Healthy longevity is your command post to manage your health and longevityMost people find that it’s tough to get the information that they need to manage their health. Perhaps you are suspicious of current medical practices which treat symptoms rather than giving good health maintenance advice. There is so much information, so many products, so many ways to exercise and so many people claiming that they have the answer. It’s easy to just throw up your hands and do nothing while your continue to age at the same rate and allow your doctor to load you up with expensive prescription drugs each with their own set of side effects. Surely it is better to establish a healthy baseline of diet, exercise and supplementation that supports your body’s ability to maintain itself than to micromanage symptoms. That is what I’m doing So what does that mean?
Make a planRight now there are no sure things when it comes to slowing the aging process. There is a lot of hype, a lot of hope and many things that seem promising. Let's start by assuming that there are things which can slow the aging process and improve health. It’s quite likely that there are many things but until we have more research nothing is certain. The first thing to do is take the positive step of believing that you can slow aging and that you can improve and maintain your health to achieve a long and healthy life. If you are waiting for sure things you may have a long wait. The jury is still out on many things which appear promising. What ones seem most likely to work? Make your best judgment – or guess and make a list of the ones that look best. If you have to wait for a sure thing goodbye and good luck. If you are still in the game, then lets get started.
Self AssessmentFirst sit down with a notepad and think about your health. If you are over 40 there are certainly things that don’t work as well as they did when you were 20, 30 or even last week. Write them down. What has your Doctor told you about your health? Too heavy? Cholesterol too high? High blood pressure? Are you taking medication for anything? Write them down.. Let the assessment sit for a few days and look at it again. What did you miss? What needs clarification? When you get that done, this is your baseline.
PrioritiesTake your assessment and prioritize all the issues. If any issue overwhelms the others for example if you are chronically obese and it is seriously impacting your life or you have diabetes, you need to be consulting with your physician and making sure that whatever you do works for you. If you are like me, only moderately overweight, with cholesterol only slightly higher than desired, then you can prioritize the list to focus on the things that are most important to you. Maybe you want to focus on one issue. Maybe you want to create a overall program to support healthy aging. You can check out the categories for nutrition and exercise to find things that you can add to your current program or maybe you don’t have a program yet. Then create one.
ProgramWhat are you doing now? Do you take vitamins, supplements, special foods? Do you have an exercise plan? If you are doing something now, that’s great because you have already established the discipline and commitment that will carry you on towards a healthy and long life. If not, then start something. Take a multi-vitamin. Exercise on a regular basis. Improve your diet. At this point it doesn’t matter what you choose but once you start, commit to doing it for at least one month. When you complete the month, then commit for another and think about adding something else. You can change the program as you learn more but stick with it, changed or unchanged, for a long enough period that you can assess how it has affected your health. Just as a start, make a six month commitment to give you enough time to evaluate the effectiveness of what you are doing. Some things will be easy to assess – exercise will probably be one of them. Others will require testing to determine any improvement and still others you may have to take on faith.
Baby Steps are fine.You don’t need to make a big commitment to get started. Don’t decide to become a marathon runner unless you have already run a marathon. Don’t go out and purchase hundreds of dollars worth of vitamins and supplements or a home gym. Don’t go on some odd-ball diet. At least not your first week – or even your first month. Healthy longevity is a process and a commitmentPick yourself a simple plan that you know that you can follow. And then follow it. Keep up your research and when you find something that looks like it should be part of your program, add it. You may replace one thing with another. You may add new things. You are in charge. It’s your life. The sooner you stop being a passive victim of circumstances and take responsibility for your health, the sooner you will improve your life. How to use this siteRight now, Healthy longevity is organized for you to look up nutrition information and help you evaluate what vitamins, foods and supplements you need. In progress is an evaluation of different forms of exercise. Also in the works is a page which will link conditions to substances or exercise that might improve or re mediate those conditions. |