Here’s why I started a health blog – and it all started with my husband Roy’s  weight-loss and body transformation achievement that allowed him to lose 35kg and ditch his blood pressure meds. I also want to talk about wellness, longevity and biohacking – and to share tips on tackling my own issues: atherosclerosis, osteoporosis and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

If any of this pushes your buttons – the good kind! – then welcome to the first post of my new blog, Living Long and Strong with Verne and Roy!

I say new blog, because I have an old one: Travels with Verne and Roy*, which has been going strong for over five years. (It was going quite a bit stronger before we lost our freedom of movement in March 2020.)

Travels has been going since Roy retired in Singapore, in June 2016, and we took up the peripatetic lifestyle. I don’t regret a minute of the thousands of hours I’ve spent on it – for us, it’s a great record of our extensive travels through Europe, Asia, South Africa and the Antipodes.

It’s also been a way to share our experiences with family, friends, acquaintances, and the odd web surfer who might stumble across it while searching for anything from the best Durban bunny chow, to the intricacies of Brompton fold-up bikes, to how to cross the English Channel in your own boat without throwing up.

* OK, have a quick look at Travels. But don’t get completely sidetracked, and if you do, please do come back to Living Long and Strong. (I know you casual blog-skimmers out there: research shows that 55% of you will spend 15 seconds or less on a blog that I’ve worked on for three days solid. As for my friends, I warn you now that there will be a test.)

Back to the subject of this first post – why a health blog?

#1 To talk about wellness and longevity

First – and it’s a cliché, I know – I have a passion for health and longevity. The goal is “to die young as late as possible”, as Dr Mark Hyman and others have put it. For that, we need to know our bodies work. It’s fascinating to explore the extent to which our genes, on the one hand, and our environment, on the other, influence our lifespan – and, more importantly, our health span. I inherited this intense interest from my late dad, Mike Maree, whose thinking was way ahead of his time. (More about him later.)

 #2 To share Roy’s weight-loss story

Second, I’ve got a major weight-loss story to share. Since we arrived in Perth, Western Australia at the end of February 2020, shortly before the world went mad, my husband Roy slowly and sustainably lost 35kg – without hunger, he says, and with little or no sense of deprivation – and just in time for his 7oth birthday.

Now that’s amazing, especially for a man who says he he’s battled with his weight for as long as he can remember. (More accurately, and from my own 30-year observation of the man, I’d say he engaged in brief and intermittent skirmishes with it; for the rest of the time, he flew the dietary white flag – thickly spreading butter on to crusty bread and hoovering up creamy mashed potatoes and other comfort food.)

So, I want to record how we worked together to achieve this remarkable weight-loss feat – it really was a joint effort – and to share his inspirational story. 

#3 Hacking my own osteoporosis, atherosclerosis and Hashimoto’s

Third,  I’m obsessed with bio-hacking – and even more so since March 2020. I’m an n=1 experiment. It’s not obvious from the outside, but I’m personally dealing with a range of health issues, including osteoporosis, atherosclerosis and the auto-immune condition Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. No sympathy needed here! – I feel ridiculously well, and I’m getting better every day.

How am I doing this?

• I hack my all-important sleep through regulating circadian rhythm, especially light exposure – both sunlight and red light therapy, and limiting harmful blue light
• I hack my exercise regime to suit my changing needs, be it jogging or HIIT on the beach, walking through bushland, resistance training or a yoga class at Craigie Leisure Centre gym

  

• I hack my nutrition, through both home-cooked meals and targeted supplementsEssential bio-feedback devices like my Oūra ring and my CGM (continuous glucose monitor) let me know how I’m doing and help me keep on track.
• I get daily inspiration from the podcasts and writings of some of the internet’s top health, fitness, nutrition and longevity thinkers, scientists and biohackers: Dave Asprey, Dr Mark Hyman, Dr Chris Kresser, Ari Whitten, Dr Joe Mercola, Ben Greenfield, Dr Michael Ruscio, Dr David Perlmutter, Paul Chek, Dr Jack Kruse, Dr John Douillard, Chris Masterjohn Ph.D (Nutrition), Dr Westin Childs, Amy Myers, Dr Stephen Cabral and Steve Stavs – not to forget the Low Carb MD podcast, the Thyroid Answers podcast and the Biohacker Babes! These people have become the soundtrack of my life. (And, perforce, of the long-suffering Roy.)

  

• #4 Sharing health tips

Fourthly, each of us is unique with our own unique physiology and health challenges. But you can be sure that whatever wellness problem you or I may have, we are not the first to have had it, and we are not alone. The more we share our stories, the more we can help each other to live longer, healthier and happier lives.

Proactive biomarker testing

I undergo regular blood testing, and I’m game to try anything legal. Or even a little bit il-legal, as long as there’s no real risk of jail-time. (I love sunshine and the beach too much for that.)

Test, don’t guess, the functional medicine practitioners are fond of saying. And it makes sense.  Testing can be expensive – and functional medicine practitioners are sometimes criticised for over-reliance on expensive tests that medical insurance doesn’t cover. (But that’s rabbit-hole I won’t go down right now.)

A lot of the time, we need the help of these and other health practitioners in ordering the tests we want, and sometimes (but not always) to interpret the results.

I’ve spent the pas 18 months assembling a personal health team right here in Perth WA: an experienced and open-minded nurse practitioner for bio-identical hormone management; a neighbourhood GP for everyday stuff; a cute naturopath with a passion for bowel mapping (I haven’t quite gone there yet); a herbalist / DNA-testing guru; a down-to-earth chiropractor; and a brilliant biological dentist. So far, so good.

There’s so much to talk about, it’s unimaginable that I’d ever run out of material.

What’s more, my daughter-in-law Carrie – literally my neighbour here in Perth, WA – shares my interests and is herself a mine of information and personal health challenge experiences that I hope she’ll be willing to contribute.

Next up, Roy’s long, slow and huge successful body transformation journey!