Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity is a great book and has prompted me to make significant changes in my life. My wife even says that is a miraculous book to have made me act regarding my health.

To be more precise, I am (as the author’s wife said about him) Not-Thin. I have had a “goal” (for more than 3 years) to reach 75 kg but I never really followed it. After starting reading the book I created a strict plan and I have been following it for almost two months to reach my goal (by reference, I started with 86 kg). More than weight, I want to reduce my visceral fat.

I still working on my other pillars of health, but this book is a huge contributor and has given me the slap in the face that I needed in order to act on my health.

Let’s see a bit more about the book Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity.

This post is part of the series Learnings from books where my goal is to share what I learned from the book that I read. It is a mixture of review and summary with a bit of my opinion and point of view. But, as reviews, these learnings can say more about me than the book itself, so I trust that you the smart reader will take it with a grain of salt.

Learnings from Outlive

The book is very complete and talks about many aspects of longevity from the main diseases that decrease the healthspan and lifespan and also exercise, nutrition, sleep, and emotional health. It is a lengthy book but is worth the read.

The book is full of learnings, but to not be a too-long post, I will share the 5 most important learnings from the book.

(bad) health compounds

I have been investing for a while now and I am very familiar with the compound phenomenon in investing where your money grows exponentially with time. But what I never thought about is that health works in the same way. Or more precisely, bad health.

It takes years for diseases (like atherosclerosis) to appear, and they are the accumulation of years of bad health. In the atherosclerosis case, calcification of the coronary arteries happens slowly and you only see it when is in a very dangerous state.

As these kinds of diseases go undetected for many years, the best approach is to try to be as metabolically healthy as possible now to prevent the accumulation that causes the diseases.

exercise is the key

Exercise is the most important thing that you can do to improve your health. The author even put exercise as more important than nutrition.

If you don’t do anything now, just start. Even a small amount of daily activity is significantly better than none at all. According to the author, “Going from zero weekly exercise to just ninety minutes per week can reduce your risk of dying from all causes by 14 percent. It’s very hard to find a drug that can do that.”

The book describes the importance of exercises that raise your VO2 MAX, strength exercises, and stability exercises.

I currently do more cardio (run) and agility (yoga) but have to work more on strength as it is a very important component of the healthspan.

no such thing as too much protein

Protein is essential for building and maintaining muscles and a very new piece of information for me is that we don’t store protein in the form of fat, as we do with carbs and fat. As the book says, “If you consume more protein than you can synthesize into lean mass, you will simply excrete the excess in your urine as urea.”

Protein is essential as we age and start losing lean mass, it helps us rebuild part of the muscles that we lose. Also, if you are doing strength exercises, it is essential for muscle growth.

nutrition is not that complicated

We tend to create “diet wars” and judge our friends who are trying different diets (my vegetarian friends know this). The author stays clear of diets and talks about nutrition biochemistry to avoid falling into any diet camp.

But as he says, “Nutrition is relatively simple, actually. It boils down to a few basic rules: don’t eat too many calories, or too few; consume sufficient protein and essential fats; obtain the vitamins and minerals you need; and avoid pathogens like E. coli and toxins like mercury or lead. Beyond that, we know relatively little with complete certainty. Read that sentence again, please.”

you have to start now

Your body will surely lose strength and ability as you age, so, if you want to continue to be independent and do the things you love in your last decade, you have to do a lot more now. The idea is that you have to increase your current capacity now and even if you lose over the years, your end position will be a lot higher than if you don’t do anything. For example, if you want to hike 5 km when you are 80 years old, you should be able to hike more than 20 km when you are 35 so even if your capacity decreases, you will still be able to do it.

As the book says, “Studies suggest that your VO, max will decline by roughly 10 percent per decade – and up to 15 percent per decade after the age of fifty.”

Favorite quotes

These are my 5 favorite quotes from the book.

  • “If longevity were simple, then there might not be a need for this book.”
  • “… the only way to create a better future for yourself — to set yourself on a better trajectory — is to start thinking about it and taking action now.”
  • “Even when someone dies “suddenly” of a heart attack, the disease had likely been progressing in their coronary arteries for two decades. Slow death moves even more slowly than we realize.”
  • “Exercise is by far the most potent longevity “drug.” No other intervention does nearly as much to prolong our lifespan and preserve our cognitive and physical function. But most people don’t do nearly enough – and exercising the wrong way can do as much harm as good.”
  • “While your genome is immutable, at least for the near future, gene expression can be influenced by your environment and your behaviors.”

Other resources

This section is extra and here I compliment the post with content from other sources that resonate with the book.

These are my learnings from the book Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity written by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford. A special thanks to Vancouver Public Library (VPL) for allowing access to the book for free.

Cheers.