Maybe you spent your 20's and 30's building a career, sitting indoors at a desk all day, skipping workouts, and eating out all the time. Now…

Weight gain creeps up.

Energy starts to wane.

Physical fitness starts to slip away.

The "bad" lab markers start to show up at your annual physical.

Around my age of 40, you begin to see the difference between those who have experienced deteriorating health versus those who have maintained their health.

But hope is not lost whether you are wanting your next 40 years to be as good or better than the last 40 years.

These are 5 critical areas of your health that you have to start paying attention to today (regardless of your age):

1) Nutrient Dense Food

The rise of environmental and psychological stressors and ultra-processed foods is leaving most people in a calorie excess but chronically vitamin, mineral, and protein deficient.

Most chronic health problems can be prevented and reversed with a foundation of proper nutrition.

The key is focusing on sourcing the freshest food you can possibly find from local, trusted sources and then filling in the gaps with a few key nutrients based on your needs.

I’ve experimented with various diets with specific labels—vegan, vegetarian, ketogenic, etc.

I treated each as an experiment, and it allowed me to observe how my own body responded. I recommend my clients also do the same.

But there are a few key qualities that are consistent:

• Avoids highly processed foods that have industrialized seed and vegetable oils, enriched wheat flours, excess sugars, additives, preservatives, food dyes, "vegetarian“ meats, and "food” created in a lab

• Anti-inflammatory (for you): the most common food intolerances are wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, and corn. I suspect this is more about quality and introduction of industrialized farming methods. You can experiment by eliminating each completely for 3-4 weeks, re-introduce them, and observe how you feel.

• Seasonal and local foods because food grown in your latitude’s light signature and environment is more in tune with your physiology and microbiome (mind-blowing, right?). They also tend to be the most nutrient dense.

• Focused on whole food sources of protein, fats, and carbohydrates (e.g. meat, seafood, fruit and vegetables as the foundation for meals)

• A dash of phytonutrients (plant derived nutrients) from fresh herbs, spices, and fungi (edible and medicinal mushrooms)

Nutrition is like the "white belt" level of health.

It’s a foundation and important, but you don’t have to have a perfect diet to reach excellent health.

If you prepare most of your own meals and avoid food that you heat up in a container in a microwave, you will be 80% of the way there.

2) Strength, Movement, and Mobility

Your ability to bend and not break, is even more critical to prevent injuries and maintain your ability to do activities you love longer.

Fitness is more than muscle mass and six-pack abs, it also includes healthy fascia (connective tissue), joints, ligaments, and tendons.

There are a few types of non-specific training that I recommend you incorporate daily:

• Get up and move every 1 hour - This helps avoid the problems of being sedentary for long periods of time

• Low-impact cardio - Walking outside for a total of just 20 minutes per day confers 80% of the cardiovascular benefits.

• Weekly HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) - This has taken the place of cardio for me (e.g. long distance running). The key is doing something at a 8 or 10/10 effort for 20-30 seconds, allow for short rest, and repeat 8-10 times. The bonus is that you get the benefit of a long cardio session in 10-15 minutes.

• Mobility work - In the form of yoga or functional movement that gets your joints moving in its full range of motion in each of the planes—front to back, side-to-side, up-and-down. Hips, shoulders, and spine are the big ones you don’t want to get stiff.

• Strength - Any type of resistance training that puts a moderate to heavy load on muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Think weight training, resistance bands, kettle bells, and even body weight from walking. Strong muscles (not necessarily big muscles) protects your joints and provides many metabolic health benefits.

• Balance - Related to strength and mobility, you want to be able to handle unevenly distributed weight—standing or pushing off of one leg, holding weight with one arm and not the other. As people get older, falls are one of the biggest risks for rapidly deteriorating health.

My suggestion here is to find an activity or sport you love, and invest in learning proper form.

I have found taking yoga classes and doing something like Lagree or Solidcore provides a solid mobility, strength, and balance foundation for other things I enjoy doing, like playing tennis.

3) Detoxification and Drainage

Environmental toxins can accumulate over a lifetime, overwhelming the liver and lymphatic system. The accumulation of these toxins overwhelm our systems and cause all sorts of diseases.

Compare the person who drank, smoke, and partied heavily through their 20’s and 30’s versus someone who didn’t.

I frequently use the Bucket Analogy.

Imagine your body is a bucket. We accumulate toxins from normal metabolic function (e.g. carbon dioxide), environmental toxins like heavy metals and hormone disruptors, non-native electromagnetic fields from wi-fi, power lines, and cell towers, and emotional stressors from living life.

The goal is to regularly reduce total body burden by opening the body's drainage channels:

• Digestive tract via the liver and poo (yes very technical)

• Kidneys via peeing

• Lungs via proper breathing

• Skin via sweating

• Emotional outlets via self-expression, sleep, nature, and meditation

All five of these routes of elimination act as a release valve for the body’s sewer system.

This is one of the ways I frequently support clients at a foundational level, regardless of issue they are dealing with.

4) Circadian Health and Quality Sleep

Many people in developed countries, regardless of type of work or where you live, are spending as much as 95% of their time indoors and have been doing this for decades.

We’ve become disconnected from the cycles of night and day—the circadian rhythm.

Spending time outside in daylight sets the clock in your brain and body—high quality sleep and health is the result.

Sleep is when the body heals, detoxifies the brain and body, and resets the stress of the day.

There is also value to dreams and the brain activity during sleep that allows us to become more conscious and connected at a spiritual level.

There's a difference between being asleep and rejuvenating sleep.

The action you need to take is quite simple:

• Get outside and expose your eyes (without glasses) and skin (without sunscreen or excessive clothing) to daylight around sunrise, mid-afternoon, and sunset.

• Try to eat during daylight hours as much as possible.

• Protect the darkness of night by eliminating artificial light at night from lights and screens as much as possible.

While simple, you may start to recognize that depending on where you live, like a city, light pollution is becoming a serious blocker to health.

I invite you to go camping or spend a few days away from the city. See how you feel and sleep.

5) Metabolic Fitness Markers

This is an umbrella term that is related to the other four areas above but includes some of the key biomarker categories that will give you hints of metabolic fitness straying into the realm of dysfunctional and even clinically pathological.

The early signs of metabolic dysfunction include:

• weight gain and changes in body composition (e.g. fat vs. muscle vs. bone mass)

• high blood pressure

• rising blood sugar

• insulin resistance

• increasing resting heart rate

• abnormal lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides)

• abnormal hormone levels - thyroid, sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen), and cortisol (the "stress" hormone), and Vitamin D (the light deficiency hormone)

This is not comprehensive, but your annual lab work will start to screen for potentially out-of-range or suboptimal levels so you can start to get on track or maintain your

If you are in your 40's, it's not too late to start turning your health around now.

P.S. If you are interested in a Healthy By Design consultation session with me where I can help you come up with a plan to address these key areas, schedule one here https://l.bttr.to/uYxzi or reach out via email.