Hands down, lifestyle choices set the standard for your future health. Whether you’re a 9-year-old, a 20-30-something—or in your 50s-60s or even 70s, like me—the way you live your life today will be mirrored down the line. It’s all a matter of time and research backs it up.

Remember, lifestyle can trump genetics.

The American Heart Association created a list a while back of seven key steps for cardiovascular health. They estimate only 0.5% of the population are following all seven. The two most ignored? Diet and exercise.

In my book, The Life Plan, I reveal three secrets for healthy aging. In this issue and the next, we’re going to talk about two of them. These were the two key lifestyle changes that put my health journey on the map.

The first secret: Make sure that everything you put in your mouth helps you instead of hurts you. I go into this a lot more in my book, but here we’ll look at some recent studies concerning diet.

Eat (almost) like a Mediterranean. Studies suggest the Mediterranean Diet can reduce your risk of death from all causes (9%), cardiovascular disease (9%) and cancer (6%), and reduce the chance of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease (13%). I believe the diet’s emphasis on fruits, vegetables, legumes and high-quality proteins are what make it a healthy choice.

The problem with the Mediterranean Diet? It’s too tilted on the side of grains/ starches, which elevate blood sugar and insulin levels.

Instead, eat only small amounts of whole grains, and stay away from the high-glycemic carbs (starches/pastas/alcohol) which contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic

syndrome and a myriad of other problems.

Eat more fruits/veggies. A lot more! Results from a huge, long-term Oxford study suggest while five servings a day of fruits and vegetables may be good, eight servings is that much better. Participants who ate 8+ daily servings were 22% less likely to die of ischemic heart disease than ones who ate 3 or fewer daily servings.

Even if you’re not eating eight, every serving matters. Each daily serving past two resulted in a 4% reduction in heart disease risk.

Reduce your sugar intake. Per recent research at UCLA, metabolism of high levels of fructose (a primary component in processed sugars) increases the accumulation of triglycerides in the liver (hepatic steatosis), which disrupts glucose and lipid metabolism and increases the level of inflammatory proteins. The process is most severe in diabetic patients with poor glycemic control, which means if you have Type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome, even a little added sugar may be upping your cardiovascular risk.

Can the diet soda. You may think switching that sugary soda with a diet soda is more heart healthy, but research says otherwise. A recent Northern Manhattan study comparing soda/ diet soda consumption with no soda consumption found that subjects who drank diet soda on a daily basis had a 61% increased risk of stroke, myocardial infarction (heart attack) or vascular death as compared with people who drank no soda. Even more surprising, the diet soda risk was almost 50% greater than the regular soda. The upshot: stay away from both.

Watch your sodium-potassium ratio. Keeping your heart healthy is not just about reducing sodium intake. You also need to boost your potassium. A recent national study found that a sodium-to potassium ratio under 1 has a protective effect on cardiovascular disease.

The quartile of study subjects with the highest sodium-potassium ratio were more than twice as likely to die of ischemic heart disease as the quartile with the lowest ratio and 1.5 times as likely to die of cardiovascular disease.

Want the no-brainer approach to getting more potassium and less sodium? Eat more fruits/vegetables and less processed foods. A typical doughnut: 210 mg sodium and 120 mg potassium. A cup of strawberries: 2 mg sodium and 233 mg potassium.

Start early. A Swedish study found that fruit/vegetable consumption in childhood was a predictor of arterial stiffness in adulthood. Other cardiovascular risk factors measured in children as young as 9 years proved predictive of disease later on. When we are young, we think we’re immune to cardiovascular disease. By the time we start paying attention, many of us are already suffering health issues.

Keep at it. As it is for most people, eating clean is a daily challenge for me.

Always be aware that whatever you put in your mouth can either hurt you or help you. Focusing on that when you’re faced with temptation can help you make better decisions.

Next issue, we’ll look at the second secret for healthy aging: exercise.