Are you looking for ways to get healthy and peel the years offyour body? Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen are back with the ultimateanti-aging checklist. Don't wait until you're falling apart--changethe way you look at life and start your path to better healthtoday!
Barbara is 60, but her body is much younger. After 22 years ofyoga, regular belly-dancing classes and her passion for reading andwriting, Dr. Roizen says Barbara's "real age" is 48.
Sandra is 63, but her "real age" is just 50. Dr. Roizen says thatthrough meditation, plenty of sleep, a balanced diet and makingtime for her passion of riding horses, Sandra has shaved 13 yearsoff her calendar age. Finding that passion in your life is hugelyimportant in staying young, Dr. Roizen says. "It's about an 8-yeareffect," he says. "It's a major factor."
Unlike Barbara and Sandra, Laura is not living a healthy lifestyle.She smokes, doesn't exercise and doesn't deal well with her stress.She is 44, but her "real age" is 60. "Temporarily," Dr. Roizensays. "You can still get younger--that's the good news."
The first step is to make the changes on this checklist. "Thethings we'll show here, just in the right amounts, can take adramatic amount of aging off of you," Dr. Oz says.
Your change to a newer, healthier life starts in yourrefrigerator. The first thing you need in there is plenty of foodsrich in antioxidants.
But what are antioxidants? Why are they so good foranti-aging?
To explain, Dr. Oz compares apples to apples--one half of thisapple was sprinkled with lemon juice and the other was not. Whilethe lemony half remains new and crisp-looking, the untreated halfbecomes brown and shriveled because of exposure to oxygen, alsocalled oxidation. "The same thing happens to our skin, to ourheart, to our eyes," Dr. Oz says. "All of our bodies need to havethe antioxidants."
As their name implies, antioxidants do to your body what the lemonjuice does to an apple--help prevent the damage caused by oxygenexposure.
While lemons do have some anti-aging benefits--similar toonions--Dr. Oz says there are several foods that are much morepotent.
Dr. Oz says one of his favorite anti-aging foods areblueberries. You can tell blueberries are chockfull of antioxidantsbecause of their dark color. "All foods with dark colors in themhave some of these really protecting antioxidant chemicals inthem," he says. "Blueberries lead the charge."
Other good anti-aging foods include sweet potatoes, broccoli andtomatoes. "[When eating] tomatoes, heat them up a little bit andput a little oil in them. It makes it easier to absorb thelycopene," Dr. Oz says. "Lycopene is another antioxidant, but ithas additional benefits as well, which are particularly valuablefor the heart."
While he's mentioned many of these antioxidant-rich foods before,Dr. Oz is ready to introduce a new entry to his hall of fame--theacai, a small fruit from South American rainforests that is oftenfound in the United States in juice. "It has twice the antioxidantcontent as a blueberry, so it's a wonderful alternative," Dr. Ozsays. "Look at the food label and make sure they don't have toomany carbohydrates in there. It's available in all major storesnow. It's just sort of breaking through."
Dr. Oz says you should eat about five servings of antioxidant-richfoods a day.
While Americans' number one source of antioxidants is fromcoffee, Dr. Oz says there are better hot beverages out there, likegreen tea.
Another great tea option is white tea. "It's not new--it's veryold--and [has] been used for centuries for healing purposes."
White tea is from the same plant as green tea, but it's produced ina different way. While green tea is made of leaves dried to thepoint where the tea will be dark in color, white tea is made froman immature plant bud that isn't dried at all. Instead of steepingthe leaves, white tea is steamed. Dr. Oz says the potential formedicinal benefits of white tea--beyond a very small amount ofcaffeine as compared with other kinds of tea and coffee--comes fromthis lack of drying.
Dr. Oz says you should drink about four cups of green tea aday.
One of the most talked about pieces of dietary news to arise inrecent years is that red wine is good for your health. Dr. Oz sayspart of the reason is the alcohol and part is resveratrol, apowerful antioxidant that comes from the skins of grapes. Vintnersadd the grape skins back to make red wine, but they don't do thesame process for white wine--so white wine has no resveratrolbenefit.
"Resveratrol does one other thing," Dr. Oz says. "It turns on asystem in your body that prevents your cells from aging. Now thinkabout it. Where do they grow these grapes? On trees on hillsides,right? It's not a very hospitable environment. So those grapes aresending a signal to us that life might not be so good, so why notturn on that cellular chemistry that you have that allows you tolive longer and better? That's why we think this has abenefit."
If you don't want the alcohol, Dr. Oz says you can get someresveratrol from Concord grape juice or other dark grape juices,
Of course, moderation is the key when drinking to your health. Dr.Oz says most people should drink about one glass of red wine a day,though some men can drink slightly more because males metabolizealcohol more effectively than females.
Did you know your spice rack is full of anti-aging secrets? Dr.Oz says research shows that cinnamon can decrease blood sugarlevels and lower cholesterol, especially in people with type-2diabetes.
Arthritis sufferers may also find relief in tumeric, a spice foundin curry that has also been reported to help prevent Alzheimer'sdisease, he says.
Paprika and cayenne pepper can help fight high blood pressure andimprove circulation, he says.
In lab studies, Dr. Oz says, eating rosemary has been shown toimprove learning rates in rats--data that has been reproduced inhumans.
Even ginger can decrease blood pressure, alleviate arthritis painand reduce your risk of cancer. One way to get your daily ginger isfrom Dr. Oz's "green drink."
Though fresh spices are usually best, Dr. Oz says they can stillfight aging if they're dried.
As Dr. Oz has said before, one key to staying young is to keepyour intestines healthy and bowels regular. This takes plenty offiber--about 25 grams a day. That's about two and a half times morethan the average American eats a day. Fiber works by keeping allthe nutrients you eat in your intestines and releases them asneeded. So how can you increase your intake? Eat more fruits,vegetables and foods rich in whole grains.
Dr. Oz and Oprah both love steel-cut oatmeal, which takes a bitlonger--10 to 20 minutes--to make than regular oatmeal. "The longerit takes the oatmeal, the more the fiber," Dr. Oz says. "So bepatient with it. It doesn't take that long."
Some other good fiber-rich options include beans, brown rice andwhole grain pasta. When you're in the bread aisle at the grocerystore, here's one thing to keep in mind to maximize your family'shealth. "Remember, you don't want it to say 'mixed grain,' 'greatgrain,' 'the best for you grain.' It's got to say '100 percentwhole grain.' If it doesn't say 100 percent, it's not."
If you are trying to increase the fiber in your diet, you mightwant to consider steadily building up your intake rather thanquickly ramping it up--otherwise, you could find yourself runningfor the bathroom.
"You can't go from the average in America of 10 to 12 grams offiber to the 25 grams that a woman needs or the 35 that a maleneeds just like that. It's just too much all at once," Dr. Oz says."Remember there are more bacteria in your intestines than there arecells in your body, so there are a lot of guys in there, andthey're just trying to metabolize the food. So you give them a lotof fiber all at once, they're going to make a lot of gas out ofit."
One intestinally gentle way to increase your fiber is by addingpsyllium husks to your food. "If you're having a lot of foods likebeans, you can add just a little built of a teaspoon of somethingcalled Beano. There are other products like it, but they provideenzymes--natural enzymes--that help your body get rid of some ofthe gaseous elements."
Another way to offset the gaseous side effects of a dramaticincrease in fiber, Dr. Oz says, is by eating a Peruvian whole grainseed called chia--which is the same grain used to make ChiaPets--though you obviously shouldn't eat a Chia Pet.
Chia is as chockfull of fiber as other whole grains, but it packsin even more vitamins. "Remember that broccoli I had before? [Oneof these cupcakes] has more magnesium than about 10 of those headsof broccoli, and it's got as much calcium in it as a couple cups ofmilk," Dr. Oz says. "It adds one other thing, too, by the way. It'svery rich in the next big category, which are omega-3 fattyacids."
Another way to stay young that has gotten plenty of mediaattention lately is omega-3 fatty acids. If you're relying on flaxseed for your omega-3s, Dr. Oz says you most likely need to roastor grind the seeds to release the oils. If you just eat them, you'dneed to really chew them with your teeth, which is difficult to do.Other good sources include walnuts and hemp seeds.
One of the most widely reported sources of omega-3s is salmon. Butrecently many concerns have been raised about eatingsalmon--whether the fish is wild or farm-raised, worries aboutglobal sustainability, overfishing and rising mercury levels. Thebest way to get around these issues, Dr. Oz says, is to get to thesource and eat what the salmon eat--spirolina algae, which hasvaluable DHA omega-3s. "We can avoid the issues of sustainabilitybecause we can get a ton of it," he says. "You can grow algaepretty easily, and it's a much more efficient way of gettingit."
A crucial part of any well-rounded diet includes one or twotablesppons of olive oil a day in foods like salad dressing, Dr. Ozsays.
One thing to keep in mind about olive oil is that you shouldnotfry foods in it. "If you take a healthy fat and you fry it--if itreaches its smoking point--then you actually are oxidizing it," Dr.Oz says. "When you oxidize it, you actually damage the fats, so youlose a lot of the benefit."
Rather than putting the oil in the pan and heating it, a bettermethod is to put the food in the oil first and then add it to aheated pan. "That's a wonderful way of reducing the amount ofoxidation that occurs," he says.
Now that we're eating right, it's time to get moving, too! Dr.Oz wants to emphasize that the focus of exercising should be tolose inches from your waist, not pounds off the scale. "When youstart exercising and putting on muscle mass, you'll actuallyincrease your weight a tiny bit, but your waist size will go down,"he says. "You'll look better."
Maintaining weight as the years pass is a constant struggle, says45-year-old Angela. "Every year, I just seem to see the scale goingup and up with those years adding on. I'm exercising regularly. I'meating a well-balanced diet. I feel like I should be at leastmaintaining. Not adding. Now I found myself with 15, 20 pounds tolose, and it just won't budge. Do you have any suggestions?"
Dr. Oz thinks Angela's problem is that she is not pushing herselfhard enough. She needs to be working out at her target heart rate,which is 140.
The formula to find your ideal heart rate when exercising is 220minus your age multiplied by 0.80.
Angela hops onto an elliptical machine for a cardiovascular workoutat a level 6. Before long, she has already reached a heart rate of140. "The fact you got there so quickly is a little bit of concern,because you shouldn't be able to get to your ideal heart rate sofast," Dr. Oz says. "You should be in better shape than that." Toget in shape, Dr. Oz says Angela needs to work out at her targetheart rate for 20 minutes, three times a week.
In addition to cardiovascular exercise, Dr. Oz says it is alsoimportant to build muscle mass through strength training. "Muscleburns 50 times more calories than fat does," Dr. Oz says.
Dr. Oz's first strength training exercise is the lunge, a simpleexercise that is easy to do at home. "It's fundamentally importantbecause it builds your lower body and your thighs. You want tolunge forward, get your knee as close to the ground as you can.Don't let the right knee pass over your toe."
Dr. Oz also recommends leg lifts. "This will strengthen the sidemuscles of the belly. You can do this. You can do all kinds ofgames with this. But it does strengthen your coremuscles."
Strong core muscles will help you do pull-ups, another Dr.Oz-approved exercise. "The beauty of pull-ups is that when you'redoing them, you're actually exercising your upper body, your arms,your torso. In the beginning, you might not be able to do itwithout something holding you up. But if you need to, you can standon the ground and just keep going."
Dr. Oz says the combination of these exercises should be done threetimes a week.
After you're revved up from cardio and strength training, Dr. Ozsays to work on flexibility through yoga. Are you flexible enough?"Most Americans ought to be able to touch their fingertips to theirtoes," he says.
To start, Dr. Oz says to reach down to your toes. "So you leanover, relax yourself and let these hips sort of release," he says."All the energy goes away." Next, Dr. Oz says to go into the plankposition, followed by up dog, then down dog. Lastly, bring your legforward and come up into the warrior position. "And you can do theexact same thing for the other side," Dr. Oz says. "It's verysoothing, and that meditation is very powerful."
Dr. Oz says there is something you can do for five minutes everyday that can add years to your life--meditation. Just find a quietplace, even if it's the bathroom. "No one's going to bother youthere," he says. "You can get five minutes of solace, of peace andquiet."
To start your meditation, Dr. Oz says to say the word "yum,"drawing out the word out as you say it. "That vibration stimulatesyour sinuses to release nitric oxide, a very important gas thatrelaxes your lungs and relaxes your blood vessels," he says. "It'sone of the reasons we think meditation may be so effective."
Dr. Oz says there are other ways to practice meditate as well."Prayer is meditation," he says. "Just a few moments to yourself,not a lot, when no one can bother you to let it all slip away. Itallows you to reboot your engine and get back ontrack."
There is something lacking in the bedroom that Dr. Oz says isaging us at warp speed. "We're not sleeping. And sleeping is thefundamental way we reboot ourselves." Dr. Oz says the growthhormone, which is important for maintaining vitality and youthfulvigor, is almost impossible to increase naturally without sleep."Without the sleep that we know is so nourishing, we begin todramatically age faster. It strips years off of our realage."
Before bedtime, Dr. Oz says to clean up and remember to floss."Don't forget that. That will take two to five years off your 'realage' because of gingivitis and irritation of the gums that occursif you don't floss your teeth."
The next step is to relax. "When you get in the bed, turn thelights down, do something that's soothing. Turn off the TV, turnoff the computer. Don't do things that jazz you back up again, andyou will find yourself gently slipping into sleep."
In addition to lack of sleep, Dr. Oz says we're deprived ofsomething else in the bedroom-- sex. "The average American has sex58 times a year--so, once a week. If you double that, you reduceyour 'real age' by almost three years."
Dr. Oz says sex creates an increase in chemicals that keep usyoung. "When you have loving conjugal love with someone and youactually have that passionate moment, you not only exchange bodilychemicals, but you make chemicals within you," he says. "So womenget oxytocin increases, which give you that loving bond that youwant with the world around you and people around you. Men have anincrease in testosterone. Testosterone is what puts the moan inhormone. It sort of gets you going."
The last category on Dr. Oz's anti-aging checklist is vitamins.First up is vitamin D. "We estimate that over half of all Americansare deficient in vitamin D," Dr. Oz says.
Dr. Oz says 1,000 units of vitamin D a day will benefit the body ina variety of ways. "Vitamin D is critically important forpreventing cancer and critically important for reducing heartproblems. It's linked to multiple sclerosis, to juvenile diabetes.It's one of the best ways of reducing infection rates. It's got aton of things that it does for you to make your immune systemfunction the way you want it to function."
Your body naturally gets vitamin D through sunlight exposure, soDr. Oz says to get 10 minutes of direct sun exposure to your bodyor take a vitamin D supplement once a day.
Another important supplement to include with your daily vitaminsis calcium, but Dr. Oz says to always take it with magnesium. Ifyou don't, you may regret it. "A little constipation," hesays.
"You want to take calcium, but you've got to take it with magnesiumbecause if you don't take them together, the magnesium loosens yourpoop," he says. "The calcium makes it a little bit likeconcrete."
Dr. Oz says the next vitamin on his list is often forgotten: DHAomega-3. Typically, men are recommended to take 2 grams of fish oiland women 1 gram. Dr. Oz says a dose of DHA omega-3 is similar tofish oil but comes in a small pill form. "It comes from a sourcethat we know is pretty clean and doesn't give you theanti-coagulant problems that sometimes you run into with fish oil,so I think DHA omega 3s make a lot of sense," Dr. Oz says.
If you're over the age of 40, Dr. Oz recommends adding two babyaspirins to your daily regime. "We know it's very effective inreducing heart disease, very effective in reducing cancer. We thinkit might actually reduce wrinkles. There's a lot of things aspirinmight do that are beneficial to you not only because it thins yourblood, but it's a very powerful anti-inflammatory drug."
Just be sure to take two baby aspirin, not regular aspirin. "Aregular aspirin is 325 milligrams," Dr. Oz says. "Two babies is162. So it's half a regular aspirin. The more aspirin you take, themore chances you might have some intestinal discomfort."
Dr. Oz says taking a full multivitamin in one dose is likeover-filling your tank. "You want to give your body the rightamount of fuel for when you need it. Vitamins have water solubleelements to them so they are quickly moved through yoursystem."
If you're confused about which multivitamin is right for youdepending on your age and sex, Dr. Oz says to keep it simple."Everyone takes the basic same multivitamin with two smallexceptions," he says. "Pre-menopausal women should take amultivitamin with iron in it and 5,000 units of vitamin A. Men andpost-menopausal women can take a basic multivitamin with 2,500units of vitamin A."
When taking your daily vitamins, Dr. Oz says to make sure to getplenty of fluids. "Wash them down, especially the aspirin," hesays. "If you don't like taking the pills, you can get liquidvitamins. They work as well. Find something that agrees with youthat you can automatically make part of everyday life for you."
