The Victors

I think this gets overly complicated with a desire to be far too precise. Healthy lifestyle means three main things. Eat well. Exercise. Sleep well. Do these to maintain a decent weight to avoid visceral fat for which a big gut is an adequate diagnostic tool. That’s it. Even within these three people make it overly complex. Here is my KISS advice.

1. Eat well. 99% about calories. Not every food you eat needs to be pine bark or some superfood. Consistently eat crap and you simply cannot have energy on your ideal calorie count, say 1800. Ultra processed, fast food, frozen fake meals, these have a ton of calories that don’t fill you up or give you energy to exercise. Real food. Fruits, vegetables, leanish proteins fill you up while leaving room for some garbage food along the way. There are only a few simple staples outside of calories. Try to eat at least two fruit or vegetable helpings a day (great if 3-4 of those per week are a cup of berries). Try to eat fatty fish at least once a week. Make sure you eat enough protein (at least 1 gram per pound of body weight is my goal). Eat pizza, eat cheese, eat barbecue, but know they’re going to make 1800 difficult that day.

2. Exercise. Grip strength is the goal here. Cardio is great, I’m sure I don’t do enough, but people need strength to live long healthy lives. It helps avoid injury, muscle is cardio protective (some say massively), avoids frailty. Throw in the trash all that 150 minutes per week, HIIT, phase 1 and 2, heart rate recovery. Not that it’s meaningless, but it overwhelms people from simply being moderately strong. My measure? How long can I hold two 50 pound dumbbells. Longer = better grip strength = better health (regardless of the weight you choose).

3. Sleep well. 6.5 to 8 hours a night and you are in good shape. Ideally from roughly the same bedtime to roughly the same morning time most days. Consistency is king. REM, sleep patterns, sunlight in your eyes, HRV, and whatever else those sleep quality measure, in the trash you go. If you get a consistent 7 hours of sleep and exercise and eat a healthy diet, newsflash, it’s good sleep. Overstressed? Hard to hit a consistent 7 hours. Keeping the room dark helps.

I’m probably about a 7 out of 10 and 100% know where my opportunity lies. Reducing alcohol. Meh, not today. The Silo finale airs at 9 making this a certified bourbon poor sleep night. As far as supplements go, daily multi and omega 3. I’d maybe go over the omega 3 recommendation but halve the multivitamin (they’re often way too high in A and E). Completely optional, if you’re great about eating real food neither are really necessary. I’m not counting treating conditions, that is way out of my league. But you might see some of those lessen or go away if you can hit closer to 10 out of 10. I think this is it for the masses. Feel free to go beyond, but this 20% of the effort will get most people 80% of the gain.