Derek Coates, founder and CEO of Healthspan celebrated his 60th birthday in 2008. He shares with our readers his personal top tip for living younger.
Just one generation ago, in my father’s day, turning 60 was thought of as a time for pipes and slippers. How times have changed!
We are all know that getting more exercise and improving our nutrition are two of the most important things we can do to ensure a long, healthy lifespan. I would add a third - to ‘think yourself younger’. If you start to think that 60 is old, then you become less adventurous and energetic, so you end up ‘thinking yourself’ into old age. I live my life in exactly the opposite way. I keep myself mentally active by working as hard as I did when I was 30 and I love it.
Healthspan is the UK’s leading brand of nutritional supplements; we also own
two hotels in the Channel Islands and an airline called
Blue Islands that links our islands to the outside world. These are a lot of balls to juggle during a working day but they certainly keep my brain active. Life must not of course be all work and no play, so instead of putting on my slippers, I celebrated my ‘60th birth year’ differently.
In line with my philosophy of ‘thinking yourself younger’, instead of spending my hard-earned cash on a boozy birthday, I decided to spend it with family and friends on a year of activity. I kicked off the year by ski-ing with ‘the lads’. In the summer my family went white water rafting in the French Alps and in November I took them all away again so that my 13-year-old son Jack could take his PADI open water diving qualification. I’m incredibly lucky to be able to do all that, but I’m content knowing that I earned it during 40 years of hard work.
It will also come as no surprise that I mention nutrition again. My biggest regret is that 20 or 30 years ago we really didn’t give nutrition a passing thought. I regret that I didn’t know then what I do now, or I would have started taking supplements much earlier! But it’s never too late to start.
"So Derek, many of us will be asking, what supplements do you take?"
We’re all so different and so are our nutritional needs. As my father died in his late 70s with Alzheimer’s, my fear is that there may be a genetic component, so
I take
ginkgo biloba,
Memo Plus,
vitamin D and oodles of
Opti-Omega 3 fish oil.
To keep my joints active I also take
ChondroMax (glucosamine and chondroitin),
MSM and
bromelain. Finally, I take
CoQ10 to keep my heart healthy!
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