The 150-year rule: a simple tool for eating clean

Live healthier, for longer (Issue #101)

Read time: 3 minutes

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Good morning, 66.1ers.

Overview

• My favorite rule for keeping your nutrition on track

• A clever twist on the classic squat exercise

• Add your wisdom in the comments below today’s post

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Food for thought:

A simple mental tool to keep your nutrition on track this week: the 150-year rule.

It goes like this: “if it didn’t exist 150 years ago, it’s not allowed in my body.”

A few examples for the sake of clarity:

1. Cheetos:
   They’re not found in the wild today.

   And they weren’t found in the wild 150 years ago.

   

   Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

2. Broccoli:
   It’s a green vegetable.

   It even tastes “healthy”.

   Of course it existed 150 years ago.

Obviously you know you’ll be better off if you eat more broccoli than Cheetos.

Let’s pick a more illustrative example than Cheetos versus broccoli.

The power of the 150-year rule becomes clear when you start evaluating seemingly equivalent products. Farm-raised versus wild-caught salmon, for example. Your great-grandfather was not farming salmon. And the nutrition facts on salmon would indicate that following the 150-year rule is in your best interest.

So, the next time you’re in the grocery store and a food item feels impossibly convenient (Beyond Burger, I’m looking at you!), ask yourself, “did this exist 150 years ago?”

If not, keep walking.

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Drop it in the comments:

Have a wise insight to help keep your health on track (similar to the 150-year rule)?
Drop it below for 66.1ers to learn from each other!

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Workout of the week:

Bulgarian split squats

It’s an elevated take on your classic squat.

3-5 rounds of 3-5 reps:

Elevate one leg behind you on a bench, chair, or similar surface, so your knee bends at 90 degrees.

Squat down with your other leg until that knee is bent at 90 degrees.

If it’s easy, add weight.

You should feel like you could do a couple more reps at the end of each set, but no more than 3 reps left in the tank.

Here’s a video to help:

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That’s all for this Wednesday.
See you on Saturday.
Have fun out there.

Marcus