Why Hormesis is the Key to Your Health and Longevity

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

It turns out Nietzsche was right. 

This quote gets at the concept of hormesis (although with hormesis you see benefits well before approaching death!). 

Hormesis is when something is damaging or toxic in excess, but highly beneficial in smaller doses. 

We are learning that short-term acute “stress” has powerful health and longevity benefits (as long as the stress subsides at some point). 

For example, we have always known that exercise was good for us, but we weren’t exactly sure why. Hormesis is the likely explanation. 

If you intensely exercised all day, you would cause undo wear and tear on your body and eventually you would break down. But short bursts of exercise (i.e. high intensity interval training) stresses the body just enough to activate your survival genes. Once that stress response is engaged, your body will recover and build back even stronger than before. 

An obvious example is weightlifting. Lifting weights stresses your muscles, then they get sore and grow back bigger than your baseline. But lifting too much weight, too often, or at too high of an intensity can lead to serious injury. It is all about finding the right dose. 

When it comes to exercise, a dose of just 15 vigorous minutes per day can reduce the chance of death from a heart attack by 40% and all-cause mortality by 45%. 

In addition to exercise, here are several other scientifically-proven ways to benefit from hormesis:

Heat and Cold Exposure

Mild heat stress has therapeutic effects. The best example of this is sauna use.

Sauna use has actually been shown to mimic the effects of exercise in the body — causing increased core body temperature, sweating, and increased heart rate.  

And while extended exposure to extra-hot temperatures would be toxic, short periods yield tremendous benefit.

In fact, a large study in Finland identified strong links between sauna use and reduced death and disease. 

Men who used the sauna 2–3 times per week were 27% less likely to die from cardiovascular-related causes than men who didn’t use the sauna. And men who used the sauna 4–7 times per week were 50% less likely to die from cardiovascular-related causes. Additionally, frequent sauna users were found to be 40% less likely to die prematurely from any cause. 

Frequent sauna use has also been shown to reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease by 65% (again, the more days per week the better), lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation in the body, and alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression. 

The duration of each session need not be very long. You want to stick it out for around 20 minutes for maximum benefit (in a dry Finnish-style sauna heated at a temp of at least 174 degrees F), but much longer than that is not necessary or recommended.  

To amplify the benefits, you can do as the Finnish do and immediately plunge into ice cold water following the sauna session. This further stresses the cardiovascular system (but not to the point of posing a risk for healthy people). 

Cold immersion on its own has significant benefits. Being uncomfortably cold for short periods of time activates protective brown fat in the body and can lead to weight loss, improved immune function, and reduced feelings of stress and anxiety. 

You don’t want to get to the point of frostbite or hypothermia — a daily 5-minute cold shower can do the trick. Exercising in the cold is especially beneficial (try running outside in the winter or cold water swimming). Or if you are feeling especially committed, try the Wim Hof Method which combines cold therapy with breath work and mental conditioning. 

Eat Stressed Plants

We know that eating vegetables is healthy, but hormesis helps explain why. 

Longevity and anti-aging expert Dr. David Sinclair says eating stressed plants is one of the most powerful things we can do to extend lifespan. 

What does that even mean?

Well, plants can get stressed too. Whether from drought, fungal attack, or simply the threat of being eaten, plants are faced with many external stressors. But unlike us, plants are rooted to the ground and can’t run away to escape harm. 

Therefore plants produce a variety of chemicals to defend themselves. And when humans ingest these compounds, it protects us not only from the plant chemicals, but also the environmental stressors to which we are exposed on a daily basis, such as air pollution or overexposure to UV radiation. 

Plant-based compounds activate cellular protective mechanisms in humans, a phenomenon known as xenohormesis. 

Here is just a small sampling of specific foods and drinks to consume to see these benefits:

• Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, broccoli sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, and Brussels sprouts (which contain the compound sulforaphane)

• Dark Chocolate (which contains catechins)

• Green Tea and White Tea (which contains the polyphenol Epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG)

• Turmeric (which contains the chemical curcumin)

• Coffee (which contains chlorogenic acid)

• Red Wine (which contains resveratrol — although this one is controversial since the negative effects of alcohol could outweigh the small amount of resveratrol found in a glass of wine)

Hormesis is another reason why you want to eat organic fruits and vegetables (including wine), otherwise the beneficial stress compounds will be sterilized away. 

Fasting

When you aren’t eating stressed plants, try consuming nothing at all to put your body into a temporary state of nutritional adversity.

Extended malnourishment is not good, but smaller doses of calorie restriction is incredibly powerful for longevity.

The ideal fasting regimen appears to be a combination of daily time-restricted eating with a periodic prolonged fast (5 days appears to be optimal for a prolonged fast, done 1–4 times per year). 

For the daily time-restricted eating, you want to consume all of your calories within a maximum of 12 hours (for example, eating all of your meals between 8am and 8pm and fasting for the other 12 hours). Some people choose to extend the daily fast to 14 or 16 hours, most commonly by eating an early dinner and then skipping (or eating a late) breakfast the following day. 

Time-restricted eating has been shown to produce a number of beneficial health effects, including weight loss, improved heart function, and enhanced aerobic capacity, all without altering diet quality or quantity.

The prolonged fast is only done on a periodic basis (usually not more than once per quarter), which resets and rebuilds your body at the cellular level. I am a fan of Dr. Valter Longo’s 5-day Fasting Mimicking Diet, which gives you all the health benefits of a water-only fast while still allowing small amounts of food each day (It is advised to check in with your doctor before doing a multi-day fast, especially if you choose to do the water-only variety). 

Time-restricted eating along with a periodic prolonged fast make for a powerful combination. Think about time-restricted eating as daily maintenance for your body and a prolonged fast as your 6-month or annual checkup (similar to how you brush and floss your teeth daily and then visit the dentist 1–2 times per year). 

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Other more controversial triggers of hormesis include sun exposure and alcohol consumption.

UV Rays in excess cause sunburn and skin cancer, but small doses provide beneficial Vitamin D and sunbathers have actually been shown to live longer. Overall you still want to play it safe — a little bit of sun might be good for you, but you should wear protective sunscreen for any longer exposure. 

A similar principle applies to alcohol. Moderate drinking has been shown to have longevity benefits but excess alcohol consumption is undoubtedly toxic. 

Your best bet is to activate hormesis via exercise, eating stressed plants, cold and heat exposure, and fasting. 

Overall you want to put your body through short bursts of mild stress to live longer, better. 

This is a great reminder to get out of your comfort zone.

Andrew Merle writes about healthy living. Read more and subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

30 Anti-Inflammatory Foods You Should Be Eating

Inflammation is linked with nearly every major disease, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.

In fact, chronic inflammatory diseases are the most significant cause of death in the world.

We would therefore be smart to keep inflammation in check. But the Standard American Diet (SAD) — full of refined sugars and carbs, unhealthy oils, and processed food —promotes the excessive inflammation we’re trying to avoid.

It is hard to stay away from the toxic food that is all around us, but our health depends on it. This article is intended as a guide to the foods you should avoid — and more importantly to the great foods you can eat — to reduce inflammation in the body.

Although it can be very challenging, here are a few key principles for foods to avoid:

• Avoid foods with high fructose corn syrup and trans fats

• Avoid foods with added sugar and flour

• Minimize high heat cooking (above 375 degrees F) and avoid fried foods

• Stay away from unhealthy vegetable and seed oils, including corn oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, and sesame seed oil.

And now here is a list of 30 anti-inflammatory foods, herbs & spices, and supplements to enjoy:

Foods

1. Fatty fish (including salmon, sardines, herring, tuna, and mackeral)

2. Leafy greens (including spinach, kale, arugula, and collards)

3. Berries (including blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries)

4. Tea (including green tea, white tea, and herbal teas)

5. Shiitake mushrooms

6. Garlic

7. Cucumbers

8. Pineapple

9. Cherries

10. Dark chocolate

11. Extra-virgin olive oil

12. Flax seeds

13. Nuts (including walnuts and almonds)

14. Pumpkin seeds

15. Fermented foods (including sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, and miso)

Herbs & Spices

1. Ginger

2. Turmeric

3. Cinnamon

4. Cloves

5. Rosemary

6. Oregano

7. Allspice

8. Thyme

9. Sage

10. Marjoram

Supplements

1. Omega-3 EPA/DHA (from fish, krill, or algae oil)

2. Vitamin D3

3. Green Tea Extract

4. Curcumin

5. Garlic

If you focus your diet around these foods and still experience pain and inflammation, consider removing gluten and/or dairy to see if that helps. Additionally, nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, white potatoes) have been reported to cause inflammation in some people, and could be eliminated if all else fails (but otherwise should be eaten for their nutrition benefits).

I hope this list help you navigate your dietary choices to keep inflammation at bay.

Andrew Merle writes about healthy living. Read more and subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

4 Lifestyle Habits For A Longer Life

I am always looking for ways to maximize health and longevity.

There isn’t anything I can do about my genes, but research shows that only 20% of how long we live is dictated by genes, whereas the other 80% is dictated by lifestyle.

Therefore I am most interested in the lifestyle habits that lead to a long and healthy life.

Fortunately, one of the world’s leading longevity experts recently revealed his findings after 25 years of research on aging.

David Sinclair, PhD, is one of the world’s most renowned scientists, best known for discovering why we age and how to reverse it. Dr. Sinclair is a Professor of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School, and he has been named by Time magazine as “One of the 100 most influential people in the world” and among the “Top 50 People in Healthcare.”

In Dr. Sinclair’s new book Lifespan: Why We Age — and Why We Don’t Have To, he distills a quarter-century’s worth of research into some simple things we can do to live longer.

These tools and tactics are available to nearly everyone, regardless of age, location, or socioeconomic status.

1. Fasting

Calorie restriction is incredibly powerful for longevity.

“After 25 years of researching aging and having read thousands of scientific papers, if there is one piece of advice I can offer, one surefire way to stay healthy longer, one thing you can do to maximize your lifespan right now, it’s this: eat less,” says Dr. Sinclair.

You don’t need to constantly deprive yourself — even once-in-a-while calorie restriction yields tremendous health benefits.

Specifically, a periodic 5-day calorie-restricted diet called a Fasting Mimicking Diet has been shown to rebuild the body at the cellular level. The diet (developed by another top longevity expert, Dr. Valter Longo) calls for about 1100 calories on day one and 800 calories per day on days 2–5, consisting primarily of vegetable soups, low-sugar energy bars, and supplements.

People who completed this program once a month for a period of three months lost weight, reduced body fat, lowered blood pressure, and had lower levels of a hormone called IGF-1 (low levels of IGF-1 have been closely linked with longevity). An average person could complete this protocol 3–4 times per year and expect measurable anti-aging benefits.

There are other popular fasting methods these days, including skipping breakfast and having a late lunch (the 16:8 diet), eating 75% fewer calories for two days a week (the 5:2 diet), skipping food altogether for a couple days per week (Eat Stop Eat), or — on the more extreme end — not eating at all for an entire week each quarter, as longevity guru Dr. Peter Attia does.

“Over time, some of these ways of limiting food will prove to be more effective than others,” says Dr. Sinclair. “However, almost any periodic fasting diet that does not result in malnutrition is likely to put your longevity genes to work in ways that will result in a longer, healthier life.”

The earlier you start a fasting protocol the better, says Dr. Sinclair — perhaps after age 40, when molecular decline really starts to take effect.

Dr. Sinclair (who is 50) personally skips a meal or two each day, but that is primarily due to his busy schedule as opposed to a conscious effort. Lunch is the meal he skips most often.

2. Eat A Low-Protein, Vegetable-Rich Diet

When you do eat, you want to focus on vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, and limit meat, dairy, and sugar. That is the dietary pattern of centenarians in all of the Blue Zones, the places around the world where people live the longest.

Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash

“There isn’t much debate on the downsides of consumption of animal protein,” says Dr. Sinclair. Study after study has demonstrated that heavily animal-based diets are associated with high cardiovascular mortality and cancer risk.”

He says processed meats such as hot dogs, sausage, ham, and bacon are especially problematic, with hundreds of studies showing a link between these foods and colorectal, pancreatic, and prostate cancer.

That doesn’t mean you need to stay away from red meat altogether. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a plant-heavy diet, but they did consume some red meat and fish in moderation. But in general, you should opt for plant protein instead of animal protein if you want to live longer. Meat and dairy — and to a lesser degree chicken, fish, and eggs — all activate an enzyme in the body called mTOR, which is associated with shorter lifespan. Not surprisingly, it has been shown that vegetarians suffer lower rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer than meat eaters.

Dr. Sinclair recommends only eating animal protein when recovering from physical stress or injury. He personally eats mostly plants and avoids eating other mammals, but he will occasionally eat meat on days when he works out. He also minimizes consumption of sugar, bread, and pasta (he gave up desserts at age 40 but does steal tastes from time to time).

3. Exercise

Calorie restriction and eating a low-protein diet puts our bodies into a beneficial state of nutritional adversity, but Dr. Sinclair says physical adversity is also important to trigger our survival circuits and prolong longevity.

Exercise puts a productive level of stress on the body, shifting cells into survival mode and causing us to grow back stronger. People who exercise just 150 minutes per week — the equivalent of a half hour of jogging five days a week — have been shown to have aging markers that are 9 years younger than those who have a more sedentary lifestyle.

Another recent study showed that running just 4–5 miles per week — which can be achieved in less than 15 minutes per day for the average person — reduced the chance of death from a heart attack by 40% and all-cause mortality by 45%.

But not all exercise is created equal — intensity does matter. “It’s high-intensity interval training — the sort that significantly raises your heart and respiration rates — that engages the greatest number of health-promoting genes,” according to Dr. Sinclair.

He says you’ll know when you are doing this level of vigorous activity when it feels hard — your breathing will be deep and rapid at 75–80% of your maximum heart rate, you’ll be sweating, and you won’t be able to say more than a few words without pausing to catch your breath. This level of physical exertion activates the body’s defenses against aging but stops short of doing any permanent harm.

Dr. Sinclair’s personal exercise routine includes going to the gym most weekends for weight lifting and jogging. He also walks a lot throughout the day and takes the stairs whenever possible.

“Exercise turns on the genes to make us young again at a cellular level,” he says. “Would a combination of fasting and exercise lengthen your lifespan? Absolutely,” concludes Dr. Sinclair.

But there is still more we can do.

4. Cold/Heat Exposure

Exposure to uncomfortable temperatures is another proven way to activate your longevity genes.

When we are taken out of our temperature comfort zone, our survival response is engaged, causing changes in our breathing pattern, blood flow, and heart rate.

Specifically when we are uncomfortably cold, we activate protective brown fat in the body. In fact, it has become clear that calorie restriction has the effect of reducing core body temperature (it seems all our longevity mechanisms are linked).

Additional “cold therapy” can be achieved by simply going for a walk in a t-shirt on a cold winter day, leaving a window open overnight while you sleep, or taking a cold shower. In particular, exercising in the cold supercharges the production of beneficial brown fat.

But moderation is important. “Similar to fasting, the greatest benefits are likely to come for those who get close to, but not beyond, the edge,” says Dr. Sinclair. “Hypothermia is not good for our health. Neither is frostbite. But goose bumps, chattering teeth, and shivering arms aren’t dangerous conditions…and when we experience these conditions often enough, our longevity genes get the stress they need to order up some additional healthy fat.”

Heat exposure has benefits as well, but the way it works is less clear. We know that frequent sauna users have reduced rates of heart disease and premature death, but we don’t know exactly why.

“Either way, one thing is clear: it does us little good to spend our entire lives in the thermoneutral zone,” says Dr. Sinclair. “Our genes didn’t evolve for a life of pampered comfort.”

On days when he goes to the gym, Dr. Sinclair has a personal practice of hanging out in the sauna and then dunking in an ice-cold pool. He also tries to stay on the cool side during the day and when he sleeps at night.

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These 4 lifestyle habits — Fasting, eating a low-protein diet, exercise, and cold/heat exposure — all produce a mild kind of stress on the body that activates cellular defenses without causing too much damage.

It turns out that not all stress is bad — we just need to use it to our advantage.

These simple anti-aging practices are available to all of us today, regardless of where you live, how old you are, or how much money you make.

There are plenty of technological and pharmaceutical advancements on the horizon — and Dr. Sinclair details what’s coming in in his book — but we can get started with what’s in our control right now. There is only upside.

“Ten additional healthy years is not an unreasonable expectation for people who eat well and stay active,” says Dr. Sinclair.

I hope these tips help you achieve a life of prolonged health and vitality.

Andrew Merle writes about healthy living. Read more and subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

Eating, Fasting, and Exercising for Maximum Longevity

Dr. Valter Longo is arguably the world’s top longevity expert.

He has spent over 25 years conducting research on aging, nutrition, and disease all around the world. Dr. Longo is the Director of the Longevity Institute at USC in Los Angeles and the Director of the Longevity and Cancer Program at the IFOM Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan, Italy.

Last year he summarized his research in the international bestseller The Longevity Diet, which explores the science behind stem cell activation and regeneration to slow aging and optimize health.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Longo about what we can all do to maximize healthy longevity.

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Dr. Longo says it is possible to live to a healthy 100 (and beyond) and he recommends a three-pronged approach to achieve that objective. Dr. Longo’s protocol includes a daily longevity diet, a periodic five-day “Fasting Mimicking Diet,” and exercise. He says these are the three most important components for healthy longevity. Let’s break them down.

Daily Longevity Diet

The Daily Longevity Diet includes both what and how to eat on an everyday basis.

“The daily longevity diet is essentially a vegan plus fish diet,” Dr. Longo told me. He says that while it is possible to be vegan and healthy, many purely vegan diets end up in some type of malnourishment. Therefore small amounts of fish (no more than 2–3 times per week) are included for the Omega-3, vitamin B12, and protein content — all of which are hard to get in sufficient quantities in a 100% vegan diet.

The daily longevity diet is nutrient-rich, centering around vegetables and legumes (beans, chickpeas, etc.), plus nuts, olive oil, and whole grains. Protein intake is low but sufficient — about .35 grams of protein per pound of body weight (which comes to about 45 grams of protein per day if you weigh 130 pounds, 70 grams of protein per day if you weigh 200 pounds). Protein comes primarily from legumes and small amounts of fish, since other animal products (meat, poultry, eggs, cheese) are discouraged. Not surprisingly, sugar should also be minimized.

In terms of alcohol, Dr. Longo says small amounts (less than 5 drinks per week) have been shown to be neutral or perhaps even beneficial for health and longevity (although the potential benefits are minor). So alcohol in small quantities is allowed, but he says you should avoid alcohol altogether if cancer or another condition runs in your family for which alcohol is a high risk factor.

Overall, it is a sensible daily diet that closely resembles the Mediterranean Diet. But Dr. Longo’s recommendations also specify how much to eat and when.

Dr. Valter Longo

“I say it’s important to eat more,” says Dr. Longo. If you are eating the best stuff, he encourages you to load up during meal times. That’s because if you are eating a high-fiber diet filled with vegetables and legumes, then your stomach will become full without craving more food continuously throughout the day. “Lots of fiber is very important so you don’t get hungry,” he says. “You’re not going to be hungry two hours later because the stomach is still busy processing everything and so you don’t feel like eating right away.”

Dr. Longo says this is especially true if you are eating a pound of legumes per day, which is about the amount needed for a 150-pound person to get enough protein.

He also recommends eating within a 12-hour window each day (for example from 8am — 8pm) and fasting for the other 12 hours. “Eat for about 12 hours a day — not much shorter and not much longer,” he says. “There are negatives on both sides.”

If you fast much longer than 12 hours, Dr. Longo says that can lead to problems with gallstones and shorter lifespan. So if you are fasting for 16 or more hours each day (for example following the 16/8 Intermittent Fasting method), you should reconsider your approach. “If people fast too often they seem to live shorter, says Dr. Longo. “Fast too often meaning they do 16, 18 hours every day of fasting.”

This approach is especially problematic if you are skipping breakfast, which has become a popular trend among intermittent fasters. “People that skip breakfast live shorter,” Dr. Longo told me emphatically. He says this finding is surprising to many people in the longevity field, but study after study proves it out.

But eating all day and all night is also a problem. “The people that eat for 15, 16 hours a day, they also don’t do so well because they become overweight, obese, and they develop insulin resistance,” says Dr. Longo. So 12 hours on, 12 hours off seems to be the sweet spot.

For healthy people, Dr. Longo says 3 healthy meals per day plus a low-sugar snack is perfectly acceptable. People who are overweight or obese should consider replacing one of the meals with a snack. But the snack could still have lots of volume — for example, a big salad with olive oil would be an ideal snack (or smaller third meal) if somebody has weight problems.

That covers the fundamentals of the daily longevity diet, including what to eat, how much, and when.

The next pillar of longevity is a periodic 5-day dietary intervention called the “Fasting Mimicking Diet,” which resets and rebuilds the body at the cellular level.

Fasting Mimicking Diet

Dr. Longo first discovered the Fasting Mimicking Diet about 11 or 12 years ago when he was studying the effects of fasting in combination with chemotherapy for cancer patients. That combination proved to be very beneficial, but adherence was low. The patients did not want to do a water-only fast, and the oncologists didn’t want their patients to fast.

But through this process Dr. Longo learned what the fasting was doing at a cellular level, and he set out to develop a system to fool the cells into entering a fasting-response mode while still allowing the patient to eat. That’s how the Fasting Mimicking Diet was born. It has all of the benefits of fasting, without the suffering.

From a practical standpoint, the Fasting Mimicking Diet is a periodic 5-day calorie-restricted diet. It is 100% vegan, low in protein, low in sugar, and high in good fats. You consume about 1100 calories on day 1, and then about 800 calories per day on days 2–5.

The specific foods you eat include vegetable and grain-based soups, kale crackers, olives, nut-based bars, Algal Oil (rich in Omega-3), vitamin and mineral supplements, as well as drinks and teas (Hibiscus, Spearmint, etc.) that mimic what the body produces naturally during fasting. You can order ready-made kits from Dr. Longo’s company ProLon (Dr. Longo donates 100% of his profits to charity and research).

The specific ingredients included in the Fasting Mimicking Diet have been shown to promote beneficial bacterial growth. “The microbiota — the positive, protective bacteria that we have in the gut — is greatly altered by these cycles of the Fasting Mimicking Diet,” says Dr. Longo. This is not the case with water-only fasting, so Dr. Longo suspects it is the prebiotic content of the diet that feeds the good bacteria and allows that good bacteria to clear out the bad bacteria.

The Fasting Mimicking Diet appears to cause what Dr. Longo calls multi-system generation.

“What happens if you shrink an organism and then you re-expand it?,” Dr. Longo questioned. “What seems to happen — and we’ve shown it over and over and over — is that when you shrink it, you get rid of lots of junk. Bad cells, damaged cells, damaged cellular components. And then when you re-expand, you utilize stem cells and other templates to rebuild. And when you rebuild, you rebuild younger or brand new.”

It is a powerful dietary intervention that works in combination with the healthy daily longevity diet.

In terms of how often to do the 5-day Fasting Mimicking Diet, that depends on your baseline level of health. If you are young, eat a perfect diet, and exercise regularly, you might only need to do the Fasting Mimicking Diet once a year. But that’s if you are doing everything exactly by the book. If you eat pretty well and are generally healthy, then maybe twice a year is appropriate. But for most people — especially those with slightly elevated cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting glucose — 3 or 4 times per year is recommended.

Dr. Longo says a healthy person can do the Fasting Mimicking Diet without medical supervision, but if you have an existing disease or medical condition, it is best to consult with your doctor before beginning the protocol.

Exercise

Let’s get this out there right away — Nutrition is the most important factor for longevity. Exercise is a distant 2nd.

“I would say exercise is very far away from nutrition in terms of longevity,” says Dr. Longo. “This is very clear from animal studies that diet is really superior.”

The important thing regarding movement seems not to be exercise, but routine physical activity. Dr. Longo points out that centenarians and people with record longevity (for example, in the Blue Zones) do not consciously exercise. But they are very physically active — growing gardens, walking, dancing, going up and down stairs, and moving naturally all throughout the day. “Lots of physical activity — I think that’s essential,” says Dr. Longo.

He urges people to walk everywhere possible and always take the stairs — a simple and practical recommendation that can make a tremendous difference in your life. “If you live 30 minutes away from your work and every day you just do that, you’re already 80% of the way there,” says Dr. Longo. “And if you just go up the stairs 300 or 400 steps a day, that’s already very good.”

The data shows that dedicated exercise does provide some additional benefit as well. “If you look at the meta-analysis, the epidemiological studies, it seems that exercise can make things a little bit better and reduce mortality further, in addition to physical activity,” says Dr. Longo. “So absolutely it is good.”

Dr. Longo recommends 150 minutes of exercise per week. And he says some of that (10–15%) should be vigorous, really pushing yourself. Bursts of intense exercise seem to be very beneficial to the body, perhaps because the body gets stressed and slightly damaged, and then re-builds stronger (similar to the process that takes place during fasting).

At the end of the day — between routine physical activity and dedicated exercise — Dr. Longo says a good goal is 10,000 steps and 20 flights of stairs. Your cell phone keeps a record of these totals, so it is a good practice to check and track how you are doing.

Dr. Longo’s Personal Routine

“My personal routine is pretty much what’s in the book,” Dr. Longo told me.

He eats a small breakfast, starting his day with tea and bread with low-sugar jelly. He then doesn’t eat anything until lunch.

For lunch, he often eats two courses — for example, a big salad with anchovies, followed by roasted or steamed calamari. He eats all of that along with bread or pasta.

Dr. Longo spends close to half the year in Milan and confessed that when he’s in Italy, he tends to gain a little bit of weight. When he starts to put on unwanted weight, he adjusts his lunch accordingly. “If I’m in weight gain mode, then I remove for sure the bread or the pasta for lunch,” he told me. “But I also oftentimes remove the second course.”

For dinner, he eats just about the same thing every day. He has a big dish that is filled with legumes, vegetables, and small amounts of starches. For example, the dish might have 10 ounces of chickpeas, 4 ounces of mixed vegetables, and only 2 ounces of pasta.

And then he has multiple variations of that meal. For example, the chickpeas and mixed vegetables might be swapped out for beans and broccoli. So there is a little bit of variety, but these rotations always follow the same nutritional profile.

This high-fiber diet keeps him full between meals and he typically only has one snack during the day. “Usually I have dark chocolate — like 85% dark chocolate — as a snack,” he said.

As for exercise, he does 40 minutes every other day on his home exercise bike. He puts it on the steepest uphill setting, making it hard to pedal, and then he turns up the intensity for about 4–6 minutes of the workout. On the weekend, he might go outside for a run or bike ride, but his home exercise bike is most convenient during the busy work week.

When in Milan, he also walks 45 minutes each way to work, and he never takes an elevator anywhere.

My Personal Takeaways

Dr. Longo is undoubtedly one of the leading experts in the field of health and longevity. He lays out a very sound plan grounded in 25 years of science and data. I am confident that following his protocol would result in a longer and healthier life.

As for me, I have been a habitual exerciser for much of my life. So I already more or less follow his exercise recommendations. And I eat pretty well — although I am certainly not perfect, and there have been periods in my life when my diet was not so great. Going forward, I will do my best to follow Dr. Longo’s Vegan/Pescatarian daily diet — but I am sure I will cheat and have the occasional burger and fries. Not to mention some potato chips and dessert.

That’s why I think the Fasting Mimicking Diet intervention could really be a game-changer. Very few people eat a perfect diet every single day, and some of the joy in life is eating indulgent foods. But if you can eat a good overall diet and then essentially reset and renew your body with the Fasting Mimicking Diet, that is a very enticing proposition.

I plan to try my first Fasting Mimicking Diet next month. I will report back with my experiences.

Until then, I hope you have found Dr. Longo’s recommendations helpful and applicable to your own life.

Andrew Merle writes about healthy living. Read more and subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

To Best Heal the Body, You Have to Heal the Mind

Dr. Sanjay Gupta has experienced all sides of the global health system.

As a practicing neurosurgeon, Dr. Gupta has been a member of the western medicine system for over 25 years.

He is also the Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN, and since 2001 has covered the most important health stories in the United States and around the world.

Dr. Gupta has also long been in search of the secrets to living life to the fullest. This quest recently took him to the longest-lived and happiest cultures around the globe — far-flung locations across Turkey, Japan, Italy, Norway, India, and Bolivia — for the CNN Original Series “Chasing Life.”

I recently talked with Dr. Gupta about the keys to health and longevity, based on all of his learnings from medicine, journalism, and experiences around the world.

…

Dr. Gupta is a big champion of the medical advances that have taken place in the United States, but he is concerned about the current health trends.

“The United States is the only country in the developed world to have decreases in life expectancy three years in a row,” he told me. “Nowhere else in the developed world has that happened, and it hasn’t happened in the United States for 100 years.”

Dr. Gupta points out that the problem is mostly self-inflicted — driven by drug overdoses, suicides, and liver cirrhosis from alcoholism.

“These are called the ‘deaths of despair’ because there seems to be a psychological stress that’s really driving this,” he says. “So we can focus on the big-budget heart disease therapies and cancer therapies — and we should continue to do that — but until we deal with the psychological stress that is pretty unique to Americans, it’s going to be very hard to make progress in terms of life expectancy overall.”

Dr. Gupta has seen first-hand that other countries are doing a better job protecting against these psychological stresses. In fact, the one commonality he found across all of the healthiest and happiest societies — the ones outliving Americans — is the presence of true social connection.

Dr. Gupta acknowledges that the idea of social connection is a bit of a soft concept, but he says social bonds are critical for health and vitality. “I think for many people, especially in the United States where rugged individualism is sort of the mantra, you see social time as a luxury,” Dr. Gupta told me. “In places where you actually invest in people being social, that ends up being really protective against many of the toxic stressors I was talking about.”

Prioritizing social connection over individual achievement is a good first step toward fixing what ails us. Next, I wanted to dig deeper into other major pillars of health — specifically diet and exercise.

…

Dr. Gupta has studied the medical literature and seen diet and exercise routines from around the globe, so I wanted to know what he practices in his own life.

As it relates to diet, he said healthy eating really comes down to two basic things. “Eat a plant-based diet as much as possible and avoid added sugar,” he says.

As Dr. Gupta approaches his 50th birthday, and with a family history of heart disease, those are the two main dietary rules he now follows (which requires some discipline since he confesses to having a bit of a sweet tooth).

Credit: CNN

He is also a big proponent of intermittent fasting. “And I’m not talking about a day at a time,” he says. “I’m talking about a few days at a time where you’re doing very low calories.” That can mean only 300 calories a day plus water for several days in a row.

Dr. Gupta says this type of fasting creates a sort of evolutionary pattern in your body — your young cells become more likely to survive and reproduce, and your old and low-performing cells tend to die away. The result is a greater percentage of cells in your body that are young and productive.

He says this whole process actually feels quite good. “At day two of intermittent fasting, when all of the sudden your body starts producing brand new young stem cells to replace the old poor-performing cells, people almost universally describe that as euphoric,” he told me. You might think a multi-day, low-calorie fast would be highly uncomfortable, but Dr. Gupta says it is just the opposite.

Dr. Gupta is also a habitual exerciser — and his exercise routine is also built around two primary principles. The first is engaging in some form of exercise every day. As a triathlete, Dr. Gupta engages in cardio and high-intensity interval workouts focused on running, swimming, and biking. But he also includes resistance training as an important part his routine.

His other big exercise rule is simply to avoid sitting whenever possible. “Any time you’re about to sit, ask yourself if you really need to,” he advises. Dr. Gupta says sitting for long periods of time disables the body’s natural defense mechanisms. The body is essentially sent a signal that it can shut down and stop working. Dr. Gupta points out, “If you look at many societies, it’s just old people who sit. Young people are either lying sleeping or they’re standing and walking.”

It’s pretty simple — If you want to age fast, take a seat. If you want to stay young, get up and move around. “Moving naturally throughout the day is not a particularly hard thing to do,” says Dr. Gupta. “It’s how we humans were designed to move.”

Dr. Gupta also says sleep has become a larger priority in his life — especially as he has gotten older — and he uses trackers to objectively measure and monitor his sleep. “I’ve noticed more than before if I don’t sleep well, I pay the price in terms of productivity the next day,” he says.

…

Putting it all together, I asked Dr. Gupta to share the No. 1 thing he recommends people do to age well and live their best life.

As he thought about his answer, he started envisioning a future in which diet, exercise, and sleep will be personalized and optimized on an individual basis. For example, while he thinks his diet and exercise routine is a good one, he acknowledges that it may not be perfect for everybody. But in the future, Dr. Gupta thinks artificial intelligence and other technology will yield programs tailored to the specific needs of each individual. Until then, he says it’s important to simply get the basics right in terms of diet, exercise, and rest.

And that’s when he arrived at his No. 1 recommendation.

“Ultimately, what’s always still going to be within our control is how we take care of our minds,” Dr. Gupta told me. “I believe that in order to best heal the body, you have to heal the mind.”

Truly dedicating time to healing the mind on a regular basis — much in the way that we would heal a broken bone or an ill-functioning heart — is Dr. Gupta’s top piece of advice.

Credit: CNN

And he says healing the mind and fighting back against psychological stress is much easier than people realize. “Even simple things like truly practicing gratitude changes your mind so rapidly and effectively that I think everything else follows from that,” he says.

Dr. Gupta says his daily gratitude practice has positively changed his life more than any other habit.

His gratitude practice includes writing — actually putting pen to paper every morning. Instead of immediately reaching for his phone first-thing, he pulls out his journal from the closet. And then he just spends five minutes writing. “It’s a combination of things that I want to do that day, but also all the things I’m grateful for from the day before,” he told me.

“It takes five minutes. My brain is different — I can tell you — at the end of those five minutes than before.”

…

Taking care of your body is important, but the true secret to health and longevity is taking care of your mind.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

The Real Secret of Brain Health

Dr. John Ratey has studied the brain for more than 40 years.

As a psychiatrist, he has always been interested in how we can make our brains function better. And while he appreciates the magic of modern medicine, he has found that lifestyle factors have the most profound effects on the brain.

In particular, he has found that exercise is the No. 1 thing we can do for brain health.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Ratey last week at his office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to learn more about the effects of exercise on the brain, and what we can all do in our own lives to reap the benefits.

…

Dr. Ratey grew up as a competitive junior tennis player in Pennsylvania and competed in the US Nationals, so he was exposed to the power of sports and exercise from an early age.

And he was always fascinated by the brain, earning his first job out of college at Harvard’s Massachusetts Mental Health Center (MMHC).

But it wasn’t until attending the University of Pittsburgh Medical School in the ’70s that he really began to understand the causal link between exercise and brain health.

During that time, he learned about a hospital in Norway that was offering depressed patients to take either antidepressants or participate in an exercise program three times a day. Remarkably, both groups got better at the same rate.

That really piqued Dr. Ratey’s interest and he started to more closely follow exercise in the medical literature. His focus turned to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) when he learned about a Boston Marathon runner who developed symptoms of ADD after a knee injury forced him to stop running. The runner went to see Dr. Ratey and was put on ADD medication. However, after his knee was rehabbed and he was back training again, it was determined the medication was no longer necessary. That was back in 1982.

Dr. John Ratey

Since that time, Dr. Ratey has established himself as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the brain-fitness connection. He has written numerous bestselling books, including the groundbreaking ADD-ADHD Driven to Distraction series, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, and Go Wild. He is currently a clinical associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

…

Today, people have become much more aware of the effects of exercise on the brain.

Dr. Ratey said public interest in this topic really took off in the mid ’90s and it’s never stopped.

“Today we just know so much more about what exercise does,” Dr. Ratey told me. “It is simply incredible how powerful it is for the brain. Forget about its effect on blood pressure, sugar loads, weight, buffing you up, all that. That’s a given. But the effect on your brain is amazing.”

The health and wellness boom over the last decade, and related media coverage, has exploded our awareness of what exercise can do to improve mood, anxiety, stress, learning, creativity, and motivation. Dr. Ratey said exercise is also the No. 1 weapon to prevent against brain erosion (including dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease), cancer, and inflammatory disorders.

…

Most people already know about the benefits of exercise by now, so I wanted to ask Dr. Ratey to prescribe the perfect type of exercise for the brain.

“The best exercise is something that you enjoy, with someone, done outside, in nature, and something that you’ll come back to,” he told me.

He said the ideal exercise is something that will get your heart rate up and force you to use your brain. You have to pay attention when you’re outside, which is why a trail run is much better than running on the treadmill, for example (Dr. Ratey has the trail running injuries to prove the concentration required).

But I was a bit surprised when he went on to discuss the ultimate exercise for the brain.

“I always tell people, the best exercise probably that you can do is dance,” said Dr. Ratey.

He did qualify that he meant vigorous dance that gets your heart rate up, not just flailing around. The reason dance is so powerful for the brain is because you have to practice and mentally focus on the right movements. Additionally, you have to follow music, and often stay in rhythm with a partner or group. All of that puts an incredible demand on your brain.

“The more demand on the brain — it’s just like the more demand on your muscles — the more you’re going to build,” said Dr. Ratey.

In terms of cardiovascular exercise, Dr. Ratey is a huge fan of high-intensity interval training. “The more demand on your cardiovascular system, the better it’s going to be,” he said.

He also highly recommends squash. “That’s an incredible game,” he said. “High-intensity, probably the best aerobic workout I can think of.”

…

So does Dr. Ratey follow his own advice?

Best practices are fine, but I wanted to know what he actually does in his own life.

“My routine has always been to stay very active,” he said.

Dr. Ratey has always had a habit of exercising in the morning. He has found the cognitive and emotional benefits of morning exercise stick with him long after the workout has finished.

He was an avid squash player for 30 years until a shoulder injury caused him to stop most racket sports. But even when he was a serious squash player, variety was always paramount.

In those early days, he would supplement his squash by going to the gym in the morning for weight training and a treadmill or elliptical workout. He was even one of the earliest adopters of the StairMaster, keeping one in his house (“We were animals on it!” he told me).

These days he does a lot of walking and running. On the day of our conversation, Dr. Ratey had gone for a morning run around the Charles River in Cambridge, and he was signed up to run a 5K over the weekend.

He also has a personal trainer come to his house twice a week for weight training. Although Dr. Ratey still does most of the exercises on his own, the trainer helps prevent injuries.

Dr. Ratey also spends a lot of time in Los Angeles with his wife, and they routinely start their west coast days with a morning 1.5 hour hike.

He and his wife have always been serious exercisers. Even their vacations are chock full of physical activity.

“Our ideal vacation is a place we go to called Rancho La Puerta, where you get up at 6am with a group of people,” he said, telling me the full group can be as large as 150 people. “And we climb a mountain for 2 or 3 hours in the desert in Mexico. And come down. And then every hour on the hour during the day there is another exercise activity you can participate in — yoga, tai chi, dance, spinning, the gym, circuit training.”

That’s Dr. Ratey’s perfect vacation. So you get the idea about the role exercise plays in his life.

…

Putting it all together, I wanted to see what recommendations Dr. Ratey has for all of us to preserve our brains as we age.

“The secret of brain health in general is knocking down inflammation,” he said.

There are a number of ways to decrease inflammation, but he says exercise tops the list. “It’s the No. 1 recommendation for cancer treatment,” he said. “No. 1 is exercise. After obviously treating the cancer. But why? Because it boosts the immune system so greatly.”

After that, you have diet. Dr. Ratey says diet is probably as important as exercise, especially as we learn more about the microbiome and what food does to our body and our brains.

“I recommend to my patients and to everyone, limit your carb intake,” he said. “Especially processed food, which has mainly carbs in it.” He also advises to keep sugar levels in check, and to get sufficient protein and vitamins from your food (not from a pill).

One diet trend Dr. Ratey believes could have a beneficial impact is a daily fast — not eating from dinner the night before until lunch the next day. Most people say you can’t miss breakfast, but “Yes, you can,” says Dr. Ratey. “Because fasting is a way of stressing the body and stressing the brain in a very non-toxic way. And when you stress the body and the brain, you build it.”

Finally, Dr. Ratey stresses the importance of social connection for brain health. He said our addiction to electronic devices is stealing from our face-to-face human interaction with other people (not to mention, causing sleep deprivation which has negative health effects — Dr. Ratey doesn’t allow any screens in his bedroom). The addictive nature of screens is arguably the biggest problem in today’s world, according to Dr. Ratey. But exercise can be a very powerful antidote — especially exercise that fosters social bonding.

That’s why he is a huge proponent of joining a club or group exercise classes. He cited the amazing social networks (real, human social networks) that are built at fitness groups like Orangetheory and CrossFit. He said clubs like that bring together a wide mix of people who form genuine friendships around the common goal of improving their exercise. “A big part of the magic there is how the connection makes everything better,” said Dr. Ratey.

…

Exercise. Diet. Social Connection.

With the major boxes checked, I asked Dr. Ratey if he had any final tips for brain health and longevity.

That’s when he was reminded of how a spry 92-year-old once answered that question:

“Sex!”

Of course, it probably helps to have a good sense of humor in the long run as well.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

How to Achieve Optimal Brain Health

The issue of brain health is personal for Max Lugavere.

Without any prior family history of neurological disease, Max’s mother suddenly started showing symptoms of dementia at just 58 years old.

Max’s mother had always been a high-performer — as a mom to her three young boys and as a business entrepreneur.

“It was a shock to the family, and it was something we faced with disbelief, because this was the first time any kind of mental cognitive challenge reared its head in my family lineage,” Max told me when we chatted by phone last week.

After the symptoms appeared, Max then accompanied his mother from doctor visit to doctor visit, where she was put through a battery of tests that did not yield conclusive answers or treatment plans.

Eventually she was diagnosed with an official neurodegenerative condition and prescribed drugs for both Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease.

But at that point, Max had become disillusioned with how the medical system was prepared to treat a complex condition such as dementia. He was not satisfied just to have his mother take these “biochemical band-aids,” and so he set out on his own to see if there was a better way.

…

With a background in journalism, Max was accustomed to doing rigorous research and not accepting facts at face value.

He was determined to find out if there was anything that could be done to slow or improve his mom’s symptoms. And of course he became very interested in prevention so as to not suffer the same fate.

Max started by consuming a lot of information on his own — reading books, watching TED Talks, digging into PubMed, and focusing on the most credible peer-reviewed medical literature.

Once he had a foundational knowledge in place, he reached out to the top researchers in the field — the ones focused on lifestyle and dietary interventions for the management and prevention of cognitive disorders. He built relationships with these leading researchers and visited with them at their labs. As these relationships deepened, Max became one of the researchers himself.

In the years since, Max has established himself as one of the foremost experts in brain health. He has lectured at top academic research institutions and continuing medical education courses, co-authored a peer-reviewed textbook chapter used by clinicians for dementia prevention, directed and produced a documentary about the impact of diet and lifestyle on brain health, and last year released the New York Times bestselling book Genius Foods.

…

Max has made it his life mission to learn everything he can about brain health and performance. Although his mom passed away last year, Max knows it is not too late to protect his own brain, and to help others do the same.

Much of Max’s research has centered around food, which plays a critical role in brain health in two key areas.

The first is ensuring the brain maintains plasticity as it ages. That basically means the brain’s ability to change, grow, and form new connections.

Max says one of the best ways to achieve this is by feeding the brain a healthful array of fats. Specifically, the brain really needs omega-3 fatty acids. The two crucial ones are DHA and EPA. “If you start eating wild salmon, pasture-raised beef, and omega 3-enriched eggs, you are pretty much checking off those boxes,” according to Max. You don’t need omega-3s in especially large quantities.

The brain also needs omega-6 fats, but the modern Western diet is already filled with those, and therefore it doesn’t require a conscious effort.

The second primary component of brain health is the brain’s ability to defend against the many stresses of modern life.

“Today one of the problems in the modern world is that our brains are being attacked from every angle,” says Max. “We’ve got a depleted food supply, we’re under-slept, we’re chronically stressed, we’ve got bright lights attacking our circadian inclinations at all hours of the day, we’re more sedentary than ever before, and we’re confronted with countless toxic chemicals in our food supply, our water, and in the air. Our bodies are strong and resilient and adaptable, but they can only contend with so much.”

We can help protect our brains against these stresses by not consuming an overabundance of omega-6 fatty acids (found in grain and seed oils in most packaged foods, including safflower, sunflower, canola, corn, and soybean oils), which can trigger inflammation in the body.

We also want to get enough fat-soluble antioxidants, such as Vitamin E which has been correlated with reduced risk for developing Alzheimer’s Disease (foods high in Vitamin E include avocados, almonds, sunflower seeds, and spinach).

Phytochemicals also work to protect our brain cells. Max is a big fan of carotenoids such as lutein and zeaxanthin (found in dark leafy green vegetables such as kale, spinach, and broccoli), and astaxanthin (found in marine animals and algae). Cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli, cabbage, and radishes) also help protect the brain over time and stimulate the body’s detox pathways.

…

With these overarching principles in place, I wanted to dig into how Max actually eats on a daily basis.

He told me that he builds his diet around three core components: Greens, cruciferous vegetables, and high-quality protein.

He makes a point of eating a large salad every day. “The consumption of a big bowl of dark leafy greens every day is associated with reduced cognitive aging by up to 11 years,” Max told me. He makes sure to include a serving or two of cruciferous vegetables every day, such as broccoli and Brussels sprouts.

“And then also I am a big fan of proteins — grass-fed beef, wild salmon, chicken,” says Max. “I am a huge fan of properly-raised meat. I think that grass-fed beef is a health food, a superfood even.”

He says protein is important for several reasons. Protein is required to supply the building blocks for our brain’s neurotransmitters. Protein also helps to support the maintenance and growth of lean muscle mass, which is especially important as we get older. “There is a relationship between muscle strength and brain health,” Max says.

And protein is also valuable because it is the most satiating macronutrient. When we eat more protein, we tend to eat less carbs and harmful fats. Therefore Max prioritizes protein — along with fibrous vegetables — at every single meal.

He also eats organic as much as possible, because research shows organic foods tend to be more nutrient-dense and safer from pesticides and certain heavy metals.

Max adheres to a low carb diet, but he will eat starches such as sweet potatoes during times when he is especially physically active. In general, he avoids all grains. “Not because I think grains are toxic or anything like that — they are just not particularly nutrient-dense,” he said (although he strongly discourages the consumption of any grains for people who are pre-diabetic or diabetic).

When Max is on the road or eating out at restaurants, he doesn’t stress about being perfect — he does his best and leaves it at that. That might mean ordering a piece of farm-raised salmon along with some sautéed vegetables, even if he has no idea what oil they’re using.

When he’s flying, occasionally he’ll just fast, but other times he can get by with nuts and some beef jerky.

…

Max acknowledges that nutrition is a polarizing topic.

“We have all these factions in the nutrition world,” he said. “We have zealots on the keto side, on the vegan side, on the paleo side. The reality is that the truth is always going to be somewhere in the middle.”

Although Max sees the merits of certain aspects of the keto and paleo diets — and stresses the importance of healthy fats for the brain — he is not one of the high-fat fanatics pouring coconut oil and butter on everything.

And while he eats a plant-rich diet, he is anything but a vegan.

“Everybody has their own point of view, and mine is that you really just want to eat real food in as close to its natural state as possible,” he says.

…

To close our conversation, I asked Max to distill all of his learnings into the No. 1 thing people should do for optimal brain health. Since Max is the author of a book called Genius Foods, I was expecting a food-related response. But after thinking about it, he went in a slightly different direction.

“If I had to make one single recommendation, it would probably be to exercise,” he said. Exercise is so important — it is so critical both for brain health, but also for mental health.”

He said that exercise is an incredibly potent weapon to fight depression, anxiety, and cognitive impairment. And while he is a fan of certain types of aerobic exercise, he thinks resistance training (weight lifting) is underrated and probably the most important.

“I think it’s really important to be strong, and robust, and resilient, and vigorous — and resistance training is just a great way to achieve that,” said Max. “Most of the research centers around aerobic exercise, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see and hear more about the value of resistance training for the brain in the years to come.”

…

There is no doubt that our brains and bodies are bombarded with stresses in today’s world.

With these dietary and lifestyle recommendations, Max is helping all of us to fight back.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

Healthy Living Interview Series

Hi everyone,

Recently I have been trying to connect with as many people as possible who share my passion for health and wellness. 

One of those people is Carlie Scharing, who has her Masters of Science in Kinesiology and is the owner of Body by Carlie personal training. 

Like me, Carlie believes that we were born to move, and she encourages people to do whatever workout they enjoy as long as it keeps them active. 

My go-to daily workout is a morning run, but I realize that isn’t for everyone.  The key is finding something you like and can stick with over time. 

Carlie has been seeking advice from experts all over the globe (including me!) to spread the message of healthy living and how simple it can be to lead a healthy lifestyle. 

This free interview series is now complete, featuring stories and tips from doctors, master trainers, fitness authors, wellness specialists, and more.

Here is the link to access the content, including my interview with Carlie.  It is totally free so give it a listen. 

Hope you enjoy!

Andrew

The Solution to Make America Physically Active

In the places around the world where people live the longest, they don’t actually pursue health.

They live longer because health ensues from the right environment.

That is according to Dan Buettner, Blue Zones founder and National Geographic fellow, who has spent the last 15 years studying the five places around the world — dubbed Blue Zones — where people live the longest (into their 100s) and are healthiest: Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California.

I had a chance to catch up with Buettner earlier this week, and he told me that in all five Blue Zones, people do not proactively exercise or seek health. Instead, physical activity just happens naturally as a result of their surroundings.

In the Blue Zones — just like in the US — Buettner says people go to work, over to their friends’ houses, out to eat, and get their kids off to school.

But in the Blue Zones — unlike most places in America — those daily commutes all represent occasions to walk. Residents of the Blue Zones are also known to grow gardens in their yard, and their houses are not full of mechanical conveniences. All of this means that these longest-lived cultures have made a habit of moving naturally every single day. And they don’t even think about it.

Compare that to the US, where 73% of people say they need to be more active and over 60% describe their lifestyle as sedentary. We typically address this issue by urging people to hit the gym or sign up for a 5K. But focusing on individual responsibility does not drive behavior change at a population level, according to Buettner.

“It is absolute delusion to think that we can convince 330 million Americans — three quarters of whom have already admitted they are not doing enough physical activity — to start exercising more,” says Buettner. “We have been trying this for 70 years and we still have 70% of Americans who are obese or overweight. It is not working.”

He acknowledges that a small percentage of people have the discipline and focus to stick with an exercise routine for 30 or 40 years to see the long-term health benefits. But for most Americans, Buettner believes the secret is living in an environment that empowers them to move mindlessly. “I think the answer is designing our cities for human beings,” he says.

Unfortunately most American cities over the last 70 years have been designed only with cars in mind — with high speed limits and wide lanes for cars, but no sidewalks, bike lanes, or green spaces for people. As a result, people are driving more and walking less. Buettner points out over 50% of American children walked to school in 1970. Today that number is about 10%.

There are, however, certain places in the US that are getting it right — Boulder, Colorado; San Luis Obispo, California; and Portland, Oregon, to name a few. In those locations, Buettner says people are measurably healthier with an extra 20 years of life expectancy over places like Tallahassee, Florida.

Photo by Alesia Kazantceva on Unsplash

Buettner and his team at Blue Zones have personally worked with dozens of US cities over the last decade to make them more walkable and bikeable. He points out that in almost every case, the BMI and obesity rate in those cities have dropped as a result.

“We have hard evidence that when you optimize a city for walkability, bikeability, public transportation, and cleaned-up parks, you can raise the physical activity level of a whole population by up to 30%,” says Buettner. “There is no gym, CrossFit, or exercise program that can get those types of results at a population level.”

The key is stacking the deck in people’s favor when it comes to movement — making the healthy choice the easy choice. To that end, Buettner and Blue Zones are now partnering with Degree Deodorant to create the Made To Move grant program that will provide half a million dollars in funding for city projects that promote increased physical movement. The partnership will fund pro-movement initiatives in five different US cities, such as repurposing vehicle lanes for active transportation, creating protected bike lanes, and improving local pedestrian environments. City officials and community organizations can apply for the grants on BlueZones.com. This is part of Degree’s commitment to create movement opportunities, tools, and resources for 10 million people by 2024.

All of this will help people get out from behind the steering wheel and onto their feet.

“If you’re walking more than about 45 minutes a day, you’re getting 90% of the physical activity value of training for a marathon,” says Buettner. “So when you are addressing populations, you want to make it easy for them.”

That is exactly what happened in Buettner’s hometown of Minneapolis, which made a commitment a decade ago to prioritize quality of life. Bike lanes were created, trees planted, and safe sidewalks added. As a result, Minneapolis was recently named the fittest city in America.

Buettner and his team are now working towards a similar fate for cities all across the country.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

My Philosophy on Diet and Exercise

There is a lot of complicated and confusing information out there about diet and exercise.

But that is primarily because “experts” want to sell books or patent their own method.

In reality, the true experts agree on the fundamentals that are most important for a healthy life. And that shared understanding is what is most important to know and incorporate into our own routines.

I have read countless books and articles about diet and exercise, and experimented for many years with what works best in my own life. After all of my learning and testing, here are my key takeaways on diet and exercise:

Diet

There is no doubt that diet plays a central role in health and vitality.

The one thing that all experts agree on is the bulk of your diet should be fruits and vegetables. If you follow just that one piece of advice and make fruits and vegetables at least 50% of what you eat, you will be light years ahead of most other people.

Eat a variety of whatever fruits and vegetables you like (the only things that don’t count are white potatoes or any type of fried vegetables like French Fries). There are valuable nutrients in all fruits and vegetables, so fill your plate with them. If you do that, you will also be crowding out most of the bad stuff.

The rest of your plate can be filled with healthy protein and whole grains. If you are vegan or vegetarian, you can get protein from all kinds of beans, nuts, and seeds. If you eat meat, it is fine to add in some fish, chicken, or beef. But meat should be considered a side dish or condiment, not the main course. Avoid processed meats, such as bacon, sausage, hot dogs, and cold cuts.

Whole grains provide a great source of fiber. You can round out your plate with unprocessed whole grains such as oats, quinoa, or wild rice. Minimize processed grains such as bread and pasta, unless you are an especially savvy shopper and know how to avoid the junk (which is hidden in nearly all packaged bread these days).

Applying this philosophy, a great meal would be a large salad with lots of veggies, quinoa, and some salmon. Or a veggie stir fry over wild rice. Or oatmeal with a heavy dose of mixed berries and walnuts.

If you build your plate around fruits and vegetables, and round it out with healthy protein and whole grains, there just won’t be room for the real problem foods (such as white bread and pasta, and packaged sweet and salty foods). And even when you do indulge from time to time, it won’t be that big of a deal if you normally eat according to this philosophy.

As for beverages, drink water, tea, and coffee (without milk/cream or sweeteners ). A little bit of alcohol is okay, but limit it to a drink or two at night. Avoid sugary drinks such as fruit juice and soda.

This all probably sounds like common sense eating principles, and that is exactly the point. Stick with these basics and forget all of the other complicated stuff. You will be much healthier as a result.

Exercise

Movement should be an essential part of daily life.

The current exercise guidelines call for 150–300 minutes of exercise per week, which equates to about 30–40 minutes of exercise per day, assuming you exercise most days. I think that gets it about right.

I recommend dedicated cardio exercise for at least 30 minutes per day, with 1–2 off days per week (which would give you at least 150 minutes of exercise for the week right there). I personally go for a 30-minute run in the morning at least 5 days per week, but your form of exercise can be whatever you enjoy most (walking, swimming, cycling, etc.). And feel free to mix it up from one day to the next. I run at a moderate pace, just enough to make me breathe heavy and get a sweat going.

I also recommend some of your exercise be a bit more vigorous (in addition to, or in place of, some of your moderate exercise days). I turn up the intensity by playing squash 1-2 times per week, which taxes my body and my mind with the complex movements and strategy involved. You can dial it up a bit with a sport you enjoy (e.g. soccer, basketball) or any other type of workout that you like (Peloton, group fitness classes, etc.).

You should also build in some strength training and flexibility exercises at least two days per week. You could make this a part of your weekly routine by doing yoga and/or light weights on your cardio off-days (or lighter workout days). While the bulk of your workout routine should be cardio, incorporating some strength training will keep your muscles and bones strong, and flexibility training will keep your body loose and pliable (counteracting the cardio which tends to tighten you up).

To summarize, get at least 30 minutes of cardio exercise nearly every day. Dial up the intensity for 1–2 of the workouts. And round out your routine with strength training and yoga 1–2 days per week.

Beyond your dedicated workouts, use your body as your mode of transportation as much as possible. Walk or ride your bike to work or to the store if that is a possibility. Make it a habit of always taking the stairs. If your default mode is to use your body to get places, you will rack up even more meaningful physical (and mental) benefits.

If you do track your activity, a good goal is at least 10,000 steps per day (factoring in your dedicated workouts and all other activity throughout the day).

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There you have it — my philosophy on diet and exercise. This approach takes into account all of my learning and personal experiences, and is built around basic and highly-effective guidelines.

I truly believe if you eat and move in this manner, you will add energy to your days and healthy years to your life.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

How to Create the Perfect Mental State of Relaxed Alertness

The ideal mental state is “relaxed alertness.”

This is characterized by being fully aware and focused, yet with an effortlessly calm mind.

This state is achieved when alpha waves are dominant in your brain.

Human beings only have 2 mental states while we are awake — alpha and beta.

We spend most of our lives in the beta state, as we rush through the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Beta is when our minds are moving fast, checking things off our to-do list, and bouncing from one thing to the next. While people can be productive in this state, the rapid mental activity in beta mode has been linked to depression and anxiety. When your mind is racing and you can’t seem to get out of a negative pattern of thinking, that’s when beta waves are taking over. You likely know the feeling.

Alpha, on the other hand, is characterized by being clear-headed, present, and fully in the moment. Alpha waves create a sense of peace and well-being in your mind and body. When people are in this state, they seem to exude charisma as their mind focuses only on the here and now. This is also the state when athletes and other performers are at their best — also known as being “in the zone” or the “flow state.” Unsurprisingly, alpha brain waves have been shown to boost creativity and resilience to stress, and reduce anxiety and depression. When your mind is free, peak performance and enjoyment is naturally achieved.

While spending some time in the beta state is unavoidable, we don’t want to spend too much of our lives in overdrive. Life is more pleasurable in the alpha state.

So how do we achieve this feeling of calm focus?

One way to do it is through long-term meditation practice. Expert meditators with thousands of hours of practice regularly achieve the alpha state in their daily lives. It is certainly recommended to begin and stick with a meditation practice (I am a particular fan of the Waking Up app from Sam Harris) — in the early going, you will generate alpha waves specifically during your meditation time, and gradually you’ll notice that relaxed mental state creep into more of your day.

Meditation is a worthy long-term endeavor, but for this article I am more interested in quick-fix ways to enter the alpha state. When we are anxious and stressed, we don’t want to wait years for mental clarity.

Instead, here are some shortcuts:

• Perhaps the most fast-acting way into the alpha state is by drinking tea. Specifically, you need to drink black, green, or white tea, all of which naturally contain a substance called Theanine. Drinking just two cups of green tea (thanks to the Theanine) significantly generates alpha brain waves and moves you into a state of relaxed alertness. Daily tea consumption is also linked to living a significantly longer life, reduced cancer risk, and enhanced brain and liver function. Drinking tea should be a part of your daily regimen.

• There is reason to believe Theanine supplements can create the same alpha effects as actually drinking the tea. I always prefer consuming a product in its natural state, but Theanine supplements seem to be effective and generally safe to consume. I have been trying these Theanine gummies recently and have noticed a calming effect after about 30–40 minutes.

• Alpha waves are created by doing aerobic exercise. Personally, I have found that a 30-minute morning run clears and relaxes my mind for the full day ahead. This is the best tool I can personally vouch for to get into the alpha state. Yoga has also been proven to significantly increase alpha brain waves.

• Relaxing in a peaceful setting for about 90 minutes has been shown to activate alpha brain waves (this time frame will be shortened for experienced meditators). If you can spend that time outside in nature, the effects can be even more profound.

• When you feel relaxed while drinking alcohol, you are feeling the effects of alpha brain waves. One glass of wine can be helpful to slow down your racing mind — but stop yourself at one drink, otherwise your overactive mind will come roaring back once the buzz wears off.

• You can listen to specially-designed music to enter specific brain states. Check out binaural beats to help quickly tune your brain to the alpha state.

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There you have several fast-acting tools to quickly get into the alpha brain wave state.

Please let me know in the comments section about other effective tips and tactics that work to calm and free your mind.

Here’s to all of us spending more time in the alpha state of relaxed alertness.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

The Best Exercise Routine For Longevity

Exercise has changed my life and career more than any other habit.

I exercise most mornings, primarily for the mental clarity it brings me throughout the remainder of the day. I can achieve this mental sharpness with just a 30-minute run in the morning at a moderate pace (9–10 minute mile).

But in addition to optimal daily performance, I also aspire to live as long and healthy a life as possible.

Therefore, I went in search of the best exercise routine for longevity.

Dr. Valter Longo is one of the world’s foremost experts on longevity. He is the director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and of the Program on Longevity and Cancer at IFOM (Molecular Oncology FIRC Institute) in Milan.

Dr. Longo has studied longevity for more than 30 years, and he has concluded how to exercise to increase healthy lifespan. In fact, his research shows that physical activity is the number 2 factor affecting lifespan, behind only diet.

Here is the routine that Longo recommends to maximize longevity:

Walk fast for an hour every day

This doesn’t need to happen all at once. For example, if the train station is a 15-minute walk away from your house, and you do that each way, that’s 30 minutes right there. Then you could pick a coffee shop that is a 15-minute walk away from your office, and make a daily visit. Those might not be your exact circumstances, but you get the idea — find places that are walkable and go there every day. On the weekend, walk everywhere, even faraway places — do your best to leave your car in the garage or driveway all weekend long.

Do cardiovascular exercise for 2.5–5 hours per week

Running, cycling, or swimming are all great options, but the type of exercise you choose isn’t important. The key is working your body to the point of breathing rapidly and sweating. A simple way to hit this exercise threshold is to have a stationary bike and a road bike (go outside when the weather permits, otherwise ride indoors), and make a point of riding for 30–40 minutes every other day, and for 2 hours total on the weekend.

Use weight-training or weight-free exercises to strengthen all muscles

This can be the classic gym routine, but your muscles also become stronger when you take the stairs instead of the elevator (Longo advises to always take the stairs!), walk instead of driving, grow food in your garden instead of buying it, and do manual work around the house instead of hiring someone to do it. When you do engage in a hard weight-training session, consume at least 30 grams of protein in a single meal within 1–2 hours afterwards to maximize muscle growth.

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In terms of how long you should exercise per week, research shows that most of the beneficial effects are caused by the first 2.5 hours. For example, a large Australian study of over 200,000 people aged 45–75 found that those who exercised (at moderate to vigorous levels) at least 2.5 hours per week had a 47% reduction in overall mortality. Going up to 5 hours per week led to a 54% reduction in mortality. Ensuring at least some of that activity was in the vigorous range dropped the risk of dying by another 9 percent.

Another very large study involving more than 650,000 people in the U.S. and Europe showed that mortality was reduced by 31% for people who exercised for at least 2.5 hours per week at moderate intensity (or for more than 75 minutes at vigorous intensity). Increasing the exercise totals to 5 hours at moderate intensity (or 2.5 hours at vigorous levels) lowered the risk of dying by 37%.

Examples of moderate exercise include fast walking or slow jogging (faster than 4 mph), cycling (10–12 mph), or gardening. Examples of vigorous exercise include climbing stairs or hiking, cycling (faster than 12 mph), playing soccer, or jogging (faster than 6 mph).

So there is certainly some additional benefit of going up to 5 hours of exercise per week, with some of the exercise being in the vigorous range. But there are diminishing returns after 2.5 hours, and you want to avoid overworking your body by going much beyond the 5-hour limit per week. Over-exercising will cause damage over time to your knees, hips, and joints. You don’t want your body to break down prematurely because of over-taxing it.

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My personal routine includes a 30-minute casual run in the morning, about 5 days per week. So I achieve 2.5 hours of moderate exercise per week thanks to my morning run. Then I add in some vigorous exercise by playing about 2 hours of squash per week (I play about twice a week, for an hour each time). So in general, I would say that I get about 4.5 total hours of exercise per week.

And then I make a point of always taking the stairs. For example, I take the stairs from the parking garage at my office up to my floor, which is a total of 111 steps. Climbing those stairs every morning invigorates me for the work day ahead. Having meetings on other floors throughout the day enables me to rack up even more flights of stairs.

On the weekend, I walk everywhere possible. Take today for instance (I am writing this on a Sunday). I played squash for an hour this morning, and walked to the club and back — 15 minutes each way. Now I am writing this from a coffee shop that is a 15-minute walk away from my house. Once I return home, I will have walked for a total of one hour, in addition to my one hour squash session. I place a high value on living in a walkable area!

My routine is lightest in the area of strength training. I do 145 pushups each day, but otherwise don’t do any type of weight training. Squash is a full body workout, but I would like to add in some more upper body strength training to ensure that my muscles stay strong as I age.

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I have found exercise to be a powerful performance-enhancer on a daily basis, and now I know how to exercise to increase healthy lifespan.

I hope you find these guidelines easy to follow and achievable. I would love to hear from you about the exercise routine that works best for you.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

Follow The Process, Not Your Passion

I believe that happiness in life is all about finding the right fit.

And following your passion alone is not sufficient to find that right fit.

I learned this the hard way.

Baseball was my biggest passion for as long as I can remember.

One of my earliest memories — at the age of 4 — was watching my hometown Boston Red Sox take on the New York Mets in the 1986 World Series. I was so into baseball and the Red Sox that I stayed up long after my parents went to bed to watch the end of each game.

I remember religiously watching baseball on TV, even if the telecast was in French or any other language.

I learned to read from baseball cards.

I know a lot of kids love sports, but I really loved sports. I consumed and analyzed every single Red Sox game, start to finish, via TV, radio, or (if I was lucky enough) in person. I was allowed to miss school to attend every Opening Day at Fenway Park. Whenever I was at the actual ballpark, I would never let my parents leave until the last out was recorded.

I memorized all of the player and team stats and could rattle them off at will. I remember fantasizing about meeting the athletes, sitting in the dugout, and what it would be like to step out on a real Major League field.

But I never imagined I could actually work in sports.

I always thought I would be a lawyer. I loved the idea of analyzing a case, doing deep research to uncover the winning evidence or facts, and then pulling it all together for a victory in the courtroom. It all seemed so thrilling, and that was the path I intended to pursue. I was a Pre-Law Major in college and planned to attend Law School after graduation.

But then I miraculously landed a job within my #1 passion instead. I got an internship with the Boston Red Sox in 2003 — between my junior and senior years of college. Talk about a dream come true!

Since the actual sport of baseball was my true love, I wanted my position to be as close to the game as possible.

But the intern position within the Baseball Operations department (a path that could eventually lead to becoming a General Manager) was already taken. So I got placed in the Media Relations department instead.

The Media Relations department was the intermediary between the team (players, coaches, and front office) and the media (sportswriters, TV and radio media, etc.). The department coordinated all media interviews, press conferences, and disseminated team information and statistics.

This all sounded good enough to me, even if I really didn’t know anything about the media (other than reading the Boston Globe sports section every day, and watching Sox games on TV).

I still couldn’t believe I was actually going to be working for the Boston Red Sox. I literally would have taken any job with the team.

What followed — on paper — seems like a fantasy come true.

I worked for the Red Sox for five seasons, from 2003 through early 2008. During that time, the Red Sox won two World Series Championships, breaking an 86-year drought in the process, winning it all for the first time since 1918. I was rewarded with two authentic World Series rings, same as the players received.

I traveled with the team on road trips, flying on the team plane and staying in the team hotel. I interacted with all of the star athletes, from David Ortiz to Manny Ramirez to Curt Schilling. I was in the locker room before and after the games, in the dugout and on the field during batting practice, and witnessed champagne spraying in the clubhouse when the team won their titles.

As a kid, I dreamed about sitting in the Fenway Park dugout or stepping out on the field, and I was able to have that experience more times than I can even remember.

This should have been the textbook example of why you should follow your passion, and what is possible when you do so. And don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade these once-in-a-lifetime experiences (not to mention, I met my wife while working for the Red Sox).

The only problem is that I didn’t actually like the work that I was doing, or the lifestyle that I was leading.

Media Relations was okay, but I certainly didn’t love it. I loved the sport of baseball itself, but was not passionate about the media industry. The media wanted constant access, the players wanted constant privacy, and I was caught in the middle trying to serve both parties.

The media was insatiable with their requests, so it was constant reactive work, and I didn’t have the opportunity to think creatively.

I repeated the same daily process of compiling team news and statistics, and updated the records before and after every game, in a cycle that seemed never-ending. I doubt the media read or used even 5% of the information I serviced to them. After a while, my work seemed like a waste of time.

The lifestyle was brutal as well. I worked business hours and baseball hours. A typical day would start at 8 or 9am, and I wouldn’t leave the ballpark until at least 1.5 hours after the game (usually around 11:30pm). That means I would frequently clock 90+ hour work weeks. A 10-day consecutive stretch of home games would drain every last ounce of my energy. And there never seemed to be an end in sight. The baseball season is 162 games long — there is a game nearly every single day — over a span of six months. And that doesn’t even include Spring Training (February — March) or the playoffs (October).

When you factor it all in, the ‘offseason’ really was only three months. And I was still working a regular schedule (40–50 hours per week) during those offseason months, unlike the players who had that time completely off.

And unlike the players, my pay was miserable. Professional sports teams know there are thousands of people lining up for front office jobs, so they can get away with paltry compensation. Meaningful pay doesn’t come until you are a senior executive, which could be decades away.

I wound up staying in baseball for another two years after the Red Sox, moving on to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a more proactive and creative Public Relations position. But at that point, my passion for baseball had run out and I was ready to leave the sport altogether.

I left baseball in 2009, and doubt I’ll ever go back. What began as a childhood love and my biggest passion is now barely an interest. I don’t watch baseball games on TV anymore, rarely make it to the stadium, and I’m blissfully out of touch with the stats and standings. Perhaps someday that will change — especially as my kids get older — but for now baseball is more of a source of stress than pleasure.

I am grateful for all of the amazing baseball experiences I had, but this is an example of what can happen if you make your passion your profession. Sometimes passions are better off remaining hobbies.

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So if following your passion is not the perfect answer, what is a better path?

I believe you are better off following the process of work, instead of blindly pursuing your passion.

If you love the process of the work you do — because it is in line with your personality and strengths — you will stay motivated to stick with it. Whereas following your passion could involve a process of work that does not match your true nature (as was my case with baseball).

When I was in college, I would have been smart to learn more about my true personality, my values, and the type of work I enjoyed.

I didn’t do enough of that thoughtful introspection (or at least wasn’t led by it), and wound up pretty far down a path that did not suit me in the end.

Fortunately, these days there are a number of tools to determine your true nature before you get so far down the line.

Here are a few assessments I recommend:

• StrengthsFinder

• HIGH5

• WingFinder

• Enneagram

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Once you fully know about yourself, you can investigate jobs and job paths that match your unique personality, values, and strengths.

Would I have been better off becoming a lawyer? I don’t know. And fortunately I have now found work that I love, as I have meandered my way through the worlds of Sports/Active Lifestyle and Brand Marketing.

But I believe the quickest path to finding work that you love is uncovering your true personality, and connecting that to the type of work that you will do.

If that can happen within your passion, then that could be the best of all worlds.

But you’re better off starting with process, not passion.

As billionaire investing icon Ray Dalio says, “The happiest people discover their own nature and match their life to it.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

The Ultimate Pre-Game Meal

While researching for my recent story The Eating Habits of the Best Athletes in the World, I was surprised to learn that LeBron James and Sidney Crosby eat the exact same thing just before they compete.

I was intrigued by the fact that two of the greatest athletes in the world, from two different sports, fueled up in the same manner. And I wondered if the habit extended even broader among professional athletes.

LeBron and Crosby both eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before games, and it turns out many other top pro athletes do as well.

I hadn’t realized that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is the NBA’s secret addiction.

The PB&J was credited as the secret weapon of the 2007–08 Boston Celtics championship season, and then it quickly spread across the rest of the league. Now nearly every NBA team makes PB&J sandwiches readily available to their players.

And it doesn’t stop with the NBA.

MLB legend Derek Jeter ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich an hour before every game, NFL star Rob Gronkowski downs a PB&J (with a glass of chocolate milk) before every football game, and even golfer Dustin Johnson gets his energy for a round of golf from the same sandwich (although he opts for almond butter with his jelly).

If it works for LeBron, Crosby, Jeter, and Gronk, it might just work for you, too.

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But why do so many athletes reach for a PB&J before the game?

The most common explanation is that PB&J is comfort food and the athletes grew up eating it. This means that it is a soothing meal that puts athletes at ease before competition. In that sense, it is a meal that helps achieve peace of mind — a critical component for top performance.

Athletes are also notoriously superstitious, so when they hear about a routine that works, they quickly look to gain that edge.

The PB&J is also readily available, quick and easy to prepare, substantial enough to keep you satisfied, and yet light enough not to weigh you down.

In terms of actual nutrition, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is not the best, but it’s not bad.

A PB&J does have healthy fats, carbs, and protein to provide quick energy. And you can boost the nutrition content by choosing 100% whole grain bread (which adds fiber) and low-sodium peanut butter. Jelly does contain a lot of sugar, but that isn’t awful if you are taking in the other nutrients.

That said, it seems as though the benefits are primarily mental — our brain experiences pleasure when we bite into a PB&J, it makes us feel happy, and “when you feel good, you play well,” according to Brett Singer, a dietitian at the Memorial Hermann Ironman Sports Medicine Institute.

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After hearing about all of these great athlete stories, I decided to add a PB&J into my own pre-game routine. Granted, my athletic pursuits are quite different than LeBron or Gronk.

But I do play in a regular squash league and am certainly game for some easy performance-enhancing tactics (legally, of course).

Especially with matches in the evenings after a long workday, I need to find ways to keep my energy up. I learned this the hard way — there was one time when all I had was an apple between lunch and a 7pm match, and I could barely make it to the finish.

It’s been about a month since I added the PB&J to my pre-match routine. I have been using Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Whole Grain Bread, Bonne Maman Raspberry Preserves for the jelly, and Teddie Smooth All Natural Peanut Butter.

I have to say, it is one of the most satisfying things you can eat. And I now seem to have more energy on court, more strength in my legs, and more confidence knowing that I have adequately fueled up.

Maybe it is just the placebo effect, but I do feel some performance benefits from a simple PB&J.

Even if that just means feeling strong and playing to my potential, that’s a win for me.

If you are also looking for a little performance boost, give the humble PB&J a try.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

In Defense of Whole Grains

There are several popular diets these days that prohibit eating any grains. In particular, The Paleo Diet, The Ketogenic Diet, and Whole30 Diet are three of the hottest diets right now, and none of them allow for any grains.

It is true that cutting out grains will help with weight loss in the short term, but eliminating whole grains is detrimental to long-term health.

The evidence clearly shows that whole grains promote health and should be a part of any effective eating plan.

Specifically, eating just 2–3 portions of whole grains per day has been shown to reduce the risk of getting a heart attack or prematurely dying of heart disease by 30%, and lower the risk of all forms of cardiovascular disease (heart attack, stroke, or the need for a procedure to bypass or open a clogged artery) by 21%.

Those numbers mean that eating enough whole grains daily is as powerful as high blood pressure medications in alleviating hypertension.

Considering 75 million American adults have high blood pressure — one in every three American adults — we would be smart to consume more whole grains, not less.

But whole grains do much more than just lower blood pressure.

Eating at least 70 grams of whole grains daily has been shown to lower the risk of total mortality by 22% and reduce the risk of cancer mortality by 20%.

Whole grain consumption has also been shown to lower cholesterol and protect against inflammation in the body.

It should come as no surprise that people are encouraged to load up on whole grains on the Mediterranean Diet, which was just named the #1 healthiest diet by a panel of the nation’s foremost nutrition experts.

Whole grains also play a key role in centenarians’ diets in every Blue Zones region in the world. That means the longest-lived people in the world eat whole grains daily.

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Grains in general get a bad rap because of all the processed refined grains that exist in our food system today.

Refined grains (like white bread and white rice) are stripped of valuable nutrients in the refining process, including the removal of the germ and bran.

That is a problem because bran is filled with fiber and other nutrients that help regulate blood sugar, prevent blood clots, and lower cholesterol.

And the germ is packed with healthy fats, vitamin E, B vitamins, phytochemicals, and antioxidants.

Once the bran and germ are removed, the only part of the grain that is left is the soft, chewy, easy-to-digest endosperm. That’s why white flour is fluffy and tastes so good, but it is missing most of the nutrition (and food manufacturers add lots of other junk to refined grains these days).

Whole grains offer a “complete package” of health benefits, but all three parts of the whole grain — the bran, germ, and endosperm — need to be intact to reap those benefits.

Whereas refined grains are associated with a range of negative health outcomes, from obesity to diabetes to heart disease.

It is therefore critical to select and eat actual whole grains, instead of the processed and refined stuff.

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By now, hopefully you are convinced of the importance of whole grains, but it can still be confusing to buy truly nutritious whole grain products.

That is because words like multigrain, whole grain, and whole wheat show up on nearly every package of food these days, and it is very misleading.

To help simplify the process, your best bet is to choose an unprocessed whole grain in its natural form (which means just one ingredient).

Popular, easy-to-find unprocessed whole grains include brown rice, barley, corn, quinoa, oats, rye, wheat berries, and wild rice.

If you do opt for whole grain bread or pasta with more than one ingredient, you need to look on the back of the label and perform some basic math to ensure you are really getting whole grains without the unhealthy additives.

Specifically, look at the label and make sure the serving size ratio of carbs to fiber is equal to or less than 5-to-1 (for example, if you divided 15 grams of carbs by 3 grams of fiber like in the Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted whole grain bread, that would equal 5 and would pass the test).

Following the 5-to-1 rule is the way to buy healthy whole grain products, according to Dr. Michael Greger, author of the groundbreaking book How Not To Die. If you prefer to cook at home, here is a great fiber-rich whole wheat spaghetti recipe.

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Whole grains should make up roughly 1/4 of your overall diet, according to the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate, the official dietary advice from Harvard doctors and medical professors (fruits and vegetables should account for at least half your plate, and the remaining 1/4 should be healthy protein).

In general, you want to aim for at least three servings of whole grains per day (one serving is equal to half cup of cooked brown rice, one slice of whole grain bread, or a cup of whole grain cereal).

I typically eat two slices of whole grain toast in the morning (topped with olive oil or peanut butter) to cover off on two of the servings, and then I try to add in some brown rice, quinoa, corn, or whole grain pasta for lunch or dinner. Oatmeal is another easy option to start your day with whole grains. And popcorn (unflavored and without added salt) is an incredibly simple whole grain snack.

It doesn’t matter which whole grains you eat, as long as you eat enough of them overall. Select the whole grains you like best.

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Don’t be confused by trendy diets that eliminate all grains. You might lose some weight in the short term, but it’s not worth sacrificing your long-term health.

A variety of whole grains should be included in any healthy eating plan. True whole grains are nutrient-dense and protective against many of our most dreaded diseases.

Processed refined grains should be avoided, but you should be eating whole grains every day for optimum health.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

The Top 11 Business Books of 2018

I love to read business books that help me learn and grow, but sometimes it is hard to know where to start — especially because there are 11,000 new business books published every year.

To help narrow down my reading list, I went in search of the best-of-the-best business books from the past year. I researched just about every top media outlet that has been publishing “Best of 2018” lists, including Inc., Fast Company, Financial Times & McKinsey, Business Insider, Amazon, Goodreads, as well as the books recommended by Bill Gates, Barack Obama and other successful people.

I then cross-referenced the lists to see which books showed up multiple times. It turns out that, among the seven lists I studied, only 11 books made the cut more than once.

That made an easy cutoff point for an overall Top Business Books of 2018 list. A “list of lists,” if you will.

I figure that if more than one top business media outlet believes a book is among the very best from the past year, that book is certainly worth my time (and yours).

The order of the Top 11 below is based on the number of times that book showed up on the various media lists I examined. For example, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou, is ranked #1 because it landed on five of the seven top lists I read, two more than the next closest competitor (the number of top lists for each book is included in parentheses after the author’s name below).

For tie-breakers, I referenced the book’s ranking from the lists I researched, as well as customer reviews and ratings on Amazon.com.

If you keep reading past the overall Top 11 below, you will see the full list from each of the media outlets I studied (as well as links to purchase any of the books).

And at the end of this article, I share my personal favorite business book from the past year.

TOP 11 BUSINESS BOOKS OF 2018

1. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (5)

2. The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser (3)

3. New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms (3)

4. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle (2)

5. Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans (2)

6. Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr (2)

7. Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord (2)

8. Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World by Rand Fishkin (2)

9. Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock with Tahl Raz (2)

10. The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree (2)

11. Capitalism in America: A History by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge (2)

Here are the Best Business Books of 2018 as selected by each of the top media outlets I researched:

Inc.

• Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans

• Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda

• Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance — and What We Can Do About It by Jeffrey Pfeffer

• Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else)by Ken Auletta

• Leap: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied by Howard Yu

• Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World by Rand Fishkin

• The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership by Fred Kofman

• New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms

• Regulatory Hacking: A Playbook for Startups by Evan Burfield with J.D. Harrison

• When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink

Fast Company

• Can You Learn to Be Lucky?: Why Some People Seem to Win More Often Than Others by Karla Starr

• My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired by Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander

• Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock with Tahl Raz

• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

• Calm Clarity: How to Use Science to Rewire Your Brain for Greater Wisdom, Fulfillment, and Joy by Due Quach

• Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder by Chip Conley

• Building on Bedrock: What Sam Walton, Walt Disney, and Other Great Self-Made Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Building Valuable Companies by Derek Lidow

Financial Times & McKinsey

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

• New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms

• The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree

• Capitalism in America: A History by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge

• The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy by Mariana Mazzucato

• Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World by Annie Lowrey

Business Insider

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

• Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock with Tahl Raz

• Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio

• Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side by Howard Marks

• Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang

• Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More by Morten Hansen

• Leaders: Myth and Reality by General Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone

• The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

• The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change by Ellen Ruppel Shell

• Capitalism in America: A History by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge

• Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord

• Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the World by Bethany McLean

• It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Goodreads

• The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle

• Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence-and How You Can, Too by Gary Vaynerchuk

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

• Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord

• Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr

• The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser

• Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work by Alison Green

• How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith

• Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World by Rand Fishkin

• Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life by Francesca Gino

Recommended by Bill Gates, Barack Obama and other successful people

• Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute (Recommended by Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield)

• That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together by Joanne Lipman (Recommended byBillionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban)

• The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser (Recommended by self-made millionaire and media mogul Arianna Huffington)

• Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Recommended by Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block)

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (Recommended by Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates)

• The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias by Dolly Chugh (Recommended by Wharton professor and organizational psychologist Adam Grant)

• The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Moretti (Recommended by Former President Barack Obama)

• New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms (Recommended by Virgin Group founder and billionaire Richard Branson)

Amazon

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

• The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle

• Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

• Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans

• The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser

• Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr

• The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

• The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree

• Astroball: The New Way to Win It All by Ben Reiter

• Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown

…

And finally, my personal favorite book of the past year (although it was actually published in late 2017) is Meaningful Work: A Quest to Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul by Shawn Askinosie and Lawren Askinosie.

That book changed how I think about work and life more than anything else I read over the past year. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I hope you all have a great year of reading ahead of you in 2019!

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

The Eating Habits Of The Best Athletes In The World

We all want to know the secrets of the most successful people in the world.

Of course, part of their success can be attributed to natural talent, but some of their lifestyle habits and routines can be applied to the rest of us as well.

For this article, I focus on the eating habits of elite athletes.

Food affects our performance — whether in sports or business — arguably more than any other lifestyle factor.

Therefore, I sought to learn how the best athletes in the world eat, and what lessons we might be able to take away and apply to our own lives.

Here is what I found:

LeBron James

LeBron James is one of the best basketball players of all time. He has won 4 NBA league MVP Awards, 3 NBA Championships, 3 NBA Finals MVP Awards, 2 Olympic Gold Medals, and an NBA Scoring Title.

Credit: Wikipedia

LeBron discussed his daily diet while being interviewed for The Tim Ferriss Show.

For a recent game-day routine, LeBron started his day with an egg white omelet with smoked salmon, and gluten-free pancakes with berries.

For lunch, he had whole wheat pasta, salmon, and vegetables.

Right before the game, he had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

At halftime, he had sliced apples with almond butter on top.

Right after the game, he immediately downed a protein shake. He uses a plant-based protein powder with almond milk, along with some fruit, in the shake. He stays away from whey protein or animal products for the first hour after a game to give his body a chance to properly recover.

For dinner, LeBron had chicken parm with a rocket salad and a “beautiful” glass of cabernet (LeBron is a wine lover — especially Bordeaux and Cabernet).

In general, LeBron tries to eat organic throughout the year. And he is constantly hydrating with water, especially during the season. He specifically stays away from artificial drinks, artificial sugars, and fried foods during the season. His body is constantly in recovery mode during the season so he tries to eat as clean as possible.

Tom Brady

Tom Brady is arguably the greatest football player to ever live. The 41-year-old is still at the top of his game, having amassed 5 Super Bowl titles, 4 Super Bowl MVP Awards, and 3 NFL league MVP Awards.

Credit: Wikipedia

Brady notoriously follows a highly-disciplined diet.

On an average day, Brady drinks 20 ounces of water with electrolytes immediately upon waking. He is nearly always hydrating, drinking 12 to 25 glasses of water a day, always with electrolytes added (However, he minimizes water during meals, so as to not interfere with digestion — he stops drinking water 1/2 hour before each meal, and waits an hour after each meal for his next glass of water).

After hydrating first-thing, he will have a morning smoothie that contains blueberries, bananas, nuts, and seeds. His smoothie is nutrient-dense, high in fat, high in protein, and high in calories.

He will then get in a morning workout, followed by a protein shake with one scoop of protein powder, almond milk, and electrolytes.

Lunch for Brady is often a piece of fish, surrounded by lots of vegetables.

Brady is also often snacking throughout the day. Common snack options for him include a protein shake, protein bar, fruit (such as grapes, banana, or apple), chips and guacamole, hummus, or raw vegetables.

For dinner, he will have another nutrient-dense meal that includes a lot of vegetables.

He rarely drinks alcohol or has any type of dessert. He also does not drink coffee or tea, but sometimes will drink a cup of bone broth.

In terms of overall principles, Brady eats mostly organic, local, plant-based foods. He follows an ‘alkaline diet,’ which he says minimizes inflammation in the body. His diet is 80% made up of alkalizing foods, like Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, and dandelion greens (other alkalizing foods include broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, green beans, zucchini, spinach, and kale). He limits “acidifying” foods — such as white rice and bread, cold cuts, pineapples, and yogurt — to only 20 percent of his diet.

Brady eats a lot of protein (on some days he will have 3–4 scoops of protein powder), but he does not eat protein combined with carbohydrates such as potatoes or bread. Instead, he chooses to mix proteins or carbs with vegetables, which he says is optimal for digestion.

He also avoids many foods, including: Bread and pasta that contain gluten, breakfast cereal, corn, dairy, GMOs, high-fructose corn syrup, trans fats, sugar, artificial sweeteners or soy, fruit juice, grain-based foods, jams and jellies, most cooking oils, frozen dinners, salty snacks, sugary snacks, sweetened drinks, white potatoes, and prepackaged condiments like ketchup and soy sauce!

Roger Federer

Roger Federer is regarded as the greatest tennis player of all time. He has won a record 20 Grand Slam men’s singles titles and has been ranked #1 in the world for 310 weeks during his career (including 237 consecutive weeks at one point).

Credit: Wikipedia

Federer’s diet also follows a routine, but it is much less regimented than Brady’s diet.

Federer begins his day with homemade waffles with raspberry syrup, along with some cereal. He washes it down with a shot of vinegar, coffee, and freshly squeezed juice.

Two hours before every match, Federer eats pasta with light sauce — a routine he has followed for 20 years.

For dinner, it is all about variety for Federer. He loves Italian, Japanese, and Indian cuisines.

Fonduta and raclette are his favorite overall dishes. Bananas are his go-to snack.

But Federer doesn’t take his diet too seriously. He lives a healthy lifestyle, but enjoys a range of foods and sees eating as part of life’s pleasure.

He has confessed to liking ice cream and chocolate, as well as wine and champagne — and he doesn’t feel guilty about it. And when he’s not playing tennis, he splurges on biscuits, fondue, and daily desserts.

Federer has said, “For me, food and drinks and all that stuff is also a way of life to enjoy myself. It’s also part of a hobby for me. I’m not going to change it now, to be honest. I enjoy myself this way.”

Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt earned the title of ‘Fastest Man Alive,’ winning 9 Olympic Gold Medals, and holding the world record in the 100m, 200m, and 4 x 100m relay. He is widely considered the greatest sprinter of all time, dominating the sport for 3 consecutive Olympics.

Credit: Wikipedia

Bolt was not especially disciplined with his diet during his younger years. In fact, legend has it that he consumed 1000 chicken nuggets while in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

But he needed to focus more on his nutrition in order to achieve unprecedented longevity in his sport.

As Bolt aged, he specifically paid more attention on consuming enough vegetables and protein.

A typical training day for Bolt would begin with a simple egg sandwich. Then, after a short workout in the weight room, he would have a light lunch of pasta with corned beef.

For snacks throughout the day, he would eat mangoes, pineapple, and apples. But he would eat light during the day in order to digest quickly and have enough energy for training.

His largest meal of the day would be at night, when he loaded up on vegetables like broccoli (even though he didn’t like broccoli!). He paired the veggies with foods like yams, roasted chicken, or Jamaican dumplings.

And, like all other elite athletes (especially those training in the heat), he was constantly hydrating throughout the day.

Now that Bolt is retired from sprinting, he might be consuming more of his biggest food craving: hot wings.

Sidney Crosby

Sidney Crosby is one of the best hockey players in the world. He has won 3 Stanley Cup Championships, including back-to-back titles in 2016 and 2017, as well as 2 Olympic Gold Medals.

Credit: Wikipedia

Crosby is another athlete who thinks about what he eats, without being too rigid about it.

He eats mostly organic foods that are local and sustainable. He especially loves the beautiful produce in Nova Scotia in the summer.

A typical breakfast for Crosby might include steel-cut oats, organic eggs, and locally-sourced turkey bacon. He usually has greens as well, like spinach or asparagus.

He also often has a protein smoothie with cow colostrum, blended banana, blueberries, and kale.

Similar to LeBron, Crosby’s usual pre-game meal is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

And like Federer, Crosby has a bit of a sweet tooth. He has said, “I like my sweets, and I like the odd cheat meal more than I should: fast food, pizza, cake, donuts, too.” He especially loves Tim Hortons’ Timbits as a special treat.

Serena Williams

Serena Williams is one of the most accomplished athletes of all time, winning 39 career Grand Slam tennis titles (23 singles, 14 doubles, 2 mixed doubles). She has been #1 in the world for 319 weeks since first achieving that ranking in 2002. She is considered by many to be the greatest female athlete ever.

Credit: Wikipedia

Serena Williams has been known to follow a strict diet, especially when training to get back on the court after the birth of her first child in 2017.

During that time, she adhered to a vegan diet and did not eat sugar. Instead she loaded up on plenty of nuts, beans, lentils, and sprouted quinoa.

During the tennis season, a typical day of eating for Serena will include a cup of oats for breakfast with strawberries, tangerines, and almond butter on top.

For lunch, she will have a salad with lettuce, spinach, mandarin oranges, cherry tomatoes, lime juice, onions, pita croutons, and sliced almonds.

She will add in some snacks throughout the day, such as a toasted Ezekiel bread sandwich with almond butter, and a beverage made of lemon juice, matcha green tea, and cinnamon.

For dinner, Serena will have a cup of brown rice with hemp and chia seeds, along with a salad with fresh veggies.

However, when Serena is on a break from tennis, she has been known to indulge in favorites such as tacos, fried chicken, beignets, pizza, and french fries.

…

There you have it — the eating habits of 6 of the greatest athletes of all time.

These athletes all focus on eating well, overall choosing healthy organic foods — predominantly vegetables, clean protein, and healthy carbs.

But they also cheat a bit too, whether it’s wine (LeBron), fondue (Federer), wings (Bolt), tacos (Serena), or donuts (Crosby). The highly-regimented Brady has also been known to splurge from time to time, even if it’s just on avocado ice cream.

These athletes are all supremely talented, and their diets help to maximize their potential.

We can all eat well to maximize our potential as well… with some dessert mixed in along the way.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

Want To Preserve Your Mind? This Is How To Eat

We all want to be as mentally sharp as possible on a daily basis, and preserve our minds as we age.

Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are among the most dreaded diseases, but it now appears as though we can protect our brains with simple dietary choices.

For clues about how to eat for optimal brain functioning, we can look around the world for the places with the lowest rates of cognitive decline.

…

The lowest rates of Alzheimer’s in the world are in rural India.

Out of one hundred senior citizens in rural Ballabgarh India, only about three of them on average will develop Alzheimer’s disease within the next decade. That number jumps to about 19 out of one hundred senior citizens in rural Pennsylvania.

The people in rural India eat a diet that is low in meat and high in grains, beans, and vegetables.

That is consistent with the world’s Blue Zones — the longest-lived places around the world — where people eat a 95 percent plant-based diet rich in beans, greens, grains, and nuts.

Contrast that with the United States, where people eat over 220 pounds of meat — per person — each year. Americans get only about 12% of their calories from vegetables.

Unfortunately, high saturated fat intake (from meat, dairy, and processed food) is associated with cognitive decline and memory loss. And the U.S. has the 2nd highest rate of Alzheimer’s in the world.

…

However, if you take away the meat, you might take away some of the risk.

According to Dr. Michael Greger, author of How Not To Die, “In the U.S., those who don’t eat meat (including poultry and fish) appear to cut their risk of developing dementia in half.”

And the longer meat is avoided, the lower the risk. For example, compared with people who eat meat 4 or more times per week, the dementia risk of people who have eaten vegetarian diets for at least 30 years is 3 times lower.

Unfortunately, the opposite also seems to be true. If you go from a vegetable-based diet to a meat-heavy one, the rate of cognitive decline increases.

For example, the prevalence of Alzheimer’s in Japan has shot up over the past few decades, attributed to the shift from a rice-and-vegetable-based diet to a diet featuring triple the dairy and 6 times the meat.

…

So what are some simple recommendations?

The Dietary and Lifestyle Guidelines for the Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease now calls for vegetables, legumes (beans, peas, and lentils), fruits, and whole grains to replace meat and dairy products as primary staples of the diet.

The Mediterranean Diet, for example, follows those principles and has been associated with slower cognitive decline and lower risk of Alzheimer’s. It appears as though the high vegetable consumption and lower ratio of saturated to unsaturated fats are the critical protective factors.

If you want to have the best-of-the-best brain foods, Dr. Greger says the special antioxidant pigments in berries and dark green leafy vegetables make them the brain foods of the fruit and vegetable kingdom.

Eating just a handful of berries per day could slow your brain’s aging by more than two years.

In addition to diet, I am also a huge proponent of cardiovascular exercise (at least 30 minutes) first thing in the morning to stay mentally sharp throughout the day.

…

The advice is clear: Stay active, eat more fruits and veggies, and cut down on meat.

As Dr. Greger says, “A wholesome diet and exercise may offer your best hope for remaining sharp and healthy into your twilight years.”

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

The Healthiest Wine In The World

There is conflicting information out there about the health benefits (or consequences) of wine.

Certain research shows that moderate drinkers outlive non-drinkers.

On the other hand, some research shows there is no safe level of alcohol consumption at all.

What we do know is that people in the world’s Blue Zones — the places around the world with the highest life expectancy — drink alcohol moderately and regularly (1–2 glasses per day on average; The only exception to this is the Adventists in Loma Linda, California, who do not drink at all).

In fact, Blue Zones researchers concluded that a daily dose of wine is one of the 9 most powerful lifestyle habits shared by people who’ve lived the longest.

Blue Zones centenarians serve as proof that you can consume alcohol regularly and live to 100 (and beyond).

…

Of course there are other factors associated with alcohol that could be contributing to their longevity.

It could be that their daily happy hour is a way of “downshifting” and reducing stress after a long day. We know that stress leads to chronic inflammation, which is associated with every major age-related disease, so finding ways to cope is essential for health.

Or perhaps drinking is beneficial because it brings people together with friends and family on a daily basis. We know that social relationships are vital for health as well.

Whatever the reason, a daily glass or two of wine certainly doesn’t seem to be doing them any harm.

And maybe some of their excellent health and longevity can be explained by the wine itself.

Photo by Jean-Luc Benazet on Unsplash

Resveratrol, the polyphenol found in the skin of grapes, is known to protect the body against damage that can lead to cancer, heart disease, and dementia. Red wine in general is thought to have anti-inflammatory benefits.

And there is one wine that stands above the rest for its health benefits.

The healthiest wine in the world is the robust red wine from Sardinia (one of the Blue Zones locations) called Cannonau.

Sardinians are known to drink 3 to 4 small (3-ounce) glasses of Cannonau a day on average, spread out between breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a late afternoon social hour in the village.

Cannonau wine has 2–3 times the level of flavonoids (known for their powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory health benefits) as other wines.

Daily consumption of this antioxidant-potent wine could explain fewer heart attacks and lower levels of stress among men in Sardinia (Sardinia has nearly 10 times more centenarians per capita than the U.S.)

If you are looking to combine your daily wine hour with a dose of health, try to find a bottle of Cannonau at your local wine shop. It is not yet well known outside of Sardinia.

If you can’t find Cannonau, other dry red wines can offer similar health benefits. Cannonau is the Sardinian name for the Grenache grape, and Grenache wines are common in most wine shops.

Credit: Wikipedia

Overall, the jury is still out on the specific health benefits of alcohol. And this information doesn’t mean you should start drinking if you are not already.

But people in the world’s Blue Zones show that you can enjoy alcohol moderately and regularly, and still make it to a happy 100.

This Is The Type Of Bread You Should Really Be Eating

I love bread.

There isn’t much better — or more satisfying — than tearing into a freshly-baked, warm loaf of bread.

Obviously I’m not alone. People have been eating bread for over 30,000 years, and it remains the most widely-consumed food in the world.

Bread is a simple delicacy.

A traditional loaf only needs 4 ingredients: Flour, yeast, water, and salt.

And yeast (as an added ingredient) is actually unnecessary with natural leavens or sourdoughs.

It’s no wonder that bread has been a reliable source of nutrition and sustenance since the earliest days.

…

But go into any grocery store these days and look at the ingredient label on a package of bread. You’ll see a lot more than those few basic ingredients.

To pick on an easy target, Wonder Bread’s Classic White bread has over 30 ingredients, including things like high fructose corn syrup, monoglycerides and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium peroxide, monocalcium phosphate, modified corn starch, ammonium sulfate, and calcium propionate.

I’m not sure what all of those things are, but they don’t sound much like flour, yeast, water, and salt. And I don’t really want them in my body.

Wonder Bread Classic White Nutrition Information

It’s no surprise that Wonder Bread is remarkably white and light, stays soft and “fresh” on the shelf for weeks, and presumably is quite fast and cheap to produce.

But the use of unhealthy additives is not restricted only to the likes of Wonder Bread.

Take Nature’s Own Honey Wheat Bread, for example. You’d think this bread would be pretty good for you. After all, Nature’s Own promises no artificial preservatives, colors, or flavors, and no high fructose corn syrup.

Plenty of people seem to be buying into this promise — The Nature’s Own website says their Honey Wheat bread is the #1 selling loaf of bread in the U.S.

But look a bit deeper, and you’ll notice that in each loaf of that bread you’ll get inflammatory-fat-laden soybean oil, monoglycerides, and DATEM — a shelf-stabilizing emulsifier that is often made from artery-clogging partially hydrogenated oils.

Nature’s Own Honey Wheat Bread Ingredients

Nature’s Own shouldn’t feel so bad, though. Both the 100% Whole Wheat bread from Arnold and the 100% Whole Wheat bread from Pepperidge Farm also include soybean oil, monoglycerides, and DATEM. Buyer beware.

There is just a lot of junk in mass-produced bread these days, even in the supposed “healthy” stuff. It is affecting the way that we feel on a daily basis and impacting our long-term health.

I believe over-processing and unhealthy additives are to blame for the spike in “gluten sensitivity” in recent years, and not actually the gluten itself (excluding the small percentage of people who have Celiac disease). Gluten gets a bad rap, but we should really be looking elsewhere.

But instead of obsessing over all of the bad stuff that is put into our bread, and how it’s making us sick and tired, I’ll instead focus on the type of bread we actually should be eating.

…

For starters, aim to get as close to the original recipe for bread as possible. If you can find bread with only the four original ingredients (flour, yeast, water, salt) — or close to it — you’re well on your way.

If you can buy that bread from the person who actually baked it (and can tell you how they baked it), that’s even better.

Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash

But you also want to make sure that the flour used has not been bleached, refined, or “enriched” — which is typical in most commercial bread today — otherwise the nutrition content has already been stripped out. Enriched white flour causes your blood sugar to spike, and can lead to weight gain and a range of diet-related diseases.

On the other hand, true whole grains (those not bleached, refined, or enriched) are nutrient-dense, keep you full longer, and have a milder effect on blood sugar.

We know that whole grains are healthier than white flour, but we also know that the front of bread packaging cannot be trusted. Words like multigrain, whole grain, and whole wheat show up on nearly every package of bread these days, and it is very misleading.

Instead, you need to look on the back of the label and perform some basic math to ensure you are really getting whole grains without the additives.

Specifically, look at the label and make sure the serving size ratio of carbs to fiber is equal to or less than 5-to-1 (for example, if you divided 15 grams of carbs by 3 grams of fiber, that would equal 5 and would be acceptable). Authentic whole grain bread is naturally high in fiber because the wheat germ and bran are still included.

Following the 5-to-1 rule is the way to buy healthy bread, according to Dr. Michael Greger, author of the groundbreaking book How Not To Die.

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I am a big fan of the Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted whole grain bread from the Food For Life brand. The low sodium version of that bread is arguably the healthiest bread in the grocery store.

With 15 grams of carbs and 3 grams of fiber, Ezekiel 4:9 bread passes the health test. The science on the potential benefits of sprouted grains is still in its early stages, but available data points to many health benefits.

Ezekiel 4:9 is one of the healthiest bread options in the grocery store

Mack’s Flax bread from Silver Hills Bakery is another tasty and approved option (18g Carbs, 5g Fiber, 3.6 ratio).

Eating just 3 portions of whole grains a day (equivalent to 3 slices of the above approved breads) appears to be as powerful as high blood pressure medications in alleviating hypertension.

Just 3 portions of whole grains have been shown to reduce the risk of getting a heart attack by 15%, and the risk of getting a stroke by about 25%.

In case you are wondering, none of the “offending” breads mentioned in the previous section pass the 5-to-1 test. Wonder Bread Classic White (29g Carbs, 2g Fiber, 14.5 ratio), Nature’s Own Honey Wheat (14g Carbs, less than 1g Fiber, 14 ratio), Pepperidge Farm 100% Whole Wheat (23g Carbs, 3g Fiber, 7.6 ratio), and Arnold 100% Whole Wheat (22g Carbs, 3g Fiber, 7.3 ratio) all clock in with more than a 7-to-1 ratio of carbs to dietary fiber. Some are better than others, but all should be avoided in favor of healthier options.

I choose to eat my Ezekiel 4:9 morning toast with olive oil, which has also been shown to have a range of health benefits.

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Another option for healthy bread is to do as the Ikarians do.

You may have heard that Ikaria, Greece is one of the world’s Blue Zones — the places around the world with the highest life expectancy. Ikaria has been called the island where people forget to die. Residents of Ikaria stay healthy into their 90s and 100s with very little risk of Alzheimer’s, dementia, or any other diseases of old age.

Ikarians eat true sourdough bread that does not contain bakers yeast. Instead, their sourdough bread utilizes a lactobacilli (a beneficial strain of naturally-occurring bacteria) based starter culture, which “digests” the starches and glutens while making the bread rise. This process creates an acid that gives sourdough its slightly sour taste. The resulting bread actually has less gluten than even breads labeled “gluten free,” and has a naturally longer shelf life. True sourdough bread is slow-burning and nutrient-rich.

However, most “sourdough” breads found in stores are actually fakes, containing yeast and/or a sweetener. Go to your local bakery or grocery store and ask how they make their sourdough to ensure you get the real thing (made from real sourdough starter instead of yeast). Or bake your own Ikarian-style sourdough bread using this Blue Zones recipe.

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The bottom line is that bread can play an important role in your diet, but you have to pay close attention and select wisely.

Photo by Liene Vitamante on Unsplash

Choose bread with the fewest number of ingredients (ideally baked fresh, locally).

Make sure you are getting nutrient-dense 100% whole grain bread by following the 5-to-1 carbs-to-fiber rule.

Or opt for true sourdough bread like the centenarians in Ikaria eat.

Follow these simple rules and you can continue enjoying all of the pleasures of bread without the negative health consequences.

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for health, happiness, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.