71 Year Old Billionaire Biker’s Health Tips
What Can You Do To Stay Fit?
If you were a billionaire, what would you eat on your “cheat day”?
English property tycoon John Caudwell’s “guilty pleasure” is a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) hot wings, the ones fried in double-breaded coating. He does not feel guilty when eating it, though; he enjoys every mouthful.
“When I go bad, I go terrible. Of course KFC is disastrous for your health, it’s trans-fats, non-organic chicken, breadcrumbs … but I don’t feel guilty because I don’t have it more than once a month – I say sod it, I love it.”
With the exception of this occasional departure, the billionaire philanthropist, now aged 71 and a father of seven, is a paragon of health and fitness, with the energy of a man half his age.
“Carbohydrates cause disaster,” he says, basing this view on the glycemic index (GI) scale which measures the rate at which a food makes your blood sugar rise.
Foods are ranked on a scale of 0 to 100, with pure glucose (sugar) given a value of 100. The lower a food’s glycemic index, the slower blood sugar rises after eating that food. In general, the more processed a food is, the higher its GI, and the more fibre or fat in a food, the lower its GI.
Eating high-GI foods – such as white bread, white rice, breakfast cereals, cakes, cookies, carrots, potatoes, fruit such as watermelon and pineapple, sweetened dairy products such as fruit yogurts – leads to a rapid increase in blood glucose and insulin. Research suggests many diseases, such as cancer, heart failure, strokes and dementia, are caused by a combination of high blood sugar and high insulin.
Eliminating all carbs is a bit extreme, he agrees. That is why he recommends removing the “low-hanging fruit” first, and working your way down the list from bad to less bad, as he describes it.
“The number one thing everyone should cut out of their diet 100 per cent is cakes and biscuits. It’s gluten, sugar and trans fats. The next level down is bread – all bread. It should just be abolished,” he says.
Next on his hit list is rice – Caudwell points out that much of the world’s rice contains arsenic. Science backs that up, although arsenic levels vary depending on rice type, where it is grown, how it is processed and whether it is well rinsed before cooking.
Potatoes fall near the bottom of his list. He says they are “the least offensive, but still with a quite high GI”.
He limits himself to one or two portions of fruit a day.
“If you eat a lot of fruit, you will end up with fatty liver disease later on in your life. Fructose cannot go into the bloodstream, it can only be dealt with by the liver. When they say [have] five [servings] a day, that’s nonsense.
“Take watermelon – it has a GI of around 72; table sugar has a GI of 63. So watermelon, if you have enough, is doing great damage to cause your glucose to spike.”
“That’s all packed full of nutrition and has very little sugar. The nearer you can get to a healthy diet, the better your chance of living longer and at high quality.”
At Le Provençal, an impressive art deco hotel renovated into 39 ultra luxury flats, it was of utmost importance to include a serious health and wellness facility, with sauna and steam rooms, an ice room, massage therapy rooms, yoga studio, state-of-the-art fitness room and a 30-metre (98-foot) swimming pool.
“It’s a must-have for me, and I find health and well-being is increasingly important to homeowners.”
If actions speak louder than words, he is in remarkably good shape for a man his age. He has cycled here for the interview with his partner, former Olympic cyclist Modesta Vzesniauskaite, aged 40, from their home in Monaco, a good two-and-a-half hour hilly ride; he will cycle back tomorrow.
He is training for a bike race traversing the breadth of Italy called Chase the Sun, on June 22, covering more than 280km (174 miles) with 3,300 metres in elevation. The goal is to get it done in a day.
Before our meeting, he had just had a three-hour sports massage, which he described as “agony, but good agony”. Regular massages help him relax.
While he enjoys the trappings of a billionaire lifestyle, he has a third home in London’s affluent Mayfair. He often opting to fly budget airline easyJet and holiday in affordable all-inclusive resorts in Turkey. It is a way of staying incognito.
“People don’t recognize me that way, or perhaps they do, but don’t believe it could be me,” he laughs.
Caudwell eschews having a dedicated nutritionist or personal trainer, and instead follows doctors’ and fitness specialists’ advice on their YouTube channels.
When he finds that many noted doctors are giving the same health advice, he tests their advice on himself, and if it works well, it becomes part of his regime, he says.
“I desperately want to see my children grow up and I work like mad to make sure I can do the best I can. I do everything in my power to get an extra 10 or 20 years, even though I am pragmatic about it.”
“I’ve had a massive life, though, and I’m not greedy. None of us are entitled to anything.”
Source: SCMP