Well, I aim to please my friend. It is certainly the least that I could do. It's an impressive background. And like I said, really more importantly, you're focused on helping people, not just wowing them with all this information and maybe overwhelming them. Frankly, I think that's what a lot of podcasters focus on health. Do you actually cutting to the heart? And I think that's what's so important. One other thing I forgot to mention is you're an Ironman triathlete at the age of 67. And you, you told me you just finished a triathlon last week. Talk to me about the background of that. Well,

when I was at Harvard, I had some folks in my dorm that had done the Boston marathon, this is back in the seventies. And they look like death warmed over and in the bathtub with ice all over them. And, and I was like, God, that's a crazy thing to do. But that was the early days of running. As I was approaching 40, it was like, well, if I'm ever going to do a marathon, and this was 30 years ago, I should probably get going. And it turned out very soon after I started doing them, everybody did. Al Gore did the Mopra Winfrey did one. So it became very democratized and that's been a wonderful thing for folks and for their health. Then after doing that for about 10, 15 years, it was like, well, somebody said, let's go for a bike ride. And then all of a sudden it's like, well, a triathlon is just, you know, some running and some biking. And then yeah, there's a swim thing in the beginning. And of course I started short and small and fairly quick. And then I got the longer ones and the longer ones. And, you know, 20 years later of doing these, here I am. So 500

yards or thereabouts in a sprint triathlon for a swim up to what, 2 .4 miles in the Ironman? Is that roughly okay? Yes,

it's a lot longer swim. It's a long day, as I like to say.

My girls are both swimmers. So I know whenever they're both sprinters too. So 50 and a hundred yard generally, but whenever they have to swim the mild, that is not a fun swim meet. Needless to say. So all right, let's get into, I mentioned in passing these six pillars. And it was interesting. And I will go into them just real quick, each of the six. And then we'll dive into each individually. But when you kind of jokingly said, my marathon friends look like death warmed over or thereabouts, right? And like, I wonder actually how that might tie into pillar number one, which is exercise and a large portion of that being strength training. And I feel like even the, the running community has evolved to understand just the importance of muscle building and strength from maybe those early days in the seventies and eighties of the running fad. So I wonder, and I don't know if you have an answer to this, but if your friends would look similarly as definitely today as compared to the seventies. Oh, absolutely

not. I mean, the technology and the shoes has changed much and just training and how you train. I mean, back then, the more miles, the better. Now it's the smarter miles, the better. So it's a whole different world now, fortunately. Yeah.

Yeah. So random little sidebar, but okay. Let's get into, as I understand it, these six pillars are exercise, sleep, nutrition, mind, body work, heat and cold exposure, and social relationships. So I think when I look at a holistic life of health, I mean, that pretty much about covers. I think some people might be surprised by the hot and cold exposure that that rises to the level of a pillar, but let's put a pin in that and come back. So let's start with pillar number one, which is exercise. And I think this is, I know top of mind for me, and I've talked about this in the past on episode 480, where I have my trainer Dean Turner on, and I've been focused on muscle building and strength building in the last 18 months. And it's been just a humongous change for me, but I'd love to throw it to you for where do you start when it comes to having people understand the importance of exercise? Well,

it's a great question. And let me sort of set the stage, not only for this pillar, but for all of them. So my focus is really on what works in human beings, people like the folks that are listening. I don't really care what happens in dogs or yeast or mice or laboratory things that happen in blood. I really want to ask the question, what do we know about studies in humans? Were they good studies? Did they show and make a difference? So for this pillar and for all of them, that's what I curate. That's what I'm focused on. So exercise, you know, the number one cause of death in the United States is cardiovascular disease and exercise has been shown to really, really make a difference. You know, there's a series of studies of over half a million people and they found that people who exercise had 20 -30% reduction in heart attacks and deaths associated with it. And being sedentary not only, you know, allows us to gain more weight, but it also affects how long we live, the likelihood of getting cognitive decline or dementia, and so many other things. And not to mention the sort of mood enhancing element that exercise does. Where it gets a little confusing is that when people think of exercise, they think of the typical CDC recommendations. Oh, you need to get two and a half to five hours of aerobic exercise every week. And I think that's great. I think everybody should. And that means getting your heart rate up enough so that it's not trivially easy to talk but you can still talk so you're a little huffing and puffing but not too badly. And people think okay I do that I play pickleball I go for walks I take my dog for the walk I bike occasionally I'm done. Well the problem is with exercise to really get the health this four pieces of the puzzle, it's not just the aerobics. So the aerobics is one element. Strength as you alluded to is another critical element. And as we age, people may know we lose about 2% of our muscle mass each and every year. And if you do the math and this audience is probably good at doing the math, you lose a lot in a decade and add another decade and another decade. So if you don't get ahead of the curve on strength, you'll be in big trouble. The third piece of the puzzle is balance. The number one problem that folks worry about as they get older is falling. And balance and strength training are critical to help us prevent that. And the last piece of the puzzle people may not realize is the importance of high intensity bursts of speed or anaerobic stuff. And it isn't just for sprinters getting ready for the Olympics. It's important for all of us that we can come back and talk a little bit about why it's important for everyone. So are four pieces of the puzzle. It isn't just as simple as I'm going to get a half hour of walking a day. That's a great start and I want people to make a great start. But keep in mind there's a few other pieces of the puzzle.

overview. And it was funny because as you were describing that person of, Hey, there may be puffing, puffing a little bit, which might be like a, people have heard of zone two exercise that could possibly constitute. But if you're just talking about, Hey, we're just going to walk a little bit. That's probably not going to cover it. So yeah, those four aspects are critical. I think I would like to start maybe with, I guess people who are more sedentary. So I track pretty much everything I do. I have an aura ring, I have a Fitbit and Bobby, it is startling. Even for me who I think of myself as a pretty active and fit guy on a normal day, if I'm not making a concerted effort, I probably walk under 4,000 steps a day or move under 4,000 steps a day. That's without any concerted specific walks. I mean, that's startling. And I'm always running up and down the stairs, grabbing things. Like I feel like I'm moving. So I wonder what quote unquote normal people are doing. I mean, I fear it's under 2000 steps a day for so many people. And we always hear this ,000 step thing. And I think that's largely been proven that it was essentially made up, but regardless, it's directionally accurate for, for me to get from 4,000 steps a day to 10 ,000. I have to take about 60 minutes of a walk. I made that, I might split that up. I actually, just before we hit play on this, I took a 15 minute walk just because I'd been sitting for too long. So that gets me a little bit there, but man, Bobby, it's hard. I think that's a, it's a very long way of saying like, it's really hard to get anywhere up there, but I think, I think it's really a big deal to go from essentially nothing to moving more.

The beauty of exercise is there's no If you're doing none and you start doing 10 minutes, you will get benefits. And if you can do 20 minutes, you'll get more benefits. And there's probably no upper bound. So people should not feel like, well, I can't do what Dr. Bobby says, so I'm not even going to bother. You will get about 80% of the benefits by doing a relatively small amount. And I encourage you just begin and you may catch on and love it. You're absolutely right about the number of steps, the number of steps, the 10 ,000. People might find this interesting where that number came from. Came many years ago from Japan. There was a company that was about to release in the old days, we used to call them pedometers. These little things that you would wear, they would have like a little pendulum in them, and it would counter steps. This was a Japanese company and they were thinking, oh, what should they call it? And what should they think about this? And there was a, um, I don't really know Japanese characters, but there's a character that looks like a human being and that became their logo and oh, by the way, that character is 10 ,000. And so it was a marketing issue, not a science based one that gave us the 10 ,000. Now, fast forward several decades, people are interested in the blue zones, these places around the world where not everybody lives to be a hundred, but more people live to be a hundred than elsewhere in the world. And people have investigated, well, what is it about those places? Well, on average, they get about 10,000 steps a day. So there is both the marketing behind this in the story behind that as well as actually somebody science around it. And you're absolutely correct in years past americans got a whole lot more steps and your four to five thousand is very typical i think you're right there many people that are way less than that and if to go down this rabbit hole, we can to talk a little bit about what happens when you sit. But sitting too long is not a good thing and all of the Apple watches and all those other things nowadays can set reminders to get up and get out and walk around for 15

minutes. Yeah, I would love to go into that actually. So let's do that combined with, if you don't mind, one thing that I've learned or certainly heard of recently, especially by the company levels, which they make the continuous glucose monitor. Dr. Casey Means, I think is one of the co -founders and she was talking, and again, I've heard on their podcast, a whole new level, where basically one of the ways they've found all the millions or tens of millions of data points through their CGM's is taking a walk after a meal is one of the best ways to regulate blood glucose. And I always look for those little snippets of like, what's something easy I can do? And also to try to put together commonalities. So Tim Ferriss in his four hour body that he published over a decade ago, he talked actually about doing something simple like air squats, like before and after a meal. And he was talking about blood glucose control. So it's interesting to see some, a non -scientist talk about it in N of one, which I know is something that's near and dear to your heart. And then to see a company like levels talk about it so many years later with tens of millions of data points for it. So I know that's kind of a lot to throw at you all at once, but I'm curious how, like little snippets of exercise, as opposed to long periods of sitting tie in. And if we can maybe somehow

tie these together. So what you raise and the points that the folks made are so important. And I'll give a little life hack addition to that. So what you said is, well, you should go for a 15 minute walk after your meal. Totally endorse that. Sounds great for a whole host of reasons. Here's one that people may not have thought about. And this will come up later if talk about nutrition. Take a 15 minute walk in the middle of your meal. Ooh. Now this may seem like I'm out with my wife at a restaurant. No, I don't think that's going to work, but so many people are concerned that they eat too much and you know, they just, they're hungry and it's hard to keep their weight under control. And that is a critical piece of the puzzle for health. I have found, and I haven't found any randomized trial of this topic, but everybody I've talked to says, yes, that's absolutely true. So what is it that gave rise to this go for a 15 minute walk in the middle of your meal? So our eating of food tells our stomach and our brain at some point you're full. Part of it is mechanical when your stomach gets full of food. It tells the brain that's enough. And then there are chemicals that when you eat, then go to the brain and they say, Oh, by the way, you don't need to eat anymore. The problem is it takes a while for those chemicals to be produced and get to the brain. I can't tell you how many people have told me that, yeah, this is true. If you happen to be interrupted halfway through a meal, you know, the phone rings, you have to deal with your kids having a problem, whatever it is. 15 minutes later, you come back. Oh, that other half of my plate, I'm no longer hungry because you eat faster than it. Your brain knows that you've eaten enough. And in fact, in the, again, to go back to the blue zones, there's an Okinawa, they have this saying stop eating when you're 80% full. And they knew for a thousand years that, you know, your brain will catch up. So yes, take that walk, but try it in the middle of a meal just for fun. And you may get a twofer, not only the exercise, but if you're having a struggle a bit with calories, you may find you're no longer hungry. You don't want the dessert. You don't even want necessarily what's on your plate that you were obviously going to eat if you weren't interrupted. So it's a life hack to try. I love that.