In all seriousness, I think the number one best thing to do for health and for retaining youthfulness is to stay active. Nutrition, yes, your heredity plays a role, true, spirituality is not to be underrated, your environment, not marrying OJ, but more than almost anything else, exercise, motion, activity, these are the main considerations.
You don't have to go overboard, you don't need to join a gym, your activity levels can be small as long as they are consistent and you carry on a routine that keeps you in motion. A twenty minute walk three times a week cuts the risk of premature death by about a third.
Motion circulates lymph, which has no internal mechanism of propulsion, like blood does. Lymph works wonders. Being active helps keep the body capable of fast tissue repair, it gets immunity strong, it promotes healthy circulation, it factors into everything else that is inside someone, and fights everything from cancer, heart disease, mental deterioration, and the common cold. It keeps people capable of sexual activity indefinitely, making them live as long as they want to, and want to as long as they live.
It also makes everyone look better and feel better, and those things make it easier to be happy. Happy is a wonderful way to live.
If I haven't already crossed into being preachy, beyond exercise, avoid sugar, it is the most widely abused drug in western society, at the heart of MOST deaths in this century. Dietary fat is downright meek compared to sugar, especially in the form of high fructose corn syrup, an addictive substance that assaults the body in ways that are terrifying. Give it to a mouse and see what happens.
And one last thing. Try not to eat your main meal in the evening. Far better to consume it no later than mid-day. Eating heavily once the working day is done doesn't even make sense, and is one of several reasons obesity rates in France are a fraction of what they are in the United States: French people traditionally eat their biggest meal in the middle of the day, and are convinced eating late causes the body to retain calories.
My point is, aging may be unavoidable, it may, as some physicians, like Dr. Perricone, say literally be a transmitted disease carried within our very DNA (I mean seriously, why don't we regenerate and live on, right?), but how rapidly and severely we age is also largely up to us, so I say kick aging in the nads and fight on. AARP can wait!
Exercise! Eat better! Be happy!
Thanks for the advice. I hope I can get with it!
