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Wes: Welcome everyone to episode eight of Healthy Mind Fit Body podcast, this is Wes and I have Kevin on the other line. Hey Kevin!
Kevin: Hey Wes, how’s it going?
Wes: It’s going well, kind of around the holiday season of Halloween.
Kevin: Oh yeah.
Wes: You got your costume all ready?
Kevin: Oh I’m still working on it, I need to pick up a couple things this afternoon after we’re done here but it’s coming together.
Wes: Are you going to be a Healthy Mind Fit Body technician?
Kevin: Yeah, I’m actually going to be an alternative doctor.
Wes: Alternative, not so much mainstream huh?
Kevin: Not the mainstream type, but I’ll have a stethoscope in case anyone needs that. I’m going to be there to help.
Wes: Maybe dispense some pills, some get cured quick schemes?
Kevin: Yeah, some pills and some smokable items that may help people in some fashion.
Wes: For medicinal purposes only right?
Kevin: Of course, yeah exactly.
Wes: Excellent. Yes, there are all kinds of concoctions out there in the alternative realm as well as mainstream. Looking at how to increase one’s longevity which is the topic for this podcast, how do we live long enough to live forever? Or at least long enough to get past 100 right?
Kevin: Yeah, past 100 would be nice. I’m actually shooting for 200 if that were possible I’d be all over that.
Wes: I’ve got my sites set on an even 1,000.
Kevin: An even 1,000, that would be good.
Wes: A thousand years for starters, kids.
Kevin: So yeah this actually ties in nicely. I just wrote an article on slowing the aging process so this is good stuff, figuring out how we’ll live to at least over 100, then we’ll work on the 1,000 after that. But we can really learn a lot from people that have already done it right?
Wes: Yeah, I remember I went to a L.A. futurists meeting one time back five years ago and the guy was talking at the campus of UCLA about centenarians and longevity and looking at the figures and what actually causes people to live long lives. And it’s kind of all over the map if you do that actual research and surveys of people that are over 100, what their claim to fame is. And I guess it boils down to a lot of good genes and of course some healthy practices wouldn’t hurt either. I guess if you don’t have those good genes then you’ve got to try to make up for it some way right?
Kevin: Yeah and I think that this article by Bill Sardi gets into it a little bit. It’s called “Here Come the Centenarians!”
Wes: Here come the old fogies!
Kevin: Here come the old fogies! So he talks about Japan; Japan is leading the world by a long shot actually as far as the most centenarians and second is France but it looks like Japan has age 80 and over is 4,700,000 and they have 11,546 apparently that are age 100 or over. And they talk about Okinawa and that’s always the fallback, there’s actually a book written about what is going on in Okinawa, why are those people living so long.
And in the book, I kind of skimmed through it, I didn’t get into the details. But they talk a lot about their diet of course and they…
Wes: They eat a lot of fish.
Kevin: They eat a lot of fish and a lot of vegetables, and vegetables that aren’t grown in other parts of the country, just specific to that region.
Wes: Yeah and so also the Japanese eat a lot of seafood with a lot of Omega 3 fatty acids. It definitely has a good effect on preventing various chronic illnesses – cancer and heart disease, stroke.
Kevin: Yeah and I think that’s something that isn’t emphasized enough out there is the need to take Omega 3’s as a supplement and ideally the best form would be to take fish oils. But especially people for whatever reason don’t eat fish, I think that they’re really missing out on those anti-inflammatories that are in the Omega 3’s, and we need those.
That’s not something that we should be just skipping because that will accelerate your aging process if you’re not getting the Omega 3’s and you’re getting a lot of Omega 6’s. You’re definitely going to accelerate your aging process and that shows up not only in your health but in your looks. So that’s one thing that I recommend, I mentioned that in an article that I wrote on anti-aging is taking the fish oils or eating fish a couple times a week.
Wes: It’s important to look for the capsules, I guess they’re all in capsule form. And you want distilled ones that don’t have the various toxins and residues from the various fish because the bigger the fish in the oceans, the more they accumulate toxins. So sometimes you’ll see Omega 3’s from sardines, which are probably a better form, the cold water fishes.
Anyway, the other aspect that he talks about here is the French, and the French paradox of course – eating more fat and yet having less disease and more longevity. But they drink a lot of wine, a lot of wine-os over there in France, right?
Kevin: It says the French who drink 3-5 glasses of red wine a day experience optimal health benefits. So yeah…it’s going to be tough to do, but like I said earlier before we started, you could spread that out throughout the day. So maybe have a couple glasses of wine at breakfast, and a couple more at lunch and one with dinner and you’re good to go, right?
Wes: I tend to pour it on my grape nuts actually. I go to BumWines.com for all my wine.
Kevin: That probably actually is a site.
Wes: It is actually a site. Put that in the show notes for all you people that like the cheaper wines. Mad Dog 20/20, Night Train Express.
Kevin: How about Boone’s Strawberry Hill?
Wes: That’s quite a thrill, I found my thrill on Boone’s Strawberry Hill.
Kevin: Yes, yes. So not only does it give you thrills, but it gives you antioxidants so you think he’s talking about Resveratrol in the wine or is there something else that they’re getting?
Wes: You know, I don’t think he mentions Resveratrol once does he? Well he does actually. He says, “Yet unlike other wine makers who produce wine in an assembly line fashion and only ferment their product for one week, the French ferment their wine four weeks and produce a dark red wine that is rich in molecules the public is now becoming familiar with – Resveratrol, Quercetin, and Proanthocyanidins…” – say that ten times fast Kevin.
Kevin: I don’t even think I’d say it once.
Wes: It will twist your tongue in a knot three times sideways.
Kevin: And that’s before drinking five glasses of wine right?
Wes: He says, “This is true medicinal wines,” from the Nature 2006 journal article. “So if confused about which French red wine to try first, taste test wines made from the Tannat grape in the southwestern region of Madiran that are known to be rich in the molecules mentioned above.”
So this is kind of being pitched as the holy grail for longevity but these are just [inaudible] or surveys seeing okay, why are the French living longer and trying to figure that out because of the numbers of French who are living longer. But I think with the overall message of the Healthy Mind Fit Body which we get into in our book, it’s important to have a holistic view of this mind body integration and to try to relieve stress, minimize stress in your life, and increase sort of positive aspects of your life and focus on the nutritional aspect that actually is going to keep and maintain a healthy weight for you, a healthy body fat percentage.
And all those factors come into play in terms of longevity because again, not all of us have the good genes where you can drink, or smoke excessively, and you end up living over 100. I mean some people do that; it’s amazing.
Kevin: Yeah and that’s what he points out in Japan, that despite all their bad habits there, they have a really high rate of smoking. And despite all that, they still have the most centenarians and yet they have those high rates of drinking and smoking. But that does go back to what you inherited in your genes and probably a few other factors.
Wes: Yeah because these are all over the map, people that are centenarians now, who knows what they ate over those hundred years right? It could be a whole bunch of different things but again, you put yourself at a major advantage when you focus on things that are actually good for you that we know are going to be beneficial and like we mentioned on previous podcasts, minimizing the insulin secretion is an important factor because hyperinsulinemia kind of goes hand in hand with obesity.
People are putting out too much insulin, which keeps their body fat locked in and stores even more body fat. And as I recall, that talk that I saw at UCLA, this was a researcher that knew Terry Grossman and he was co-author with Ray Kurzweil, a futurist. The book that they had then was called “Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever,” so both these guys, I think they’re in their 60’s.
But they’re getting up there and they’re really becoming very aware of the nature of mortality and they want to extend their life spans as much as possible. So I know that Ray Kurzweil has got a whole regimen of pills that he’s taking, vitamin supplements and so forth and I think it goes up into the dozens of different types. So he’s kind of throwing lots against the wall and seeing what sticks basically. But I think what matters are the fundamentals, right?
I mean basic nutritional knowledge, the motivation to stay with a certain eating lifestyle and a mindset that keeps you positive and fosters high self-esteem, and a lack of conflict with yourself, even your different subselves. Like one self wants to go eat something that you know is not going to be healthy for you, and the other self is battling with that so how do you integrate that self that isn’t in harmony with what is actually good for you to promote a healthy mind fit body, right?
Kevin: Yeah, and I think we both have talked about how we’ve come across that among different people. They’ll say different things, like I had somebody say, “I don’t want to know if that’s bad for me because I like that.” And it’s this idea that I don’t want to know the truth because the truth is really…it’s going to affect my lifestyle, it’s going to make me not want to eat the things that I enjoy.
Wes: Yeah, I had a guy last night tell me that he knows that he’s eating foods that are not good for him, that are keeping him not so fit even though he tries to exercise a lot, he still has the love handles. And he said, “I don’t want to give them up even though I know that they’re not good for me.” So there’s a conflict right there in bold relief, and how do you overcome those things?
Well you kind of have to sit down and do some introspection and really explore what’s going on in your subconscious and your thoughts and feelings on this. And this is what’s great about the addendum part of Healthy Mind Fit Body because I have a seven day program in there where you can actually go through that and explore the different facets of yourself and basically become more integrated.
And so you’re not trying to make excuses with yourself as to why you’re not achieving really what you want. And part of that of course is the nutritional aspect, eating the right foods. And there are various ways of looking at what foods are the best to eat and I think a typical one these days is the Mediterranean diet. And this article here we have on the Daily Mail UK, it kind of goes through some of those things that you get from that kind of diet.
Kevin: Yeah, the article’s called “You’re As Old As You Eat: Our Guide to Foods That Fight Off Age,” and this actually overlaps a little bit with that article that I wrote, so this is good. But it’s got some new stuff.
Wes: As new research shows that olive oil could play a vital role in protecting against dementia, we look at the key foods that have shown to be an ally against aging. And of course number one is olive oil, rich in mono unsaturated fat right? And they also say there’s a compound in it called Oleocanthal, it has been found to slow down changes in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s. Researchers will believe it will become a key ingredient in medicines designed to combat the disease.
And Alzheimer’s is really an insidious disease that a high percentage of elderly people get unfortunately. But another compound to perhaps to stall that is Crocumin, the spice that they use in a lot of Indian food. Curry is basically the spice that they use widely in India but the spice is Crocumin and that has been known to potentially be a preventer of Alzheimer’s. They have a low incidence in India and they are attributing it to that at least.
Kevin: Yeah, so the second thing would be Vitamin D which is good for your bones, and Vitamin D obviously you can get from the sun and we’ve talked about that before. Get out in the sun for 20-30 minutes a day but it’s also found in eggs, oily fish, and animal liver. And so consuming that helps to fix calcium and bones.
Wes: As we’re entering this winter season, or late fall, with the time change and everything, people aren’t going to get as much sun so it’s good to supplement with Vitamin D.
Kevin: So here’s the oily fish again, so this is pointing out that the Omega 3 fatty acids in fish oil have been found to reduce heart disease and heart attack, and to prevent furring up of the arteries. So furring, this is an English newspaper I take it, right? They have some odd words and some weird spellings but it’s something that is again overlooked a lot. And you can also get the Omega 3’s from certain kinds of meat, like the grass fed beef is high in Omega 3’s so it doesn’t just have to be fish.
Wes: Or wild game too if you’re a hunter out there. So that was the meat part right? The University of Texas thing?
Kevin: Yeah, that’s right. They have meat in here too so…they recommend meat, strength.
Wes: And then there’s garlic. This is good for the Halloween season because it does keep the vampires away. As age creeps up, infections can hit you harder so it’s a good immune booster. It has an active molecule called Allicin, it acts as a general antibiotic against a range of bacteria and viruses. It has been found to combat gastrointestinal infections as well as H Pylori, a microbe that causes stomach ulcers. And then finally we end with the fruit and leafy greens right?
Kevin: Oh yeah, like we’ve talked about this as well, almost every diet says it’s important to eat your vegetables and eat your greens. So obviously that’s going to be something that’s going to help. They point out in this article about eyesight, how fruit and leafy greens will help your eyesight.
Wes: Yes, don’t forget to wear safety glasses too, that’ll protect your eyesight.
Kevin: Yeah, it says eat three portions of fruit a day, eating three portions of fruit a day has been shown to reduce the risk of developing age related vacular degeneration by more than a third.
Wes: And keep dark leafy greens such as spinach, charred cale, broccoli, and brussel sprouts at the top of your list.
Kevin: Yeah, I do a lot of those things. I tend to do a lot of broccoli and cale is so good if you cook it right. It really tastes good, and you put a little olive oil on that and some sea salt, that’s one of my favorite vegetables. So the stuff doesn’t have to taste bad, I mean when you think about leafy greens it sounds like horrible, but if you do it right…I used to do a lot of steaming or even just putting in the frying pan. You can make these things taste pretty good.
Wes: Sure, I actually like vinegar with spinach. I think vinegar is good stuff too. So I think one of the important things too is to focus on the anti-inflammation and disease causing aspects of the longevity sort of framework of looking at things because it has a very serious road in the anti-aging zone which the four different aspects, I’ll run through them very quickly.
Lower cortisol levels, which is a stress hormone. We did a podcast earlier talking about doing excessive amounts of exercise, it can be deleterious to that. And then lower your insulin levels and your glucose levels which go hand-in-hand with the carbohydrates. So lessen your carbohydrate intake, maybe less than 100 grams a day just as a rule of thumb.
And then the last one is free radical damage, you want to lessen your free radicals. And a lot of these things like garlic and leafy greens and all that will combat the free radicals, and Vitamin D of course will help prevent the cancers that can be very lethal. We all know people who have died of cancer, so I mentioned at the beginning kind of jokingly that 1,000 years is what I’m shooting for.
But I’m pretty much serious about that folks because we are on the cusp, if you read Ray Kurzweil’s really optimistic predictions, within the next few decades we’re going to have technologies that will extend our life spans, gene therapy all the way to nanomedicine to assist in reversing the aging process or at least stalling it.
And of course Aubrey de Grey is also working on this too, ‘The End of Aging,’ one of the books that he has, it kind of catalogues the seven deadly sins of what’s going on in the molecular cellular level that’s preventing us from putting a stop to this aging process, or that’s accelerating the aging process. So it’s important to just keep abreast of this stuff and also to focus on this nutritional and the mental aspect.
I think that it’s important to also know that once you get old you can still be young, you can still be spry, you can still get around. I ran into a guy once who’s 93 and he was walking 18 holes of golf every morning, and he was a lot younger than my grandmother who was in her 70’s that didn’t do much of exercise and stuff. So it’s about state of mind, it’s about keeping in shape and doing those things that are good for you so you don’t have to be debilitated when you’re old.
Kevin: Yeah, that’s awesome. And I think these things are really important to get out there and make people aware of but I notice one thing that I was going to bring up is that there is a psychological barrier to these longevity aspects. I mean people can hear all day long that this is what is going to make you live longer, this is what’s going to give you more energy, this is what is going to make you when you’re 90 years old be able to walk 18 holes of golf but a lot of people have this block and what happened like a week ago, I was out and I met these people and they thought I was like way younger than I am.
And this happens pretty often that people are like wow, I can’t believe you’re that old and what’s amazing to me is I very seldom hear them say how do you do that or how do you eat? Do you work out? Nobody really asks any follow up questions to that. It’s almost like they look at me like oh, you must just be totally lucky and that’s just how it is, and I think that comes back to fear of oh my god, if I ask this guy what he does I might have to restricting my diet or working out more, or something I don’t want to do!
Wes: Taking responsibility for one’s own health and fitness right?
Kevin: Exactly! And I think that’s the point that I wanted to get across is that, this is the most important thing in the world, what is more important than your health? I mean there’s nothing because if you don’t have your health you have nothing.
Wes: You’re pretty much a goner!
Kevin: Yeah! So I think that I wanted to leave it at that.
Wes: That’s important, it’s really key to focusing on that not going with the flow, not just following the path of least resistance, but actually using an active minded perspective to facilitate your own health and longevity. So I think that about wraps it up.
If you like this podcast you can visit us on iTunes or just go to our website HealthyMindFitBody.com, you can find the link to iTunes there in the show notes also and rate and/or review the show.
Kevin: And to get your free audio gift that we’re offering, just go to HealthyMindFitBody.com upper right corner and enter in your name and email and you’ll instantly get the Three Pillars For Achieving Your Weight Through the Mind Body Connection. It’s a 20 minute audio and I think that about wraps it up!
Wes: That’ll get you on course. Okay to the future and to your longevity, talk to you next week!
Kevin: See ya next week!
Wes: [in an old man’s voice] Let me tell ya somethin’ sonny! In my day….
Kevin: [in an old man’s voice] we had it easy!
Wes: [in an old man’s voice] Back in my day, we didn’t have Healthy Mind Fit Bodies! We ate our bread and we liked it! We just ate stale food and we drank water. Don’t be an old fogie!