Hi Friend!
Remember Jim Morrison of the Doors? I remember conversations about "live in the moment", "let life take you wherever it takes you" and the contrarian philosophy of "plan for the future" stuff when I was in high school. The one thing that stood out to me about Jim Morrison was whatever happened to his shirt? Kidding.
No, the one thing that stood out to me was he sure had a lot of fun, but he died so young. How fun is that? Work hard, play hard, die young. That's not fun. Unless you have a terminal illness, in which case, go out with a bang.
Otherwise, eventually, you can overcome most of your struggles if you live long enough. You can get most any degree you choose if you keep showing up to classes, and you can achieve most other goals, if you keep showing up, so why not play the long game.
Who wouldn't want to live an extra 20 years, or at least know how they could live an extra 20 years longer than the norm for their gender?
Well, you already know most of the ways you could live longer and now there's new research done by Harvard using the Nurse's Health Study (n=78,865) and the Health Professionals Follow Up Study (n=44,354) that provided a scoring system for you to see where you stand. Dr. Tom Halton, first led me to this research with his newsletter summarizing the findings and that's the best place to review it because he made it simple. Pubmed is a good source for the abstract and here's the full research article for the science nerds out there.
5 Lifestyle Factors for A Long Life 1. Don't smoke cigarettes or quit asap! 2. Drink 2.5-7.5 alcoholic beverages per week (ladies) or 2.5 to 14.5 drinks per week for (fellas). 3. Have a BMI between 18.5-24.9.
4. Exercise 3.5hr/wk in a moderate to vigorous intensity. 5. Be in the top 40% of eaters who follow "a high consumption of vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, polyunsaturated fats and long chain omega 3 fatty acids and a low intake of red and processed meats, sugar sweetened beverages, trans fat and sodium" (Halton).
Scoring Each lifestyle category could earn as much as 1 point and a total of 5 points for all 5 categories. If you earned 5 out of 5, you were predicted to live 14 years longer for women and 12.2 years longer for men.
1. Cigarette Smoking. If you've never smoked cigarettes (less than 100 in your lifetime), give yourself a score of 1. If you've smoked in the past (more than 100) or currently smoke, give yourself a 0.
2. Alcohol drinking. If you drink 2.5 to 7.5 drinks per week for ladies and 2.5 to 14.5 drinks per week for fellas, you get a 1. If you don't fall into those ranges, score yourself a 0. Sadly for me, I'd get a 0 here because I don't drink this much, though I'm contemplating drinking the minimum because I could fit a minimum effective dose of 2.5 beverages into my 2 splurge meals, but I'm currently undecided.
3. BMI between 18.5-24.9. The strength & conditioning, sports performance and body building world, poo poo, the BMI because these athletes have a lot of muscle, so their body weights are naturally high, but there isn't long term research on athletes, their health, longevity and weight in the long run, so to be conservative, having a BMI in this range, has a track record of living longer and gets you a 1. If you're outside this BMI range, use 0. Find your BMI here.
4. Exercise 3.5hr/wk of moderate to vigorous intensity This is encouraging for myself, my clients and my boot camp members because we more easily check this box off between filling out our workout cards and hitting our cardio goals each week. If you get this amount, give yourself a 1. If not, 0.
5. Nutrition This one was less clear to me, and I did some digging here and here, and I'm not sure how to define more concretely who gets a 1 and who gets a 0, so if you eat "a high consumption of vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, polyunsaturated fats and long chain omega 3 fatty acids and a low intake of red and processed meats, sugar sweetened beverages, trans fat and sodium" (Halton), give yourself a 1 and if not, a 0.
How to Live An Extra 20 Years? The Harvard study did a refined analysis with even lower risks of associations between lifestyle and mortality and using a similar scoring system, came up with these ways to increase your chances of living up to 20 years longer than those who didn't meet any of this criteria.
5 Lifestyle Factors for An Extra 20 Years 1. Don't smoke cigarettes or quit asap! 2. Drink 2.5-7.5 alcoholic beverages per week (ladies) or 2.5 to 14.5 drinks per week for (fellas). 4. Exercise >6hrs/wk in a moderate to vigorous intensity. 5. Be in the top 20% of eaters, who follows "a high consumption of vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, polyunsaturated fats and long chain omega 3 fatty acids and a low intake of red and processed meats, sugar sweetened beverages, trans fat and sodium" (Halton).
1. Smoking. Same as before. Quit if you haven't. It'll increase your chances of living longer.
2. If you're already drinking alcohol, try to stay in the ranges (2.5-7.5 drinks/wk for ladies and 2.5 to 14.5 drinks for fellas). Maybe consider the lower end of 2.5 drinks / week, since theirs no difference in living longer whether you have 2.5 or 7.5f/14.5m. Then again, its probably a lot harder to have a low BMI and body weight if you're drinking a lot of alcohol, so if you're having trouble bringing down your weight, that might be a good place to start.
If you're not drinking, I don't know what to say, but I'm not going to tell you to start, so you're on your own with this one.
3. BMI. That's a tighter window to get in the 18.5 to 22.9 range. Possible, but tighter. If you need help making changes, you know where to find me.
4. Exercise 6+ hours per week of moderate to vigorous intensity. Most boot campers and clients easily hit this if they strength train 3x/wk and hit their cardio goal. If you strength train 2x/wk and only hit your cardio goal, not exceed it, you're just under the 6 hour mark. Consider exceeding your cardio goal and/or adding another strength training day to build this habit into your lifestyle to lead to a longer lived life.
5. Top 20% of Nutrition Eaters. This one, again is real vague to me, however, I feel confident the nutrition plan I present to you, will have you checking the top 20% box of any mass survey, being sent out to Americans, if you're following it, based on what resources have inspired its creation.
Its all very interesting and all very much intertwined. If you're planning on being here a long time, you may want to consider adopting these habits and building them into your lifestyle, to help ensure what you believe in your heart comes true.
Also, if you're going to choose a different way of living that may help you to live longer, there's a chance you may out live many people in your life. If you believe that to be true, here's something my grandfather said, that you may want to remember.
"Loneliness is the greatest poverty!" When my grandmother died, his heart broke and even though my dad, mom and 2 sisters lived 15 minutes away, my brother and I were in Boston and his 2 daughters lived on the west coast. It's not enough relationships to fill your day, when you see people weekly or biweekly. You need a lot more friendships, appointments, activities and work on your schedule to avoid feeling lonely when you have health, retirement funds and time on your side if you want to have fulfillment in the last part of your life.
So continually make friendships, especially with younger people.
Reflecting and internally refining my lifestyle and relationships,
Coach Mike
p.s. if I can help you with or help you better with your BMI, exercise, nutrition or even relationship building (we have a community of people practicing these lifestyle habits), reply and let me know. |
