It's still early in 2018, and I believe people are starting to realize that their new year's resolutions are tougher than originally anticipated. Maybe they're starting to get caught up in the problems that show up along the way and losing sight of their goals.
Hopefully, this isn't you, and maybe your goal isn't as huge as living to be 150. However, you may have some huge aspirations for the year.
The key to your success is to write down your goals, write down actions you can take to reach those goals, and move the needle every day toward your goals by relentlessly taking those actions despite the devil on your shoulder giving you negative feedback. Keep up those actions and what you want to happen will be attainable.
Gary John Bishop has a great book on accomplishing your personal goals.
If your goal is to live to 120 or beyond, that's fortunate because I believe we live in an age of possibilities that didn't exist before now.
However, it'll depend on two things.
Whether you reach close to that goal or not will depend on the correct information you have to act on and if you act on that information more often than not.
Both can be tough challenges on their own, and the scary part is you won't really know if you're on the right track until after you've already lived three-quarters of your life. By then it can potentially be too late to make any substantial changes to redirect your course if you're wrong.
There are no do-overs. So let's make it count today.
Currently, there are a handful of actions we can absolutely say for certain will definitely benefit your health and longevity (emphasis implied).
And here's a hint, it's not as vague as saying "eat right and exercise." I'm not even going to talk about avoiding smoking because that should be a given and anyone who regularly smokes won't find this post anyways as we likely have totally different interests and goals, to begin with.
So let's jump in and set the stage.
Epigenetics. Before we go any further, you should have a basic understanding of epigenetics. I have an ebook that discusses this in further detail (please excuse the typical sales copy). However, I'll give you the quick and dirty right here and now.
Each strand of DNA in your body is made up of somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 individual genes. Picture in your mind a tiny light switch on top of each one of these genes. These tiny switches can be turned on and off causing some genes to do what they're designed to do or not, depending on whether the switch is on or off.
An example of this in action might be if you went to the doctor and found out you have a specific gene that's related to cancer, however you have no signs of cancer anywhere in your body. Just because you might have the gene doesn't mean you'll necessarily ever develop cancer.
What matters, is are you living a specific lifestyle that keeps this gene in the "off position."
All other genes work similarly. We all have accelerated aging genes, genes for youthfulness, healing, various diseases, immunities, developing strong muscles, elastic skin and joints, balding, improved vision, production of HGH (human growth hormone), focus, drive, creativity, and the list goes on.
Every conceivable genetic disposition comes down to this one factor --which genes are currently active.
So... if you enjoy where you are in life and don't wish to make any improvements, then I guess you can stop reading lol. For those who want to know what you can do, let's continue.
There are at least three to five things that I can give you right now that will positively and steadily start to transition the position of your epigenetics. I'm going to give you two today because the others will require a bit more explanation which will make for an extremely long post.
#1 Consume foods that have higher doses of Resveratrol. This is the primary health ingredient found in red grapes, red wine (not white wine), dark chocolate, peanut butter, and to a lesser degree a few other things which won't be covered here.
Sources vary greatly, but red grapes, red grape juice (no sugar added), and red wine can have around 2mg of resveratrol. Dark chocolate (the darker the better) is half that, and peanut butter is about half that of dark chocolate.
What are ways that you can start to add these into your diet?
Mix cocoa and cocao into your coffee, smoothies, protein shakes, etc. (btw, the difference between cocoa and cocao is how much it's cooked down to caramelize the sugars in the chocolate. Cocao is cooked less and ends up having slightly more nutritional value.)
Keep organic red grapes and organic peanut butter around (that's basically peanut butter and jelly without the added sugar).
Make red wine your drink of choice when you feel like getting a drink with your meal or out with friends.
You can also purchase resveratrol supplements that can contain upwards of 100mg of resveratrol. However, if you do choose to go this route, know that not all resveratrol supplements are created equal.
Make sure you look for ones that have "Trans-Resveratrol" on the label as resveratrol has to be extracted in a dark vacuum.
The reason is because once resveratrol is exposed to oxygen or light, it has a half-life of around fifteen minutes and can cause the resveratrol to lose its value after half an hour.
I go into a lot more detail in my book, which takes a couple of chapters, so I'm not going to go into a ton of detail here. However, the reason resveratrol is healthy is not because of antioxidant properties which seem to be what everyone jumps to when you mention resveratrol, and it's health properties.
What makes it so beneficial is it's ability to silence genes that accelerate aging (such as the insulin receptor genes) and activate genes which prevent disease and even reverse aging, such as the sweet 16 gene (aka the FOXO3A gene).
#2 The second thing is cutting added sugar from your diet. You'll want to check labels on all your foods. I know this seems a little miserable at first because you might find almost everything in your home has added sugar.
Believe me, once you know what to look for, you'll find plenty of options that don't add sugar to their products. Naturally occurring sugar isn't an issue.
Added sugar does the exact opposite of resveratrol. They're opposites. Sugar turns off the FOXO3A gene and activates the INS gene family (insulin receptors) causing aging to accelerate.
In addition, sugar has been shown to increase inflammation in the body, including in the brain which can lead to many many health problems ranging from ALS, Crohn's, autism, HDD, ADHD, bipolar and mood disorders, and what scientists are now calling type 3 diabetes --dementia and Altheimer's disease.
Dr. Perlmutter has a great book on this called brain maker which you can check out here.
Before we go, what proof do we have that any of this can extend life to 120 or even beyond....?
There's something called the French Paradox and has been studied since the 70's. What's interesting is that the majority of the world's centenarians (people living over one hundred years old), come from France.
France is known for their red wine consumption, and given that they drink several glasses of red wine a day despite having very little other difference in their western diet, they tend to live much much longer than the rest of the modern world.
The other thing to take into consideration is that every single species we've tested limiting sugar and increasing resveratrol in has double or triple their lifespan. This goes for worms, rats, birds, fish, monkeys, and the list goes on.
The only species on this planet that we are only just now experimenting on is humans. The reason is that we already have such a long lifespan that it's tough to test this on humans.
We're only just now getting to it, and the full results might not be in until another hundred years. I'm not sure you want to wait for the results before implementing this in your life... This book discusses the experiments they've already done in much more detail, The Longevity Seekers.
Ok, there's a lot of information and resources for you to look over. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll be happy to refer you to more references or even see if you're a good candidate for my one-on-one nutrition training.
Gotta get back to work. Take positive action in your life and have fun conquering your new year. Talk soon. --Tim Ray