The Lifestyle Prescription – The Key to Longevity Medicine

Why is the Lifestyle Prescription – the Key to Longevity Medicine? Let us not downplay the usefulness of Hormone Replacement, Supplementation and even Medication in its ability to impact your long-term health outcome. But without a doctor being involved at all, you can impact your Health Span and Survive and Thrive in no greater fashion than how you can accomplish this through your own endeavors, by addressing the Lifestyle Prescription. Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, and Life balance (basically balancing stress, work, family, faith, vacation and relaxation time). All of these things have a huge impact on our health, but nothing impacts our health more than our Nutrition. (Ok, we can argue Exercise)

The way we determine what molecules our cells have to utilize to function is controlled by our Nutrition. And it is not only our cells, the way we eat determines what our bacteria, our Microbiome has to utilize and function, and our bacteria definitely affect our health outcome and even our behavior. We must pay great attention to the Nutrition Plan. We can teach you to utilize any major dietary platform in a successful way to meet your nutrition needs. Some of the platforms are a little more challenging than others, but I study the Science of Longevity and I’ve come up with reasonable strategies to make all of the major dietary plans ones that will enhance your long-term health and wellness. We will discuss that in great depth at your Performance Health Evaluation. You will meet with my Performance Health Coach who will spend a good deal of time picking apart your diet and collectively, he and I will discuss how we will manage your long-term Nutrition Plan in a way that you will find palatable and sustainable. We will look for strategies to control how much you eat, so you make it to ideal body weight. We will look for strategies to control what you eat so, that you’ll be properly feeding your cells and the cells of your microbiome.

No discussion of the Lifestyle Prescription would be complete if we didn’t also talk about another giant Cog in the Wheel of Wellness, Exercise. Survival of the Fittest! It is without a doubt one of the most important determinants of how long you will live. We will see precisely how fit you are in the Performance Health Assessment using a test to determine your VO2 max. This test will not only demonstrate how fit you are, (which predicts how much longer you are going to live according to the science), it helps us to determine heart rates where you become aerobic and anaerobic for exercise program design. It’s a reproducible test so we can show improvement or deterioration, such a great way to monitor your outcome. Fitness is accomplished through improving your exercise patterns and your daily activity patterns, and it’s not nearly as daunting as you think. I exercise, approximately 20 to 40 minutes 5 to 6 days a week. I’m able to maintain strength and fitness without a terrible time commitment. It takes proper strategy and that’s what we teach. You will have to incorporate some form of exercise to see the “Best Version of Yourself”. We will tailor a plan that takes into account your own personal “Chinks in the armor” and your own personal needs analysis. Exercise patterns are not a one size fits all. We help you to determine how to come up with a proper pattern that will work for you and be sustainable.

We will talk about sleep

readiness
daily movement
activity contributors
I’m very careful to investigate whether my patients might have conditions like Sleep Apnea, because without proper sleep, you are definitely doomed to have negative health outcomes. If you have problems suggesting Sleep Apnea, we will investigate thru various strategies. Many components of our practice platform can help in the important and often neglected domain of Sleep.
airplane

Life Balance

It’s important we focus on life balance. I am so fortunate in that I discovered Alaska early in my life. My God-given dual life as a Physician and Bush Pilot has me frequently visiting my favorite place in the world. A place on the Kenai Peninsula where I’m fortunate enough to get to fly a DeHavilland Beaver over the Harding ice-field, into a Fjord where two rivers enter, that have tremendous fishing. I enjoy this place so much, and I am sure it is one of the driving forces that makes my passion for my own wellness so great. I enjoy sharing it with people, and I want to do so for many, many years to come, and I know in my heart that, without the proper implementation of the Lifestyle Prescription, those years will be cut short.

I’m encouraging you to follow what I can teach you. Think about a Performance Health Assessment, and if that’s too much to ask, think about at least following the science, that we will share with you in great depth. Just stay tuned for more information on how to do that or sign up for that Performance Health Assessment, and we will get down to the nitty-gritty in great detail and come up with a near perfect plan for your life.