Short podcast episode (Heroic +1) in which Brian Johnson summarizes exercise-focused health advice from Dr. Robert Lustig and Dr. Peter Attia, emphasizing that exercise—particularly Zone 2 training and improving VO2 max—is the single best stimulus to create mitochondria and extend healthspan. Brian recounts key quotes from Lustig and Attia, describes his personal training changes (increasing weekly Zone 2 from ~1 hour to 3–4 hours), and closes with a promotional outro by Michael from Heroic.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In the last several plus ones, we've been spending time hanging out with Dr. Robert Lustig and Dr. Casey Means. We started by chatting about how to optimize the quadrillions of micro energy engines in our bodies so we can show up feeling heroically energized. Then we talked about the fact that one Coke equals one year's worth of sugar 150 years ago. That's crazy. And the fact that we want to quit drinking our calories. Then we talked about the unholy trinity of bad energy, AKA the three things we want to reduce and avoid added refined sugar, refined vegetable and seed oils, and refined grains. Then we had a special shout out to parents who might be making more trips to the doctor's office than they'd like. And in our last plus one, I promised to share Dr. Robert Lessig's number one tip on how to optimize your old mitochondria. Here it is, he tells us, and I quote, the single best stimulus to make more and fresh mitochondria is exercise. But even your mitochondria can't outrun a bad diet, as it turns out. Peter Attia emphasizes the same wisdom in his great book Outlive. In fact, he tells us that exercise is the number one thing we can do to crush it. Here's how he puts it. More than any other tactical domain we discuss in this book, exercise has the greatest power to determine how you will live out the rest of your life. There are reams of data supporting the notion that even a fairly minimal amount of exercise can lengthen your life by several years. It delays the onset of chronic diseases pretty much across the board, but it is also amazingly effective at extending and improving health. Spanish not only does it reverse physical decline, which I suppose is somewhat obvious, but it can slow or reverse cognitive decline as well. He continues by saying, so if you adopt only one new set of habits based on reading this book, it must be. It must be in the realm of exercise. If you currently exercise, you will likely want to rethink and modify your program. And if exercise is not a part of your life at the moment, you are not alone. 77% of the US population is like you. Now is the time to change that. Right now, even a little bit of daily activity is much better than Nothing. Going from zero weekly exercise to just 90 minutes per week can reduce your risk of dying from all causes by 14%. It's very hard to find anything that can do that now. That's from the first practical chapter in part three of his book. Once we've established the high level intellectual framework, he walks us through the evolution of medicine 1.0 versus medicine 2.0 versus medicine 3.0 and clarified our objectives and strategies optimize our metabolism and mitochondria to increase both our lifespan and our health span. We get to work on the tactics that will enable us to succeed. Atiya tells us we want to dominate the same core fundamentals. We come back to all the eating, moving and sleeping. But he tells us the place to start is with exercise. I'm going to repeat this line so if you adopt only one new set of habits based on reading this book, it must be in the realm of exercise. Atia italicized Must I put it in all caps, bold italic just to make sure you got the memo. And I want to emphasize that Atiya isn't a biohacking nut. He's a relatively conservative and very rigorous thinking Stanford trained, trained medical doctor. So I personally took him at his word and have re architected my training protocol to meet his standards. The biggest shift for me zone two training. Although my VO2 max, I got it tested immediately after reading this book was in the highest superior category for my age. I guess the 101 burpees, thousand meters of rowing and 10,000 steps a day every day for a decade have helped. I was only getting about an hour of Zone 2 in per week. Frankly, I was seeing how little I could train to feel great. But I wasn't even hitting the standard American recommendation of getting 150 minutes or 2 and a half hours per week of zone 2. ATIA recommends 3 to 4 hours per week. I can assure you I hit 3 hours the week I read the book and I've hit it four hours the last three weeks since. Now he says this about zone two, which is 60 to 70% of your max. He says, I am so persuaded of the benefits of Zone 2 that it has become a cornerstone of my training plan. Four times a week I will spend an hour riding my stationary bike at my Zone 2 threshold. In addition to strength and stability training as part of our new exercise protocol, he's all about optimizing our V2 max, which is why hitting his standard is my current number one energy goal. He tells us, and I quote him one more time, I push my patients to train for as high a v2 max as possible so that they can maintain a high level of physical function as they age. Ideally, I want them to target the elite range for their age and sex roughly the top 2%. If they achieve that level, I say good job. Now let's reach for the elite level for your sex, but two decades younger. Now this may seem like an extreme goal, but I like to aim high, in case you haven't noticed. End quote. And that's today's plus one. Or maybe that was a plus 11. How's your training looking these days? And how can you step it up and give your mitochondria a little more love? Let's do that today.
What's up? This is Michael, President and head coach at Heroic. One quick note before we go. I just think it's so amazing that Brian keeps reading all these books and distilling them into more wisdom in less time. By the way, thank you Brian for continuing to read the books distill them for us. I love not having to read the book, just getting them more wisdom in less time to the plus ones of Philosopher's Notes. And if you're into this kind of thing, expressing the best version of yourself and using your greatest gifts make a positive impact on the world. Make sure you head to Heroic Us to check out all the other resources that we have available to you. You can download a bunch of free goodies including Philosopher's Notes masterclasses in our scientifically proven Heroic app. You can also explore advanced resources to help you go next level, including live and virtual workshops, working one on one with the Heroic Performance Coach, or even becoming a certified coach yourself as you master heroic performance, the fundamentals of coaching excellence and Heroic coaching prosperity. Again, head to Heroic Us to get the ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools you need to activate your heroic potential and change the world together. And please do hit subscribe Appreciate you have a fantastic day and see you again soon.
