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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
I’m Paul von Zielbauer from Aging with Strength, with five ideas on how to think about how to become stronger about nutrition, to maximize your healthspan. I’m not here to recommend what or how to eat — because I’m not an nutritionist.
As a journalist, though, I ask nutritionists and people who experiment with food and athletics a lot of questions, and I’m continually tinkering with my own eating and energy routines to see what works best for me. And yet, not only am I not a food and nutrition expert, but I’ve also been known to obliterate a party-size bag of Pirate’s Booty or Cheetos at 9pm on a Wednesday. With alcohol.
Does that make me a bad person? Yes. But through failure I’ve also learned about how to think about how food and fasting affects my ability to age with strength.
So if you’re willing to hear me out on five principles forged in the fire of my own Frito-Lay hell and self-damnation, you might find some value, if not also camaraderie, that you can use to reduce your biological age (which I wrote about in September and will link to, in the transcript here) and become nutritionally stronger over time.
1 | Nutritional accountability. The first principle is sharing your eating and nutrition habits with people whose opinions you value. There’s strength in accountability, and that absolutely applies to what you put into your body.
2 | Eating habits. Are you willing to challenge some of the habits you’ve formed around how you eat and prepare food? If you are, then make a point of acknowledging that changing those habits will be a pain in the ass and will feel awkward. But also understand what is animating you to want to eat healthier foods, or conversely, what is keeping you away from them. I’ll mention some examples of each of those in a minute.
3 | Experimentation. What’s the one food or dish that you know you should add to your eating routine but for whatever reason, you haven’t — maybe because you don’t know how to prepare it; or think it won’t turn out well; or won’t taste that good; or is too trendy? For the hell of it, just once, buy it, make it, eat it. See what happens.
4 | For women over 50: Do you have a nutrition plan that will help manage the effects and impact of perimenopause and menopause? I may be out of my lane on this, but there’s plenty of evidence that food and diet can have a positive role in managing menopausal symptoms.
5 | For men over 50: Do you have nutrition goals — at all? — and are you still eating the same kinds of crap you ate 20, 30 years ago? A slowing metabolism demands eating-habit changes to avoid turning into a pear-shaped geezer who, when he dies, leaves a decade or more on the table. Real men know their way around a kitchen and meal plans. Which I say in semi-jest. But only semi.
Okay, so let’s go a little deeper into each of these five principles. And, by the way, if you’ve read my substack, you know that I continually urge people to question the nostrums that celebrity longevity “experts” endorse on social media and YouTube. Please treat this audiocast no differently and add a comment, question or challenge, whether friendly or hostile, to the bottom of the written transcript.
There is no level of derision or obloquy that can top my own after watching a gust of radioactive orange Cheetos flakes fall off my chest onto the floor on a late Wednesday night.
Food and nutrition accountability
Let’s talk about nutritional accountability. It means tapping into your existing communities and friendships to share what you’re putting into your body. I’ve found that making yourself accountable for what you eat to others really helps nudge you toward nutritional strength.
Sharing recipe videos, or just texting a photo of the dinner you prepared, is making a statement about yourself.
Making new eating habits
You can hardly make a bigger statement about your intention to age with strength than editing what foods you’re willing to consume. This is where the will to build new habits comes in.
Understand why better nutrition matters to you, really. And, conversely, examine what may be preventing you from creating better eating and drinking habits. Nutrition matters to me, for instance, because as an older father to a young daughter, staying strong, quick and capable for as long as possible means more time with her. What gets in my way are things like:
poor time management (to hit the grocery and prepare healthy meals, or have dinner before 7pm)
indulging cravings for shitty food
and feeling as if I need a drink, at 9pm, more than I need to wake up early — to write, stretch or think through the day
When I share these steps backwards with people I trust — which is the accountability principle — I’m more likely to come back just a little bit stronger. And that’s a cycle that I think can help me add years of vitality to my life.
Food experimentation
The third principle for aging with nutritional strength is a willingness to experiment trying ass-kicking superfoods that, for whatever reason, you’re biased against. I’ll give you an example: a few weeks ago, a vegetarian I know (because they’re everywhere here in California) offered to make baked acorn squash. I hate squash in all its forms…or so I thought. But I said, sure, bring it on and, wouldn’t you know it, baked acorn squash has a bajillion vitamins and minerals. It’s obnoxious how healthy these things are. Turns out I was wrong about all squash tasting like brined orange peel.
So now I eat acorn squash. This feels like victory to me.
Women over 50: Nutrition plans and menopause
Principle Four is about women in menopause or perimenopause, and the importance of nutrition and maintaining proper bone density. But, as you may suspect, I’m not a woman nor do I have a first-hand understanding of menopause. But I have many friends who are … well, nevermind.
What I have to say here is simply about having that intentionality I mentioned above about food and nutrition to address symptoms of menopause and, specifically, to promote stronger bones.
In the transcript, I’ve included a link to a Harvard Medical School post on the importance of maintaining proper bone density during menopause.1 Here’s one statistic from that post that stopped me cold: “Half of all women over 50 will fracture their hip, wrist, or spine during their lifetime, according to the National Institutes of Health.”
There’s a registered dietitian nutritionist I know, who is over 50 and regularly advises clients about menopause. Her name is Moran Hermesh, and she told me how she’s managing her own menopause:
“You can’t eat the crap anymore. Sugar, alcohol…anything that’s inflammatory. You feel it right away in puffiness, sleep quality. My focus is way more on nutrient-dense foods now,” she said. “Just a lot more vegetables and lean proteins. There’s just no room for high-sugar foods or things that turn into sugar – pasta, potatoes, white bread.”
Men over 50: Stop eating like its 1999
Men have other issues…so many issues. Too many of us continue eating like it’s 1999, as if our metabolisms aren’t downshifting toward obesity, a disease that a full 40 percent of American adults now have (compared to only 25 percent in 2000 and fewer than 15 percent in 1980).
It seems to me that winning nutrition, just like winning chess, marksmanship or political debate, depends on making adjustments as things change. The goal isn’t becoming a vegan or having shredded abs; it’s simply starting to read food labels, eating fewer ultra-processed foods and cutting back on red meat. To use a football metaphor, you’re not trying to win the game on the first drive; you’re just trying to get a couple first downs.
One move that had a surprisingly positive impact on my enthusiasm for cooking healthy was buying one high-quality pot or pan and putting it to use. I’m something of a gear head, and having a premium cooking tool made me want to rise to its level of quality, and that got me concentrating on better food, better nutrition.
Drinking less in 2025
My last point is about drinking. I’ve written an entire post on aging with alcohol, so I won’t repeat it here. What I will say is that drinking to drink no longer feels acceptable. When I do it, I plan to be mindful about how many and why. The bar needs to be raised — double meaning not intended — toward continually making healthier choices about what you put into your body. And then having the patience and self-forgiveness to accept the inevitable backsliding.
So, for greater nutritional strength in 2025, I think about getting to a place where most of my calories come from lean protein, healthy fats, leafy greens, colorful vegetables and only natural sugars. I think about taking fewer turns toward alcohol. I think about making months or years of incremental progress, on a road potholed with imperfections.
And then I think: Yes, to all that.
“After menopause, women tend to lose bone density quickly and are far more likely than men to develop bone-weakening osteoporosism,” the Harvard post said. “About three-quarters of all broken hips happen to women; that injury dramatically increases the odds of losing your independence and dying earlier. Additionally, half of all women over 50 will fracture their hip, wrist, or spine during their lifetime, according to the National Institutes of Health.”
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