Award-winning, veteran Washington Post reporter Margaret Webb Pressler's husband Jim is one of those people who looks much younger than he is. After years of fielding questions about why Jim seems not to age, Pressler decided to find the answer. Her research into the work of some of the world's leading experts on aging and genetics reveal a new world of discoveries and advice about how the aging process works and what you can do to age less, feel better, and look younger. Virtually everything she uncovered dovetailed with habits that her husband had already established for himself. But beyond that, she found a tremendous amount of new research about how and why we age, the anti-aging properties of various foods, and the youth-retaining effects of certain behaviors.

Cheat the Clock uses Jim Pressler as a jumping-off point to explain how the aging process begins at the cellular level and offers concrete advice that anyone can use to slow down aging. It turns out the proverbial "good genes" don't play as large a role as the experts once thought. That makes Jim's experience worth sharing; he is living proof that by making the right small changes in diet and lifestyle, and by following the science, anyone can make a big difference in how young they look and feel over many years. Margaret's eye-opening reporting does not suggest the program of a fitness buff or a nutrition fanatic. Rather, she offers minor tweaks in diet, exercise, lifestyle, and personal care that are painless to adopt and achievable for anyone, but which can have a big payoff over time.

In Margaret's engaging style, Cheat the Clock shows the long-term rewards of gradually adopting easy new habits that focus on these crucial areas: exercise, anti-aging foods, antioxidants, sleep, stress, sex, aging (and anti-aging) behaviors, and more.