The Questions I Get Asked Most: What Works? How Much Should I do? When Should I Start?

How do you answer the question, “What do you do?” When we work for a living or we’re busy raising a family, it’s a pretty easy question to answer. However, answering this question in later life can be weirdly challenging. After I had my “voila moment” and realized I absolutely had to focus on my health for the sake of my two young daughters, I started spending a great deal of time delving into health-related information and building healthy habits, But for a long time, I was hesitant to tell people what I do and exactly how I live my life now that I am older.

As I’ve written in my book and on this website, I live a much slower-paced life than I used to, with much of it filled with health-related practice and research as well as tons of “just being” downtime. While I embrace this lifestyle and attitude more and more every year, I’m certain many people equate it with a life that isn’t very exciting. Lately, I’ve started answering the “What do you do?” question with this reply: “I used to do a lot more, but now I’ve written a book about health and longevity and am a minor player in the preventive and later-life health world.”

People graciously listen to my reply and, invariably, ask two questions. The first question they ask is, “What works?” I usually reply, “The short answer is to eat less, and move more.” (I suspect they ask this question first because so much health advice is confusing and contradictory.)

This two-part question almost always comes next, “How much do I need to do, and when should I start?” I now offer this short answer, “You need to find a level of activity and health practice you can sustain. That doesn’t necessarily mean one that is comfortable, but it should be a practice that makes sense to you and that you are invested in for results.” Next, I add, “It’s never too early or too late to start. In other words, you can start NOW.”

Here’s a deeper dive on both of these questions.

How Much Should I Do?

Your health practice is yours, not someone else’s. It should reflect how you want to live, how long you are aiming to live, and most importantly, what matters to you—the why that provides the motivation for a higher-quality later life. What’s important, though, is that you have a regular health practice, which begins with the solid awareness that without one your later life probably won’t feature as much time and quality of life as you would have with a regular health practice. If you are healthy in your later life, you will have more options for how you want to live your life, for example, traveling, gardening, playing with the grandkids (or kids in my case), or pursuing whatever work and activities you are interested in and passionate about. Staying healthy will also mean less trips to doctors and hospitals.

The current, bare-minimum level of activity that every health study would agree “moves the needle” toward improving your chances at staying mobile and functional, as well as avoiding serious disease, are a few 30- to 60-minute sessions a week of Zone 2 cardio exercise (for example, walking fast, running, biking or swimming), along with some sort of strength and flexibility training twice a week. Beyond this, you can do a lot more if you enjoy it and if you can make it a regular part of your life. But it is helpful to keep those bare-minimum levels in mind. If your current level of health will support this activity but you have trouble motivating yourself to do it, you might want to examine why and try to force yourself to give it a try, given that this health practice will probably make your later years much more pleasant and fulfilling.

The question of “How much?” also applies to diet and nutrition. Virtually every study and personal success story points to this area as a game changer. The standard advice is to eliminate as much sugar and processed food from your diet as possible and eat more fresh produce, which offer a big boost to your overall health. The same goes for the amount of food you eat for weight control as well as digestive comfort. Calorie restriction for health and longevity is a big topic in the science world. But the plain fact is that you don’t see a lot of older people, starting in their mid to late 70’s, who are overweight, simply because they aren’t alive anymore.

Too Much?

Some people think I do too much or am extreme in my practice of health. But in my experience the risk of doing too little far outweighs the risk of doing too much. When I occasionally push myself too hard my body tells me to rest and recover more. It rarely leads to any injury or extended downtime. Recovery can be a very pleasant way to spend time, and much is to be learned while recovering. Our society’s resistance to practicing health, in favor of comfort and the “good life”, leads to lots of “too much” gossip that gets popularized in proportion to that resistance, which then leads to more sofa sitting and screen time. Do yourself a favor and don’t indulge the “too much” rumor mill.

When Should I Start?

I am lucky that the call to exercise, mainly to help with weight control and anxiety, came to me relatively early in life. During my early working years, I kept up a regular aerobic practice by walking as much as I could in New York City and biking on the weekends. In my forties, I took up swimming and swam for at least an hour a day. Over the past 20 years, since I began my later-life health practice in earnest, I have significantly increased my level—and variety—of exercises and activities, which I’ve described in my book and many posts on this site. So, luckily, I am at one end of the “When to start?” spectrum since I started committing to an exercise routine of one sort or another early in life.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are people like Olga Kotelko, who took up exercise in her 70s. She joined a softball team to socialize more and went on to become a world champion senior runner and track star. She lived a very healthy and surprisingly active life into her mid-90s.

No one I know or have ever read about hasn’t felt better and gotten healthier by moving more (unless they had an underlying medical condition and didn’t have themselves checked out first, which everyone should do before starting an exercise program). The same goes for fixing your diet, eating less sugar and processed food, and relying on more fresh and natural food.

So, the short answer to when to start is NOW! It’s never too early and never too late. The past doesn’t matter and can’t be changed. The present and the future are the only timeframes that matter for you—and for all the people and pursuits that matter to you.