Health News and Tips:
Longevity Fitness Guide: How to Live to 100
Tanner Garrity
Below is our longevity fitness guide, which features the first 30 keys to living to 100. The guide is broken down by how you optimize your lifespan through diet, fitness, good choices and some truly wild cards. Before diving in, understand that you can’t do all of them; some are likely incompatible. But the idea is to cherrypick those that work for your life. Ultimately, if nothing else, know this: making the call right now to act in the name of longevity — whether your “right now” is 35 or 65 — won’t just add life to your ledger. It’ll enrich and lighten every year along the way.
I'll share the remaining 60 in our next two newsletters.
DIETARY DECISIONS
1. Eat fresh ingredients grown nearby
The planet’s longest-living communities all have access to food from farms and orchards
down the road — that’s to say, within a 10-mile radius of their homes. These ingredients
aren’t treated with pesticides or pumped with preservatives; they’re their original nutrient-
dense, fibre-rich selves. Sound expensive? So are late-life medical bills.
2. Eat a wide variety of vegetables
So you’ll eat carrots, beets and cucumbers, and that’s it. Okay. But if you want to unlock
your true longevity potential — and lower your risk of everything from cardiovascular
disease to macular degeneration — you need to cycle through the whole menu regularly:
Cruciferous veggies, dark leafy greens, edible plant stems, roots and marrows.
3. Eat until 80% full
Hara hachi bu is a Japanese saying that translates to “Eat until you’re 80% full.” It’s an
alien concept in America, where portion sizes are the biggest in the world and somehow
getting larger. But finding your “slightly full” will directly reduce your risk of cancer, heart
disease or stroke while giving your body more energy and less bloating in the short term.
4. Eat home-cooked family dinners
As the godfather of nouvelle cuisine, Chef Fernard Point once famously said: “Butter!
Give me butter! Always butter!” Restaurants want customers to leave happy, so they use
lots of flavours — salt, sugar and fat. It all adds up. According to one study, eating out twice a day increases your chance of early death by 95%. Cooking is your best bet.
5. Embrace complex carbohydrates
The bread aisle is a starting point for understanding the difference between foods rich in
simple carbohydrates (Wonder Bread) and those rich in complex carbohydrates (100%
whole-wheat breads). The latter, for instance, rocks a ton of fibre and fuels the body in a
sustainable way. Seek out more complex carbs like brown rice, oats and barley.
6. Consider a plant-based diet
You don’t have to give up meat. But you should know that societies full of centenarians
don’t eat very much of it. While meat dominates most American meals, it only appears in
Blue Zone diets at a rate of five times a month, two ounces per serving. And when it
does, it comes sourced from free-range animals that weren’t treated with hormones or
antibiotics.
7. Substitute meat with fish
Keeping fish in the rotation not only takes the pressure off your veggie cooking skills —
it’s also a huge life-expectancy boon. One study found that “pesco-vegetarians” (who eat
up to three ounces of fish daily) live longest, aided by omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and
minerals. Aim for non-farmed, mid-chain fish like trout, snapper and sardines if you can.
8. Try not to eat just before bed
Your last meal of the day should be your smallest and shouldn’t be eaten within three
hours of heading to sleep. If you’re constantly pining for a huge dinner or bedtime snack,
you’re probably not fueling correctly throughout the day. It’s stress-eating dressed up as a
reward, which leads to indigestion in the near term and weight gain over time.
9. Let yourself feel hunger
Don’t get bogged down with YouTube videos on “the right way to intermittently fast.” As
renowned Harvard geneticist Dr. David Sinclair told us: “We don’t know the best method.
We do know that if you’re never hungry if you’re eating three meals a day and snacking
in between, that’s the worst thing you can do. It switches off your body’s defences.”
10. Eat dark chocolate
Most people have heard this one. Dark chocolate is no elixir on its own, but cacao tree
seeds are part of a family of environmentally stressed plants that “activate longevity
pathways in other organisms when consumed.” Replace your cookies and cupcakes with
a little square from time to time to reap the rewards of flavonols and resveratrol.
11. Make more PB&Js
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are having a moment. A few years ago, ESPN
devoted a profile to the NBA’s “secret addiction.” Tom Brady revealed not long after that
the PB&J is his pregame meal of choice. And this year, a study concluded that the
sandwich can add 33 minutes to your life. Remember to use whole-wheat bread and all-
natural jelly.
12. Eat more beans
The backbone of the centenarian diet. Beans are high in fibre, protein, iron, magnesium,
potassium and B vitamins and low in fat and calories. They fill you up as well as meat
and cook easily (serve them on their own with olive oil and a bit of sea salt or put them in
a burrito or salad). David Buettner calls beans “the world’s greatest longevity food.”
13. Eat more nuts
Sure, you’ve heard it forever. That doesn’t make it any less true. One massive study that
assessed nut consumption in approximately 119,000 Americans over 30 years found that
regular nut-eaters (think a handful or two of almonds a day) reduced their risk of dying
from cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease by 20%.
14. Cook with olive oil instead of butter
Olive oil giveth, butter taketh away. While butter increases “bad” cholesterol levels in the
blood (low-density lipoproteins), olive oil is a longevity rockstar — in one study, people in
the highest quintile for ingesting olive oil’s polyphenols lived an average of 9.5 years
longer after the age of 65. Just make sure you’re buying extra virgin olive oil.
15. Put a cap on fun foods
You don’t have to ban salty and sugary treats from your life forever, but recognize that —
in order to avoid empty calories and reduce your risk of heart disease — they can’t
happen every time you have a tough day at work. That’s a self-defeating choice. Save
them for the right time and place, like special celebrations, when you’ll appreciate them
the most.
16. Eat slowly
For one, choking to death would really hamper your longevity goal (about one in 2,500
people die each year from choking). But slowing down while eating is also a great way to
avoid overeating. Remember — it takes up to 20 minutes for the stomach to process what
you’ve eaten. Take deliberate bites. Honour the meal and the effort it took to make it.
17. Drink more water
18. Drink red wine at 5:00 p.m.
Like dark chocolate, red wine comes from a plant source that is rich in cholesterol-
lowering flavanols. Some are wary of linking longevity to alcohol, but learning to drink red wine moderately can also recalibrate your relationship with the drug. Having a
glass (keep it under three) at the end of the day, preferably with friends, is a stress-
relieving behaviour.
19. Drink tea every day
Green tea pops up everywhere in lifespan research. One famous study found that
drinking the stuff three times a week pushes back your risk of “atherosclerotic
cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.” If you’re a fan, take up to two cups a day.
It makes sure those “cardioprotective” polyphenols stay in your body long-term.
20. Coffee is also a good idea
A stimulant with side effects like jitters and trouble sleeping can help us live longer.
Indeed. Aside from caffeine, the chemical compounds in coffee — a wealth of
antioxidants — positively impact mortality, especially when consumed in copious
amounts. Drinking multiple cups of coffee each day can help stem chronic diseases from
Type 2 diabetes to Parkinson’s.
21. Try the Mediterranean Diet
If you pick up some of the dietary habits above — eat locally, sub fish, use olive oil —
you’re already well on your way. Nutritionists are rightfully sceptical on today’s litany of
fad diets, but the Mediterranean diet remains well-respected for its capability to alter
microbiomes, improve cognitive function, limit risk of heart disease and promote
longevity.
22. Let food be
We want food that fits our wacky preferences (separating yolks to make egg whites), has
a lot of flavor (peanut butter with added sugar) or would look good on TikTok (deep-fried
macaroni and cheese casseroles). But these concepts don’t square away with the
traditions of long-living communities, who treat and cook whole foods as they’re naturally
cultivated.
23. Stop drinking cow’s milk
Why can’t 68% of the global population digest cow’s milk? We’re not supposed to drink it.
Milk — and dairy, at large — is too high in fat and sugar to justify its long-time anointment
as the best place to turn for protein and calcium. At the very least, cow’s milk has no
impact on longevity, so feel free to substitute it for a more environmentally friendly alternative.
24. Know it’s never too late
One month of healthy eating will confer immediate results in the realms of cell
regeneration, decreased inflammation and improved digestion. Starting young is great,
but it doesn’t matter how old you are. Meet with your doctor beforehand to get your
bloodwork done. Then, come back after and note the changes, specifically in vascular
health.
25. Stick to your dietary changes
Your body will rebel once you ditch your unhealthy ways for a few days. Returning to butter, processed foods and the two vegetables you like will undoubtedly feel easier. But note all the positive little changes — from your trips up the stairs to
your trips to the bathroom. Eating healthy will change your life, and then let you live more of it.
26. Sleep more than seven hours a night
Quality sleep is non-negotiable if you want to live a long, healthy life. Entertain a pattern
of undersleeping, and exhaustion will seep into everything you do: exercise, diet,
and interpersonal relationships. Sleeping five hours a night doubles your risk of death. Try to log seven, and keep it right there. Too much sleep isn’t great for longevity, either.
27. Practice yoga
No surprises here. Yoga slows down the effects of stress on cellular aging. Multiple
studies (see here and here) have sung the praises of just three months of dedicated
yoga. The combination of physical effort, breathwork and meditation slow the tide of
inflammation while balancing hormones (like cortisol) that cause chronic stress.
27. Meditate for 15 minutes a day
Even if you can’t commit to an intensive yoga practice, finding time each day to “quiet”
your brain is likely a life-extending habit. When we stage personal interventions to
decrease brain activity, the brain increases the activity of the RE1-Silencing Transcription factor, a protein that “allows the brain to function at a higher capacity with less strain.”
28. Schedule an annual physical
“Physician-dodging” is a disturbing status quo for men between the ages of 35 and 54.
Only 43% of that middle-aged cohort reported seeing their doctors for annual
physicals. Blame it on busyness (or, more likely, a mix of toxic masculinity and
unacknowledged vulnerability), but too often, men are late to diagnoses and die earlier
because of it.
29. Start strength training
“Functional fitness” takes on an entirely new meaning by age 70, at which point most of
us have lost a quarter of the strength we had at 30 and struggle to perform basic tasks.
In fact, people with low muscle strength are 50% more likely to die earlier. Start strength
training early and focusing on grip strength will aid you best in old age.
30. Move every day
Walking for just 11 minutes each day can tangibly protect the body from the mortality risks
of hours spent sitting in front of a computer. Leaving the house for a walk each day — like
drinking tea and eating beans — is something all Blue Zone communities share. Find a
time of day that works for you and pencil in a daily constitutional, rain or shine.