Health and Fitness

Eating By The Numbers For your next birthday, celebrate getting younger not older. If you eat healthy for 90 days straight, you’ll become a year younger. By eating nutrient-rich foods, you’ll strengthen your immune system and heart, and thus slow or reverse your body’s again process. In other words, even though your calendar age goes up and up, you can halt your biological age – or lower it. You’re as old as you eat. Check out how to peel off the years and avoid packing them on.





Make Yourself Younger…by 4.5 years
Eat oatmeal (about 1/3 cup when measured dry) every day and decrease your risk of a heart attack by 29 per cent. Oatmeal’s fibre lowers cholesterol and helps your body absorb nutrients.

…by 3.4 years
Eat 28 grams of nuts five nights a week before dinner. You’ll be less likely to gorge (the fat will sate your hunger), and an amino acid in nuts may help your heart pump blood.

…by 1.2 years
Eat 10 tablespoons of tomato paste or sauce a week. It’s rich in lycopene, which may reduce cancer risk and slow wear and tear on the arteries.
Avoid Aging Yourself… by 5.5 years
If you eat sweets, you could be on your way to gray. Sugar speeds up aging because it raises blood-sugar levels, which harms arteries. Although research isn’t clear on how much sugar will age you, for now, pass on packaged baked goods, which are often sugar-loaded.
…by 8.9 years
Trans fats, found in hydrogenated oils and in foods like French fries, are worse for your arteries than even saturated fat. They encourage your body to accumulate bad cholesterol. Eating just 20 grams of trans fats a day can increase your “real age” by almost nine years. And that’s not much, a cream doughnut has 75 grams of trans fats, about four days’ worth; a small bag of crisps has 13 grams.
Why Popular Protein Diets Make You Old
The Protein Power diet adds 3.8 years to your age, while the Atkins plan tracks on 5.7 years. That’s because about half of these diets’ calories come from fat, which harms your heart. You also lose out on fibre, calcium and folate. To make these plans healthier, switch from red meat to fish and load up on colourful veggies.