#014 | Longevity is not a trend-it's for life, San Francisco, & taking notes in the shower

Would you exercise daily if it meant you'd live to 106?

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Nov 26, 2024

If you’re in San Francisco : Mazama Wellness provides an all-in-one personal training and nutrition concierge service backed by science and focused on longevity – coached by Dustin Millhollen, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with a Master’s Degree in Nutrition.

Designed for busy professionals and those that are serious about their health, our year-long program is focused on optimizing your wellness routine, helping you look fit and feel vibrant by incorporating strength training, cardiorespiratory exercise, mobility movement, and nutritional guidance – using your time as efficiently as possible.

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If you’re anywhere : Workout Wherever by Mazama Wellness is a location-independent fitness system that offers a dose of travel inspiration.

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“Why do you workout?”

This is a question that I reflect on periodically. I think most people start working out because they have an aesthetic goal, like losing weight, or a performance goal, like running a marathon. For me I was a skinny teenager that wanted to put on some muscle, so I grabbed a pair of my dad's old dumbbells and started working out in my bedroom and that was the start of this 30 year journey.

On some level I'm still that kid trying to put on some muscle, but at some point I started focusing on other aspects of fitness. Things like improving strength, cardiorespiratory fitness, and mobility, in order to improve my quality of life. These things helped me do the activities that I enjoyed. They made me feel healthy and vibrant and energetic and productive. In fact, working out became enjoyable in and of itself and helped me deal with anxiety and stress and improved my sleep and helped me think more clearly and feel ready to take on all the challenges that life threw at me.

I find this to be the case with lots of the clients that I train. They start working with me because they want to lose some weight, put on some muscle, and maybe ease their lower back pain. However, they start to feel the confidence and empowerment that strength training and exercise brings and they start to love working out for different reasons altogether. When everyday tasks become easier and they can go for a run without knee pain or hike with friends without feeling like they're holding everyone back, that’s when the real wins occur. They feel the vibrancy that comes with being strong and capable.

But how should you workout when you don’t want to be a bodybuilder or powerlifter or marathon runner? Well, certainly the type of training needed for all those pursuits have some benefit for people that simply want to optimize their health and live a long fruitful life. Putting on muscle mass, increasing maximal strength, and improving cardiorespiratory fitness are all things that are good for general health, but if your goals don’t involve powerlifting meets or marathons, then you only need these things in certain quantities.

How should you workout to receive all the benefits that strength training and exercise has to offer? Great question! Here are the four pillars of a well-rounded workout plan:

Hypertrophy Training

Muscle mass is healthy. This probably isn’t too much of a surprise, however increased muscle mass not only helps you look fit, but it also improves your quality of life [1], cognitive function [2] [3], and metabolic health [4] [5]. Being able to do the activities you enjoy, feeling productive in daily life, and enjoying eating out without it being detrimental to your health (metabolic flexibility) shows how beneficial having some extra muscle can be to overall health and wellbeing. With this in mind, any well-rounded exercise program should include elements that increase muscle mass.

Maximal Strength Training

Being strong is beneficial for lots of reasons, including some that may surprise you. I’m sure everyone would like to lift heavy things more easily just from a functional standpoint, but lifting maximally also improves physical capability and quality of life [6] [7] [8], improves bone health [9] [10], enhances cognition [11] [12], and decreases the likelihood of injury [13]. These are benefits specific to lifting heavy weights, all of which add up to being more active, capable, and socially connected - helping you get the most out of life.

Cardiorespiratory Exercise

Exercise that improves VO2 Max (the gold standard test of cardiorespiratory fitness) has been inversely correlated with all cause mortality [14]. Simply stated - improving your cardiorespiratory fitness means you're less likely to die. That’s powerful. Granted, it’s not going to stop you from getting hit by a bus, so don’t let it go to your head, but preventing cardiovascular disease, metabolic dysfunction, and cancer will help you live a lot longer than having to deal with those things. Not only that, but cardiorespiratory fitness improves cognitive health [15] which might help with neurological conditions like Alzheimer's and dementia. Plus it promotes metabolic flexibility [16], which means you don’t have to be so strict with your eating and you can enjoy some meals out or celebrate with some alcohol from time to time.

Power Training

Power is the ability to generate a large amount of force in a short amount of time (Power = Force x Velocity). The ability to do this has many benefits for everyone, not just athletes. In fact, the ability to generate power has been proposed as a biomarker for healthy aging [17] because it represents physical ability. With those that can generate more force being more active [18], less injury prone [19], and just generally more capable. I don’t think anyone is going to argue that being physically capable is not something worth striving for.

How To Put All These Elements Together

So now that we know what to include, how do we put all these things together? Another great question. Well, we can’t do everything at once. If we try to focus on all these pillars at once we’re going to need really long workouts and eventually burn ourselves out. Therefore, you need a periodized training system that focuses on different pillars at different times - i.e., training cycles. Luckily when it comes to maximal strength or muscle hypertrophy you only need maintenance doses to keep them where they are, which allows you time to work on other pillars like cardiorespiratory fitness or power training during those cycles. Eventually you’ll build up to maintaining what you’ve worked on while progressing in other areas, cycle after cycle, year after year. Remember, this is a lifelong endeavor and starting as soon as you can will mean better results in the end.

Exercise selection is another important factor in all this. Things like mobility, stability, balance, and motor control are all important features of a well-rounded exercise program and can be incorporated by selecting exercises that emphasize them. If I’m deciding between a barbell back squat and a rear foot elevated split squat, I’ll probably go split squat to work on some single leg stability while also getting hypertrophy work - two birds, one stone. For core work, it might be bear sit-throughs rather than a front plank in order to get some motor control training. Selecting exercises that accomplish these things, while not diluting the hypertrophic or strength benefits is the key. This selection will be highly individual and contingent on how long someone has been training and what exercises work best for them. Luckily each workout program can be customized based on individual needs and preferences.

Why do you workout?

So let’s revisit the question: Why do you workout? For me, it started out as a means to put on some muscle, but now it’s largely because it makes me feel good - it quiets my anxiety, makes me more productive, increases my confidence, helps me think and communicate more clearly, and helps me move through life with ease. It gives me the energy to live life to the fullest, seize the day, and whatever other cliche expression you want to throw in there. However cheesy it sounds, the sentiment rings true. Anyways, these are my reasons. What are yours? 🫵

We moved back to the States last January and some of you might have noticed that the Substack has been on hiatus since then. The move back combined with getting settled in San Francisco and building a personal training clientele took precedence. I’m currently training clients at a great gym in town and it feels good to be training people in person again - I’ve always enjoyed it.

Some of you might remember that I lived in San Francisco previously (2004-2008 and a stint in 2010). It’s strange being back and San Francisco is at once the same and different. Lots of the development that was starting when I left is complete and neighborhoods that were at one time industrial are now residential and commercial. It seems that the City is on an upswing and the AI boom that is happening is apparent, with more tech start-ups than you can shake a stick at, in addition to all the big tech companies with their immutable presence.

There are plenty of good restaurants, coffee shops, music venues, and museums to frequent, so all in all, not a bad place to land. Plus, it’s a beautiful city and unlike any in the world with its Victorian architecture and oceanic salinity. We didn’t want to leave Lisbon, but between visa issues and needing to be closer to Workout Wherever, it became obvious that it was necessary. So here we are, ready to make the best of our situation. Plus now we get regular quality time with family and longtime friends, which is always important.

So moving forward we will be exploring the San Francisco/Bay Area through the lens of health and wellness. We might throw in some other destinations periodically (including Bolivia since my sister and family moved there over the summer), but for now the plan is to be pretty stationary and build Workout Wherever. We’ll move back to Europe at some point in the future and look forward to taking our Workout Wherever concept back on the road.

For now we’re going to ride this wave. 🤙

In the conversation of longevity, there is always new information coming out and an array of sleek new products that you can buy with claims that they’ll make you healthier or live longer. However, most of this new information and these products are nominal in effect compared to the basic things we know that keep you alive and energetic. Simple things like exercise, nutrition, and sleep are much more impactful than infrared saunas and rapamycin. In fact, drugs like rapamycin still might negatively impact health in the long run as longevity “guru” Bryan Johnson admitted recently.

I’m not saying some of these things aren’t worthwhile and I love saunas and other things of that nature, but what I am saying is that the impact is negligible compared to exercise and nutrition. A great example of this is San Francisco’s own, Larry Lewis. A video of this guy jogging through Golden Gate Park at 99 years old went viral recently and it’s a great example of how far exercise and good food can carry you. Granted, some of this is genetics - but if you were paying attention to the section above, you’ll know that increased VO2 Max is correlated with increased life expectancy. Larry Lewis probably had great cardiorespiratory health and you can see the vigor that he exhibits in the video.

Below is a clipping from The New York Times documenting the celebration of his 104th birthday by going for his usual 6.7 mile jog around the park. In the short article, it explains that he didn’t drink or smoke, ate “organic” food and exercised regularly, and drank 3 gallons of water a day (some of the details of this article sound a little suspect, but it is The New York Times). Regardless, the guy lived to 106 and it’s obvious from the video that he was doing some things right. He kept a rigorous exercise regimen and ate well. This would certainly keep anyone alive and active much longer than not doing so.

The moral of the story is to focus on the low hanging fruit first. Solidify your exercise routine and nutrition habits before you worry about the other stuff. News headlines and flashy products make for eye-catching content, but it’s the basics that really make the difference - just ask Larry Lewis.

Seeking & capturing inspiration + ideas

I have an almost (likely) clinical short-term memory loss issue (ADHD?) which for better or for worse has led to an outright refusal to rely solely on my brain to hold reminders or thoughts for future Natasha to revisit. In fact – it seems that 80% of my present is living for the ease of life of “future Natasha”. I don’t mean a retirement fund or that kind of future planning, I’m talking putting something away in an obvious location for the inevitable fear that I (future Natasha) lost something. (I HATE losing things.) Or brushing my teeth while I still have energy in the evening so future Natasha can enjoy her CBD bliss, uninterrupted.

That being said, in searching for inspiration for my little niceties today, what inspired me most is the way I accumulate and store resources – making me an utterly annoying “recommender” to friends and family. Rather than share what’s worth sharing from what I have captured, I will share the ways in which I capture to be able to share. ;-)

Save your heart out

Reel Good - As someone who can spend literally an hour bopping from Netflix to Hulu to Max to Kanopy to Mubi over to Peacock, back over to Max, remember Apple TV, check that out, open my laptop to watch a few (too many) trailers on Youtube and then finally just continue rewatching a series I’ve already completed thrice, Reel Good is a Real Good solution.

When you sign up, you select all your subscription platforms and then like magic, you can 💫 SEARCH ACROSS ALL PLATFORMS AT ONCE 💫. You can even filter by a longtime favorite theme of mine “New York” or my other fave, “Based on a true story”.

Also - the best feature of all - you can watch trailers in the app/site as you browse and either hop over to the streamer to watch or save it to your watch list for FUTURE YOU to earn years of your life back on browsing time.

Pocket - Pocket is a lil button that lives on my browser window (and as an app on my phone) that allows me to swiftly save anything from the internet to a depository I can revisit. You can add tags to remind yourself why you saved something as you save it. I am not always in the reading mood when an interesting article crosses my desk, so I like that I can build a curated reading list for future me to enjoy. Also - I can guarantee that Dustin used pocket (per my recommendation) to store his sources for this newsletter!

Aquanotes - I don’t own this yet, but since I came up with the idea for this entry in the shower and had to fight for my life to remember it upon exiting the shower, I’d say this is more than an honorable mention - it’s an add to cart.

This one is pretty self explanatory, no?

Whatsapp / Voice memo or Voice-to-Text to myself - My hourlong morning walk/runs are usually where my day's to-do list is formulated, or a wacky business idea that I’ll never produce appears. Since it is best to not look down at your phone while walking through a city where no one stops at stop signs (this is not hyperbole - only the driverless cars stop at crosswalks) or picks up after their dogs, I find it effective to just quickly open the app and delegate to future me.

Dry Erase Board - We just got this sexy glass whiteboard and it makes jotting things down feel real nice.

Google Maps - If I even catch a whiff of a delicious or delightful destination (hotel, food, park, museum, pretty street, cat cafe, random town I’ve never heard of but seems worth checking out), it goes on the map. If I hear you are traveling, you get a map (sharing from my trove of resources is my love language!). Which is why I may have a project or two in the works to sate my need to impart my destination obsession. Stay tuned!

Pinterest - What sort of inspiration seeker and saver would I be if I didn’t mention Pinterest? Mine could use a bit of tidying up, but here is one of my boards for you to enjoy.

Branding + Packaging + Graphic Design

My people pleasing glitch is REALLY hopeful this helps you in some way. I don’t live passively and feel strongly that this curatorial/documentation kink helps me stay mindful about my consumption and my output. Now to figure out how to tackle the 5000 images + 2000 (useless) screenshots in my phone. Any advice?

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