As John Olkowski figures it, if he just follows family tradition, he should be in great shape for many years to come.

Three of his grandparents lived into their 90s. His father is 82 and can still be seen pushing a mower through his two-acre plot in Bridgewater, N.J. The patriarch would still be climbing trees to cut down branches, Olkowski says, if his boys weren't so opposed to it.

Olkowski's mother prefers to do her training indoors, walking for an hour and a half a day at a nearby mall.

"I have longevity in my family," Olkowski says. "My dad still has so much energy. He just go-go-goes. I'd like to keep going until I'm 80, 90, 100."

Yet Olkowski's fine health is as much about nurturing good habits as it is about the winner's hand that nature dealt. He maintains a vigorous and varied workout schedule, grows his own vegetables and fruit, and gets his seven or eight hours of sleep as many nights as his busy schedule will allow.

For Olkowski, an ophthalmologist, it's discipline without drudgery, an easy-to-swallow trade-off for being able to "feel good on a daily basis."

Olkowski grew up in Bridgewater and attended graduate and medical school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He spent a year of residency at Tufts University in Boston — "the coldest winter I ever spent" — before moving to Hawai'i in 1990.

"I'd visited a few times, and I loved the climate and the people; I loved the feel of it out here," he says.

Before starting his own practice seven years ago, Olkowski worked for Kaiser Permanente, where he met his wife, an emergency-room doctor who had trained in Detroit.

Olkowski's wife knew the new love of her life was a healthy guy, but it might not have hit home until after they were married.

"I was sauteeing Swiss chard for breakfast," Olkowski explains. "She looked at it and said, 'What the heck is that?'"

Olkowski credits "39 years of being a bachelor" with honing his culinary skills, developing in him a feel for food that is often best realized through improvisation.

The doctor has been known to dazzle his wife with gourmet meals cobbled together from whatever disparate ingredients the refrigerator or cupboard might bear.

The only problem, Olkowski says, is that such moments of creativity are usually impossible to duplicate.

"It bothers (my wife) ... that I can't reproduce some of these dishes," he says, laughing.

The Olkowskis have a 2-year-old son, and while the arrival of their child has required a few tweaks in the couple's schedule, they've found that the boy has only enhanced their resolve to stay fit and enjoy life as a family. (Because of the nature of his wife's work, Olkowski asked that her name and the name of their son not be used in this article.)

Olkowski bought his wife a tennis-ball machine, which allows her to hit while he watches their son, and vice versa. They also take regular hikes up Mariner's Ridge or the Makapu'u Lighthouse Trail with their son strapped to Olkowski's back and the family dogs in tow.

Olkowski, who runs and swims regularly, says his son also likes to join him when he does his weekly weight training. Sometimes Olkowski will do push-ups with his son on his back; other times, his son will take command of Mom's light hand-held weights for a few curls.

Olkowski's hand-me-down lessons on healthy living also include good diet and a healthy dose of creative relaxation. He and his son plant fruits and vegetables together, and collaborate on oil paintings (Olkowski has studied art and dreams of taking a sabbatical to Tuscany to cook and paint).

Even Olkowski's vices are not totally unhealthy. He prefers green tea over coffee because of the mellower caffeine effect, and, taking into account recent studies on antioxidants, his fondness for red wine and dark chocolate falls somewhere short of sinful.

As an eye doctor, of course, Olkowski is adamant about proper sun protection. He recommends sunglasses with 100 percent ultraviolet protection or newly developed sports lenses.

"I want to stay healthy for my little boy, and for myself," Olkowski says.

Good health, after all, is all in the family.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.