Are You Destined To Be Frail As You Age?

No! For most, it’s more of a choice than a destiny.

Many of us have forgotten something very important. Health is your birthright. Humans are designed to be strong, healthy, lean, energetic, and agile. Your body is amazing at healing and growing and thriving, always striving for homeostasis. Provide your body what it needs, and it will do the rest.

The problem? We don’t provide our body what it needs. Most of us don’t even understand what that is.

I offer you 4 actionable steps to maximize your health and make sure you remain strong and capable.

Eat Whole Food Prioritizing Protein

Let’s break that down. Whole food is food that is in as natural a state as possible. Chicken is a whole food. Chicken nuggets, not so much. Potatoes are a whole food. Potato chips, nope. Shoot for eating this way as much as possible. If you must start with just one meal per day being whole food, so be it. Start there.

Why prioritize protein? Protein plays a crucial role in longevity and metabolic health. It’s the building block of life, right, we all learned that in school.

Protein is responsible for the health of your hormones, hair, skin, and nails. Want to age gracefully? Protein!

Protein builds muscle and helps us to recover. Want strength, mobility, and ideal body composition? Protein!

Protein supports tissues and organs. Want healthy longevity? Protein!

Protein breaks down slowly providing a longer-lasting energy source. Want to be satiated after your meals? Protein!

So many beautiful reasons to make sure you’re consuming adequate protein.

I recommend eating 30-50 grams per meal. That’s a far cry from what most of us are getting.

Sleep at Least 7 Hours Per Night

Here are some pointers to help you achieve that.

A good night’s sleep starts as soon as you wake. Get up, get outside. Morning sunlight exposure resets your internal body clock. That’s also a great tip for when you’re traveling across time zones.

Develop a bedtime routine so your body knows it’s time to sleep.

Avoid excessive artificial light and digital stimulation after dark. Easier said than done, yes.

And lastly, sleep in a cool dark room.

Get Fresh Air and Sunshine Every Day

This lifestyle factor contributes to health and happiness, as well as improved creativity, relationships, and quality of life. It encourages exercise, fun and stress management all at the same time.

Go outside and play. Cycle, pickleball, do what you love.

Use Your Body

There are 3 buckets to focus on here. The first is to walk and perform functional body movements every single day. What are functional body movements? Hinge, squat, push, pull, rotate. Your body is designed to perform those movements. Keep this in mind, you cannot out exercise a sedentary lifestyle. Exercising an hour a day, then sitting the rest of the day will not work. Get up and move every chance you get.

Next is progressive overload training 3-5 times per week for 30-minute sessions. That just means to challenge your body with resistance. Progressive overload can mean heavier weights, time under tension, or pulses.

Let’s use push-ups as an example; starting point may be push-ups against a wall. The progression would be doing them on a counter, then to the knees, then to the toes, then decline. See how that progresses?

And lastly is High Intensity Interval Training, also known as HIIT 1-2 times per week. I use a free Tabata app to help me keep time. This can be done in 4-8 minutes. Seriously. HIIT can be sprints, walking up a hill, cycling, whatever gets your heart rate up to about 80% of your maximum capacity for short bursts, like 10-20-30 seconds. Then recover for 30-90 seconds depending on what your body requires, repeat this cycle 4-6 times. That’s it.

To recap this step: functional body movements daily, progressive overload 3-5 times per week, and HIIT 1-2 times per week. Yes, you can do this!