We can’t actually turn back the clock on getting older. But, we can use these simple anti-aging habits to feel younger, healthier and more energized.

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There’s a funny thing that happens sometime in your 40s, where you start thinking about the end game.

Not the movie. I’m talking about your life.

In your 20s and 30s, you’re still living off of the high of invincibility from your teens.

Living life to the fullest.

Being reckless with your behavior because you can shake off a hangover in a few hours with a gatorade and a greasy meal.

You can explore and experience and travel and everything still feels new and exciting as you break free from home and launch into your career and eventually a family.

But then things start to catch up to you in your 40s:

• There’s that weird popping noise your hip suddenly makes when you try to get up off the floor
• My beard is almost exclusively gray at this point now
• And recovering from a hangover is a week-long endeavor

When the shortness and finality of life sinks in, it can be quite the punch to the gut.

If we’re not careful, you can start doing some weird midlife-crisis call-for-attention style things.

It’s a reaction to the idea that we’ve reached halftime and maybe we haven’t had the best gameplan up until this point.

We want to slow down the clock. In some cases, we start searching for anti-aging routines and advice.

Here’s the deal:
If you’re alive and breathing, you are going to age. Hate to break it to you.

I have a goal of living until at least 90 years old

It just seems like an attainable number, while still being quite an impressive feat.

In order to get there, I’ve got to be on it with my health (and yes, I’ll likely need a little bit of luck to rub off on me, too).

Because the average life expectancy of men in the United States is just shy of 75 years, so I’ve got a lot of work to do (for women, it’s closer to 80 years).

We cannot turn the clock back on our aging.

But you know what we can do?

We can slow down the process a little bit.

How do we accomplish this feat without embarking on an Indiana Jones style quest to find the real Fountain of Youth?

I have some ideas.

We look to the populations that typically live longer and pull the actionable anti-aging habits from them.

Does it require a bunch of supplements? No.

Is it that weird interpretive dance from your favorite Instagram influencer? Nope.

Will this turn you into some immortal ferry-like God that never ages? Certainly not.

But, I can promise that implementing these anti-aging habits will lead to a healthier, more youthful you. If you follow them consistently and stay patient.

Let’s get into it.

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Anti-aging habits aren’t found in a bottle

Most people go down the supplement rabbit hole.

I get it.

We don’t want to look like a shriveled up prune like RFK Jr. in our 60s and beyond.

But that’s not all there is to the anti-aging game.

Looking great is amazing and a worthwhile goal.

But will it matter if you can’t move well enough to get off your couch without assistance?

Look, over 30-percent of adults ages 70 and up have trouble walking, taking the stairs or even getting up out of a couch or a chair.

Will vibes and aesthetics help you when you’re so unhealthy that you need a cocktail of meds to survive every day?

My goal is to use anti-aging habits to feel younger

I want to move better in my 70s and 80s than some men do in their 30s and 40s.

And like almost everything health-related, the answer comes from doing the 95-percent of simple anti-aging habits consistently well for a long time.

For example: When you want to get into shape, you don’t jump into 43 different supplements to lose weight and build muscle.

Instead, you start with the foundation and start with the 95-percent habits:

Eating a little healthier with more protein and plants

Increasing your movement every day with lots of walking

Adopting a more consistent strength training routine (like this minimal approach to resistance training)

Notice I did not say: Take this supplement and pray for the best!

Where supplements come into play is when you’re doing the 95-percent habits first, consistently well, and for a long time.

Here is a breakdown of a few dietary and natural supplements that might provide a bit of an anti-aging benefit.

When you want or need a bit more of an edge, then you can potentially explore various supplements if you’d like for that extra five-percent boost.

But, if you want to slow down aging, start by doing the 95-percent habits first.

These anti-aging habits provide the best bang for your buck

If you focus on these and only these consistently for the next 12 months (not weeks … months), you’ll go a long way towards turning back the clock on your energy, health and maybe even your appearance.

Start implementing one or more of each into your weekly routine.

As with any habit, start small and start slow with the goal of just being super consistent.

Carry that momentum and when you’re ready, you can add layers and complexity. But keep your anti-aging habit development as simple as possible to start.

Physical anti-aging habits

You should be able to chase your kids around the playground without feeling like your lungs are about to explode.

Getting up and down from the floor should not require a fork lift, or feel like you’re breaking your hip and back to do it.

You need to start consistently using your muscles with some form of resistance training.

Strength training

The closest thing to the fountain of youth that we really have today.

Benefits of strength or resistance training as we get older:

• Increased bone density and reduced risk of osteoporosis.
• Maintaining muscle mass and strength which can reduce the impact of sudden falls when you get older.
• Decreased impact of age-related loss of muscle mass and strength, which is called sarcopenia.
• Improved cognitive function.

You do not need to be a gym rat.

It doesn’t require hours in the gym (or any gym at all, actually) to satisfy the minimum effective dose.

But you do need to start training and utilizing your muscles regularly.

My minimalist approach to resistance training is a great way to get started earning some micro wins in the health category with just a few minutes per day.

Walking

Look at the Blue Zones, the populations of the world with the highest concentration of centenarians (people living beyond 100 years of age), and the common theme is that everyone walks.

A lot.

If you’re not doing so already, make it a daily habit to go for a walk.

It’s fantastic for mental clarity, digestion, calorie burning and a little bit of conditioning/strength is involved, too.

Go. For. A. Walk

Get better and more consistent high-quality rest

Sleep can be a tricky one.

As a dad of two young, high energy, early rising kids, I know first hand how difficult it can be to get nine or even seven to eight hours of sleep.

My son burst through my bedroom door this morning at about 3:15 a.m. ready to hit the potty and then go play and start his day.

And this is more common than I’d like right now. But it is what it is.

I simply cannot sleep any later than 6:30 a.m. most days.

There’s really no way to get more than about seven to eight hours of sleep per night in my household at the moment. So, I have to maximize what I can and stay as consistent as possible.

Do what you can, too.

Mental Anti-Aging Habits

Stress is a silent killer.

Read this piece if you want to stress out about the stress you currently have.

It’s up to you to find some mindful practices that will allow you to alleviate some of that stress and anxiety:

• Meditation
• Journaling
• Going for long walks to clear your mind

Hell even just closing your eyes for a few minutes to simply breathe can work. Set a reminder in your phone to take a beat every hour during your workday.

Then we’ve got to start working on feeling the feelings.

Emotional release

This is going to sound like one of those whoo-whoo things.

(I like to think of myself as whoo-adjacent.)

I’ve been in therapy for years for anxiety, trauma, grief and depression. And if I’ve learned anything from my therapy sessions it’s this:

Burying your feelings and never spending time with them is bad for your health.

Sometimes, you just need to sit with your emotions and explore them some more. Accept them. Without trying to eventually conquer, cure and then suppress them.

Oftentimes that’s the best path forward to actually learning to live with them, deal with them and recover from them (or at least learn to live with those emotions in a healthier way).

Do you have some resources in your life that allow you to process and feel things?

Grab a journal and write about your feelings.

Talk to a therapist if you have the means to do so.

Find a quiet spot in the park and soak up some sun and fresh air and just … be.

Bottling up your emotions is one surefire way to build up stress, anxiety and to fast-forward the clock on your health and life.

Learning how to deal with your emotions is one of the most underrated anti-aging habits you can adopt.

Lifestyle anti-aging habits

Get away from toxic relationships and make time to enjoy life with your family, friends, even those coworkers that you can mostly tolerate.

Commit to spending at least 15 minutes per day reconnecting with your network of loved ones.

Appreciate the beauty the world has to offer.

It can be great food, music, art, you can go visit a park or take a walk through nature.

Get away from the creative work you are paid to do and enjoy the work of other artists and creatives.

Doing so can unlock more inspiration and creativity for yourself.

But you can also adopt a few actionable anti-aging habits into your lifestyle:

Moisturize your damn face

Skin becomes drier with age as we start producing less natural oils.

This leads to a build up of wrinkles and then looking like a damn troll as you get older.

Solve this by starting to take care of your skin health.

Yes, fellas. This means you, too.

If you want to prevent looking like a shriveled up, brain-rotted prune like RFK Jr. before the age of 60, invest in a decent skin care routine that includes washing your face and adding a bit of moisturizer.

And please start using some damn SPF to prevent the risk of skin cancer and to avoid drying out your skin even more.

Learn to cook

Restaurant meals are loaded with things to make them taste good so you’ll give great word of mouth reviews and come back for more.

Great for your taste buds.

Not so awesome for your wallet or your waistline or overall long-term health.

My kids have a laundry list of food allergies and it makes dining out almost impossible.

As a result, I cook about six nights (sometimes even seven) per week.

And usually there needs to be at least two different meals so my kids can eat something allergen-friendly.

My point here is that I understand the time suck and stress of cooking.

And I’d love to enjoy the convenience of skipping a night to order in, or even go out to eat. But, I do not have that luxury.

I was forced to make this work out of necessity.

My solution: Create a healthy rotation of meals that I could turn to throughout the week that check my 3P boxes.

Each meal includes:

• Protein
• Plants (a vegetable and/or a fruit)
• And all are well-Portioned according to my balanced plate framework that you can get a deeper dive into here.

Start by finding a healthy recipe that you’d like to make for dinner. One that you’d be comfortable eating once per week for a while.

Here are a few of my favorite resources for healthy-ish cooking at home:

• MasonFit.com
• NomNomPaleo.com
• RunningInASkirt.com

Make it a few times and get good enough and efficient enough that you can start to make it without needing to cross-reference the recipe.

Then add another meal. And another.

I have about eight to 10 dinner options that I can now make in about 30 minutes or so. It saves time, money and calories throughout my week.

Being healthy in your 40s and up is the real flex.

Learning to cook is going to be an underrated, yet crucial tool in your anti-aging habit toolbox.

Break up with your mindless scrolling

I’m going to continue to shout this from the mountaintops: the phone is sucking away your time, your mental health and your life.

We all need to find a better balance.

Time to put the phone down for a while. We spend an average of 4.5 hours per day on our phones. That adds up to almost 12 years of your life devoted to a tiny screen.

My friend, there is so much more going on around you in this big, massive world of ours.

Put the phone away and experience it.

I’m not one of those “gooroos” preaching about turning your expensive phone into a paperweight. I think that’s silly. Instead, I devised a more practical way to cut back on my phone consumption.

We did spend over $1,000 for the thing after all.

But, at least commit to cutting back on your consumption going forward.

Aim to cut your usage by like 25-percent this month; with a longer-term goal of getting down to 50-percent less phone time over the next 12 weeks.

You’ll get so much more time, clarity and intention back in your day.

And your mental health will thank you.

Considering time is now a premium if you’re like me and in the midlife age range, the last thing I want to do is waste precious moments battling trolls on Elon Musk’s app.

Look and feel younger by acting younger

What the hell is the point of this journey on earth if we aren’t having a little bit of fun?

I know the shit around us feels like it’s collapsing and the news headlines are an endless suck of anxiety and existential dread, but you owe it to yourself to find the pockets of joy and fun in your life.

Laughter and fun is really the best anti-aging habit you can ever take on.

If you can achieve this one, you’ll be ahead of like 95-percent of other people (I made up that stat).

Starting today, make it a point to do something fun and enjoyable every single day.

Even if it’s just 15 minutes of your time (this has been shown to reap multiple benefits in your health and overall life fulfillment for adults).

Benefits include:

• Play for adults leads to more creative problem solving and adaptability in tough situations.
• It alleviates anxiety and depression and boosts mood.
• Play helps you focus on where you are in the present moment.
• You get into what’s called a Flow State: You are so wrapped up in the project or game you are focused on that nothing else really matters. Not even time.
• Play helps you reset your busy, perpetually exhausted adult mind.

Go do more fun things and rewind the clock on your aging body, health and mind.

Look, the only way to truly stop aging is to die.

Sorry.

But, now you know that you can kinda slow it down a bit.

Take on a few of those anti-aging habits this month and see if they help you feel a bit more youthful again.

Then stick with them for the rest of your life.

I hope you found this useful. If so, I’d appreciate it if you sent this newsletter to one person you think would benefit from my writing today.

And as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “anti-aging habits” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Until next time,
Pete