thejdizzler
1d ago
Yea it's absolute insanity. I'm glad I started for so many reasons. Hopefully can completely switch over in the next few years: certainly will save me a lot on running shoes!
thejdizzler
1d ago
thejdizzler
1d ago
Right, and this treats the same thing that lifestyle interventions, without the willpower. I do worry about muscle wasting long-term from GLP inhibitors.
thejdizzler
1d ago
I've heard a minimum of 0.8 g/kg for an active person (roughly ~.4 g/lb). The max dose with a shown benefit for performance is 2.2 g/kg, which is 1g/lb. So making sure you get at least 0.5 g a day seems good, and not more than 1g/lb, especially if you aren't training intensely. This likely means protein in the 80-200 g range for most of us.
It's been a problem with every single girl I've dated. I've decided to bite the bullet one day a week and have no limit on bed time, but it's still difficult. Going to sleep at 10pm most nights, and between 11-1am one night a week, which usually fucks me.
I'll look into it, especially when I move away from Baltimore. Just tired of the options here, which are either extremely woke or extremely trad.
thejdizzler
1d ago
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Yea I think the confusion on Z2 comes from the fact that in highly trained athletes, Z2 is heavily fat burning still. As you get fitter you can handle more intensity without it cooking you. Same with strength. What Gordo and I advocate for is a volume first approach where you focus on time exercising first and then worry about intensity. Of course not appealing in current milieu because people don't want to spend the time exercising that is required to be fit. Weight lifting and cardio are both important as you say, which means even more time.
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I think you might be a little bit heavy on the protein still, but I broadly agree.
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Sleep really is key. The biggest problem I have with it is that my cronotype is much earlier than most of the population, so I get a ton of shit for wanting to go to bed earlier.
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Also agree with religion as an alternative to therapy, although I unfortunately don't find the versions of Christianity around me to be very appealing. I want a more environmental-focused version of christianity basically, but the only communities that I see doing that are a bunch of wokies. I also agree therapy isn't the answer. Perhaps it would be if therapists actually wanted to cure people, but it seems like the current profit model leads to people spinning their wheels forever and using "childhood trauma" as an excuse to never change.
thejdizzler
1d ago
As promised my review of Peter Attia's Outlive.
For those of you that don’t know me in real life, I’m a biologist by trade. For at least the past five years of my PhD, I’ve been absolutely obsessed with understanding fat metabolism and metabolic dysfunction. Heart, or cardiovascular disease (CVD) is still the #1 global killer, despite decades of research and the existence of a very effective class of drugs that largely treat the condition. CVD is thought to be largely caused by dysfunctions in metabolism, which is also true to some extent for the other three largest killers in the west: diabetes, cancer, and dementia. While traditional medicine has had a ton of success eradicating traditional infectious diseases, it seems largely unable to effectively treat these “four horseman”, despite the billions of dollars that have been poured into research and the development of thousands of pharmaceuticals. A reactive, treatment-focused approach isn’t working: we need something new.
This is where Peter Attia’s Outlive comes in. Unlike other longevity books like David Sinclair’s Lifespan, Outlive is relatively light on pharmaceuticals and lifespan extension. Lifespan extension doesn’t seem very tractable in humans currently: even the massive advances in public health, germ theory of disease, and antibiotics did little to increase the maximum age of death: the increase in life expectancy of what Attia calls medicine 2.0 rather came from massively reducing child mortality and the impact of infectious disease across all age brackets. While there is some promising research in animal models on lifespan extension, and Bryan Johnson is attempting to biohack himself into immortality, neither Attia nor myself think that focusing on this kind of stuff as an individual is very useful. Rather, Attia is focused on lifestyle interventions to prevent and delay the onset of the four horseman (CVD, diabetes, cancer, dementia), effectively increasing the healthy years of one’s life, or healthspan.
Outlive is divided into two sections. In the first, Attia gives an overview of the mechanism of action of the four horseman in order of lethality. This is the only part of the book in which pharmaceuticals are mentioned, mainly in relation to CVD and diabetes, that can be well-managed by statins (CVD)[1] and drugs like metformin (diabetes). I generally liked these sections, although there was frustratingly little information about dementia, likely due to our poor understanding of the disease. The common thread that seems to tie all four of these horseman together, including cancer and dementia, is dysregulated metabolism, which is also the central theme of Attia’s practical recommendations in the second half of the book. This section is divided into roughly into four, with the book highlighting lifestyle changes with regards to exercise, nutrition, sleep, and emotional well-being. Like with the first section, I broadly agree with Outlive’s prescription, although I have some quibbles with some of the details. More on each of these below.
Exercise
I originally discovered Peter through an interview with Iñigo San Millan, who is most famous for being cycling super-star Tadej Pogacar’s coach. Iñigo is a professor at University of Colorado (of course he is), who works on understanding what the metabolism of athletes can tell us about metabolic disease. Millan has shown, perhaps unsurprisingly, that athletes are far more insulin sensitive, and have far more of an ability to burn fat than both untrained and metabolically unhealthy people. They obtain these adaptions through a ton of exercise in what psychologists term Zone 2, which is done at a relatively pedestrian pace. This exercise in Zone 2 forms the basis of Peter’s prescriptions.
In addition to preventing the four horseman, the focus on Outlive in this section is on what Peter dubs the “centenarian decathlon”. These are a group of activities that you would like to be able to still do when you are 100 (or 80 or 90). In addition to the aerobic capacity developed by zone 2 exercise, which is necessary for actives like hiking or even walking, you also need to develop maintain muscular strength and coordination, as well as max aerobic capacity, also known as Vo2 max. Peter recommends roughly 6 hours of exercise a week, composed of a few weight lifting sessions, something like yoga for mobility, 2-3 Zone 2 sessions, and a hard Vo2 max workout. This is much more than the amount of exercise that most of us are doing, and much more than the current medical establishment recommends.
I don’t that this is a bad plan: certainly it’s better than doing nothing. But I worry that what Peter recommends is too intense, especially for someone who hasn’t really done much exercise before. What Outlive defines as Z2, right around the first lactate threshold of 1.5-2 mmol is pretty intense exercise, and will rely heavily on sugar, especially as an untrained athlete. Vo2 max work and the gym are also intense and heavily glycolytic. Instead of training your body to better burn fat, you may be creating massive amounts of sugar cravings. Since this program is also quite intense, I would imagine compliance might be an issue as well, potentially leaving you in a worse place that you started.
I would instead recommend a program like one Gordo Byrn outlines in this post: 4 hours of Z1 before the first lactate threshold, 30 minutes of higher intensity, an hour of gym work, and thirty minutes of mobility/agility a week. For an unfit person, even something like walking may be in that first zone. This plan will generally be much gentler on your nervous system, and will properly train your metabolism so you avoid CVD and diabetes like Peter intends.
I would also like to put in a small plug for barefoot shoes. I’ve been interested in them for years, but I was prompted to take the plunge by the recommendation of my friend. I’ve been wearing barefoot shoes to work and out and about for the past three months, and there has been a huge improvement in my balance and agility. Even my arch has returned. I haven’t done much running in them yet, but that will come!
Nutrition
One of the reasons I have such high respect for Peter is his ability to change his mind. Mid-2010s Peter would have put this section first and used it to advocate for the ketogenic diet. However, there just isn’t evidence for the effectiveness of this diet, nor really of any other diet for longevity: Peter is skeptical of epidemiological studies because of their inability to control for confounding variables. While I think he comes down too harsh on epidemiology, I largely agree. Diet is so individualized that it’s difficult to make prescriptions about what to and not to eat. As a result of this uncertainty, this section ends up being a little sparse on detailed advice. Avoid large caloric surpluses or deficits, avoid behaviors that spike your blood glucose and blood lipids, and make sure to eat enough protein to build muscle mass. All very non-objectionable, although I think Peter’s protein targets are a little aggressive. Protein is readily interconverted into sugar, and if you aren’t using it to build muscle you’re just going to be stressing your kidneys and raising your blood sugar. Plus high protein intake (beyond the needs of muscle synthesis) is associated with shorter lifespan in humans and pretty much every single model organism. I wouldn’t go much over 1g/lb of body weight, which is upper limit for more effective muscle synthesis.
Sleep
This chapter was also very non-objectionable. Get your 7-9 hours. Make sure you create a relaxed environment on both sides of sleep. Don’t track sleep if it stresses you out. I’m coming off a period of being too stressed out by my sleep tracking, so I’m trying to only focus on giving myself 9 hours in bed, and not worrying.
Emotional
I’m glad Attia included this chapter in Outlive, as I think it’s very important to consider why we want to live longer. Without joy, community, and love, increasing health and lifespan starts to increasingly look like Voldemort creating Horcrux’s while destroying every relationship that could have made his life better However, I didn’t find this chapter to be incredibly informative, most likely because Peter is a total newbie in this area. There’s a fuzzy recommendation for some kind of therapy, or at the very least self-directed CBT. The aim of this seems to be to understand environmental triggers for negative (and I suppose positive) emotional reactions and outbursts that ruin relationships and fix them. I don’t think this a bad idea, but I would appreciated more direction, and also more of a focus on the importance of social connection. As one of my friends in Baltimore keeps pointing out, loneliness can be as damaging as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. This is an aspect of longevity that was not addressed at all in this book.
Conclusion
Despite my quibbles, I think Outlive is the most solid and accessible longevity book on the market. Attia grounds his prescriptions in the tangible goals of chronic disease prevention and the centenarian olympics, and the advice he gives is practicable and actionable. While I wish that he would have touched more on the emotional and social aspects of healthy aging, he at least acknowledges the former and likely will feature more guests on his podcast The Drive that deal with this aspect of health.
- Statins are difficult to get over the counter, but you can take nattokinase, which is almost as good
thejdizzler
1d ago
So I looked this up: Argentine is the formal and British way of saying it, Argentinian is the American way. Are you European? Could explain the difference.
It's not the short answers that I found to be problematic, it's the lack of engagement. For example, we were discussing her vegetable garden at home, and I asked her what her favorite vegetable from it was. Answer: I don't know. What she wanted to study: I don't know. What she liked to do for fun. Many things. Just like absolutely nothing to hang on to.
thejdizzler
1d ago
New Year's resolution check-ins
- Work: Have my committee meeting at the end of February, and realizing I haven't done that much on my primary project in the last six months so am panicking a bit. This has the positive side effect of making me work more, which I need to do.
- Fitness: hit 11 hours this week past week (10- dancing), which felt great, although I need to do a bit better job of eating slightly more food. Down week this coming week (~8-9 hours, including dancing). Need to make sure I start getting in strength training again. If all goes well I'll be able to XC ski this weekend for a few hours, which will be awesome!
- Intellectual stuff: feeling very overwhelmed on this angle: I've committed to do my clubs/projects. Going to turn my Italian class into an audit which should help, and finishing up Marx in a few weeks. Look out for an Outlive effort post today or next week!
- Finances: On track for this month financially! Did most of my taxes, although am waiting for the 1099 from my investments to finish up. I owe much less than I thought (only about 2.5k), which is big because I can put a bit more into my IRA!
- Dating: Locked down my devices pretty hard: I can't get to porn sites, only fans, or even stare at instagram or photos for more than five minutes. It has, perhaps unsurprisingly worked, and I've been porn and masturbation free since last week. The hot Argentinian women just wouldn't even engage with me over text (like was just giving complete non-answers to my questions, and we were talking in Spanish!) so I lost interest. If she reaches out to tell me she wants to go on a date I'll give her a shot, but I'm not interested in putting in effort.
- Tarot continues to go well. Ex-roommate quit his job (terrible financial decision, but great for his mental health), so we had a pretty great conversation this week.
- Screen time. Due to the adult content and other restrictions, my screen time on my phone plunged to 90 minutes. This week I expect it to be around an hour. It is still quite high on my computer, but that is because of the large amount of computer work I am doing at work!
thejdizzler
2d ago
Every other one of his books I’ve read (submission, platform, annihilation) has been really good. Would recommend giving him more of a chance.
thejdizzler
3d ago
Camp of the Saints is on my reading list too.
I actually really disliked Whatever. I found it be a worse version of The Elementary Particles.
thejdizzler
3d ago
Have you read other Houellebecq (lol Hollaback)? I think Submission and The Elementary Particles are better than the Map and the Territory.
thejdizzler
4d ago
So what are you reading?
Got two more sections of Capital to finish, which I will be very glad to be done with. Hoping to write up an effort post here and on my blog after I finish. I think it will generate an interesting discussion not only because Marx presents a convincing critique of capitalism (although I think his central premise of the labor theory of value is wrong, or at least incomplete) but also because it's been illuminating to see how the leftist group I've been reading it with has gone from worshiping Marx to understanding him as the flawed, snarky philosopher that he is.
Also planning on finishing up Outlive by Peter Attia today. Also going to write-up an effort post on this for Wellness Wednesday. Think it's a fantastic book, but I disagree slightly with his prescriptions and want to add a few of my own.
Also working on Harry Potter 7 in Italian.
thejdizzler
6d ago
I only eat Sardines so it would be the ocean. The thought is that farming brings extra fish into existence that would be there otherwise.
thejdizzler
8d ago
So he dropped out of our PhD program about a year ago (probably a fair move, but the way PhD programs work he should have just gritted it out). Since then he's been working at his dad's IT company and neither enjoying it nor doing a good job. The things that caused him to fail in the PhD are the exact same things that are causing him to fail in this new environment (poor work/life boundaries, inability to ask for help, ego). His entire life has become consumed with this boring job that he hates so it's not very fun to talk to him right now.
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Work: Raw hours just not there: I let so many things cannabilize my work time and need to be better at not letting them. That being said, I am doing a very consistent job of actually doing stuff when I am working. I did all three replicates of an experiment last week, something that would have taken me a month a few years ago. Again things are trending up here.
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Fitness: hit 9 hours last week (11 if you include dancing). This week will be around 9.25-10 if all goes to plan (+2 hours dancing). I am feeling amazing, I would urge you all to try out this kind of training (really easy+high volume) and I won my first race of the year on Sunday ($50 purse).
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Intellectual stuff: published my second blog post of the year last week and the reception has been great. Have a few more posts cooking so may post a third thing this month. Still feeling overwhelmed with book club books and the hours aren't there for Spanish and Italian, although I start Italian class later today.
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Finances: On track for this month financially! Wish my work would release the W2 stuff so I can figure out how much I owe for taxes.
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Dating: Porn-free for the past week after last week's rant although not masturbation free. Matched with a very attractive (in my opinion, probably not objectively) Argentinian women on Hinge so may be going on a date sometime next week.
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Tarot continues to go well, although I am frustrated by my ex-roomate's current state of mind.
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Screen time. Is hovering around 2 hours on my phone. I took some pretty drastic steps to curb use (hard locks on adult content and locking the phone except for text, call, Lyft and maps after 9pm, both behind annoying passwords that would take me 15 minutes to get). Will report back next week but I imagine this will lower my screen time quite a bit. Computer time is hovering around 8 hours a day, including work.
Have your post flagged to read! Seems like great progress in the gym!
thejdizzler
8d ago
First scene where we meet Bayaz:
thejdizzler
10d ago
Re-reading The Blade Itself. This time around it's so obvious that
Almost done with Marx as well which is a relief!
thejdizzler
12d ago
Interested in following along as you try and navigate this this year. For me the big goal this year is to defeat my pornography/masturbation addiction, spend less time online, and continue to participate in social spaces without expectations for dating.
thejdizzler
13d ago
It's so interesting that other people seem to have a very different perspective on this than me. Maybe the key difference is the first vs. third person photos? I can definitely say what you're saying about the photo helping with trigging memories of the landscape/city and I suspect this might be true for me as well. The problem for me I think principally is third-person photos (i.e. photos that I am in). These just absolutely wreck my memories.
thejdizzler
13d ago
Yes that is a better use of the technology, but I still think it's ultimately destructive to actual first person memories. You don't need photos for that, although perhaps they can serve as a helpful catalyst!
thejdizzler
13d ago
Against Photography
When I think back on the best time of my life, I always come back to the fall of 2015. I’d overcome some of the most noxious parts of my adolescent personality and finally established some solid friendships. It was my senior year of high school and I’d gotten most of the hard classes and tests out of the way, leaving time for subjects I loved like biology and global literature, with the added bonus that my homework load was far lower, especially compared to the year before when I was taking an early-bird extra class. And perhaps most importantly, at least for me at the time, was that I was running extremely well. I had started taking an iron-supplement over the summer at the behest of my coach, stopped playing video games, and started cross-training to up my aerobic volume. In the first meet of the season I loped 40 seconds off my 3 mile PR, and then the next weekend axed another 35, going from a 16:00 to a 14:45 in the span of 2 weeks. I ended up being all-state that year, and I credit that season for getting me into MIT and transforming my mindset around running and life.
The fall of 2025 was exactly ten years since that season, and so for much of these past few months I have been in a reflective mood, seeking out old friends from that time, scouring record books, and examining photos and videos of those races. While this reflection was generally a positive experience: I’ve been reinspired to commit fully to endurance training, and realized that one my old teammates lives in DC, it also brought with it a fairly terrifying realization. Most of my memories of that time are not actual memories, but memories of photographs and videos of those moments. I don’t remember coming up the final stretch at Detweiler Park during the state meet, but I sure as hell remember the photograph of me passing a Sandburg runner right before crossing the line. I don’t remember what it was like during the triathlon I did that summer, but I do remember the photo I took with my coach after. I don’t remember the gag gifts pasta party we organized as captains, but I do remember the blurry photo I took of my friend Zack holding a wrapped dildo that we planned to give out. The clear memories that I do have: sitting on the floor of the bus talking to my coach as we drove back from Peoria, performing Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis in English class, doing math proofs on the way back from California, or eating watermelon after summer long runs on the Des Plaines river trail were never captured in photographs. Those that have, have been distorted and impoverished, reduced to a flat, third-person copy of what that memory originally was or could have been.
It’s not surprising that this happens. Memories tend to distort over time anyway, as you begin to recall the memory itself rather than the actual event. Thus, all memories tend to distort and narrow; even the above things that I do remember independent of photographs are indistinct, a few images, a smell, a feeling. Yet all of them still come from inside of me, not from detached third person observer. I don’t want to replace my memories with photographs, my first person experience with fragments of my life captured as if they happened to someone else.
It’s not just the corruption of memories that’s made me sour on photography. 2015 was three years after the iPhone year zero of 2012. Everyone had a phone with a front and forward facing camera with Facebook and Instagram installed. People were taking a lot of photos even back then. But in the ten years since things seem to have gotten exponentially worse. It seems like many in my generation are in constant documentary mode: every meal, every pretty sunrise on every morning run, every meeting at the brewery with friends makes its way into a photo that’s shared on a social media platform or in a group chat. At best this is a misguided attempt to hold onto the present moment, at worst it is a commodification of real life for the benefit of one’s personal brand or online persona. In either case, the act of capturing the photo creates separation: both between you and the people you’re with, and between you and authentic experience. When you take a photo you step out of the flow of your life into the chair of an observer. Done too frequently I think that represents a genuine loss.
Of course it’s not like I’m particularly good at putting this into practice. Before I went to Madrid this year I told myself I wouldn’t take any photos. I broke this rule quite quickly: both to send things to my mom and for attention fodder on Instagram and Strava. I too am just as much a slave to the exhibitionist world we all find ourselves in. But this year I hope to do better. Take less photographs, make more memories. Do more things out of genuine passion and curiosity, and less because they look good on a screen for other people. Live more in time A and less in time B.
thejdizzler
13d ago
10,000 FU is what I've heard recommended
thejdizzler
15d ago
Nattokinase!
thejdizzler
15d ago
Netti pot has been helping me a lot with this!
Total agreement. Seems like an amazing drug to get metabolically healthy. I think I would prefer the lifestyle interventions that Attia recommends once I'm there to stay in that condition though.
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