Hey,

It's time for another instalment of the Vitamin––the weekly fitness newsletter that helps you be healthier, stronger, and leaner while navigating fitness bullshit.

The stuff that *actually* matters

The wellness industry wants you to believe you have to optimise every iota of your life to be healthy, and it’s bullshit. In reality, if you do the following, you’re ticking almost all the boxes for being fit and healthy.

Body composition

Body composition – i.e. muscle and body fat – have a pretty strong correlation with increasing or decreasing the risk of all-cause mortality and overall health. For example, excess body fat is linked with increased mortality risk, while this risk decreases as fat-free mass increases. [1]

When most people hear this, they assume they need to be super shredded. But you might be surprised to learn that the risk associated with body fat tapers off at levels much higher than most people would assume. Jayedi and colleagues found the lowest mortality risk was observed at a BF% of 22% for men and 35% for women. [2]

Obviously, if you want to get leaner because that’s something you want to do–great. But from a health perspective, leaner doesn’t necessarily mean better.

As for muscle mass––skeletal muscle is an independent marker of metabolic health, and low muscle mass and strength are linked to an increased risk of metabolic disease. [3] And let’s not forget lifting weights can help stave off sarcopenia (age-related loss of muscle mass, quality, and function) and osteopenia (when grandpa fucks around and breaks his hip because he tried being a hero opening a jar of whatever the fuck).

Avoid being too sedentary

I don’t think I need to explain the benefits of regular movement and physical activity to readers of this newsletter. But to contextualise just how detrimental being too sedentary is – being sedentary for 10 hours per day is associated with a 48% increase in the risk of death. When sedentary time increases to 12 hours per day, the risk increases to a whopping 192%. On the other hand, 60 mins of physical activity (regardless of intensity) is associated with a ~50% reduction in the risk of death. [4]

How you do this is up to you. You can do ‘formal’ cardio if you enjoy it, play a sport, or go outside for a walk.

Yeah, I know ‘zone 2’ cardio is having its 15 minutes of fame. But the intensity matters far less than getting enough movement each day. For example, a recent study found that increasing physical activity, measured by time spent doing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (what zone 2 would fall under) or step counts, was associated with lower risks of death and cardiovascular disease. [5]

As for step count, based on the most recent review on the topic, anywhere between 7,000 and 9,000 steps/day seems to be the optimal dose for reducing mortality risk (though there are slight benefits to doing more). The same study found that each additional 1,000 steps/day was associated with a 9% reduction in all-cause mortality risk. So even a little bit is better than nothing.

Eat fairly healthy most of the time

While I won’t go as far as to say “food is medicine,” there is a strong association between diet quality and lower mortality risk from all causes, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. This association may be due to healthier diets lowering inflammation, reducing oxidative stress, and providing antioxidants from fruits and vegetables, neutralising harmful substances and protecting cells from damage. [6] [7]

From a body composition perspective, a healthier diet can help you manage hunger and reduce calorie intake, decreasing the likelihood of gaining excess body fat (see point 1).

While I tend to stay away from giving concrete guidelines on this stuff, some good guidelines would be:

• Aim for around 0.7g/lb of protein (though this can be slightly lower or higher depending on your personal situation – more on that here).
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• Try to eat 400g of combined fruit and vegetables every day since this is where the risk of all-cause mortality plateaus. [8]
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• Most of your diet should contain minimally processed, nutrient-rich foods like whole grains, legumes and healthy fats like olive oil and nuts—the stuff you know you should eat.
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• (Try to) Keep added sugars <10% of total caloric intake. However, this is less of a concern if you're physically active and maintaining a healthy body fat % (just be sensible).
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• Aim for 250 mg of combined EPA and DHA (i.e. fish oil)
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• Set fiber intake to around 14g/1000 kcal. So, at 2000 calories, you’d aim for 28g. However, everyone’s a little different, so you might need to experiment to find your sweet spot. For example, if you crank up your fiber intake and suddenly find yourself bloated, constipated, and producing enough gas to power a small city, it’s probably time to dial it back a bit.
  ​
• Once the above is in order, you can set carbs and fats per your preference or not worry about them.

Limit how much alcohol you consume

There’s a popular belief that low levels of alcohol intake provide protective effects against the risk of all-cause mortality. I hate being that guy (I don't–I love it), but this doesn’t seem true.

A recent review involving more than 4.8 million people and ~425,000 deaths found that, when all biases and potential confounders were accounted for, low levels of alcohol consumption (<25g/day) didn’t provide protection against the risk of dying from any cause (compared to lifetime nondrinkers). [9]

And the risk increased as alcohol intake exceeded this amount. According to their analysis, women who drank more than 25g of alcohol per day and men who drank more than 45g of alcohol per day had a higher risk of mortality compared to those drinking less than these amounts.

For example, men who drank 45-<65g of alcohol per day had a 22% increase in risk compared to men who drank 1.3 to <25g per day. This increased to ~43% when alcohol intake increased to ≥65 g/day.

Conversely, women who drank 25 to <45g of alcohol per day had a 22% increase in risk compared to women drinking 1.30 to <25g of alcohol per day. The risk increased to 35% when women increased their alcohol intake to 45 to <65g of alcohol/day.

Just to be clear, I’m not telling you what you should do. But, if we’re going to talk about health, you should be informed about the risks associated with drinking alcohol. (Related.)

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Other than the above, find healthy ways to deal with stress, drink more water (duh), and if you’re not a parent but spend your time before bed doom scrolling, put the phone down and go the fuck to sleep.

Most importantly, ignore anyone who makes it any more complicated than this because there’s a very good chance they’re trying to sell you bullshit.

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•••

–Aa

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