5 (easy) Tips to Live Longer | Episode 89

Most of my clinical insights this week are coming off the heels of our incredibly successful cleanse which I’ll talk more about later, but first, I want to tell you about a 70-year-old man who has been coming to see me. He said he wants to improve his golf game because his younger friends are outdriving him on the course. He noticed he was lacking strength, endurance, and range of motion. So, he’s started to work with one of our trainers. In our initial assessment, he couldn’t hold a plank for a full minute. Now? He’s holding a plank for over four minutes (longer than the Marines are required to!) How did he do it?

Watch the live show below:

One Day At A Time

No matter your age or where you’re starting, all you need to do is start. Once you take the first step and begin doing the thing you want to be doing, you’ve taken the hardest step. We rarely give our bodies the credit they deserve for what they can do when we line things up in their favor. Even if your motivation is not losing at golf, give yourself the opportunity to be great!

I see another woman in her late-40s who has managed to still look amazing and maintain her high school weight! It’s not just about the physical looks, her energy, her glow, and the look in her eyes makes it clear that she’s succeeding. This is the fifth year in a row she’s done the cleanse with us, and when I first met her, she was in maybe the worst place in her life. She had just gotten through a divorce and was trying to be a single parent and was overall struggling. It was making one effort at a time, one positive choice at a time, that took her from that place to this place of thriving. She had those key people in her life that loved her through the difficulties and helped her see the bigger picture of what her life could become if she just kept moving in the right direction. 

These success stories still take time. Sometimes we forget the clock that goes along with these incredible transformations. But the truth is, time is going to pass either way and sometimes it goes by very very fast. You can either be in the same spot you were or you can move on.

I’ve seen another gentleman in his 50s who’s lost over 20 pounds and has actually concerned his friends by changing his look so drastically. All he did was take alcohol out of his life, it was one really positive decision. When I told him he looked good, he was actually surprised, because all of the feedback he’s been getting was a concern because everyone always knew him as puffy and inflamed. The key questions should always be about energy and function, rather than just weight and appearance. These are much better indicators of health.

This week’s topic is about the longevity of life, not just in the number of years, but in the quality of years. This is the easiest, most fundamental list of things you can do to give you the most longevity of your life. We’ll call this the Don’t Die Strategy

1. Don’t smoke (anything!)

We’ll start with the obvious, which is don’t smoke tobacco products. If we as a culture had better, stronger lungs, we wouldn’t have seen nearly the results of Covid that we did. Vaping is just as serious of a crisis. All of us in the health field we’re dreading seeing the results of the mass switch to vaping and we’re seeing it come to fruition. We’re seeing chemical problems, auto-immune disease, and an ever-growing list of complications from what is essentially a neurotoxin. Even marijuana is still smoke in the lungs. There may still be benefits for people with anxiety and cancer patients, but I do not think smoking marijuana is the best or most effective way to deal with that. Too often, marijuana smokers don’t consider themselves “smokers” in the same way that tobacco smokers do, but there is still lung damage happening. If you are smoking every once in a while, it’s absolutely essential that nobody else is inhaling your secondhand smoke.

2. Move your body

The human body was designed to move. It’s a simple law of supply and demand. The more we use our body, the more we can regenerate our cells and create the need for more hormones. Most of us have a massively sedentary lifestyle where we’re spending at least 22 hours a day sitting or lying down (and that may be generous). We have to compensate for that time by exercising and getting our body out of that rut. Another essential is range of motion. Being able to reach and touch all the parts of your body may sound fundamental, but you can lose so much range of motion in so many ways and not even be aware of it. It’s one of the clearest and indicative ways to measure health. Remember, you’re born like Gumby and you die in rigor mortis. Your blood carries everything you need for vitality, so the more blood you can get all the way to your extremities, the better your health. 

You may not feel like moving, you may look for excuses, but life is about doing hard things. The times when it’s easiest to get off our routine is the time we need to do it most. You don’t need to have a gym membership to move. Although I love a packed yoga class and the collective gym experience, you can just go for a walk wherever you are. Some is always better than none and the key is always just starting. 

3. Maintain your ideal weight

It starts with asking a simple question, “Am I at my best weight?”. I find that most people don’t know their ideal weight because they haven’t been there in a long time. Anytime you spend overweight is detrimental to your overall wellbeing. When things go wrong, they will go wrong faster if you are overweight. A great place to start is going clean and seeing what happens to your body. It may seem tough, but finding that motivation (even if it is your golf game), is essential. Being underweight can also be dangerous in a “skinny fat” situation. Your weight may stay the same or even go down, but as a result of losing muscle mass. This is why ideal weight isn’t just about appearance or looking “skinny”, but your body composition and the overall fragility of your body. Losing that muscle mass can be a clear indicator of weaker bones and can put you at overall greater risk especially as you age.

4. Have a real food diet

This is probably more important now than it’s ever been. With all the chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides in our food that weren’t there even 20 years ago, we are at much higher risk. The overwhelming majority of what we see in the supermarket is full of toxins and often doesn’t even qualify as food. This is where “God’s Garden” comes from. There are a lot of different specific diets depending on your own personal needs, but anyway you slice it, you need to be eating real food. Does it grow in the ground, swim in the ocean, or run on the earth? It’s that simple. You can even eat in restaurants that way as long as you’re being conscientious and making the modifications you need. You may need a stricter diet to catch up, depending on your personal health needs, because sometimes our body needs to cleanse a lifetime of toxins out. Once you get back to the even playing field, you’re in a much better place to figure out what works best.

5. Manage stress

This may seem vague, but it’s actually not. Humans were built to thrive under stress and build resiliency. Having an excess hundred pounds on the body is the type of stress that isn’t building resiliency, it’s taxing your organs. Historically, humans have always dealt with lots of stress, but we now seem to live with more self-induced fears than ever. The fear of the unknown, the fear of others’ perceptions, the guilt we carry, and others literally inhibit our cellular function. We’re not good communicators, we’re not very loving, and we’re just not at our best when we’re overstressed. We need to stop and do an honest gut check of our health, wealth, and relationships. 

It starts with simply asking “Is this healthy?”, especially in our relationships. When we boil it down, most of our stress comes from finances and family. Could we be a better version of ourselves for our family? We could even use the Don’t Die Strategy. Even if you’re in a relationship with someone who’s truly awful, when you’re at your best, you won’t stick around and compromise yourself.  

When it comes to wealth, a healthy person is much more adept at accumulating wealth. Being strong and flexible in mind and body is essential to being at your best. If you want to manage stress, increase your capacity and you’ll be able to better manage it. The better you’re managing your stress, the more effective you will be at everything you try to do. 

6. Become a better sleeper

You can’t leave a conversation on longevity without addressing sleep. Somewhere between 7-9 hours, depending on your personal needs is the key. Oversleeping can be just as bad as undersleeping. You need to find that window in order to be at your absolute best. Timing that with your circadian rhythm and working with the sunrise and sunset will optimize that sleep time. 

And this week’s action we can take to become superhuman is…

Go For More

You’re so much more awesome than you even believe, so go for it and thrive!

What’s Next?

We have put together a dashboard of all of Dr. Bart’s videos, based on health topics, in our Level-Up Health Membership.

This library of health content is low cost, so we can help you on your journey to becoming superhuman! 

Not only is it extensive, but it will continue to expand with new videos each month. Also, you will have the opportunity to share these videos with your friends and family!

Medically reviewed and written by:

Dr. Bart Precourt

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