Healthspan Part 3: Nutrition (Expanded Version)
“You can’t out train a lousy diet.”–Greg Glassman.
To entertain both a long and a healthy life one must address how we go about fueling said life. Ya gotta eat. It’s WHAT you choose to eat, and let’s face it, HOW MUCH you eat that determines the effect of nutrition on your Healthspan. Add in at least a little bit of thought about WHEN you eat and you have the basic outline of how you can design your own personal plan for eating your way to a longer life that is freer from the ravages of chronic disease.
Or so says the guy who chose to not only have that extra glass of wine, but did so after consuming a bowl of ice cream after the stop time of my eating window had passed.
Let’s lay down some stipulations before we start. First, there is really no settled science behind any recommendations on what constitutes the one, best nutrition plan. Literally, none. This is me, giving you my distillation of my research and a view of what I am trying to do for myself and Beth. In this effort we probably represent the area under the fattest part of the curve (pretty good, huh?) of folks who live in North America. We looked at obtaining all manner of “properly” sourced foods (e.g. prairie-raised naturally fed protein sources) and found the process to like paying for the privilege of having a second job. So we shop in a grocery store and buy what is available there. We eat at home 5 or 6 days a week. There are a couple of allergies that force us to be a bit particular about recipes but don’t affect our Healthspan-driven options.
Start at the beginning: how much should you eat? Easiest answer ever…LESS! You almost certainly get more food through your pie hole than you need. Heaven knows I do. To know how much you should eat it is first necessary to know how much you are consuming now by measuring literally everything containing calories that you consume. There are any number of apps you can use (we used MyFitnessPal). Prepare to be shocked at what you find. Your 1800 calorie macro diet or 14 block Zone more than likely only represents 75% or less of your actual consumption. Knowledge is power; you need to know the baseline.
Eat primarily to fuel your life. Eat to support your daily activities and your efforts at fitness. I know, eating (and drinking) can be a source of meaningful pleasure, especially when it is done with friends and loved ones. Don’t give that up. What we are talking about is your regular nutrition. Think about the challenges that being less strong will pose for you as you get older. You are most likely under-serving protein. We lose muscle mass as we age, even if we strength train. Everything I’ve read says that we should be eating more protein.
What kind of protein? Again, my choices are driven by the reality of my suburban life. It is just too hard and too expensive to eat red meat from animals that provide the same quality protein as they did 100 years ago. By and large it seems that we should all be eating more plant-based protein at the expense of industrially produced animal-based protein. Fill in the spaces as you will. We eat fish and some poultry chez us.
Processed foods, while extremely convenient, all seem to contain stuff we just don’t need, and many are specifically engineered to encourage over-consumption. Sugar is mostly not great. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is straight up bad. While some will exclude most, or all carbohydrates (so-called carnivore diets), most of us prefer a diet that contains carbs of some sort. Learn the Glycemic Index and choose foods that have a low GI. Oranges and apples over bananas and mangoes. Green beans and Brussel sprouts instead of rice or pasta. Mushrooms. How about fat? Sure! Again, just be mindful about the fat. Don’t let some manufacturer mass-produce your fat intake. Avocados and macadamia nuts.
You get the picture.
How about the “When” to eat. Man, what a mess this is. Total see-saw. Eat when you are hungry vs. eat on a schedule. Traditional 3 squares or time limited. If you think the research on fasting makes sense (there is data suggesting that fasting increases longevity to a degree that is greater than just the caloric restriction) do you do a traditional long fast or do something like Intermittent Fasting? And if it’s IF how big is the window during which you eat? FWIW I find the evidence for fasting, specifically time-limited eating or IF, to be moderately compelling. Not more than the HOW MUCH or WHAT research but enough to dabble in IF most days. YMMV.
I guess it’s time to talk about alcohol. Listen, I do love me a delicious glass of “Tuesday wine” or a well-made “Side-swiped”. Research is all over the map on low-consumption levels, but heavier consumption levels have pretty much always been found to be bad for you. Stuff like liver disease we all know about, but there are some really nasty cancers (tongue, throat) that are definitely strongly associated with heavier drinking, to say nothing about not-so-great behaviors like driving under the influence. What is controversial is the question of low to moderate consumption. One or two drinks per day. All of the research, and I mean all of it on both sides of the conclusion fence, is flawed. Poorly controlled, under-powered studies that fail to filter out confounding factors are the rule.
I’m afraid there are no absolutes when it comes to alcohol. For every study that says every drop of alcohol, whether it’s pear vodka or Puligny-Montrachet, is poison there is one that purports to show that moderate consumption reduces all-cause mortality when compared to no consumption. Every “social coin” has a “heads” picture of close friends sharing a bottle of wine as they commune over a shared meal on the other side of a “tails” depicting a family destroyed by some drink-driven debacle. Can you effect temperance, or are you more aligned with Samuel Jackson who would say that forbearance is the easier path? For the time being, at least with moderate intake, the science isn’t helpful enough. You will have to be thoughtful and decide for yourself.
Test to help stratify your health risks. Eat to support your daily activities including the exercise that we will discuss in Healthspan Part 4. Remember, you are not just doing this for yourself, but for all of your friends and family members who want you to stick around and be healthy as long as possible.
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