Blue zone researcher reveals how to eat right in 2024

health

by Adriana Diaz

New year, new zone — the Blue Zone.

A leading expert from the Blue Zones (a worldwide community known for healthy lifestyles and longevity) shares how to finally keep your New Year's resolution to eat right.

Dan Buettner, who coined the term “Blue Zones,” traveled the world for nearly 20 years to learn the secrets to living a long and cheerful life. He considered Japan, Okinawa, Sardinia, Italy, Nicoya, Costa Rica, Ikaria, Greece, and Loma Linda, California, to be blue zones because of their large numbers of people living over 100 years old.

To live a longer, healthier, and happier life, Buettner suggests ditching unsustainable, restrictive diets and finding healthy ones you actually enjoy.

“Instead of deciding, 'I'm going on a diet to lose weight,' that will never work,” Buettner says. told Business Insider this week.“Spend one Sunday in January cooking healthy meals with your family.”

This health expert claims that a key factor in achieving lasting results when starting a new diet is to enjoy what you eat and feel satisfied rather than restricted to healthy choices. Masu.

He also said that consistently scheduling enough time to accomplish your goals will make them more realistic.

“Every Sunday for a month, make three recipes that sound delicious to you,” Buettner recommended.

“At the end of the month, you will have accomplished three things: the skill to cook 12 meals,” he explained. “Because you've cooked it before, you know you have the hardware to cook it. Give it a try.”

The researchers also shared that, like many blue zone diets, the diet should be plant-based and centered around whole foods.

But you don't need to memorize an entire cookbook's worth of recipes.

“If you can eat four or five meals of your favorite, whole food, plant-based meals, you're on your way to eating 100,” he said.

Buettner has long warned that the traditional American diet is harming people's health and even pushing back the Blue Zones.

“They're all being eroded,” he said. told Salon last fall. “Honestly, I think they'll all be gone within a generation. As soon as the standard American diet goes in the front door, longevity goes out the back door.”

That's why he urges people to focus on maintaining a healthy, balanced diet rather than following fad diets or biohacking techniques.

“There are no short-term solutions when it comes to longevity,” Buettner told Business Insider. “You have to think about things that will be relevant in your life for a long time: good recipes and good friends.”