Want to live better and longer – to 100 & beyond? You may have seen those amazing National Geographic documentaries on “Blue Zones” and what the world’s longest living cultures do to live better, longer, healthier, happier lives. In today’s episode with Nick Buettner of Blue Zones, we dive into:
- The 9 lifestyle practices that the longest lived populations have in common.
- What you can do to start implementing these and how they are being rolled out to companies and communities.
- How to set up your environment so you can create the change that you want to see to live a longer, better life.
Episode timestamps:
[00:53] Upcoming Health Wellbeing and Longevity Summit in Puerto Rico
[02:58] The start of the Blue Zone’s research
[04:55] Bringing lessons in longevity to communities
[07:31] 9 commonalities of the longest lived cultures
[10:47] Good carbs vs bad carbs for longevity
[12:14] The Fit Life Challenge and eat whole foods
[13:56] Establishing an environment of healthy habits in communities
[18:49] ROI: Reducing childhood obesity by 55% + $27 million claims savings
[20:45] How to create change when you don’t think you can: Set up your environment.
[25:21] Connection with friends and family to overcome negativity
[29:22] Blue Zone’s resources to go deeper into living longer, better
Transcript
* This transcript was mostly generated by AI, so please excuse any mistakes, and enjoy!
[00:00:00] Patrick: Hello and welcome to Live Fit Ignite Change, where together as a community, we inspire each other to live a fit life. Ignite the change we wish to see and thrive in all areas of life. In today’s episode, I’m joined with Nick Butner from Blue Zones.
[00:00:22] Patrick: You may have seen those amazing National Geographic documentaries and what the world’s longest living cultures do to live longer, better, healthier, happier lives. We dive into the nine lifestyle practices that they have in common. What you can do to start implementing these and how they are being rolled out to companies and communities. And we cover how to set up your environment so you’ll naturally do them, so you can create the change that you want to see to live a longer, better life.
[00:00:53] Patrick: Plus Nick will be speaking at our upcoming DLP Capital Health, Wellbeing and Longevity Summit in Puerto Rico, along with Gary Brecka, who is on episode 13 of this podcast, Mark Sissen from episode 9, Amanda Holmes on episode 4 and many more of the world’s top wellbeing minds. You can find the details on that event and all the resources mentioned in this conversation at LiveFitIgnitechange.com/bluezones.
[00:01:18] Patrick: Changing our world does not happen at once. It does not happen alone. It takes a committed group to be the change we wish to see. So together, we rise above negative influences to lead by example, making a positive impact at home and around the world. You can learn more. Join us and get show notes at livefitignitechange.com. Or for short, livefic.com.
[00:01:47] Patrick: Hello, Nick.
[00:01:48] Nick: Hey, can you hear me okay, Patrick?
[00:01:50] Patrick: Yes, I can. How are you doing?
[00:01:54] Nick: You know, I’m actually doing fantastic.
[00:01:57] Patrick: Wonderful.
[00:01:58] Nick: Yeah. I’ve been traveling pretty much nonstop. So I got home last night and I got a couple days in Minneapolis, which is fun. And I’m connecting with some friends, as well as doing laundry, which is, makes me feel settled, balanced
[00:02:15] Patrick: Friends and laundry. You’re balanced .
[00:02:18] Nick: Exactly. It’s that simple.
[00:02:20] Patrick: Awesome. Great, great combination. Well, this is awesome. Thank you so much for joining and yeah, and I was looking forward to seeing you in Puerto Rico as well, so that’ll be pretty awesome too.
[00:02:31] Nick: I’m excited, I’m still kind of thinking through kind of my talking points for that presentation, but I’m really excited as well.
[00:02:39] Patrick: Awesome.
[00:02:40] Nick: Yeah.
[00:02:40] Patrick: Well, very cool. I guess if you’re good, we’ll just jump right in cuz I’ve gotta say too, it’s great talking to you. I’ve loved the Blue Zones research forever. I mean, it’s all about what? How to live longer, better, healthier, happier. And when did it first come out? It’s been, gosh, probably about 20 years or so now?
[00:02:58] Nick: I did the initial research in Okinawa in 1999. The National Geographic was 2004.
[00:03:06] Patrick: Okay.
[00:03:07] Nick: Yeah.
[00:03:07] Patrick: 2004, so yeah, almost 20 that… I remember that National Geographic one that was pretty amazing when it came out and I mean, I’ve been listening to all the Blue Zone stuff and all that kind of things for quite a long time. But I guess just to give our listeners a quick background on Blue Zones and your bio, and then you can fill in anything else.
[00:03:25] Patrick: Um, basically about Blue Zones being inspired by the world’s longest lived cultures. Blue Zone’s mission is to empower everyone, everywhere to live longer, better. And Nick has led 17 expeditions over six continents. Leads the Blue Zone’s community engagement, including implementation of the Blue Zones Project, which plans to bring longevity lessons to positively impact the health of millions of people. Wow, that’s awesome.
[00:03:53] Nick: Well, everybody has to have a goal
[00:03:57] Patrick: That’s a pretty, pretty noble goal there. It just impacted the lives of millions of people to help ’em live longer and better. So, I guess if I could share that, but maybe you catch us up on kind of what you’ve been doing and maybe a little bit more specifically what all that means.
[00:04:12] Nick: Yeah. In high level, what Blue Zones is what Dan and I did is travel to the place of the world where people are living the longest life. There’s a thing called the Danish Twin studies. It says 80% of how long you live is lifestyle factors in our habits. So we wanted to find those places in the world where people were having the most success. But to do it with demographers and physicians and schools of public health, we could find the nine commonalities.
[00:04:38] Nick: That research took about 10 years and we fall in the five places. Okinawa, Japan, Sardinian, Italy, Ikaria in Greece, the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, in Loma Linda here in United States.
[00:04:55] Nick: But what excites me now is we’ve been… for the last 13 years, I’ve been taking these lessons to communities across the United States. And the focus of the work is normally, when we look at health, it’s around, you gotta go on a diet, you have to start exercising and moving. And it’s really hard because our environments aren’t set up for health and wellbeing.
[00:05:23] Nick: You know, you look at 50 years ago, they had the third of the rate of obesity. They had a seventh of the rate of diabetes and a 10th of the rate going to some studies of dementia. And it wasn’t because they’re smarter and better. It’s our environment has changed, right? You can’t go into a grocery store or any store without having to navigating gauntlet unhealthy choices. In Madison Avenue, they’re making $10 billion a year, is trying to sell some of the stuff that’s most unhealthy for us.
[00:05:56] Nick: Our communities are designed where we’re not… our kids aren’t walking and biking to school. Our parents are afraid to allow our kids to go two blocks from the house. Now, as a free range kid. You know, we had parks, we had all this stuff that we gather around natural movement. And lastly—
[00:06:13] Patrick: Wait, it should be—
[00:06:15] Nick: Around our mental health, we are more isolated. We’re more lonely now. 30 years ago, the average American had three best friends, and it’s now down to a friend and a half. And the effects of that is about the same as smoking about 20 cigarettes a day. Now, if you think about it, it is not only our physical health, but it’s our mental health is where that social aspect is important as well.
[00:06:39] Patrick: Wow, Awesome.
[00:06:40] Nick: So that’s what we’re doing is working with communities to set up environments where that healthier choice is ideally unavoidable or if not, just a little bit easier just to close it out.
[00:06:51] Patrick: You’re bringing back. It’s almost what seems like the natural, the way it should be. Just get out and live and eat healthy, and play, and walk and run. But it’s like today, we speak so much at our company about being intentionality about the things that we really wanna do and you’re having to bring that back to the communities and to really get them to do the things we should do again, so we can live better. So yeah, pretty, pretty cool set up.
[00:07:15] Patrick: And I personally love like the power nine, the lifestyle habits and all that kind of stuff and we could talk for hours about all this, but I guess just to give a kind of a quick snapshot of maybe some of those best practices for those that might not have been exposed to it, what they might wanna look to do.
[00:07:30] Nick: Yeah, I definitely can. There’s nine commonalities that we found that flew through all the different Blue Zones and I believe, actually, they’re things that we’ve known since we were kids. Their communities were designed for people to move naturally. They walked to school, they walked to their friend’s house, they walked to the grocery store, they walked to their jobs.
[00:07:51] Nick: The design was also inconvenienced or de convenienced. So if I look at Okinawa, I’m getting up and down off the ground. If I’m looking at a Costa Rica and making the corn tortilla shell, I don’t have a food processor, I got the [matata.] So it’s natural movement instead of exercises, instead of running marathons or triathlons. They had simple techniques to help reduce stress, stress that’s tied to inflammation.
[00:08:16] Nick: They had a strong sense of purpose in their life that they could articulate. People could articulate their sense of purpose with about seven and a half years longer. They had healthier diets, lower caloric intake, they had… it was mostly plant-based, they weren’t vegans or vegetarians. But meat, they kind of only ate as a condiment. They had a little bit of wine in their diet.
[00:08:40] Nick: And then lastly, it’s how they came together as a community. You’re surrounded by love all of your family, all the way through your life. You had a strong sense of faith. We have Blue Zones huge fans of faith. Don’t care what your faith is, doesn’t matter. All I know is through the centenarians that we met, all but two had a strong sense of faith. And there’s research out there that people show up to a faith-based organization at least three or four times a month, live four to 14 years longer.
[00:09:11] Nick: And then lastly, it’s our friends. According to the Framingham study, if your three best friends smoke or drink too much are overweight, there’s a 150% chance that you are as well. that our health rates actually flow in a social network the same way a diet does or a virus does.
[00:09:30] Nick: Think about that. Are you healthier at that friend that likes to go for long walks? Likes to experiment in plant-based cooking? Or are you healthier at that friend that likes to sit on the couch, watch TV and eating chicken wings? You know, but the other thing around friends is you also need a friend that you can pick up a phone when you’re having a bad day and you can call them. And they’ll not only answer, but they’ll listen to you. So those were the power [inaudible].
[00:09:55] Patrick: Love it. Such great lifestyle practices we often talk about at at DOPR. The eight S of living fully and living that life and I think a lot of this comes in. Together, we’ll go see it at the event in Puerto Rico too, getting into the personal compass and planning out all the different stages of just how you do live fully in all aspects of life. So it’s great to hear these in a succinct way that people can follow too.
[00:10:19] Patrick: One of the questions that came in too, and I think this originally from… I dunno if I saw it on your website or, but someone was asking about carbs. and I think it was specifically shared from you guys that the carbs was like the worst word in the nutrition dictionary because it’s these longest living cultures. They eat good carbs, yet today our society is filled with all those sugar filled process carbs that we should not eat. Wanna to dive into… give a little insight on that?
[00:10:47] Nick: Well, it’s simple. I mean, if you look at carbs…. in the Blues Zone communities, they eat carbs. It’s a big part of their diet. But to your point, you also have to remember that a tomato is a carb and a lollipop is a carb. And there’s a vast difference in those in terms of what’s good for us and not. So it’s exactly the point. It’s not around. It’s how are we defining good carbs from bad. And I don’t think we do that in our vernacular here in America.
[00:11:20] Patrick: Exactly. Just not enough. That’s for sure.
[00:11:23] Nick: But I’m also that guy that I will again argue that I don’t think diets don’t work. You know, you see people going out saying, “Let’s do the Atkins diet,” or “Let’s do X, Y, and Z diet, keto diet or paleo diet.” And they all have different things and they’re all set up in different ways, and some of ’em are good, some whatever. To me, it is how we are setting up our environment around those food choices that are good for us, and we all know what they are.
[00:11:54] Nick: We back in school, we went in and we learned about the healthy plate, which changed a little bit, but we know what’s good for us. We know what we need. We need proteins. We need carbs. We need… yeah. You know, and how do we create a balanced diet, setting up our environments to be able to do it right.
[00:12:14] Patrick: Well said. Yeah. We run a Fit Life challenge and two people are always asking, “Do I have to follow your exact diet now?” Sure, we recommend one, but then we put up on the screen. “Well, what a Paleo and Keto and Mediterranean and Whole 30 and even vegan,” like go through the whole list. “What do they all have in common?” And then that’s what you call it, just the healthy and like you guys say, it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle. You just live a lifestyle of being able to do these healthy things. Makes sense.
[00:12:36] Nick: And what you see around those diets is the one that probably is the most healthy is the Mediterranean diet. There’s lots of research from the value of that, not only to your heart health, but also to your brain health, to dementia and things like that.
[00:12:55] Patrick: Exactly. Get those good fish and nutrients then. And I know we had somebody going back to the carb, come up the other day. He was like, “Doesn’t the Mediterranean mean you just eat lots of pasta all day long?” It’s like, “No.” And especially not the carbs here in the US. Like, “Yeah, maybe go over to Italy and get the real unprocessed stuff. You’re good to go.”
[00:13:11] Nick: Pizzas and cheese.
[00:13:12] Patrick: Right . Exactly. And speaking of that challenge, cuz we do this FitLife challenge like I mentioned because a lot of our listeners here are kind of that on the go professionals at these high growth organizations. So, they’re busy during the day kind of living, stressed but achieving and wanting to not just achieve, but make an impact in life.
[00:13:32] Patrick: And so, when we get in this FitLife challenge, yeah, sleep mindset, nutrition, exercise, and really incorporates a lot of your kind of power nine concepts into what you’re talking about and it became a corporate wellbeing program over time. I’d just love to hear too about how you’re doing this to actually roll out your teachings into the communities, into organizations, maybe, what struggles you’ve run into and what successes you’ve had?
[00:13:56] Nick: Sure. The whole goal of Blue Zone projects are community…. we do ’em both for communities as well as for organizations. And I believe what they have in common are two things.
[00:14:08] Nick: Number one is they’re not led by me. Say Yahoo from Minnesota. I have a framework, I have measurement. I have all these things that are important, but they’re driven by the community. They’re community led, they’re community driven. I bring in a framework, I bring in measurement, I bring in… I bring in a process. But the goal of it is how are we breaking down silos in our communities? And coming together to share resources, but also coming together in a way that helps us set up an environment.
[00:14:41] Nick: So what we focus on is… well, let me back up just one quick second. So if you think about healthcare here in America, it’s acute care, right? It’s when you get sick, you engage with your doctor,
[00:14:55] Patrick: Right.
[00:14:56] Nick: And it’s really good if you’re sick, but if you’re at risk, you’re healthy. They don’t do anything for you. They’ve added some things on there like when you go to your physical, they tell you to exercise or whatever. But the problem is, I know I shouldn’t eat a Big Mac every day for lunch. I know I shouldn’t sit down and be sedentary every day or smoke a cigarette,
[00:15:19] Nick: But at the end of the day, we do those activities anyways because at the time we do ’em, it doesn’t kill us. It’s called hyperbolic discounting. I can eat a Big Mac every day for lunch for the next 10 years and not die.
[00:15:33] Nick: But eventually, those behaviors add up, and now all of a sudden you have that disease. So what we know now is the people you spend your time with. Your family, your friends, the places, and the design of the places, your work sites, your schools, your restaurants, your grocery stores, your faith-based organizations.
[00:15:59] Nick: And the design of your community, the policies in your community, about walkability and food systems and those things that drive addictions. Just the design of those environments are better, are really good for us. We set ’em up, right ‘cuz they can put us on a treatment plan without us even knowing that we’re on one.
[00:16:18] Nick: And the nice part is, is if you get those that support of your family and friends around wellbeing, so you’re not doing it alone, you’re not doing it in isolation. And you have design of your communities with ubiquitous nudges that are just nudging you just ever so slightly to be healthy every day. Then all of a sudden we can be put on a treatment plan without us knowing on.
[00:16:39] Nick: And that’s effective with Blue Zone’s does.. Is we will work with communities, and we’ll work with organizations. To help work with them, to design a process that sets up those environments to make that healthy choice easier. But do it in a way that it’s not me, but the leadership in the community design, we bring together leadership structures at all levels of the organization, like for work sites so that they’re the ones developing and deploying it.
[00:17:08] Nick: So now all of a sudden as you get enough engagement, now all of a sudden you hit a tipping point where wellbeing just becomes that focus of that conversation. But it’s owned by the community versus owned by us. And the last thing I’ll say, and I think this is really important, is I think one of the things we miss is, is how do we know the interventions that we’re doing around wellbeing are actually working?
[00:17:33] Nick: In our work sites. Yeah. It feels healthier. Yeah. But how do we know that? We measure stuff in our organizational every day, in our communities? Yeah. It looks like people are walking more. So what we try to do is bring in Gallup, we work with the team on measurement. And then let’s make sure that we’re lining the baseline of our work whether it’s a community or an organization, so that we’re driving the change that the community wants.
[00:18:00] Nick: And especially in work sites, if I can align it to organizational goals? More productivity because people are better social coming together, lower claims costs ‘cuz less people are getting sick. From aligning it to communities where people now wanna move to that community.
[00:18:18] Nick: Now from an organizational standpoint, I have more potential better employees that I can hire. If I can line those things up and then track and move the needle on that, that’s a benefit for all.
[00:18:32] Patrick: Exactly. Benefit for sure. I know people are always asking us, can you track the ROI on these fitness programs or the challenges of the wellbeing programs? And it sounds like you guys are getting results. Well, it might not be ROI Gallup, I assume you’re doing surveys just to show where people were before to where they were after
[00:18:49] Nick: And we’re doing ROIs. So we have a simulation model for communities in one community. We reduce childhood obesity by 55%. You can track that ROI in $40 million worth of add-on grants in the community work, in organizations. In one organization, I work with 2000 people, they saw $27 million worth of claims cost reduction. I can track the ROI. I saw less sick leave. I saw less people leaving because of safety issues. You can track the ROI and if I can track that, then as a business leader, I understand the linkage between wellbeing. And now I ensure that I’m investing and it becomes, again, part of the culture of that organization, in our decision making because there is business goals to it.
[00:19:43] Patrick: Exactly. Well said. And not just an ROI in that, the company’s going to be making money ‘cuz people are working harder. But you’re making that impact too. Making their lives better, making them healthier so they really can live longer better and go experience life with their loved ones like they want to.
[00:19:58] Patrick: And I think it brings me back, what you were saying earlier about people know what to do, but don’t do it and just need that peer group. It reminded me of the Tony Robbins quote. It’s one of my favorite ones. It’s, “The quality of our lives is a direct reflection of the expectations of our peer group.”
[00:20:14] Patrick: So I love how you’re involving the community and the peer group and those to encourage people. Like in our challenge, we have weekly meetings where people actually come in and report on their goals for either weight loss or muscle build or whatever.
[00:20:26] Nick: Yeah.
[00:20:27] Patrick: So I’m always interested when I hear like people say, “Gosh, yeah, I do know what to do, but I just don’t do it. Have y’all found any best practices for, especially for those people want to lose weight or get in better shape? What are the things you really have to do to change?”
[00:20:45] Nick: You know, there’s a couple things. I mean, it’s individual, right? I mean, I don’t wanna say that it’s not individual. Those goals, I laid out the Power Nine. The one thing I’ll say is I encourage you not to try to do everything, because trying to do everything is just a recipe and disaster.
[00:21:03] Nick: But my recommendation always is two things. It is, number one, understand what you want to change and understand that it is more than just physical, right? Our wellbeing is also mental. Purpose, waking up every day with a purpose to get up, whether it’s in our work sites or at home, is incredibly important. But what I talk about is how do you develop that environment? If I want to eat healthier for example?
[00:21:34] Nick: When you come home, what’s in the design of your kitchen? Do you have potato chips on the calendar when you want that snack? Or is it a fresh bowl of fruit? When you look at your refrigerator? Is it full? Is it a junk food emporium and you have the chocolate cake in front? Or those things that are better for us are those in front and those other stuff you gotta kinda reach a little bit further for.
[00:21:54] Nick: Can you do some design to that environment? Can you get support of your family and friends? We look at eating. We go to dinner. We have families that were coming, and if you can get that support so you’re not doing it alone, from a behavior of science standpoint, I think it’s a lot easier.
[00:22:11] Nick: So again, whether it’s exercise, whether it’s diet, whether it’s our mental health. I look at not only how are we setting up an environment that not only creates the support of your family and friends around it, so you’re not trying to do it alone, but also how are you thinking about setting up your environment to make it a little bit easier? Because we make 280 decisions every day tied to our health and most of ’em are involuntary.
[00:22:42] Nick: So if we can set up our environments just to make it a little bit easier, and set up rules and policies in our life to support it? Maybe it’s not doing email after 7:00 PM. And I turn off the phone and I set my phone up so nothing can come in so then I have that family time and I’m supporting it. You know, think about your environment versus thinking about, “Oh gosh, I gotta get up and run today. Oh gosh, I gotta get up and run today.” You know?
[00:23:11] Patrick: Right. It’s something you can enjoy and then it really does become your habit, your routine, and then it just becomes a part of life.
[00:23:17] Nick: That’s it.
[00:23:19] Patrick: Great. Great stuff. Well, cool. This has all been awesome. As we’re getting close to the end, I know we have a little segment where we ask all our guests that come on the five rapid fire questions. It’s called The Five to Thrive. If you’re ready for that, I will dive into those five. Good to go?
[00:23:34] Nick: Wonderful.
[00:23:35] Patrick: All right. Or just first thing that comes to your mind for each of ’em. First one. What’s your morning routine?
[00:23:43] Nick: My morning routine is I get up on morning shower, kind of do that to get up and whatever else. Have a little bit of breakfast. It’s usually fresh fruit or oatmeal. And then I start with catching up on the news. You know, I read a little bit of that news before I open up my email, and then I’m kind of jumping in email.
[00:24:08] Nick: Now, in some mornings what I’ll do is I’ll go do a run. I live in a beautiful place with a path right across the street where I’ll go do a run or a bike ride. I have a neighbor that does it with me.
[00:24:18] Patrick: Awesome. Following the practices you preach. So well done .
[00:24:22] Nick: Try .
[00:24:24] Patrick: All right. Number two. We obviously believe in continuous learning. So what is one book, podcast or movie that you would recommend most?
[00:24:32] Nick: You know, and again, there’s millions. I’m a pretty diverse reader from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or to other things. But the one I really liked a lot, especially tied to this topic or related to this topic, is the Omnivores Dilemma. RU talks about… the author kind of takes you through three different food systems.
[00:24:58] Patrick: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:59] Nick: And the design of those systems and the impact that it also has on our health. Both personally and environmentally. And it’s just interesting how he told that story. I really enjoyed it.
[00:25:11] Patrick: Very cool. Great suggestion. Thank you. Number three, if you feel stuck or down or just want to ignite change, what do you do to make it happen?
[00:25:21] Nick: When I feel stuck or down, I’ll be honest with you, what brings me up is friends and family. It’s the way… it’s my connection, It’s my go-to. Incredibly, luckiest to have my parents, I still have all my brothers and siblings and nine God kids. And it allows me to walk away from the problem or whatever I’m doing and focus on a refresh. To take something out of my mind, and focus on what I love doing and then coming back to the problem later. You know, and I think everybody has that go-to, that will take their mind off that problem for a little bit. Because if you ram your head against the wall 20 times, eventually you gotta…
[00:26:07] Patrick: That’s right. It’s some people, community, the better. Awesome. Love it. So number four, let’s now go back in time. Your 20-year old self. You’ve just received funding to create a project that would massively serve the world. It could be anything as long as it serves others. What advice do you give to your 20-year old self on coming up with a project and making it happen?
[00:26:31] Nick: It’s a good question. The advice I always give is, and it’s Blue Zones. Dan, myself, spokespeople for Blue Zones, but I have to tell you, Blue Zones is successful because there’s a lot of smart people that have come together and partnered with. And that’s more what I’d like to say is how do you let that ego go and not make it about you, but really make it about something bigger around that goal and partner with the right people.
[00:27:06] Nick: Bring in the right partnerships. And really think strategically around those partners that where everyone knows their role and their place in it, and are supporting the broader goal. And that’s the luck we’ve had. I’ve been able to be around incredibly people with just really good disciplines in their life, and they’ve been allowed to be able to lead to work in that discipline to then pull together that whole Blue Zone model.
[00:27:38] Patrick: That’s awesome. It is so important. The folks, you’re around in partnering, so….
[00:27:43] Nick: Yeah.
[00:27:43] Patrick: Now for the last one. Number five, we’re gonna go to the future now. Iif you have one piece of advice above everything else that you’ll be remembered for, what’s that one piece of advice?
[00:27:56] Nick: You know, I guess part of it is, again, thinking about our environment because no matter what you’re doing, the collaboration with somebody at work. How are you being more productive at work? Or how are you setting up your financial wellbeing? You know, your financial health or anything else. If you can set up those environments that just make it so it happens automatically, that’s where I always start. So that it’s not necessarily that discipline, but it just happens automatically where it’s the healthy choice is the easy choice.
[00:28:39] Nick: Again, whether that’s our financial health, our social health, our, our purpose, whether it’s how our community is impacting it, or our family. It’s think environment first, and make it easy.
[00:28:54] Patrick: Right. That’s awesome. I love. Set it up and then it becomes your abbot and routine. Yeah. So great, great stuff. All this was outstanding and so many great points. And I know we’re gonna link to all this in the show notes @lifiignitechange.com/bluezone so we can get any more information there.
[00:29:11] Patrick: But I guess before we close out, if there was anything else you wanted to share that I didn’t ask or maybe where people could go to learn more about you and Blue Zones and just kind of continue the journey.
[00:29:22] Nick: Yeah, and again, there’s so many great things out there. You know what I love from a Blue Zone resources, the ones I like the best is our website, our newsletter, reviews, evidence science backed, will send out things around wellbeing and it’s maybe one or twice a week so it’s not a lot.
[00:29:43] Nick: And then it’s my brother I know, but he’s such a gifted writer. And one of the things that he did that I really love is the Blue Zone Cook Book. He went to all the Blue Zone communities across where the centenarians were living. He had to make food, did photographs, but then figure out how do you make it easy and taste good using those Blue Zone recipes?
[00:30:05] Nick: And he’s coming out with another one now around the American cookbook and he does it not only in a here’s an easy way to cook and here’s the things that our body really needs. But he also writes it in more of an anthropological way as well. So it’s just really interesting that connection.
[00:30:22] Nick: And I just, again, I’m not saying this because of Blue Zones, I’m not saying it because of Dan, I’m seeing it, it’s because it’s a tool that I use around cooking that I really like. I enjoy the recipes. It makes… I can tell people he eat brussel sprouts, but if you don’t eat brussel sprouts, you ain’t gonna eat ’em. Gotta taste it. Right?
[00:30:44] Patrick: For sure.
[00:30:44] Nick: . And I think he’s done a very good job in getting some of those really good recipes from some of the longest lived people around the world that just I think really… they hit my pallet and I’m not a natural. And one of the things that had happened to me with Blue Zones is my diet changed through this research. It’s not natural for me but it was a tool that really makes it easier.
[00:31:10] Patrick: That’s awesome. Yeah, with you, I can definitely vouch for the content. It is fabulous. And that cookbook sounds amazing. Sounds like a perfect gift for a upcoming holiday season too. So… yeah,
[00:31:20] Nick: I know he has one, The American Cookbook coming out in December, and I don’t know a lot about it, but I know he’s focused on looking at traditional people here in America that’s cooking the Blue Zone diet, like coming in from traditional African roots. From Creole roots, from Mexican roots like Tex-Mex isn’t originally that Mexican food that we eat now. But there’s some cooks that done it that’s made it really a lot healthier and easier.
[00:31:52] Patrick: Right. Healthier the traditional way.
[00:31:53] Nick: Not, not trying to do a promo or whatever. I could promise. I just, it’s just a, it’s [inaudible]
[00:32:00] Patrick: Good stuff. You gotta share it.
[00:32:01] Nick: It’s a tool that I use. Yeah.
[00:32:04] Patrick: That’s awesome. Well, I love it. All the tools you used, everything you shared today, I think this is just gonna be awesome. Like I said, I’ve kind of been living a lot of this, but now hopefully more people will hear about it and be able to adopt it. And I’m gonna acknowledge you and your whole company too for what you guys are doing. I mean, anyone who’s got a mission to empower everyone everywhere to live longer, better is, is great by me.
[00:32:21] Patrick: So keep doing what you’re doing, making a difference. And again, definitely looking forward to seeing you at the Wellbeing Summit in Puerto Rico too.
[00:32:28] Nick: Ditto, ditto.
[00:32:29] Patrick: Awesome.
[00:32:30] Nick: Thanks again for your time.
[00:32:32] Patrick: Thanks so much. Well, I certainly hope you enjoyed that conversation and now you can go live longer and live better. Again, you can find all the details, resources mentioned in this episode in the show notes @livefit ignitechange.com/bluezones.
[00:32:46] Patrick: If you resonated with us, and would like to live fit and ignite change in your life, you can get started for free at livefitignitechange.com/start where you can join our community of high performers and get access to our kickstart resources for free. You can choose if you’d like to start on the path to getting in the best shape of your life and or ignite the change you’d wish to see by casting a vision and taking the steps to get there. You can get plugged in @LiveFitignitechange.com/start. Or for short, livefi.com/started.
[00:33:22] Patrick: Also, my family and I, we’re igniting the change that we wish to see in the world by helping others live fit. We were sick of all the processed, sugar loaded foods and drinks marketed to us, especially to our youth. So we’re developing a line of truly delicious, grain-free, sugar-free products that children and adults love as part of our Inrive performance nutrition brand. Learn more and join the Inrive Insiders for free to be the first to hear about samples, launch parties, and @inrive.com. That’s inrive.com.
[00:33:57] Patrick: Thank you so much for tuning them and please be sure to like, share, rate and review this show. This is what’s needed to help reach more and serve more so together, we truly can ignite the change that we wish to see.
[00:34:11] Patrick: Thank you so much for your help in making it happen. And I hope you make it an outstanding day and go forth to Light Love and serve the world and live the life you’ve always imagined.
