After two weeks of intense research on the subject, I finally have a plan!!! Throughout the process, I read 5 books, listened dozens on podcasts, read academic articles, and non-academic articles about the subject and different components of it. The diet part was the most confusing one as there are so many conflicting information about what’s the PERFECT diet. The controversies about meat/dairy/eggs/fish/carbs/grains/fat are just too overwhelming. Few times I wanted to throw the towel and say whatever… but the persistent part of me didn’t give up. Now, I feel like I have a full picture and coherent story to tell of what’s my personal plan is. The key word is personal. This might sound a bit extreme for some or too relax for others, but I know what I can do to nudge myself closer to what’s right for my body and my life style.
Personally I have a strong research background, not on health nor nutrition but on economics. Yet the way science is done in different disciplines is very similar. Evidence based, treatment vs. control group (cross sectional analysis or observational analysis can’t show causality, only correlation), and repeated tests. I also checked credibility of the advocates for these recommendations, whether they have a commercial interest to what they do, and what they do personally. There are just too many fad diets advocates in the internet.
My plan draws conclusion from: Lifespan, longevity diet, How not to diet.
Dietary recommendations that I plan to adopt:
- NO to sugar, white flour, processed food. This is no controversy on this. It’s not easy but it’s just the right thing to do.
- Mostly plant-based with 1-2 times of fish and/or shellfish. The change from my current vegan diet is not that I don’t think vegan diet is not the perfect diet, I still do. The challenge is to do it well a sustainable way that fit my busy work/life/travel. Vegan diet not done well could lead to B12, omega 3, iron, and protein deficiency. To achieve the 0.33 g of protein per pound per day, I need to be very conscious about planning my meals if I want to be vegan. There is just so much tofu I can eat/want in a week. So having 1-2 times of fish could help to achieve the goals and not having to worry about to supplement.
- Colorful plate, not much grains/legumes. Grow our inner garden (our guts needs variety from our food) and limit insulin spike (too much grains/legumes can cause spike).
- Intermittence fasting 14 to 16 hrs a day. Again, all science shows positive impact of IF for health metrics especially for cell regeneration including those genes that delay/reverse aging. Longer term fast like 24 hrs water fast is not safe and could have side effects, so both Dr. David Sinclair and Dr. Valter Longo do not recommend them for the general population. One major thing that I learned from lifespan is that aging is the mother disease of all diseases that happen when we get old (cardio, diabetes, immune diseases). So instead of treating diabetes, it would be more efficient to treat the disease that causes diabetes, which is aging. There are few things that Dr. David Sinclair recommends to treat aging even reserve it: diet, exercise, cold therapy, IF, sleep, and supplements. They treat/reserve aging from the molecular mechanisms.
Life style recommendations that I’ll adopt:
- Moderate exercise 60 min per day (jogging, fast paces walking), intense exercise (those that take you out of breath for few minutes) twice a week that I can incorporate in my running (speed and tempo runs), strength exercise few times a week by doing 10-20 min pilates/yoga.
- Cold showers few times a week.
- Adopt good sleep habits (I’m currently reading Why we sleep, will share when done) and track how it affects my body.
- Supplements: NMN and Resveratrol. I’m usually BIG in against taking any supplements as I think food, exercise and sleep affects 90% of our well being. But Dr. David convinced me enough to give these two a try.
Other things that I plan to do:
- Get a baseline of my physical wellbeing or my biometrics. I’m heavy on evidence, so if I’m going to implement these changes, I want to know exactly how I respond to them. To track it, I plan to use inside tracker to get a baseline, and then test it again in 6 months.
- Get an oura ring. The older I get, the more I get affected by sleep. Although I know when I get up if I had a good night of sleep or not, I’m not sure what determine it exactly. There are many sleep trackers out there, but oura ring seems to be the best. I also like the founder approach to wellness, so I’m going to try it.
Voila… here’s my plan!
If you are intrigued by these, read the books or listen to these podcasts:
What changes would you adopt?
Our New Journey 
Why cold showers?
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