Category: Blog

“I worried that if I stopped tracking macros, I would lose my physique.”

After years of careful macro tracking, Dr. Fundaro finally admitted to herself that the method no longer worked for her. Yet she was afraid to give it up.

If anyone should feel confident in their food choices, it would be Dr. Gabrielle Fundaro. After all, Dr. Fundaro has a PhD in Human Nutrition, a decade-plus of nutrition coaching experience, and six powerlifting competitions under her belt.

Yet, when she was really honest with herself, Dr. Fundaro realized that she felt far from confident around food. For years, she’d used macro counting as a way to stay “on track” with her eating.

And it worked… until it didn’t.

After years of macro tracking, Dr. Fundaro was tired of the whole thing. She was tired of making sure her macros were perfectly in balance. She was sick of not being able to just pick whatever she wanted off a menu and enjoy the meal, trusting that her health and physique wouldn’t go sideways as a result.

Yet the idea of not tracking freaked her out. Every time she quit tracking, she worried:

“What if I don’t eat enough protein, and lose all my muscle?”

“What if I overeat and gain fat?”

“What if I have no idea how to fuel myself without tracking macros? And what does that say about me as an expert in the field of nutrition?”

The more Dr. Fundaro wrestled with macro tracking, the more she wanted to find an alternative.

Something that would support her nutritional goals while also giving her a sense of freedom and peace around food.

Calorie counting wouldn’t do it. That was just as restrictive as counting macros—maybe more.

Intuitive eating didn’t seem like a good fit either. Intuitive eating relies heavily on a person’s ability to tune into internal hunger and fullness cues to guide food choices and amounts. After years of relying on external cues (like her macro targets), Dr. Fundaro didn’t feel trusting enough of her own instincts; she wanted more structure.

Meanwhile, at the gym, Dr. Fundaro began lifting based on the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale—a framework that helps individuals quantify the amount of effort they’re putting into a given movement or activity. It’s considered a valuable tool to help people train safely and effectively according to their ability and goals. (More on that soon.)

While using the RPE scale in her training, Dr. Fundaro found she was both getting stronger and recovering better. There was something to this combination of structure and intuition that just worked.

And then, it dawned on Dr. Fundaro like the apple hit Sir Isaac Newton on the head:

If Rate of Perceived Exertion could help her train better, couldn’t a similar framework help her eat better?

With that, the RPE-Eating Scale was born.

Dr. Fundaro has since used this alternative method to help herself and her clients regain confidence and self-trust around food; improve nutritional awareness and competence; and free themselves from food tracking.

(Yup, Dr. Fundaro finally trusts her eating choices—no macro tracker in sight.)

In this article, you’ll learn how she did it, plus:

• What the RPE-Eating scale is
• How to practice RPE-Eating
• How to use RPE-Eating for weight loss or gain
• Whether RPE-Eating is right for you or your clients
• What to keep in mind if you’re skeptical of the concept

What is RPE-Eating?

Invented by Gunnar Borg in the 1960’s, Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is a scale that’s used to measure an individual’s perceived level of effort or exertion during exercise.

Though Borg’s RPE uses a scale that goes from 6 to 20, many modern scales use a 0 to 10 range (which is the range that Dr. Fundaro adapted for her RPE-Eating scale).

Here’s the RPE scale used in fitness.

Rating	Perceived Exertion Level
0	No exertion, at rest
1	Very light
2-3	Light
4-5	Moderate, somewhat hard
6-7	High, vigorous
8-9	Very hard
10	Maximum effort, highest possible

Originally used in physiotherapy settings, the scale is now frequently used in fitness training.

For example, powerlifters might use it to choose how heavy they want to go during a training session. Or, pregnant women might use it to ensure they aren’t over-exerting themselves during a fitness class or strength training session.

Because human experience is highly subjective and individual, the scale allows the exerciser to judge how hard they’re working for themselves. A coach can provide a general guideline, such as “aim for a 7/10 this set,” but it’s up to the client to determine exactly what that means for them.

Dr. Fundaro had used the scale many times with herself, and clients. She always appreciated the sense of autonomy it gave her clients, while still providing some structure.

So, she decided to take the same 1-10 scale and its principles, and apply it to eating.

Here’s what the RPE-Eating Scale looks like:

The goal with RPE-Eating is similar to RPE when training: Develop the skills to determine what is sufficient for you, without having to rely on other external metrics (such as apps or trackers).

How to practice RPE-Eating

If you’ve ever practiced RPE-training, you’ll know it takes some time to get used to. RPE-Eating is the same.

Don’t expect to be in lockstep with all of your body’s internal cues at first, especially if you’ve been ignoring them for a long time.

With this in mind, apply the steps below to practice the RPE-Eating process.

Step #1: Get clear on your goals.

RPE-Eating is not just another diet.

“It’s not about aiming to change your body,” Dr. Fundaro explains. “It’s not about feeling more control over your diet. Nor is it about feeling like you’re eating the ‘optimal’ diet.”

If your priority is maintaining a specific physique (such as staying ultra lean) or changing your body (building muscle or losing fat), this method can be adapted for that, though it isn’t the most efficient one to use.

Instead, RPE-Eating is about sensing into what your body needs and giving yourself appropriate nourishment—while building inner trust and confidence along the way.

“You have to trust that you’ll be able to nourish your body, and that you’ll be okay even though things may change in your body,” says Dr. Fundaro.

Admittedly, this can be challenging to do. It can also be difficult to let go of the expectation that you’ll hit the “right” macros at every meal—which RPE-Eating isn’t specifically designed to do.

However, if your goal is to build more self-trust, RPE-Eating can be a great tool to help you do that.

Step #2: Practice identifying your hunger cues

Before we explore this step, let’s distinguish between two motivators for eating.

First, there’s hunger. Hunger occurs when physical cues in your body (like a general sense of emptiness or rumbling in your stomach, or lightheadedness) tells you that you require energy—known to us mortals as food.

Then, there’s appetite. Appetite is our desire or interest in eating. It can stay peaked even after hunger is quelled, especially if something looks or tastes especially delicious—like a warm, gooey cookie offered after dinner that you feel you have to try, even though you’re technically full.

While it’s normal to eat for both hunger and appetite drives, the two can become mixed up. Especially if we have a history of dieting and tracking food.

The RPE-Eating scale helps you tap back into those true physical hunger cues, and learn the difference between hunger and appetite.

To put this in practice, try this before your next meal:

▶ Using the RPE-Eating scale mentioned above, identify your current level of hunger. Record the number on paper or the notes app on your phone.

▶ Then, eat your meal with as much presence as possible. (Note: This in itself takes practice. It can help to limit distractions, such as eating at the table rather than in front of the TV, and focusing on the flavors and textures of the food you’re eating, and how you feel eating it.)

▶ About halfway through the meal, check in again. Based on the scale, how hungry are you now? As before, record the number.

▶ If you’re still hungry, finish your meal. When you’re finished, repeat the same process, writing down where you are on the scale.

▶ Once you’re done, take a minute and tune into what your body feels like. What does it feel like to be full? “Download” that feeling into your mind and internalize it in your body, as if you’re updating your phone with the latest software.

Repeat this for as many meals as you can. Aim to do it for one meal a day for a week or so, or for as long as feels good to you. Don’t worry if you forget: simply repeat the practice when you can.

The more you practice this, the better you’ll become at being attuned with your actual hunger cues. With time, you’ll likely find you develop more trust in your internal compass than what the latest diet tracker says for your needs.

(For more on fully-tuned-in, mindful eating, read: The benefits of slow eating.)

Step #3: Get to know your non-hunger triggers

Have you ever come home after a super stressful day and you’ve basically thrown yourself onto a bag of chips or a carton of ice cream?

We might like to imagine ourselves eating every meal mindfully, using the RPE- Eating system to a tee, but life rarely works like that.

Chances are, there are certain situations that trigger you to eat more quickly, mindlessly, and beyond the point of hunger.

That’s okay.

Dr. Fundaro’s suggestion? Aim to become more aware of the situations that cause you to overeat in the first place.

To do this, you can practice something we use in PN Coaching: Notice and name.

When you find yourself scarfing down food faster than you can blink, simply try to notice what’s going on.

Can you name a feeling—such as anxiety, or sadness?

Can you identify a situation or moment that happened before you started eating—say, an argument with your teenager, or a nasty email from your boss?

Once you’ve identified the feeling, event, or person that’s triggered you to eat compulsively, see if you can also identify what you might really be needing or desiring.

Eating for comfort is normal. However, if it’s the only coping method we have, it can cause more problems than it solves in the long run.

When you find yourself with an urge to eat mindlessly, consider what non-food coping mechanisms might help you feel better. That could be 10 minutes away from your computer to close your eyes and breathe, a walk outside, or a quick call to a friend to rant—or just talk about something completely unrelated.

Getting to know your non-hunger eating triggers—plus widening your repertoire of self-soothing methods—is just as valuable as getting to know your hunger cues. Over time, this awareness will allow you to eat with more intention.

Step #4: Eat for satiety AND satisfaction

Even when you’re “adequately fueled” from a physical perspective, you might still feel unsatisfied from an emotional perspective.

That’s because, according to the RPE-Eating framework, eating should fulfill two criteria:

▶ Satiety describes the physical sensation of being full; your calorie or fuel needs are met.

▶ Satisfaction describes a more holistic feeling of being nourished; your calorie needs are met, but your meal also felt pleasurable.

If you ate to satiety only, your calorie needs might be met and your physical hunger quelled, but you might still feel unsatisfied—maybe because chocolate is on your “don’t” list, and even though you’ve eaten everything else in your kitchen that isn’t chocolate, nothing quite “hit the spot.”

In other words, you can eat to satiety at every meal, yet still be “restricting” foods.

You may not be restricting calories per se, but you may have banned entire food groups—baked goods, pizza, or whatever else curls your toes. This can lead to a feeling of constantly needing to police yourself, and doesn’t leave much room for the flexibility and spontaneity that real-life (enjoyable) eating requires.

(Plus, avoiding particular foods tends to work like a pendulum: restrict now; binge later. If you want to learn how to stop those wild swings, read: How to eat junk food: A guide for conflicted humans)

Satisfaction is a key part of eating.

After all, humans don’t just eat for adequate nutrients and energy. We eat for other reasons too: pleasure, novelty, tradition, community, enjoyment.

So, to take your RPE-Eating to the next level, Dr. Fundaro recommends trying it with meals and foods you genuinely enjoy.

If any foods or meals have been “off-limits,” try eating them using the RPE technique. (Macaroni and cheese, anyone?)

Practice using the scale with a variety of meals (including those you may have restricted previously), and notice how you feel over time.

With experience, you’ll get to know what it feels like to adequately fuel yourself with a variety of foods—including those you genuinely enjoy.

How to use RPE- Eating for weight loss or weight gain

According to Dr. Fundaro, the best way to use RPE-Eating is in a weight-neutral setting.

While it could be used for weight modification, she doesn’t recommend treating it as another way to hit your macros or “goal weight.”

“I’m not anti-weight modification,” Dr. Fundaro explains. “I’m pro safe weight modification. I compare weight loss to contact sports. There are inherent risks but they can be mitigated through best practices.”

Dr. Fundaro elaborates: “Since RPE-Eating removes macro-tracking, which can increase risk of disordered eating in some people, and relies on biofeedback and non-hunger triggers, RPE-Eating provides a safety net that macro-tracking alone doesn’t provide.”

But if you do want to use RPE-Eating for intentional weight change, what should you do?

Dr. Fundaro recommends aiming to hover around the ranges that support your goal.

(As a reminder, a 1 to 3 on the RPE-Eating scale is categorized as “inadequate fuel; a 4 to 7 is categorized as “adequate fuel”; and a 8 to 10 is categorized as “excess fuel.”)

▶ If the goal is weight gain, you’ll likely aim to eat within the 7 to 8 range for most of your meals.

▶ If the goal is weight loss, you’ll likely aim to eat within the 4 to 5 range for most of your meals.

A key thing to remember is that you would never use RPE-Eating for extreme weight-modification such as for a bodybuilding competition. “That would be like using physio exercises to prepare for a powerlifting competition.” In other words, it’s not the right tool for the job.

Hold up, bro: Isn’t this just feelings over facts?

If you’re skeptical and think this is just eating “based on your feelings,” keep in mind that RPE was once laughed at by lifters, too.

These days, RPE and autoregulation are widely accepted in gym culture and have been studied as a valid method for managing and guiding your training. ¹

RPE isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty accurate and incredibly convenient. A lot more convenient than, say, using a velocity loss tracker for every set. ^{2 3}

And while it might seem like it’s all feelings-based, the RPE scale is actually built around practicing the skill of interoceptive awareness—the awareness of internal sensations in your body.

The better you get at the skill of interoceptive awareness, the more you’ll be able to use that awareness to make informed decisions about your training.

RPE-Eating is similar: It builds the skill of sensing into your own body, and lets your internal sensations guide your decisions.

Similar to how the bar slowing down on a squat would indicate you’re getting closer to failure, experiencing the absence of hunger at the end of your meal would indicate you’re closer to being full.

Instead of tracking your glucose levels to validate your perceived hunger, you use internal cues that correlate with lowered blood sugar and coincide with hunger.

And, let’s be real: Being mindful of stomach grumbling or general hunger pangs is much more convenient and accessible than tracking glucose readings.

This process will not be perfect. You may undereat or overeat at first. But over time, with practice, you’ll build the core skills of RPE-Eating.

Are there downsides to RPE-Eating?

While this tool can be helpful, it’s just a tool. A screwdriver is great, but it isn’t useful when you need a hammer.

RPE-Eating can be great for helping you become more aware of your internal hunger cues and build a better relationship with food along the way.

It can also be more laborious. It requires paying real attention to your feelings (physical and emotional), and reflecting on them.

This can be difficult for anyone—but especially people who aren’t able to sit at the table and have a leisurely meal, like parents with small kids, or people with work schedules that require eating on-the-go.

If this is you, just use RPE-Eating when it does work for you—or simply pick and choose specific steps to use in isolation. For example, maybe you try RPE-Eating on the occasional quiet lunch break. Or, maybe you focus solely on developing your awareness of hunger and fullness cues, without trying to change anything else.

If you’ve been tracking macros for a long time, it can be hard to stop.

Tracking macros isn’t inherently bad. It can actually be a helpful tool to teach you more about nutrition. But it’s also not something most people want to do for the rest of their lives.

The problem is, if you’ve depended on tracking your food intake, stopping can feel scary.

In these cases, RPE-Eating can be used as a kind of off-ramp to help transition away from rigid and restrictive macro tracking.

(It can also help loosen the compulsion to “always finish your plate.” Though macros tracking and habitual plate-cleaning may sound different, they’re actually similar: both rely on external cues—such as macro targets or what’s served on your plate—to determine when you’re “done.”)

RPE-Eating won’t take away all the scary feelings that may come with changing ingrained ways of eating.

However, it can provide some structure and language to help you, or your clients, eat with less fear, less stress, and a bit more confidence.

“The goal,” says Dr. Fundaro, “is to know that you’re nourishing yourself—and you don’t need a food tracker to do that.”

References

Click here to view the information sources referenced in this article.

While our ancestors relied on their senses to assess how they were doing, increasingly, we rely on gadgets.

Today, if you’re curious enough, you can measure your heart rate, your step count, your exercise intensity, and your sleep quality—sometimes all on one sleek device.

In the best cases, these devices offer a bridge between what you subjectively feel and what you can objectively measure.

This is generally a really cool and amazing thing.

Our subjective feelings and assessments matter, but they’re not always the most reliable. Us humans just aren’t particularly skilled at quantifying our experiences and behaviors with cold precision.

Take, for example, a colleague of mine. He believed he was eating within a narrow caloric window, but after careful tracking, he learned that he was putting away a bonus 500 Calories a day—in barbecue sauce.

That said, some of us are better than others.

Ben Johnson, the Canadian sprinter, was reported to have been able to call out his 100 metre time within a tenth of a second of the stopwatch readout.¹

That’s outlier performance, to be clear, but it still makes you wonder:

How good are you at assessing yourself?

And, how can you improve your accuracy through the wise use of technology—like fitness trackers—to help you make better decisions about your health?

In the following article, we’ll tackle the above, plus we’ll address:

• How accurate are data trackers in the first place?
• When is tracking helpful? (And when is it not?)
• Can you train yourself to more accurately assess things by feel?

Let’s get into it.

First, how accurate are data trackers anyway?

Not all data is created equal.

Some brands produce better products than others. This is not just hardware but also the quality of their software and datasets.

Beyond that, not all things are equally easy to quantity.

For example, heart rate and step-count data are generally reliable,² but many other types of outputs—from calories burned to movement velocity—have substantial margins for error.

The below chart shows the reliability of various tracking devices.

(If you’re curious, we cover the accuracy of various progress indicators in more detail here: Are Fitness Trackers Worth It?)

Next, when is tracking actually helpful?

The good: Tracking devices offer us more data about our behaviors and bodies than ever before.

The bad: Tracking devices offer us more data about our behaviors and bodies than ever before.

“What’s really remarkable,” says Samantha Kleinberg, a computer scientist who studies decision-making, “is that even a tiny amount of surplus information has a big negative effect on our decision-making.”³

That’s the paradox of tracking: Too little detail makes it tough to make the right decision, but so does too much.

This can be expressed as an inverted U, with the sweet spot at the top of the curve.

Today, it’s surprisingly easy to have too much information.

Consider the analysis paralysis you feel after scanning hundreds of reviews from the various taco places in your neighborhood. (All you wanted was a decent el pastor, but now you don’t know which taqueria to pick!)

Finding just enough information to make good decisions is an art form—especially in the world of health and fitness, where it seems like everyone is trying to outdo each other when it comes to providing more science, more customization, and more complexity.

But when all that information starts to blur together with no clear path forward, what should you do?

For starters, you can ask yourself a simple question:

Does tracking increase my wellbeing and performance?

If the answer is a clear yes or no, you know what to do. (Either continue tracking as you were, or drop the gadget and walk away.)

If you’re a little fuzzy, here are three signs to watch for to help you determine if tracking is helpful—or not.

Sign #1: Tracking is decreasing your stress and validating your method(s).

When Zak’s coach raved about the benefits of zone 2 cardio, it sounded logical. But when the rubber on his running shoes hit the road, Zak second-guessed everything. Zak prided himself on his ability to grind, and simply didn’t trust that something that felt easy could also be effective.

Yet, the data didn’t lie. As the weeks went by, Zak watched his resting heart rate drop—along with his recovery time from hard runs. With that reassurance, Zak began to relax about the process—and his resting heart rate dropped further.

Zak hadn’t trusted his feelings, but he did trust the data from his heart rate monitor.

Using a tracking device enabled Zak to calibrate his own perceptions so they were more accurate and realistic.

If you’re a coach who has a client like Zak who’s high performing but doesn’t know it, tracking can help build confidence and reduce the anxiety that they’re “not good enough.”

Here, you empower them by shining a spotlight on existing performance. Expert assurance can go a long way but can also be bolstered by reliable data.

(Recently, many people have begun using continuous glucose monitors, or CGMs, in order to “optimize” their blood sugar levels. This can help “validate” certain food choices… but it can also be a waste of time. Read more: Should people without diabetes use CGMs?)

Bad omen: Tracking is increasing stress or negatively affecting performance.

Sometimes, data can stress you out without any upside—like when you receive poor scores about things beyond your control.

Take the new parent of a newborn who gets a poor sleep quality score.

Tracking has a time and a place. When scores are beyond your control or your priorities lie elsewhere, tracking can create unnecessary stress and is counterproductive.

You can always revisit tracking when circumstances or priorities change.

Sign #2: Clear feedback from data is enhancing your motivation and ability.

For a behaviour to take place, you need three things⁴:

• Motivation: A compelling reason or desire to take action toward achieving something. This can come from external sources (your spouse is urging you to quit smoking) or internal drives (you’ve always dreamed of running a marathon).
• Ability: You have a combination of skills, plus opportunities to express them. (For example, you know how to do a simple resistance training routine, and you have 20 minutes a day to execute it.) This may involve overcoming constraints like time, money, mental and/or physical effort, social pressures, and changes to routine.⁵
• Prompt: A prompt is a cue or instruction that elicits an action. (For example, when your GPS tells you to turn left, or when your restless legs “remind” you you’re due for a walk.) Critically, even with high levels of motivation and ability, you may not take action—or the right kind of action—without a prompt.

Fitness trackers shine when you’ve got plenty of motivation and ability—and just lack the prompt.

Take my client, Margaret. She used to have a glass of wine most nights, believing it helped her sleep better. Once she started wearing a sleep tracker though, she saw that her sleep quality was much poorer the nights she imbibed. Once she received this prompt—her sleep score—she adjusted her behavior.

When you highlight important data, the right choices become clearer.

When it comes to changing behaviours, sometimes all it takes is one key piece of data. As they say, “Once you see it, you can’t un-see it.”

(PN’s CEO Tim Jones used the feedback he got from various lifestyle trackers to finally reduce his genetically high cholesterol levels—and built a richer, more meaningful life in the process. Read more: How This Guy Cut His Cholesterol in Half Without Drugs)

Bad omen: Data collection is decreasing motivation or ability.

When Jan, an avid recreational cyclist, found out he could view—then demolish—the records set on local biking trails, he set to work. But as those records were destroyed, so too was his ability to ride for enjoyment. His focus on speed left him under-recovered and eventually led to burnout.

If workouts have become more about the numbers and less about technique, experience, or even enjoyment, tracking is likely no longer helpful.

Sign #3: Tracking is helping you understand yourself better.

The harder you work, the better your results.

Right?

Not necessarily.

This belief tends to get grinders like Zak into trouble because they think they’re making progress—but really they’re just getting in their own way, even inhibiting performance and recovery.

Meanwhile, there are also many people who chronically underestimate their effort and capacity, and would benefit from turning up the heat. Here, data can help us more accurately understand our own potential.

Let’s look at high-intensity interval training (HIIT) as an example. HIIT workouts alternate fixed periods of intense effort with fixed periods of rest. However, these fixed periods of rest are just estimates of recovery times.

Heart rate data can create a more individualized picture of actual recovery needs, which may be faster or slower than you expect.

Sometimes, the mind says yes but the heart says not quite yet.

A good coach does more than just simply ask for more. They also help keep clients out of the unproductive “junk volume” zone, where fatigue accumulates but performance doesn’t improve (and maybe even worsens).

By looking at real-time metrics of output, fatigue, and recovery, you can better understand yourself and your clients, and help keep everyone training and recovering efficiently.

Bad omen: Over-reliance on data is making you lose touch with your own senses.

When you become overly reliant on data, you risk losing touch with your own sense of how you feel, whether that’s hunger and fullness levels, energy and fatigue, or something else.

A relevant example is “The Great My Fitness Pal Blackout.”

In January of 2019, the calorie-tracking app (with a reported 200 million subscribers!) went down for a day. Pretty minor—unless you happened to be tracking your macro and caloric intake and waiting for the app to tell you exactly how much you could eat that day… which I was.

When the app wouldn’t load, I recognized the mild panic I felt was unhelpful. My overreliance on the app had disconnected me from my own internal signals, and without it, I felt adrift. Since then, I’ve shifted my focus to how energetic I feel and one of the oldest tracking technologies available: the mirror.

(If you feel like you’re lost without your besties—your phone and your apps—there’s a name for that. There are also ways to develop a healthier relationship with your tech. Read more: What is nomophobia?)

3 ways to use fitness trackers to help you make more accurate self-assessments

Before we get to how to do the above, let’s talk about why assessing things by feel can be so important.

Whether it’s body fat percentage or movement speed, even supremely motivated and capable clients will experience diminishing objective results from their training.

The scale stops dropping, the number of plates you’re able to load on the bar plateaus, or—gasp—your race time even regresses.

Motivation based purely on progress or other extrinsic goals⁶ will fall away during these times.

However, exercisers who focus on feelings of mindfulness⁷, mastery, meaning⁸, and success⁹ develop a more resilient practice. They also enjoy the process more, whether that’s the process of running, lifting, winding down for a good night’s sleep, or just enjoying a meal.

So, although objective data can provide essential feedback and guidance, you’ll only reap the full benefits of your practice—that is, enjoyment and results—if you maintain connection with your felt experience.

And good news: You can actually use fitness trackers to calibrate and even improve your ability to accurately sense what’s happening in your body.

Here are three ways to do it.

1. Check in with yourself before you check the data.

Can you imagine asking someone how their vacation was and then waiting for them to look at their photos to be able to answer? That’s what it’s like when you rely purely on external data about your own experience.

Whatever the metric—how far you biked, how many calories you consumed, or how fast your heart was beating—the simplest way to work mindfully with tracker data is to pause, breathe, and then tune into the powerful (if not always accurate) prediction-making powers of your brain.

Once you’ve checked in with yourself, you can calibrate your self-assessment by comparing the detailed (if not always accurate) outputs of your fitness tracker.

Over time, you may be able to narrow the gap between two.

(Note: Don’t forget to regularly update your app. Algorithms and data sets are regularly adjusted for better predictive accuracy.)

2. Develop mental shortcuts that can occasionally stand in for objective measures.

The coaches I work with regularly ask people to estimate the boundaries of their strength (such as how many reps they can do at a given weight until failure).

Novices are often terrible at estimating this—and regularly off the mark by five or more reps. However, the use of objective trackers can help calibrate their understanding, and most people can reduce their margin of error dramatically.

In theory, you might use fancy tools like accelerometers or blood lactate measurements, but our coaches just ask, “For a million dollars a rep, how many more reps do you think you could do?”

Though there’s nothing objective about this question, most clients are able to use the prompt as a kind of shortcut to understand maximal effort. (After all, that last rep may be worth seven figures!)

The question also leverages the rate of perceived exertion (RPE)—your perception of how hard you’re working—which is one of the most validated sensory-driven approaches.

Not everyone is automatically good at estimating RPE, but most people can improve their skills by mapping their felt experience with occasional calibration with objective data.

3. Keep developing your ability to dial into your senses.

Trackers have components like accelerometers, GPS, and gyroscopes to sense data about speed, distance, and more.

But humans are no slouches either.

We have…

• Mechanoreceptors that respond to pressure, vibration, and the joint angles change
• A vestibular system that monitors balance and angle changes
• Proprioceptors that clock the speed and rate of length-change of muscle spindles
• Thermoreceptors that register register warming or cooling
• Chemoreceptors that detect chemical changes, such as scent or taste, as well as changes in the bloodstream
• Nociceptors—part of the body’s alarm system—that sense threat and send signals of potential harm or distress

And that’s only a partial list.

You have access to an incredibly rich network of sensory information—something that technology cannot begin to touch.

All of this information is fed into the powerful pattern-recognition machine of your nervous system.

To continue honing your ability to use this rich network of sensory information, regularly check in with what and how you’re feeling.

When you learn to calibrate your own senses with objective data, you can leverage all the cool advances in wearable tech—while still keeping your own experience front and centre.

References

Click here to view the information sources referenced in this article.

If you’re a coach, or you want to be…

You can help people build sustainable nutrition and lifestyle habits that will significantly improve their physical and mental health—while you make a great living doing what you love. We'll show you how.

If you’d like to learn more, consider the PN Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Certification. (You can enroll now at a big discount.)

Are vegetable and seed oils “toxic”?!

From TikTok to bestseller lists, vegetable oils—a.k.a. “seed oils”—are a big topic right now.

To be fair, folks have debated the merits of vegetable oils dating back to when they first entered the marketplace.

More recently, however, with the advent of the carnivore diet, vegetable oil hate has roared back into the socials. Maybe you’ve come across posts that refer to these cooking oils as “toxic sludge,” “motor oil,” “the hateful eight,” and “the biggest cause of chronic disease that nobody knows about.”

The anti-vegetable oil logic goes something like this…

Animal fats have been with humans for thousands of years. Vegetable fats, on the other hand, were invented during the last century when profit-seeking companies wanted to find a way to sell cheap-to-grow foods to unsuspecting consumers.

Another argument: Like margarine, vegetable oils were marketed as healthier alternatives for butter, and yet, people argue, these oils are worse than butter, raising your risk for obesity, anxiety, depression, ulcerative colitis, and more.

In contrast to the above line of thought, other experts will tell you that vegetable oils are harmless, potentially even health-promoting—and absolutely better than butter.

So, who’s right?

Like so many nutrition topics, the truth is too nuanced to fit on a meme.

In this story, we’ll help you sort the science from the pseudoscience so you can make informed decisions about the oils you choose to include in your diet.

What are vegetable oils?

Sometimes called “seed oils,” vegetable oils start, as you might suspect, from the seed of a plant. The most common ones you’ll find in a typical grocery aisle include:

• Canola oil
• Corn oil
• Safflower oil
• Sesame oil
• Sunflower oil
• Soybean oil
• Grapeseed oil

By the way, if you feel like there’s a bunch of oils missing from that list, it’s probably because those oils come from non-seed plants (such as olive, avocado, palm, or coconut oil, which all come from fruits, and aren’t considered vegetable or seed oils).

How are vegetable oils processed?

Non-vegetable oils—such as olive and avocado oil—are derived from naturally fatty foods. In fact, olives are so oily that you could theoretically make your own olive oil at home. (Just Google “how to make olive oil from scratch,” and you’ll find a number of videos walking you through the steps.)

The same can’t be said of most vegetable oils, which mostly come from foods with a relatively tiny fat content to begin with.

Case in point: A cup of green olives contains about 20 grams of fat,¹ whereas a cup of corn has 2 grams.²

As a result, manufacturers must use an extensive multi-step process to extract this small amount of oil from these non-oily foods. These steps include:

• Crushing: A machine uses high pressure to press oil from the seeds.
• Refining: The seeds are heated with a solvent, such as hexane, to extract more oil.
• Deodorizing: To create a neutral taste and remove unwanted compounds, the extracted oil is then cooked at 400 F (204 C) for several hours.

During this process, health-promoting polyphenols and other stabilizing nutrients are lost, and small amounts of unsaturated fats are transformed into trans fatty acids (also called partially hydrogenated fat).

(Interesting fact: This also happens during deep frying. When vegetable oils sizzle in a restaurant’s deep fryer for hours, the trans fat content of the oil increases.)

To call these processed oils “toxic” might be an exaggeration. However, nutrition scientists generally agree that people should avoid trans fats in the diet, and in 2018, the Food and Drug Administration banned manufacturers from adding trans fats to processed foods.^{3 4}

What cooking oils should you eat?

At PN, we’ve created several visual guides people can use to make informed decisions about what to eat.

(We’ve also created a shopping list, which you or your clients can print out and take to the grocery store. Check it out: Healthy Fats Shopping List)

In these guides, we’ve placed a few vegetable oils—expeller-pressed canola oil, high-oleic sunflower, and safflower oils—in the “Eat Some” section. For us, “eat some” is another way of saying that these foods will neither improve health nor harm health—when consumed in reasonable amounts. In some cases, like in the example of dark chocolate, when consumed in small amounts, they might even improve health.

The rest of the vegetable oils, along with butter and other saturated fats, fall into the “Eat Less” category, as the image below shows. You’ll find vegetable oils in bold.

We’ve gotten hate mail from folks who say certain vegetable oils—especially cold-pressed canola oil—should appear alongside olive oil in the “eat more” category. Plenty of others say all vegetable oils belong in the “eat less” column, and that butter belongs in “eat some” or even “eat more.”

To understand the scientific reasoning behind our recommendations, let’s explore some head-to-head matchups.

Extra-virgin olive oil vs. expeller-pressed canola oil

These oils are the least refined of their kind.

To make extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), manufacturers grind and mechanically press olives, without using any heat. Similarly, expeller-pressed canola oil is made by mechanically pressing rapeseed, without the use of heat or chemical solvents.

🟢 The case for extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

Olive oil is richer in heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) than almost any other cooking oil.

In addition, unlike the more refined “light” olive oil, EVOO maintains most of the olive fruit’s original polyphenols. These plant-based substances help to combat inflammation and protect cells from damage.

Perhaps most importantly…

More studies vouch for EVOO’s health-promoting qualities than for any other cooking fat.

For example, researchers asked 22,892 adults from Southern Italy to self-report their olive oil consumption. People who consumed the most olive oil (more than two tablespoons a day) were 20 percent less likely to die over the 13-year study than people who consumed the least olive oil (less than one tablespoon a day).⁵

Other research has linked the consumption of olive oil with a reduced risk of:

• High blood pressure⁶
• Heart disease
• Type 2 diabetes⁷
• Dementia⁸
• Cancer⁹

Consumption of olive oil is also associated with reductions in LDL cholesterol, especially when used to replace saturated fats like butter and coconut oil.¹⁰

🟡 The case for expeller-pressed canola oil

One of the more affordable cooking oils on the shelf, canola oil, is made from a Canadian-made hybrid of the rapeseed plant.

(The word “canola” refers to the first three letters of “Canada” with a fun “ola” added to the end for marketing purposes.)¹²

Among vegetable oils, canola is the richest in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats (though several non-vegetable oils have it beat) as well as alpha-linolenic acid, a plant-based omega-3 fatty acid.

In addition, canola oil contains plant substances called phytosterols that help influence blood cholesterol for the better, especially when used as a substitute for butter, research has found.^{13 14 15}

The winner

Extra virgin olive oil is the clear winner.

The body of research in support of EVOO dwarfs the body of research in support of expeller-pressed canola.

In addition, EVOO has a more favorable fatty acid profile. By the way, so does avocado oil, which is why you’ll also find it in the “eat more” column.

However, you can buy roughly twice as much expeller-pressed canola oil for half as much money as EVOO. Because of this, expeller-pressed canola can be a good budget-friendly choice. In addition, because of expeller-pressed canola’s more neutral flavor, many people prefer it over EVOO for baking.

When used in moderation, expeller-pressed canola can be part of a healthy diet. It is likely to be at least health neutral, if not somewhat health beneficial.

Expeller-pressed canola oil vs. refined canola oil

This match-up comes down to how processing methods affect the end product.

🟡 Expeller-pressed canola oil

An expeller press is a machine that squeezes oil out of seeds.

It’s able to do this without the use of solvents or heat, which helps preserve beneficial compounds such as alpha-linolenic acid and phytosterols.

🔴 Refined canola oil

Refining removes some protective alpha-linoleic acid while adding small amounts of unhealthy trans fatty acids. This results in a product that is proportionally lower in omega-3 fatty acids and higher in omega-6 fatty acids.

The winner

Expeller-pressed canola oil wins, but only by a small margin.

That’s because canola oil starts with a less controversial fatty acid profile than many other vegetable oils, as the chart below shows. Soybean oil, for example, has less heart-healthy monounsaturated fat and much more theoretically inflammation-contributing omega-6 fat.

Refined vegetable oil oil vs. butter

This is the match-up that triggers the most arguing on the interwebs.

Let’s cover the major claims from both sides—plus what the research says.

🔴 The case for butter

Butter proponents argue that saturated fats have been unnecessarily vilified. They point to nutrition recommendations during the 1980s and 1990s that recommended people replace butter with trans-fat rich margarine.

(We all know how that went.)

Margarine aside, others claim the research in support of reducing saturated fats is thin at best.²⁰

However, excessive saturated fat consumption (beyond 10 percent of total calories) does seem to boost cholesterol levels and may increase your risk of heart disease.²¹

Some research has found that replacing 5 percent of the saturated fats in your diet with monounsaturated fats could reduce the risk of heart disease by 15 percent. Similarly, replacing 5 percent of the saturated fats in your diet with polyunsaturated fats (with most of that coming from refined vegetable oils) reduces the risk of a future heart attack by 10 percent, according to an analysis of eight studies involving 13,614 people.²² Many other studies support this finding.²³

But not all saturated fats affect blood cholesterol equally. In some dairy foods, a membrane—called a milk fat globule membrane—surrounds the saturated fats and seems to limit their cholesterol-raising properties.

However, butter is low in this protective membrane, and consequently raises blood cholesterol more than other high-fat dairy products, like full-fat milk, cream, yogurt, or cheese.^{24 25 26}

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend capping saturated fat at less than 10 percent of your calorie intake. A tablespoon of butter contains 7 grams of saturated fat—a third of the recommended daily limit in a 2000 Calorie diet.

So, while you don’t necessarily need to eliminate butter, it’s worth moderating your intake.

(Interested in learning about all the nuances of saturated fat consumption? Read: Is saturated fat good or bad for you?)

🔴 The case for refined vegetable oils

Due to their chemical structure, polyunsaturated fats are inherently less stable and more prone to oxidation than saturated or monounsaturated fats.

During the refining process, protective phytochemicals and antioxidants are stripped, making these oils more prone to oxidation. The theory is that this oxidation increases inflammation in the body and elevates the risk of various health conditions.

There’s some evidence to suggest that diets rich in polyunsaturated fats, especially from refined vegetable oils, are associated with increased levels of oxidized blood lipids, lipid peroxidation, and other markers of inflammation.^{27 28}

If you only use refined corn or safflower oils to lightly coat veggies before roasting them, you likely don’t have much to worry about.

However, for the vast majority of people, the biggest source of refined vegetable oils isn’t home-cooked meals—it’s ultra-processed foods.

The extra processing and repeated heat exposure used to create ultra-processed foods further oxidize these oils. Additionally, these foods are often loaded with potentially harmful ingredients like added sodium and sugars, and low in beneficial nutrients like fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients.

Plus, they’re incredibly calorie-dense and difficult to stop eating, which can raise your risk for obesity. (Find out exactly why highly-processed foods are so “addictive”: Why you can’t stop eating ultra-processed foods.)

Most ultra-processed foods list one or more vegetable oils as one of their ingredients. Even ultra-processed foods that you wouldn’t think of as “fatty” contain small amounts. You’ll find them in store-bought cookies, chips, crackers, sauces, frozen dinners, meal replacement shakes, boxed macaroni and cheese, salad dressing, boxed rice blends, and more.

In a large review involving nearly 10 million people, the consumption of ultra-processed foods was associated with a higher risk of premature death.²⁹ In addition, studies have linked high consumption of ultra-processed foods with the following health problems:^{30 31 32 33}

• Heart disease and heart attacks
• Stroke
• High blood pressure
• Depression
• Overweight and obesity
• Diabetes
• Reduced HDL cholesterol
• Cancer

You don’t have to abolish ultra-processed foods.

But your health will benefit from capping your consumption to about 20 percent or so of your intake, with the other 80 percent or so from mostly minimally-processed whole foods.

This alone will naturally lower your refined vegetable oil intake to a safer level, without much fuss. Plus, consuming refined vegetable oils in the context of a diet that’s rich in colorful plants, fiber, phytochemicals, and antioxidants may help offset the concern of oxidation. (For example, by putting a reasonable amount of commercial salad dressing on a large, colorful salad.)

The winner

This match-up is a draw.

Ultimately, both should be limited in the diet, and neither are health-promoting.

Most refined vegetable oils are lopsidedly rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids compared to monounsaturated fats, and are stripped of many protective compounds. As mentioned earlier, some experts argue that these omega-6-rich fats may contribute to inflammation (but the evidence here is mixed). Because of how they’re processed, seed oils also contain some of those trans fats that everyone agrees we should all minimize.

In contrast, butter is low in omega 6s but high in saturated fat, which can be problematic in higher amounts. Especially since it’s so low in the protective milk fat globule membrane. However, compared to refined vegetable oil, butter is less processed. Like olive oil, it’s one of those fats you could theoretically make at home.

Some final parting advice

This might be obvious from the head-to-head matchups, but we’ll say it anyway.

If you like it and can afford it, EVOO is a great choice.

Cold-pressed avocado oil and walnut oil are also great options, as both are rich in antioxidant compounds. Like EVOO, avocado oil is a rich source of MUFAs. Walnut oil’s fat primarily comes from polyunsaturated fats, so it’s best used as a dressing rather than used for cooking (as it’s less heat stable).

However, like EVOO, avocado and walnut oil tend to be expensive. If you or your client are budget-conscious, expeller-pressed canola oil is a solid runner-up.

Similarly, high-oleic sunflower and safflower oils are richer sources of monounsaturated fats than their high-linoleic cousins. When substituted for saturated fats like butter, high-oleic oils have been associated with cardiovascular benefits.^{34 35}

Regardless of what cooking fats you or your client choose, you’ll also want to do the following:

✅ Prioritize minimally-processed whole foods.

Whole and minimally-processed foods—such as nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, and salmon—are more likely to feature health-promoting monounsaturated (MUFAs) and omega-3 fats. They also come packaged with a wide array of other good-for-you nutrients such as fiber, protein, minerals, and antioxidants.

In contrast, ultra-professed foods are generally devoid of everything you keep hearing you should consume more of. These foods also tend to be calorie-dense, highly rewarding, and hard to stop eating.

If you’re not sure whether packaged food is minimally processed or highly processed, take a close look and consider:

• Does anything in nature resemble this food?
• Does it look like it came from an animal or a plant?
• If you look at the list of ingredients, do you see animal or plant components?

If you answer “no” to most of the above, the food is likely highly processed.

✅ Limit deep-fried foods.

It doesn’t matter what source of fat is used to fry them.

Sort all fried foods into the “eat less” category.

✅ Get most of your fats from food, not oils.

EVOO is associated with longer, healthier lives. However, that doesn’t mean you should be doing shots of it.

As a general rule, you’re better off getting most of your fat from foods like avocados, olives, nuts and seeds than from any cooking oil.

Whole food fats are rich in fiber, phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals, and are generally less calorie-dense than oils. (But having one to three servings of oils or butter per day is reasonable.)

And if you want personalized advice to suit your body, your eating preferences, and your goals, check out our Nutrition Calculator to figure out how fats fit into your overall diet.

References

Click here to view the information sources referenced in this article.

If you’re a coach, or you want to be…

You can help people build sustainable nutrition and lifestyle habits that will significantly improve their physical and mental health—while you make a great living doing what you love. We'll show you how.

If you’d like to learn more, consider the PN Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Certification. (You can enroll now at a big discount.)

“I want to know I’m doing absolutely everything I can to preserve my health for as long as possible.”

We hear this kind of thing a lot.

People tell us they not only want to stay in good shape as they age, they also want to outlive their peers and age expectancies.

Imagine you could maximize your healthspan and lifespan, fend off disease, and generally remain fit, lean, and youthful into your 90’s, 100’s, and then some.

Sounds pretty compelling, doesn’t it?

There’s just one problem: Common longevity advice seems to involve an extraordinary amount of effort. And time. And money. And complexity.

Is all the effort necessary? Is it worth it?

And, will it even work?

In this article, we’ll explore:

And, we’ll help you weigh the pros and cons so you can make informed decisions about your health, your body, and your life.

The myths—and realities—of “optimizing” your health

Health and longevity advice is everywhere these days: podcasts, books, social media, that guy at the gym…

Plus, influential “figureheads” have given the movement outsized attention. Think: popular podcasters and health experts Dr. Peter Attia, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and Dr. Rhonda Patrick, and biohacker Bryan Johnson.

We understand the appeal of this kind of content. Who doesn’t want a longer, healthier life? (Not to mention the comforting sense of control that can come from designing and executing a “perfect” health plan.)

But for us at PN, where we’ve collectively coached hundreds of thousands of people with real human lives, we know that “optimal” is rarely realistic.

Not only that, optimal isn’t necessary.

Making modest, relatively consistent efforts towards health and well-being will likely give you better results than following an intense, highly “optimized” protocol.

If that sounds hard to believe, we get it. So let’s explore that bold statement, starting with the biggest myths surrounding longevity and health optimization.

Myth: The “basics” aren’t enough.

There’s an idea that getting and staying healthy must require a set of complex, “cutting edge” strategies—especially if your goal is to outlive the average American.

In reality, the “basics” work really, really well. (These are things like exercising regularly; eating a nutrient-rich diet; getting adequate sleep; managing stress; and staying socially connected. We’ll discuss these more later.)

Only, very few people do the basics consistently.

The real reason more people aren’t living as long, or as well, as they could be isn’t because they’re not taking ice baths or getting vitamin C infusions…

It’s because they’re not doing the (relatively) simple stuff, consistently.

If you’re really, truly doing a well-rounded set of health-promoting behaviors with 80-90 percent consistency, you’re probably already close to peak optimization.

Myth: More is better

If a handful of basic behaviors get results, then doing them perfectly and as much as possible will help you get, and stay, even healthier—right?

Not so fast. There’s a law of diminishing returns when it comes to health and fitness efforts.

Plus, in our experience, doing too many things or adding in too much complexity to your health and fitness regime can:

• Add risk factors that could actually make your health and fitness worse (such as chronic injuries or burnout due to overtraining, and/or nutrient deficiencies or disordered eating due to an over-preoccupation with “clean” or restrictive eating).
• Make it harder for you to sustain good habits. People who take on too much are more likely to burn out. Research shows people who try to accomplish multiple goals are less committed and less likely to succeed than those focused on a single goal.¹
• Make your life less enjoyable, which in turn compromises health. Striving to maximize physical health can interfere with mental, emotional, and social well-being, which plays an essential role in healthspan and lifespan. (One study showed people with high levels of happiness and life satisfaction lived up to 10 years longer than people with low levels.²)

And what’s the point of living longer if you’re not living a full, well-rounded, enjoyable life? While some effort is definitely important, past a certain point, more isn’t necessarily better.

Myth: Cutting-edge strategies offer significant benefits.

Let’s say you could put all those advanced, complex strategies into action without sacrificing consistency or life enjoyment, or compromising your overall well-being.

They’d have to pay off, wouldn’t they?

Not necessarily.

Much of the research on longevity optimization (so far) is either in mice, is observational, is theoretical, or has been tested on very small numbers of people for very short periods of time.

In fact, many of the fringe methods and supplements touted by influencers or biohackers are not only unproven but even potentially unsafe.^{3 4 5 6}

Point being: Put your efforts towards foundational health behaviors with proven track records (the kind we’ll cover in this article) before you invest in fringe efforts.

Myth: It’s all or nothing.

You might think, “Well, I’m not getting out of bed at 5 a.m. five times a week to go running for 60 to 90 minutes to optimize my VO₂ max, so I may as well just accept I’m not going to be a healthy person.”

Some folks feel overwhelmed by the idea of optimizing their health, so they figure they might as well do nothing.

However, our internal data shows that you can be far from “perfect” to get results.

In our year long PN Coaching program, even clients who practiced their (basic) habits less than half of the time got measurable results.

(Read more: Nearly 1 million data points show what it REALLY takes to lose fat, get healthy, and change your body)

Don’t let optimization culture convince you great health is beyond your capabilities.

Instead, we encourage you to…

• Consider your options. Review the facts, and get a clear understanding of which behaviors are most likely to give you the best bang for your buck.
• Get clear on the tradeoffs. Decide which things you are, and aren’t willing to commit to.
• Make decisions that align with your goals. Including what kind of lifestyle you want, and how you want to spend your time and dollars.

Keep reading and we’ll guide you through it.

The benefits—and tradeoffs—of a healthy lifestyle

Putting effort towards your health is great. But efforts come with tradeoffs.

Here’s a look at both the efforts, and the tradeoffs, to achieve the health you want for yourself.

A deeper look: The most effective health behaviors (and their optimal dose)

If you want to reduce your risk of chronic disease, and generally stay healthier for longer, what should you do?

As we said earlier, the issue isn’t that we need some highly detailed, cutting-edge protocol. The basics work. The issue is that most people don’t do them.

For example, as shown in the image below, most people don’t get enough fruits and veggies, sleep, or exercise. And the number of people who do all these things on a regular basis (while also avoiding tobacco and minimizing alcohol) is extremely low: likely a fraction of a percent.

Finally, let’s take a closer look at what these basics are, and the “sweet spot” of effort versus reward.

Foundational Health Behavior #1: Exercise regularly

All health experts agree: Moving your body is important.

Yes, exercise will help you stay lean, and improve mood, energy, and function, but it will also help you stay alive (and healthier) for longer.

In fact, a study of Harvard alumni found that any amount of physical activity reduces the risk of death from any cause. Exercise extended lifespan regardless of body weight, blood pressure, smoking habits, or genetic predisposition.⁷

Another study of 272,550 older adults found engaging in even low amounts of physical activity significantly decreased risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and all causes.⁸

Specifically, steep risk declines happened when accumulating at least 7.5 MET-hours* of activity per week. The greatest increase in benefits came from achieving 7.5 to 15 MET hours. Increasing activity beyond that further decreases risk, but at a continually lower rate, as the graph below shows.

*MET-hours (Metabolic Equivalent Hours) measures the energy cost of activity, based on duration and intensity. Some examples: 2 hours of resting = ~2 MET-hours; 2 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic activity = ~8 MET-hours; 2 hours of moderate resistance training = ~7 MET-hours.

Increasing the intensity of exercise is an efficient way to rack up MET-hours, but plain old walking counts too: In a study of 28,000 adults, every 1,000 daily step increase was associated with a 12 percent lower risk of death. (This association began at 2,500 steps and continued up to 17,000 steps.)⁹

(Cool factoid: For folks concerned with dementia in particular, one study showed that getting just 3,826 steps per day was associated with a 25 percent reduced risk of dementia—and getting 9,826 steps per day was associated with a 50 percent lower risk!¹⁰)

Ideally, cardiovascular activity is paired with resistance or weight-bearing exercise.

Resistance training supports health and longevity in various ways: it can help preserve valuable muscle mass, maintain mental sharpness, improve odds of surviving cancer, support metabolic health, and generally help you stay alive.¹¹

Among older adults especially, falls are a leading cause of death.¹² Resistance training can both prevent the risk of falls–because of improved balance and muscle stability¹³—as well as reduce the risk of serious injury–because of better bone density.¹⁴

A sedentary lifestyle does the opposite, increasing risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer (breast, colon, colorectal, endometrial, and epithelial ovarian cancer), and all-cause mortality.¹⁵

In fact, two decades of sedentary lifestyle is associated with twice the risk of premature death compared to being physically active.¹⁶

▶ How much exercise should you do?

Standard exercise recommendations suggest:¹⁷

• 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity (or some combination of both), plus
• 2 sessions per week of resistance training, targeting most major muscle groups

Getting up to 300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity or 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity (or some mix of both) as well as three resistance training sessions per week provides further benefits.

▶ Are people getting enough exercise?

Most people are not.

Only 24 percent meet the recommendations for both aerobic and resistance exercise. And fewer than 47 percent of American adults meet recommendations for aerobic physical activity.¹⁷

▶ Is getting more than the recommended amount better?

For the most part yes, but past a certain point, more effort delivers less benefit—and potentially more risk.

Overtraining (and/or under-recovering) can disrupt hormone levels, mess with sleep and mood, cause excess fatigue, chronically elevate your heart rate, cause injuries, and more.^{18 19} Extreme volumes of endurance exercise training may be detrimental for the heart, and increase risk of myocardial fibrosis, coronary artery calcification, and atrial fibrillation.^{20 21 22 23}

So, the benefits of exercise exist on a U-shaped curve. (This is known as the “Extreme Exercise Hypothesis,”²⁴ as seen in the image below.)

A “high” amount of exercise is good for you, but the “highest” amount possible probably isn’t. (Health benefits likely max out around 7-10 hours of cardio, and 3-4 resistance training sessions per week.)

We like what one study concluded: “If the mantra ‘exercise is medicine’ is embraced, underdosing and overdosing are possible.”²⁵

Foundational Health Behavior #2: Eat a nourishing, nutrient-rich diet

Eating well doesn’t have to be complicated. There are a few key elements to nail down, and the rest is up to your own personal preferences and needs.

We suggest focusing on three nutrition fundamentals.

Nutritional key #1: Eat more whole and minimally-processed foods

Whole and minimally-processed foods are naturally nutrient rich—complete with fiber, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals—and far less calorie-dense than highly- or ultra-processed foods (UPFs). They also have less sugar, sodium, and trans fats—the latter which is directly linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, complications during pregnancy, colon cancer, diabetes, obesity, and allergy.^{26 27 28}

These qualities contribute to their many health benefits; Diets rich in whole or minimally-processed foods are associated with lower rates of depression,^{29 30 31} heart disease,³² type 2 diabetes,³³ cancer,³⁴ and improved longevity.³⁵

The largest study on processed foods—which included almost 10 million participants—found UPFs are linked to 32 harmful effects, including type 2 diabetes, mental health disorders, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality.³⁶

Another study found that a higher consumption of ultra-processed foods (four or more servings daily) was associated with a 62 percent increased risk of all-cause mortality. (For each additional serving of ultra-processed food, all-cause mortality increased by 18 percent.)³⁷

Not that you need to be plucking tomatoes straight off the vine.

Eating a minimally processed food diet is more about overall dietary patterns—and moving along the continuum of improvement—rather than rigidly avoiding all forms of processing.

▶ How many minimally-processed foods should you eat?

There currently aren’t any formal guidelines for the amount of minimally-processed foods to eat. In our experience coaching over 100,000 clients, we find people are most satisfied, and get significant health improvements, when 70 to 80 percent of their diet comes from whole or minimally-processed foods.

Any improvement counts though. If you’re currently eating very few whole and minimally processed foods, getting at least 50 percent of your diet from these foods would make a big difference to your health, energy, and longevity.

▶ Are people eating enough minimally-processed foods?

No.

Recent US data shows that Americans get about 28.5 percent of their calories from whole or minimally-processed foods, and 56 percent of their calories from highly- or ultra-processed foods.³⁸

▶ Is getting more than the recommended amount better?

Not beyond a certain point.

If you want to, consuming up to 90 percent of calories from minimally-processed foods will truly maximize your benefits, but beyond that there are likely no further benefits.

Besides, some processed foods enhance health rather than detract from it. Think about the protein powder that helps you meet your protein requirements, the commercial salad dressing that helps you eat your vegetables, or the weekly brownie à la mode you share with your grandkid that brings joy to both of your lives.

(Read more: What you should know about minimally-processed foods vs. highly-processed foods)

Nutritional key #2: Eat five fruits and vegetables

You’ve heard it a million times. We’ll be the nag and say it again: Eat your fruits and veggies.

A massive study involving over 1.8 million people showed that eating more fruits and vegetables was significantly associated with a decreased risk of death—with the benefits plateauing at five servings a day. People who ate five servings a day had a 13 percent lower risk of death from any cause compared to people who ate two servings per day.³⁹

Additionally, the consumption of fruits and vegetables very likely reduces the risk of hypertension, coronary heart disease, and stroke; probably reduces the risk of cancer; and possibly prevents weight gain.⁴⁰

▶ How many fruits and vegetables should you eat?

A healthy target is five fist-sized servings of fruits and vegetables daily. (Generally, we recommend dividing that into three servings of veggies and two servings of fruit.)

For bonus points, try to eat a variety of colors.

The pigments in fruits and veggies come from various healthful nutrients (called phytochemicals or phytonutrients). Different colors mean different phytochemicals, giving you a diverse array of these beneficial compounds, which are likely responsible for a majority of the health benefits of fruits and vegetables.

(Read more: What the colors of fruits and vegetables mean)

▶ Are people eating enough fruits and vegetables?

No.

Americans only eat an average of 2.5 servings of produce (fruit and vegetables combined) per day.⁴¹

Only 12.2 percent of people meet fruit intake recommendations, and less—9.3 percent—meet vegetable intake recommendations.

A mere ten percent of Americans get a full five servings of fruits and vegetables combined per day.⁴²

▶ Is getting more than the recommended amount better?

There are likely diminishing returns to eating more than the above suggestions.

In that massive study mentioned earlier that observed 1.8 million people, the life-extending benefits of fruits and veggies plateaued at five servings per day.³⁹

In other words, higher intake (beyond two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables) was not associated with additional disease risk reduction.

That said, there may be other benefits to eating more fruits and vegetables. For example, due to their fiber and water content, fruits and vegetables are filling yet low in calories, so they can support weight management—and they certainly aren’t going to harm your health.

Nutritional key #3: Eat enough protein

Protein is the most important macronutrient to get right, especially as we age.

Plant protein in particular is linked to a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and death from all causes.^{43 44 45}

In terms of animal proteins, the results are more mixed. (That said, research on protein intake and mortality is generally based on observational studies that don’t give us clear ideas about cause and effect.) Generally, minimally processed forms of fish, poultry, and low-fat dairy are the best animal protein sources.

To minimize health risks such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, limit processed forms of red meat (like bacon, hot dogs, deli slices, and pepperoni sticks). Even unprocessed forms of red meat should likely be limited to about 18 oz (~4 to 5 palm-sized portions) or less per week.^{46 47 48}

Nonetheless, regardless of the source, getting sufficient protein—at least 1.2 g of protein per kg of body weight—significantly reduces the risk for sarcopenia (muscle loss), frailty, and neuromuscular decline.^{49 50}

Protein is also vital for maintaining and building muscle, keeping bones and soft tissues healthy, supporting immunity, and more. It’s also the most satiating macronutrient, and thus helpful for fat loss and/or body recompositioning.

▶ How much protein should you eat?

The current USDA recommendation for protein intake is at least 0.8 grams of protein per kg of body weight (0.35 g/lb). However, newer research suggests this is likely the absolute minimum amount, and only for relatively young sedentary individuals.

A better minimum intake for most is likely 1.2 g/kg (0.55 g/lb, or about 3 to 5 palm-sized portions of protein-rich foods), especially for older adults, as they’re at greater risk of muscle loss.

Protein intake for muscle growth and retention, and/or if performing resistance training or other vigorous exercise would be 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg (0.75-1 g/lb), or about 4 to 8 palm-sized portions of protein-rich foods.

▶ Are people eating enough protein?

That depends on how “enough” is defined.

Most adults eat at least 0.8 g/kg. However, up to 10 percent of young women and up to 46 percent of older adults don’t hit this mark.⁵¹ And, as noted, that recommendation is probably conservative compared to the ideal intake.

Protein is also especially critical for those on GLP-1 medications (Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound) to help prevent the muscle loss they can lead to. Aiming for at least 1.2 g/kg is vital for this population, especially if they are also older. (Getting closer to 1.6 g/kg is even better, if possible.)

▶ Is getting more than the recommended amount better?

Once you get up to 1.2 g/kg, not necessarily. That amount is likely adequate for most, especially sedentary folks.

If you’re trying to build muscle and strength or recover from vigorous exercise, or are taking GLP-1 medication for fat loss, striving towards 1.6 g/kg would help you achieve that goal more easily.

If you’re trying to maximize strength and muscle gains, and/or are doing lots of strenuous exercise, consuming 1.6-2.2 g/kg is optimal (with the highest end of that range maxing out all benefits).

Foundational Health Behavior #3: Get adequate sleep

Research shows that men who get enough quality sleep live almost five years longer than men who don’t, and women who get enough live two and a half years longer.⁵⁴

Studies also show sleep is just as important for your heart health as exercise, whole foods, weight management, cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar control.⁵⁵

Compared to 7 hours of sleep per day, a 1 hour decrease in sleep duration has been associated with an 11 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease and a 9 percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes.⁵⁶

Older adults who sleep less than 6 hours per night are at higher risk for dementia and cognitive decline than those who sleep 7 to 8 hours.⁵⁷ (Deep sleep helps clear beta-amyloid plaques and wash out toxins from our brain, thought to be partially responsible for dementia.)

▶ How much sleep should you get?

Sleep experts agree that 7 to 9 hours a night on average—with at least 7 hours of sleep most nights of the week—is ideal for most.

However, the exact ideal hours may vary person to person.

Generally, the right amount of sleep for you is the amount that allows you to feel relatively refreshed shortly after waking up, and allows you to fall asleep relatively easily at bedtime, with relatively sustained energy throughout the day.

▶ Are people getting enough sleep?

About a third of US adults don’t meet the recommended amount of 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.⁵⁸

▶ Is getting more than the recommended amount better?

Not necessarily.

It seems that 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night is ideal in terms of health outcomes.⁵⁶

Interestingly, longer sleep duration (over 9 hours per night on average) is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and overall mortality.^{59 60 61}

However, it’s not clear that these risks are caused by sleeping more. Just as likely, it may be other health problems (such as depression, sleep apnea, or heavy alcohol consumption) that lead to both longer sleep times and higher health risks.

(Read more: Transform your sleep—The scientific way to energize your body, sharpen your mind, and stop hitting snooze)

Foundational Health Behavior #4: Manage stress

When left unchecked for long periods of time (say, months or years without periods of recovery), stress can have negative effects on nearly every aspect of our health, as the below image shows.

Chronic stress—which tends to increase heart rate, blood pressure, and inflammation—increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.^{62 63 64} Additionally, long-term stress tends to worsen mental and emotional health, increasing the risk of anxiety and depression.⁶⁵ It can also make people more likely to turn to substances like alcohol as an attempt to cope.⁶⁶

That said… Not all stress is bad.

In fact, stress is a normal, natural, and even beneficial part of life; the right amount helps us feel motivated, purposeful, and engaged with life.

So, rather than avoiding or demonizing stress, it’s helpful to work with it, using it as an opportunity to develop healthy coping mechanisms, appropriate recovery strategies, and overall resilience.

And this doesn’t necessarily mean sitting on a cushion and meditating.

Stress management can include simple mindset shifts: Practicing self-compassion,⁶⁷ having a growth mindset,⁶⁸ and framing stress as a normal and even beneficial part of life⁶⁹ have all been associated with better coping under stress.

Basic self-regulation skills also help. This involves noticing and naming what you’re feeling, having good control over your actions, and using a broad range of coping skills to help yourself process emotions and recover from stress. With these skills, you build self-awareness and the ability to handle challenges better, because you know how to calm yourself down after an activating event—regardless of how it went.

The below image offers a spectrum of more—small and big—ways to regulate stress.

▶ How much stress management should you engage in?

Think of stress management and recovery as a thing you do in proportion to the stress and demands of your life.

We often use the analogy of a jug: When stress drains your tank, stress management and recovery practices help fill it back up again.

And, as with all of the foundational health habits we’ve discussed, every little bit counts.

Whether you’re experiencing a little or a lot of stress in your life, even three to five minutes of purposeful recovery—doing deep breathing exercises, some journaling or gentle stretching, or just stepping outside to get some fresh air and listen to the birds—can help fill your tank.

▶ Are people doing enough to manage stress?

Probably not.

In the US, over a quarter of people report that most days, they’re so stressed they can’t function.⁷⁰ In Canada, it’s similar: Just under a quarter of people say that most days in their life are either “quite a bit” or “extremely” stressful.⁷¹

Additionally, over a third of people say they don’t know where to start when it comes to managing their stress.⁷²

▶ Is getting more than the recommended amount better?

Not necessarily.

The goal is to find your stress “sweet spot.” Because we all enjoy and tolerate different types and amounts of stress, how you feel is actually a pretty good indicator of whether stress is too low, too high, or “just right.”

As the image below shows, if you generally feel bored and purposeless, stress is likely too low; if you feel energized and engaged, stress is probably close to your “sweet spot”; and if you feel panicky or so overwhelmed you’ve started to feel hopeless, stress is likely too high.

While having a routine for stress management is a smart idea, there’s likely a point of diminishing returns here too. If you’re in that stress “sweet spot” (energized/engaged, not bored and not overwhelmed), then adding more stress reduction techniques might not help further—and may actually add stress by giving you yet another task to do.

Foundational Health Behavior #5: Stay socially connected

You might not think of social connection as a health imperative, but it is.

Not only is the social and emotional support associated with improved well-being, it’s also associated with reduced risk of premature death.^{73 74} When relationships are strong, people have a 50 percent increased likelihood of survival during any given time.⁷⁵

In fact, one of the longest running studies—the Study of Adult Development out of Harvard Medical School, which has been tracking participants for over 87 years (and counting)—found that strong relationships were the biggest predictor of not only life satisfaction but longevity. (Relationships were more predictive of these outcomes than social class, wealth, IQ, or genetics.)⁷⁶

No surprise, not having a social circle comes with its own distinct risks.

Social isolation and loneliness can increase a person’s risk for heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety, suicidality and self-harm, dementia, and earlier death.^{77 78}

A frequently cited statistic highlights its profound impact:

The effect of social isolation on mortality is comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes per day⁷⁹—surpassing even the risks associated with obesity and physical inactivity.⁸⁰

▶ Are people getting enough social connection?

It seems many of us could use more friends.

About 1 in 3 adults report feeling lonely, and 1 in 4 report not having social and emotional support.⁷⁷

Eight percent of adults say they have no close friends, 53 percent say they have between one and four close friends, and 38 percent report having five or more friends.⁸¹

▶ How much social connection should you aim for?

Generally speaking, research finds that people who have three to five close friends they regularly interact with (one to three times per week, in-person or via phone call) get the most social benefit.^{82 83 84 85}

On average, interaction with a smaller group of people tends to provide more benefit than a large network of acquaintances.⁸⁶

That said, individual needs vary. If you feel authentically connected to others, have a strong sense of belonging, and generally feel socially fulfilled, that’s what matters most.

▶ Is getting more than the recommended amount better?

Likely not. Some evidence suggests that excessive social engagement (daily or multiple times daily) actually might increase mortality risk.⁸⁷ That’s probably because over-socializing can increase mental, emotional, and physical fatigue,⁸⁸ and often this level of socialization includes alcohol or other potentially risky behaviors.

Additionally, it can take away time and energy that could be put towards other life-building and health-promoting behaviors (like work, exercise, or sleep).

The takeaway? Strive for socializing that brings value to your life. No need to add so much that you wind up exhausted, or unable to keep up with other priorities.

Foundational Health Behavior #6: Minimize known harms

Minimizing activities we know to be harmful is a key part of looking after your long-term health, yet it can be easy to overlook these things. (Maybe because we’d rather keep doing them.)

Two of the biggest culprits are smoking and drinking alcohol.

Harm Avoidance Key #1: Don’t Smoke

We all know smoking is bad for us. But smoking is still relatively common:

• In the US, 10.9 percent of adults smoke cigarettes, and 6.6 percent smoke e-cigarettes.⁸⁹
• Globally, the trend is even higher: 22.3 percent of the world’s population use tobacco (36.7 percent of men and 7.8 percent of women).⁹⁰

The WHO estimates more than 8 million people die prematurely yearly from tobacco use (with an additional 56,000 people dying annually from chewing tobacco).⁹¹ This makes tobacco a leading (i.e. top 3) risk factor for premature death and all-cause mortality.⁹²

Smoking is also a risk factor for several chronic conditions, including coronary heart disease, stroke, emphysema, and cancer.⁹³ (Globally, about a quarter of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking.⁹⁰)

Harm avoidance key #2: Limit alcohol

At this point, the research is pretty clear: Alcohol has negative implications for your health, especially past a certain point of regular use.

Alcohol plays a causal role in 200+ diseases, particularly liver diseases, heart diseases, at least seven types of cancers, depression, anxiety, alcohol use disorders, and dementia.^{94 95}

In 2019, 2.6 million deaths worldwide were attributable to alcohol consumption.⁹⁶ For people in the 15-49 age range, alcohol is the leading risk factor for death, with 3.8 percent of female deaths and 12.2 percent of male deaths attributable to alcohol use.⁹⁷

▶ How much alcohol is “safe” to drink?

US guidance on alcohol suggests keeping intake at moderate levels, or less.⁹⁸

A moderate intake means:

• Two drinks or less per day for men (14 or less per week), with no more than 4 at a single sitting
• One drink or less per day for women (7 or less per week), with no more than 3 at a single sitting

Importantly, a drink is defined as containing 14 grams (about 0.6 fluid ounces) of pure ethanol, which equates to:

• 12 ounces of regular beer (5% alcohol by volume)
• 5 ounces of table wine (12% alcohol by volume)
• 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits (40% alcohol by volume)

▶ Are people limiting their alcohol enough?

In the US, people tend to drink more than the recommended guidelines.

In 2021, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reported that the average American aged 21 or older consumed 2.51 gallons of pure alcohol over the course of a year—equivalent to about 10 standard drinks/week.⁹⁹ However, research suggests surveys typically underestimate consumption by 40 to 50 percent.¹⁰⁰ Further, other research shows that the heavier a person drinks, the more significantly they’re likely to underestimate and/or underreport their drinking.¹⁰¹

All that to say, the average American is likely having more (or even far more) than 10 drinks per week.

Add to that:

• In 2016, 36.4 percent of Americans (age 15+) said they had at least one episode of binge drinking (6+ drinks in one session) in the last month¹⁰²
• About 7 percent of the world’s population aged 15+ years have an alcohol use disorder⁹⁶
• Alcohol-related deaths have been rising: in the last five years, alcohol-induced deaths have increased by 26 percent¹⁰³

▶ Is more abstinence from alcohol better?

In 2023, the WHO released a statement saying no amount of alcohol is “safe.”¹⁰⁴ This interpretation is still debated, and data continues to emerge.

Here’s our take: An abstinence-only policy is likely a failed policy for many. Rather, we want people to be informed so they can make intentional decisions.

To be clear, alcohol is not beneficial for physical health; it’s a known human carcinogen. However, while alcohol does increase health risks, risk does not rise in a linear fashion with intake. Meaning, small doses are unlikely to have a significant impact on your health. But when you drink more heavily, the risks rise exponentially.¹⁰⁵

Drinking heavily can mean either:

• Having more than 7 drinks in a week for a woman, or more than 14 drinks in a week for a man, or
• Having 4 or more drinks in one sitting for a woman, or 5 or more drinks in one sitting for a man (binge drinking).

(Reminder: A single drink refers to those definitions mentioned previously. Pints of beer, and heavily poured wine glasses and cocktails are more than single servings… Just because it fits in a single glass doesn’t mean it counts as “one” drink.)

Ultimately, it’s about finding the level of risk you’re willing to tolerate relative to whatever benefits you feel alcohol provides you.

Our general recommendations:

• If you’re otherwise healthy and have no other alcohol-related risk factors, limit drinking to moderate levels or less
• If you’re otherwise healthy but have one or two alcohol-related risk factors (such as breast cancer history), limit drinking to light levels (1 to 3 or 4 drinks per week) with occasional moderate intakes on special occasions, or less
• If you have several alcohol-related risk factors (such as breast cancer history, family history of alcoholism, or contraindicated medications) abstain from alcohol entirely

Foundational Health Behavior #7: Do Basic Preventive Health Measures

In all the chatter about longevity optimization, it can be easy to forget about all the boring—but no less important—things that help you stay safe and healthy throughout your life.

These include things like:

• Getting regular check-ups, or seeing your doctor or healthcare provider if questions or concerns arise
• Getting recommended bloodwork, screenings, and vaccines
• Getting and keeping blood cholesterol, sugar, and pressure in recommended ranges as early as possible
• Regularly seeing your dentist, and regularly brushing and flossing
• Practicing safer sex
• Seeing medical specialists as recommended or appropriate (OBGYN, optometrist, ENT, dermatologist, etc.)
• Wearing seatbelts (Buckling up in the front seat reduces risk of fatal injury by 45 percent!¹⁰⁶)
• Wearing a helmet when cycling, skateboarding, or motorbiking
• Regularly wearing sunscreen (Used appropriately, sunscreen decreases risk of skin cancers by 40 to 50 percent^{107 108})
• Protecting your hearing (Untreated hearing loss increases risks for depression, social isolation,^{109 110} cognitive decline,¹¹¹ dementia,^{112 113} and falls^{114 115})

… And generally using common sense. (As in, avoid the “hold my beer” type stuff.)

Basic health maintenance and risk avoidance practices matter—a lot.

Notably, we can’t control every element of our environment. Some factors influencing our health are more structural and systemic, woven into the fabric of our societies.

These are called social determinants of health, and include poverty, racism, homophobia, lack of accommodation for disabilities, and displacement (as in the case of refugees). For some folks, doing the above protective behaviors—like visiting the family doctor, getting glasses, going to the dentist, or even walking safely down the street—will be harder, sometimes near impossible.

This isn’t meant to be a throwaway line that diminishes the difficult reality for so many people, but rather a gritty, realistic mantra: Do the best you can with what you’ve got.

▶ How much preventative health care do you need to do?

Generally speaking, aim to be consistent with the habits you know you “should” do.

You know the drill: Brush and floss daily; wear your helmet every time you ride a bike; wear your seatbelt every time you drive; put on sunscreen when you go out into the midday sun; don’t regularly blast your music at full volume; and so on.

And if you have lingering things on your “I should really do that” list (like getting that weird mole checked out, or that bloodwork done), go do it.

▶ Are people practicing enough basic preventative health measures?

We’ve offered a long-ish list of basic health practices that can protect health, so we won’t go into each in-depth.

That said, when looking at the above list, it’s probably fair to say most people will notice a few behaviors they might practice more consistently.

For example, while most of us are really consistent with our seat belts (usage is close to 92 percent!¹¹⁶), many of us could break out the floss more often (only 32 percent of Americans floss daily¹¹⁷).

And, research shows that only about half of cyclists and motorcyclists wear helmets when riding^{118 119 120} (and use is even lower among skateboarders and rollerbladers¹²¹).

Hearing loss is the number one modifiable risk factor for dementia,¹²² so make sure you also follow the “60/60 rule” if you like to pump up the tunes on your headphones: Listen at 60 percent of your device’s maximum volume for 60 minutes, then take a break. (And wear earplugs when you mow the lawn!)

▶ Are more preventative measures better?

Once again, there’s likely a law of diminishing returns when it comes to preventative health measures, just like everything else.

The point isn’t to become obsessed with eliminating all possible risks at every turn.

Rather, it’s that reasonable efforts towards protecting your health do count, and they‘re immeasurably more important for overall health than the latest optimization fads.

Still thinking about optimizing? Consider these additional tradeoffs

We hope it’s clear by now: You can take yourself really far with some solid basics (that will themselves take some decent time and effort!).

But, if you want to go even further, your effort might have to increase exponentially, just as those gains become less certain, and more marginal.

Here’s what to keep in mind.

First, it takes a lot of time (and money) to optimize.

Let’s compare the time and financial investment of two imaginary people.

The first person is what you might call a “healthy” or “medium effort” person. They’re someone who is pretty consistently meeting all of the above recommendations.

The second person is what you might call an “optimizer.” They do all the above recommendations, but to the max, and many of the fringe recommendations often discussed on health-related podcasts and books.

How much time and money might each of these people invest in their health efforts on a weekly basis? Here’s what that might look like.

On top of that, there are “optimizing” behaviors and assessments that might be performed less often—say, monthly, seasonally, annually, or even every few years. Of course, these practices will still require time and money, so even though they’re less frequent, they still have to be accounted for.

Here are some examples of those kinds of products, therapies, and tests:

• Dietary supplements (vitamin, mineral, and/or herbal supplements; “superfoods”; fish oil; probiotics, resveratrol, NAD+, NAC, curcumin, & more)
• Bloodwork testing (for advanced lipid testing, inflammatory markers, hormone levels, and nutrient status)
• IV therapy (for hydration, vitamins, glutathione, or NAD+)
• Infrared sauna sessions
• Plasma transfusions
• Gene therapy
• Stem cell therapy
• Medical tourism and therapeutics retreats
• Full-body MRIs
• Genetic testing
• Concierge medical services
• And more…

Though it’s hard to estimate the cost of these items, opting to do just a handful could easily cost an extra $10,000+ per year.

Overall, we’d estimate it takes at least three to four times the time, effort, and money to follow an “optimizer” type lifestyle, compared to a plain old “healthy” lifestyle.

As we’ve seen above, this 3-4x effort will likely translate to some extra benefits, but the medium-effort “healthy” lifestyle will likely get most people at least 80 percent of the results they’re after (such as improved lifespan, healthspan, and quality of life).

Besides, optimizing too much can negatively impact your well-being and quality of life.

The harder and more extreme someone’s fitness or health regime, the harder they typically fall off the wagon. So, taking on too much can actually put you more at risk of quitting the foundational health behaviors we mentioned earlier.

Even if you stick with it, over-focusing on health and longevity will almost certainly interfere with your ability to enjoy a full, well-rounded, meaningful life.

For example, if you get too focused on physical health, you may find other aspects of your deep health and overall wellbeing suffer, such as your relational, existential, mental, and emotional health.

Take this a step further, and “optimizing” can tip over into obsession. Sometimes, under the surface of “I just really care about my health” is disordered eating, orthorexia, or another mental health condition.

This, to us, is the heart of things: It’s important to not only stay relatively healthy, but also to enjoy your life while you’re living it.

In fact, enjoying your life isn’t separate from good health. It’s part of it.

What to do next

1. Clarify your goals.

Take a step back and consider what you really want most for yourself.

What kind of life do you want to have?

How important is it to maximize your healthspan and lifespan, and how does that line up with your other priorities?

2. Consider the tradeoffs.

Given what you want most for yourself, and the resources you have available, what’s realistic for you?

How much time, money, and effort are you willing to put in to achieve health and lifespan goals?

What are you prepared to give up? What aren’t you prepared to give up?

3. When looking to make improvements, start with the basics first.

Review the foundational health behaviors in this article. How many of them are you already doing? Consistently?

If you’re covering most of the basics, you might not need to do more. (Give yourself a pat on the back. You’re already elite!)

Or, maybe there’s some room for improvement and you’d like to step it up a bit. Great! For the vast majority of people, improving any of these behaviors will deliver real, tangible results. Start with these, before chasing faddish, fringe, “super-optimal” stuff.

4. Tune out the noise.

Those people you hear on podcasts or social media aren’t the experts on you and your life.

You get to decide what you want, and how to go about getting it.

Be honest with yourself, and make choices aligned with what matters most to you.

There’s plenty of advice out there, but remember: It’s your life. You get to make decisions that work for you.

References

Click here to view the information sources referenced in this article.

If you’re a coach, or you want to be…

You can help people build sustainable nutrition and lifestyle habits that will significantly improve their physical and mental health—while you make a great living doing what you love. We'll show you how.

If you’d like to learn more, consider the PN Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Certification. (You can enroll now at a big discount.)