Lessons from the OG longevity gurus
The rise and fall of health & wellness in the Blue Zones
Blue Zones are areas around the world where there’s a higher concentration of people (compared to the rest of the world) who live to 100 years old and live well.
These people fascinate me.
Dan Buettner - National Geographic Fellow and New York Times bestselling author - stars in a new Netflix series called Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones.
Okinawa, Japan is often one of the first Blue Zones people mention when speaking about these groups of Centenarians.
They thrived on eating whole plant foods (90% of their diet) with a little bit of meat, chicken, and seafood (10% of their diet) mostly for celebrations or to season their dishes. (What a concept - use meat to season food, not as the main.) They regularly move their bodies, not by torturing themselves in hot yogalates classes - it me! 🙋♀️ - but by doing everyday activities like gardening, walking, housecleaning, and getting up and down from a squatted position or seated on the floor.
One of the most important aspects of their longevity is their close-knit communities and family ties.
The Blue Zones adopt an ‘older’ style of living. And this way of life makes them the original gangsta longevity gurus. Their excellent daily habits are naturally shaped by their environments and beautiful cultures.
Life seems simple and focused on activities that take time as opposed to living an intensely distracted life that leaves us feeling like we have very little free time.
The lure of social media (and their invisible hypnotic algorithms), our favorite TV shows, movies, and games leave little time for connecting with our favorite people, taking a simple walk and being in nature, or putting intentional thought into what we’re putting into our bodies and oftentimes our minds!
One striking stat in this new Netflix special is the fact that today, the Blue Zones are changing, especially in Okinawa:
“When I first traveled there in 1999, it was known for producing the longest-lived, healthiest people in the history of humankind. But today the longevity phenomenon has almost completely disappeared. In fact, Okinawa now has the highest rate of obesity of any other area in Japan.”
-Dan Buettner
How did this happen?
A big contributor is fast food restaurants like Subway, McD’s, and others like Pizza Hut growing globally. Another major contributor is processed foods with added preservatives; things like cookies, pretzels, chips, chocolate bars, candy, and ice cream that strip away nutrients (if the original food had any to begin with).
(Of course, I focus on the food. 😏)
An article places the blame on “foreign influences, ranging from fast food to less exercise, the stress of modern life, as well as a loss of the traditional sense of ‘ikigai’ in younger people…”
(Ikigai is your life’s purpose.)
“Every single unhealthful behavior impacts the body in a destructive fashion to some degree.”
The Pleasure Trap, Douglas Lisle, PhD & Alan Goldhamer, p. 166
Buettner says the good news is that we’ve captured the wisdom and know how to attain longevity for ourselves. He asks, “Can I actually create a new Blue Zone?” (He’s done some remarkable things!)
Change starts from within. My question is, can I create a Blue Zone in my own home? Where…
The vast majority of food is whole plant foods: beans seem to be the cornerstone of all longevity diets around the world. Whole plants is an easy one for me but I’m working to add more beans 😬
We stop eating when we’re about 80% full (I can barely recognize myself sometimes; more on this below)
We put family first; including keeping our aging parents close by though my own parents are 2,000 miles away. Investing time and attention in our partners and spouses, children, and close (and curated!) friends and networks
We unwind and rest well most days
We have purpose and meaning in our lives
We move naturally by walking, dancing, gardening, housework, playing with Ruby - a very active puppy who gets my cardiovascular system werkin!
My health upgrades since the pandemic
I’m honing my skills on how to curate the ‘modern advances’ that will truly push our lives forward in positive ways and drop, or more realistically, objectively limit the vices that pull our lives towards injury. If we’re conscious about how we’re indulging in our ‘vices’, they no longer become bad habits but instead enjoyable breaks and ways to wind down and be entertained or have fun.
While that may read like a simple enough statement, the reality of it is that this is incredibly hard to do.
When I look at books like The Pleasure Trap (which I loved) I’m left with feeling pretty bad about my lifestyle habits. There’s a quiz inside the book that when I first took (during the pandemic year), I scored second from the bottom for having good lifestyle habits! The book recommended that I “seek professional help immediately”. 😅🤨
But what this book didn’t know is how far I’ve come. (The authors, of course, weren’t bashing my progress over the years but the quiz felt pretty cruel!)
Fast forward to today after tweaking my lifestyle habits and I score second from the top! 🤩
Here are the specifics of what I’ve changed:
I drink much less alcohol. During the pandemic year, I started to drink regularly. Though I could barely even finish a drink most nights, the frequency of my alcohol intake as a whole increased dramatically. No bueno. Dose matters!
I get proper rest most nights, 7 hours a night is my sweet spot. The key for me was to have a bedtime routine. The lights in the house dim at 9 pm and by 11 pm, all lights are out. I set a notification on my phone that gently dings acting as a cue for me to Pavlovian-style train myself to wrap up what I’m doing. Then it’s time to wash my face, brush my teeth, get into cozy pj’s, and ready the house for the next morning (review my to-do list for the next day, get Elle’s school items ready for the morning, tidy the kitchen; I like to wake up to an organized house that’s ready to take on the next day with me - one of these days I’ll master all aspects of this!)
I honor my innermost desires. I’ve gotten so much better at putting boundaries up where they need to be, saying no to things I know will not add positively to my or my family’s life, and most importantly saying YES to the things that will.
I no longer bring traditional snack foods into the house. There used to always be chips, maybe some cookies, definitely crackers, ice creams, and any other new snack that looked appealing. Now, more often than not, snacks are fruit or popcorn (it’s a whole plant food!) With frozen snacks, we try to stick to fruit bars - though they have added sugar, it’s an occasional treat and most of the ingredients are real fruit.
I stop eating (most of the time) when I’m 80% full. This one’s an absolute game changer. It took me many rounds of doing a fasting mimicking diet to learn this one and keep that desire close - the desire not to stuff myself silly (a former favorite pastime). I can be a slow learner but I’m proud that I kept practicing, stayed in it to get through the hard moments, honored the struggle, and reaped the incredible benefits of being in the fasting state. This program helped me longterm because during a fast, you are hungry. And having to sit with my hunger and literally practice how to do that, opened me up to a totally new way of eating once I was out of the fasts. Now, my mouth, gut, and brain click when I am indeed 80% full. When I chose to eat to 100%+ capacity 😁 I let myself do that and fully enjoy it. Instead of doing that a few times a week, it’s now become a once monthly kind of deal.
When it comes to food, we gravely underestimate how many calories and let’s just say, ‘other stuff’, is in the common foods we eat. Day after day, year after year, this all adds up and too often, it causes deleterious effects.
Lives are destroyed.
Though it can be incredibly difficult to make changes to how we move and rest, how we choose to think, to eat, and how we connect with one another, it is possible. When we don’t want to change our lifestyles, Dr. Lisle (an excellent psychologist) says we’re caught in the “pleasure trap”. Who wants to get out of something like that? 😜
“Breaking free can result in rediscovering long-forgotten, and marvelous, feeling states. Rested, healthy, and fit, free from chronic pain, fatigue, health concerns, excess weight and its associated psychological baggage, you will discover spontaneous feelings of optimism and vigor. Your tolerance for life’s stresses will be substantially increased, and you will be better equipped to face any challenge. Living truly well means that you are investing daily in your life’s foundation. There is probably no better investment that you could make.”
The Pleasure Trap, Douglas Lisle, PhD & Alan Goldhamer, p. 170
On Monday, September 18th, I’m hosting a group fasting circle. We’ll be imbibing on another 5 day reset (fasting mimicking diet DIY style) and we’ll come out of the fast just in time to welcome in the new fall season.
For those who are already part of this, no need to sign up again - if these dates work for you (Sep 18-22) you’re in! Expect a separate note from me tomorrow.
If fasting isn’t your jam, I’ll have a much gentler program available very soon.
Until then, your homework for the week: 🤓
📝 How can you create a Blue Zone for yourself?
Write out possible ways you can:
Eat more whole plant foods and add beans (working up to 1 cup a day). If you already eat 90-100% whole plants, how can you incorporate more variety?
Move your body every day ideally by doing something natural and fun
Spend your days aligned with your core values
Have more fun (can you slow down and spend more time doing this?)
Connect with your favorite people more often
✨