+1: #1025 Exercise: It’s a Well-Being Tool

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another optimize plus one. In our last couple 1s we talked about a key, arguably the number one key predictor of our long term health and morbidity, our visceral fat. We also discussed the optimized waist to height ratio that gives us some insight on how we're doing with that facet of our lives. Plus one plus one plus one for the less than 0.5 win. There are of course a number of things we can do to optimize our waist to height ratio. Eat plus move plus sleep fundies for the win. But the number one thing? Nutrition. @ the end of the day, if we want to get our weight optimized, we need to get our nutrition optimized. And that requires us to get our metabolism insulin optimized. All of which is part of a longer chat we have in Nutrition 101 and Optimal Metabolism 101. Check out those 101 classes. Plus we move from theory to practice to mastery on that goodness in our Mastery series and coach programs. Which is one of the reasons why losing a bunch of weight is a number one byproduct outcome for a lot of our optimizers for whom that's an important goal. Now, for the record, I'm agnostic as to whether you should go vegan or paleo or keto or carnivore or whatever strikes your fancy. I am, however, very committed to a encouraging you to go all in on whatever path you choose, while B remaining open to experimenting as new data comes in, while C making sure whatever path you choose includes limiting, eliminating sugar and flour and ultra processed foods, while D reminding you that the more weight you need to lose, the more committed you'll need to be, the more important the margins will be and the brighter your lines will need to be. Got some plus ones on those themes linked in this plus one. But that's not quite the point of today's plus one. Today I want to talk about the fact that exercise, as awesome as it is, is primarily a well being tool, not a weight loss tool. We talk about this in our notes on Jeff Volek and Stephen Phinney's book the Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living. It's one of their 10 clinical pearls. They tell us exercise is a wellness tool. It is not a weight loss tool. They also tell us, I quote, again, exercise done by heavy people causes a lot of collateral damage. Think ankles, knees, hips and low backs. So here's a radical idea. Let heavy people try carbohydrate restriction. First, lose some weight, which most do without resorting to exercise, and then let them decide when to become more active. Once they are empowered, energized and lighter of foot, they continue by saying making heavy people exercise is punitive. Enabling heavy people to lose weight and then become more fit is smart. So exercise is unquestionably awesome for our overall well being. It's like that little bit of Ritalin and Prozac a la John Rady Spark. And as Sony Lyubomirsky tells us in the how of Happiness, it's been shown to be as effective as Zoloft in reducing depression. But again, remember, exercise is not primarily a weight loss tool, it's a wellness tool now. I often think of this when I'm out on the trail and see significantly overweight people training super hard. It makes a lot more sense to slow down and get your weight down, then train. To put it in perspective, I used to carry something heavy for the first five and last five minutes up the start of the trail. I need to get back on this. Either a 50 pound sandbag or a bucket for filled with 50 pounds of gravel rocks. That's like me now. People often looked at me and asked what are you carrying? Then we'd have a sweet love 2.0 moment as we chat about Spartan races, my training, et cetera. But no one ever pauses to think about the fact that running with 15 to 25 to 50 plus extra pounds is at least as weird as me carrying a 50 pound bag of sand or or a 50 pound bucket of rocks. So if you're carrying extra weight, consider putting all your energy into dropping it then hitting your higher impact aerobic training note. Carry on with the lower impact maf, aerobic goodness and resistance training during the transition one more time. Let's remember exercise is a wellness tool and it is not a weight loss.

Tool. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize.

Me. Hey guys, this is Brian with a quick little P.S. i'm really excited to let you know about an event we're working on. Plan is to make it the premier self optimizing event of 2020. We're calling it Optimize 2020. You the modern hero. Basic idea. Five days, 101 world class luminaries. One million people. You can learn more and get your tickets to the online and offline event at Optimize Me 2020. Again, that's Optimize Me. 2020. Hope to see you.