2710: Live to 100 w/ These Proven Steps

0:00If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump. Mind pump. with your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, 8 Steps to Live to 100, based on the best data and science. This episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Jolie Skin Co. So this fits on your shower. So replace your shower head with it, and it filters your water for better hair, better skin. It takes out all the chemicals, the chlorine, makes the water feel real good, improve the health of your hair and your skin.

0:43It's easy. It's as easy as simply replacing your shower head. Go check them out. Go to JolieSkinCo.com. That's J-O-L-I-E SkinCo. So that's S-K-I-N-C-O.com forward slash Mind Pump. Try it out for yourself for free with free shipping. By the way, if you don't like it, you can get a full refund within 60 days. But I promise you when you try it, you'll see what I'm talking about. Also, MAPS GLP-1 is half off. This is a workout program with diet recommendation, supplement recommendations, and lifestyle recommendations for people who are on a GLP-1. So if you're using Ozempic, Wigovi, some agglutide, trisepitide, this program will maximize fat loss, help you keep your muscle, and make everything far more effective.

1:25Go check it out. Go to MAPSGLP1.com. Use the code GLP50 for the 50 % off discount. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com. I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. Longevity, or as we like to say it, health span. How would you like to live to 100 but also be healthy? Let's go. Hooked up to machines and taking tons of medications. Live a long, healthy life. Here's what we did. We took the eight things that data shows have the biggest impact on your longevity and health span.

2:07We're going to talk about them today. I was going to ask you how you came to these eight because I definitely agree with them. But I was just curious to how certain things maybe didn't make it, why those made it. So these are the eight with the most data to support. With the biggest. Biggest return. Yeah. The data will show. Because, you know, people make different kind of arguments. But these right here make the biggest difference, the ones we're going to talk about. And I will say this. Genetics plays a role. So I also looked up data on genetics. And there are studies on twins, twins that end up moving to different areas, live different lifestyles.

2:41And those are the best studies for how big of a role does genetics actually play? Do you guys want to take a guess? What percentage of your longevity? Oh, I was - 70. Yeah, I think that's a good guess. 60, 70 at least. 20 to 25%. No way. Real talk. so okay that's crazy to me because i you have family katrina has this on her side of her family she's got family members her dad is this way wow who's they just they're they're living to 90 smoking yeah drinking i know the same and i'm like that's gotta be genetics you gotta just be you gotta have that much in my family lived to 100 really only 20 percent sal 20 25 is what the the data okay that's cool because then there's other there's other theories that i've had i was like how does this dude live, have such a healthy, like, and he's not healthy for all means.

3:31But I think that just really highlights some of these other things that you're going to go over. That's right. I think he did really well. That's right. That's right. Yes, because some of these things have a bigger impact than others as we're going to get into. I would have guessed. 30 environmental takes up the rest. Yeah, 70, 70, sorry, 75 to 80 % is your lifestyle. It's controllable. Controllable. That's actually really interesting. I did not know that. I would have guessed the genetics played a much bigger role. No, that's what I thought too. By the way, 20 % to 25 % is nothing to sneeze at.

4:00No. This is the difference between two people living identical healthy lives, one person living until they're 80, the other person living until they're 100. So that's significant. Yeah. No, it still is. But it's not as much as we think. It's not as much as what – well, I think it's exciting. Because you can't – it's genetics. You got it or you don't got it. the fact that you can control 75 to 80 percent of that's right is a really positive that's right now which also kind of sorry to cut you off but i just i think there's a popular you know there's an attitude that i feel like the generation before us would have a lot of i'm gonna die anyways and so may as well smoke drink do the thing but it's like no a lot of your choices play a much bigger role than well i'm glad you said that adam because that's why I said health span in the beginning.

4:49And I remember Dr. Seeds made that point. He hated the term longevity because, okay, cool, you don't die, but are you independent? What's the quality? Right. What's the quality of life that you have? And so that's, I think, the most important. Because if I made the argument, you're going to live to 100, but the last 20 years of your life - In a wheelchair or sick. Yes, you're dependent on other people. You have full-time care. You're in chronic disease. Like, that's not, I don't think anybody wants that, right? So we're talking about the things that where you live a long time, but they also keep you independent, healthy, and largely devoid of chronic ailments that can make life very difficult for the last, especially the last 10 years of your life.

5:26So the first one is to eat a nutrient-dense whole food diet. Now, the best studies on this show that these are balanced diets. They include lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and they have meat. They have meat in them. It's interesting because, I mean, this kind of reminds me of the Blue Zones and all that whole talk of where they're really trying to find that key formula, right? What's the best food groups? And you see it in this culture and that. But yeah, it tends to be like the balanced diet. Well, what's interesting, one of the areas in that, which by the way, there's a lot of controversy around that.

5:57So some people poke holes in those studies. I don't know if we have any better ones. Cherry picking. But if you look at some of those areas, like you have the Seventh-day Adventists who eat a, I believe, largely vegetarian diet. Then you have like the island of Sardinia where the men there live a long time, both the women and the men, but the men in particular. Eat lots of meat. And people think, oh, they eat lots of fish. It's an island, which is true if you live on the coast. But if you live in the mountains, many of them don't even know how to swim. And they eat things like lamb and cheese and goat and stuff like that.

6:31But they are whole food diets. Okay, so I think that's what this highlights the most, which I love this being the first one and the point that you're trying to make right now, is that this is why I think, which is crazy, after probably a decade of all of us training, did we distill our diet recommendation to something as basic as this? Because I think if you just stick to whole foods, whether that's more fish or more steak or more chicken, if you just stick to whole foods, it kind of takes care of a lot of the big rocks as far as getting your body what it needs and not over-consuming a lot of things it doesn't need or isn't healthy for it.

7:11And I think that just general advice of eat whole foods. And of course, we say eat protein first because I think that helps keep the calories in management. But that takes care of most the big rocks in concerns of nutritional health. Well, when you talk about calories, it's far less likely to be overweight and eat a whole food-based diet. Your bodies will tell you when you're full and in a more accurate way than when you're eating processed foods. processed foods are very well engineered to make you overeat. And so trying to eat an appropriate amount with processed foods is like good luck. I'm devoid of nutrients.

7:47I mean, it's just gotten worse and worse over the years with our options. Yeah, like calories are abundant, but getting like real quality nutrients is difficult. Have either one of you ever trained somebody who was obese, who only ate whole foods? No. Never. No. I've never ever in my life trained somebody who I looked at their diet and it was all whole foods and they're sitting across from me 30 40 50 pounds or more overweight never no it's it's it's it's always the highly processed palatable foods that have got those people and getting people to switch to just if if you know this was something i learned later in my career as a trainer if i just got my clients to switch whole foods i took it took care of like 85 90 percent of everything they ever wanted from diet yes was just that right there and we there were things we could do within that but if they just did that by the way that you know you made a good point justin And processed foods are calorically dense, but nutrient devoid.

8:44Now, that doesn't mean they don't have nutrients. But when you look at the amount of calories you get for the amount of micronutrients you get, it's not a great ratio like you would with whole natural foods. And we're not just talking about micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. Because processed foods sometimes come fortified. Also, it's like fiber and all these other. That's right. Phytonutrients and antioxidants and compounds that we know have benefit. It's hard to narrow down. just how much of a benefit, but we know in combination, they have anti-cancer properties. Some of them have a hormetic effect where they produce a small stress, which then strengthen the body.

9:17Fiber seems to play a role, contrary to what some carnivore diet advocates will say, the data on fiber is pretty incredible. So yeah, if you just ate a nutrient-dense whole food diet, this is what people who live a long life tend to have in common. They tend to have this right here in common with diet. Next up is to maintain a healthy body weight. So when you look at like BMI, for example, this could lower mortality risk by 30%. Just having it. Now, BMI isn't perfect. BMI refers to your body weight versus your height. But this does point to a better body composition, generally speaking, than any other broad data that we have.

9:59Maintaining a healthy body weight. Like if, again, if we go back to the first one, you eat whole natural foods, you're far, far less likely to be overweight. Far less likely to be overweight. Yeah, I think a lot of, you know, what would you put a number on, like, the range? Like, I think of a man maintaining always between 10 and 19%. Even 10's kind of low. 11 to 19 % in that range. You're going to fall there if you eat a whole food diet. Yeah, if you... Especially if you exercise. And as long as you, like, you always kind of keep it in there. Like, maybe sometimes you tend to tip towards the higher end and then you kind of rein it back in and like there's a lot of flexibility within that that range so long as you're active eating whole foods and then the next point you're going to make uh which is like exercise i think those really take care of uh of that exercise so uh here's what the data says for longevity because there's a difference between exercising to maximize performance, maximize aesthetics, maximize muscle building, right?

11:00And exercise that contributes to longevity. Once you pass a certain point with intensity and intent with exercise, you start to sacrifice longevity. So maximum performance always comes at the expense of longevity. So if you want to be like the fastest, the most endurance, the strongest, just know you're going to be trading some longevity there because what the data shows is regular moderate intensity exercise does the best for uh for longevity that's why i've always liked that analogy i think jason gave it to on the show first uh where the triangle of longevity performance and aesthetics and that you know anytime and if it's like you move too far in one yeah you move too far in one you take from the other two no matter what's impossible you're always going to be doing that right so you have to understand that the closer you get to focusing just on longevity well, you're not going to have the best success.

11:52You're not going to have the best performance necessarily. Well, the reason why I like to communicate what I just did is the examples we tend to get in media for people who we think are going to live a long time are actually extreme performance athletes. And if you look at the data on this, by the way, you look at like the top endurance runners. Look at the top, I don't have to say this, but strength athletes, the top athletes, their longevity is better than the average, sometimes not, but it's not the best longevity because they're pushing their bodies to extreme limits. Now, of course, I think there's value in doing that.

12:30It's fun, all that stuff. But I think if you're looking for longevity, what it kind of looks like is I exercise most days and I just enjoy the movement. I just enjoy the exercise. And I'm not necessarily pushing my body to accomplish crazy feats of performance. I'm just active. And when you, again, you look at the studies on these blue zones, which I know some people poke holes in. What you have are people that walk up hills every day. You know, they're gardening every single day. They're fishing every single day, you know, into their 90s. They're just doing this daily activity. What town is that in Italy that's like all stairwells and it's on the side?

13:07That was Sardinia. Is that Sardinia? Yeah. Yeah, it's like that. By the way, look, you know, these old towns, they were designed differently than what you'll see now for lots of walking stuff. I would visit family. I have family in Sicily. And in some of the older towns, I'd have older relatives in their 70s and 80s. And in order for them to go to the grocery store, they'd have to walk down a steep hill and a bunch of stairs. And then they'd have to walk back with their groceries. The street's too small for cars. This is the only way you can get up and down. And so every day going to the grocery store was - Well, a lot of places like that in Europe too.

13:41It's cool. Yeah, when they used to do that with towns and cities, they'd structure it where it was all walking distance. But exercise will contribute, in some studies, 35%, actually more than diet, will for longevity. By the way, I love the way that Jack Elaine used to say this. He used to say, exercise is king, diet is queen, and together you have a kingdom. And I think that's very, very true. You want to do both to really have the best benefit, not just one or the other. Next, we have sleep, prioritizing sleep. This makes a big difference. this will lower mortality risk by about 12%. Some of the best studies on this will point to people who work like a swing shift or night shifts.

14:27Even people who lead otherwise healthy lives have a reduced longevity score, or they live not as long because of the stress of just poor sleep. Yeah, never fully recover. It's definitely not an advantage. No, and again, if you go to these old cultures, they actually prioritize sleep. They'd go to bed early. They'd wake up when the sun would rise. You'd have siestas in some places. Many of them. Many of these old cultures even value a 30-minute, 40-minute nap. Would you argue, too, that it becomes even more paramount when you also include exercise intensity for, say, performance and aesthetics?

15:08You better sleep more. Right. Because you have to understand that, to your point, Exercise for longevity is more like moving for the sake of moving and because it feels good, not because you're trying to build a bunch of muscle or look a certain way. And so as you move into that direction of I want to look better and I want more muscle or I want this look, well, then sleep, which was already important, becomes even more important because you have to recover from a higher level of stress that's beyond longevity healthy for you. It's healthy for you. I'm not saying that exercising hard is not healthy.

15:39They don't want that message to be received. But understand that when you start to push yourself more in the direction of aesthetics, and I want to build more muscle, and I want to look more of a certain way. Sleep is even more important. Sleep becomes even more of a priority because you have a higher stress that you're putting on the body to try and obtain a higher level of aesthetics. 100%. Next up is to manage stress. Now, this is what's interesting about managing stress. we have uh we've been led to believe that managing stress means uh you know what it what it means entirely is to reduce stressful things in your life but here's what the data shows the data shows that the better approach is to have purpose behind the stress in your life and what they find in these studies is that there these people do things who live a long time they have a lot of stuff going on, but it's purposeful.

16:34Like stress with no purpose is just stress. Like you could have, and we'll get to this a little bit later, but you could have kids, kids add stress to your life, but they also add a tremendous amount of purpose. What does the data show with having kids? You live longer. You live longer. That's interesting. I mean, you could even apply that to things like work, like work can be very stressful, but when you're driven by a greater purpose than just receiving a paycheck every two weeks, it adds a different type of fulfillment. it to it. Such a great example. I'll paint a scenario. You have a job that is stressful.

17:04It's very stressful, but you're making, I don't know, computer monitors or you're making phones or you're working in tech. Like that's okay. It's stressful. It's hard, right? Now imagine you have a stressful job, but you're, you're feeding orphans or you're doing something that has so much purpose for you at least. It's not the same. It's not the same stress at all. You know, it's funny you say this because I don't know if, I think I shared this with you guys. it might have been on here or not but you know we we went this last quarter or two for our business has been in the 10 years that we've been doing this i would consider it the most stressful and i know people are probably laughing on the other side watching this going if you sit on a fucking podcast all day how could be that stressful there's a lot that goes on this is a fraction of what we do this is five percent yes but and my point of that is that but uh the point i'm making uh and katrina's been with me for 15 years so she's been with me through multiple businesses and has seen me at all levels of financially things, ups, downs, all this stuff, right?

18:02And beginning of a business when it's really stressful, peak business, all that. And she was making a comment of saying, you know, I know how much you're caring right now and stressed out about work yet. You don't look like it and you don't act like it. And I go, you know, it's strange you say that because I feel that same way too. I feel this unbelievable pressure right now to solve things and fix and get things going again. but at the same time too, underlining joy around it. What I attribute that to at least is because the purpose behind this business, the things that we're providing, the people that we're serving, and then also the combination of the amount of lives that impact this, not just from, again, customers, but even the people that work for us.

18:46The staff. Yeah. Totally. And a lot of that pressure is I want to provide so they don't stress and don't worry and they have a great place to come work to. And that gives it, it's a different type of stress. I would argue that it's as or more stressful than almost any other period I ever felt, but it's received differently. And she goes, I can see it on you. You carry it differently. You have a different attitude about it. She goes, admittedly, I can be a bit of a bear to be around in moments where we would have been stressed out over business or finances in the past. And I haven't felt it that way.

19:20So I think it speaks to your purpose. Super important because we just keep hearing when it comes to stress, like take stressful things out of your life and do things that are relaxing and all that stuff. But what's more powerful than that, what has a larger impact on your longevity in this case is to have purpose. If you have purpose, stress is not stressful. It's not stressful, not nearly as stressful as when you don't. And when you don't have purpose, most things are stressful. You have no purpose in your life. Sitting at home doing nothing can be tremendously depressing and stressful versus being out there making things happen, but you believe in what you're doing.

19:57So the key here is to gain purpose, which is slightly connected to the next one, which is this is crazy. Fostering social, strong social connections. Okay, so we talked about diet, you know, 30%, exercise, 30 to 35%. Managing stress, that'll reduce mortality by 24%. strong social connections you know how much that cuts mortality risk 50 that's high yeah yeah that's so crazy nothing comes crazy nothing comes close i mean i've heard that from so many different articles i've read you know that that connection there was that one that equated uh smoking cigarettes yeah having poor relationships in your life was like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day yeah which was pretty wild it's a big study that showed that so this one is huge and it's funny it's number six it should be number one because i think of all of these i mean diet and exercise are obviously but we're so aware in modern societies we're so aware of how bad our health is because of our diet and our exercise but people are not nearly as aware as they should be that our social connections have totally dissolved um and we're we live in a modern life with lots of convenience and stuff like that especially these days but just depressed anxiety i think a bit of it is because we're deceiving ourselves to think that we have more connection than what we really have i think that's part of the problem so i think that a lot of people uh if you would ask them i mean shoot i bet a lot of people that would if you would ask them oh name 10 of your friends or whatever they would list people on their social media platforms you know i'm saying you versus like how okay now how even if they name people so how often do you see them we i was gonna say then i would the follow-up question i'd say is It's like, well, when was the last time one of those people had been to your house for a barbecue?

21:40Or when last time you went to a movie or had dinner with one of them in person? And I bet a lot of people would say they hadn't. And so there's this false feedback loop of like, oh, I'm talking to a lot of people. I've got a lot of friends. I'm popular on Instagram. I have all this. But really missing that connection with people on a daily basis that's close to you. Well, social media, and this can actually be true for even relationships we have in the real world, but for a relationship to really provide this right here, it has to be a real relationship. Meaning, if the relationship I have, I'll use Justin, let's say Justin and I are friends, but what he sees and knows of me is what I put up in front.

22:20So we see each other, he just sees the surface, either through social media, or maybe we just hang out, we just talk about kind of surface stuff. That's not the same as like, we do life together. He knows my struggles. He knows my kids. He knows what's going on in my life. I know what's going on in his life. I can call him and talk to him about all the hardest, deepest stuff. That's the social connection that contributes to longevity. And in the data, church and a religious community serves this tremendously. And now there's a few reasons that are explained in a secular way as to why. One of them is when you have a faith with other people, it tends to be very vulnerable and honest.

23:01Many faiths, especially Christian religion, encourages confession to each other and struggle and help and doing life with each other. So that makes a big impact. Marriage makes a big impact. This contributes to longevity. Tell me marriage isn't stressful. It's very stressful. It's much easier, I think, on the surface to not be married, to just live for yourself. But then you don't live as long. You're not as happy. Why is that? You don't have that vulnerability. What do we know about like, you know, you see this in some families, right, are really good. I think your family would be a good example of this where you have big one, two, three generations of the family that live nearby each other.

23:40I would think that that's as powerful, if not more powerful than even like a church relationship like that. I would think being near grandma, grandpa, uncles, aunts and connecting with all them would be. Here's what's crazy about what you're saying. So I've done cross data reference and explained to me why people who pray regularly, go to church regularly, in other words, people who are really a part of the faith. They don't just claim it, but they're really a part of it. Why do they have such a huge longevity boost? And compare that to people who belong to strong networks that are not religious, social networks, family networks.

24:18And it does account for a large percentage of it, but there's a percentage there that they can't account for. so that's gotta be what you will well that's gotta be the that's gotta be the built-in spiritual purpose component i i think that's i think that's a big part that's totally because you could have the family connection opening secrets confession yeah right but then there's still why am i doing this thing called life that i think or i got this terrible thing that just happened right right can't explain exactly so i think that's gotta that's gotta be that extra percentage has got to be well then it also adds that element yes obviously ultimately being able to have both is like but not everybody has that right not everybody has you know a lot of people are um you know live in a different state than their their family and i mean i could have easily been that person i definitely i until having a kid uh selfishly i i don't think i i saw the value like i do you know for myself whether that be i became numb to it or whatever the case may be having a kid seeing it i go it's like very clear to me now that and now i wish i could go back and you know which is crazy to think i'm the guy that now if we bought 100 acres i could put everybody which is so wild because i'm like the opposite of that i remember tom katrina with first date i'm like florida would you move all the way across could you i would always oh yeah if she would have agreed to something say five six years or longer ago before max i would have up and left no problem.

25:43I've been okay with that. But I see now and I feel it. I don't just see it. I feel it from being that close to a big family. Yeah. So family, your community, church, marriage, kids, huge impact on longevity and health span, health span. Next one, this one's an easy one. We'd have to spend a lot of time here, but no drugs or alcohol, no cigarettes. Those are all pretty damaging to your health. There's lots of, I don't think people know, have any questions, as to whether or not that's good for you or not. It's not good for you. It's obvious it's not good for you, but are most, let's say for alcohol, you go to dinner every Friday night with a wife and you guys have two glasses of wine when you do that.

26:30And that's your level of drinking. It's probably not much. When I'm looking at the studies, it's like smoking, people smoke every single day. When you want to see when alcohol really has a negative impact, that's 14 drinks a week these people are drinking twice two two drinks a night yeah like that's having a so that's what that's what i was because i would think that and we've talked about this on the podcast when we've encouraged people and clients of ours like i would always encourage my client who's not a drinker to go have a drink with a close friend or family member as a way of connecting and socializing than to not at all i think the positive effects from the connecting to the family out or a friend and the community to your point if that's 50 outweighs the even slight no it's funny too because if you look at the data on you know how they always show those studies like a little bit of alcohol actually improves longevity what they're actually realizing is when they look at these cultures and societies where people will have a little bit of alcohol what they're actually looking at are people who are have who really do a lot of communal stuff so it's like dinner with the family right have a glass it's not drinking uh by yourself no it's Sitting in front of your TV, eating and having a glass of wine.

27:37It points to the community advantage. That's right. So like gets you, if that's what gets you into the social situations, for some people who have like anxiety over that, I guess you could kind of make a case that that would be a positive. That's right. Next up, always learn. This is an interesting one. Engaging in lifelong learning seems to reduce dementia risk by 50%. 50%. I think always learning. I don't necessarily think it's because you're exercising your brain, because if you want to see what exercises the brain the most, activity actually does this quite well from a physiological, like just the brain is an organ, you know, perspective.

28:15I think it's another form of purpose. Yes. That's it. 100%. Yes. 100%. It keeps that top of mind. So, yeah, I just, and we talk about this with people that retire, and it's like this, like, real, like, quick decline you see. Yeah. A lot of people sometimes. Arthur Brooks talks about this. He wrote a book on this, but he showed there was a huge, there was a clear split with people who retired and those that did well and those that didn't do well in terms of health and longevity. The ones that didn't do well did nothing else. So they would retire and they stopped working. They just stopped. The ones that did well stopped working and started teaching.

28:47They actually entered into kind of mentorship or volunteer or they'd go to companies and they'd consult and stuff like that. So I think it has to do with purpose. Yeah, because learning, when you're learning something that you're really into, it does give you kind of a sense of purpose, right? Sure. You're becoming a better person. Tomorrow I got to be better or smarter or I got to teach this class on Friday so I better learn these things. And so it gives, it's built in purpose again. Totally. And I think it has more to do with that than, although I'm sure it has some neurological benefits. You're firing things, you're connecting.