HOW TO JOIN THE AGELESS GENERATION Expert advice

We can’t stop our body clock, but experts now agree that simple changes to de-age our diet, mind and body can help slow the process down, so we age brilliantly!

Eat younger

Here’s the simplest idea of all – cut your calories on a regular basis to live a longer, healthier life. Us-based gerontologist Dr Valter Longo, author of The Longevity Diet (Penguin) and director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, says that eating a low-calorie combination of healthy fats and carbs with minimal protein and sugar for five days straight a couple of times a year won’t just help your waistline, it can help prevent disease and even slow the ageing process.

There’s research on animals to show that cutting calories cuts their risk of disease and helps them live longer. Dr Longo says that his five-day Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) is designed to do just that. ‘Strict fasting is hard to do and can be dangerous, so we have developed this diet that triggers the same effects in the body.’

The plant-based diet involves eating 1,100 calories on day one (with around half from complex carbohydrates, and half from healthy fats and nuts) and then 800 calories on days two to five (with calories split half and half). It’s five days because Dr Longo says that’s how long the body needs to reprogramme. ‘Putting your body into full starvation mode is like giving it a spring clean. It gets rid of damaged cells and shifts your body into an abdominal fat burning mode, which continues after returning to a normal diet.’

Research on 100 people consuming a scientifically formulated version of FMD (soups, bars, drinks and snacks containing carbs, fats, proteins and nutrients designed to affect the expression of genes involved in ageing) found significant benefits. People followed the meal plan for five days a month for three months. As well as losing weight – mainly of the most dangerous type of abdominal/visceral fat – they also increased their relative muscle mass. At the same time, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood glucose levels, inflammatory factors (associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk) and IGF1 (associated with higher cancer risk) all decreased. The results were most marked in people with existing health problems or risk factors.

Good Housekeeping nutritionist Anita Bean has designed a five-day anti-ageing eating plan based on Dr Longo’s FMD. If you’re active and healthy, Dr Longo advises doing the diet twice a year, more often if you have a pre-existing medical condition, but only under medical supervision.