning it. Age isn’t a factor with this car, it’s a great machine; if you take excellent care of it, a Maserati will survive forever. You are like that machine. But you can’t wait until your Maserati is broken down and falling apart. Then the job is so much harder and in some, or maybe most, cases impossible.

You have to start now, before you get too many dings and scrapes!

And just as you can restore your insides, the same is true of your exterior “finish.” Wrinkles and a lack of perfect elasticity are no longer inevitable. Staying beautiful is certainly achievable without surgery today, through stem cell protocols. I have already accessed some of my “banked” stem cells and had a stem cell “neck lift” under the guidance of Dr. Robin Smith of NeoStem, a stem cell banking company. The result is beautiful and natural, a smoothing out and regeneration of the skin. How nice not to have wrinkly neck skin anymore. Injections to one’s lower face using banked stem cells can smooth out and regenerate the areas that are aging: the little lines above the mouth, the large pores on the chin area, smile lines. This in itself is redefining aging. We can now roll back the clock and obtain the skin we used to have, allowing us to look fresher and more vibrant.

There is also a nutraceutical available that will smooth out skin by releasing the enzyme telomerase. You’ll learn more about the importance of telomeres later on in the book, as they are keys to a longer, healthier, more youthful life. I truly believe that telomeres and the discovery of telomerase are nothing short of a miracle, a real Bombshell.

Listen to what the experts in this book have to say on perfecting aging and follow their wise advice. Pay careful attention to the explosive medical secrets and groundbreaking information you will learn in Bombshell, which include:

• Why we age.
• What the basic steps to a longer life are.
• How you can avoid a catastrophic event.
• Why toxins will kill you if you don’t learn how to escape their deadly attack.
• How environmental medicine can save your life.
• How to rejuvenate your cells and balance your hormones.
• What the top Bombshell foods are for longer life.
• Why you are in control of not getting cancer and the steps you need to take.
• How to strengthen and rebuild your immune system.
• Where the future— and current uses— of stem cells leads, and my journey.
• How important telomeres and telomerase are for reversing aging.
• What super supplements are available for fantastic skin and hair, and healthy, clear eyes.
• The new kind of doctor you’ll want to visit.
• Future medicine and what it promises to you today.

You’ll hear from my trusted doctors and experts everything you need to know to create a healthy, bigger picture for yourself today. I’ve interviewed some people with the most amazing minds throughout the years, and the information they are sharing here will absolutely blow you away. Here’s a little bit about who you will hear from and what they will say.

Ray Kurzweil, famed futurist, discusses nanotechnology and biotechnology and its future advancements that virtually promise to eradicate disease.

Dr. Michael Galitzer drops a Bombshell about preventing bone loss, as well as other methods in the new antiaging medicine.

Dr. Joel Aronowitz performed my amazing stem cell breast regrowth; you will read all about it here.

Bill Faloon, the editor of Life Extension magazine, shares explosive information on preventing catastrophic medical events that strike even health- conscious individuals.

Dr. Abraham Morgentaler shares blockbuster, life- altering information on testosterone and active prostate cancer.

Dr. Prudence Hall, my gynecologist and hormone specialist, talks about the hormone that makes you want to have sex (and improves orgasms); she asserts that a healthy person is a sexual person.

Dr. Jonathan Wright, the father of bioidentical hormones, discusses how hormonal balance and cell rejuvenation can revitalize— and lengthen— your life.

Noel Thomas Patton shares information about the new nutraceutical supplement (TA- 65) that may actually reverse aging.

Dr. Andy Jurow, a Renaissance man, discusses the steps to wellness and the supplement that will redefine aging.

Dr. Russell Blaylock warns of the chemical dangers killing our brains— and shows a clear path around them to keep us sharp and vital.

Dr. Garry Gordon explains the necessity of keeping the blood cleaned to eliminate disease, and how you can naturally avoid bypass surgery.

Dr. Dipnarine Maharaj shares that there may be cancer- resistant human beings and that their white blood cells may soon be able to reverse the disease in cancer patients.

David Schmidt talks about new nanotechnology patches and nondrug approaches to slowing aging.

Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski discusses the cancer- protective gene tic switches and how to keep them “turned on” to avoid the killer disease.

Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez speaks of the foods and supplements you can take to avoid the diseases of today and reiterates that cancer is avoidable and even manageable.

Dr. William Rea, an environmental doctor, discusses a detoxification protocol that will allow you to stay ahead of the toxic assault, ensuring a longer, healthier life.

And I offer a new kind of patient resource for finding doctors, Forever Health; it will make it easy to find the antiaging doctor who is best for you.

But before we read what these great experts have to say, let’s find out where you want to go. Then we’ll learn why we age, and what can we do about it.

Excerpted from Bombshell by Suzanne Somers Copyright © 2012 by Suzanne Somers. Excerpted by permission of Crown, a division of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

For more great lifestyle tips & recipes, sign up for our Joie de Vivre newsletter!