Open Future Health Blog

Your habits when you are in your 40's and 50's are the foundation for your good health and fitness at 85. Improved diet is the low cost alternative to extensive medical intervention later in life. The body has the ability to heal itself, if we treat it with respect. ANYBODY who adopts a healthy diet, at ANY AGE, will benefit, and as the months go by, those benefits will multiply.

My Own Quick Health History

Here is my own 30 year journey (50yrs to 80yrs) in five short paragraphs.

Edit: April 2022

Thirty years ago, (1992) at fifty I was a marathon runner, but although I ran 130km a week, you can see I'm already in trouble because of my diet. I'm too fat to run really well. My weight; 72kg. Marathon time just over 3 hours. Almost everyone in middle age is suffering the same problem, but they don't know it. I was proud of my fitness, but I was already becoming sick, and I didn't know it. I should note now that I had already been operated on to tie off painful varicose veins in my legs 4 times.

I stopped running because of knee problems. But I continued to eat my "healthy low fat diet" and I got quite fat. By the time I was sixty I weighed 94kg. My waist measurement was 104cm. Males in my family die before they are 80, I was exactly on course for that.

I'm a teacher, I know the recommendation to lose weight, calories in v calories out, eat less and move more. Over the next 10 years (2002 to 2012) I successfully reduced my extreme weight, mainly by eating less bread. At seventy I weighed 83kg and my waist was 96cm. This was a struggle. At seventy two, I learned from Dr Tim Noakes, in an online video, how to control my weight. He recommended a Banting low carbohydrate, high fat diet. This made sense to me but I didn't act on it. There are no prizes for what you don't do.

Sadly I'm not the only one. When given this dietary information, almost everyone either rejects it or procrastinates, at a time for action they do NOTHING. They waste two years or more, putting off the need to do something. Eventually you will get really sick, as I did.

When I got sick. My immune system attacked me, and I developed a severe rash that lasted for most of a year. We called it hives. I searched for a cause. Changing my diet was the key thing I could do. After a long searching process I found better health. Then I stumbled back to Banting. I lost weight, and resolved several other minor health problems. I expect I've also added 10 years to my healthy life-span. Not perfect but much improved, except the low incidence of background hives. (Late update: I now think part of the hives problem was anxiety. Of course I deny being anxious. "Not me." But when I work on this website, the problem diminishes. So the unfinished business here, is apparently part of that problem.)

The varicose veins in my anckles also started to be troublesome again about 2010. My doctor warned me that I'd need to pay for private treatment in a year of two. Twelve years later my ankles are still fine (2022).

There's been a watch on my enlarged prostate since about 2012. Three biopsies; no cancer. A year ago (2021) I was unable to uriate properly, it was causing kidney problems too. Surgeons very successfully gave me a "rebore" so that normal urinary function has been restored. (Sounds awful, but not so bad really.)

I currently weigh 75kg, and my waist measurement is 92cm. I exercise, using an online app called "Fitify" that I've used for two years now (40 minutes most days). In the garage I have some weights, kettle bells and plates and a very basic bench. Not trying to lift anything very heavy, more looking to build strength with higher repetitions. I'm walking (8-10km), cycling (30km) and dancing (5 hours) each week. I've given away distance running in favour of trying to sprint. I use the 30-15 Intermittent Fitness Test developed in France by Dr Martin Buchheit. There is an 80 Metre straight line course painted on the footpath outside my home. I use it 2 or 3 times a week. Unlike my father and grandfather I fully expect to be alive and well at 90. Good health can vanish very quickly, emergencies occur. But the poor health most people suffer from was 20 or 30 years coming and can be avoided. Diet, Exercise, Sleep, Work and Social connection, are critical to health.

How to Begin Changing Your Life

First of all Explore the Open Future Health Website.

Our objective is a grand one. More years of healthy life. (10 to 12 years if you get this right.)

But it involves a long slow change; changing who you are now, AND who you are becoming.

To restore you to your best adult weight. To restore your ability to exercise in the process.

To help you to understand how that weight can be easily maintained, without hunger.

To make it possible for you to do difficult and strenuous things, and enjoy doing so.

To give you knowledge you can pass on to family members and friends.

If you really like what we are doing here, you might like to become part of the Open Future Health Team.

Please accept this invitation to join the Banting Lifestyle Forum on Facebook, so you can continue your own health journey. This is a free public discussion group. Where you can ask questions and get help from group members or the moderator's. Please use this link.

And also join the Facebook Group for Open Future Health website. This will help you keep up with changes in the Open Future Health Website. If you wish you can also engage in discussion there. Please use this link.

John Stephen Veitch