If I knew I’d live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. – Mickey Mantle
It is never too late to start taking better care of ourselves, and the best way to do this is to have a good diet. However, choosing a diet is not an easy thing anymore.
You may be asking yourself, should I be a vegetarian? Follow a paleo diet? Try Keto? Do intermittent fasting? Go straight-up carnivore? Or be a vegan?
I started on the path to health through following Macrobiotics, and one of the tenets of this philosophy is that our dietary choice should be made logically, not emotionally. So, let’s have a logical look at which diet might fit your lifestyle.
A Keto diet should only be done for a limited period, as a reset for the metabolism, or for treating neurological disorders and certain types of cancer. According to the National Institute for Health, “the duration of following a ketogenic diet can range from a minimum of two to three weeks up to six to 12 months.”
The paleo diet emphasizes eating those foods our early ancestors ate, including some carbs, along with a lot of exercise, whereas the keto diet radically reduces carbs (along with increasing fat intake). However, sometimes we need carbs, since they help the body produce serotonin, a calming neurotransmitter. Therefore, the Keto diet can be problematic for some people.
The carnivore diet (pretty much just meat) is becoming more popular, and has been used successfully for treating severe obesity and a range of auto-immune diseases. However, humans are not carnivores but rather omnivores.
The most emotionally-based diet is the vegan diet, which has no historical precedent, since humans cannot follow a vegan diet without modern technology, as vitamin B12 is found exclusively in animal foods. Vegans make their dietary choice based on concern for other living creatures.
If we settle on the diet that is best for us, and avoid processed foods, excess sugar, too many vegetable oils (except olive oil) and genetically modified foods, we can maintain a diet that will support healthy aging. This approach will also help protect us from two of the most common ailments that accompany aging: low bone density and dementia.
Whichever diet we choose for the long run, it appears that adapting it to intermittent fasting principles will be of benefit to most people.
