Valter Longo

• SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Multivitamin

  Takes one a couple of times a week, he told TODAY, as cover for anything the diet leaves short.

  Source: TODAY: Diet and exercise habits of a longevity expert who wants to live to 120
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• BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  At Longevity's Table

  A recipe book from his foundation, over 200 dishes out of the long-lived regions of Italy, chosen to line up with the longevity diet. Proceeds follow the same route as his other titles.

  Source: Valter Longo: At Longevity's Table
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• BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  The Longevity Diet

  His 2018 book, now in 25 languages, setting the everyday pescatarian pattern next to the five-day fasting cycles. The author proceeds go to the two foundations he set up rather than to him.

  Source: Valter Longo: The Longevity Diet
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Repeatable, mostly free routines with a defined trigger and dose.

• Time-restricted eatingDoes itFREE, no cost

  Every meal lands inside a twelve-hour window, breakfast included. He keeps breakfast because studies have linked skipping it to harm, he told TODAY.

  Source: TODAY: Diet and exercise habits of a longevity expert who wants to live to 120

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• CyclingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  A stationary bike sits in each of the three places he lives, which he says is the only reason the session happens. An hour every other day, resistance set to feel like climbing a hill.

  Source: TODAY: Diet and exercise habits of a longevity expert who wants to live to 120

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• Legumes as the main proteinDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Chickpeas, lentils and black beans supply most of his protein, with fish the smaller share. He points out that overshooting protein is difficult once beans are the base of the plate.

  Source: TODAY: Diet and exercise habits of a longevity expert who wants to live to 120

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• Pescatarian eatingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Plant-rich plates with seafood three times a week is how he described his own eating to TODAY. Legumes rather than fish carry most of the protein, and red meat turns up maybe once a month.

  Source: TODAY: Diet and exercise habits of a longevity expert who wants to live to 120

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• Two meals and a snackDoes itFREE, no cost

  Weekdays run breakfast, no lunch, a few almonds, then dinner. Dropping the middle meal costs about 500 calories, he says, without much hunger or a slowing metabolism.

  Source: TODAY: Diet and exercise habits of a longevity expert who wants to live to 120

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• Resistance trainingRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Weights or bodyweight work for all the muscles is on his exercise page, followed an hour or two later by a low-carb meal carrying a decent amount of protein.

  Source: Valter Longo: Exercise and Longevity

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• Mediterranean-style eatingRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  The version he backs is the original one, plants and nuts, and he says almost nobody in Italy eats that way now. He puts the shift down to what he calls the poisonous five Ps: pizza, pasta, protein, potatoes and bread.

  Source: Fortune: The key to a long life is avoiding the poisonous 5 Ps, says one of the world's top anti-aging experts

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• Fasting-mimicking dietRecommends$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.

  Five days at a time, twice a year for someone healthy and more often for people carrying high glucose or blood pressure, is the schedule he gave Blue Zones. He is open about owning the thing he is describing: he started the company behind the boxed version, and says he put his shares into a nonprofit he set up.

  Source: Blue Zones: Fasting for Longevity: 9 Questions for Dr. Valter D. Longo

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• Low but sufficient proteinRecommendsFREE, no cost

  Under 65 he argues for protein that is low but sufficient and mostly from plants, pointing at the growth pathways his lab has tied to aging. Past 65 he wants it raised again, along with fish and eggs, to hold off frailty and muscle loss.

  Source: USC Leonard Davis: New Article Outlines the Characteristics of a Longevity Diet

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• Multi-day fastingDiscussesFREE, no cost

  Water-only fasting belongs in a clinic, in his view. He built the five-day fasting-mimicking program because almost nobody in his early trials could manage water alone; they cheated, and told him it was simply too hard.

  Source: Blue Zones: Fasting for Longevity: 9 Questions for Dr. Valter D. Longo

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• Biological age testingDiscusses$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.

  Asked which test he rates, he names Morgan Levine's score, the one built from everyday blood markers such as A1C and blood pressure. Where several tests disagree, he suggests averaging them instead of keeping the kindest result.

  Source: ZOE Science and Nutrition: Fasting and biological age with Dr. Valter Longo

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Daily practices held long enough to become default behavior.

• Daily walkingDoes itFREE, no cost

  An hour a day, kept up for decades to copy what the centenarians he interviewed described. Milan makes it easy because he walks to work; Los Angeles does not, so he walks to coffee shops and restaurants instead.

  Source: TODAY: Diet and exercise habits of a longevity expert who wants to live to 120

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• Dark chocolateDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Sweets are the weakness he admits to, so he narrowed them down to 85 percent cocoa chocolate every night. Asked on a podcast for a guilty pleasure, that was the answer he gave.

  Source: Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine: Intermittent Fasting with Dr. Valter Longo

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• Taking the stairsDoes itFREE, no cost

  Escalators and elevators get skipped, and luggage goes up the airport stairs by hand while other travelers stare. Carrying is what bodies were built for, he argues, and muscles that never carry anything end up frail.

  Source: TODAY: Diet and exercise habits of a longevity expert who wants to live to 120

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• No eating close to bedtimeRecommendsFREE, no cost

  Three to four hours between the last bite and bed is one of the rules on his own site, sitting directly beneath the twelve-hour window.

  Source: Valter Longo: Longevity Diet for Adults

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• Daily olive oilRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Three tablespoons of olive oil a day, with an ounce of nuts alongside, is what the adult plan on his own site asks for, next to whole grains and a lot of vegetables.

  Source: Valter Longo: Longevity Diet for Adults

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• “I eat the diet I described above for my overall diet; for breakfast, I always have one green tea and one black tea bag with a squeeze of lemon, and cinnamon raisin toast with a low-sugar fruit preserve.”

• “I cloned the environment because I realized that if I don’t have it at home… I would not do exercise… So every other day, no excuses. I have a stationary bike and I do one hour.”

  On Cycling

• “I committed all my shares in L-Nutra to a nonprofit organization that I started called Create Cures, so we could continue to research and learn about fasting.”

  On Fasting-mimicking diet

• “Well if it was up to me, I will eat sweets all day long, but I'm very good and so I narrow it down to now 85% cocoa, chocolate every night”

  On Dark chocolate

• “Ketogenic diet short-term is good, long-term it kills you early. The 16-hour fasting short-term is good. Long-term it kills you early. Very low carb diets. Short-term is good. Long-term it kills you.”