Ep 67 | Dr. Peter Attia and Exercising for Longevity with Brian Gubernick

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today I'd like to talk a little bit about health, and specifically I want to discuss exercise as outlined, as mentioned by Dr. Peter Attia, a medical doctor and a guy who's really well known for all the work he's presently doing on longevity. Let's talk around longevity here real quick and what Peter means when he uses that word. Peter talks about longevity not in terms of the number of years necessarily that you live. Yes, he would like to, or he is studying, and he puts information out to help you extend your life. But more specifically, when he talks longevity, when he talks extension of life, what he's really discussing are the number of years that you're active and actually able to live your life. So while a lot of what he teaches, it, you know, he hopes that maybe you go from age 80 to maybe age 90. The idea isn't necessarily to extend by a decade, it's to permit you to live those full 80 years or those full 90 years by being active, by taking care of yourself, as opposed to the opposite. So Peter Attia has been making the rounds as of late. One reason, he's just a brilliant guy. You should look him up, A-T-T-I-A. Second reason, he's got a new book out that I've just recently started, and the book's called Outlive. I want to focus on some of Peter's thoughts around exercise, partially because I couldn't agree more with his, with his approach and how he outlines its importance, but also how it has to be considered against a number of other factors that are also important as it pertains to your longevity. And the enjoyment of your life. Peter, like so many, of course believes in the importance of regular exercise. Regular exercise is required for you to have overall good health, uh, well-being, both physically and mental well-being, obviously longevity, and also to just allow you to connect with your body, with movement, with the way that we as human beings were designed. Peter believes engaging in physical activity is crucial, of course, for maintaining optimal health. I mean, who doesn't believe that? More specifically though, Peter believes exercise is arguably the number one thing we could all do to reduce the risk of chronic diseases. Now again, this is a longevity expert, someone who wants us to enjoy our lives as much as possible. Therefore, he specializes quite a bit in reducing the risk of chronic diseases, things like diabetes, things like mental diseases, diseases like Alzheimer's and things of that nature, cardiovascular disease, right? These things that really, really prohibit us or potentially end our lives even early, but prohibit us from doing things that we desire. Now, when it comes to regular exercise, Peter thinks we need to have an individualized approach. Here's the thing, and this is where I want to go with this individualized approach conversation. Your age, your fitness level, your goals, these things all matter. There is no one-size-fits-all, and I want to emphasize that because I know as someone who's very much into health and fitness, There are many a fitness expert— I'm using air quotes when I say that— fitness expert that is married to their method as the best method that's out there. I'll give you an example. Maybe I'll catch some flak for this, but CrossFit is one of those. Now, I'm someone that owned a CrossFit gym, but CrossFit really takes a great deal of pride in believing that it is, in fact, the optimal workout. I gotta tell you, I don't necessarily disagree with that fully, but I do believe your age, your fitness level, your personal goals, all those things get taken into consideration. Exercise routines should be unique to you, and it very much is dependent on your desired outcome. Now one thing I know that Peter does a great job of as he talks about this individualized approach and to go a little deeper on this, he believes that you focus on strength and resistance training. He's a huge advocate for strength and resistance training. And he believes that these exercises, of course, are, are important for development of muscle, but even more important, preserving of muscle mass. One joke that Peter makes, he says something to the effect of, I've never met an 80-year-old that said, "Geez, I wish I wasn't this strong." And it's such a good point. You know, we all remember that ad, maybe not all of us, but a lot of us remember the "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercial. Well, Peter references that. What was the issue? Why couldn't she get up? She couldn't get up because she wasn't strong enough to get up. She couldn't get up because she didn't have the muscular ability. Ability, or stamina, or strength. And so as we age, preserving muscle mass, even building more muscle mass, is so important for longevity purposes. This will improve our strength, improve our functional capacity, improve our metabolic health. Now, not just strength and resistance training. Are what Peter believes we should be doing. Not just that, he also thinks there's a cardiovascular component to this too. And this is where a lot of what he shares is a little different than most. We should be strength training, but we also need some degree of high-intensity interval style training, something that's going to allow for cardiovascular benefit. Development of both our aerobic and anaerobic functionality. So both strength and cardiovascular development are necessities when it comes to exercise. One thing I also love about Peter, he thinks not just, uh, should movement happen in exercise and in cardiovascular training, it also needs to happen just throughout your day. We need to be incorporating movement in all that we do, be it a stand-up desk, or a walk when we're on the phone, or just physically moving and removing ourselves from the comforts of life. And we've talked about those comforts. We had a recent episode where we talked about The Comfort Crisis. Peter Attia is actually the one that first mentioned The Comfort Crisis book. That I referenced a couple weeks ago. We have got to be avoiding these behaviors, these sedentary behaviors that are crippling us. And again, it goes back to strength and resistance training. It goes, it goes to cardiovascular, high-intensity interval training, but it also comes back to just moving. So take the stairs, walk, stand up more often, physically move. Lastly, with respect to all that Peter talks about, while exercise is essential, it's got to be considered alongside the other things that we've talked about so much here at No Days Off, like nutrition, like your stress— your sleep, I'm sorry, like your stress management, like your overall lifestyle choices. Exercise and physical fitness physical movement are components of that, that pie. That's why we did the health series not too long ago. Exercise is critical. And again, on the path to longevity, on the path to optimal health, it's absolutely necessary. So the focusing question for you today, right? We're talking exercise. What's your exercise routine look like? Is it where it needs to be? Are you physically challenging yourself both in terms of strength development but also cardiovascular? Are you weighted towards one more than the other? If you're an endurance athlete, there's a good chance that you're underdeveloped muscular— with respect to your muscles. And in terms of strength, those that strength train, it's a really good chance that you're not outrunning anything if it was chasing you because you'd run out of steam. So we've got to weight these things to some degree. I'm not going to say evenly, but we have to have both components in our world. And by the way, if we're nailing our exercise, it begs the question, what's your nutrition like? What's your sleep like? What's your stress management like? Because all of these things play a role in the puzzle that is solving for increasing longevity, increasing the amount of years that we actually live our life. Not years on this planet, but the amount of time that we actually experience life. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.