Fitness for Life
By Laura Stetser

You may have caught the article in The Union about Maggie and Teresa Cull earlier this year in February. It’s a great story highlighting the mother-daughter duo that touches on their relationship as well as some of Maggie’s life story (which is remarkable and inspiring). Most relevant to our current world circumstances, it also highlighted Maggie’s experience with Covid in the later part of 2020.

As we find ourselves edging into the fall corridor, as we battle rising cases and as times once again teeter and shift hesitantly after the feeling of reopening was just beginning to settle in for many, we thought it might be a good time to visit with Maggie. We wanted to know as an 89-year-old SYC member and as part of a category of the population that has been classified as higher risk what her experience was like, her path to healing and what advice she’d have for others in this time.

Maggie believes she contacted Covid in late 2020 through a service repairman who worked inside her home. Although she was cautious, she wore a mask and kept her distance, it was shortly after that she felt the impending symptoms, waking up one night with what she says felt like the ‘Jolly Green Giant’ on her chest. Headache, fever and a general feeling of extreme weakness ensued along with loss of taste. Her response was to stay home, hunker down, drink a lot of water, walk around inside her home and generally just rest. Later, when it was confirmed, she did in fact have Covid, health officials were astounded her symptoms weren’t worse. She recalls her doctor leaning back in his chair with a laugh after an exam and saying, “I think you’re the healthiest person in my practice.” She self-quarantined for some time after before re-emerging and resuming her normal activities.

So, how is it when there is so much emphasis on this age category that she managed to skate through the experience relatively unscathed and without issue? She attributes it to fitness which began at a young age and has been a lifelong friend. Her extensive athletics as a younger adult morphed into a life passion that has not waned. She says her weekly routine includes weightlifting for an hour at the club on Monday, Wednesday and Friday followed by F.I.T. Jam and Stretch. She tries to eat well making sure to include a healthy salad and good protein daily.

Maggie Cull photographed at SYC outdoor training center

When you hear about her life – at one point a single full-time working mom with four children – you can’t help but wonder how she kept this ongoing commitment to fitness. When asked, she says simply – “prioritize exercise and schedule your life around it.” When she was younger and working full-time, she would put her clothes in the trunk of her car before leaving for work and head straight to the gym after. “You don’t go home first,” she said “because you won’t go back out. It’s too easy to stay home.” To this day, she schedules all appointments and other life commitments around her standing gym time three days a week. It’s a non-negotiable block of time that doesn’t move; rather, commitments are scheduled around it.

As we move into a new chapter of the unknown, some things are known – we need to take care of ourselves and make our health a priority. We can take a chapter from Maggie’s book and make sure we not only keep our commitment to fitness but maybe even step it up. If there is opportunity in challenge, maybe this is our time to own our health more rigorously and relentlessly than ever before.

“Prioritize exercise and schedule your life around it!”

Maggie Cull, SYC Member

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