Eat Less, Live Longer

Do you eat to feed your body--or your mind? Correctly calculate how many calories your body needs in day and you may be surprised at how low the figure is. That's because most of us don’t eat what we need, we eat what want. And the difference between the two--the calorie surplus--is what leads to weight gain.

This weekend, Fareed Zakaria interviewed Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990, on CNN's GPS. Lee is responsible for turning Singapore, which became independent in 1965, into one of the economic centers of the world thanks to his astute economic policies. He's 85, but you would never guess it.

During the course of the interview, Zakaria asked Lee about his secrets to longevity and success.

"Your life span depends on what you've inherited from the two helixes you got from your mother and father," Lee responded, adding, "I take every day as it comes. I see the sun rise, I see the sun set. I eat less than I want to. I swim and I cycle. I sleep well of nights, and I enjoy my work."

At 85, he exercise, rests, and eats less than he wants to.

What Lee understands is that retirement doesn’t mean letting your body go and overindulging. If anything, those behaviors will only shorten your life span.

If I ate what I wanted to, I'd be chowing down brownies and grilled cheese sandwiches every day. But I am learning to eat for fuel based on what my body needs.

If it helps, think of your body as a car: Once you've filled your tank, would you keep pumping gas into it, letting fuel spill out everywhere? And would you purposely select a bad fuel that would corrode your engine? Of course not--yet we regularly overfeed our bodies and intentionally make bad food choices. We treat our cars better than our bodies!

Why does this matter to you? We all need to take a page out of Lee's book: Exercise, rest and don't eat in excess. And by that I don't mean severe caloric restriction, but feeding your body what it needs to maintain a normal, healthy weight.