If you were to look at the amount of advertising and promotion for anti-ageing products and services, you may think you stumbled upon some kind of unfortunate affliction, rather than a natural process. Ageing seems to be a dirty word; and we’re told we should all become anti-ageing consumers.

We rarely talk about mortality until it arrives uninvited—in a hospital ward, a funeral chapel, or a phone call in the middle of the night.

Death has gradually become something to hide. We outsource it to hospitals and care homes, smooth away its rough edges with softer language. The irony, of course, is that death has never been ‘separate’ to life. It’s always there. We’re just busy pretending it isn’t coming for us.

Lessons from a chess match with death

That thought occurred to me while rewatching The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman’s extraordinary 1957 film. If you’ve never seen it, the premise sounds almost comically bleak. A medieval knight, Antonius Block, returns home from the Crusades to find Sweden ravaged by the Black Death. On a deserted beach, he meets Death itself—dressed in black, arrived to claim him. The knight challenges Death to a game of chess, hoping to delay the inevitable while he searches for proof that life means something before his final move.

It’s one of cinema’s most famous images, but the chess game isn’t really about winning. Death never loses. The real question is how you spend the time while the pieces are in play on the board.

As the knight travels through the plague-stricken country, he encounters frightened villagers, religious fanatics, travelling actors, and ordinary people trying to make sense of suffering. He spends much of the film searching for certainty. Is there a God? Is there a grand purpose? Can anyone know why we’re here?

Bergman offers no definitive answers. Instead, he points the audience somewhere else entirely.

The most memorable moments in the film aren’t theological debates or dramatic revelations; they’re surprisingly ordinary. A family sharing strawberries and fresh milk. Friends talking together. Acts of kindness. Simple companionship in the middle of chaos.

The suggestion is beautifully understated: perhaps meaning isn’t something to be discovered through intellectual study. Perhaps it’s something that accumulates through being truly present in ordinary moments while they’re happening.

The 4,000-week life

Nearly seventy years later, author Oliver Burkeman arrives at a similar conclusion from an entirely different direction.

His book Four Thousand Weeks begins with an uncomfortable piece of arithmetic: if you live to around eighty, you’ll have roughly 4,000 weeks on Earth.

That sounds like plenty until you realise how quickly the weeks disappear. Childhood occupies the first quarter almost before you’ve noticed. Work, family responsibilities, and life’s endless admin consume another large chunk. Suddenly, “I’ll get round to it someday” starts looking rather more urgent.

Burkeman argues that modern life encourages a fantasy: that with enough productivity hacks, better calendars, and more efficient morning routines, we’ll eventually get on top of everything. There will come a magical moment when the inbox is empty, the house is organised, our health is optimised, and we can finally begin living ‘properly.’

Except that moment never arrives.

There will always be more books than you can read, more places than you can visit, more ambitions than you can fulfil, and more emails than any sane person should ever receive. ‘Optimisation’ rarely creates peace. More often, it creates fresh demands and a longer to-do list.

The real problem, Burkeman suggests, isn’t that life is short. It’s that we resist the fact that it’s limited.

Once you accept that you won’t get to do everything, something unexpected happens: the pressure eases. Every decision inevitably means saying no to something else. You just need to choose wisely.

His most useful idea is that many of life’s most valuable pursuits have no finish line: friendship, reading, walking, marriage, gardening, parenting. You never ‘complete’ them. There’s no certificate congratulating you on finishing friendship or reaching Level 10 of marriage.

They matter the most while you’re doing them, rather than finishing them.

Optimising away the inevitable won’t work

That feels surprisingly relevant to the modern obsession with ‘longevity,’ otherwise known as ‘never dying.’

Much of the health and wellness industry sells the promise that we can somehow outwit ageing. We’re encouraged to use ‘protocols’ to optimise sleep, nutrition, blood biomarkers, muscle mass, heart rate variability, and mitochondrial function—often with the implication that enough optimisation might postpone mortality indefinitely.

As someone who spends a fair amount of time writing about healthspan, I understand the appeal. I exercise because I’d like my final decades to involve walking holidays rather than walking frames. I eat reasonably well because I’d prefer to remain independent for as long as possible. Strength matters. Fitness matters. Looking after your body absolutely matters.

But there’s an important distinction between preparing for a better old age and pretending nothing will change. Healthspan isn’t about recapturing youth; it’s about making the most of the life we have left.

A healthier perspective exists

Some cultures seem to understand this better than we do.

• In Japan, there is the idea of mono no aware—an appreciation of the beauty of things precisely because they’re fleeting. Cherry blossom isn’t beautiful despite lasting only a few days; its temporary nature is the very source of its beauty.

• In Mexico, the Day of the Dead doesn’t attempt to hide mortality behind closed doors. Families gather, remember relatives, tell stories, visit graves, and celebrate lives that are gone but not forgotten. Death isn’t denied; it remains part of the conversation.

• Even in parts of southern Europe, where grandparents are woven naturally into everyday family life, ageing and dying feel less hidden than they often do in the UK.

Perhaps wealth has allowed us to push death further from daily view, but it hasn’t made us any more comfortable with it. If anything, the opposite is true: the less often we acknowledge our limited time, the more shocking those limits feel when they eventually appear.

The great leveller

That may explain why The Seventh Seal still resonates today. Bergman wasn’t really making a film about dying. He was making a film about what mortality asks of the living.

The final image—the famous Dance of Death silhouetted against the horizon—reminds us that kings, peasants, believers, sceptics, the clever, and the longevity influencer all leave the stage in exactly the same way. Death is the great leveller. Nobody negotiates a better contract.

If we really do have only around 4,000 weeks, then perhaps the goal is to bear in mind that our time is limited and use this knowledge to spend it on the things that really matter. Only you can decide what they are.

The chess match is already under way. We just don’t know how many moves remain.

If you want to document your own life on a page, download this pdf file. Each box represents one week in your life. I filled one in after my heart attack and it really brought home to me the gift of extra time I’ve been given.

Olderland Life On A Page

874KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Cheers 👋

Stuart

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

We’re being encouraged to eat more of our protein from plants and to cut back, in particular, on red and processed meat. But there’s no need to start piling fake bacon and tofu sausages into the shopping trolley. It can simply mean making beans, peas, lentils, nuts and other plant foods a more regular part of everyday meals.

Beans are particularly useful because they provide both protein and fibre, are naturally low in saturated fat and can replace meat in a meal without leaving a giant meat-shaped hole on the plate.

Gigantes plaki fits the bill rather well. It’s comforting, inexpensive, requires only one main pan and provides around 19g of protein and 21g of fibre per serving. It also tastes like a proper dinner rather than something eaten solely to earn nutritional brownie points.

Gigantes plaki, what’s that?

While on a recent holiday in Rhodes, Mrs D and I chanced upon a charming little restaurant by the water and decided to give it a go. We tried gigantes plaki (γίγαντες πλακί) for the first time and thought it was so delicious that we decided to ‘borrow’ the recipe — entirely in the interests of research and for the benefit of Olderland readers.

Gigantes means “giants” in Greek, referring to the enormous white beans traditionally used in the dish. Plaki describes a Greek style of cooking in which food is baked with tomatoes, olive oil, vegetables and herbs.

The English translation is a little more mundane: Greek giant beans baked in tomato sauce. The result is somewhere between a bean stew and a fancy version of baked beans: soft, creamy beans in a thick tomato sauce, with olive oil, garlic, oregano and parsley doing most of the heavy lifting.

In keeping with my philosophy of Minimum Viable Cheffing, I’ve made a few modifications to reduce the chopping and shopping while increasing the convenience. It’s true: I’m a lazy cook.

Gigantes plaki for two

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 175g frozen chopped soffritto mix

• 6–8g frozen chopped garlic

• 1 tablespoon tomato purée

• 1 × 400g tin chopped tomatoes, preferably good quality

• ½ teaspoon dried oregano

• ½ teaspoon sweet or smoked paprika

• 1 bay leaf

• 2 × 400g tins large butter beans, drained and rinsed

• 75ml water

• A handful of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Heat the oven to 190°C/375°F conventional, or 170°C/340°F fan or convection.

2. Heat one tablespoon of the olive oil in a medium ovenproof pan over a low-to-medium heat. Add the frozen soffritto and cook for eight to ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables have softened and any excess water has evaporated.

3. Add the frozen garlic and tomato purée and cook for another minute.

4. Stir in the chopped tomatoes, oregano, paprika, bay leaf and water. Season with black pepper and salt to taste.

5. Allow the sauce to simmer for eight to ten minutes, until it starts to thicken.

6. Stir in the drained beans. Transfer the pan to the oven, or tip everything into a small baking dish if your pan isn’t ovenproof.

7. Bake uncovered for 25–30 minutes, until the sauce is thick and bubbling and the beans are beginning to colour slightly around the edges. This part is important for an authentic look and flavour.

8. Remove the bay leaf, stir through most of the parsley and drizzle over the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Scatter the rest of the parsley over the top.

To serve

Serve warm rather than piping hot, ideally with a Greek salad, warm wholemeal pitta or a slice of crusty bread.

For something a little fancier, crumble 50g of feta over the top before serving. For a higher-protein meal, add a couple of poached eggs, grilled chicken or prawns.

Nutrition (approx per portion)

Calories: 434 kcal
Protein: 18.5g
Carbohydrates: 47.7g
Fibre: 20.9g
Fat: 15.8 g (of which saturated: 2.2 g)

A useful recipe to keep in reserve

Gigantes plaki provides a meaningful amount of protein alongside a great deal of fibre and very little saturated fat.

It also keeps well, so it’s a good candidate to batch cook and place individual portions in the freezer as a healthy ‘Plan B.’

I prefer the flavour the following day, once the beans have absorbed more of the tomato sauce and the ingredients have got to know each other better.

Leftovers can be eaten warm, at room temperature as part of a mezze-style lunch, or spooned over a piece of toasted sourdough.

I don’t intend to become a vegetarian any time soon but I do see the benefit of eating more plants. I just need a few meals that make the swap feel like an upgrade rather than a sacrifice.

I think gigantes plaki is one of them.

Let me know in the comments if you try it. Enjoy!

Until next time. 👋

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

A new framework from clinicians at the Mayo Clinic argues that medicine should focus less on simply extending life and more on preserving physical function, independence and cognitive health throughout later life.

This matters because healthspan is starting to move beyond the world of longevity marketing and become a serious clinical concept.

In other words, the medical world is finally catching up with what I’ve been saying all along: helping people build and maintain their capability is every bit as important as treating the diseases and decline that come with ageing.

The Best Mid-Life Sport for Body and Brain?

Table tennis is often described as the world’s leading “brain sport” because it demands so much at once: quick movement, constant visual tracking, rapid decision-making and tactical thinking. It’s known as “high-speed chess” for good reason. I love it.

It can also be an excellent activity for people living with Parkinson’s. Research suggests it may support hand–eye coordination, balance, walking ability and cognitive function, while the social side of the game can provide a welcome boost to confidence and wellbeing.

Best of all, it’s a sport that can be enjoyed at almost any age, which makes it particularly good for a bit of intergenerational rivalry — unless it’s the 12-year-old doing the thrashing.

One final warning: whatever you do, don’t call it ping-pong. That’s the quickest way to annoy a serious player.

More Evidence Shows How Exercise Helps Ageing Muscles Stay Healthy

Here’s yet more evidence of the power of exercise in repairing and maintaining our ageing bodies. Scientists have discovered how physical activity signals a ‘cleanup and reset’ process, removing damaged proteins, stimulating repair, and preserving muscle strength.

While regular exercise remains the most potent intervention against ageing, this research could also pave the way for future treatments tailored for those unable to train due to illness or injury.

From the Blog 📚

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

Currently the darling of longevity influencers and fitness experts worldwide, this test is often cited as one of the strongest predictors of longevity as we age.

In the past, this simple test tended to show up in various sadistic PE lessons, or as the military-recruitment equivalent of auditioning for The X Factor. But it can reveal a surprising amount about your current healthspan, and it’s a great starting point for building upper-body strength. Best of all, it only takes a couple of minutes of hanging around.

Let’s get into the details.

What this test measures

The dead hang test measures how long you can support your own bodyweight while hanging from a bar. Most obviously, it tests grip strength and endurance: can your hands and forearms keep you up there when gravity has other ideas?

That makes it slightly different from a standard grip-strength test, where you squeeze a dynamometer as hard as possible for a few seconds. A dynamometer measures maximum grip force; a dead hang measures whether you can sustain your grip under load. Complementary, but not the same.

It also tests relative strength, which matters because the bar doesn’t care who you are. It only cares how much of you is hanging from it. A lighter person with modest grip strength may do well, while a heavier person with similar grip strength may find the whole thing a bit unforgiving. Nuance matters, which is always annoying when you were hoping for bragging rights.

Finally, the test calls for a reasonable level of shoulder stability and core endurance. Not in any diagnostic sense, but in terms of how comfortably you can hold an overhead position under load. Hanging is not just a hand exercise. Your shoulders, core and grip all have a part to play in keeping the show on the road.

Why it matters

The science behind the dead hang isn’t as well developed as the science behind handgrip dynamometer testing.

So why bother?

Because the dead hang is simple, cheap and practical. It’s a home test. It gives you a number. And, done sensibly, it can be improved with practice. For those of us interested in healthspan rather than just lifespan, that’s what matters.

The point isn’t to become a calisthenics influencer, like Ann Esselstyn. It’s to keep enough useful strength in the bank that ordinary life doesn’t become more limiting than it needs to be. Carrying shopping, lifting bags, opening jars, using tools, holding handrails, getting up from the floor — none of these things is glamorous, but they all belong in the toolbox of independence.

Large studies have linked weaker grip strength with higher risks of disability, disease and mortality in later life. One major international study even found grip strength to be a stronger predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality than systolic blood pressure. That doesn’t mean your grip replaces your blood pressure reading, obviously. It means grip strength is a useful signal. If your grip is declining, it may be telling you something broader about your muscle, ageing and resilience.

How to do the test

Use a solid pull-up bar, high enough that you can hang with your feet clear of the floor, but ideally reachable from a box, step or bench. You may find one at your gym, in the local park, or at home. Be careful with doorway pull-up bars, especially the removable kind. They need to be fitted properly, checked regularly and treated with a degree of suspicion. Gravity isn’t known for its forgiving nature.

Before you start, do a short warm-up. Shoulder circles, arm circles and wrist circles are enough for most people. You might also do one or two brief supported hangs, keeping your feet lightly on the floor or a box, just to let your shoulders and grip know what’s coming.

1. Use an overhand grip, with your palms facing away from you. Place your hands roughly shoulder-width apart. Wrap your thumbs around the bar unless you have a very specific reason not to.

2. Don’t jump up to the bar, especially if you’re new to this. Step up, take hold, then gently transfer your weight.

3. For the test itself, start the timer when your full bodyweight is hanging from the bar. Keep your arms straight, without locking your elbows. Keep your core engaged and breathe normally.

4. Stop the timer when your feet touch the floor, your grip slips, or your form turns into something that would worry a passing physio.

5. Record your best time in seconds and compare it with the norm table for your age and sex.

Try to use the same bar, grip and method each time you retest. Otherwise, you won’t be comparing like with like. Bar thickness, surface, chalk, hand size and bodyweight can all affect the result.

Making sense of your score

Dead-hang norms aren’t as well established as grip-strength norms. The tables below are best treated as practical coaching benchmarks, not formal clinical standards.

If you find yourself below the lower bands, it’s a sign to start building grip and upper-body strength gently. Around the median (average), you have a reasonable base, keep going. If you’re in the upper bands, well done, especially if you’re not already training hangs.

Remember, fitness is specific. A rock climber, gymnast or regular lifter may do very well on this test. Someone who walks every day and has excellent cardiovascular fitness may consider themselves fit, then be given a rude awakening when trying this test. The bar can be rude like that.

How to improve your score

For most people over 50, a good goal isn’t to chase heroic numbers. Try to move one band up. If you eventually reach 60 seconds, that’s more than enough for most people and most situations. That is, of course, unless you’re planning on joining the elite who want to hang from a helicopter in an action film. The joining fee for this is 2 minutes of hanging.

The key to progress is regular, manageable practice. Try to engineer a way to work it into an existing routine, also known as ‘habit stacking.’ I used to take my dogs out every day and made a point of walking past the outdoor fitness area for a quick dead hang while my pooches looked for squirrels to terrorise. All parties happily multi-tasking.

If a full hang is too much, start with a supported hang. Keep your feet on a box or bench and take only part of your bodyweight through your hands. Build up with short holds of 10 to 20 seconds, repeated a few times, two or three times a week. Gradually take less support through your feet as your grip and shoulders adapt.

You can also improve your grip with farmer’s carries, suitcase carries, rows, deadlifts, or simply carrying awkward shopping bags without immediately outsourcing the job to someone younger. The aim is to make grip part of normal strength training, not a strange little punishment you do at the end.

The real value of the test is not the number itself. It’s the regular reminder. Grip strength is easy to ignore until it starts to disappear. Then suddenly jars, bags, tools, rails, handles and the general equipment of adult life become more demanding than they used to be. The dead hang gives you a simple way to check whether you’re still holding your own.

And if the first dead hang attempt is humbling, that’s fine. Many useful healthspan tests are rude awakenings at the beginning. That’s often the sting that drives the change.

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers 👋

Stuart

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

I was very guilty of this until quite recently. I’d see the latest workout from some ripped young influencer and decide that, yes, clearly this was made for me. The main result was usually that I ended up sore, knackered, and with a badly bruised ego.

Since then, I’ve had a gentle word with myself and come to terms with what science tells me I actually need to do at my age to keep body and soul together. Like painting the Forth Bridge, it’s a project that’s never finished, but I’m finally learning to train for the age I am now, not the age I occasionally pretend to be.

That means more mobility, more balance, and more of the so-called ‘functional’ training I’ll be writing about soon. This article is a nice little warm-up before we dive into the detail in future posts.

Four Inspirational Women Over 50 Share Why Exercise Is So Important to Them

Purely in the interests of scientific research, I found myself deep in the bowels of Hello! magazine this week, where I came across a genuinely interesting piece about the important role exercise plays in the lives of four ordinary women over the age of fifty.

Admittedly, I also caught up on the latest celebrity gossip and royal family updates while I was there. But that was just me being thorough.

The Diet That’s Good for Your Brain and Delicious Too

If the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet had a food baby, it would probably be the MIND diet.

Since my heart attack — and the later diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolaemia — I’ve become much less cavalier about what I eat. So I was pleased to discover, by which I mean slightly smug, that I’m already doing quite a few of the things recommended in this guide.

The best diet, of course, is the one you can actually stick with, and this one looks very stickable. There’s a 7-day eating plan included if you’re keen to keep your marbles for as long as possible and fancy giving it a try.

From the Blog 📚

One Last Thing

Use the “out of sight, out of mind” rule to give your fridge a subtle makeover. Put the foods you want to eat more of — chopped vegetables, berries, yoghurt, lean protein — at eye level, where you’ll see them first.

Then make the less helpful stuff less obvious. Put treats, leftovers, and snacky extras in opaque containers, towards the back of the fridge or in the drawers. You’re not banning anything. You’re just making the better choice the lower friction choice.

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

There’s an old saying, borrowed from the poker world, that goes something like this: if you look around the room and can’t see the idiot, it’s probably you.

In the case of statins, cholesterol and my heart health in general, that saying turned out to be uncomfortably accurate. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This part of the story really starts about eighteen months before my heart attack, when I decided, with the confidence of a man who should have known better, to turn myself into a health project.

After two lockdowns, I was bored, restless and slightly feral. Perfect conditions, in other words, for me to start a new ‘project’, which always brings an eye roll from Mrs D and the faint possibility of stormy weather ahead.

This time, the project was little old me. I was going to investigate all the recent health trends, try them out and emerge, presumably, as some sort of late-middle-aged wellness panther. Zone 2 training, 4×4 intervals, keto, intermittent fasting, high-fat, low-carb — I was going to do the lot.

The start was less than auspicious. While trying some intense sport-specific intervals with an agility ladder, I felt a sharp pain in my groin. It turns out sprinting sideways and being over 60 don’t always play well together. Who would have thought?

All snakes, no ladders

After a visit to the doctor, followed by a £400 emergency ultrasound, I was given the not-very-good news: a bilateral inguinal hernia. One on each side, because apparently one hernia would have lacked ambition.

The only real solution was surgery. ‘Project Me’ was already on life support, looking less like a physical transformation and more like a cautionary tale.

And then another complication. There were no hernia operations to be had, NHS or private. Surgeons were, quite rightly, working through the backlog created by lockdown, and my troublesome groin wasn’t top of the national priority list. It was going to be a long wait.

In the meantime, I could walk for about ten minutes before the pain kicked in, and I couldn’t do anything that raised intra-abdominal pressure, so weight training was out. All I could really do was potter about, spend too long online, and focus on my diet experiments.

You can probably see where this is going.

My activity levels fell off a cliff. At the same time, I was eating more and more as I tried different versions of ‘healthy’ eating. By the time I finally had my hernia operation in March 2022, I was around 10kg — or 22lb — heavier than normal.

The operation went well, but recovery still required patience, which has never been my specialist subject. After three months, I was back to regular exercise and beginning to say goodbye to some of the pre-injury flab. Then, one morning, while brushing my teeth, I noticed something in the mirror.

Here we go again

There were raised yellow bumps near the eyelids of both eyes.

A quick consultation with Dr Google identified the likely suspect as xanthelasma — yellowish cholesterol deposits that can appear around the eyes and are often associated with raised cholesterol. Not exactly the sort of facial accessory I had been hoping for.

Armed with a full lipid profile, I sat with my GP, who patiently explained that my cholesterol levels were sky-high and asked whether I would like a statin prescription.

I politely declined.

I explained that I had only recently got active again after the hernia operation, that my diet had been all over the place, and that I had been experimenting with a high-fat diet. In my head, this was a perfectly reasonable explanation. In hindsight, it was the sound of a man standing in a room, looking around, and failing to spot the idiot.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Pill life

Fast forward to the time after my bypass and recovery, I was given a prescription for medication I would probably be taking for the rest of my life. For someone who had been on no regular medication until that point, this was a sobering prospect.

The new daily routine looked like this:

• Aspirin 75 mg — an antiplatelet medicine, often described as a blood thinner, which helps make the blood less sticky and reduces the risk of unwanted clots.

• Atorvastatin 80 mg — a high-dose statin used to lower ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol and reduce the risk of future heart and blood vessel problems.

• Ezetimibe 10 mg — a cholesterol-lowering medicine that reduces how much cholesterol is absorbed from the gut, mainly helping to lower LDL cholesterol.

In the grand scheme of things, it felt like a small price to pay to protect my expensive new plumbing.

The best advice I received about recovery came from a cardiologist I met on holiday. He told me not to believe the glossy version of recovery in the NHS brochures. Some things improve slowly, some things never quite go back to how they were, and recovery is rarely a neat upward line.

‘You had an open chest for six hours,’ he said, ‘with most of your insides rearranged. People need to be realistic about what to expect.’

We were playing padel at the time, so it may also have been a subtle distraction tactic on his part.

No straight lines in this recovery

Around eight months after the operation, I started to notice pains in my legs. Sitting still during a four-hour flight was agony, and the discomfort refused to go away. When I started playing tennis again, I would wake the next morning feeling as though both Achilles tendons had snapped. I could barely walk.

After speaking with my long-suffering GP, statin-related muscle symptoms became one possible explanation. This left me with a dilemma: stay on the medication and put up with the pain, or come off statins and risk watching my cholesterol climb again.

To be clear, this is not an argument for anyone to stop taking statins. They can be life-saving drugs for many people, especially after a heart attack, and any change needs to be made with a doctor. But in my case, the side effects were becoming hard to ignore.

Thankfully, I was thrown a lifeline.

Goodbye statins, hello inclisiran

Another visit to the doctor resulted in the words ‘statin intolerant’ being added to my record. I was fortunate to be referred to Harefield Hospital, a world-class centre for all things cardiac, where I was introduced to Inclisiran – a relatively new treatment that sounded almost too good to be true.

An injection, followed by another after three months, then one every six months after that, with the potential to halve my LDL cholesterol. All without the leg pains.

What’s not to like? I was in.

Inclisiran doesn’t remove cholesterol directly. Instead, it limits production of a protein called PCSK9. With less PCSK9 around, the liver can remove more ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol from the bloodstream. In simple terms, it helps the body’s natural cholesterol-clearing system work more effectively.

Clinical trials have shown that Inclisiran can reduce LDL cholesterol by around 50%, and in my case that’s pretty much what happened.

So far, I’m five injections in, and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. My LDL cholesterol has been halved, and the awful leg pains have gone. The NHS list price is just under £2,000 per dose, so once again I find myself extending a heartfelt thank you to the NHS for making this possible.

I still need to keep up my end of the deal: regular exercise, sensible food, and fewer experiments that begin with ‘I read something interesting online’ and end with a consultant raising an eyebrow.

But if someone had offered me this deal before my heart attack — a twice-yearly injection, lower LDL, no crippling leg pain, and a second chance to take the whole thing seriously — I would have taken it gladly.

The idiot in the room may have been slow to learn. But at least he learned.

But then I read an interesting study online about GLP-1 injections and heart health...

This is Part 8 of my Cardiac Diary. Until next time…

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

It was my birthday this week. I’ve somehow reached the age of 66—though I now prefer to use a dating system borrowed from Jesus, of all people.

There are the years BC (Before Cardiac, prior to my 2022 heart attack) and my ‘new life’ after. By that logic, I’m 4 years in, which sounds much better.

So, while the UK sweltered in a record-breaking heatwave, I did some digging and uncovered a nugget that cheered me up no end. A long-term Yale study challenges the myth that turning 65 means a one-way ticket to constant decline.

It turns out we can still get sharper and stronger. But... there’s a catch.

Power: The Missing Ingredient in Healthy Ageing

Muscle mass is having a moment. Everywhere you look, we’re being told to fight Sarcopenia, lift weights and make resistance training a priority if we want to age well. It’s all good advice. But there’s another side to muscle that’s received far less attention—and it may be even more important. It’s called ‘Powerpenia’ and it could have a bigger influence on how well we age than muscle size alone.

The Best Fitness Motivation I’ve Seen All Week

Apparently, Bill does 20 press-ups (or push-ups for our American friends) every morning and another 20 in the evening. At the age of 98! These aren’t your easy, knees-on-the-floor variety either. He’s in a full plank, knocking out 20 proper reps each time.

I love seeing someone who simply doesn’t give a toss about the number on their birthday cake. He just gets on and does it, every day. I will admit, though, I’m not entirely convinced by his rather... unconventional visualisation technique for achieving a ‘firm buttock’ (his words, not mine). 🙈

From the Blog 📚

One Last Thing

Small choice, big impact: You don’t need to go overboard to stay healthy. Just choose the stairs at least once today when the opportunity presents itself. Healthspan is built through tiny, repeated habits that compound over time.

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

The first time I noticed was during a business trip to South Korea in the early 1990s.

The country was in the middle of an extraordinary transformation. Towering office blocks, gleaming hotels and the latest technology sat alongside reminders that, only one generation earlier, much of the population had lived a simpler, largely agricultural life.

Walking through Seoul’s main bus station, something completely unexpected caught my eye. Dozens of people of all ages were waiting for their buses, but once all the benches were taken, they naturally did something else. Instead of standing, they were chatting, smoking, reading newspapers and simply passing the time while resting comfortably in a deep squat.

Not the strained, wobbly squat you might see in a gym, but a full, heels-flat-on-the-floor squat that looked every bit as comfortable as sitting in your favourite armchair.

To a westerner it struck me as a little odd, almost alien. And don’t get me started on the toilets!

Years later, I realised I’d witnessed something many of us in the West have long since forgotten how to do.

Before you read any further, try this

Why it’s called the ‘Asian Squat’

Spend time in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam or India and you’ll still see people resting comfortably in deep squats while chatting, waiting for buses, cooking, gardening or working close to the ground. Because the movement remains part of everyday life, it never disappears.

Observational studies and everyday experience show a clear cultural difference. Deep resting squats remain far more common across many Asian countries than they do in Western Europe or North America.

The internet labelled it the ‘Asian squat.’ It’s a catchy name, but it’s also slightly misleading.

This isn’t really about ethnicity. It’s about environment.

Western weightlifters, gardeners, martial artists, tradespeople and anyone who regularly spends time close to the ground often retain an excellent squat regardless of where they were born.

The simplest explanation is also the most convincing. Use it or lose it.

Sitting changed our bodies

A comfortable deep squat asks quite a lot of your body. It needs mobile ankles, flexible hips, healthy knees and a confident balance system. Modern Western life consistently trains almost every one of those qualities in the opposite direction.

1. Your ankles stop bending

For most people, ankle mobility is the biggest obstacle.

A deep squat requires your knees to travel forwards while your heels stay firmly on the floor. Years of walking on flat pavements, wearing supportive shoes and rarely using the ankles through their full range gradually stiffen the joints and surrounding tissues.

When your ankles stop moving, your body improvises. Your heels lift, your chest collapses forwards or you simply fall backwards.

None of those feels remotely restful.

2. Your hips become chair-shaped

Most of us spend hours every day with our hips bent at roughly 90 degrees.

Our bodies become brilliantly efficient at exactly that position—and much less enthusiastic about anything outside it.

Deep hip flexion starts to feel tight, awkward or physically blocked.

3. Your brain complains

Movement isn’t just about muscles and joints. Your brain is constantly deciding which positions feel safe.

If you haven’t squatted deeply for years—or you’ve previously experienced knee, hip or back pain—your balance feedback system starts treating the movement as unfamiliar. You hesitate, wobble, reach for the kitchen counter or simply avoid going that low.

Over time, unfamiliar becomes uncomfortable.

Why it matters after 50

Losing the ability to deep squat is an inconvenience when you’re 25. After 50, it’s potentially life-limiting.

A comfortable squat tells you several important systems are still working well. Your ankles move freely. Your hips remain mobile. Your knees tolerate deep bending. Your balance is intact.

Lose those abilities, and everyday life quietly becomes harder.

• Stairs feel steeper.

• Getting into low cars becomes awkward.

• Picking something up from the floor requires planning.

• Playing with grandchildren often ends with, ‘You come up here instead.’

The squat isn’t important because everyone needs to rest in one. It’s important because it reflects how comfortably you can negotiate everyday life.

Improvement starts here

The good news is you don’t need an elaborate mobility programme.

You just need to remind your body that this position still exists–and practice, practice.

1. Hold onto a kitchen counter, table or sturdy chair and lower yourself into a comfortable squat while keeping your heels on the floor.

2. If your heels come off the floor, place a few books underneath and slowly, over time, reduce the books until your heels can touch the floor.

3. Stay there for 20 to 30 seconds, breathe normally, then stand back up.

4. Repeat once or twice each day.

As the movement becomes more familiar, your ankles begin to soften, your hips loosen and your nervous system gradually stops treating the position as a red flag.

The final stage is to stay in a squat position without holding onto anything and with heels flat on the floor, bum as low as possible.

Then start weaving it into everyday life.

Squat while waiting for the kettle to boil. Or drop into a squat while unpacking the shopping. Holding the squat for at least 90 seconds should be your aim.

The goal isn’t to exercise more. It’s simply to spend a little more time in a position your body was designed to use.

The takeaway

The “Asian squat” isn’t really Asian at all.

It’s simply a human movement that some cultures never stopped practising.

We didn’t lose it because birthdays caught up with us.

We lost it because our environment designed away the need to do it.

The encouraging part is that the body is remarkably adaptable. Put it to work and it improves over time.

You don’t need to become a mobility fanatic. Think of this as ‘prehab’ to open up new possibilities for exercise and activities in your healthspan journey.

Your future self will thank you for it.

Until next time. 👋

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

Want to future-proof your brain? A growing body of evidence suggests that six months of HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) may be one of the most effective ways to maintain cognitive sharpness and reduce dementia risk, with benefits that continue long after the workouts have ended.

She Joined a Gym for Mental Health and Became an Accidental Champion

This is a perfect example of the old saying: you never know until you try. Anna joined a gym simply to improve her physical and mental health. What she discovered was an unexpected talent that eventually took her all the way to the top of the world rankings.

Most of us won’t become world champions. The point is that we often have no idea what we’re capable of until we step outside our comfort zone and give something a go. Sometimes the biggest surprise isn’t what we achieve—it’s what we discover about ourselves along the way.

Good News for Blueberry Lovers

Fewer than 25% of participants in a recent study were meeting the recommended daily intake of flavanols. That’s a shame because these naturally occurring compounds are linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and they’re delicious. I keep my levels topped up with regular helpings of blueberries and blackberries in my porridge, plus the occasional square of dark chocolate, purely in the interests of scientific research.

From the Blog 📚

One Last Thing

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

When my cardiac surgeon finally released me ‘into the wild’, I felt a little like one of those lions being reintroduced into the Serengeti. Still in the crate, the door now open, wondering what’s next.

The first thing I needed to negotiate was cardiac rehabilitation.

Since being officially discharged from hospital at the end of November, I’d been following my own rehabilitation programme with military discipline. Every day I walked a little further until I was regularly covering close to an hour a day.

There were still limits. Anything involving pressure through my chest was off the menu and anything overhead was strongly discouraged while my sternum knitted itself back together. Weight training, one of my favourite activities, would have to wait.

The assessment

The first step was a visit to the nurse for a cardiac rehab assessment.

There were the usual checks: height, weight, blood pressure and a long list of questions. Everything seemed reassuringly normal.

And then came the ‘step’ test.

This consisted of stepping up and down onto a platform to the beat of a metronome, while the team monitored my heart rate. The result would become my baseline score, ready for comparison at the end of the programme.

Once I’d passed that little audition, it was time to book my place on the eight-week course.

I was looking forward to attending in person. After weeks spent largely at home, the chance to meet and chat with people going through something similar had a strong appeal.

One of the NHS’s best kept secrets

Cardiac rehabilitation is one of the unsung heroes of cardiac medicine.

The 2025 National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation (NACR) highlights a long list of benefits. Patients who attend rehabilitation tend to have:

• lower rates of cardiovascular mortality

• fewer hospital readmissions

• better fitness and improved quality of life

They also seem to do a better job of managing risk factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol, weight and smoking.

Given those benefits, you’d expect every patient to be breaking down the door.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happens.

The NHS Long Term Plan set a target that 85% of eligible cardiac patients should participate in rehabilitation by 2028.

Current uptake sits at a disappointing 50%.

Interestingly, uptake is highest among bypass patients, which probably isn’t surprising. After someone has literally opened your chest and rerouted your plumbing, you’re generally more inclined to follow instructions. I know I was.

Cardio school starts

The sessions themselves were surprisingly gentle, but I did see others found it more challenging, depending on exercise histories.

Each class started with a warm-up and stretching before moving into a circuit of simple exercises. At the end there was relaxation and guided breathing. We were all fitted with heart-rate monitors and given personalised heart-rate targets, with three nurses supervising everything.

What struck me most wasn’t the exercise.

It was the people.

Every variety of cardiac misfortune seemed represented. Heart attacks, bypass surgery, stents, heart failure, valve replacements. The whole spectrum was there.

You quickly realise that heart disease doesn’t discriminate.

There was also a fascinating range of attitudes.

Some participants looked genuinely frightened every time their heart-rate monitor beeped. Others approached the sessions with the enthusiasm of naughty schoolchildren seeing what they could get away with.

Many of the men, particularly those from manual trades and physically demanding jobs, seemed to be wrestling with a new identity. They’d spent decades thinking of themselves as strong and capable. Suddenly, here they were, wearing a heart-rate monitor while being told not to overdo it on the step-ups.

I started making mental bets on who would complete the programme and who wouldn’t.

The national figures suggest the odds aren’t great.

The drop-off problem

Imagine 100 people leaving hospital after a heart attack or bypass operation:

• 100 are eligible for cardiac rehabilitation

• Around 75 are referred

• Around 55 attend the initial assessment

• Around 50 actually start the programme

• Only 35-40 complete the programme

In other words:

• Around half never start

• Another 10-15% start but don’t finish

• Only around a third complete the full programme

One of the strongest predictors of completion is simply attending the first assessment.

Sometimes the hardest part is just making a start.

Lessons learned

At the end of the eight weeks I returned for reassessment.

My numbers had improved nicely, although I’d already been doing plenty of training outside the programme. My chest was healing, my leg wound was improving and my confidence was steadily returning.

Yet despite all that progress, the biggest lesson from the entire experience wasn’t about exercise.

It was about the difference between fitness and health.

Before my heart attack, I considered myself fit for my age. I exercised regularly, cycled, worked out with weights and generally did all the things health experts tell you to do.

What I failed to appreciate sufficiently was that fitness and health aren’t the same thing.

While I was busy accumulating miles and steps, my coronary arteries were quietly clogging up thanks in part to the genetics I’d inherited from my family and an over-enthusiastic liver that produced cholesterol with industrial efficiency.

I thought fitness would protect me completely.

I was wrong.

The good news is that being fit did help me in a different way.

My heart attack caused remarkably little permanent damage to the heart muscle itself. The surgeons repaired the plumbing, but the engine itself was largely intact, thanks to my large ‘functional reserve’ from regular aerobic exercise.

Perhaps even more importantly, fitness gave me a head start during recovery.

In week one I struggled to climb a full flight of stairs.

By week twelve I was managing basic interval training and resistance exercise.

The speed of recovery was remarkable.

The long road back

Bear in mind; everyone’s recovery journey is different.

Some people bounce back quickly. Others face setbacks and complications. Many struggle with the anxiety of exercising again after a cardiac event.

That’s entirely understandable.

When your heart has recently gone AWOL, deliberately raising your heart rate can feel counterintuitive.

But having been through the process myself, I can’t overstate the value of regular physical activity. The benefits far outweigh the risks, particularly when done gradually and under appropriate supervision.

By now I was officially out of the hospital system and back under the care of my GP.

A lifetime of medication now lay ahead. I also had to come to terms with the knowledge that high cholesterol wasn’t just something I had. It was something that ran through my family.

And physically, I still wasn’t out of the woods.

My body had one more surprise waiting for me

This is Part 7 of my Cardiac Diary. In the next post, I write about a life on medication, and the major complication nobody saw coming. Until next time…

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

I’m a classic night owl. While Mrs D is bouncing around like a Tasmanian Devil first thing in the morning, I’m more of a sleepy panda wondering why anyone would voluntarily be awake at that hour.

That’s why this study makes slightly uncomfortable reading. The findings seem to make sense and, if I’m honest, they match my own experience. Much as I’d like to believe that staying up late is a harmless personality quirk, the evidence suggests it may come with a few downsides.

Fortunately, there are a few practical steps we can take to stack the odds back in our favour, even if early nights aren’t our thing.

Why I’m Thinking of Breaking Up with My Apple Watch

I love a gadget. At home, I have an entire drawer dedicated to the wreckage of my early-adopter habit—devices that promised to change my life before being quietly discarded.

Fitness trackers are no exception. I’ve owned more than my fair share, but this article struck a chord because I’m starting to suffer from a bit of data overload. What began as useful feedback has gradually turned into a constant stream of numbers, scores, alerts and trends competing for my attention.

In fact, I’ve become so fed up with it that I’m considering ditching my Apple Watch and trying one of those screenless fitness bands instead. Of course, solving my gadget addiction by buying another gadget may not be the most convincing strategy!

Could Coffee Be a Health Hero for Your Brain?

I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but it’s refreshing to see a study suggesting it might actually be good for us. Few foods seem to swing so wildly between hero and villain status. One week it’s shortening our lives; the next it’s practically a longevity supplement.

This study lands on the more positive side, which means I can look at my Nespresso machine with a little more affection and imagine it playing a small part in helping me keep my marbles for a few years longer.

From the Blog 📚

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

For decades, BMI has been the default method to judge whether someone is a healthy weight.

Visit your GP, complete an online health questionnaire or read an article about obesity and there’s a good chance BMI will make an appearance.

The problem is, BMI was never designed to measure an individual’s health.

It was developed in the 1830s by Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet as a statistical tool to describe populations, not to assess body fat or disease risk in individual people.

The formula is simple, and its simplicity probably explains why it became so widely used. Unfortunately, simplicity comes with limitations.

BMI can’t distinguish between muscle and fat. It doesn’t tell us where fat is stored. It can’t identify dangerous visceral fat around the internal organs. A muscular former rugby player and a sedentary older adult with a large waistline could have exactly the same BMI while having very different health risks.

As researchers have looked for better ways to assess health risk, one measure has come to the fore: waist-to-height ratio.

What this test measures

Waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) compares your waist measurement to your height.

Unlike BMI, which measures body mass relative to height, waist-to-height ratio provides a simple indication of how much abdominal fat you are carrying.

This is important because not all fat behaves the same way.

The fat stored around the abdomen, particularly visceral fat deep inside the abdominal cavity, is associated with increased risks of:

• Heart disease

• Type 2 diabetes

• High blood pressure

• Stroke

• Metabolic syndrome

• Premature mortality

Waist-to-height ratio acts as a practical indicator for this risk.

Rather than asking “How much do you weigh?”, it asks a more useful question:

How much of your body size is taken up by your waist?

Why it matters

As we get older, our body composition changes.

Many adults gradually lose muscle mass while gaining fat, particularly around the midsection. Body weight may stay relatively stable even though health risks are increasing.

BMI can’t see this.

As a result, someone can have a “normal” BMI while carrying unhealthy levels of abdominal fat.

Researchers sometimes refer to this as being “skinny fat”.

A major review of 78 studies found that waist-to-height ratio was a better predictor of cardiometabolic risk than BMI. Researchers concluded that it identified people at risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes more effectively than BMI alone.

The beauty of waist-to-height ratio is that it’s simple enough for anyone to measure at home while remaining strongly linked to health outcomes.

How to do the test

Taking the test couldn’t be simpler. You’ll need:

• A tape measure

• Your height in centimetres or feet and inches

Click the button to start your measurement:

Calculate your waist to height ratio

Making sense of your score

It’s not a guarantee of good health, but it’s a useful marker that you’re less likely to be carrying excessive abdominal fat.

How to improve your score

The good news is that waist-to-height ratio is highly responsive to lifestyle changes.

With a few changes and a little effort, your waist measurement can change surprisingly quickly.

The same habits that improve healthspan tend to improve waist-to-height ratio too:

Get moving—regular physical activity (particularly higher intensities) helps reduce visceral fat, even if body weight changes very little.

Join the resistance—one of the most effective ways to improve body composition is to build or preserve muscle with resistance exercise.

Plenty of protein—higher protein diets (around 1.2g per kilogram of weight) help preserve muscle during weight loss and support healthy ageing.

Eat Mostly Whole Foods—minimising ultra-processed foods and focusing on vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains and lean protein sources can help create the calorie deficit needed to reduce waist size.

Improve Sleep—poor sleep is associated with increased abdominal fat and weight gain.

A simple way to keep track of your progress is to cut piece of string to half your height and regularly checking if the ends can meet around your waistline.

The bottom line

BMI isn’t useless.

It remains a useful population-level measure and has played an important role in public health for decades.

But if your goal is understanding your personal health risk, especially after the age of 50, waist-to-height ratio is arguably the better tool.

It focuses attention on abdominal fat, which is far more closely linked to disease risk than body weight alone.

The rule is simple:

Keep your waist to less than half your height.

It’s one of the simplest health tests you’ll ever do, and one that may tell you more about your future health than your BMI ever could.

Give it a go today.

Let us know your how you got on in the comments.

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

Most of us carry around a mental model of life that was designed for our grandparents. You go to school, get a job, work for forty years and then retire. The trouble is that this model was built for a world where people lived shorter lives, often worked for a single employer and spent relatively few years in retirement before shuffling off the mortal coil.

In The 100-Year Life, Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott argue that increasing longevity is not simply a health issue. It’s a fundamental shift in society that will affect how we learn, work, save, spend, build relationships and think about our future. This isn’t really a book about living to 100. It’s a book about what happens if you do.

The book in a nutshell

The authors argue that many people born today have a realistic chance of living to 100. That extra time creates enormous opportunities, but it also creates challenges that previous generations never had to face. The traditional three-stage life of education, work and retirement starts to break down when retirement itself may last thirty years or more.

Instead, life becomes multi-stage. People will need to learn throughout their lives, change careers more than once, take periods of reinvention and invest not only financially but also in health, skills, relationships and personal resilience. The central message is that longer lives require longer-term thinking.

The big idea

Many discussions about ageing focus on problems such as pensions, healthcare costs and the economic burden of an older population. Gratton and Scott take a more optimistic view. They see longer life as one of humanity’s greatest achievements and argue that the challenge is not the extra years themselves, but learning how to use them wisely.

If you expect to live into your nineties or beyond, you can no longer think of life as a straight line. Education is no longer something you finish in your early twenties. Career development doesn’t stop at sixty-five. Personal growth becomes a lifelong project rather than an optional extra. In a world of longer lives, reinvention becomes normal rather than exceptional.

Three things that stood out for me

1. Health is a valuable asset

One of the most useful concepts in the book is the distinction between tangible and intangible assets. Tangible assets include things such as savings, pensions and property. Intangible assets include health, friendships, reputation, knowledge, emotional resilience and personal networks.

Reading the book through a healthspan lens, this felt particularly important. Many people spend decades building financial wealth while wrecking themselves physically to achieve it. Without fitness, cognitive health and independence, extra years can become something to endure rather than enjoy. A longer life only becomes a valuable if you remain fit and well enough to enjoy it. I found that out the hard way.

2. Retirement may be the wrong goal

The traditional vision of retirement involves working hard for forty years and then stopping completely. The authors argue that this model may become increasingly unrealistic, both financially and psychologically, as average lifespans continue to increase.

Instead, many people may move between periods of work, learning, leisure and reinvention throughout their lives. For some, purpose and contribution may matter just as much as income. The goal may not be retirement itself, but having the freedom to choose what comes next.

3. Reinvention will be a key skill

One of the strongest themes running through the book is the importance of transitions. Most of us prepare for exams, jobs and retirement, yet very few prepare for reinvention.

In a longer life, the ability to learn new skills, adapt to changing circumstances and create a new identity may become one of the most valuable capabilities we possess. The people who thrive may not necessarily be the smartest or wealthiest. They may simply be the most adaptable.

What I took from the book

The book reinforced something I come back to repeatedly in Olderland: longevity and healthspan aren’t the same thing.

Medical advances may help us live longer, but what determines whether those extra years are enjoyable is how we spend the decades beforehand. If you expect to live another twenty-five or thirty years after 65, investing in strength, fitness, mobility, sleep, nutrition and social connections stops being a hobby. It becomes one of the most important long-term investments you can make.

The authors focus heavily on financial planning, which is entirely understandable. My version would add a parallel question: are you investing enough in the body and mind that will carry you through those extra years?

What you can do

You don’t need to redesign your entire life after reading this book. A better starting point is to ask yourself a few simple questions.

What assumptions are you making about ageing that you inherited from previous generations? Many of those assumptions were formed when people routinely lived shorter lives and had fewer healthy years.

What assets are you building? Not just financial assets, but also health, strength, knowledge, relationships and purpose. Like money invested over time, these assets tend to compound.

And what could you learn next? The idea that education ends in early adulthood is becoming increasingly outdated. In a 100-year life, learning may be one of the most valuable habits you can develop.

The one thing to take away

A longer life is not simply more of the same. It changes the arc of life itself.

The people who benefit most from longevity will not necessarily be those who live the longest. They’ll be the people who adapt early, continue learning, invest in their health and deliberately build lives that can evolve over time.

Who is the book for?

This book is ideal for anyone who wants to think more deliberately about the second half of life. It will appeal to people approaching retirement, mid-career professionals considering a change of direction, parents wondering what longer lifespans may mean for their children, and anyone interested in the relationship between longevity and healthspan.

If you’re looking for a book about supplements, biohacking or anti-ageing tricks, this isn’t it. If you’re interested in how longer lives may reshape the way we work, learn, save and live, it’s one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read on the subject.

Not because it tells you how to live longer, but because it asks a far more important question: what are you going to do with the extra years if you get them?

This also begs the question: who actually gets access to those extra healthy decades? The 100-Year Life describes what becomes possible in an age of longevity, but it sometimes underestimates how unevenly those possibilities are distributed and bases many of its conclusions on relatively affluent middle-class professionals.

A fascinating and thought-provoking read all the same.

My rating

★★★★☆

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

This is a really inspiring read and, on a personal level, quite timely. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself because I’m having a guided injection for a dodgy hip next week—but then I read about this gentleman testing his new hip replacement with a third ascent of Kilimanjaro at the ripe old age of 90. Truly impressive.

Finally, Something Good for Us We Can Do on the Sofa

I love reading. I’m a bit ‘OCD’ about it and usually have three books on the go: a ‘difficult’ book—some serious literature to expand my mind; a self-improvement book to deepen my knowledge on a subject of interest; and finally, an ‘enjoyment’ book that’s a quick page-turner, whether it’s fact or fiction. It definitely keeps me sharp and connected with the world. What’s your reading habit like?

New Hope for Desk Jockeys

When people start saying ‘sitting is the new smoking,’ that’s never a good sign. I probably sit down a bit too much, but I do exercise a fair amount in between, so I was really encouraged to read about this study from the University of Sydney.

From the Blog 📚

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

If you’ve spent any time wandering around the healthspan and longevity corners of the internet, you’ve probably come across people obsessing over their VO₂ max.

Elite athletes boast about it. Fitness watches estimate it. Exercise scientists treat it with reverence. Yet, most people have no idea what it actually means or why they should care.

The good news? You don’t need to spend hundreds of pounds in a sports science laboratory to get a useful reading. A simple calculator developed by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) can give you a reasonably accurate picture of where you stand.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than guessing.

What this test measures

In simple terms, VO₂ max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in and use during vigorous exercise. Think of it as the size of your aerobic engine.

When you move, your muscles need oxygen to produce energy. The more oxygen your heart, lungs, blood vessels, and muscles can deliver, the greater your capacity for sustained physical activity.

Technically, it’s expressed as millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml/kg/min). But the meaning is simple: a higher VO₂ max means better cardiorespiratory fitness.

A higher score doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a born athlete, but it indicates that your cardiovascular system is potentially capable of doing more work. Perhaps more importantly for those of us in Olderland, VO₂ max provides a crystal ball into how much physical reserve we may have available for the decades ahead.

Why it matters

Few metrics predict future health as consistently as cardiorespiratory fitness. Decades of research show that people with higher fitness levels have significantly lower risks of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and premature death.

Your VO₂ max reflects the combined performance of your entire body:

• Your heart’s ability to pump blood.

• Your lungs’ ability to absorb oxygen.

• Your blood’s ability to transport that oxygen.

• Your muscles’ ability to actually use it.

When these systems work efficiently together, everyday life becomes a little easier. Climbing stairs feels less of an effort. Walking uphill ceases to be a trial. You recover faster from physical exertion.

This matters because VO₂ max naturally declines with age. Building and maintaining a decent VO₂ max is fundamental to our future capability.

How to do the test

The gold-standard measurement involves a laboratory, specialist equipment, and a willingness to suffer. You run on a treadmill or cycle on an exercise bike while wearing a metabolic mask until you reach total exhaustion. It’s highly accurate, but it's also expensive, time-consuming, and inaccessible to most of us.

A more convenient starting point is the NTNU VO₂ Max Calculator, where you can enter your details into their calculator and get your VO₂ estimate without raising a sweat.

Researchers developed a model that estimates your VO₂ max by analysing easily accessible data:

• Age and sex

• Height and weight

• Resting heart rate

• Frequency and intensity of exercise

By comparing these factors against laboratory results from large population studies, they created a formula that produces a reasonably accurate estimate of VO₂.

Think of it as the fitness equivalent of using a bathroom scale instead of a medical-grade body composition scanner. It’s a practical, free way to gauge your fitness, track changes, and ensure you’re moving in the right direction. As a useful bonus, it also calculates your ‘Fitness Age’.

Calculate Your VO₂ Max Score Here

Making sense of your score

Once you get your score, the obvious question is: “Is that any good?”

The answer depends entirely on your age and sex. The NTNU HUNT Fitness Study tracked thousands of healthy adults to establish how fitness benchmarks shift over time. You can find out more about the NTNU calculator by clicking here.

Bear in mind that some people are simply born with a naturally superior ability to transport oxygen. Because of this, VO₂ max is a measure of aerobic potential, not overall capability. A naturally gifted but sedentary person might outscore a highly active person who has less favorable genetics. Furthermore, someone with a modest VO₂ max can still enjoy robust health, strength, balance, and independence.

The number matters, but it’s only one piece of the healthspan puzzle. For most of us, the goal isn’t to become an elite athlete. A realistic target is to stay above average for your age and steadily work toward the 75th percentile.

Five ways to improve your score

The most encouraging thing about VO₂ max is that it responds beautifully to training. Even modest improvements can yield significant health benefits.

1. Move more often: Consistency always beats hero efforts. Regular walking, cycling, or swimming performed several times a week will improve your fitness far more effectively than occasional, gruelling workouts.

2. Increase intensity occasionally: Once you have a steady routine, introduce periods of harder effort. This could be brisk hill walking, cycling intervals, or the famous Norwegian 4x4 interval protocol. Spend just a few minutes a week forcing your cardiovascular system to work hard.

3. Build strength: Stronger muscles are more efficient at extracting and using oxygen. While resistance training won’t raise your VO₂ max as fast as cardio, it will support your efforts and aid your conditioning.

4. Reduce body weight: Because VO₂ max is calculated relative to your weight (ml/kg/min), carrying excess body fat mathematically lowers your score—even if your heart and lungs are in great shape. A quick cheat to improve your score is to lose some weight!

5. Remember rest and recovery: Adaptations happen between exercise sessions, not during them. Quality sleep, active rest, and proper nutrition are what allow your body to rebound and rebuild.

The bottom line

Your VO₂ max is one of the most useful metrics of healthspan available. It tells you exactly how well your heart, lungs, and muscles work together.

Treat your calculator result as a useful indicator rather than an absolute verdict. Use it to establish a baseline, track it over time, and aim to outpace the average for your age brackets.

The most important number isn’t actually your score today—it’s whether your score next year shows that you’re still managing your engine well.

Give it a go today.

Let us know your how you got on in the comments.

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

If you’re reading this in the UK today, there’s a good chance you’ll live into your eighties. According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, life expectancy sits at around 79 years for men and 83 years for women.

At first glance, that sounds like excellent news. But healthy life expectancy tells a rather different story.

The average Briton spends only about 61 years in good health before chronic disease, disability, or declining function begin to make themselves known. That’s potentially two decades living with significant health challenges.

We’ve become fantastically good at extending lifespan, but far less successful at extending healthy life.

That’s where healthspan comes in. It’s not about the latest peptide, a convoluted biohacking protocol, or a morning routine requiring fourteen gadgets and a blood test before breakfast. It’s about doing a handful of key things consistently.

Why I created ‘Adventures in Olderland’

Health information is everywhere. We know physical activity is key. We know sleep matters. We know eating reasonably well is a good idea. We know strong relationships improve both happiness and health, and that purpose influences how we age.

The evidence supporting these ideas is vast—thousands of studies, hundreds of books, and more podcasts than any sane person could listen to.

And yet, so many people fail to transfer this knowledge into actual daily habits. Not because they don’t care, and not because they’re lazy, but because modern health advice often makes healthy living feel like a second full-time job.

Every week brings a new longevity guru, a new miracle molecule, or a new protocol involving ice baths, red light therapy, and enough capsules to make airport security suspicious. It can all become rather exhausting.

My aim with Adventures in Olderland is different. I’m focused on showing you what to do, and how to do it in the real world:

• How to improve your strength and build better balance.

• How to sleep a little more soundly.

• How to eat in a way that supports metabolic health without turning every meal into a chemistry experiment.

Healthspan is often shaped by small actions repeated consistently for years. It’s about taking personal responsibility for basic self-care—because no one else is going to do it for you.

Introducing the Iron Triangle

In the Iron Triangle, healthspan sits above three core outcomes. These are what most people actually want when they think about the future:

1. Longevity: Living longer matters, and most of us would quite like a few extra years. But longevity on its own is an empty metric. Very few people would choose to reach 95 if those extra years only came with a hospital bed. Longevity only becomes valuable when it travels alongside capability.

2. Capability: Capability is your functional currency, not your bench press 1 rep max. It’s the ability to walk up hills, carry shopping, travel, play sports, and get up from the floor. It’s being able to lift your grandchildren or open a stubborn jar without having to wait for a passing teenager. Capability is what turns years of life into years of living.

3. Independence: Independence is the outcome people care about most. It means remaining the author of your own life—making your own decisions, living where you choose, looking after yourself, and maintaining your dignity. Longevity simply creates the opportunity; capability helps preserve it.

The three non-negotiables

To achieve these outcomes, we need to commit to the three non-negotiable foundations of healthspan that link everything together.

Regular movement & exercise

At the apex sits physical activity. Not because it’s the only thing that matters, but because it influences almost everything else. Regular movement systematically improves cardiovascular health, muscle strength, balance, bone density, insulin sensitivity, sleep quality, and mood.

More importantly, it preserves the physical abilities that underpin independence—standing from a chair, climbing stairs, carrying groceries, and avoiding falls. These aren’t athletic achievements; they’re functional capabilities. Movement is the keystone habit because it anchors the entire system.

In future posts, I’m going to show you how to improve your functional capability without having to spend hours in a gym (unless you want to).

Healthy nutrition & metabolism

Food isn’t simply fuel; it’s a daily contribution to your health. Every meal influences blood sugar, inflammation, body composition, and metabolic health. Good nutrition supports healthy muscle mass, stable energy levels, and cognitive function.

It also works hand-in-hand with movement: protein helps maintain muscle, while exercise signals the body to keep it. Neither works as well in isolation. The goal here isn’t dietary perfection; it’s creating a body that still functions well now, and twenty years from now.

I aim to help you make good nutrition easy, convenient, and delicious.

Quality sleep & recovery

Sleep is often treated as a luxury—something that happens after you’ve finished doing important things. But sleep is where essential maintenance happens. It’s when memories are consolidated, tissues are repaired, and hormones are regulated.

Our modern ‘do more’ optimisation culture is the enemy of adequate recovery. Active recovery should be the final component of every sensible exercise programme.

I’ll show you how to prioritise high-quality sleep and make active recovery a natural part of your week.

The two pillars supporting the triangle

The framework places two elements outside the Iron Triangle. Not because they’re less important, but because they form the psychological scaffolding that supports everything else.

Social connections & purpose

We’re inherently social creatures (even those of us who occasionally dream of moving to a remote cottage with only a dog to chat to). Meaningful connections are directly associated with longer life, better mental health, and lower rates of cognitive decline.

Purpose matters just as much. People need a reason to get out of bed. That purpose doesn’t have to involve changing the world; it might be an allotment, grandchildren, volunteering, a hobby, or a weekly walking group. Purpose creates momentum, momentum drives action, and action protects healthspan.

I’ll provide powerful tools to help you find your ‘why’ and stay connected to the things that matter to you.

Healthy brain & positive mindset

A healthy brain is about far more than the absence of disease; it includes curiosity, resilience, and a willingness to remain engaged with life. Mindset heavily dictates behaviour.

People who see ageing as an inevitable, rapid slide downhill often start withdrawing from challenges surprisingly early. They move less, learn less, and socialise less. Their world gradually becomes smaller.

Conversely, those who remain curious continue investing in the habits that support healthspan—not because they have more discipline, but because they still see possibilities.

I’ll highlight practical ways to protect your brain structure and function, while maintaining a growth mindset to make the most of whatever comes your way.

Why everything must work together

This is the most critical message of the framework: healthspan isn’t built by optimising a single thing. It emerges from balance.

You can’t out-exercise a poor diet. You can’t be sleep-deprived all week and “catch up” with a Sunday lie-in. You can’t scroll Facebook to compensate for true social isolation.

There are plenty of “one-note” singers out there claiming that a specific workout method changes everything, or that one strict diet is the ultimate answer.

What you really need is to write your own song—and I’ll show you how.

What next?

The Iron Triangle isn’t a rigid programme; it’s a map and a compass. I’m going to regularly publish practical activities to help you build, use and keep your version of healthspan.

My goal isn’t to persuade you to turn your life upside down. After a heart attack and quadruple bypass, I’m following this plan in my own life, so I’m really not interested in the latest “silver bullet”.

I want to help you start to make small, sustainable changes that quietly shift the odds in your favour:

• A ten-minute walk after lunch.

• An extra serving of protein at breakfast.

• A slightly better bedtime routine.

• A phone call to an old friend.

These tiny choices don’t seem particularly remarkable on any given day. But they become remarkably powerful when multiplied across a lifetime. And we won’t stop there.

Ageing well is rarely about doing extraordinary things. It’s about doing the things that make us feel better this afternoon - and in ten years time.

And that’s what healthspan is really about.

Cheers 👋

Stuart

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

In the UK, someone retiring at 66 can expect, on average, another 20 years before shuffling off this mortal coil. You could, of course, spend those years doing a whole lot of nothing. But if that starts to lose its appeal, here’s a handy collection of ideas worth trying on for size.

I worked my way through the list and found quite a few that made it onto my own to-do list. Mind you, if I ever get round to number 17, there’s a fair chance Mrs D will break a rib laughing.

The Japanese Health Habit Hiding in the Woods

In Japan, it’s called shinrin-yoku. This surprisingly simple practice — also known as forest bathing — is attracting growing attention because spending quiet, mindful time among trees appears to do something modern life often struggles with: calming us down for a while.

Use this guide from the National Trust as your blueprint for zen, or at least an excuse for a nice walk in the woods.

A Sleep-Time ‘Sweet Spot’ Is Linked to Healthy Ageing, Study Finds

Turns out Goldilocks may have been the world’s first sleep scientist. New research suggests that healthy ageing is linked to getting ‘not too much and not too little’ sleep. If you’d prefer not to age like a forgotten banana, read on to discover the sleep-time sweet spot.

From the Blog 📚

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

We promise ourselves we'll start on Monday. Then somewhere between the intention and the action, a small team of mental gremlins gets to work. They whisper, exaggerate, distract, rationalise and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

In the final part of this series, we meet four more of these troublesome creatures and, more importantly, the science-backed ways to stop them running the show.

So far in this series, we’ve looked at:

1. All-or-nothing thinking

You miss one session and your brain decides the entire week is ruined.

2. Catastrophising

The brain takes a small setback and cranks it up into an apocalyptic event.

3. Present bias

We humans are wired to prefer immediate reward over future benefit.

4. Confirmation bias

Once people form an identity story, the brain starts gathering evidence to support it.

5. The “what’s the point?” effect

You feel so overwhelmed by the problem you conclude it isn’t worth trying – like refusing to save money because you’ll never be a millionaire.

6. Identity locking

Treating habits and behaviour like permanent identity, as though you were born that way.

Unfortunately, we have one final mental drawer full of these critters. There’s always enough to go round when it comes to gremlins…

7. Optimism bias

Time after time, we assume our future self will somehow become:

• less busy

• more motivated

• more organised

• infatuated with burpees

So our imperfect present selves do the logical thing and heap all the work onto our unsuspecting future selves. Let them work out the best time to start.

It rarely happens.

What this sounds like

• “Things will settle down soon.”

• “I’ll start properly next month.”

• “I just need to clear these to-dos first.”

How to disrupt it

Build habits for real life, not fantasy life.

If your plan only works when:

• you’re fully rested

• highly motivated

• stress-free

• perfectly organised

then it’s not a realistic system.

Design routines that survive setbacks. Those are the ones that last.

In order to do that you’ll need to do some painful self reflection. List all the possible ways you think you could screw up and then write your plan to deal with that scenario when it inevitably happens. For example:

8. The fresh start fantasy

The brain loves a restart, take your pick:

• Monday

• New Year

• after the holiday

• after Easter

• after summer

But dramatic reinvention rarely works.

What this sounds like

• “I’ll restart next week.”

• “I’ll be on it come the first of the month. You’ll see.”

• “It’s almost January, it can be my New Year’s resolution.”

How to disrupt it

Practise restarting immediately.

Not Monday. Not January. Not after the holiday.

Now.

A single healthy choice can interrupt a downward spiral surprisingly quickly.

The most successful people often aren’t the most disciplined.

They’re simply the fastest at recovering after a wobble.

And there’s always a wobble.

9. Emotional Reasoning

This is when feelings get mistaken for evidence that something is true.

“I feel tired.” “I feel stressed.” “I feel unmotivated.”

Therefore: “I shouldn’t go for that walk today.”

But feelings are temporary states, they’re not reliable predictors of what movement will do for you.

What this sounds like

• “I don’t feel energetic, so I shouldn’t exercise.”

• “I feel old and stiff, so exercise probably isn’t for me.”

• “I feel unfit, so I must be unfit.”

How to disrupt it

Use the five-minute rule.

Tell yourself: “I’ll just do five minutes. If I’m not feeling it I’ll jack it in for the day.”

Often the hardest part is starting.

And strangely, movement itself frequently improves:

• mood

• energy

• motivation

• stress levels

10. Perfectionism disguised as ‘standards’

This one undermines your efforts at consistency.

If people can’t do the “ideal” workout, they do nothing.

Didn’t manage 150 minutes for the week? Then apparently my walks were a waste of time.

What this sounds like

• “I don’t have enough time.”

• “There’s no point unless I do it properly.”

• “I’ve missed my routine.”

How to disrupt it

Create a ‘minimum viable workout.’

Something so manageable you can still do it on bad days.

For example:

• ten minutes walking

• five minutes mobility

• one set of exercises

• a short stretch routine

The aim is to protect continuity. Don’t break the chain.

Because physical activity is easier to maintain when you have momentum. Repeatedly starting from scratch is always more difficult.

The real skill is to focus on progress, not the destination

When it comes to healthspan, most people have a pretty good idea what to do and why. We like to think of ourselves as rational agents with free will, but the reality is different.

The mind is:

• emotional

• impatient

• dramatic

• inconsistent

• occasionally ridiculous

Especially when physical activity is involved.

The trick is not eliminating these thinking traps completely.

Everyone has them.

The real skill is recognising them earlier and refusing to hand them the steering wheel.

Healthspan is rarely built by people who never wobble.

It’s built by people who notice the wobble… and keep going anyway.

But I’ll leave the last word to Elizabeth Gilbert, author of ‘Eat Pray Love’ fame:

One final thing

I’ve changed my mind, I’ll have the last word after all. If you want a ‘too long, didn’t read’ summary of the three articles in the series, here it is…

What’s wrong with me? (Hint: nothing)

Why can’t I do this? (Hint: you can)

Cheers 👋

Stuart

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

For years, official physical activity advice has occupied that awkward territory somewhere between gentle encouragement and a disappointed PE teacher.

Move a bit more. Walk when possible. Maybe do some gardening. Perhaps twiddle a resistance band while watching Cash in the Attic.

But a recent study published in BMJmedicine suggests something rather more interesting.

Researchers followed more than 110,000 adults over three decades and found that people who did a wider variety of physical activities tended to live longer than those who stuck rigidly to one thing.

Not necessarily more exercise. Not harder exercise. Just more variety.

Which, when you think about it, feels fairly logical.

Human beings seem to do quite well when we move in a variety of ways rather than becoming black belts in StairMaster alone.

The researchers called it a ‘variety effect.’

People who mixed things up — walking, weights, cycling, stretching, racquet sports and similar activities — had a noticeably lower risk of dying during the study period compared with people whose movement habits were much narrower. Even when overall exercise time looked broadly similar.

In simple terms: variety really may be the spice of life when it comes to movement.

Not all activities were equal, though

Some of the findings were slightly odd.

Walking performed brilliantly yet again. Once more, the humble walk quietly outperformed far more glamorous forms of exercise while requiring absolutely no investment in Lycra or hydration vests.

Racquet sports also came out looking extremely impressive. Which actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. They combine bursts of intensity, coordination, balance, reaction time, decision-making and the occasional argument about a dubious line call.

Swimming, surprisingly, didn’t show much benefit in this analysis.

That raised a few eyebrows because swimming is normally presented as the ‘school prefect’ of physical activity. Sensible. Reliable. Well behaved. The researchers suspect the way activity was measured may explain some of this rather than chlorinated water suddenly becoming kryptonite for fitness.

How much still matters

Another striking finding: benefits appeared to level off after a moderate amount of activity rather than climbing endlessly upwards.

Good news for anyone concerned that healthy ageing required spending retirement doing hill sprints while eating industrial quantities of tofu.

Quite how this fits alongside a newer study suggesting we may need far more weekly exercise than the current guidelines recommend is one for scientists to wrestle with. Well above my pay grade.

The broader message here feels refreshingly practical.

You probably don’t need one perfect exercise programme.

You may simply need a decent-sized movement menu to choose from.

Walk. Lift heavy things. Climb stairs. Stretch occasionally. Ride a bike. Swim if you enjoy it. Play tennis badly. Garden like you mean it.

Personally, I’ve always struggled with doing the same activity over and over again. I have the attention span of a Springer Spaniel at the National Squirrel Convention, so variety and novelty are usually the things that get me out the door.

Fitness, to me, is essential self-maintenance. But my real love has always been chasing a ball with a bat, paddle or racquet.

Turns out nature seems to approve of a jack of all trades.

Putting it into practice

These studies are all well and good but the question then is how to use these findings in real life?

The answer is to start by thinking less about the ‘perfect’ routine and more about collecting different, but balanced, forms of movement across the week.

Try to include:

• Something cardiovascular — walking, cycling, rowing, jogging

• Something strength-focused — resistance training, bodyweight exercises, carrying heavy shopping like a pro

• Something involving coordination, balance or reaction time — tennis, pickleball, dance classes, padel, table tennis

You don’t need to tick every box every single week.

The study looked at consistent participation over time, not a weekly bingo card of activities.

You might walk most days, lift weights twice a week, play tennis occasionally and take the stairs whenever possible. That already gives you a varied palette to work with. It’s also useful insurance against overuse injuries. A nice bonus.

It’s also worth rotating activities according to how you feel.

If your legs are grumbling after a long walk, perhaps do upper-body work the next day. If you feel mentally frazzled, maybe skip the structured workout and go for a walk instead.

The aim isn’t exhaustion. It’s sustainable variety.

And from a healthspan perspective, that may matter more than becoming fanatically good at one single thing.

It looks like the future belongs to Hybrid Seniors.

To join the club you’ll need to do three or more activities a week.

Lycra optional.

Let me know which activities are on your menu in the comments.

Cheers 👋

Stuart

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.

Most of us never think about our reaction time until we almost take a tumble trying to avoid stepping on the cat, misjudge a kerb or realise our body now responds to surprises with all the urgency of a Windows 95 laptop.

As we age, the brain processes information a bit less quickly, nerves conduct signals more slowly and muscles lose some of their explosive power. Faster reactions are strongly linked to better mobility and lower fall risk, which becomes increasingly important as we get older.

The good news is that reaction time is trainable to a surprising degree. Regular movement, strength training, balance exercises and activities involving coordination or quick decisions can all help keep the system sharper. Think of it as another useful part of healthspan. Not becoming a ninja exactly, but perhaps remaining quick enough to avoid an embarrassing encounter with a plank of wood. Give it a try.

The case for more nuts in your life

If the only time you ever see nuts is in a stocking at Christmas, it may be time for a rethink. These little marvels are heart friendly, gut friendly and guaranteed to stop the munchies. What’s not to like?

The best brain training might be a crossword. On a bike

Brain games are supposed to help cognitive function. Exercise is good for the brain too. Put them together and you get something called dual-task training, one of the most useful — and surprisingly fun — things you can do as you age.

The idea is simple: move your body while making your brain work at the same time. Walking while counting backwards from 100. Balancing on one leg while recalling a number sequence. Unicycle not required.

It may sound slightly daft, but real life is basically one long dual-task test anyway. Walking while talking. Carrying shopping while avoiding tripping over the kerb. Research suggests this ability is strongly linked to balance, fall prevention and staying independent as we get older.

Unlike most brain-training apps, this one also gets you off the sofa.

From the Blog 📚

The new health gap nobody wants

A major new study suggests the biggest heart-health benefits may require dramatically more activity than current guidelines recommend — particularly for people who are already unfit. Before you throw your trainers into a hedge, though, the findings are far more interesting — and far more nuanced — than the headlines suggest.

Your brain is amazing, until it tries to be your life coach

It’s remarkable how quickly the brain can produce a convincing list of reasons not to change anything. Too tired. Too late. Too busy. Weather looks iffy. That’s the gremlins talking.

Whenever we try to improve our healthspan, whether it’s exercising more, eating better, or finally admitting we should probably own a resistance band, the brain often treats change as a threat rather than an opportunity.

So here are a few more of the mental gremlins that quietly sabotage progress, along with some ways to shove them firmly back in their box.

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute medical advice. The needs of every reader are unique; please consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medication. Never ignore professional medical advice because of something you read online.