¶ Intro / Opening
Just the feeling of being alive is just so visceral and so joyous . And it doesn't need to be a beautiful sunny day , it doesn't need to , it's just , ah , here I am , my breath , my heart's beating . The wonder that is our bodies is just almost like a ceaseless source of amazement , for me .
In his mid-fifties
¶ Life, Longevity, and Vitality
, Ron Kastner became the father of two daughters , a dad for the first time during a decade when most people are beginning to contemplate retirement . But for Ron , in many ways , life was just beginning . Hello again , welcome to the Live Long and Master Aging podcast . I'm Peter Bowes . This is where we explore the science and stories behind human longevity .
Ron , it's good to talk to you , so I can hear the sirens of London town in the background already .
I'm sorry about that . That's all right .
That's where I am .
I split my time between New York and London and this is the end of the time that I'm in London , sort of the winter , and I spend most of the summers in New York and Long Island
Well look , Ron , really good to talk to you . The book is fascinating . It's a life yet to live , living health , vitality and joy after 60 . You wrote this book because you had something of an epiphany , didn't you ? Maybe it's fair to say , in your late 50s , after the birth of your daughters .
Yeah , in my late 50s I was going through a troubling time that the company I started 20 years before was in trouble because of the financial crisis , and I was on my way to a business meeting on a train and a whole bunch of serendipitous things happened .
And I just said to myself whoa , actually , what happened was the universe grabbed me by the lapels and gave me a big shake and said hey , buddy , you're almost 60 years old , you've got two little girls .
They were six months and three and a half years old at the time and they needed dad to be healthy and functional for quite a ways , quite a long time to get to come .
And it was a very personal thunderclap because I lost my own father when I was seven and grew up without a dad in my life , and it's a very , I like to say it was a hole that was left in my life and I resolved there and then to do whatever I could to be a vital , functioning , healthy dad into what I knew would be my 70s or 80s .
And here I am I'm just 74 on Friday and celebrated all weekend with my daughters , who are 16 and 19 now .
So it's been a Well , congratulations , and how time flies . Yeah , it's really interesting to hear your story , and we're going to delve into it in some detail . Just before we do that , though , let's just talk a little bit about you and your life before your daughters and your career . And your career has been interesting to the say the least .
It's been a very , very fascinating you could almost say eclectic career .
Hi , I was a woodstock hippie . I screwed around a lot in my 20s . I didn't know what I was going to do . I found myself in the printing industry , turns out I liked it . I was a very good salesman .
I found this niche little industry called financial printing , which printed for Wall Street and the city of London , and it was very , very high pressure and it was also very , very high paying . I eventually I was very successful at it . I eventually started my own company .
I had more money than a blue collar kid from Newark , new Jersey , would ever know what to do with . So one of the things I did with it was I became a theater producer as well , and I used to . I was a typical New York poster child .
I spent most of the day on the east side of town doing my business and most of the night on the west side of town in the theater world , and I won a bunch of awards for being a theater producer as well and all that . I mean I was looking for a family along the way Just never happened , but it did happen in my 50s .
So that's how I ended up having kids late . I always thought I was going to have plenty of time and thanks to all the health stuff that I began doing in the late 50s , I think in my late 50s I think I will have plenty of time my whole attitude has changed towards living long and being healthy and increasing my health span and all that other stuff .
It feels great . So let's start with what you did . First . You had your daughters . You had this realization that you had to change . You had to change your attitude , I guess , towards your longevity and change your lifestyle as well . Where did you start ?
I had been doing some exercise and some yoga up until then , but the real first deep dive was a detox .
There's a book it doesn't have to be this book , it can be any book but there's a book called Clean by Alejandro Younger , and it's basically a three-week elimination dive and it taught me so much about you know , I had to get rid of caffeine , alcohol , sugar , anything with gluten , most processed carbs .
So you're basically on a paleo you know some kind of version of paleo diet , and there was also intermittent fasting involved called the hour today and a lot of smoothies and just that and the other thing . But the point of it is to restore your immune system , which took three weeks and I have to say after those three weeks I lost 15 pounds .
I felt I had more energy than I had ever . You know , I mean ever . I was just feeling like completely lit up all the time and I said , if my diet can make that big of a change , there's got to be a lot more that I can learn about this stuff .
And that whole journey ended up going into the gym and movement and evolution and stopping drinking and all kinds of other things , all of which is in the book .
So lots of interesting issues there to dive into , especially stopping drinking . But let me ask you a more general question first of all , because I think what you did initially you tackled what I actually see as some of the most simple things you can do in terms of lifestyle , that is , diet and exercise .
There are lots of different longevity interventions these days that we can apply to ourselves , and some are quite expensive . Some are out of the reach of many of us , but changing your diet and your exercise regime are amongst the most simple to achieve , perhaps arguably with the best results .
It's 90% of the journey . I think I have trust me . Over the past 15 or 16 years , I have experimented with just about everything , and it's all the stuff that's out there in terms of hacks and this product , that product . There's no one product or one exercise or one , this or one that is going to fix your life .
It's the same stuff that our bodies evolved on . It's healthy food , natural
¶ The Importance of Exercise and Diet
food and a lot of motion , a lot of movement . Our ancestors , our cavemen , their ancestors moved 10 to 15 miles a day and you can imagine all the movements that they did , from all the hunting things they threw , they pulled , they climbed , they ran , all the stuff that we watch in sports now . And those were the movements that our bodies grew up on .
And in modern life , especially the past 100 years or so , in the quote age of comfort , we don't do any of that anymore . We just don't do any of that anymore . And it's so tempting I see my daughters , I see their friends it's so tempting to just plop down on the sofa , eat crap and watch television .
It's just , it's what the consumer world wants us to do .
It brings a whole different meaning to the phrase modern living , doesn't it oh ?
yeah .
Modern living in so many ways , it isn't the best way to live .
Look up until a certain point . If people are starving , it's fine , eating their means and their food intake and everything else . But past that , once you get into all this comfort and everything else , I just don't see the point . I just don't see the point . I do it too , and I did it too , but it doesn't have any returns from the health stamp .
As a matter of fact , there's a lot of negative stuff that comes with it .
Let me dive into your exercise regime now . Almost in your well , you are in your mid-70s now . How do you divide your time between resistance training and , let's say , aerobic training , where you might be walking or hiking or running , as opposed to lifting weights in a gym ? What is the balance for you ?
I try to do four or so zone two aerobic things a week . Sometimes that's including a high-intensity session and sometimes there's a high-intensity session in addition to that . Can you just explain what you mean by zone two ? Zone two means like 60% of your maximum heart rate and it's comfortable .
Elevated heart rate , you know , a good guide is your heart rate is 180 minus your age , somewhere in that somewhere . So for me that's about 110 , a little bit less than 110 , although my maximum heart rate is a little bit higher . So it's more like 110 to 115 . And it's comfortable .
You know , I wrote an article from my website , which is RonCastercom I'll give myselfa little plug which just says hanging out in zone two , you know you do it for 40 minutes or 50 minutes or an hour . It's nothing taxing . Sometimes I listen to music , sometimes I just think , sometimes I partially meditate and many times I go for walks , things like that .
And then the strength stuff is really important , especially legs , because there's all kinds of balance issues and all kinds of strength issues as you get older , muscle loss and all kinds of other things that . So I try to do two or three . Sometimes it's tacked on to an aerobic session and sometimes it's on its own .
And then I supplement it all with yoga , which I do in the morning . So when I get up , it's a lot , it's a lot . Most people go , oh , I couldn't do that much . But I find , trust me , I try doing less . I just don't . I can feel the strength and the energy going away when I do less .
So , and do you enjoy it while you're doing it ?
I enjoy the results Sometimes . I enjoy doing it , but I definitely enjoy the results I hit . You know , we are a species that is unique in the planet in that we can see the results of our actions . Yeah , no other animal species can do that .
We can also predict that if we don't do something , you know something , some benefits or some other things may not happen . So there's a whole interplay of things there of expectation and rewards and all kinds of other things . I mean , I feel great when I come out of the gym . I feel great . I feel , you know , I'm just one .
You know I just want to say , okay , job well done . And that I had a little game that I played with myself when I first started , saying for every hour I spend in the gym , I get to live an extra day . I don't know if it's true or not , but it certainly motivated me . I said I'll take that . I'll take that , you know that risk .
And you're doing this not just for yourself , and clearly a big part of your motivation was the birth of your daughters . Your daughters are much older now , but for that extra day that you're achieving , or whether it's an extra week or month because you're going to the gym , that is big picture , isn't it ?
That is so that you can be here with your daughters and help your daughters and nurturing their lives .
And I have to say , a lot of it's now for me . You know , at first it was all them and a lot of it is now . I had such a good time today . I want to do this again tomorrow . You know , and I see people who are my age or younger . They don't do this and I know what's going to happen .
I just know what's going to happen to them and I feel bad for them . I don't want to be a you know , you should do this kind of guy . So what I do is what I've done in the book . I say in the book this is not a rice book . I am just telling you my story , just so you know it's possible and that's it . You know , that's it .
It's pretty extensive , the stuff in the book . I mean , you know , I hope people read it .
Yeah , I've read the book in detail and what you say is what I always say as well , that I'm not giving advice . I'm just sharing stories here and hopefully , perhaps people are inspired by hearing other people's stories .
I think if and the best advice always is that if you have a real issue , you should go to your doctor , you , medically , you should seek the expertise . But I think it is , it's great to be inspired by the lives of others and that's what .
That's why I'm talking to you now , and I want to talk about your diet as well , because the two big pillars for me are exercise and diet . Sleep is the other one , but let's talk about diet . Did you change your diet in your 60s ?
Yes , using the detox diet as a springboard , I now practice probably it's a combination of low calorie , low carb and intermittent fasting . The thing about the detox diet is that you learn how your body reacts to food . We're all different and everybody's body is different . Everybody reacts differently and I always knew that bread and pasta for me were not good .
I felt bloated , it didn't feel right inside , and I learned that in a big way on the detox , because the first thing you do when you reintroduce some foods is listen to your body and it did not like that at all , especially once it got really clean . So the low-carb thing has always been , you know it's kind of like a paleo .
You know I eat mainly fish as protein a few times a week , occasionally eat I'm not big on pulses , simply there again , for digestive comfort . It's just too much food to eat to get the amount of protein that I need and then mainly salads and vegetables .
So you know I do a fairly strict 12 to 14 hours a day of non-eating , usually from 6 or 7 at night till the following morning , and it seems to work . I have not gained an extra pound since the detox . You know I'm 6 foot tall and I weigh 75 kilos or 165 pounds .
So you know all my body , you know BMI and all that stuff is all within range , you know . And so when the doctor , the doctor likes it . You said one thing before about medicine going to see the doctor . I definitely agree with that .
But I have found I have a chapter in the book called Four Doctors and I have found that modern medicine is changing but modern medicine does not do a great job with prevention . They do not . You know this stuff that we're talking about now . Most people would go . Most modern doctors would go .
Yeah , if it feels good to do it , it's not going to change anything . There are some people out there like Peter Atia and Mark Hyman and people like that , who are much better at the preventive side .
So I would agree with you that there needs globally to be a seismic shift between that attitude of simply treating disease and preventing disease , and most health systems around the world live by that that they see patients when there's a problem , when they're hurting somewhere , when they're sick , and then they attempt to treat the condition .
The focus on preventative medicine is there if you look for it , but it's not thrust upon you by the system , and that's , I think , the big problem that people go through their lives , they get sick , they seek some sort of remedy without really focusing and thinking on the preventative side .
And this is why I was going to say this at the beginning and I'm glad we came back around to it for your listeners . And it's how I , every time I give a little talk or something to a group of people , I usually start out by saying your health and your later life no-transcript are guided by you and what you want out of your . You know later life .
If you've got health for you know those 20 or 30 years that we now call later life you will be . You have plenty of time to live a dynamic , changing , energetic life and you can do lots of things that you've always wanted to do in life and everything else , but you have to spend time looking after your health .
So what you want and what matters to you , or who matters to you , really becomes the central question . And while the medical establishment is not seeking prevention , we can substitute for that and do it ourselves .
You know , and all the stuff I , all the stuff I have in the book I learned from public sources none of its you know , none of its doctors , none of its , its studies , its books , it's all kind of stuff you mentioned giving up drinking earlier , giving up alcohol .
Just tell me about that experience . How much did you drink before and what was the transition like ?
I lived a pretty plush life . I was flying back and forth to New York and London . I had offices in both places . I was , I was , I was entertaining a lot , I was producing theater .
In both places I was drinking like incredibly expensive wine and I could hold alcohol really well all my life , you know , and it made me feel good , it made me the life of the party and you know , it's sort of I was always a timid kid and it I got rid of the ambitions and everything else .
When I started doing my health stuff , I went you know all the people , all the , all the studies I was doing there . So if you could point to one thing that would , you know , that would hurt your health journey , what would it be ?
¶ Quitting alcohol and Improving Health
And without a doubt it came down . I said I can't square that circle , I can't . So I tried cutting back , I tried cutting down . It didn't work . I was just , I was a heavy social drinker . How much ? At least a half a bottle of wine every night , but more often a cocktail or two before that .
Half a bottle of wine and more than a half a bottle of wine . You know that was . You know that's quite a bit , you know , and I tolerated it well more than a few hangovers in my life . And I just said to myself if I can't stop , I gotta find a way .
And then there was one night I have to say it was one night after a cocktail party and I just didn't remember what happened and I didn't go . I went to the cocktail party saying I'm just gonna have one glass of wine tonight and before I knew it , it just you know , my wife said . I said you know , did we have a good time last night ?
And she said , yeah , you know , you were fine and everything . And she didn't even know that I was . And I just didn't remember what happened after a certain point . And I said to myself okay , this is it . And out of the blue , I just I knew it had been building for a while and I knew and I just stopped cold turkey .
Now , that does not mean I don't drink now , but for a good seven or eight years I didn't touch a drop . So I learned what it was like not drinking . And now I do stop after one glass of wine .
And explain to me what that difference felt like from being quite a heavy drinker to not drink and stopping cold turkey to not drinking at all for several years ? How did your body respond to that ?
My digestion improved dramatically , my energy improved dramatically . It was a real , as I say in the book , it was a really tough adjustment to be timid at cocktail parties again .
But what I found out was there's a lot of other people who were timid at cocktail parties and then we're hanging out on the outskirts of the action too and I would just make new friends and they turned out to be a little bit more interesting than the ones who were all lit up from alcohol . It was difficult at first .
It was very difficult at first because the alcohol for me was a real crutch and if I knew I was going someplace that wasn't gonna have alcohol , I would have one before . So but you cannot square that circle . You can't live a long life and be a drinker . It's not gonna happen .
Well , I think it can happen if you've got extraordinary DNA , but not that level .
So what's interesting to me about your story is , though , that you have actually gone back to some drinking . After several years of not drinking any alcohol , you do occasionally have a drink . Now , what was the thought process there ? Was it a conscious decision that you actually like alcohol , you'd like to taste it occasionally , or what was it ?
It was just there once and I said you know what ? It's been so long , let me see what it's like again . And it was like having a cigarette for the first time at 12 years old or something , or 16 or whatever it was . And I was all dizzy and my body was like whoa , this is weird . And I said I don't wanna do this .
So I didn't have to get that first one . Then , sort of slowly , you know , I just sort of had I just started doing it again .
It's not there are .
Sometimes I will have a glass of wine and regret it the next morning and sometimes I don't . I just say to myself why did I ? Did I really need that ? It never goes more than a glass , sometimes another half a glass or something like that . Because there's a . I now have a stop , which I didn't have before , and the stop is the health stuff .
So I'm not gonna do that , I'm gonna do that , thank you . You know the health stuff and bad sleep .
So because it really affects your sleep , let's talk about the Psychological side of what you've been doing . Clearly , there are physical changes that you've been able to bring about because of your change of diet and your increased amount of exercise , but what's it done to your mind and to your brain and to your outlook on life ?
well , you can't . You can't spend as much time in the health space as I do , and not ? Health is health and healing are powers that were given to us at birth . They're not , we don't make them happen ourselves . They are , you know , fundamental with how life works , the whole health thing . Okay , and you can't , I Don't .
I personally don't believe that health is only a physical thing , and once your body starts healing and you get stronger and you have more energy and you're , and Physically you are , more capable , the healing process Doesn't stop there . The healing process goes into the emotional side .
The healing process goes into the spiritual side , and at least that's that's the way it has happened with me , and , and with me I had to go back and do a lot of work about In psychotherapy with my , in my childhood and what , what that was like and what you know I had .
I got hit by a sledgehammer when I was seven years old , the , the , my father died . I was an only child and my mother kind of fell
¶ Healing and Self-Discovery Through Life
apart , you know . So I , I was basically without parents or effective parents for much of the time after that and I had to go back and explore some of that stuff and get rid of some of the anger and why don't know about getting rid of it a bit , at least acknowledge it and some of the some of the hurt and all the other stuff .
You know , we live , we like to live our lives as if we're in control of them .
But you know , our childhood experiences are usually are looming in the background in a in a degree that we don't , we don't really want to admit , take on and did it like day-to-day life and have you learned about Self-respect , about being thankful for what we have every day through a new Appreciation of life and I certainly get this from reading your book that
you have your , your mindset has evolved in that respect , absolutely .
I mean , I have a morning routine . It's mostly movement , but it's also some meditation and just that . Just the feeling of being alive Is just so visceral and so joyous , and it doesn't need to be a beautiful sunny day , it doesn't need to , it's just ah , here I am , my breath , my heart-speeding , a wonder that is our bodies .
It's just almost like a ceaseless Source of amazement for me , you know , and it's 90% of the energy we expend every day and we completely take it for granted . This sort of humming , you know visual Organism that's directly in touch with the universe of the world around us .
You know , yeah , for instance , if we were walking down the street and looking to cross the street and a speeding car Would come by , everything we were thinking about doing and everything else , we'd stop and pull that it was that part of us there's always an alert , is always working .
You know , we are the most amazing things on this planet and we don't treat ourselves that way and is that's , in part , the reason why you wrote the book .
You've gone through these experiences and you wanted to share what it's like with other people .
Yep , yeah , I mean , first and foremost I wanted to share it with my daughters . I wanted them to say here's , here's why I did what I did and here's who your dad is okay . But I also Said you know what ? There's a lot of other people out there Well , I see that don't Know what the possibilities are at this time of life .
And the wider we circulate that information , the more people tell their stories about , about how they do things and why they do things . You know the why beater tea . It makes a really good point saying the why Of your later life is much more important than the how of your later life . You know why are you doing this and that's gonna be all your motivation .
And once you do that , the house will come into place . They all fall into place Because there's so much advice out there that you couldn't possibly follow all of it . You have to come to terms with some house that work for you , you know so .
Yes , I often say that that the amount of advice out there is bewildering .
But ultimately it is up to you and that's why , hopefully , talking to people like yourself , talking to other experts , especially in terms of what I do , is just part of the process of navigating all of that information to figure out Because we're all individual to individually decide what is best for us . Ron , your book is fascinating .
Thank you so much for sharing it . It's called A Life Yet to Live , finding Health , vitality and Joy After 60 . You'll find a link to it in the show notes for this episode , along with a transcript of this conversation . Ron , let me just ask you in closing what do you see in your future ? What are your aspirations for the future Mid-70s now ?
Do you think about your own longevity ? Do you have a plan ?
Sure .
Or how are you going to navigate the years ahead ?
I don't really . You know , life is just is pretty joyous day to day . I mean , I think there might be another book coming . I felt some stirrings . I don't know what that book is going to be yet , but it felt good writing it . It took a long time but it felt good writing it .
The website that I do at ronkastnercom I do two posts a week on a newsletter , so that is kind of like always updating what I'm learning and things that are on my mind and things like that . That's a lot of fun . My daughters are getting older so the time with them is different . It's different quality .
They're starting to have lives of their own and so I don't know , but I think you know that every day is pretty wonderful , so I'm just sort of taking it one day at a time . You know it's really . You know the joy . The joy is in the title for a reason , because it does feel pretty good being mobile and energetic and healthy at this time of life .
Ron , really good to talk to you , good to be inspired by what you've achieved
¶ Embracing Life's Joys and Changes
and what you're working towards . The book is a really good read . Thank you so much . Thank you , Peter .
This podcast is for informational , educational and entertainment purposes only . We do not offer medical advice . If you have health concerns of any kind or you are considering adopting a new diet or exercise regime , you should first consult your doctor .