Happy Days and Healthy Living with Cathy Silvers

 You might remember Cathy Silvers in her role as Jenny Piccalo, Joanie Cunningham’s boy crazy best friend on the ABC-TV series Happy Days. “This role was one of the best times in my life, I am humble and forever grateful for that opportunity,” she was gorgeous, wild and crazy and nothing has changed since she was 19 years-old. Ten seasons and a lifetime later, the Santa Clarita resident is taking life by the horns and living every day to the fullest. Author, mom of five, triathlete and healthy living enthusiast Cathy Silvers champions for the health of our community. “It upsets me to see people my age and younger unhealthy and unfit not utilizing their community to stay healthy.”
At 58, Cathy is the epitome of the saying, “age is just a number”. Every week you can catch her on a bike in the paseos, in the gym, hiking the trails or pushing herself in a triathlon. “I am a strong believer that health and fitness can be attained at any age, each week I bike 60 miles on the paseos and live at LA Fitness. My nick name there is ‘Beautiful Bad Ass’ because I hit it hard, my five kids say, ‘Mom, at 58 you are beautiful and ripped.’’’
With a vision for the future Cathy works to get our community on a healthier path, starting with skin cancer. ‘’No one should have to face cancer, people see me all the time in my ‘facekini’ but I never see anyone else wearing one.” For Cathy, every day is spent pushing her limits and enjoying all the outdoor activities our community has to offer. “In my life, I have every reason to look bad and be overweight but living in the SCV [Santa Clarita Valley] you can be as physically fit as you want to be, Towsley Canyon is like my home away from home and I make sure I get out there almost daily.”
Another passion for Cathy is mental health. To her, good mental health is very attainable no matter what you are going through. She follows a 12-step program and sticks to certified organic only foods because food can play a large role in the way you think and feel. “As part of my program I am taking up horseback riding in Aqua Dolce, and after my divorce I could choose to be miserable, but I live and breathe the program and stay on a living foods diet where my brain thrives on raw dairy and organic foods which are available in our valley” Life can be hard but leading a healthy, active lifestyle can make it eventful and happy. “The 12-step programs are the solution. I find and attend as many as possible, and I strongly encourage others to join me whether you have drinking, gambling, drug, sex or any form of problem please join me in a program.”
Cathy currently works as the Press Secretary for congressional candidate Courtney Lackey and is constantly improving and working towards a better community. “I have an enormous respect for people like Kim Hirano, Marlee Lauffer and the organizations that they run because through their efforts our community is thriving.” For years, Cathy has worked to get 12-step programs in the schools so, ”Our children can have a safe outlet to be seen and heard on a daily basis to become sounder human beings through these solution-based programs”. To many, the phrase 12-step is synonymous with drug and alcohol but “lets address the elephant in the room these programs are not just for alcohol and drug prevention but a conduit for children to learn about problem solving and coming to better solutions. In her latest venture, Cathy is working to get a healthy living wing in our community hospital. “I feel we would benefit greatly from something like this, a place where our community can go for vital information and services to prevent lifestyle related illnesses and disease.”
For Cathy life is what you make it and with the right routine ones’ life can be just that much happier. She states her greatest accomplishments were raising her five children and looks forward to watching them start their own families.

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