2 Little Tips for Better Midlife Health

Hello friends, and welcome to Notes from the Road! This is the place for news, advice, tools, and inspiration to thrive in your 50s and beyond. In this issue:

In this issue:

• Tips from my journey to better health.

• Update from our first week in Edinburgh.

• How to flourish in retirement.

• Feeling stuck with a new empty nest.

• Paying attention to Social Security in your 50s.

Let’s get started!

In last week’s newsletter, I talked about a potential health condition I’m facing, and how my doctor suggested “bending the curve” on it by supercharging my approach to health. The goal is to outlive my condition—or get much older—before it impacts my quality of life.

My goals are to reduce weight and inflammation and increase strength and flexibility. Last week, I shared the hard truths of this for me. And since I left you last week with some tough love, I wanted to spend some time this week sharing the interesting and fun parts of this journey.

Disclaimers: 1. This is for entertainment purposes only, based on a sample of one. I’m not a doctor. Please consult yours before adopting any of my potentially harebrained ideas. 2. I receive no compensation for the products I mention below. (This is probably a mistake on my part). 🤣

My insights can be boiled down to five bullets. This week we’ll cover the first two.

• Plan

• Trust But Verify

• Learn

• Measure

• Commit

Plan—If you take one thing away from this newsletter, THIS should be it. Planning meals 2-3 days ahead (or more) is essential. If I don’t have this worked out, I’ll grab whatever is in front of me at the moment that I want to eat. I won’t eat very unhealthy things in this case, but I certainly won’t have a balanced diet for the day. And it definitely won’t be optimal.

One challenge: information overload. I miss the days of having a single cookbook or a couple of magazines. I get overwhelmed really quickly with the internet. So I’ve taken a step back in time and actually search recipes online, print out the ones that I like, and keep them in an actual folder! My retro approach keeps my head clear and limits decision fatigue. It’s kind of unbelievable how much this has helped. 🤣

I’m still sorting out the easiest way to document my plan and make a shopping list. If you have any suggestions, send them my way and I’ll share here!

Trust But Verify—If you’re looking for health guidance, you’ll find plenty of conflicting advice. In the last two weeks alone, I’ve come across research casting doubt on Vitamin D supplementation (here and here, and here). Also on fasting. And on protein, which we’re often urged to ingest in great quantities. But we still don’t seem to know much. But over 50 it’s more important (?) 🤷‍♀️

So here’s what I do:

• Moderation is my guide. This might not get me any dramatic progress. But I figure I run less of a risk of investing heavily in something that later proves to be a bad idea. So I don’t go “all in” on any one thing. I try to adopt proven good habits and hope the rest takes care of itself. So, generally: less sugar, more movement, more plants.

• I’m building data literacy. I don’t trust headlines, which usually grossly oversimplify research. I try to find 4-5 different takes on an issue to fully understand it. So I’m learning principles of good research design, sampling, confidence intervals, and data interpretation. This is a work in progress. Here’s a good intro. And I just found this newsletter.

Next week: Learn, Measure, and Commit! In the meantime, I’d love to hear any insights you’ve got on these topics.

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Edinburgh Week 1: Apartment, Food, Fitness, Transport

So we’ve been here a week in Edinburgh so far. Early March. Cold and rainy, but overall a great city to visit.

We’ve rented a one bedroom flat in the New Town, and it's much better than we had hoped for. We’re thrilled at how lovely this apartment is. We would never stay in a place this nice but it’s off season, and we wanted to get a place with a good functional kitchen so that we can save money by cooking most of our meals. Pics and more…

Weekly Roundup

Worth your time to watch, read, and listen.

🎧 Will You Flourish or Languish in Retirement? The years from 60 to 74 are peak years for flourishing, especially if you do five key things. (36 min. listen)

📰 Who Are You Once the Kids Are Gone? “It’s a little-discussed pitfall of the newly empty nest: In addition to missing their children, many parents report experiencing confusion and anxiety about their own lives. They feel stuck and unable to plan.” (4 min. read)

📰 Six Things You Need to Know About Social Security in Your 50s. This financial planner says that you should be thinking about Social Security about 10 years before you plan to collect. He explains why, and how. (6.5 min. read)

💡Have an idea for the newsletter? Let us know. 💡

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