Rather, I focus on the variable separation of our calendar years from vital fitness years. Yup, calendar years have “some” actuarial reasons for being – like mandatory retirement ages, or Social Security/ Medicare start times. And, sure, it is pleasing to celebrate many candles on birthday treats as we age. However, calendar ages become 6 7 if we focus on vital healthspan and healthitude years. After all, what good are birthday candles if we cannot blow ’em out like this, a discouraged and winded elder?
I hone in on three vital estimators that you should put in your healthitude toolkit.
The first is Dr. Thomas Perl’s Living to 100 calculator. This free and anonymous questionnaire pegs the factors that determine your and my lifespan prospects. Think of seat belts, no smoking, and dental flossing as life extenders! You know that I say there is more to vital lives than “just longevity” – right?
2. The second estimator focuses on America’s top killer – heart disease prospects. The American Heart Association’s PREVENT calculator is an evolving “yardstick” that now includes vitals for older folks like me. Yes, the PREVENT acronym is relevant: Predicting Risk of cardiovascular disease EVENTs … This tool is for “clinicians to help people understand their risk for developing heart disease, stroke, or heart failure. It is designed to estimate risk based on health factors that assess cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic health.”
I particularly like the inclusion of metabolic health in this PREVENT estimator as it is intertwined with cardiovascular health in systematic ways!
If your medical team doesn’t use the PREVENT tool to help you evaluate your CVH strengths and weaknesses – it should!
3. The third tool that I cite is the very credible and valuable estimator developed by a Norwegian research organization for VO2 maximum. Our capacity for ingesting Oxygen to produce motion and work is vital. Period.
I challenge anyone who is interested in healthspan and healthitude to get familiar with and to improve VO2 maximum. Yes, you can!
Why?
My personal example today:
The average VO2 max for a 73-year old male is 35 ml/kg/min.
I am blessed, and work hard to have a VO2 max of ~ 48 ml/kg/min. That is the cardiovascular capacity of a 42-year-old male.
I’ll take that as a reward for my hard work, and acknowledge a little blessing of nature.
How much sweat is recommended for you and me to improve our fitness age and change the trajectory of physical decline? IT DEPENDS. I have written about the evolving awareness of DOSE-RESPONSE curves for each athlete.
Opting in to a monthly “Wire” from Well Past Forty LLC and me is your act of trust. For that trust, I am grateful. These Wires are not marketing or sales-oriented. I’m not sellin’ nuttin’ – to coin a phrase.
I am sharing vetted information and knowledge to help you gain and sustain your healthitude. Think sweat-based and science-backed!
Peptides?!
If you are like me, you have recently seen and heard much ado about “ buzzy” Peptides as ergogenic nutrients for muscle gain, weight loss, skin support, and more.
Let’s start bottom-up with four organic elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Recall that ~90 percent of our healthy bodies constituted these four elements.
With the right chemical bonds, these elements can form vital biochemical building blocks for us that are called amino acids. What is an amine, and what is an acid?
Well, an amine is a molecule that has nitrogen (N), that is it.
An acid is a molecule that can accept electrons and form “covalent” chemical bonds. An acid does not always contain Hydrogen. An acid turns blue litmus paper red, and has a pH of 7 or less. The lower the pH, te “more acidic” is the substance. An acid often can taste sour – like citric acid. Yet don’t be cavalier in tasting possible acids – trust me.
These four [C,H,O, and N] elements can form nine (9) essential and eleven 11 non-essential amino acids that scientists know of. All can be found in macronutrients, or the 11 non-essential amino acids are fabricated in our quite amazing bodies.
The essential amino acids – nine of ‘em – cannot be made in our GI system, so we need to consume complete essential amino acids from individual food items or from groups of macronutrients. Yes, it is possible for vegans to consume adequate amino acids…
The mnemonic PVT TIM HILL helps folks remember most or all of our nine essential AAs –
P – Phenylalanine
V – Valine
T – Threonine
T – Tryptophan
I – Isoleucine
M – Methionine
H – Histidine
I – LeucIne (note that this second ‘I’ in the mnemonic is stylized to make the PVT TIM HILL acronym work)
L – Lysine (We skip the last “L” in HILL 🙂)
Brick Building
From little building blocks to impressive 3-D structures, here is a physical metaphor for how amino acids, peptides, and proteins are constructed::
Amino Acids are Individual bricks: Imagine them as the individual, unique bricks you have in your bin. Each brick has a slightly different shape or “color” appendage that gives it unique properties. Let’s take Leucine as an example, with essential AA food sources like these to promote muscle synthesis and growth:
Sarcopenia is the result of insufficient muscle synthesis from aging, underuse, or glandular dysfunctions. Most adult Americans, particularly baby boomer women are protein (and leucine deficient).
Next, Peptides are short “2 dimensional” brick-to-brick constructs of amino acids: Peptides can be from 2 to around 50 amino acids in length. Peptides are your simpler creations. If you were using a certain Danish version of plastic bricks, you could make a railroad, or a planar surface. Peptides have specific jobs in the body, like as hormones or signaling molecules.
An artificial sweetener – aspartame – is a dipeptide of 2 amino acids.
Long polypeptides – or those peptide chains of up to ~ 50 amino acids then become classified as proteins. Some proteins in our bodies can be formed from thousands of peptides. Now, that is POLY! These “polygons” have folded, three-dimensional shapes instead of linear chains.
Proteins (Long, Complex LEGO Structures): Proteins are much larger and more complex structures made by linking together a lot of amino acids (usually 50 or more, sometimes hundreds or even thousands!). Crucially, these long chains then fold up into very specific and often intricate three-dimensional shapes. This folding is essential for them to do their job. Think of a protein as a highly detailed, functional LEGO castle or spaceship. These complex structures allow proteins to perform a huge variety of functions in your body, from building tissues (like collagen) to carrying oxygen (like hemoglobin) to speeding up chemical reactions (like enzymes).
In a healthy walnut shell:
Amino acids: The individual building blocks.
Peptides: Short chains of amino acids.
Proteins: “Long and folded “3D” structures of 50 or more amino acids.
Danger Zone !
Prolonged use of what seems to be goodness may very well have its dark and dangerous side. Trust me.
Quoting Hone Health, “Long-term effects of many peptides remain poorly understood. Although some studies have demonstrated benefits such as increased lean body mass and improved body composition (in populations with clinical need for the drugs), these gains have not consistently translated to enhanced muscle strength, physical performance, or overall quality of life.
“Data on the safety and efficacy of such therapies over decades are lacking, creating uncertainty about their role in chronic use,” Roberts says. “while short-term outcomes appear favorable, the cumulative risks associated with prolonged GH manipulation remain a significant concern.”
Remember that I ask each committed Strong to Save person to be a true student or your endeavor, and to only take risks for which you are accountable. Period.
X Factors
As your experiential coach and operating system tester, I am inevitably on the lookout for X-Factors that I use to enhance my healthitude and to help me down-age. I do not suggest your investment in an X Factor item unless I have tried it and experienced a favorable outcome. For this month’s WIRE, I offer my feedback to you about my positive experiences with:
Heat, Vibration, and Red Light Therapy Device or “Sleeve”
TENS electrical stimulation unit and
Vibration Stands
Mindful of costs, I let you as an informed follower to do your own market survey for “best value” items. It is little surprise that a majority of X-Factor items are built offshore, many in a certain Asian country nicknamed “The Middle Kingdom.” Caveat Emptor.
=> A Heat, Vibration, and Red Light therapy “sleeve” or device may look like this model:
This device is great for my elbows, shoulders and ankles too. USB-rechargeable. The varied light wavelengths have different healing properties. Go ahead and make waves!
=> Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) Unit
These reasonably priced units are USB-chargeable. I have had great success in use of a TENS unit for stimulation and healing.
My acupuncturist used a TENS with her acupuncture needles to promote healing of my Medial Cartilage tear:
I use a Vibration Plate for my personal training with a gent who has a spastic paraplegia. I also use the plate for me 🙂 This link provides some Vibration plate models with different features and functions. I spent about $85 for the plate that I’ve very happy with.
Benefits of Vibration may include:
balance, gait, posture, and motor coordination. Muscle strength and mass may also increase. Some reports suggest that a Plate can mollify fibromyalgia.
Safety first, and don’t invest more money than you afford for perceived benefits of X Factor.
August Haiku
Dog Days of Summer
Sirius crossing our Sky
Autumn draws closer.
Benefits of Exercise
As John Wayne’s character once shared on screen, “Life is tough enough without being stupid.”
And, as I believe, our Universe doesn’t exist to do me any favors.
So, what’s a KABOOMER or GenX to do?
Facing Cancer – Exercise.
Facing ASCVD – Exercise.
Staving off Dementia Related Diseases – Exercise.
Improve Night Life – Sexercise.
Carve out 7-12 extra healthy years – Exercise.
What’s not to Love?
It is my goal to help you learn to immerse and enjoy your “Motion as Lotion.”
Please contact me to build your habitual success to thrive and strive longer than your peers.
First, I offer Ingest More Red – Later Dead as a call to action for anti-inflammatory sustenance.
Now – that color Red explicitly excludes Red Dye #40. I see no reason to add Red dye #40 to Doritos TM – do you? In fact, I see nil reasons to munch on DoritosTM at all/ as I’m more than sorta adverse to ultra-processed foods that inflame us and shorten too many lives.
Red in these clean, anti-inflammatory fruits and vegetables is all-natural!
International Yoga Day 2025
Note the red mufti for these happy folks 🙂
Clicck on over to this September 2024 Healthline Article that offers, “84% of American adults feel the impact of prolonged stress.” You can also get a dozen reminders of why?! Yoga routines are so good for you and me – like stress management. So, enjoy a Cobra pose (this yogi is more advanced than am I!)
or a gentle and soothing Upward Dog asana like this lady:
While we do, reflect on what others have known for centuries –
Tap the warmth and healing of sunlight (yet watch those harmful UV times!)
My sainted Mum advised that early and later-in-day sunlight and Vermont honey were therapies to use and remember!
Healing colors in our natural and man-made environments – look right and feel right with red hues aand tones.
As my healthitude journey progresses, my internal sense and response system is more attuned to colors of nature. our birds and bees, flowers and trees in our season of change. For my mates and acquaintances in our Southern hemisphere, all these thoughts for six more months :-).
Can we combine seasonal change in color to rainbows as healthitude themes? Let’s find out.
If you you haven’t sensed my written and spoken emphases on Vitamin P for plants and ROYGIBV rainbow nutrients – that is my bad. I’m hoping to get the good word to your inbox and attention.
Aha
My savvy acupressurist, a boomer gent like myself, has attuned me to Natural practices used for centuries. Practices that can aid the flow of my Qi (chee) or vital force, and work on my yang /ying balance for harmony and homeostasis. What is a fave color for him? Yup – Red.
Would you hazard to guess which hue is in traditional Chinese medicines heart-healthy? Hit your Jeopardy game buzzer first with your question: “What is red?” You may win a healthy prize to be named later.
Now, red-hued nutrients are only part of my natural Vitamin P and rainbow arguments to feed your head and bodily systems. Yet Red is the first color in our rainbow mnemonic ROYGIBV so let’s start with the letter capital R.
Any chance that you want better blood circulation, boosted energy levels, or intend to address conditions related to your ticker? I am a renewed component of both Seeing Red and Ingesting non-dyed Red nutrients like these.
Red Yeast Rice(can you guess what an ingredient in synthetic statins is?)
Red Tomatoes (gents – the wonderful anti-oxidant lycopene in a tomato is uber-good for one’s prostate gland health). Caught me. A Tomato is classified as a fruit, and other colored tomato colors have plenty of anti-oxidants too!
Beets & Beetroot (Check out my other writings about Doctor Nitric Oxide or Dr. NO)
Whether we chat about infrared saunas, or therapeutic joint wraps with heat vibration, and light features, the waves of red light and near-redlight are well documented for healthy recovery therapies. Another big word to dazzle your healthy friends – – – Photobiomodulation. Let’s give a big shout for Endre Mester, who impacted our world in different ways that his Hungarian countrymates – Harry Houdini and Erno Rubik. As an editorial note, some folks think that Nikola Tesla was a Hungarian. I believe he came to the USA from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, yet he was Serbian by birth. Enough of the history of notables.
Yet, in closing – please think about historical perspectives of “good” Reds for health and “Eat the Rainbow” colors at least 6 times daily.
Stay well past forty,
DF
Postscript: Can I hear an Amen? Let’s celebrate America’s cessation of using artificial red dye 40 in our processed and ultra-processed foods. Why do we feel we need to artificially dye our sustenance? Oh that is America’s deadly way.. Okay that is my intended overstatement. Whether we process and consume less artificiality is an issue I will love to pursue with you
The linkage of Red dye 40 to allergies and migraine headaches is pretty solid. And I certainly wouldn’t discount artificial ingredients’ propensity for gut dysfunction. Shucks, Adam ate an apple, not a Cheetoh TM!
Consuming DoritosTM and TwizzlersTMisn’t a healthy practice to begin with. Adding consensual dysfunction of more artificial stuff to our microbiome isn’t a brainy practice. America – the consensual or Darwinian Inflammation Nation! Oh my!
Well, May Gray days have passed for those of us in Southern California. And, with our May flowers brought to bloom, some of those allergenic (achoo) histamines that hit folks like me are lessening.
You won’t get complaints from me for that seasonal advancement, nor for the added “eco” presence of bees and monarch butterflies…
June Gloom in my San Diego region is upon us.
When we wake up to dog day summer mornings in July and August we can reflect that cool and gray days of May and June were appreciated.
About the only downside at our home is lesser power generation and energy storage in our solar panel roof system.
Odds Are
Our newsgram addresses what I call our 1-3-5-7 Summer Span Ex. And yes, I hope that we committed folks will make the most of our longer days in the northern hemisphere to thrive and strive a little bit extra. Even for vacation or staycation time… We have more daylight hours to take charge and move out after a rise and shine and of course making our bed. Do contact me if you want more rationale or context for these Odd number Challenges for June.
1 – Move 15% more each day to get ready for the pool or beach.
3 – Make it a 3-D day!
Move in all three of our body planes daily –
a. Front to back (sagittal movements)
b. Side to side (frontal plane movements) and
c. Twisting / Corkscrew (transverse plane efforts.)
5 – Move your body isotonically with 5 types of resisted movements
Lift things
Push Things
Pull Things
Twist while holding things and
Carry things.
7 – No, I don’t ask you to pursue extra METAs on all seven days of the week, or on the Beatles’ 8 days a week 🙂
I do suggest that you and I take a META holiday one day each week. (I use the term META to mean Metabolic Equivalent of Tasks and Activity.) I made a separate post that details this caloric accounting system for our physical banking.
Again, I don’t mean total skipping of motion on your “off day.”
I do mean a taper day with some stretching, plus balancing acts, so to speak, for spatial awareness/fall prevention, and perhaps a little bodyweight work in your activity of daily life (ADL).
When you resume your HEALTHITUDE movements on the following day, you will be revitalized.
Rest and Restoration are important at any any, yet more so when those calendar years creep up on us. Trust me…
Span Ex
7. And, the last entry in our 1-3-5-7 Rubric is a combination of Upgrade and X-Factors in my new book, Burden? Or Banish!
Are you ready, Healthituders?
Mentalspan (yup – Mind-Body Alignment or MBA reminder to treat your hippocampi well.)
Socialspan (No man or woman is an island – right? The social aspect of pickleball is nearly as important as the physical activity.)
Strongspan (Commit to 2 or 3 dedicated sessions of moving stuff or isometric muscle contractions every week. I do 2X/week, at my calendar age of 72. Gen X or younger may do nicely with 3 resistance workouts weekly.)
Windspan (strive for at least 15% more aerobic motion above our Government’s guidelines). And I quote, “Adults who sit less and perform any amount of moderate to vigorous activity achieve some health benefits.”
PNSspan (enhance parasympathetic feed and restore efforts including restorative sleep, as opposed to chronic fight or flight stressors)
Safespan (Remember that your living to 100 calculator highlights proper use of seat belts, dental floss, and sunscreen. Limit your exposure to forever chemicals, plastics, blue wavelength light, and beware of electronic radiation (5G EMF).
Here’s to your and my daily progress for HEALTHITUDE.
As a refresher, I use eleven (11) HEALTHITUDE letters to encapsulate enablers to Keep America’s Healthspan UNAbated – yup – the big KAHUNA:
Heart
Endocrines (Hormones)
Adaptation
Lungs (Cardiovascular Health and mindful breaths) and Liver function
Transcend for that “lil bit extra” –
Hormesis and Homeostasis
Investment in our physical portfolios
Training
Upbeat Attitude
Desire to move past glothic ways (of sinful gluttony and sloth)
Exercise efficiently and effectively
Stay well past forty,
Dave
Postscript. Here is my “gloomy” humor of this June day to help with our weather-guessing:
“I’m pretty sure the fog is just jealous of how beautiful and sunny our neighborhood is supposed to be.”
META: Did you know that our valuable term, Metabolism, comes from a Grecian word metabole that means “to change” ?
Well before a Harvard dropout named Zuckerberg changed the name of the social network corporation he leads to Meta, this multi-purpose word had philosophical and self-reflective meaning.
Then along came a Monarch butterfly
Metamorphosis – such as the life cycle from a caterpillar to its chrysalis to a butterfly is a dramatic change of shape. Well, we certainly don’t change our shapes as radically as a butterfly, yet we can transform our body composition and shape to healthier profiles – can’t we?
Be or transform to a healthier pear-shaped profile rather than a relatively unhealthy Apple profile, please!
Just One
In a science quiz, one MET is measured as 3.5 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. Whew, that is a breathful.
For a 70 kilogram person, one MET equates to a total of 1/4 liter of O2 per minute (70 times 0.0035 liters/kg/minute) .
METs quantify the energy expenditure of an activity relative to resting metabolism, with one MET equal to the energy cost and oxygen demands of sitting quietly. The higher the MET value of an activity or exercise, the higher the demand placed on one’s metabolism. And, we’ll delve into the key VO2 Max measure too, so stay tuned!
Incidentally, scientists do adjust the MET standard for age with a breakpoint at age 65. With lower heart rates, a bit of sarcopenia and slightly smaller lung capacity associated with aging, one MET older is about 20 % lower than the METyounger standard for a younger individual. For your quiz, that is 2.7 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute.
3 Key Components of a MET Table:
You may see a matrix or table that lists 3 components:
Activity: ranging from light to vigorous.
MET Value: The numerical value representing the energy expenditure of the activity, relative to resting metabolism.
Intensity Level: Categorized by their intensity level (e.g., light, moderate, vigorous) based on their MET value.
Three Levels of METAs with example activities are:
Vigorous Intensity: Singles tennis, shoveling, competitive soccer, running, rowing, and rucking in hilly terrain.
I want us to understand the intensity of different activities so that we can tailor our workouts at this stage of our periodization, and in line with our performance goals.
Example:
Weightlifting effort “generally” is in a moderate intensity range, with MET values between 3.0 and 5.9. A MET value of 6 or greater is considered “vigorous” or high intensity.
Moderate weightlifting for maintenance and tone, or nominally >12 repetitions exercises in a set with light resistance, is around 3.5 METs. Heavier weight or resistance training with 8-12 repetitions can reach 5 METs. Vigorous weight lifting, such as circuit training with minimal rest, or power lifting (3-6 repetitions with heavy weights) can reach 8 METs.
This Figure illustrates a Met and Time process calculation:
Using this illustrated walk example, a reasonable Daily META for us is based on our government’s recommendation of 90 Met minutes or 1.5 MET Hours daily – 5 times each week.
This totals 7.5 Met Hours per week to meet our Government standard – which is actually fairly low.
Remember that this ½ hour walking activity is in addition to the basic metabolic rates that are equated to sitting quietly or sleeping. Those sedentary or still “low level” MET hours far exceed the activity or exercise MET hours we just considered.
Next, let’s relate MET minutes / hours to the second half of our Government’s activity recommendation per week.
Seventy-five (75) minutes of MET level 6 – per week – are our Government’s suggestion for more intensive activity. These higher intensity efforts require more oxygen, and higher lub dub beats of our working hearts. See my blog article for more details of interval or higher intensity training.
Note that this alternate channel for activity also tallies 7.5 MET Hours per week, just as the lower intensity option did.
This too is a fairly low bar. Yet too many Americans do not get enough META, as the obesity and sickness of our unfit society shows in mortality statistics.
Those of us who strive to be better than decent may double, triple or triple- double the META recommendation (MET Hours).
For example, in this phase of my fitness periodization, I log 6-8 hours of low intensity exercise, and 1 to 1.5 hours of higher intensity and interval sessions each week. For this case, my low intensity is 7 hours x MET Level 3, or 21 MET Hours.
And, my higher intensity work per week (which I limit to about 20 percent of my total training time) results in level 7 x 1.5 hours for another ~10.5 MET Hours.
The Goverment suggests 7.5 MET Hours per week, and my investment average of 31.5 MET Hours is 4 times our Government’s minimum. Parenthetically, my weekly workload is about average for competitive rowers of my age.
Do I suggest that more folks raise their MET Hour bars? You betcha.
That is, of course, with medical approval, plus sense and respond awareness of exercise-induced stress and recovery needs.
I do acknowledge, and will delve into the uniqueness of exercise Dose-Response for “proper” metabolic effort. Too much of a very good thing, like exercise, is not wonderful when it is toxic or harmful.
This graphic shows a “safe range” between no-good risky, and good healthy exercise doses for an individual:
As we wind up this META overview, I virtually shout out to our down under Health professionals who kindly document how much exercise Medicare-aged folks (in any country) should pursue.
A ‘lil bit extra ?!
Just a slight increase in activity each day can improve our health and well being. Our revved-up metabolism at work and at rest can help:
I just learned that the title of a 1962 travel movie by two Italians, “Mondo Cane”, means “a dog’s world” in the King’s English. I have a tad of difficulty linking man’s best friend with globetrotting.
So it goes.
My newfound awareness stemmed from a Doctor Google search about “MORE.” Why was I looking for more? Well, most of us do.
Yet my trigger for that little bit extra was a local priest’s homily about “MORE” as a Easter transformation. I am not going all the way with transformation in a Christian sense, I promise. Yet, transforming is a fine verb for the lesser yet vital goal of self care and improvement. So, I’m not penning a metamorphosis from chrysalis to butterfly. Rather, I am musing about the maturation of that butterfly. So, now you have the start of a page 2 story for my little journey from a ’62 flick to church and now to us on April 29th, 2025. More from page 2: Sir Thomas More, that great thinker and author of Utopia [published in 1516 A.D.] sets my stage with his thought for individuals and their society:
“Nobody owns anything but everyone is rich.”
Sounds like Sir Thomas read and followed the rational thoughts and deeds of stoics. You see, stoics indifferently viewed ownership and wealth as means, not ends. “Stoics believed that true wealth resided within, in qualities like virtue, self-mastery, and contentment. They foresaw wealth’s potential to distract from the pursuit of inner well-being.
Everyone is Rich
Hmmm. This purported richness from antiquity beckons a 20th century metaphor of Earl Nightingale that we are in the midst of “acres of diamonds” – IF we look carefully. Inner wealth and soft skills of virtue, mastery, contentment and purpose sound valuable – don’t they?
Question: Do we need lots and lots of things to work on our self improvement and self care? The one-word answer is “no.”
Got a towel, a PBA-free water bottle, and a good mental outlook?
Then, my friend, you are good to go and to look carefully.
Surely… fitness appliances, workout accessories and products that are likely made in China :), and of course supplements or ergogenic things may selectively help you. Yet, those items are beyond “self” – right?
What time and effort are needed to find a wall, a small floor space, or free-standing space to move your joints for isotonic deeds? Just a little!
What more do you need to contract your muscles in isometric ways? Not much!
It is springtime in our hemisphere, so mindfully breathe in the renewed sensory wealth around us. Then, make the time to sweat a little in the spirit of Healthitude.
Remember that acronym of mine – Healthitude – and its components?
Here is a strong to save refresher:
H Hearty
E Endocrines
A Attitude (remember your Mind and Body are aligned)
L Lungs (Oxygen is life and breath)
T Transform
H Healthspan
I Invest
T Train
U Upbeat / Utopian riches
D Desire
E EXERCISE
I look forward to a chat with you about this combo approach for healthspan and attitude. Look around you, as there often is MORE – – – even in a competitive “dog’s world.”
This device is great for my elbows, shoulders and ankles too. USB-rechargeable. The varied light wavelengths have different healing properties. Go ahead and make waves!
Safespan (Remember that your 
, this multi-purpose word had 
