I share some metrics you can track to help improve biological age.
Hello friends! How are you? I hope you’re having a great day so far! It’s the kids’ last day of school (wahoo!!) and we have a movie date with friends, and a friend is coming to visit us from out of town. I hope you have a wonderful day too!
For today’s post, I wanted to share some of the things you could track over time to help improve biological age.
Biological age is different from our chronological age. It can provide key insights into metabolic health and how our body ages and functions over time. I’m usually disappointed in my biological age when I get tested (you can read my experience here), but I’m SO grateful to be able to learn strategies in High performance health About the things I can actually do about it!
From sleep patterns to fitness indicators, monitoring these factors can guide you toward better decisions. Today I wanted to talk about certain metrics to track and why they can be crucial to optimizing your biological age.
What to do to improve biological age?
Sleep quality and duration
Quality sleep is essential for overall health and well-being. Tracking your sleep patterns, including duration and quality, can help identify areas for improvement and ensure you get enough restful sleep each night. Aim for 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep to support optimal biological function. I love using my Oura ring to track sleep.
Daily steps and physical activity
Monitoring your daily steps and overall physical activity levels provides valuable information about your movement patterns and helps ensure you meet recommended activity guidelines. Aim for at least 8,000 to 10,000 steps per day and incorporate regular exercise to support cardiovascular health, maintain muscle mass, and boost metabolism. If 8,000 is a huge goal right now, add steps each day until you can get closer to this number.
Weight and BMI
Maintaining a healthy weight and body mass index (BMI) is essential to reducing the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Tracking changes in weight and BMI can help you measure progress toward your health goals and identify areas for improvement. While this only shows a small part of the picture, it can be useful to monitor trends.
Waist-hip ratio
Waist-to-hip ratio is a valuable indicator of central adiposity and overall health risk. Monitoring changes in waist-to-hip ratio can help assess abdominal fat distribution and identify potential health risks associated with visceral fat accumulation. To do this, simply take your waist measurement and divide by your hip measurement. For women, the goal is 0.80 or less and for men, 0.95 or less.
Fundamental exercise movements
Incorporating core exercise movements such as bench press, barbell squats, deadlifts, push-ups, pull-ups and planks into your exercise routine helps build strength, improve muscular endurance and improve overall functional fitness. Tracking progress on these key movements can guide your strength training program and ensure balanced muscle development.
Grip strength
Grip strength is a reliable indicator of overall muscle strength and functional capacity. You can read more about the importance of grip strength here. Tracking changes in grip strength over time can help assess muscle function, identify weaknesses, and monitor progress in strength training programs. Here is something you can use to control grip strength..
Heart rate variability (HRV)
Heart rate variability (HRV) is a measure of the variation in the time intervals between consecutive heartbeats and provides valuable information about autonomic nervous system function and overall health. Monitoring HRV can help assess stress levels, recovery status, and cardiovascular health.
Blood glucose levels
Maintaining stable blood glucose levels is essential for optimal metabolic health and overall well-being. Monitoring blood glucose levels, especially in response to changes in diet and physical activity, can help identify possible insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunctions. If you are curious to try a CGM (continuous glucose monitor), I recommend Nutrisense! You can check it here and use the code GINA50.
Incorporating these key metrics into your health tracking routine can provide valuable information about your biological age and help guide lifestyle modifications to optimize health and well-being. I am a big fan of any measure aimed at improving overall health and longevity. I’ll keep track of these things myself and keep my fingers crossed that I finally get an improved result this year.
hugs and kisses
gina
