Eating Less, Not More

Calorie Restriction

Calorie restriction, which is eating less than you normally do, can improve your vision and other health issues. Calorie restriction is a conscious effort to eating less, first by eliminating all junk foods that give you nothing but empty calories, making you fat. Then slowly focus on nutrients that benefit your health. You can slowly and gradually change your taste buds.

Studies have repeatedly shown that calorie restriction, which means eating less, or less frequently, have long-term benefits in animals with respect to extending their lifespan. That is, animals are given less food (about 40 to 50 reduction in calorie consumption). In humans, a 20 percent reduction (e.g. reducing from  2,000 calories to 1, 500 calories a day is doable) may benefit diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and nearly all age-related degenerative diseases, including vision loss.

Likewise, many eye disorders are due to aging; therefore, calorie restriction may hold the answer to many age-related eye issues.

You can accomplish calorie restriction by simply eating less gradually; such as, fasting once a week; eating twice a day, instead of three times a day; intermittent fasting, which is eating only after an 8-hour period of food abstinence.

Calorie restriction can effectively repair your DNA, increase your antioxidant defense system, lower your blood pressure and inflammation (the underlying cause of physical and joint pain), improve glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity. In addition, calorie restriction is instrumental in boosting your brain health. Don’t forget that your vision health is closely related to the neurons in your brain.

Stephen Lau     

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Importance of Body Image in Super-Aging

Body image

Body image has an important impact on how you feel about aging. There is a direct connection between body image and self-esteem: they reinforce each other. If you have a positive self-image, you will not only feel better about yourself, but also pay more attention to what is happening to your body and your appearance.

In the past, men were concerned about how their bodies functioned, and women were concerned about how they looked. Today, both sexes are concerned about both their looks and their bodies.

Remember, both the look and the body will change no matter what: they will not survive ravages of time and decades of changes despite all your efforts. However, preserve what you have for longer, and this is one of the objectives of this book.

Body weight

Your body weight determines your body shape, which defines your body image.

An ideal body weight is anti-aging. In fact, your body shape is a reflection of your overall health. Good weight management is important to remaining younger and healthier for longer. In fact, it is so important that Americans are spending billions of dollars every year just to keep them in better shape. Sadly, many are lost in this battle of the bulge.

Why fad diets don’t work

There are many fad diets, such as the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet, among others, touted to make you lose weight and help you solve your health problems.

Unfortunately, most fad diets don’t work; and they cannot make you lose weight—at least not permanently.

When you go on a diet—any diet, with no exception—your body’s metabolism immediately starts to react and to slow down. Initially, you body loses only water, not your weight. Your body learns to adjust to the reduced caloric intake—this is only basic human survival in response to starvation; in other words, your body simply burns fewer calories. So when you stop the diet or start eating again, your metabolism rate goes up again, but not necessarily back to its original level.

Worse, if you jump from one fad diet to another, your body's metabolism rate might become dysfunctional due to constant fluctuations, such that it would no longer burn fats efficiently. That explains why you might still gain weight even when you eat less than before.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Imperfections of Life

Imperfections of Life

Life is always imperfect, and living is always a bed of roses with some thorns. We are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. As such, the art of living involves the wisdom of knowing who you really are, and how things happen and work in your life. Without this profound understanding, you will forever be haunted by the awareness of the darker side of life.

The Bible calls the darker side of human nature “sin.” None of us is exempt from sin. Life is always an inner struggle between what is perceived in an individual’s moral system as “right” and the dark opposing force inside to do just the opposite. To make matters worse, most of us are really quite good at self-deception. Either we deceive ourselves into thinking that the dark opposing force does not exist in ourselves, or we simply inflate our own personal virtues to overshadow the dark force within us.

Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous Scottish novelist, calls this darker side of human nature the duality of man. In his famous story of “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” he presents Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as both having a dark side within them, where evil is lurking to surface anytime. Both of them hide their evil away, pretending it never exists. In the end, it turns out that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are actually one and the same person.

If the darker of life is deemed as something “evil” as depicted by Robert Louis Stevenson, it may immediately lead to self-denial and downright rejection. The darker side is ideally described as a “not-so-good” quality, or just human flaws and weaknesses that we see in others as well as in ourselves. Whatever the definition may be, the darker of life, ironically enough, makes life wholesome, without which life is incomplete and unreal—at best, a self-delusion. Human darkness is part and parcel of human existence. Denying its existence only leads to more pain, regret, and resignation. But understanding the dualistic human nature offers a way to return to wholeness, which is an important ingredient in the art of living well.

Get the blueprint of life and living to live your life as if everything is a miracle: The Book of Life and Living.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Thyroid Health for Super-Aging

Thyroid Health for Super-Aging

Super-aging requires a healthy thyroid to go along with it.

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in the neck that can cause chronic fatigue, anxiety and depression, cognitive dysfunction, weight problems, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and insomnia, among others—they are some of the symptoms of a thyroid disorder. 

Located above the Adam's apple, your thyroid produces thyroid hormone (TH), which regulates, among other things, your body's temperature, metabolism, and heartbeat. Things can start to go wrong when your thyroid is under- or over-active.

What causes your thyroid to go haywire? It could be genetics, an autoimmune attack, pregnancy, stress, nutritional deficiencies, or toxins in the environment, but experts aren't entirely sure. 

At least 30 million Americans have a thyroid disorder and half—15 million—are silent sufferers who are undiagnosed, according to The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Are you one of those?

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau