Why?

I have always been interested in living a healthy lifestyle.
With that in mind: the amount of information available out there is overwhelming, often contradictory and, to make things worse - it seems that everyone is trying to sell you something.

Over here, I condense what I’ve learned in my journey in the hope that I will be able to reference it quicker / iterate on it in the future. The goal is to keep it to a minimal set of things that make sense and work for me.

Mandatory disclaimer:
This website captures my experiences and is intended to be helpful and informative.
I am not a medical doctor, and as such cannot diagnose or treat any medical issues.
Nothing you read here should be relied upon to determine dietary changes, a medical diagnosis or courses of treatment. Please talk to your health provider before you implement any changes that you read about here (and anywhere else for a matter of fact)

Pillars

When talking about health, micro-optimizations are interesting, but a solid base is way way more important than any optimization you want to try. I group this base into pillars of health. These are not optional.

1. Sleep

  • you need to have good quality sleep each night every night. The actual amount of sleep will vary from person to person, but a good place to start is 7h/night.
  • form a bedtime routine. A successful routine will include:
    • going to bed at the same time each day
    • not eating a few hours before
    • no screens 2 hours before sleep
    • take a hot bath 1-1.5 hours before bed
    • no caffeine after 2PM
    • drinking alcohol will impair the quality of your sleep - even if you think you are sleeping the quality will not be the same
    • try to avoid blue light if possible
  • you cannot outsleep a bad mattress. Yes, mattresses are expensive, but think about the fact that you’re spending roughly 1/3 of your time on this mattress, and all of a sudden expensive is relative.
  • the temperature of the room will have a big impact on your quality of sleep. Try to figure out a temperature that works for you and stick with it. For me, it’s 68F but different people like different temperatures, and, anecdotally, these also vary based on your demographic.

2. Food

  • stay hydrated. It’s one of the most important things when it comes to wellbeing, and a lot of issues can derive from lack of hydration (e.g., skin issues, kidney issues, making certain conditions worse). Drink water. Lots of it.
  • favor unprocessed food over processed food
  • favor organic food over conventional food. Yes, it’s more expensive, but there is a reason why it’s more expensive (i.e., harder to grow without the use of all those nasty chemicals)
  • favor raw food over cooked food when possible (and safe).
  • eat enough fiber. (>15g/day)
  • minimize sugar consumption - ideally, you would not eat sugar at all. Sugar is a potent drug that is not meant to be consumed daily. Our bodies love sugar because, at the time, they evolved sugar was extremely scarce, and it did represent an advantage. Nowadays no. Nowadays, if it was up to me, sugar would be a Schedule I drug.
  • minimize simple carb consumption. If you can get away with it, I would not eat bread/pasta (made with white flour - an in general anything made with white flour should be avoided), fruit juice, soda pop, packaged cereals, you get the idea.
  • favor complex carbs over simple carbs. Fruit and vegetables are a good example of this when consumed in moderation.
  • minimize alcohol consumption - apart from the social aspect, there is absolutely no upside to alcohol. It’s basically poison that will take its toll on your liver ie, your body’s central processing plant.
  • do not smoke. Period. Smoking shaves off 15% of your life. If you do smoke, I would like you to make it a priority to give up smoking
  • short list of foods that I frequently enjoy and consider them healthy:
    • blueberries and blackberries
    • oatmeal
    • beef - grass-fed and organic
    • salmon - wild caught
    • kidney beans
    • broccoli
    • milk - grass-fed and organic - max 1 glass per day
    • mushrooms
    • cheese
  • if possible, practice time-restricted eating, also known as intermittent fasting (I try to eat all my food in an 8-hour window - what’s called 16:8. There are multiple types of time-restricted eating. Experiment and figure out what works for you)

3. Exercise

  • you need to be active and to exercise if you want to live a long, disease-free life. it is literally the fountain of youth everyone is looking for - with the caveat that real work needs to be put in
  • exercise can improve your mood, help you lose weight, have more energy.
  • you will probably need to do both cardio and strength training.
  • some exercise is better than no exercise. the only thing that matters is that you make progress given enough time
  • pick a form of exercise that you enjoy. the more you enjoy it, the higher the likelihood that you’re going to stick with it.
  • err on the side of caution and avoid injuries. it does not really matter how much you can run or how much you can bench press if you’re going to injure yourself and make it impossible to keep working out.
  • adapt the exercises you do to your age.
  • pay a good personal trainer for starting up, course correction and feedback

4. Minimizing Stress

  • a certain level of stress can be beneficial for you both mentally and physically, and some would say stress itself is an evolutionary mechanism. That being said, the amount of stress we are subjected to nowadays is just ridiculous. Anything that you can do to minimize stress sustainably is worth doing.
  • do things that you enjoy doing. try to experiment and learn new things on an ongoing basis.
  • spend time cultivating social relationships, in person
  • shortlist of ideas worth looking into:
    • turn off all but essential notifications on your mobile device.
    • minimize the use of social networking websites/applications.
    • use the 10/10/10 rule when making decisions. Spoiler alert: in the grand scheme of things, very few things actually really matter. Focus on that insted of trying to do everything
    • experiment with meditation and mindfulness. Although they are pushed to make a quick $ nowadays, if you can cut through all the commercial BS, these practices can be life-altering and do wonders for your overall stress levels.

Method

The above advice sounds like a lot, and it’s not doable in one step. In fact, some of it may not even work for you. More important than the advice is the method you can apply to actually incorporate change into your life, your routine.

You only need to remember 3 things:

  • you have within you the power to substantially improve the quality of your life
  • you are doing this to improve your health - if you don’t believe that something is a net improvement don’t pick it up
  • you should only pick up things that you think you could do for the rest of your life. Shortcuts/diets/hacks/magic pills do not work in the long term, and they will probably do more damage than good.

It’s okay to incorporate things as slowly as you want. Predictability and continuous incremental improvements should be your goal.

Forward

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