Staying fit and having a high quality of life: low tech works best

Among the articles that I read this week was one in MIT Technology Review about the massive program in Saudi Arabia to extend human life span. There was also one about a longevity investors conference in Switzerland where the several mega-rich were being courted to invest big bucks in various life extension schemes.

Other articles this week included Elizabeth Holmes being sent to prison for 11 years for fraudulently representing the capabilities of a Silicon Valley blood testing company. Adding to the pile of fun was the total collapse of TFX crypto, and Elon Musks masterful leadership after he took over at Twitter.

What do these have in common?

Perhaps the biggest thing is that there are a lot of great sounding ideas out there that can attract huge amounts of investment. But they fail completely because they cant deliver anything useful regardless of how much technology they throw at the problem.

If you are serious about being fit and having a great quality of life as you age, what is a good model to use?

It struck me that being fit and healthy is basically very low tech. It is much like having a home garden where you grow vegetables and flowers than it is like a massive computer program.

Those who enjoy the success of having a high quality of life while they age tend to follow very low-tech solutions.

Like the gardener, to succeed at fitness you must do the humble hard work needed for a successful yield.

The gardener must till the soilspade or rototiller will do. The gardener must plant seeds.usually by hand. Then the gardener must tend the plants with water and weeding in order to get the produce.

Those of us who have been fit for a long time and enjoy great health in advanced age have done much the same thing with our bodies. Do the humble work, care for ourselves and only then get to enjoy the outcome 24/7/365.

The problem with many good sounding ideas is that they can be sold as an abstract idea, but in the real world cannot make much difference.

One of my favorite examples of this was about a decade ago many of us who trained at an elite workout facility were given a pitch about using monthly blood tests to achieve super star performance.

The idea was that a detailed analysis of our blood every month would help us calibrate our training to reach ever greater heights.

Many of us signed up and eagerly awaited our first blood analysis. (We had to have blood drawn each month by a nurse).

My first report like those of most of my colleagues showed that our blood profile was already in the excellent range.

After a couple of months of having our blood drawn and analyzed, we discovered that nothing in our reports ever changed. We had been at the top of the scale when we signed up. There was nothing in our blood analysis gave any indication of how to increase our performance.

We all quit this scam after a few months.

But.it really sounded good when we first heard about it.

What does seem to work is consistent physical training, keeping our body fat down, and generally caring for our bodies as if we were gardeners.

Low techbut it works better than too good to be true high tech solutionsmost of which are smoke, mirrors and a big dose of wishful thinkng.

Lift Big!

Richard