In this energizing episode of Next Act Ninjas, your host Rachael Van Pelt, a seasoned healthspan scientist turned Realtor and coach, unpacks the transformative power of radically rebooting your health to thrive in life's long game. Diving deep into the intertwining roles of exercise, nutrition, sleep, and stress management, Rachael debunks the myth of inevitable aging, revealing how these four pillars can dramatically reshape our physiological health and stave off age-related declines. Whether you're seemingly fit but secretly struggling, or actively seeking to enhance your vitality, this episode arms you with the strategies to revitalize every system in your body, ensuring you're not just surviving but thriving, as you gear up for your best years ahead. Tune in to rekindle your energy, optimize your well-being, and transform the way you age, proving that the long game isn't just about adding years to your life, but life to your years.
Chapters
00:00 Radically Rebooting Your Healthspan Mid-Life
05:15 The Four Pillars of Health
07:14 Weight Loss won't Improve your Healthspan
09:31 Moving from Knowledge to Consistent Action
10:06 Playing the Long Game
10:43 Changing the Trajectory of your Healthspan
Welcome back to Next Act Ninjas, the #1 show for mastering your lifestyle longevity. I'm your host, Rachael Van Pelt, retired healthspan scientist turned Realtor and coach. And today we're going to dive into the topic of radically rebooting your healthspan to win the long game.
Because when we reach midlife, struggling with one or more chronic health symptoms or conditions is common, isn't it? Maybe you're dealing with joint pain,fatigue, gut issues, immune problems. Whatever your struggles, I'm going to challenge you today to take back control of your health immediately. Today we're going to talk about how to radically reboot all aspects of your physiology, so you get back to peak energy, vitality, performance. None of this, "I'm getting old" BS. That excuse is not going to fly here on Next Act Ninjas. Declines are not inevitable, they're modifiable.
And even if you're pretty fit already and are thinking, maybe this episode doesn't apply, I'm going to challenge you to take a closer look at your overall health and whether you're ready for the long game. Because here's the thing, you can be seemingly fit, but unhealthy. It is really easy to get out of balance.
I learned this the hard way when I was a young collegiate athlete more than 30 years ago. I was at the peak of fitness. I was a varsity rower for the University of Washington, and in the summer I was a Hot Shot firefighter for the US Forest Service. I may not look it now, but I was crazy strong. I could easily do more than 50 pull-ups and hundreds of push-ups, but my bones? They looked like the bones of an 80-year-old. I had osteoporosis. I was aging prematurely at the cellular level. Why? because I was a poor student. I was eating less than optimal nutrition and I had chronically elevated stress hormones. My body was simply leaching the minerals it needed from my bones. And so I learned the hard way that your biological age and your chronological age, they're not the same. You can be young and fit, but rapidly aging at the cellular level.
This realization, it sent me on a scientific journey of studying biological aging for the next 25 years. As an integrative physiologist, I studied how all of the physiologic systems of the human body work together and how they change with age. That is how the cardiovascular system works with the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system and the endocrine system, how everything interacts and how it works together synergistically. Likewise, I studied how each of those systems can become dysfunctional. They can fall like dominoes with disease. I also studied how things like exercise or weight loss or hormone replacement, how they sped up or slowed down cellular aging.
Now for many parts of our physiology, it can feel like we reach our peak function in our 20s and then it's nothing but downhill from there, right? While that's true for some things, what I learned from studying the physiology of aging is that most of those declines are not inevitable. They're modifiable. We learned from extensive research that we could intervene to change the trajectory of aging and optimize healthspan. I'm not talking about lifespan or the number of years you live, but healthspan. The quality of those years, how long you stay energetic, vital, productive.
Of course, the trajectories of your health declines, they're not linear, are they? They trend up and down throughout midlife, depending on how much attention we give our health. Of course, in our 30s and 40s, we can often reverse declines without much effort. All we need is a couple of months at the gym and it's all better, right? But it's not until our 50s and 60s, that we really start to feel the downward pull. And we find that same effort we exerted in our 30s and 40s, it suddenly isn't effective anymore. A couple of months at the gym, no longer does the trick. Now, if we give in and give up at this point, we reach a tipping point for that steady downward spiral.
Fortunately, if I've learned nothing else, from 25 years of research, it's that we can take our last few decades from feeling like an out of control, steep toboggan ride to a stable stroll in the park. We can do this by, and we can do this by intervening with lifestyle changes. And by lifestyle, I mean addressing the four pillars of health, exercise, nutrition, sleep,stress management. It really is that simple.
At least 75 to 80 percent of our risk of most age-related chronic disease in the US is preventable through lifestyle modification. You don't have to be a victim of your genes. Your genes only determine about 20 percent of how you age. The rest is determined by your lifestyle and environment, which means you have the power to improve the but it does take attention to all four of those pillars I talked about if you want to move the needle in your 50s and 60s, because they do work together synergistically. One plus one doesn't equal two, it's more like 10 when you get all these things working together. When you eat better, you have more energy to exercise. Your muscle and bones are stronger. Your joints are healthier. When you exercise more, you get better quality sleep. When you sleep better, you have better mood and manage stress better. When you feel better, you crave less junk food and stimulants, you make better food choices and so on. It creates a positive feed forward virtuous cycle rather than a vicious downward cycle.
To slow age-related declines, you have to revitalize your physiology system by system. That means building your musculoskeletal strength, increasing your cardiovascular fitness, nourishing your gut microbiome, rocking up your immunity, improving your sleep quality, all of which gives you more of the energy, vitality and clarity you need to get back to peak performance. And by performance, I don't mean setting Olympic records. I mean showing up to your life fully engaged, all systems go.
And if you're thinking, well, I just need to lose some weight, then I'll be healthier. Think again, weight loss in and of itself is not going to improve your healthspan. In fact, losing weight can actually make it worse, not better. That's because most weight loss strategies cause significant muscle loss. This slows your metabolism. It makes it near impossible to lose fat. And it is incredibly hard to get that muscle back after age 50. It takes twice as much protein and strength training to recover that muscle because your protein turnover slows with aging. Our muscle mass is a limited resource that we cannot afford to lose as we get older. Muscle is absolutely critical for our metabolism, our energy production, our strength, our physical function, our mobility.
You are here to play the long game and weight loss in and of itself will not improve your energy, vitality or productivity, nor will more extensive lab tests or gimmicky anti-aging vitamins and supplements. These things simply do not move the needle much, if at all. I'm going to review some of the emerging anti-aging nutraceuticals in a future podcast, but let's just say if you're not tackling the four major pillars first, you are wasting your money, your time, your attention on these minor players. I'm going to say that again because I think it's really important. Don't get bogged down in the anti-aging and biohacking minutiae if you haven't even addressed the big rocks yet.
Your first priorities are to start moving your body, nourishing your gut, getting high quality sleep, and managing your mental and emotional wellbeing. Those four things are the keys to living well longer and performing at your peak every single day.
But you probably knew this already, didn't you? It's not like it's a secret or anything. It's just, it can seem like a lot to get on top of sometimes. I know, as a busy working mom, I realized just how easy it is for life to get in the way of taking care of ourselves properly.
And of course, knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle. Taking action is quite another. And then staying consistent with that action is yet another piece of the puzzle. And it takes a growth mindset and a supportive environment to get moving and stay moving. That's why I'm a coach and why I created this podcast. Those two things, mindset and support, when you combine them with a solid strategy, they're magical. They are the foundation on which to create your best Next Act.
And remember, the whole point is to take control of your long game. Playing the long game means getting deep restful sleep that allows you to completely recharge every night so you can keep crushing it during the day. It means improving muscle, bone, memory, gut health, maintaining fitness, strength, balance. It means maintaining a strong immune system, fast metabolism, balanced hormones. It means mental clarity, sharp memory, good mood. Because the ultimate long game is to maximize the number of years that you can keep enjoying your peak energy, vitality, and productivity.
I want you to stop accepting steady declines as inevitable. Stop telling yourself, "I'm just getting old." It pains me to hear people say "aging sucks" or some version of that. It doesn't have to suck, you get to choose. Think about it this way. If you're in your 50s or 60s, you can expect to live at least another 20 to 30 years based on average life expectancy in the US. But for most people, nearly half of those years will be spent in piss poor health, juggling multiple medications, always feeling run down in and out of the hospital for surgery, medical treatments, you name it.
But that does not have to be your fate. When you take control of your lifestyle midlife, you radically change the trajectory of your health. You get to spend nearly all of your remaining years in better health. You get to obliterate years of decline and reclaim your freedom from what I call the "hamster wheel of medicalized aging". Get off that hamster wheel.
Just imagine what you gain from those added years of good health. Not only will you get to keep creating and leading and innovating, you'll be setting a great example for your kids, your grandkids, your friends, your colleagues. You'll have more years to contribute to society, more years to play, more years to build your legacy.
And when you stay off medications out of the medical system, out of long-term care, you're also going to save tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars on your medical care. Not to mention avoiding many years of needless suffering. But hey, I realize that such long-term goals can sometimes appear far off and they can be hard to fully fathom.
We aren't wired very well for delayed gratification, and we tend to think that it won't happen to me. Even when all evidence suggests it will happen to most of us. Often our future self feels like a stranger to us, so we don't invest in him or her today.
Now the good news is I'm not suggesting you have to discipline your way through short-term pain for long-term gain. The lifestyle changes that I'm talking about are not about deprivation.They're going to actually give you immediate gratification. When you wake up every day feeling fully rested, energized and motivated, you're going to eagerly want to go to bed on time. You're going to look for ways to improve your sleep quality every night. When you feel strong and fit, you can't wait to keep moving your body to get out and play. When your gut feels good, you feel well nourished, you never get sick, you're going to keep craving the foods that gave you that relief in the first place. Make sense?
When you find peace with your body, it doesn't feel like deprivation, it feels like a gift. It's no longer work, it's pleasure. So I invite you to radically reboot your healthspan right now, kick age-related declines to the curb, and get back to creating, innovating, and leading your best Next Act.
And if you want a step-by-step strategy to get you there, let's chat. You can always find my calendar link in the show notes. In the meantime, be sure to share this podcast with others in your tribe who are thinking long game. And live well, love more, age less, my friends.