Live Happy, Healthy and Long

We do not know what the deciding factors are for us humans to live a long healthy life, say 100 years of independent and disease-free life. But there are some in the world who have achieved this, so it must be possible.

For all I have read and heard, there are at least 4 things we have to do in order to extend our health span.

1. Eat with restrain (Caloric Restriction).
2. Stay physically active.
3. Have a purpose
4. Have a society of friends (a sense of belonging)

- Eat with restrain (Caloric Restriction)

How I tried to achieve this is by first calculating my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate):

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year )

Daily caloric intake can be estimated simplistically as follows:

If you are sedentary: BMR + BMR x 20%
If you are moderately active: BMR + BMR x 30-40%
If you are very active: BMR + BMR x 50%
If you are extra active: BMR + BMR x 60-80%

In my case BMR = 1195
50% more of BMR = 1790

To eat with restrain or to practice caloric restriction, I have decided to cut back 30% from 1780, which comes to 1255.

Next step is to decide what to eat.

The easiest way to cut down calorie is to cut down starch, which includes potatoes, bread, rice and pastas. What we do is to eliminate potatoes and bread, and eat moderate amount of rice and pastas.

We also started to adhere with one rule, which is to avoid refined sugar. Read labels on ingredients, if you see sugar, glucose, fructose or sucrose in the ingredients, simply do not buy them. You will be surprised how much junk food you can avoid. Most ready made foods (even those that claimed healthy) have sugar added. We still drink fruit juices moderately that are processed without added sugar.

Right now food we eat in a typical day constitutes of:

Breakfast: Egg, Apple, Cheese & Tea
Lunch: Frozen Peas (eaten raw), Ceviche (tuna or scallop marinated with lemon juice, tomato, garlic and oregano), Grapes, Raw almonds/ pecans/walnut & cheese
Super: Rice or Spaghetti with fish (tuna, salmon, mahi mahi, haddock & basa) or seafood (shrimp and scallop, lobster if in season) and vegetables (typically carrots, onion, tomatoes, okra, paprika, cauliflowers & broccoli)

The difference between what Richard eat and what I eat is that I do not eat cheese and I only eat one egg yolk.

Calorie intake in a day is around 1400 to 1600, so I am only cutting back 10 to 20% instead of the 30% goal I have set for myself.

This practice reminds me of my youthful days trying to limit my monthly expenses to below $800. I never succeeded strictly speaking, always exceeding by $50 or so, but still cutting down my monthly expenses drastically.

My BMI at the moment is 19.8. Two years ago, my BMI was 17.6, which was way better in my opinion. The normal BMI (18.5-24.9) was probably set for Caucasians. I am Asian and have a small bone structure. At 17.6 BMI, I was way more flexible and felt smarter.

My goal for BMI in 5 months is 18.8 or less.

- Stay physically active

We are walking 8 to 14 km a day which takes 1.5 to 3 hours and I have a small perennial garden, which takes some physical upkeep.

- Have a purpose

Have purpose means that you know why you get up in the morning. I am working on to extend my health span for as long as possible, say 58 more years until I am 105. I want to be able to live independently until the day I die and enjoy every minute of it.

- Have a society of friends

The most important friend is oneself. We often forget that.

According to Marvin Minsky, a human mind is made of many smaller processes, of which he called them agents. I believe whenever conflicts arise among these agents in one’s mind, one is losing oneself as a friend. Or simplistically in Freud’s language, the id, ego and super-ego should all be aligned with the same purpose.

When you have yourself as a friend, the next most important friend is your spouse, whom I am lucky to have.