Hi

My name is Aydın Ulusan and I have some suggestions on healthy eating, sports/activities and miscellaneous matters that will hopefully make you stop and think.

I am 75 years old and because I have practiced what I’m about to preach,

I have never continuously taken any medication,

I almost never get sick,

I weigh 75-77 kilograms (165-170 pounds) and

My body fat is 13 %.

I have never used glasses, I just chug from the bottle; just kidding, I mean

eye-glasses, of course.

If you want to get an approximation of your body fat, go to the following web site:

www.diyet.com.tr

Although my interest in these matters goes back 35-40 years, I have strayed many times, sometimes for 5 years or more.

HOW IT STARTED

It all started when I was a doctoral student at Michigan State University.

Leaving our mostly healthy eating habits in Istanbul and suddenly being introduced to pizza and Sarah Lee cakes, showed its results rather quickly and I went from 67 Kg. (147 lbs.) to 80 Kg. (176 lbs.) in a relatively short period of time.

It was the little dictator living with us (picture below), my beautiful little daughter Çiğdem, who put her foot down and demanded that I do something about my state of chubbiness.

She was also a back seat driver and would often say, “Slow down daddy, your going too fast, perched up in her car seat in the back.

The first thing I did, for the healthy eating part, was to buy a book that caught my attention:

It’s a book about juicing fruits and vegetables to cure whatever ails you. The one formula I still drink every morning is called “raw potassium broth” and, in order of volume, is the juice of carrots, celery, spinach and parsley. It has all you need accept protein. If you add a tablespoon of good fats to this, your body will absorb it better. I use, black cumin seed oil.

It must still be a popular book (I bought it in the early 70s) as it is still available in Amazon.

Sports/activity wise, Pukang Tang Sudo (North Korean Karate), running, yoga.

And, TM (Transcendental Meditation), after a 40-year break I started doing it again about 3 years ago.

I will summarize my current way of life and then get into the whys and the benefits.

1. Eating:

It’s basically a hunter-gatherer diet with a slight Mediterranean twist.

Meat, fish, fowl, eggs, good fats, lots of veggies and their juices, nuts, seeds, low GI fruits only in the morning, fermented vegetables and yogurt made from raw milk (best if home made).

This means: no grains, no legumes, no milk or milk products.

Don’t freak out and stop reading. If you do this 85-90 % of the time you will experience tremendous benefits; believe me.

For instance, if you are invited to dinner and they are serving pizza, be a gracious guest and eat it.

2. Intermittent Fasting:

Once or twice a week, only consume water, mineral water (both with lemon juice) and herbal teas from dinner the previous night to the current evening dinner.

3. Sports/Activities:

I do high intensity weight training 3-4 times a week.

Once and sometimes twice a week I do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). There are different ways of doing this, but I prefer warming up for 2 minutes, sprinting for 30 seconds (all out) and walking back to where I started in 90 seconds. Do this 8 times and then cool down for 2 minutes.

4. Serenity

I meditate, do puzzles, read a lot, try to learn new things and listen to relaxing/soothing music.

Before getting serious again, some notes about the present.

As can be seen, my little dictator has grown a bit

Coke never entered our refrigerator in East Lansing and Çiğdem wouldn’t eat the cake at birthday parties; she’d bring it home wrapped in napkins and throw it into the trash.

Although she seems to be on the right track, sort of, right now, for a while she was drinking coke even at breakfast.

She did give us these beautiful grand kids though and I’m so in awe of them.

My Hannah eats fairly healthy; I’ve never seen a kid who likes broccoli and sushi. My Henry, however, has a bit of a sweet tooth.

He was upset during one of our visits to Charleston and when asked why by his mom, he said:

“It’s Hannah’s birthday but Aydın’s here and he’s not going to let me eat any of the birthday cake”.