I'm Not Against Aging

But I don't anticipate growing old like most Americans. Most of the people I see past about 55 are just prolonging the act of death, while some ambitious folk seem to have started at about 40. The 40 year olds are the ones that are already on a couple of prescription medications for all manner of ills, and probably 50+ pounds overweight. The preferable alternative to prolonged death is successful aging. That's a term I enjoy, and one that I can get motivated by. Aging is inevitable, so why not be successful at it?

That's what I'm after. But what does it mean to age successfully when the ultimate conclusion of the aging process must be death? Clearly it's not avoiding death. Perhaps it's not even extending life as long as possible. That would be prolonged aging.

Consider two extremes:

Scenario A, you live to the ripe old age of 80 and die peacefully in your sleep. Until the last week of your life you were active and athletic. Your muscles were strong from exercise, you enjoyed the body you were in, and you used it for your enjoyment. You were happy to go on a bike ride with the grandkids, or perhaps great-grandkids if you started young like I did. You snorkeled on vacation, went skiing in the winter, etc. Your spouse will miss you, including the intimate relationship you still shared.

Scenario B, you live to the somewhat riper old age of 83 and die from cardiac arrest while trying to make it up a flight of stairs. You spent the last 8 years in a nursing home, and you almost never left it for the last 2 or 3 years. The kids and grandkids would come visit regularly, but you felt less and less attachment to them as they continued to live in "the real world" while you lived on Lipitor, Metformin, Nexium, and Plavix...not to mention the insulin shots you self-administered. Your spouse would miss you if only they could remember who you are. They've been on their own list of drugs and statins in particular aren't kind to the neural networks.

I don't know about you, but I'll take option A on this one. Now play the game for a while and determine how big a gap in lifespan has to exist before you go with option B. 10 years? 20? More? It's just a mental exercise, but the point is that the goal of what I will now call Successful Aging isn't the longest lifespan, it's the one that results in the most fulfilling life.

These are real world choices. I believe that it's entirely possible for the average person to make great choices in exercise, nutrition, sleep, relationships, and hobbies and live well past 90. I also believe that longevity could be further optimized in less healthy ways, perhaps with calorie restriction. And finally, longevity could be reduced in exchange for a higher level of athletic performance and perhaps health as well.

Single point optimization isn't my goal. If you draw a triangle with the three points labeled health, longevity, and performance, I'm going to pick a point inside that triangle that is skewed a bit towards health and performance. That is what I will try to optimize for while not making major concessions that will reduce my longevity needlessly.

For me, that three-point graph I just described with a slight emphasis on health and performance will be what guides me through successful aging.

Next time I talk about aging, I'll show you why I plan to be better at 45 than I've ever been as far as athletic performance goes. No, it's not wishful thinking, it's just a reasonable analysis of where I am, have been, and will be. And it applies to almost anyone who hasn't spent a lifetime experiencing rare levels of athleticism.

I'll even have graphs, which means what I'm saying HAS to be true. ;)

Eastern Approach/Meditation

Lord knows, I'm not into meditation or yoga, but somehow the simple approach this video mentions is intriguing.

I think I'm going to have to pick up the book, though I'm not sure how to add to the existing simple message.




You feel better already, don't you?

Bacon and eggs aren't good for you

It's obvious, right?  Heck, anyone will tell you that bacon and eggs are bad for you.

The wonderful thing is this little gem of wisdom is usually delivered by someone who would much prefer you eat cereal for breakfast.  Genius.  And with that last comment, I'm coming dangerously close to pegging my sarcasmeter...or is it sarcasmometer?

So, here's the reality check, let's take it point by point:

Cereal:  What is it?  Well, it's healthy grains, and maybe a little sugar and other stuff, right?

Uh...not really.  It's so easy to pick up a box of cereal in the store and we're conditioned to believe what's in the store is food.  What are we REALLY feeding ourselves, or perhaps our children?

I chose a cereal at random.  Really.  I googled "cereal" and there was a link to "SpecialK" which I clicked on.  At their site they listed cereals, and I didn't quite go random this time, I actually chose what sounded tasty to me.  "Special K Vanilla Almond Cereal"  I like almonds, I like vanilla, this sounds yummy!

Now what do I get for my money?  Whole grains?  Check.  Rice?  Check.  Almonds?  Check.  Well, they're honey roasted almonds...so let's start our trip down the rabbit hole.

The almonds have their own list of ingredients.  That's right, just the honey roasted almonds have:

DRY ROASTED ALMONDS, SUGAR, HONEY, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BHT FOR FRESHNESS

That's just the "Almond" part of "Vanilla Almond Cereal!"  Wow, if I was making something with almonds, I'd put (drumroll please...) almonds in it.

Back up the rabbit hole, we find that the list of ingredients is quite impressive.  Heck, I'll just throw the whole thing out here for the fun of it:


RICE, WHOLE GRAIN WHEAT, SUGAR, HONEY ROASTED SLICED ALMONDS (DRY ROASTED ALMONDS, SUGAR, HONEY, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BHT FOR FRESHNESS), WHEAT BRAN, SALT, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SOLUBLE WHEAT FIBER, MALT FLAVORING, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), REDUCED IRON, NIACINAMIDE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, BHT (PRESERVATIVE), FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN D, VITAMIN B12

Don't believe me?  Check it yourself here.

Is that amazing, or what?  In case you weren't aware, ingredients are listed in order of the percentage by which they constitute the product.  So It has more rice than whole grain wheat, as an example.  That means it has more rice, wheat, and sugar than it does almonds!  It then has more wheat bran, salt, high fructose corn syrup, and wheat fiber before it gets to the malt flavor and "natural and artificial" flavors.

Well, I was sold on the vanilla almond part.  That was what made me choose the cereal.  I guess all the rest comes along for the ride.

So they took processed grains that don't exist in natue in quantites sufficient to live on and they combined that with processed and concentrated sugar and then added some almonds that had been similarly modified.  Then they added some more grains (wheat bran) and salt, and even before flavoring they added some high fructose corn syrup.  None of this is NATURAL.  In fact, none of it really even food.  Well, the almonds were until they got screwed over and turned into sugary nuggets.

So this concoction makes its way to our bowl, and we scoop it up and eat it, right?

No!  We first have to cover it with mammal-squirts.  Well, actually, we don't even do that, do we?  That wouldn't be processed enough. I'd be fine with some raw milk, but that's not what's going on the cereal is it?

We can't just get the mammal to squirt right on the cereal, so we get a machine to suck the squirts out and put it in a big holding tank.  The combined squirts of many mammals then gets homogenized.  That sounds healthy, but what is it?  Oh, the squirts are just forced through a tiny orifice under pressure to break apart the larger fat globules.  They're homogenized, meaning made to all be the same.  Meaning, not in their natural form.

If that's not enough modification, the squirts are then heated sufficiently that it destroys the enzymes that help digestion and absorption.  Then it's finally good enough to be poured over those processed grain/sugar/corn syrup nuggets.

So processed food pieces covered in processed mammal squirts, none of which could have been produced without modern day machinery, chemicals, etc.  That's a healthy way to start your day.  Sure it is.  None of this exists in nature and I'm going to say a breakfast like this just isn't natural.

Now is it possible to find a pig, kill it, and snatch some eggs from a nest?  I think so.  And while I don't do that to serve myself bacon and eggs, I think it's a hell of a lot closer to nature than the crap I described earlier.

Is it a wild pig?  No.  Is it a wild bird?  No.  Is it better than sugar/wheat/corn/chemical nuggets with homogenized and pasteurized milk?  I'm confident it is.

Adventures with Analogies

Let's pretend for a moment.  Suspend disbelief if necessary, and just play with me a bit.

Let's pretend you loaned your car to a friend for a day.  If you don't have one or the other, just pretend that you do.  :)

Now imagine that your friend returns the car and you immediately notice the tires are covered with plugs and patches and are no longer balanced.  The car drives poorly, vibrating badly and getting worse the faster you drive.  So you ask your friend what happened and this is his response:

"Well, I drove through some fields full of thorns and nails, and each time I got a flat tire I took out your patch kit from the trunk and put in a plug or patched the tire.  Good thing you had so many kits in the trunk, because I think I must have patched the tires several hundred times!"

What would your reaction be to this scenario? 

If you decide to not loan your car to that friend again, or at least tell him to quit driving through fields of thorns and nails, congratulations.  You're a clear thinker.  You're practical and logical.

On the other hand you might decide that the problem was having so many patch kits.  After all, the only way the tires could be covered with hundreds of patches is if your friend had access to hundreds of patches to begin with.  So you decide to keep loaning your car to your friend, say nothing about the driving that caused the problem, and instead promise yourself to remove the patch kits from the trunk!  No more patches, no more overly patched tires.  Now you're thinking!

Hell, you're as smart as a doctor!

Don't understand or like my analogy?  Okay, let's pretend again.  Here goes:

You go see your doctor, and upon measuring your cholesterol he says "Your cholesterol is too high.  I'm going to give you a drug to lower it."

Cholesterol is used by your body to patch and repair damage.  It's probably elevated because of the damage as opposed to being the cause of the damage itself.  Does the doc conclude the damage should stop?  No, he simply prescribes a statin to reduce the number of patches!

When you come back in 6 months he checks your cholesterol again, and now that your body isn't making as many patches the number is lower.  He says all is well, and tells you to continue taking statins for life.  Does that mean the damage is gone?  Of course not!  He has treated the number, not the problem.  He removed the patches from the trunk and set you free to drive through fields of nails!

So what happens to your body now that you have shut off its repair mechanisms and have blunted your body's ability to fix itself?  Simple, you get other illnesses.

Don't believe me?  Do some searching for all-cause mortallity and statins.  Google away. While you're at it, google cholesterol levels and all-cause mortality.

Maybe we should let our body repair as needed while reducing the damage that needs repairing.  Maybe.  Like maybe we shouldn't drive in fields of thorns and nails.

If you're actually following my analogy at this point, I'll finish by saying that thorns and nails are equivalent to sugar, high fructose corn syrup, seed oils, and grains.

Have a nice drive.