BOOK REVIEW: Outlive by Dr. Peter Attia (part 1)
by Michael Iwanchuk
Living well and enjoying your years is the most meaningful thing you’ll ever do.
Longevity has become a buzzword in the health and fitness community, but if you want to live long, it is equally important to live well.
Outlive is your doorway to see a comprehensive look at the variables needed to maximize the chances of living a long and healthy life. Outlive author Dr. Peter Attia was a practicing physician when he realized that while saving and extending lives was important, the more meaningful gift to him became keeping patients off the hospital table by identifying risk factors of disease before they presented themselves to the point of no return.
In his new popular book Outlive, Dr. Attia details how we can life long (lifespan), by identifying factors and taking action to live well (improving health span).
“If you focus relentlessly on health span, you’ll get the lifespan benefits along the way.”
In section 1, Dr. Peter Attia explores the current medical model, which he labels as Medicine 2.0. Dr. Attia details that the current medical model is great at the ability to improve the state of someone who is ill or injured, to prolonging lifespan. This means that once disease is present we have a good understanding of management.
However Dr. Attia aims to move us forward to Medicine 3.0, taking aim at educating us on the factors to watch to help us delay the onset of certain diseases. Here we have the ability to improve longevity by focusing on early warning signs in our control. Medicine 3.0 will require the process and development of the latest science and tracking measures to allow us the ability to identify problems, before they become problems, as well as providing insights into the methods to reverse or delay negative outcomes.
Since our inception at Strive Fitness and Therapy, I have always been inspired by something I heard from Dr. Kelly Starrett:
“The strength and conditioning coach is the center of the universe. They are the primary care provider of the future; because, they are diagnosing movement problems before they become problems; they talk to athletes and adults about stress, nutrition, sleep, and hydration. The strength and conditioning coach has two-to-four interactions with the individual every week and that is the future of health care”.
At Strive we take our opportunity seriously and believe that we can have a meaningful impact on our clients lives. We aim to foster a positive environment that creates interactions for healthy life practices in multiple domains of health. By providing actionable items and entry points to improve our clients physical activity, stress management, and nutritional practices, we can help provide the energy and stamina to live more meaningful exciting lives.
In section 2, Peter Attia takes a deep dive into the four horseman of aging; cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease. These four diseases are the most common causes of early age death. Dr. Attia takes a deep dive into the science, markers, and real world examples of the struggles caused by these diseases.
In section 3, Dr. Attia provides current best practice to improve fitness, conditioning development, movement ability, nutrition, and sleep. Outlive heavily highlights the importance of exercise for improving health span and lifespan with the first chapter on exercise named “Chapter 11: Exercise The Most Powerful Longevity Drug”. Dr. Attia wrote three chapters on exercise, two chapters for nutrition, and one chapter for sleep and mental health.
At Strive we aim to keep it simple and (at its smallest form) break exercise into three buckets; Movement, Strength, and Conditioning. Conditioning can be simplified as the ability to constantly complete an action. A deeper breakdown can be found here STRIVE: Conditioning Philosophy. Strength can be defined as the ability to control and move our bodies, as well as objects in our environment. But most importantly, we want our clients to move well. We like Charlie Weingroff’s definition here of “can your joints move into the correct position to load and adapt to stress” for the given activities and lifestyle you desire? For our gymnasts, rock climbers, golfers, and artistic swimmers, that is going to be in extreme degrees of motion for certain joints. They must have strength through the entirety of those ranges, and possess the conditioning ability to repeat their skills over and over for the duration of a game, competition or match. For our 76 year old adults, their fitness is the ability to swing their legs over a Zodiac in Churchill, walk The Camino de Santiago, as well as the ability to put their suitcase safely in the overhead compartment on their next trip. Depending on your level of independance, our goal is to keep you doing the things you love to do for as long as possible!
Dr. Peter Attia ends the book with a twist, where he becomes the patient inviting the reader into his personal story of his battle with longevity that you won’t want to miss!
As mentioned by Dr. Attia, we too feel this book is a must read. For society to shift to Medicine 3.0, we all must continue to self-educate, and empower ourselves with tools to identify early red flags, and change course when needed. From here we can take actionable steps like those mentioned by Dr. Starret whether this be movement, energy imbalances, or addressing mental difficulties to find the correct treatment path with a physical therapist, psychologist, nutritionist, strength and conditioning professional, or medical doctor.
By shifting to Medicine 3.0 we will have the ability to age gracefully and continue to live with independence accomplishing the activities that we look forward too and bring us joy.
Looking to learn more!?
In Winnipeg? Buy the book here:
Looking online?
Dr. Peter Attia Podcast
- The Drive: https://peterattiamd.com/podcast
Dr. Attia has provided more information around his book on various podcasts if you search under his name.
At STRIVE Fitness and Therapy we equally aim to empower individuals; from middle school athletes to professionals, weekend warriors to busy working professionals, to those looking to age gracefully into retirement. By recognizing and understanding your current limitations, and show a positive path forward.
To truly achieve Medicine 3.0, we must provide the tools, environment, and professional care to “identify movement problems before they become problems, as well as speak to the importance of sleep, nutrition, stress, and mental health”. If we truly want Strive to be the a beacon of the future we must provide our clients with an understanding of the importance, and an opportunity to work with leading experts in each domain.
At STRIVE we continue to bolster our team with the following professionals.
Physical Rehabilitation: Ryan Stewart, Dr. Nick Paryniuk, Preston Tran, Jason Tsang, Tess Dusik, and Kyle Friesen
Strength and Conditioning Coaches: James Horaska, Derek Hawley, Tess Dusik, and Michael Iwanchuk
Nutrition: Jill Anderson
Mental Performance: Dr. Lindsay Ross-Stewart