My top tip for healthy living is to reduce inflammation, the major cause of disease and aging in the body. Therefore, I try to limit sugar, fast food, deli meat, hydrogenated vegetable oils, and especially processed foods (trying to avoid frozen dinners, cookies, chips, candy, donuts, and energy bars). I have been consistent with this for over 20 years, and I have stopped aging since I turned 20. By avoiding inflammatory foods, your pancreas, colon, brain, heart, and blood vessels will thank you (especially when you start getting to middle age and beyond, when most disease/aging starts to catch up with lifestyle habits.
I also try to care for my gut microbiome, so I eat more fermented foods (yogurt, miso, kimchi) and natural sources of fibre (high-water content fruit). It helps keep me regular, helps with good digestion, and helps me to have a calm disposition.
I do low-impact exercises, such as hiking and biking with my family, parking so I have to walk 10 min to and from work, taking the stairs, stationary biking while reading books, and frequent house chores. I want to maintain mobility but don’t want to injure myself – I help fix too many broken bones in the OR every week that I know what to avoid! I don’t particularly enjoy going to the gym so I do things that don’t feel like it’s exercise at all.
My family goes through 3L of yogurt each week, so I make it myself via the instant pot every weekend. It’s so much cheaper, tastes better (there is NO tartness whatsoever), and it’s super quick!
- Add to the instant pot: 2 bottles of 1.5L milk (ultra-filtered, lactose-free, high protein 18g), 1 cup skyr/greek yogurt from the last batch (or if you don’t have, you can use store-bought), 1/2 cup condensed milk or maple syrup or raw unpasteurized honey, 1 tsp vanilla, and whisk well.
- Press the Yogurt function on the instant pot and incubate for 9 hours. It never tastes tart but it is a mild, yet flavorful yogurt.
- When it’s done, scoop yogurt into glass jars and refrigerate. It makes around 3L of very thick, Greek yogurt. If you don’t eat that much, you can 1/2 the recipe.
- Then when you’re ready to eat it, I like to add fruit (mango, berries), and my homemade jam (that I make also by heating up frozen berries, then thickening with chia seeds). I eat this for breakfast every morning!
Lately, I’ve been eating more grass-fed, grass finished beef and I notice a big difference in my energy levels, B12 levels, better body temperature, more glowing skin, reduction of any sugar or processed food cravings, and reduction of any period cramps. For many years I didn’t eat too much red meat because I thought it was hard to digest and I always felt tired and had low B12, red blood cells and was anemic. Turns out I just needed to eat more rare to medium-rare instead of well-done, and my red meat intake is easy to digest now. I am really enjoying the benefits!
