How to Eat, Enjoy & Stay Young

My husband Patrick has just conquered the Everest Base Camp at age 65. He is by no means an avid

mountaineer, but it was just something on his Bucket List he wanted to do. And he did it last year.

No one who meets him for the first time can believe he’s 65. In fact, he always tells people he’s 52 – born in 1952. And he certainly looks no more than 52.

Well, it’s no big secret how you too can stay young. The simple recipe for healthy aging: Good Nutrition + Regular Exercise.

So, what is a healthy diet?

1. Eat more fresh green leafy vegetables and other brightly coloured fruits and vegetables.
2. Eat quality proteins at every meal – free-farmed meat and poultry, seafood, especially wild or Alaskan salmon.
3. Eat more complex carbohydrates. No whites – white rice, refined sugar and flour. A low fibre, high sugar, processed, nutrient-poor, high-calorie diet causes all the wrong bacteria and yeast to grow in the gut.
4. Eat more good fats with high Omega 3 e.g. wild fish, eggs, olives, nuts, avocado. Avoid bad fats like vegetable oils, partially hydrogenated oils, peanut oil, all of which will initiate an inflammatory response in your body. 

How and why do we age?

Our body is constantly renewing, rebuilding and repairing itself. Built into each cell is a mechanism – a sort of clock that limits the number of times a cell can divide. This “clock” is controlled by a telomere, a stretch of DNA at the end of every chromosome. Each time a cell divides, a tiny portion of the telomere is lost.

Studies over the past decade have shown the association between the length of our telomeres and the state of our health (with regard to chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, depression, and anxiety). Longer telomeres have been associated with longer lives. 

Telomere length shortens with age. Researchers have found that the rate of telomere shortening can be increased or decreased by specific lifestyle factors. Better choice of diet and activities has great potential to reduce the rate of telomere shortening or at least prevent excessive telomere attrition, leading to delayed onset of age-associated diseases and increased lifespan.

Here are 5 anti-aging, healthylicious foods that can keep your telomeres long and your chromosomes safe:

1. Nuts and seeds, like almonds, walnuts, flax seeds: rich in arginine, antioxidants and vitamin E, folates to reduce homocysteine level, omega3 which douses inflammation
2. Spinach: rich in fibre and antioxidants that protect telomeres, high in folate that is required for DNA synthesis, repair and cell metabolism
3. Mushrooms: rich in quality vitamin D, which is associated with telomere length.
4. Berries: Nutrient-dense rich in vitamin C, magnesium, potassium, calcium and folate, and antioxidants that can fight cell-damaging free radicals.
5. Avocado: rich source of potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, sodium, iron, vitamins E, A, C, K, copper, zinc and packed with omega 3 fatty acids and glutathione, the master antioxidant. It also helps your body absorb the carotenoids in other vegetables.

I try my best to eat at least two or three servings of each of these in a week e.g. 3 avocados a week. In addition, every morning, my husband and I also take our PowerCocktail - which is a cocktail of 5 to 7 servings of vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, spinach, green pepper, beetroot, tomatoes, with turmeric, apple fibre and probiotics. And at night, it's restoration and repair with Restorate, a nightcap full of minerals and vitamin D, and of course, a good night's sleep! Email me at asiafitline@gmail.com if you need more information about FitLine products.

If you would like to get started on a healthy lifestyle, join our ResetReshapeRevitalise page on Facebook, where members share what we take to start of a day full of vitality. It's free, it's fun, and it's informative, so what are you waiting for?

Healthy for life

Jessica See

Health Coach