5 Tips to Optimise your Health Span
#28
I started my health span optimisation journey 25 years ago. It was triggered by the realisation that I had a high risk of heart disease in my family when my father had a quadruple heart bypass in his late 50s and as part of my MBA studies a course helped me develop a long term vision for the life I wanted to live in my middle and late years.
If I wanted that vision I would need to look after myself, so my health span optimisation journey started.
In this post I will share 5 tips I have learnt along the way.
Your in a marathon
The biggest challenge you have in life is maintaining your health as you age. This doesn’t start in your 50s. It starts in your teen and 20s where habits are formed that have a compounded effect on your future health outcomes.
Habits are hard to change but as the poster in my gym says they do determine your future.
The first thing you have to realise is you are in a 40+ year daily marathon of habits that can optimise or damage your future health. How you consistently stay in this daily marathon, mainly doing positive things is the biggest challenge you will face.
Your goal
The most inspiring goal you have is to keep doing the things you love. Are you clear what those things are?
The foundation is clear
If you have good cardio-vascular fitness (Vo2Max) and high muscle mass then you are much more likely to be able to keep doing the things you love doing and significantly increase the chances of you living a longer, healthier life. This period of healthy living is called your health span.
This foundation is essential to maintain but unfortunately ageing reduces your capabilities to maintain it so you have to adapt in each decade what you do and how you do it. What exercises and nutrition that worked in your 20s will not work in your 40s and 50s.
You have to learn to adapt to keep participating in the health span optimisation marathon.
5 tips to navigate the health span optimisation marathon
#1
The challenge
Everyone is unique but the same.
Pro-tip
Don’t try generic or influencer led advice and hope it works.
Invest in experts (soon AI) to benchmark where you are and curate a journey that is unique to you.
Why?
Everyone’s start point, lifestyle and propensity to execute are different.
#2
The challenge
You are what you measure.
Pro-tip
Compete against yourself.
Set targets for what you do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and measure how you do.
Celebrate when you met a target and hurt when you don’t.
Why?
It’s easy to drift and get distracted from the daily tasks and it’s motivating to chase a target.
#3
The challenge
It’s hard to do it alone.
Pro-tip
A co-pilot to guide and motivate you on your journey will increase your chance of success by 50%. That can be a training partner, accountability partner, coach, PT or App.
Why?
Your motivation to turn up every day runs out quickly, you need external stimulus to keep going.
#4
The challenge
Get strong and stay strong
Pro-tip
Make quality strength and stability training one of your base life skills.
(This includes recovery and nutrition)
Be proud to be strong.
Why?
Your fighting sarcopenia, getting weaker undermines all the activity you love doing.
#5
Challenge
This is a long game that needs resilience and consistency
Pro-tip
a) Learn to enjoy doing something challenging every day when you are younger so it’s a habit you can draw upon when things get harder to do as you get older.
b) Periodise your year to make consistency easier and keep you fresh. Break your year into 3 month periods and create health goals for that period. Chase them then set new goals for the next 3 months. Doing the same thing year on year is soul destroying.
Why?
Inconsistency can cause a lot of damage quickly that takes a lot of effort and time to recover from.
Final Thought: Remember
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This is great advice for all ages.