Just saw the news of a new study where taking the supposed longevity blockbuster drug rapamycin in combo with exercise blocked some of the benefits of exercise. Spoiler: compared to placebo, the rapamycin group saw worse effects from training, especially on a 30-second chair-stand test, with other measures like 6-minute walk and quality of life scores also generally looking better in the placebo group.
Rapamycin works by blocking the growth pathway mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin). The thing is, if you block all growth, you might live a bit longer. But mTOR is also one of the pathways responsible for adaptations to physical training. And that’s what we know: inhibiting it also inhibits the positive response to exercise, like muscle growth and even cardiovascular improvements.
But those aren’t “just training adaptations.” They are life adaptations, directly correlated with, and I’d argue causative of, longevity and quality of life as one ages.
Exercise is only “good stress” if you adapt to it. If you’re not adapting, or if you’re adapting a little bit but worse than you should be, you’re accumulating “bad stress.” You’re still asking the body to repair, rebuild, and improve while inhibiting the pathway necessary to make those improvements.
There’s really very little free lunch in the biological world. A heuristic that has never failed me is this: if the dues paid involve actual work, effort, or discomfort, the net effect will likely be beneficial. If the dues paid involve having to remember to swallow a pill, it gets a little more dicey, and I suspect larger dues will have to be paid somewhere down the line.
Here's the study: DOI: 10.1002/jcsm.70274
Everyone seems to be concerned with cramming more protein into their daily diets, so let me share my top tips for optimizing protein intake.
First, do you actually need more protein? Few adults need more than 130 grams a day. Some populations (athletes, enhanced lifters, the injured and recovering, those actively losing weight or reducing calories, possibly senior citizens) will benefit from extra, but for most folks anything more is unnecessary for health and performance. You can certainly eat more if you enjoy it, but you don’t have to.
If you are trying to eat more…
1. Think in terms of averages. Don’t micromanage. The biggest change I’ve made in the last decade is rather than focusing on daily intake, I think about the average over 4 days. That matters more than meal-to-meal or day-to-day protein intake, and it provides more flexibility.
2. Aim for 50 grams per meal. If you’re doing 2 meals a day, that’s 100 grams—easy to make up any difference with a snack or shake. With 3 meals a day, you have wiggle room to “leave out” if you’re not feeling it. Boom. Simple.
This is a guideline, not a rule. Something to aim toward.
3. Cook extra. Enough that you’ll have leftovers for several days. Grill 12 burger patties at once. Throw several tri tips on the smoker. Cook a whole pan of salmon. Leftovers are your friend and make eating more protein incredibly easy.
4. Choose protein over fasting. This is a big one. You don’t get any awards for skipping meals if you aren’t getting adequate protein. Protein comes first. With a condensed eating window, you might have to start snacking or extend it and add one more meal.
5. Start with real food. Use high quality protein powders (whey is the gold standard) or protein-enriched products as additions, not the starting point.
The real value in any endeavor, the bulk of the value, lies in the process of attaining the goal.
Hitting a back squat PR isn’t just a number. It represents the combination of many months of training, getting stronger, and establishing new neuromuscular patterns. It was the journey that made it all possible and made the PR meaningful and worthwhile.
On a family trip, it’s not just the big monuments and world-famous attractions that make the trip enjoyable. It’s all the random things that happen throughout the trip as you make your way toward the big attractions that make the trip beautiful and pleasurable. Those are the things that you will remember most.
Now, the problem with generative AI, the things like ChatGPT and Claude, is that they make it very easy to reach the destination without any work, without any journey at all. And if you’re trying to be creative or improve the way your brain functions, the journey, the work, is everything.
And so if you’re going to use AI, I really recommend using it as an assistant, as a tool on the journey. Don’t take shortcuts. Don’t surrender your creativity to the AI. It’s a very fine line. It’s a slippery slope.
When I’m writing something, I never ask it to create a draft or edit my work or anything like that, because that is how you slip down the slope and start missing the journey and start sacrificing your identity and losing yourself in the AI.
I will ask it to help gather research for me. But if the thing starts recommending new avenues of research for whatever it is I’m preparing to write, I don’t listen. It may be right. It may have a good angle. I don’t care. I don’t want that. I don’t want that kind of help, because that’s how you lose yourself.
What are your thoughts?
Do I still lift heavy things? Yes, but with a caveat.
These days, it’s really about the minimum effective dose of exercise for me. I’m trying to maintain a high level of all-around capability without wasting energy on junk work. Less volume while keeping the quality high.
In the weight room, I’m mostly doing the same stuff I’ve done for a while:
- Resistance band warm-ups
- Pulldowns, both wide and close-grip
- Incline dumbbell raises
- Dips (maybe the best overall "pressing" movement)
- Cable lateral
- Overhead press if that machine is available
- Pushups, sometimes weighted (a plate across the back).
I'll occasionally hop on the chest press machine. I never do barbell bench anymore. It's just not worth it.
I still do the trap bar deadlift, which is a nice kind of "hybrid" knee flexion/hip hinge. My knees are kind of bone on bone right now, so I have to be smart about that. But doing them keeps my knees feeling better than if I did nothing.
I'll also throw in leg presses when my knees feel up to it. Calf raises, too (keep that Achilles strong).
Rep-wise, I’m not going super heavy for low reps (8-12). I'll do that for 2-3 sets. More if I'm feeling it, less if I'm not. Again, minimum effective dose.
What's changed over time?
More machines, less free weights. Free weights are great because they add instability and non-linearity to your workout, but it's also why they can be risky as you get older. But I still do some free weights, like the trap bar and dumbbells. I'd also argue that dips, pull-ups, and push-ups qualify.
Less "routine." Rather than stick to a strict regimen, I graze in the gym. Walk around, do what feels good, pick and choose. Keep it fun. Keep it light (but the weights heavy).
2026 and onward will offer the most enticing retreats from your body into technology yet devised. Merchants will try to sell you a million ways to not do the work. Recreational gene therapies. Mood modulators. Injections that stop your appetite. Injections that stave off the muscle loss and gut peristalsis from the appetite reducing injections. AI models that promise to turn you into Rick Rubin, wizards who can speak reality into existence. AI agents who can do everything for you.
Use all the tech you want, take advantage of the amazing and powerful tools (and they will be amazing and powerful), but never forget that the human body and mind are High Technology.
And not just the brain. The hands, feet, mitochondria too. The work still matters. The work is how you get to Play, how you really begin to appreciate the Play. In fact, Play is only meaningful when you worked to get there. Never outsource your physiology.
Be prepared. Some say your only imperative is to not die—to make it long enough to be saved from mortality. I say the main mission nowadays is to never stop living.
Do not allow the upcoming magic technology to turn you into a total consumer or a fake creator. You are so much more than that.
People ask me how to make walking more interesting. They know it’s good for them, but they find it boring or unproductive. That’s just the world we’re in now. Time seems to be speeding up, and people are worried about wasting their precious time.
I get it. I’m the same way.
What can you do when just going for a walk doesn't feel good enough?
1. Vary the surfaces. Walking on the same stretch of flat sidewalk every day is like walking on a treadmill outdoors. Walking somewhere with texture underfoot—sand, stones, logs you have to step over, even sharp rocks—is more engaging and arguably better for your health.
2. Change your footwear. I founded @wearpeluva because I’m a big believer that minimalist footwear or barefoot shoes promote a richer walking experience.
3. Change your speed. Try walking faster and turn it into a bit of exercise. Or naturally fast walkers, try slowing down. Focus less on the physical effort and more on where you’re walking, what you’re thinking about, and who you’re with.
4. Walk with a friend. Instead of getting together for coffee or drinks, get together for a walk. You accomplish the same thing and often have even better conversations while moving.
5. Try to get lost. Go to a part of town you’ve never been to, safely get yourself lost, then see if you can find your way back. Try not to use GPS unless you absolutely must. A simple walk becomes a game.
6. Leave your phone at home. Technology invades every part of our lives. Leave your phone behind for a free little technology retreat.
7. Bring your phone and make the walk productive. I love doing this. Go for a walk, open Notes, and dictate. Ideas often come when you’re moving. It’s a great way to draft a blog post, newsletter, or email.
8. Make it a workout. I wrote about this years ago, and I still do it. Go for a walk and every 30 seconds (or 2 minutes or whatever) stop for an exercise—12 push-ups, walking lunges, broad jumps, or pull-ups on a branch. The possibilities are endless, and it becomes circuit training.
Today I’m answering a question about “how to get a life like yours.”
You say you want a version of the life I have created. What are the small steps you can take right now to have "a version of that version?”
I started really hunkering down at 44. I had a wife, two small kids, and a dream. No money. I thought as long as I looked after my family, spent time with them, and worked diligently on my business plan, any amount of success I enjoyed was "a version of the grander vision."
From there, each version became a little more secure, a little more gratifying.
I had my first million dollar year when I was 47. I thought, "If this is all there is, I will be a happy man. A family, a job I love, income and security." And most importantly, I was staying true to myself, not compromising in any way or ignoring my moral compass.
In my 50s, I had a beautiful home, my same wonderful family, even more security. That would have been enough. I mean it.
But then, at 61 I started Primal Kitchen. It took off like nothing I could have ever imagined. Within a few years, I sold it for $200 million. Just another version of the original vision.
Every morning, when I wake up and think to myself: If everything stopped today would I be content and happy with what I accomplished? Would I feel as if I had represented my authentic self? Would I be confident that I had done the best I could with my family? Any answer is, yes, of course.
And that has always been my answer to that question. More might be better, but I am good now.
So it’s a balance between seemingly contradictory stances: taking action immediately, not waiting around, but also knowing that it’s never too late. Being discontent with your life but also content with it. Being comfortable with the paradoxes.
You got this.
It’s been freezing here in Miami lately – often below 50 with the windchill making it feel like mid-20s. I'd step outside and feel like I was back in Maine as a kid. They were filling trucks full of frozen iguanas off the street, and everyone’s walking around in parkas.
People from the Midwest or New England would laugh, but it illustrates a very interesting point: Homeostasis can be disrupted in two directions, and those directions are not equal or proportionate.
It is far harder to deal with cold than it is to deal with heat. Cold-weather animals exposed to a sudden heat wave will be unhappy. But all they have to do is slow down, stay out of the sun, and they usually survive as long as there’s water. Stick a hot-weather animal in the cold and it’s going to die real quick.
Maintaining a warm house in the freezing cold requires far more energy than cooling a house in the heat, but we have to do it. People act like AC in the summer is the cause of all our fossil fuel usage. Actually, it’s dealing with cold in winter.
All else equal, agriculture works better in heat than in the cold. Exceptions exist, of course, but the plants that provide sustenance for humans tend to be warm-weather plants. That’s why people who settled in the far north survive on animal-rich diets.
Consider that before we even had the intelligence required to deal with long winters, we simply lived in temperate Africa, where plant food was abundant, big game was plentiful, and water was everywhere. It wasn’t until we started making clothing and preserving food that we could begin to consider conquering a cold climate.
Meanwhile, every human sweats: a damn good way to deal with heat. Populations from hot, humid areas tend to be very good at retaining salt to maintain cellular function in the presence of extreme water loss. That's why we have salt-sensitive hypertension. We do have some inherited genetic cold-weather adaptations in populations with a history of cold exposure, but they’re partial solutions, not enough on their own.
Which goes to show that problems of homeostasis are not symmetrical. One direction is almost always worse than the other.
Arthur De Vany died recently. I heard the other day from Robb Wolf. He was 88 years old.
Art was my mentor. The very first things I wrote online way back in 2005 were for his site: "The Case Against Chronic Cardio" and "Escape from Vegan Island." Some of you may even remember them, because I later republished them on MDA. They got huge responses from his audience, so much that I decided I had to keep going and start my own.
There's a good chance I wouldn't be writing this if it weren't for Art. He made me realize the potential of this way of living and the power of presenting it to the world.
People often say Loren Cordain was the original paleo/ancestral health guy, and in some respects (diet), he was close. But Art went deeper. He proposed something called "evolutionary fitness," which went beyond eating and into exercise, aging, cellular function, gene expression, and stochastic living. He was suspicious of monotonous routines and regimented, metronomic eating. He would fast before workouts and then fast after them.
Art had some great lines:
"No failure, just feedback."
"We're still apes in pinstripe suits."
"You're most human when you're not eating."
"Each of us has what I call an ensemble of stochastic life paths–the choices we make. You make each choice in life based on your understanding of the possibility that it will take you where you want to be. But you don’t determine the outcome, only the probabilities. Each path leads to more choices: a cascade to echo all the other cascades that rule our lives. Choosing the path is the extent of your control–beyond that, it’s out of your hands. You choose, and then life rolls the dice."
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Resolutions, goals, intentions. Call them whatever you like, but what really matters is whether you're setting yourself up for success or failure. Here are some quick tells for whether your resolution is a good one:
1. Distance to action test.
Realistic: You can start completing it in ten minutes
Likely to fail: You need days, weeks, or months to mark it off. It needs the perfect set up to work. Or you'll start "next week" or "after winter."
2. "What's it gonna take?" test.
Realistic: It requires a quick but significant change to your environment. ("Clean the pantry, then eat better." "Join a gym, then start working out." "Buy a walking pad for my standup desk, then use it 2 hours every day whenever I"m on the computer.")
Likely to fail: It requires willpower without changing anything about the situation or environment.
3. Precision test
Realistic: It has specific measurable outcomes (numbers, actions). Falsifiable.
Likely to fail: It has diffuse or totally absent outcomes ("don't procrastinate" or "exercise more"). Unfalsifiable.
4. Variable test
Realistic: You change one thing.
Likely to fail: Requires total overhaul of your entire personality, schedule, and life.
Happy new year, everyone!
Seasonal reminder to get outside as much as you can despite the cold weather. Cold is pretty easy to deal with thanks to modern technology, but moving in the cold will also keep you warm.
The real enemy during winter is sedentary behavior. It’s staying inside. It’s fearing the cold. It’s retreating into comfort and coziness. If you’re going to get cozy, you need to earn it. I’m not a big “no pain no gain” guy, but staying under blankets with the heat on in winter has to be balanced with outside cold air activity.
And yes, I know the joke. “You live in Miami, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” I grew up in Maine in a small fishing village on the coast where I wasn’t allowed to be inside sitting around. I played outside all day long in every season. I shoveled snow for money. I went on outdoor excursions in rain and shine with friends.
So I know cold. As long as you get out and start moving—whether it’s snowshoeing, snowboarding, sledding, cross country skiing, or snowball fights—you’ll warm up faster than you think.
And you still need natural light. Natural light becomes even more important in winter when it’s scarce. A lot of winter depression isn’t because of cold weather. It’s due to lack of sunlight. Bundle up as much as you need to, but get outside.
This is a far gentler and, in my opinion, more beneficial form of cold exposure than ice baths. Spending 30-60 minutes in cold temperatures in as little clothing as you can safely manage will help you burn fat and convert metabolically inert fat into metabolically active brown fat. And then after you’ve done your exercise or walk or snow sports, you get to come inside, sit next to the fire, take a hot bath, drink something warm, and know that you’ve earned it.
It’ll be far more satisfying than if you’d skipped the outside part entirely.
I once heard Chris Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn and whose podcast I appeared on a while back, talk about Spaniards’ comfort with ambiguity. He would say that there are no hard-and-fast rules in Barcelona. Could you park in this spot? No one was really sure. When is this shop open? It might be open later, but some Wednesdays it’s closed. You never know.
His point was that citizens of Barcelona could handle this sort of ambiguity. They didn’t need a linear path or clear rules. You’re tapping into that as we enter an entirely new era where all the smartest people are telling you that ambiguity will be eradicated, that AI will be able to find new drugs that will help us all live to 500, that enlightenment is at hand.
The opposite is true. Reality is not linear. Reality is ambiguous, and the ability to tolerate ambiguity is going to be a massive life skill right now and going forward.
Honest appraisal of the situation at hand will tell you that things are only getting weirder and more ambiguous. Markets change on a whim. The news cycle runs 24 hours a day and changes from minute to minute on rumors and whispers; and because everybody has a supercomputer in their pocket at all times, everybody knows everything at once. When a situation changes, a million people react in real time, creating ever more layers of ambiguity.
I’m not sure how to learn how to tolerate ambiguity, but you have to. Some of it’s gonna be genetic and inborn. Perhaps this post will help you accept the fact that things will be weird and put you on the road to tolerating it—and, more importantly, riding the wave of ambiguity.
Don’t let it pull you under. Don’t get sucked out to sea. Ride it.
What's your take on all this? Are you feeling a bit more ambiguity in the air? What are you noticing?
Let me know.
