In this blog I want to take you along on the project ‘My Lifestyle Guide’, which has kept me busy over the past few months. If you have read my blogs before, you will have noticed that I have a passion for lifestyle. That is certainly not an innate passion. On the contrary, throughout my life I have regularly displayed behaviour that was far from aligned with a healthy lifestyle. For instance, I smoked, drank, ate poorly and exercised little during one or more longer periods. Often combined with irregular or insufficient sleep and considerable stress.

Enough exercise

By the age of twenty-six I had already managed to quit smoking. Shortly after that I got my first serious relationship and gradually started eating more healthily. But getting enough exercise remained a major challenge for a long time. This changed when I passed thirty-five. At that time more and more people were taking up running, so I decided to give it a try as well. Within a few months I was running five kilometres twice a week and a ten-kilometre loop at the weekend. I loved it. My joints, however, did not — and so after a while I was forced to hang up my running shoes for good.

Top priority

In the years that followed I tried again several times, but each time the dreaded joint complaints returned after a while. By now I have accepted that running is apparently not meant for my body and I do power walking instead. A few weeks before my fortieth birthday I became a father for the first time. That truly changed my life. The birth of our daughter suddenly made me feel much more responsible for my own lifestyle. Health became an absolute top priority. I try to set a good example for my children when it comes to lifestyle. But above all, I want to grow old healthily together with my family.

What does the science say?

Over roughly the past twelve years I have increasingly immersed myself in what a healthy lifestyle actually entails. I have read a great deal about it and listened to interesting podcasts while power walking. The podcasts that taught me the most were all podcasts with a scientific basis. Examples include the Huberman Lab podcast and the ZOE Science + Nutrition podcast. To fuel my passion for lifestyle even further, I decided in 2022, as the coronavirus pandemic was drawing to a close, to follow a lifestyle coaching training. A year later I completed it successfully.

Lifestyle adjustments

Over the past few years I have published countless blogs in the Healthy Living section of my website covering health and lifestyle topics. But I wanted to do more than share an occasional blog on the subject. And so a few months ago I decided it was time for a lifestyle guide. A guide in which I describe the lifestyle adjustments I have made to age healthily and vitally. Each one scientifically underpinned. In other words, these are not lifestyle adjustments based on coincidence or that only work for me. They are adjustments that could in theory work for anyone.

AI tool

To compile and translate My Lifestyle Guide — an English version is also available — I made use of the AI tool Claude. Claude also did me a great service with the scientific underpinning. Make no mistake: despite the use of an AI tool, an enormous amount of my own work has gone into My Lifestyle Guide. Claude merely provided the structure for presenting my findings. But in the interest of transparency and honesty, I want to make no secret of the fact that I used it for this project. And I can say with great satisfaction that it worked out very well.

Why not for free?

Curious about My Lifestyle Guide? I have set up a dedicated page on my website where you can get a preview of what to expect if you decide to purchase My Lifestyle Guide. You may be wondering why I am not making My Lifestyle Guide available for free. I have thought seriously about that. However, my passion for lifestyle feels like much more than a hobby that got out of hand. I want to pursue it professionally, and My Lifestyle Guide is a first step in that direction.

Discount

To celebrate the launch, use code INTRO20 for 20% off — valid for the first 50 buyers, no later than 15 April. You pay €12 instead of €15.

[Dutch Version]