I'd add that a great thing about zone 2 work is that if you're currently out of shape, or maybe just getting a lot older with years of accumulating nagging injuries, then its much more tolerable than high intensity where you'd likely get injured.
Prioritizing v02 from what I understand is something like 80% zone 2 and 20% pushing it to the limit.
Yes and Yes
IMO don't overcomplicate life, wear a good HR watch and get outside and have fun. Target zone 2 for almost everything you do and then build in some threshold/tempo stuff like hill repeats (great if you are worried about impact) or speed up intervals. Do these on foot or on bike and enjoy yourself, focus on the 80% outside and watch your health skyrocket.
One thing that's always drawn me to some of Asprey's approaches is that I'm fundamentally lazy and am drawn to approaches that seek to optimize results/unit effort.
I fundamentally disagree with this framing. The last …~75(?) pages of your journal are a testament to a crazy amount of work put into study and execution. You, my good sir, are neither intellectually nor physically lazy. Your problem is boredom. You don’t like doing the things you’ve identified. Keep trying stuff out and find something you like that also raises your heart rate for a while.
Last night I finally watched "Don't Die" on Netflix. Scott, I can see why you brought up the point you did about questioning whether going that hard over for longevity sucks the life out of life.
But isn't that the same criticism you were receiving at family events (from aunt or cousins?) when you changed.your eating habits?
Someone smart once said something like, "one pays dearly for immortality". The idea being, if we set out to live a long life, we must pay for it with the responsibility of actually LIVING fully and genuinely.
Your aunt saying "live a little" as she shoveled a hunk of cake on your plate set off the 'underminer' alarm in your head, for good reason.
But isn't that the same criticism you were receiving at family events (from aunt or cousins?) when you changed.your eating habits?
Someone smart once said something like, "one pays dearly for immortality". The idea being, if we set out to live a long life, we must pay for it with the responsibility of actually LIVING fully and genuinely.
Your aunt saying "live a little" as she shoveled a hunk of cake on your plate set off the 'underminer' alarm in your head, for good reason.
It is, it's just a matter of degree. I'm not being critical of Johnson, I'd heard him discuss the criticism of living a life devoid of life in an interview before seeing the documentary (which was my first exposure to him) and he's following his passion and muse, which is laudable. But I can easily see how someone who doesn't share the same passions to the same degree might look at it in relation to their own values and find it hard to grok. "Longevity" can be a touchy subject. That's one of the reasons I usually think of it as healthspan. Like many worthwhile things , it requires some sacrifice/long-term thinking, and in the modern Western context it requires redefining "living" to a certain extent from what the cultural mainstream defines it as.
There's a line from a song that I often return to: "We will pay the price/but we will not count the cost." Insofar as I am on the journey I am, many interim measures come at a price that I freely pay (and to your point, are just part of living fully and genuinely) that the person next to me might see as an excessive cost relative to the perspective their journey provides. Whether or not they admit it, I think most people would like to have a long and healthy life but balk at what they see as the incremental short-term "cost" until it's too late. I think at best I barely escaped that. I've seen in some people that causes them to double down and be critical of those who made different decisions, and even evangelize their philosophy. (and for the record, Scott 2 is decidedly NOT one of those people).
I fundamentally disagree with this framing. The last …~75(?) pages of your journal are a testament to a crazy amount of work put into study and execution. You, my good sir, are neither intellectually nor physically lazy. Your problem is boredom. You don’t like doing the things you’ve identified. Keep trying stuff out and find something you like that also raises your heart rate for a while.
Maybe it is better expressed as me being an efficiency addict (sounds nicer than lazy but is not all that different). There are a lot of things I like to do more than "working out". And there's a lot of "working out" that at this juncture I prioritize higher than Zone 2 cardio. And nearly every type of exercise modality that I've tried I "like" more than Zone 2 cardio. So when an alternate to Zone 2 cardio as a means to increase VO2 max via HIIT presented itself (I actually enjoy HIIT, plus it's doesn't take so much time), that's what I chose. I put a significant emphasis On Zone 1 for metabolic health, 5-7+ hours/week, and trying to add another 3-5 hours of Zone 2 per week, because of the overlap of what you can do concurrently to avoid boredom, does push into the boredom zone. And yes, I am certainly over complicating it by trying to advance too many goals simultaneously. But come June I'll have have completed my current 1-yr commitment and have an opportunity to rearrange priorities if that seems like a good idea, and de-prioritizing Zone 1 or strength training in favor of Zone 2 is a definite possibility.
But I can easily see how someone who doesn't share the same passions to the same degree might look at it in relation to their own values and find it hard to grok. "Longevity" can be a touchy subject. That's one of the reasons I usually think of it as healthspan. Like many worthwhile things , it requires some sacrifice/long-term thinking, and in the modern Western context it requires redefining "living" to a certain extent from what the cultural mainstream defines it as.
Yeah, I get that. This morning I did five long hill repeats on a jungle road. 92 degrees and 92% humidity. They absolutely gutted me. I would not have done them if you had not mentioned HIIT here. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Have you tried it, or are you baselining the metric somehow? It'd be interesting to capture where the HIIT / zone 1 barbell strategy has you, before any changes. See what your N of 1 responds to.
I'm very much an interested fellow traveler, opposed to someone who knows what's right for you. I get curious where our approaches differ, because I know you've put the effort in.
I'm paying attention on the sleep work for instance. It was a factor in deciding to upgrade my own tracker. Turns out I'm also facing the missing first REM cycle problem. I would have disregarded that data previously.
Also, I think there's similarity in our backgrounds. It feels like many here are building on decades of elite physical capacity. Meanwhile, I lived at the computer. Learning to even work in zone 5, took me the better part of a year.
Yeah, I get that. This morning I did five long hill repeats on a jungle road. 92 degrees and 92% humidity. They absolutely gutted me. I would not have done them if you had not mentioned HIIT here. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
That sounds brutal, especially the humidity, something I'm not as resilient to as I would like to be. Even living in Alabama for three decades, the days were few and far between when 92 degrees and 92% humidity coincided. Maybe if a tropical system moved over we'd see mid-80s in temp and maybe 60%-70% humidity, but I can't even say with certainty those numbers ever coincided. Hats-off! And glad you were able to glean something useful from the conversation.
Have you tried it, or are you baselining the metric somehow? It'd be interesting to capture where the HIIT / zone 1 barbell strategy has you, before any changes. See what your N of 1 responds to.
I'm very much an interested fellow traveler, opposed to someone who knows what's right for you. I get curious where our approaches differ, because I know you've put the effort in.
I'm paying attention on the sleep work for instance. It was a factor in deciding to upgrade my own tracker. Turns out I'm also facing the missing first REM cycle problem. I would have disregarded that data previously.
Also, I think there's similarity in our backgrounds. It feels like many here are building on decades of elite physical capacity. Meanwhile, I lived at the computer. Learning to even work in zone 5, took me the better part of a year.
Oura rates my cardio capacity as "high". When the feature first came out they provided a numerical VO2 max estimate (based on what I don't know). It doesn't do that any longer. They do have a 6-minute walking test I haven't taken yet. the feature came out while I was up at the hideout where finding a relatively straight and level course to take it wasn't readily doable. Once I got back to the relative flatlands it slipped my mind. Maybe I'll try taking it next week. I don't know if it will give me a numerical estimate or simply an updated qualitative score. Prior to that I was using the Concept2 calculator based on the 2k row, but I haven't had a row that vigorous since last spring before my shoulder got gimpy. Great idea though, to try to get a baseline before I make any changes in June that would up the priority for VO2 max relative to strength.
I agree that we do seem to have similar backgrounds in the sense of trying to make a drastic course correction in midlife. May little gains in physiological badassery feel very paltry, lol. I appreciate having a fellow traveler--in general the people in my immediate proximity IRL don't have a lot of interest in either the topics or the pursuits and I learn a lot from interactive dialogue.
I've found a second voice who doesn't think the 7-9 hours minimum of sleep is sound guidance. In his view 6.5 hours is optimal with the caveat that it comes with 1 hr or more of deep and 2 hr or more of REM. Especially the latter I fall woefully short on. I've never recorded more than 1h 40m of REM in a single night, and getting north of 1h 30m has happened less than a dozen times since January of 2024. This guy is a psychologist (don't have his name handy but will add later if I can recover it) who it seems mostly deals with anxiety management (which is quite entwined with sleep quality in his experience) and purports to use both light and audio therapy to stimulate the mechanisms in the brain that manage such things, along with nutritional optimization. I've recently been playing around with some audio-based " brain training" that's supposed to excite various wave types of electrical activity in the brain (alpha, gamma, theta, delta, etc.) which feels embarrassing and incredibly woo-ish, but some out there claim some clinical backing for the techniques. So far it feels like a bit of quackery but if I detect any merit, especially as pertains to measurable sleep parameters, I'll probably have more to say about it.
Ah that's too bad about the oura scoring. I do see there's a "peak" level, above high. Specificity is a challenging part of estimating v02 max. I'd want at least a month practicing running before attempting a cooper test, for instance. Not to max my score, but to be confident around my injury risk.
That's what's cool about using a rower, no impact. But if the shoulder isn't cooperating, no good. Way back in the day, I got certified by the ACSM on exercise assessments. They had us use a stationary bike for v02 tests. Safe, but highly dependent on how a person's legs can handle the local fatigue.
Interesting about the sleep stage threshold durations. I'll pay attention to how that varies over time. I've not broken either threshold yet. My lifestyle patterns leave something to be desired. I have noticed nights with little deep sleep, I wake feeling drained. Getting to bed early seems to encourage deep sleep.
My psychiatrist suggested taking 0.5 mg of Melatonin several hours before bed. Also 350-450mg of Magnesium Glycinate about 30 minutes prior. Once I've established a consistent unsupplemented baseline, I may experiment with those variables.
Since I'm using a simulant for my ADHD, the line for better living through chemistry is blurred. It's very easy to ignore a bad night's sleep when medicated. She offered some stronger sleep support meds. I've been hesitant for all the reasons one might expect.
The sleep stage impact of an Rx can be significant. She's into Hydroxyzine (antihistamine) for nights where you know sleep will be difficult. It can suppress REM sleep. Though probably still better than no sleep. She also tries Trazadone (anti-depressant) which looks like it's sleep stage friendly. And Quetiapine (antipsychotic) which raises deep sleep while lowering REM, but strikes me as playing with fire.
Just talked myself into getting some of the antihistamine haha. I have very specific nights where I know anxiety will ruin my sleep. Probably worth the experiment.
I'm curious to know if the VO2max agree with the Cooper test as well as each other.
The same is true for the 6-minute walking distance test although I don't have a link to the calculation. The electronics (mainly phone) make measuring the distance and the timing easier. Oura does say they augment the basic test using ongoing heart rate measurements, which as far as I can tell isn't part of the standard version of the test; that appears to be simply distance over time and tends to be expressed as a % of what's deemed typical for a person's demographic (age, sex, height, weight). I glanced through a paper once that showed that the 6-min WD tests correlates positively with VO2 max, but there's a lot of variation in the population studied for a given distance achieved. The scatter is more of a cloud than a line. So like anything that seeks to estimate VO2 max from some physical activity, I'd be more keyed to changes in my performance over time rather than whatever number Oura spits out. I'll probably repeat the test several times initially just to get a feel for my pace. I don't "power walk", I just try to focus on maintaining a pace moderately more urgent than my "stroll" speed to get out of Zone 0 and into Zone 1. I'll even try it at my normal walk speed out of curiosity. I never saw a datum I didn't like.
The same is true for the 6-minute walking distance test although I don't have a link to the calculation.
How does that [walking] even work? It doesn't take that much VO2 to max out walking speed, so I presume it only ranges up to about the low 40s Conventional walking peaks out around 4.2-4.4mph. It just doesn't go any faster than that w/o breaking into a run, which I presume is not allowed for a walking test. Beyond that there's speed walking, but that requires a special technique (more hip action, less knee bending).
(I remain somewhat fascinated by the centurion challenge which is to walk 100M in 24hrs, no running allowed. This demands an average speed 4.16mph. Taking a 5min break every hour bumps this up to 4.54mph which is practically impossible unless speedwalking is applied. This actually makes the centurion harder than running an ultra, because you're only allowed to have one gear. There are fewer people who have completed this than people who have been to space.)
How does that [walking] even work? It doesn't take that much VO2 to max out walking speed, so I presume it only ranges up to about the low 40s ...
I think it's primarily a test that evolved for the geriatric crowd or for people in poor health to measure their degree of decrepitude or recovery from decrepitude. The instructions on Oura are basically to walk as fast as you can without getting winded for 6 minutes. I presume it's similar to what a clinical provider would have a patient do on a treadmill. There's a database that's been used to determine what's typical for a cohort that sort of functions like the "reference range" you see on your blood work. The distance the subject achieves is compared to the performance of the applicable cohort to determine if they are above or below average and by what percent. It's not a VO2 max test per se although the distance achieved has been shown to correlate (loosely but generally positively to my eye) with VO2 max.
I'm just guessing here, but folding in heart rate would allow some refinement to the estimation. If two people fit the same demographic (age, height, weight, sex) and achieve the same distance in 6 minutes, but subject A does it with an average heart rate of 80 and subject B does it with an average heart rate of 115 it would have implications for their respective VO2 max and could be used to account for the fact that walking speed is more or less capped by mechanics and refine the estimate. But it's limited. If a person is an elite endurance athlete and wants to know a number, they would probably have to go into a laboratory/clinical setting and just measure oxygen consumption directly to get a meaningful number.
There's no technical reason Oura couldn't implement the Cooper test. A clever person could probably write a smartphone app that does it. But since Oura is a commercial sleep tracking device that anyone sick or healthy can get, they probably don't want the liability that would come with a 400-lb 70 yr old with heart disease trying to run as far as he can for 12 minutes following instructions they provided, then promptly dropping dead. I would guess what people could get from a device that's primarily a fitness tracker would be somewhat better.
Another one I've recognized (and it's not totally unrelated) is a deep-seated tendency to allow logic/reason to dictate my response to life. That's often advantageous, of course, but looking ahead into this third phase of life, it is increasingly, I dunno, empty, or maybe artificial. When I was young using those bits of intelligence that put me a ways out on one of the distribution tails to solve a problem or learn a new thing was a source of exhilaration. Increasingly it's tiresome and spending too much time there makes me feel shallow. Being Mr. Spock is not the height of my aspiration.
I read this post from 9 years ago and wondered how you have moved on from Mr Spock. Are you able to live life in flow without logic dictating what you should do?
Ah that's too bad about the oura scoring. I do see there's a "peak" level, above high. Specificity is a challenging part of estimating v02 max. I'd want at least a month practicing running before attempting a cooper test, for instance. Not to max my score, but to be confident around my injury risk.
That's what's cool about using a rower, no impact. But if the shoulder isn't cooperating, no good. Way back in the day, I got certified by the ACSM on exercise assessments. They had us use a stationary bike for v02 tests. Safe, but highly dependent on how a person's legs can handle the local fatigue.
Interesting about the sleep stage threshold durations. I'll pay attention to how that varies over time. I've not broken either threshold yet. My lifestyle patterns leave something to be desired. I have noticed nights with little deep sleep, I wake feeling drained. Getting to bed early seems to encourage deep sleep.
My psychiatrist suggested taking 0.5 mg of Melatonin several hours before bed. Also 350-450mg of Magnesium Glycinate about 30 minutes prior. Once I've established a consistent unsupplemented baseline, I may experiment with those variables.
Since I'm using a simulant for my ADHD, the line for better living through chemistry is blurred. It's very easy to ignore a bad night's sleep when medicated. She offered some stronger sleep support meds. I've been hesitant for all the reasons one might expect.
The sleep stage impact of an Rx can be significant. She's into Hydroxyzine (antihistamine) for nights where you know sleep will be difficult. It can suppress REM sleep. Though probably still better than no sleep. She also tries Trazadone (anti-depressant) which looks like it's sleep stage friendly. And Quetiapine (antipsychotic) which raises deep sleep while lowering REM, but strikes me as playing with fire.
Just talked myself into getting some of the antihistamine haha. I have very specific nights where I know anxiety will ruin my sleep. Probably worth the experiment.
For me for now it's about getting some measure I can track, and being able to do it without a zone4-5 2k row is appealing, especially given my shoulder, which is ever so slowly getting better.
That's a tough one with the meds. My intuition tells me that you're right that sacrificing a little REM on occasion is probably better in the long haul than sleepless or near-sleepless nights. For unknown reasons it's fairly common for me to have nights with as little as 10-20 minutes REM out of 6-7 hrs sleep, and when that happens I usually don't feel out of sorts the next day. But cut my total sleep to, say, 5.5 hours or less and I'm a quasi-zombie the next day or sometimes two. And in your place I'd definitely want to try the antihistamine first out of the three choices to offset the ADHD Rx. Hope it gives you some relief.
I tried taking melatonin very briefly but it didn't do me any good. I do take a magnesium and some glycine before bed, but they seem to have minimal impact. I keep taking them because there useful in all sorts of chemical processes in the body, and my understanding is most people don't get enough magnesium anyway. Other more boutiquey supplements I've tried for sleep haven't had an effect that persists. That's why I am starting to look more at stress/anxiety and general cognitive health to try to level up.
I read this post from 9 years ago and wondered how you have moved on from Mr Spock. Are you able to live life in flow without logic dictating what you should do?
Gosh, 8 years ago...that's a long time, lol. What I remember at the time that some of the bigger draws for me towards retiring were emotional in nature. Pusuing some of the things that excited me as a kid, or other things I encuntered later in life but didn't have time for. My mom was still alive then, but sick, and one of the things I hoped for was a chance to spend more time with my parents (I'd moved hundreds of miles away as soon as I finished school). My mom passed before I could pull it off but I have been able to spend a lot of time with my dad over the last 3.5 years.
The best answer I can give to your question is that now I am much more prone to let emotion or other non-logical urges to set my priorities, but I still use my analytical to find the best way to get there. I probably failed in what I was thinking about in that post--in the end I wound up working 2ish years longer than I probably needed to because Mr Spock is a stubborn bastard and wouldn't just go away. Then about 1.5 years after I retired I had some everyday medical tests done that indicated early signs of some serious problems and that others were apt to be just around the corner for me. So I resurrected my inner student. On the one hand that broght my beginner's mind back from the mothballs, but also kept me in a place where one foot was in the same space Spock occupies. But as the physiological out look has gotten better, and through my very recent quest to improve my sleep quality, I've begun a meditation practice again along with some biohacks intended to help me master stress and anxiety, and that's very much caused a flourishing rejuvenation of my desire to practice mindfulness. Just a few days ago I started trying some guided meditations (never used guided sessions before) and combined them with some wooish findings about "music" being able to activate different brain energies (frequency of the vibrations of electrical signals in the ol' noggin). Maybe that'll help me contain Spock. One thing I have definitely succeeded with is basically losing nearly all the worry/fixation I had about the financial side of the retirement puzzle. But that didn't happen until after I retired, though it was very soon afterward.
About a year ago I decided to avoid fluoride as much as I could. That's not terribly difficult because both in Illinois and up at the hideout I have well water, which is a good thing since I'm also trying to cut down on exposure to microplastics meaning bottled water is not a desirable option. Primarily it meant switching to a non-fluoride toothpaste and opting out of the spendy "clinical" mouthwash a prior dentist had recommended as a "just in case" preventative for gum disease. The primary reason I did it was because fluoride (and other components in the mouthwash) kill oral bacteria which are a significant source of nitric oxide, and secondarily because fluoride is somewhat of a neurotoxin. I went for a cleaning recently (I'd missed one last fall so it had been a full year) and all was good. I made a quip about being happy to walk out of the office with all the teeth I walked in with and she said, "Unless you start making a habit of bar fighting, you'll be buried with all your teeth." Generally my oral health has been good, so that's not something I can claim as an improvement, but ditching the fluoride and the antiseptic stuff did not hurt anything. I'd had some low-level residual concern that I'd have a mouth full of cavities or worse. I don't eat a ton of sugar throughout the year, but do let my hair down a bit on that stuff around the holidays.
Wednesday and Thursday I had blood drawn for my big annual battery of Function health tests. A about half results (54/105?) have posted, but none of the ones I'm most interested in have populated yet. So far all but two have been in range. Both those two were out of range in April 2024 as well, and only slightly out of range. Both got a tiny bit better over the last year, but not enough I'd consider it a sign of meaningful improvement. I suppose I can say at least they haven't gotten worse.
I saw a statement in the subtitle of a podcast I have teed up for later this morning: "Anxiety is a predictive error in the brain." I assume it's a quote from the guest, Dr Lisa Feldman, who is apparently a leading researcher in the psychology/neuroscience field. I've spent quite a bit of time over the last several weeks considering and looking into anxiety and stress (psychological stress rather than physiological stress, although they may be less different than I currently think). There are two reasons for the interest. One is it's one of the last stones to turn over in my quest to get my sleep parameters closer to optimum per the conventional view on that. I don't feel like anxiety is a chronic issue for me, but I recognize that I might just be good at stamping it down and not noticing it. I'm also interested because my daughter has occasional bouts with what has been diagnosed as panic disorder, and to me she seems very susceptible to runaway anxiety. So I've got this fanciful hope that somewhere along the way in my journey I'll stumble across some tangible things that might help her more successfully manage stress and anxiety.
In the digging I've dome I've been surprised to see how prevalent the connection between gut health and mental/emotional health has become in tip-of-the-spear research and even in what you could call Medicine 3.0 therapy. There are now several "nutritional psychology" departments and programs within departments at universities. That's just an aside, I mostly think my gut health is pretty good, especially over the last year or two. But I think my daughter's nutrition is not far from the typical SAD.
I think I mentioned I've taken an interest in guided meditation recently. Oura has a whole series of generic ones built into the subscription version of their app, which I use out of convenience, they don't seem much different than those one can find online for free. And I'm halfway through a 2-week free trial of another subscription service that blends some neuroscience findings with conventional guided meditation techniques. I have some skepticism and part of me feels like it might be new-agey wooish snake oil, so I'm not going to mention it "in public" because for now I don't want to appear to be promoting something I have this much skepticism about, but I'm happy to talk about it via PM if anyone is curious. What I've found so far with guided meditations, free online ones, the Oura ones, and the ones that include neuroscience biohacks is that they don't seem to have a huge influence on my overall sleep parameters. At least not yet. By all accounts meditation is a skill that takes time to cultivate to maximum effect, and as a quasi-skeptic I'm probably at the back of the class in terms of my propensity for learning/progressing. I've noticed that when I do one geared to relaxation prior to sleep the deep sleep portion of my initial sleep cycle tends to be longer than prior. Also, several times now, doing a guided session during the day will trick oura into thinking I'm sleeping when I'm not, something that doesn't happen when I'm sitting equally still watching Netflix or a podcast.
In a subjective sense I frequently finish one feeling like I just wasted 20-30 minutes, but other times I finish one and feel pretty darn good about it--I can see why meditation in general has become a longstanding tradition. I'm deliberately working through a hodgepodge of "styles", in part to see what suits me best, and in part just to promote neuroplasticity. Way back when I called this journal a journey of mindfulness. At the time I was interested in Zen philosophy, and to a degree was attempting to practice that style of meditation. Zen seemed to dovetail nicely with my pursuit of a simplified life. But more recently I've gone through a period of years of decidedly non Zen-like behavior. It's feeling like a good time to go back and revisit my paused quest for mindfulness. Maybe it will help me improve sleep, maybe it won't. Maybe I'll stumble across a neuroscience biohack that will help my daughter, maybe I won't. But dabbling on that playing field seems to hint at the promise of having some inherent value in it's own right.
I have some skepticism and part of me feels like it might be new-agey wooish snake oil, … they don't seem to have a huge influence on my overall sleep parameters. At least not yet. By all accounts meditation is a skill that takes time to cultivate to maximum effect, … But dabbling on that playing field seems to hint at the promise of having some inherent value in it's own right.
I prefer to think of it as Dan Harris framed it: 10% Happier. Meditation is not some panacea that will have a drastic impact on your life, but it will provide a meaningful ROI on time spent and is therefore “worth doing.”
+1 to suomalainen, I would add that it might take a while to see the results, especially at a low dosage. But a few months in, it might be interesting to stop doing it for a while and see if you notice the difference in day-to-day well-being/mental functioning.
If you wanted to go at higher intensity (2+ hrs) from the start, you might find yourself feeling significantly worse before it gets better.
Sample of one, results may vary.
