Disclaimer: I have a decidedly unamerican attitude towards health. As a general rule I refuse to take pills for headaches, I don’t take pills for allergies, and I eat food I drop on the floor (rule: if it’s on the floor in less time than it takes to eat it, it’s good, just rinse it off). Despite being over 30 I am not on any kind of prescription medicine.

I have a group plan through my work (waste of money), but I have not seen a doctor for five years now and I have not been ill for several years. It’s been more than 5 years since I was down for more than a day (a flu in 2003 or 2002). I believe in prevention. Not cure.

I don’t touch my face around sneezing people, but otherwise I don’t worry about germs. In fact I welcome them. I’d like my immune system to do some low intensity battles. It’s only when a large invasion overwhelms an untrained defense system that there’s trouble. Better spend on defense than continuous war.

I don’t smoke. I drink in moderation – three cups on the coffee maker = 1 cup of decaf on weekdays. Half a glass of red wine on occasion. Or a dark beer.

I commute 5 days a week on a bicycle. I go fast — amateur racing club fast, not professional fast. Also I take the bike out during lunch about twice a week to ride hills. I lift weights, clubbells and kettlebells, 2-3 times a week. In addition, I play competitive inline hockey 1-3 times a week. I have a resting pulse of around 44-48, 8% bodyfat, and a BMI of 22.7. I don’t pay for a gym membership, but I do pay an insane amount of money to play hockey, about $500 a year, so sue me 😛

I am on the warrior diet. I eat once a day. I have a ton of energy since I’m not digesting all the time. I am hungry for several hours up to dinner. There has been some speculation whether this systemic cell stress induces longevity effects. Rats allowed to gouge every other day (but otherwise not being fed) showed the same longevity as rats on the CRON diet — that is the diet that tends to double primate life span. I’m on a 24 hour cycle, not a 48 hour cycle though. Regardless of this the diet makes me quite insulin sensitive (a donut in the morning would put me to sleep unless I’m physically burning it off). I am as anti-diabetic as it gets.

I try to floss every day. Sometimes I conveniently forget it. I hate this, because forgetting increases my dentist bill.

We eat meat every other week (when DW cooks) otherwise we’re vegetarian when I cook. I cut away all visible fat. We don’t eat enough fish. We don’t eat enough innards either in my opinion. It would be a stretch to say that I eat 5 pieces of fruit a day. It’s more like 2-3 on average. (Some days 0-1, others 4-6). I should eat more fruit. We eat a lot of vegetables in the form of tomatoes, onions, lettuce, olives, sometimes carrots. We also eat an enormous amount of beans. Our food budget is about $150 in California dollars. There is not a lot of organic food there, but I’m not entirely convinced there should be more of it either.

Naturally this takes a lot of time and effort. It would probably be easier to just eat whatever I wanted when I wanted and work on getting really good health insurance, a really good doctor, and some really good drugs. However, all of the above have been worked into my routines, so it doesn’t feel like a drag in any way. Also, I hope the “savings” later on will be substantial. After all, health is worth more than money — at least when you’re sick.