Nutrition.

OK, a little "click-baity," but hear me out.

Lifespan, healthspan, and playspan

Humans are living longer than ever before with the help of modern medicine, science, technology, and access to adequate nutrition. Although the human lifespan can now extend past the century mark, healthspan — the time spent in good health — is markedly shorter for the majority of Americans inflicted with diseases related to lifestyle and aging.

Overweight and obesity affect 7 out of 10 adults and drastically increase the risk of developing a chronic disease. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death. Other common conditions — diabetes, sarcopenia, and osteoporosis — all impair your ability to perform activities of daily living without assistance.

Your playspan — the ability to stay physically active and do the things you enjoy late into adulthood — takes a backseat when you're inflicted with a chronic disease. What if there was a way to mitigate functional, structural, and possibly cognitive decline during aging, allowing people to stay active and "play" as long as they're alive? Enter stage right: nutrition with intention.

If your intention is to be older next year, but not feel older next year, nutrition with intention is especially important.

Exercise sets the stage, but nutrition makes the movie

Exercise is the trigger that induces the desired outcome — strength, muscle, fat loss, performance. It's a catabolic process designed to stress muscle tissue and force adaptation. What goes into the body determines what happens next. Since nutrition is 100% anabolic, it's what makes the movie.

Good nutrition = good movie. Bad nutrition = not so good movie. Same nutrition = same movie.

Other keys to optimizing your playspan include:

• Adequate protein across your lifespan to support muscle tissue, stave off age-related sarcopenia, and maintain functional independence.
• Meeting daily requirements of the essential micronutrients across your lifespan, as established by the Dietary Reference Intakes (including the RDAs).

Protein — minimal vs. optimal

The current RDA for protein is 0.8 g/kg of body weight, or 0.36 g/lb. This minimum is arguably inadequate to prevent age-related decline in muscle, and should be higher for older individuals who are more likely to develop anabolic resistance.

A 2018 review of 49 trials by Morton demonstrated that protein supplementation — particularly whey — helps regular exercisers increase strength and lean body mass when compared to placebo over six weeks or longer. Benefits were seen with daily intakes of up to 1.62 g/kg (0.73 g/lb). Exercise is catabolic and increases tissue turnover, so active people benefit from more.

Protein supplements are not necessary, but they are helpful — especially before and after exercise. The wide array of essential amino acids in whey, including leucine (which turns on the muscle-building process), makes it ideal, convenient, and easily digestible.

Bottom line: consume at least 0.73 g/lb daily, or approximately 1 gram per pound of lean body mass. Higher amounts have been shown to benefit those seeking to maximize muscle gain and/or promote fat loss while in a calorie deficit.

Micronutrients — beyond the macros

Providing the right amount of each macronutrient has been a focus for fitness professionals, but micronutrient needs get far less attention — despite the fact that vitamins and minerals are essential for growth, development, health, and metabolism, and shortages are linked to obesity, heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis.

Americans continually fall short on key essential nutrients. For example, 73% of Americans do not meet their daily needs for calcium, and the number is even higher for vitamin D3 — both required for bone health. Osteoporosis often goes unnoticed until a fracture or fall.

A weight-loss diet exacerbates micronutrient insufficiencies. In a 2010 study by Calton, four popular diet plans each failed to provide sufficient amounts of 27 essential nutrients. A daily low-dose multivitamin and mineral is a commonsense solution to filling these gaps.

Summary

Set the stage with regular exercise, including resistance training. Then make a good movie:

• Act 1 — Consume ~1 gram of high-quality protein per pound of lean body mass daily, ideally split across the day. Protein supplements aren't required but are useful around workouts.
• Act 2 — Take a high-quality, low-dose daily multivitamin and mineral, womb to tomb, with ~20–22 micronutrients to reach the RDAs.
• Act 3 — Eat at least 8 oz of fatty fish (salmon, mackerel, herring) weekly for 500–600 mg of EPA + DHA. Supplement if needed.
• Act 4 — Consume at least three servings of calcium-rich foods daily (1,000–1,200 mg). Supplement to reach the target if needed.

Included with all HomeFitRVA programs is the same clinical-grade nutrition and health-tracking software used by Boston Children's Hospital, Stanford University, and The Galveston Diet — granular tracking of 84+ vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients, not just calories. Because there may really be some truth to the maxim: you are what you eat.