My Current Health Regimen

In order to outline the reasons for my principles concerning a healthy life (and so to partially give you guys at least some answers to your questions) I've decided to present it in black and white. By doing this, it's of course (and generously) open to debate respectively subject to change.

First, I'll have to make clear what I understand by 'healthy life' in general. One could possibly associate it with the absence of pain due to injuries and illnesses but at the same time with ascesis, boredom and unhappiness. His motto could be: "I don't want a healthy life, I rather want to enjoy mine since it's the only one I have!" Another one could define his 'healthy life' as a rather psychological state which is characterized by overall sensual enjoyment even if this can only be induced by sometimes doing some things considered to be quite unhealthy, i.e. dangerous or excessive. His motto could be: "I want a healthy life taken to mean having fun - I'm not going to restrict myself in order to stay psychologically healthy."
As you see, both perspectives somehow share the aim to not loose their joy of living but they still have a different attitude towards a healthy life, which is due to their different definitions. These definitions mirror how a healthy life must be achieved because they imply practical syllogisms (or hypothetical imperatives, as Kant would say). So this makes clear how important it is to separate these two things.

As far as I'm concerned, I share their aim, too. Since I am human, I'm definitely not up for a bad mood but (in order to bring in some naturalistic statements which are of course hugely oversimplified) rather for some boosts of endorphines, serotonine, dopamine and the like. But my definition of 'healthy life' is quite different. I'm of the opinion that you can stay (and even get more) psychologically satisfied even though you restrict yourself. And at this point I'm using the term 'restrict' coming from an external perspective that is adopted by many people. I never use it because my definition of a healthy life involves the decision for a pain-free body, for actions which support a harmonic functioning of the organism and therefore a balanced mind. Maybe such a life will add some more years to my expected lifespan, maybe not. If not, it's nevertheless highly probable that I'll be able to call my last years 'life' and not a lingering illness.

Aiming at a healthy life requires the elaboration of some orientation aids concerning different categories. In this post, I'm going to present three of them: diet, supplements and physical exercise. One superior principle of mine is: Stress your body in order to benefit from the overcompensation effect but not too much, and never regarding the supply of micronutrients.

One important principle concerning my diet is that I avoid food which is evidently harmful (and I base my knowledge on studies). I struggle with the term 'healthy food' because you simply can't categorize food products that way - there are always aspects which will support the intended biological answer of your body and those which will not or which will even be opposed to it. One example: Flavonoids, which can be found in food such as apples, grapes, chocolate, tea and so on indeed harm the body by inducing a cascade of defence mechanisms against xenobiotics. This is stress for the body in so far as metabolic processes running at a high level always involve the risk of a release of free radicals damaging cells and DNA (leading to cancer in the long run). But, looking at my superior principle, I will still eat/drink those things because of the overcompensation effect: These defence mechanisms will also ensure that other potentially carcinogenic substances will be identified as xenobiotic and so made harmless.
So, if there are always positive and negative aspects concerning food, does this mean that I eat everything that contains macronutrients? No, since I definitely avoid things where the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Well, you could butt in justifiably, so it's again all about restricting yourself!? It's not, I would answer, since there is no restriction if I do not even rudimentally crave for the things I do not eat, which is due to my knowledge I have about them. Instead, it's rather a decision for all these nourishments I can appreciate by personal feel and reason.

I have to be quite unscientific at this place and can only adumbrate the biological reasons for my principles. If someone is interested, please feel free to ask for further information and I will deliver in addition references, studies and the more complex scientific background.

• If I eat grains, I always use the whole corn. If I use meal, which is rather seldom, I grind it in my own mill. Why? First, because I want to benefit from the huge amount of vitamins and minerals which can only be found in the whole grain. If you look at meal 'type 405', there is a loss of e.g. 84% of iron, 52% of magnesium, 100% of vitamin a and e compared to whole-wheat meal! (As I said I don't want to stress my body concerning the supply of micronutrients because there is no overcompensation effect). Second, because of the positive effect on insulin levels (it's rather kept on a constantly low level, not causing an insulin spike). Lower insulin levels are correlated with improved memory and cognitive function. Whole-grain meal also contains fat of course (because of the vitamin-rich germ bud) and so I would never buy it in food stores but use it directly after grinding in order prevent that it turns rancid.
  
• I always store my fat and oils in the fridge. I use virgin coconut oil, ghee and red palm oil for cooking only. As regards taste, I use butter, olive oil and sometimes walnut or linseed oil which I pour over my prepared meal (as a dressing or purely). Why? First, coconut oil and red palm oil contain mostly saturated fatty acids which won't turn into harmful trans fatty acids when heated (like the unsaturated in sunflower, canola, olive, walnut and linseed oil for example would do). They are correlated with illnesses such as coronary heart diseases, Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, liver dysfunction and infertility in women. Second, coconut oil and red palm oil contain medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) which are highly digestable and have several positive effects on the body. Palm oil also contains a high amount of vitamin e, an important antioxidant preventing cell damage.
  
• I do eat fruit, but not too much, since too much fructose is considered to be bad for the liver and therefore your triglycerides. It also forms AGEs (advanced glycation end products, substances which cause age- and diabetes-related chronic inflammatory diseases). For example, I eat one to two apples and some berries a day.
  
• For the same reason (AGEs) and because of PAKs, amines and aldehyds, I almost never grill or fry food. I could reduce the damaging effects of such methods, which produce food that is popularly said to be tasteful, by adding Mediterranean herbs such as basil, rosemary, thyme and oregano, but I still would not use those methods often since my stomach has not been too confident with such food since childhood.
  
• As I have already posted, I eat (and drink) many, many different ingredients a day. Variety is my motto for health and great taste.
  
• I'm no raw-food-freak and cook food if possible (no damageable fatty acids or vitamins for example) because I want to benefit from the helping hand of the heat, which can macerate the contents my body needs (for example lycopene, beta-carotene etc.), and there's even the advice by ayurvedic or Chinese diets that warm meals will feed you energy. But I sometimes like the taste of raw things and so I don't say no to all the numerous raw food specialities.
  
• As for supplements, I take ginkgo biloba, sometimes spirulina with added calcium, and sometimes a general vitamin/mineral supplement (but not permanently), whenever I'm very active physically.
  
• Physical exercise consists in running and doing strength training every second day in turns. It's the nourishment for my mood and my natural antidepressant (due to endorphines and probably also because of neurotrophic factors such as BDNF which support the growth of new neurons)! And I also do it in order to prevent osteoporosis. There's also some research running concerning the beneficial effects of so called *German* Myokines (by Bente Pedersen) produced by muscles.
  

This list is going to be continued. :) But feel free to comment.