Latest / The Ageless Warrior Lab / The Longevity Blueprint - Part 2: Diet, Ego & the Truth About Longevity in BJJ | EP 49

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The Longevity Blueprint - Part 2: Diet, Ego & the Truth About Longevity in BJJ | EP 49 · The Ageless Warrior Lab

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your body today is becoming tomorrow's body every single day.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Build the body you want.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Every point is the point of no return.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can extend your time on this planet.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not just live longer, but extend the time that you're healthy and active so you live longer and you live better.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Ageless Warrior Lab.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm BJJ Coral Belt and Dirty Dozen member Dave Meyer, here to draw wisdom from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the martial arts and explore how it applies to success in business, relationships, your long-term health, and making the most out of your life.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is the second part of what has become a two-part episode on longevity in sports.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: In the first episode, I listed out my four secret laws to longevity, which aren't really secrets at all.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they were number one, maintain and regain where necessary, flexibility and joint mobility, injury is the enemy.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Number two was exercise and stay fit and moving.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Number three is maintain a good diet and know what, how much, and when to eat.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And number four is maintain the right attitude.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now we talked about the first two in the last episode, so if you missed that, definitely go back and listen to it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's episode number 48.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's talk about law number three, which for some people is the one they have the hardest time with, which is your diet.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: What you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: When you're young, it seems like you can eat anything, right?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: But over decades, your diet really starts to matter.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your metabolism slows down a bit, plus you just learn that scarfing a whole pizza or a tub of ice cream just isn't going to leave you feeling the way that you want to feel.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: But beyond how you feel in the short term, right after you eat, the food you eat over time has a huge impact on your health and your athletic performance.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of that thing I say that small actions taken again and again over time have really big consequences.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Eating right affects your energy level so you can do more exercise, which over years adds up to you being super fit.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when I lived in Los Angeles many years ago, I invited four of my training partners after a hard jujitsu session to come to my house for lunch and a hike.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, at that time, I lived in this cool corner of LA, right up in some mountains with cool rock formations to climb and great running trails.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a warm summer day, so I made a big bowl of fruit salad.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: But besides adding lots of fresh fruits, including mango and papaya, chopped nice and small, I added lots of walnut pieces and I also mashed in tofu, which is a soy bean curd, so you couldn't even see it.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: We all had big bowls, and then I said, let's go for a run in the mountains.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we bring these four-foot-long Japanese fighting staffs I had, which are called bows, to practice stick fighting along the way whenever I tell you to stop and turn and fight.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we chased each other through the trails for about two hours and stopped and fought each other with sticks whenever I gave the word.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And generally we were just a bunch of young guys having a really good time.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: But when we got back to my house, everyone commented on how much energy they had, despite us having had a hard training on the mats that morning and just doing all that running and crazy sparring with sticks.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: They all said how the food that I gave them made them feel energetic.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it didn't give them that feeling of heaviness and sleepiness that they'd often get after a meal.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I explained that the reason for that was the food was clean and what I call close to the source, meaning fresh and simple fruits and nuts with plenty of protein and needed carbs from the walnuts and the soy and simple sugars from the fruits.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: This was a lesson for all of us about the power of a clean meal to make it possible for you to train longer and harder, and how that can add up when done again and again over the years.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm the product of that.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But eating right again and again over years also matters for the two biggest killers in our society, cancer and heart disease.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Both of those killers have been clearly linked to diet choices people make over their lifetime.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not a dietitian, and I'm not going to tout any particular diet.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: But here are some pointers I think will really help you on the subject of diet and longevity in sport.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, first, what to eat, which is what I was just mentioning.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's no secret here to say when you can mostly eat wholesome fresh food.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I should note that when we start talking about avoiding processed foods or eating only natural foods, there's a lot of misunderstanding and it's just not as simple as it sounds.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Companies that are trying to sell us things, they use those terms in their marketing, but we need to think for ourselves.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So let's first talk about the word processed for a second.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Even when we look at something as basic as a loaf of bread, the flour used in baking is processed.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And depending upon the bread, so are a lot of the other ingredients like the oils and the yeast and anything used to enrich the bread.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: You walk into a health food store, and every protein powder and nutritional supplement for shakes and every vitamin and every mineral pill on the shelf is ultra-processed.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean they're bad for you.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're not.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a doctor once told me that one of the most dramatic forms of food processing you can do happens right in your own kitchen, and it's called cooking.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Applying a flame or heat to any food changes its molecular structures, which you can see in real time as it's changing its color and changing its texture.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that intense heat processing can be good or bad depending upon the situation.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Cooking can make foods more digestible and bioavailable, and it can kill dangerous pathogens, especially when you're talking about meats.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: But cooking can also make foods carcinogenic, like when we deep fry foods or burn them on the edges.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the term natural.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Poisoned mushrooms are natural, but they're not good for you.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Neither are all kinds of plants that are inedible at best or poisonous at worst.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: To some extent, basically nothing we eat today is really natural.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Everything has been altered from its natural state, often by scientists at universities or in private company labs or at the USDA or through breeding for hundreds and hundreds of years.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally every apple or orange is not the apple or orange that occurred in nature before we started messing with things.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, oranges didn't even exist in nature at all before humans created them, and that is another bet winner for a party.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, every product in the produce aisle is a product of some form of human alteration and development.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: It surprised me to learn that.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the same is true in the meat aisle, when it comes to what we call natural.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: The most common chicken mass-produced today was developed by industry and is called the Cornish Cross.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it is wildly different than a chicken that was found in nature.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the birds are so big they often break their bones just standing their whole life pressed against other chickens on factory farms.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then all the chicken carcasses in the U.S.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: are dunked in an antimicrobial vat after slaughter before they even get to market.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And most cheese sold today uses a microbial recumbent rennet inserted into genetically engineered organisms that then produce that enzyme that's used to make the cheese.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my point isn't that protein powders and vitamin pills and fruits and vegetables and cheese and meat can't be healthy.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying when we talk about processing and what's natural, we need to think more clearly.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of using those terms, just ask is the food or ingredient or process we're talking about going to help or hurt our long-term health.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's up to you to research and decide.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just agree that in general you should eat foods that feel more wholesome, whatever that means to you.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: What you eat, especially over years and decades, really matters.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about how much we eat.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us are blessed to live in a place where for most people there's plenty of food.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, people living in industrialized societies eat, in general, too much food.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the science shows that over time we pay a price for that.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, being overweight isn't good for your longevity, not least of all because it's just more wear and tear on your knees and your joints, and that adds up over years.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also tied to all kinds of health risks.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: For example, a 2009 study at the University of Oxford found that moderate obesity reduces life expectancy by about three years, and severe obesity can shorten a person's life by 10 years.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's a loss comparable to a life of smoking.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: But even if you're not overweight, in general, we should eat smaller meals and eat more slowly.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: This can lengthen your life.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I try to hold to this, but I am not perfect.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Eating a bit less and more slowly helps us to get more out of the food we're eating and works our organs less, and that's more healthy for us over time.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the science is strong on this.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Slower eating leads to higher levels of hormones that tell your body you are full.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with eating too fast is that your body's fullness signals take roughly 20 minutes to register.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So fast eaters constantly overshoot before the feedback arrives and you're working your body just more than you need to.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have an issue that I just hate to waste food.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also just a perfectionist in me.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to finish whatever was given to me on my plate.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're continuing to eat when you're not still hungry and it's just because you don't want to waste some food on your plate, what you're really doing is throwing that food away anyway, but you're just throwing it away through your body, if that makes sense.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Portion sizes at a restaurant are arbitrary and they're not made custom for you.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: No one looked at your weight when you walked in and asked you about your average daily activity and caloric intake, and then said, okay, here's the right amount of food for you to eat right now.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: You just sit down and you order and they bring you a plate of food, and they usually try to put enough to be sure you won't be hungry when you're done.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they err on the side of too much food, especially in the United States.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to listen to your body while you're eating.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Slow down, like we said, and let your body tell you when you've actually had enough food.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if your body is saying you're good, but there's still a bit more food on your plate, just don't eat it.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Take it home if you want.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: But don't use your body as a trash can to push through food you don't actually need.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're harming yourself.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as for when you eat, that's important too.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: In 2023, Harvard researchers asked 16 overweight people to test two different meal schedules with identical diets, same food, same calories, same exercise.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: On one schedule, they finished eating six and a half hours before bed.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: On the other, the same meals were shifted four hours later, ending just two and a half hours before bed.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this showed what other studies have shown as well, that eating later before bed significantly increases hunger, decreases the number of calories burned, increases fat storage, and decreased fat breakdown, promoting fat growth.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Eating later in the evening for a lot of people can also make it harder to just get a good night's sleep.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if I'm up late working or just chilling, which I often am, sometimes I want a snack.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I keep healthier things in the house, like I grab some grapes or blueberries or something like that.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's better than raiding the fridge for a big amount of food right before you go to bed.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, lots of people now practice intermittent fasting.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: The most common and studied kind of intermittent fasting is called the 16-8 protocol, 16 colon 8.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So doing all your daily eating inside an eight-hour window and then fasting, so no more food, for the other 16 hours of the day.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: The proven benefits in controlled trials include reduced body mass index, lower LDL cholesterol, improved blood sugar control, reduced blood pressure, and reduced inflammation.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: That last one is really important to me.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And like any diet regimen, you don't have to be super rigid, right?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can do all your eating in a 10-hour period instead of eight or just don't do it every day, whatever works for you.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think intermittent fasting and occasional actual multi-day fasting with proper fluids is a good thing.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all this diet stuff doesn't mean never have any fun or never splurge.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I engage in occasional intermittent binging, if it's a celebration or whatever.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: But generally, I'm pretty good these days with portion control and not eating late at night.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, letting yourself get a bit hungry and not immediately eating, as long as you're not having wild swings in your blood sugar, can also be something that builds up your personal toughness.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It trains your spirit, just like that hard workout I talked about in the last episode in the gym does.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll leave it to you to decide what diet is right for you.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, I eat a plant-based diet, and that has worked really well for me for 40 years.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever you do, give some attention to what you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we've talked about my secret laws for longevity.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: In the last episode, we covered the injury is the enemy, maintain and regain where necessary flexibility, droid mobility.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked about exercise and stay fit and moving throughout your life.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And today we just talked about maintaining a good diet, knowing what, how much, and when to eat.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so now, number four, my final secret law, which is maintain the right attitude.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is sure, generally be a positive person with a good attitude, but also having an attitude that's positive and how it affects your life.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And for athletes, that starts with your ego.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mention ego here because, as I've said, injury is the enemy of your being able to have great longevity in any sport.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what often, especially in BJJ, can lead to injury is, you guessed it, ego.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna tap, or I'm not gonna let this person overpower me.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna ramp it up and match that guy head to head.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Ego can get you up in the morning, which is good.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: It can drive you, it can make you want to excel, but don't let your ego become your enemy.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Tapping early is always better than tapping late.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You won't remember the time you tapped early a year ago to save your knee, but you better believe me, you will remember the time you tapped late a year ago and then spent six months off the mat or in a knee brace or something like that.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, toughness helps you pass the tests, but wisdom helps you learn the lessons.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to your mental attitude, rule number one is tame your ego.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: You should check out episode 23 I did, which is all on ego.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And related to taming your ego, you also need to allow yourself to adapt to new realities and not hold on to things that just don't work for you anymore.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: As for what you do on the mat or in your sport, that means to be open-minded about how hard to train and sometimes give your ego a rest.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: As you age, you eventually will need to modify your training a bit.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you're not still tough as nails and can't bring it if you really want to, but it means you may not train as many times a week or as intensely each time you train.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the training smarter and not harder cliche, but it's real.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Be flexible in your mind and not just in your body.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And be willing to adapt how you approach your sport and work in a way that makes sense for where you are today, not how you were 10 or 20 years ago.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the first time I said no to training with someone during a BJJ class.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: We had a black belt in the academy who was a good 60 pounds bigger than me, on steroids and super aggressive.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was in my 40s.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody enjoyed training with this guy, but I always rolled with him and it would be a violent experience with him, always roughing me up.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in the end, I'd tap him out, but I'd go home feeling so bashed up and sore.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And finally one day he said, Hey, let's train.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as much as it hurt my pride and my ego, I just said, you know what?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, thank you.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was just too abusive for my body, and I had had enough.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was a moment of maturity, even though it was hard for me, because up until that time, I had literally never said no to training with anyone ever.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: My whole thing was, I will be the first on and the last off the mat and I will roll with anyone at any time.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you do have to do what you gotta do to protect yourself and having a war with some beast and catching elbows in the face, even if I knew I'd win, just didn't benefit me anymore.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you adapt as you get older, and this is true even in your 30s and 40s.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: You pick partners who are fun to train with and not overly aggressive.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: You take a bit more time to warm up.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And off the mat, you adapt your exercise routine to whatever might be going on in your body at any given time.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: You make a little more time for stretching or whatever you need.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: These are all small adaptations that start with your attitude and decisions you make that are not about your ego and proving anything to yourself, but about your wisdom and your longevity.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: You make some tweaks that help you not to remain as you were 10 or 20 or even 30 years ago as much as we want to, but to be the best version of yourself that you can be today.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: As my friend, author Dan Millman says, some people grin and bear it, others smile and change it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to adapt to whatever is right for you today.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: You also need to foster a youthful attitude.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said in part one of this episode, I said you should consciously move your body like a young person as you go through your day.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm saying let your mind be young.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Stay inquisitive, stay playful, even hang out with younger people if you can.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Move through the world with the mind of a younger person.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest, one thing that keeps me young in spirit is BJJ itself.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Stepping onto the mat with people, even adults who are half my age and younger.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: They are my family and they keep me young.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing Dan Milman says is being healthy is just living at the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Despite the cost of living, living long is still popular.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning we're all gonna die, but we want to slow that process down.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I'm about to say now is really important.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Consider that every moment that ticks by brings us closer to death.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Death is how everything fun, everything meaningful we want to do, how it all ends.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I talked way back in episode 13 about how the clock is ticking on the time you have left to live and how that realization can make your life more meaningful.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, you can extend your time on this planet, not just live longer, but extend the time that you're healthy and active so you live longer and you live better.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are going to die, but we can look at each choice we make as either speeding that up or slowing it down.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can look at every action in your life on that scale.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, is this speeding up my end of days or is this slowing it down?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where possible, we should do things to slow it down, or at least be very intentional about the other benefits we're getting from anything we're doing that's accelerating it and make sure it's worth the cost.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, sometimes you want to have a little fun, okay, but you're willing to pay the price.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: But let's be as healthy as we can for as long as we can.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I am not my 25-year-old self, but I'm doing all I can to be the best friggin' 64-year-old version of myself that I can be or that anyone can be.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the things I've said in this and the part one episode.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Remaining young in the body is a conscious action you have to take every day.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Use it or lose it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not your birthright to remain supple or healthy.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Youth is as youth does.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you do, don't act your age.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're as young as your spine is flexible, right?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: You need to take action each day, which requires you to create and nurture the daily rituals that support you being the person that you want to be for as long as you possibly can.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now you know the rules for longevity in the sport, my secret laws.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just lay down for you some parting wisdom.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Set in motion what I call a pull towards health.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is try to set up your life in ways that make it easy to take these good actions we've been talking about.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: They make it easy to exercise, easy to stretch, easy to eat right.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Create the environment in your life to make those things easy so they pull you to them, like a tide that's pulling you along.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: That might mean having some exercise equipment at home, right where it's easy for you to do.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or having a yoga class that you sign up for, be close to where you work so that gets your butt out the door and doing things you need to do on your way home or something like that.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or getting your partner or spouse to support you in exercising or support how you want to eat.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Keeping crappy food out of your house so it's just not there to tempt you, I think, is a good idea.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have candy or cakes or ice cream in my house.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm not very fun, but I do have those grapes and blueberries right there for when I want to snack.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: So setting things up in your life for a pull to health, it's all those things that make it easy to act in the ways that promote your health and your longevity.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: It means you don't always need to muster as much discipline to push yourself into doing the right thing.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So are there things in your life right now making it hard for you to eat right or to exercise the way you want or to stretch or just to have the right attitude?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And how can you re-jigger things so it's not so hard to do those things?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: But there's actually a pull making it easier to do them.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: One big way is habits.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: The effort to do anything goes down when it's a habit.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So start taking the right actions for your longevity, even just for a few weeks, and you'll start to build the habits.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And everything gets easier once you have the right habit.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And now a little more wisdom.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Every point is the point of no return.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is not that you can't regain lost flexibility or lost function or you can't ever be better than you were in the past.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not true.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what I mean is time is always moving forward.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can't rewind the clock of your life.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're always moving forward.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And everything you do is leading somewhere, and you need to make that somewhere be where you want to be headed.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't consciously steer towards where you want to be, you're going to deteriorate.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Time is going by no matter what, but every action you take leads to something, and every action you don't take leads to something too, right?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: So as much as you can, make everything you do lead to increased and sustained youthfulness.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And don't do the things that work against that.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Every decision you make each day counts.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And small actions taken again and again have big consequences over time.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is something I've learned the hard way.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Make those have good consequences and not bad ones.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: So to wrap it up, build the habits, habits protect you, and like an investment with interest that compounds, you'll get the big payoff in the years and decades to come.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: After all, your body today is becoming tomorrow's body every single day.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Build the body you want before it's too late.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's episode and part one also was helpful to you.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if you missed it, be sure to listen to the last episode, which is part one of my thoughts on longevity.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do let me know what you think.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Leave a comment on the YouTube video if you're watching on YouTube, and I will read it and I will reply.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're watching on YouTube, remember to subscribe and click the bell to get notified when new episodes drop.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks to my team, Robbie, Phil, Kyle, Angela, and to Ryan Peach Turner, my producer and chief editor, for your help.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: For more tips on injury prevention in BJJ specifically, check out episode 28.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be back next week with more lessons from the lab.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And until then, keep developing your strength, your wisdom, and go out and do good in the world.