At the Age of Forty, I Decided to Eat Well

Forty-two-year-old programmer Zhou Haiqing received a "life and death verdict"-style physical examination report: fatty liver, hypertension, cervical kyphosis, and Helicobacter pylori positivity—six abnormalities. The first page of the report printed three shocking words: critical value. What really made him collapse was another thing: the year his father died, he was also forty-two years old. There are old people at the top and small people at the bottom, and there are mortgages in the middle, so they cannot fail. Start by getting rid of the bad habit of breakfast and start with a bowl of millet porridge every day. Zhou Haiqing set up a small casserole in the rental house, studied "Compendium of Materia Medica" and "Essentials of Drinking and Diet", and wrote down every dietary prescription in his notebook. Three months later, the fatty liver was gone. Half a year later, the high blood pressure medication was stopped. And those colleagues around him who worked overtime to the point of calling the police, security guards, delivery riders, and cleaning ladies—all were "fed" by him with a bowl of soup, a cup of tea, and a dish of side dishes. "Isn't it too late to start eating well at the age of forty?" "It's not too late. The stomach is still there, the liver can still carry it, and you can be saved if you are alive."