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Comment by Lyngbakr | Hacker News Reader

    > And the truth is, there is a lot a person can do to adjust or mitigate these things, through simple lifestyle changes like diet and exercise.

This is spot on. I'm 46 and I've been fortunate to be healthy and in decent shape my entire life; however, a check up that was fine but trending in the wrong direction prompted these lifestyle changes.

I lift run or lift daily, have reduced my carb intake significantly, stopped drinking, perform a short yoga routine each morning, and spend some time on the cushion each evening. I only wish I'd done this earlier because I feel so much better than I ever have.

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Why did you reduce your carb intake?

To lose weight. I was at the cusp of being overweight, so decide to get my BMI (an admittedly flawed, but still useful metric) firmly into the middle of the expected range rather than at the upper bound.

Say more about carb intake and cushion time. What % of calories?

I can't put a number on that, unfortunately. I don't do well with diets that require I keep track of all the details — it feels like a chore and I tend to give up — so I decided instead to adopt a simple rule of thumb: avoid carbs where possible. In practice, this means no breads, no pasta, no doughnuts, no sugary foods, etc. Instead, I eat more protein. This works well for me and I lost 15-20 lbs quite quickly and I now maintain a good weight. YMMV, though.

As for cushion time, my practice is very basic: just 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation each day (usually after working out). I feel calmer, less irritable, and more present in everyday life. It's not a panacea, but I find it helps me.

The counterpoint is that people will report that low carbs is bad for exercise. i also feel like low-carb is the only way I can easily lose weight and don't feel hungry all the time.

This is a good point. I certainly feel like I can lift more (weight and reps) when I've eaten more carbs. It's a bit of a balancing act to keep the weight off, but also have enough energy to exercise hard. To address this, after the initial weight loss I was less aggressive in avoiding carbs.

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