The Six Pillars of Healthy, Happy, Curious Longevity
Super Age Games Founding Athlete Liz Plosser has been researching health and fitness all her life. And she’s built a six-point foundation she hopes to test at the Games.
Liz Plosser’s life wasn’t headed where she wanted. So, she moved.
Not into a new house, or to a new city. The then-22-year-old, fresh out of Princeton and working the job you’re “supposed to do” — investment banking in New York — moved her feet instead. She signed up to run a marathon.
“It was through all those long runs in Central Park with strangers of all ages from all over the city that I started articulating, out loud, what I really loved to do,” Plosser, now 47, says.
What she loved to do was moving her body, and helping others get excited to do the same through her research and writing. With the encouragement of her marathon running community, Plosser worked her way into the magazine industry as a young assistant at SELF.
“It was a ginormous pay cut, which was terrifying,” she says. “The headline is, ‘I loved it, and never looked back.’”
Twenty-five years later, she’s been the editor-in-chief of Women’s Health, an author, speaker, and now the lead of her own Substack, “Best Case Scenario.” She’s written and edited innumerable stories that have helped women embrace their bodies, movement, and a middle age that’s focused on doing what they love.
“Fitness and movement should feel fun and light,” she says, “and not be a penance for what you ate that day.”
In November, Plosser will bring that fun approach to fitness to the Super Age Games, where she’ll be a Founding Athlete.
Six Strategies for Happier, Healthier [lon-jev-i-tee]nounLiving a long life; influenced by genetics, environment, and lifestyle.Learn More
The reams of studies she’s reviewed and interviews she’s conducted and edited have helped Plosser build a foundation for her own health and longevity that’s built on six “S”s:
Sweat
As a fitness reporter and editor, Plosser’s tried it all: pilates, boutique fitness, triathlons, marathons, hot yoga, SoulCycle, and every other class and workout that’s been released in the past two decades. They’ve all helped her move her body, which she says is mostly key for her mind.
“To me, fitness is 90 percent about that rather than getting bigger biceps or whatever,” she says.
Strength
She has gotten the bigger biceps, though. It took until her 40s to “click” with [strength tray-ning]nounResistance-based exercise to build muscle and support healthy aging.Learn More, but it’s now her main fitness focus. In five weekly strength sessions, each lasting about 60 minutes, she alternates between upper- and lower-body days, mostly focused on kettlebell movements.
Embracing strength “was a major inflection point just in terms of how my body felt, how much more confidence I had, how much ease I had moving through the world,” she says. “I also noticed that my body changed… for the first time in my life, it looked like I was spending as much time on fitness as I actually was.”
Sustenance
This one’s a bit of a cheat to get to an “S,” but that’s our doing, not Plosser’s. But sussing out what she was really eating helped Plosser get stronger and build more muscle.
“Ironically, I’d written big features about protein and other macronutrients, but I always assumed since I ate everything, that I was good,” she says. “When I actually looked at my own diet, I was only getting 40 to 50 grams of protein per day.”
To support her strength goals, she bumped up her daily intake to 100 or more, with a target of 125 grams per day to support her weekly strength. A bonus? “I stopped feeling so snacky.”
Sleep
“I prioritize and protect my sleep as though it’s another job, which I believe it is,” she says. That’s not easy with three kids. Instead of obsessing over her watch’s sleep score, Plosser says she focuses on what she can control: Keeping her room cool, having a wind-down routine, and keeping a consistent bedtime.
That last one may be the most powerful of all. Studies have found that a consistent sleep schedule boosts cognition, reduces your risk for dementia, and is a stronger indicator of longevity than the total number of hours you sleep.
Stress Management
Whether it’s petting her dog or taking a hot shower, Plosser says she’s built a toolkit for when life gets overwhelming.
One easy tool she comes back to again and again is a simple breathing exercise that any Super Ager can keep on deck. When your boss pops in to say ‘let’s meet in 10 minutes,’ or you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed for another reason, try it: Breathe in for a count of 3. Hold for a count of 3. Breathe out for a count of 3. Repeat for around 60 seconds.
“If I do that,” she says, “I feel like a new person.”
Sauna
Thanks to Finland’s longstanding affinity for saunas, scientists have strong evidence for the benefits of dry heat: In one 20-year study, people who used a sauna regularly reduced their risk of early mortality by 40 percent.
In the past few years, Plosser has embraced not just sauna itself, but “Aufguss,” a 15-minute sauna ceremony with deep breathing, music, and essential oil-infused snowballs that scent the room as a guide moves heat by waving a towel.
“When I’ve got those things locked down, I feel really good. I feel in control of my life. I’m fit enough that I can go hike a mountain tomorrow morning,” she says. And that’s the kind of longevity and long-term health she hopes to embrace and help others create: “Longevity, to me, means feeling happy, healthy, curious, and energized for many, many years to come.”
Spotlighting Her Weaknesses (for Fun!) at the Super Age Games
Staying curious is one of the reasons Plosser said “yes” to being a Super Age Games Founding Athlete.
“I wanted to learn more about my own body, and where I can improve and spend more time working on healthy habits to feel even better than I already do,” she says of the Games. “I loved the idea of, in a social, celebratory way, putting a spotlight for me on those weaker areas.”
One trial she expects to be especially challenging at the Games is the [vee-oh-too maks]nounA measurement of how much oxygen your body can use during exercise.Learn More test. While her focus on strength training (and a journey a few years ago to do her first pull-up) has her feeling bullish about her [grip strength]nounA key marker of strength and predictor of longevity.Learn More, her cardio work’s mostly been limited to head-clearing jogs with her dog a few days per week. So she’s putting in more hours to improve this key cardio marker of longevity. And she knows her Canyon Ranch team, led by Stacy Sims, will be cheering her on.
“Stacy Sims is the ideal leader for that team as a woman who has devoted her education and life to helping women feel better in their bodies,” Plosser says of the team from Canyon Ranch, where she’s the editor-at-large. She’s looking forward to that atmosphere of encouragement at the November event: “I want to be with a group of people who celebrate life and health and well-being and feeling good. I love the energy in a room when a group of people come together and cheer one another on.”
The data the Games gives her about herself, Plosser says, will help inform tweaks and changes to her pillars of health. But that new data is just a bonus on top of all the rest.
“I want to be doing all of that for the long term,” she says of the healthy habits she’s built. “I think it’s work to make sure you stay on the path, and that you make space and time for those activities that light you up.”
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