LegendaryLife Blog

As my plan is to live well over a hundred years by following a very healthy lifestyle full of whole foods, vigorous exercise and lots of mental activities, I found this Ted talk by Dan Buettner rather interesting. Here is the embeded video followed by a summary of the talk’s key points. If you wish, you can read more about Dan here.

Lecture’s key points:

• based off the studies of twin lifespans, it’s been calculated that less than 10% of our longevity is based directly off our genes with 90% being dictated by our lifestyle.
• there is a lot of confusion regarding optimal health and lifestyle choices
• a team of experts visited and studied extensively the lifestyle of populations known to live a long, healthy life with few health complications. These four areas are known as blue zones and include Costa Rica, Okinawa, Sardinia and California
• longevity myth #1: you can’t wish yourself to live longer, no matter how hard you try because we are built to multiply, not live long. Your chances of living to 100 are 1 in 5 000 currently within America.
• longevity myth #2: treatments exist that can slow aging. Our bodies have 35 trillion cells… there is simply too much we don’t understand and that can go wrong to possibly know what works and what doesn’t. These cells are completely replaced every 8 years and each time, genetic and cellular damage occurs which builds up exponentially.
• a 65 year old senior ages 125x faster than a 12 year old child
• the capacity of the human body to sustain your life is about 90 years, slightly longer for woman

• in the highlands of Sardinia, there is a place where old age is a given, with 10x more centenarians than in America! They are also healthy, working and enjoying a vigorous lifestyle. Here, men live older than woman.
• diet consists mostly of plant based and whole foods made and found locally using naturally sourced products high in Omega-3 fatty acids
• they are mostly shepards, so they enjoy an active lifestyle throughout their lives
• they enjoy wine which has 3x the amount of polyphenols than any other type in the world (this is a strong anti-oxidant)
• the older you get, the more wisdom and acceptance you get within the social structure of the Sardinian society
• on the island of Okinawa, in the northern part of the island, the oldest female population can be found
• here they live a long time, die quickly with little health problems in between
• 5x the number of centenarians with a fifth of the cancer compared to America
• they have a mostly plant based diet that consists of smaller calorie dense foods – they stop eating once their stomach is 80% full
• isolation is known to shorten lifespan, so the Okinawans have a system in which they develop lifelong friendships
• American’s have adopted a lifestyle that can be divided into two categories, work and retirement but in Okinawa, there is no word for retirement. They simply live by a motto which means “the reason you wake-up in the morning is ___”
• in America, it’s the 7th Day Adventists found in California which live the longest, the study that the numbers come from tracked 70 000 people for 30 years
• they don’t eat a lot of meat, for 24 hours a week they stop everything and focus onto their social being and doing nature walks

• things that all these “high longevity cultures” have in common
• they all do daily physical activity that isn’t overly strenuous on their body or joints
• they have the right outlook on life and a purpose that drives them on a daily basis, they purposefully slow their lives down to deal with built-up stress
• they all take some “time off” to reflect or to relax on a very regular basis
• they eat food based on what is found around them and it forms the majority of their diet
• they eat mostly plant based foods, a little wine and rarely till they are absolutely full
• they put their families and relatives first in their lives and have strong social contacts
• longevity has no short term fix

The Bottom Line

A long, healthy life is a choice that involves incremental and small proactive steps through ones life.

Only 12 people have ever been there...

There are two aspects of ultimate achievement I find fascinating, the first, is the unlikely climb, coincidences and shier luck that lead to it and then, “what happened after wards?” There are firsts for everything, many of which have been forgotten by time, but let’s explore what happened to twelve individuals who landed on the Moon, the most rare of feats.

Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong was the first to land and walk on the Moon, he made that famous speech that is at the tip of everybody’s tongue. How did he react? Well, he shied away from the spotlight and went into teaching and running a business. He later came out of his shell for a biographical book about his achievement but is rumored to be skipping-out on the anniversary party with NASA. His admiration for all the hard work and sacrifices by others along with his patriotic duty have forced him into a corner of thinking of the entire experience as a fringe benefit to his job with NASA… though, I am sure deep-down, he had a hell of a time! He was described as a reserved.

Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin

Yes, that is where Toy Story got the name from, now that we have that out of the way, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin took the opposite route of his co-worker Neil Armstrong. He went on lecture and book writing binge and continues to play an active role in space exploration with a plan to reach Mars and three patent applications relating to space station devices. He shows all the enthusiasm you would expect for a guy lucky enough to walk on the Moon, and he isn’t afraid of showing it! He was described as an avid explorer.

Charles “Pete” Comrad

As the first man to ever dance on the Moon and I prefer his reaction to walking ont he Moon to Neils which was:

“Whoopie! That may have been one small step for Neil, but it’s a long one for me!”

After retiring from NASA, Charles “Pete” Comrad went into business but died from a motorcycle accident in 1999 at the age of 69 years old which happens to be the same digits as his Moon landing, in 1969. He was described as anything but reserved, a cowboy at heart.

Alan Bean

Alan got into painting soon after his return from the Moon. He has tried to recreate the excitement and emotions he felt while he was there on canvas, including parts of lunar dust and memorabilia with each of them. He was described as an artist.

Alan Shepard

Alan Shepard was doubly lucky, the first man in space and the fifth to ever set foot on the Moon! He is probably most recognized for playing golf on the Moon. Although he died of leukemia in 1998, he left around a legacy illustrating how fragile our Earth really is. He is described as mix between a jock and a philosopher.

Edgar Michell

The entire experience of landing on the Moon profoundly affected Edgar Michell, he came back convinced that aliens are a real phenomena (which they are) but that they are visiting us (which I doubt, the smart ones at least). The shier number of galaxies out there in the universe  points to the fact that there is intelligent life out there, the argument is now whether one civilization would be able to visit another in their given lifetimes as the distances involved are massive, even if light-speed travel were possible. He is described as a maverick.

James Irwin

James Irwin walked on the Moon and came back a very religious man after seeing such a fragile and small Earth from outerspace. He was forever changed by the experience and dedicated his life to his beliefs soon after returning. He died of a heart attack in 1991 at 61 years of age. He was described as the spiritual anchor.

David Scott

After dedicated his life towards becoming an astronaut, once he returned from the Moon, he got hit by the “what do I do next with my life?” disease. What did he do? He started a company specializing in space project management. He was described as the youngster of the class of 12, being only 39 when he walked on the Moon!

John Young

John Young has pushed heavily on the development of colonies on other planets because, as he describes it, all of humanity can be wiped-out in one shot by any host of cosmic or Earth born afflictions. He is described as the futurist.

Charles Duke

At the age of 36, Charles Duke spent more than 71 hours on the Moon! After leaving NASA, he started his own company and ministry. He is described as the wide-eyed.

Eugene Cernan

Eugene Cernan was forever changed from the entire 73 hours he spent on the Moon, he found a spiritual calling and is quoted as saying:

“I felt that the world was just too beautiful to have happened by accident. There has to be something bigger than you and bigger than me,” Cernan said “In the Shadow of the Moon.” “And I mean this in a spiritual sense, not a religious sense. There has to be a creator of the universe who stands above the religions that we ourselves create to govern our lives.”

Which I find interesting, as, he is essentially saying that all religions on Earth are created by Man. Now, I just hope this would sink into people and would stop the silly “my religion is better than yours” crap that plagues far too many minds on this planet. He is described as a philosopher.

Harrison “Jack” Schmitt

Harrison “Jack” Schmitt was the last man to ever walk on the Moon. He joined politics after returning then a freelance consultant and writer.

“But sometimes people just want a description of what it was like,” he continued, “The black sky, the brilliantly illuminated slopes of the mountains, the bright sun, and then our Earth as a big blue marble hanging over one of the mountains. The physical feeling of walking on the moon is like walking on a giant trampoline, to some degree.”

So what can we learn?

Astronauts are no different than other high achievers, they are changed after going through their experience, trying to find a new goal to work towards. I do find it interesting that most of the astronauts decided to leave NASA and were never given an opportunity to return to the Moon. I also wonder why the program was ever stopped, they had momentum on their side and, it seems, the experience gained from having a colony on the Moon would have been incredibly valuable towards discovering what would be possible on Mars.

The Bottom Line

Turning a lifelong goal into reality is only getting half way, it’s what you do afterwards that turns a life into something truely distinguished.

Buzvia: The 12 Moonwalkers: Where Are They Now?, NASA

Brains are as quick as they are beautiful.

When I grew-up, we were taught a few things about the brain, some of which have since been proven wrong.

1. We will only be born with a certain number of neurons which are not replaced as they die. FALSE!
2. Old people can’t learn new things (lead to the expression that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks). FALSE!
3. Our brains cannot change from their genetic potential. FALSE!

Why these past truths are now false ones

It was once believed that all the neurons that developed within our brains when we were infants was all we would have for the rest of our lives, then, a little over a year ago, I read a report that scientists discovered that our brains continue to make new neurons, albeit at a slower pace as we get older, but new ones never the less. That being said, it doesn’t mean you can go get hammered every weekend and have new ones to replace the ones you killed by Monday. Our body produces new skin, bone, cartilage, muscle cells on an almost continual basis, our brains are no different but like these cells, their require stimuli of one type or another to maintain their youthful vigor.

Yes, old people can learn new things, it just takes a little longer as the brain isn’t as quick as it once was due to being increasingly hard wired but just because it takes longer to learn something, doesn’t mean it’s impossible! Our brains actually learn differently as we age. I saw a report once that compared the brains of people who learned two languages when they were young with those who learned their second tongue after reaching adulthood. What they showed was that the brain actually “seeked” the words for their second language in a totally different area for those who learned as an adult vs intertwined when both languages were learned at a young age.

Genetically, we are born with a set of limits, although not impossible, it’s highly improbable that a person born with down syndrome will develop a mental capacity rivaling Einstein but recent discoveries in gene and epigenes suggests that lifestyle has a direct impact on gene expression. In other words, if you change your environment, genes that favor your survival in it will increase in dominance while the ones you were born with will go the other way. I saw a study that showed two twins, born with the same genetic profile, at a later age, one had cancer while the other didn’t… why? Well, after genetic testing, they found-out that although these twins were born as genetic duplicates in every way, their genes, through time, changed to that of two completely different individuals with different gene expressions. AMAZING!

What is true about our brains

As we age, our brains go from acting like sponges to something more closely acting like that of a soggy chunk of wood… it just takes longer for the neuron connections to occur and more stimuli to make their bonds stronger and more permanent. Our brains do change dramatically throughout the different states of life, so they do change, but not as quickly and spontaneously as that of a teenager or infant when you are a senior citizen.

What can you do to keep your brain in tip-top shape?

You want strong muscles, you exercise… our brains are no different. If you want to stay sharp till you are a senior citizen, you need to adopt a lifestyle that will keep not only your brain but entire body as youthful as possible. Don’t drink alcohol, exercise regularly as it improves overall blood flow, challenge yourself constantly both physically and mentally… and don’t forget to eat extremely well all the time.

… but how fast can your brain really rewire itself?

A few seconds! According to a study released by the Journal of Neuroscience, it takes our brain just a few seconds to adapt to new stimulus. The study was pretty straight forward, once the person’s blind spot was figured-out and a patch was put over one eye, they put the picture of a square right next to it, within seconds, the square would morph into that of a rectangle.

The team concludes that the neurons which would normally fill the blind spot using data from the patched eye compensated by stealing data from neighbouring neurons that were “seeing” the square, making it appear like a rectangle.

The Bottom Line

Lifestyle dictates to a large extent what your brain will act like as you age.

Buzvia: Blindspot shows brain rewiring in an instant, Journal of Neuroscience

Peter is now coming into his own, gaining confidence and starting to have a positive self-image… all great improvements but these didn’t happen because of his steroid use.

Episode 10 – Super Roid Brothers

• week 10 and Peter is now at 162.2 pounds
• Peter has replaced little pink pills with little yellow ones, Mr. Fantastic needs to knock some sense into him and get him to drop the orals for the injectables
• measurement woman is back, Peter now has 13 inch arms, 15 inch calves, 45 inch shoulders
• Peter is now consuming 3700 calories a day (no wonder he is gaining weight) as it’s double what he ate before!
• week 11: 166.2 pounds with 13.9% bodyfat
• Mr. Fantastic started-off seeming not to know anything about steroids but now, he seems to know more far more then he is letting on

Episode 11 – The Final Countdown

• week 12, Peter does look better than at the beginning
• day 84, Peter seems to have lost some weight or just looks “normal”, light can both giveth and taketh away
• at week 12, his bench press is now 125 pounds (from 65), neck is 15 inches (compared to 13 inches), shoulder 44.5 inches (before 42), 12.75 inch arms, 36 inch chest (from 33 week 1)
• Peter is impressed at how powerful of a life changer a small little tic-tac sized pill has had on his life (he still doesn’t realize he is responsible for the change, not the pill)
• day 84, three months later, he is now 169.2 pounds, up 31.2 pounds at 14% body fat (more than double what he had before)!
• Peter is still running around town without a t-shirt!
• Peter goes on PCT at the end of his cycle, after 3 weeks he now has gynecomastia (bitch tits) and is now at 165 pounds
• doctor says he is perfectly healthy now
• Mr. Fantastic says “steroids don’t kill people, stupid people on steroids kill themselves”.  I agree 100%!
• the first time I see him in a t-shirt at the gym lasts only a few seconds before he takes his shirt off again!
• Peter is now talking about another cycle already

Real information about steroids, fitness and diet

• Muscle memory is great… too bad it doesn’t last
• Why I decided not to take Anabolic Steroids
• Gaining Weight 101: Tips from a fellow Hard gainer
• LL Question: Even with bad genetics, can I become the world’s strongest man?
• Better Living Through Chemistry
• Taking Time Off and Muscle Memory

Buzvia: Steroids Saved My Life (Television Series)

I am crossing my fingers that Peter begins to acquire some common sense from people outside of his “Three Stooges” team. Once again, I am not a doctor and have no formal education other than my university biology degree and decades of studying health, fitness and nutrition.

Episode 7 – Peter Balboa

• day 47, dosage of steroids has been increased (from what to what I would like to know, even a % would be nice)
• Mr. Fantastic’s advice of not stacking on your first cycle is dead-on! He does know a thing or two about steroids… finally a real FACT in this entire series! The reason stacks (taking more than one steroid) during a cycle is a waste of time and money is because your receptors are clean so you are fine gaining on just testosterone, only people who have a few cycles under their belt stack
• more steroids = more food = more workouts = more stupidity = more chances of ending-up in the hospital with something being seriously torn = going back to the weight he started off with
• yet again, Peter is showing off his little bag of pills… let the liver and endocrine damage continue!
• Mr. Fantastic says people stacking on their first cycle are “fucking morons”, good advice! Now we know that Peter is NOT taking advice from Mr. Fantastic and in this instance, he really should have. Not only did Peter not know this vital piece of information but now he is switching around his cycle mid-stream… this train wrek is only getting worse!
• day 50, Peter says he is starting to have anger issues (???), this is nonesense
• his friend Davin slapped him in the face to which Peter said he was going to kill him, this isn’t ‘roid rage
• Peter is feeling bigger and stronger and is flowing with energy now, I am sure he could have achieved this without steroids at all, what happened is his body went from a state of stagnation into one of rejuvenation, this has more to do with exercise and eating well than steroids.
• Mr. Fantastic is really starting to sound like he knows his stuff! He states Sylvester Stalone was (is) on juice (HGH is what he has admitted so far) probably once he hit Rocky 2.
• Drinking raw eggs is a wonderful way to get sick, I did this a lot too but have since stopped, I cook my eggs now (maybe the stomach flew he had a few weeks ago was from the raw eggs)
• Peter needs to spend less money on supplements and more on buying a shirt
• Davin says steroids may cause pimples, which is true but from the people I have talked to, they seem to get it more on their back than on their face when on a cycle
• the more I hear Davin talk, the more I agree with Peter!
• Mr. Fantastic says there isn’t anything really wrong with taking orals other than it having to pass through your liver while injectables go directly into the bloodsteam… not entirely true, your liver processes the drug afterwards so orals get processed twice while injectables once
• video of Mr. Fantastic taking a shot of juice (DECA 300) in the shoulder, he used alcohol which is very smart on the injection site
• week 7, about two months, he is up 20 pounds now
• Peter and Mr. Fantastic are positive Micheal Phelps is on the juice, I can’t agree on this, IOC standards are incredibly strict with a huge anti-doping and random testing mechanism since the whole Ben Johnson affair
• a woman states that people take protein, vitamins and other supplements so steroids can’t be anymore dangerous. This is WRONG because steroids is a hormone, protein is not nor do other supplements, just look at female bodybuilders to see the effect of hormone injections
• Mr. Fantastic thinks that Peter will lose only 10% of his gains at the end of the cycle, I got to agree only if he keeps eating like he is and slacks off on the exercise routine along with proper post cycle clomid therapy only due to the fact that his gains were due to a former life of malnutrition and lack of physical activity, his age also helps big time too
• Mr. Fantastic is giving some very good advice now, if Peter continues to improve his training, diet and motivation he will keep most of what he got
• “Yah for steroids… they’re so great!”, I wonder if Peter will think the same when he gets off
• more pictures of him without a shirt… arg!

Episode 8 – Mission Roid

• Peter Brown is Canadian, filming out of Vancouver
• day 54, more “Peter talk” about why he is so cool and smart to do what he is doing
• Peter says one of the major side-effects of steroids is that you get a tan (???), and I thought it was due to him running around in the sun without sunscreen or t-shirt
• Peter going to a tanning salon, yet another extremely stupid move, he must figure that screwing-up your endocrine system isn’t enough, time for some skin cancer too by using a tanning bed and running around town without a t-shirt!
• Tanning girl says people should be tanning 3-4x a week, this is the stupidest and most dangerous thing I have heard in this show so far!
• interview with Peter’s dealer, if I remember correctly, a few episodes ago, he was talking about how smart he was by getting steroids from a doctor because then you know where the stuff is coming from, yet he doesn’t follow his own advice and goes with a steroid dealer (???). My only guess is that his doctor refused to give him steroids because that would only have made his problems worse, not better.
• day 58, he is at 158 pounds and is hoping to gain another 10 pounds by the time the cycle is over… far below his original goal of gaining a total of 42 pounds.
• Peter says he took steroids to “overcome lifelong challenges” that have affected him, I thought he took them to gain 42 pounds and become a ladies man?
• Peter can’t figure-out why people are yelling at him while he does bicep curls… maybe it’s his lack of proper form along with far too little weight?
• a shot of him lifting weight at the gym around the end with a barbell shows his form has not improved even with the use of a personal trainer, those weekend online personal training certificates are really paying-off!

Episode 9 – Roid Karate

• arg… more topless shirt video of him, now in a Karate outfit (with a white belt no less… impressive!) I have a black belt in Karate and took it for 10 years when I was younger
• day 61, his friends notice he went from extremely introverted to extremely extroverted, not sure if this is an improvement
• Davin admits he can’t stand Peter anymore and I can’t stand neither of them
• day 59, Peter says now that he has taken steroids and is a big man, he wants to be respected… he should have read this blog, respect is something you EARN, which, so far, I don’t see much of, hence none was given
• Big Bear is looking worse as Peter is getting better… what’s up with that?
• day 61, he hit the 160 pound plateau so he has lost some motivation at the gym, diet etc… now he has a girlfriend too!
• Peter has replaced his red shorts for a topless Karate uniform! Arg!!!
• week 1: 95 pound squats, week 9: 195 pounds, his thighs are now 24 inches
• Big Bear says all the changes that Peter has gone through have more to do with his new lifestyle than steroids, I completely agree!
• Peter now observes that he no longer has any problems, it’s everybody else who has problems now
• his goal now is getting a girl, gaining 20 pounds and becoming an internet icon

Some thoughts so far

Just about everything Peter has done to change his life could have been done without the use of any steroids what-so-ever. During his transformation, he has acquired some very bad habits including not being able to wear a shirt and putting all his self-esteem into his little pink pills. I really hopes he comes to realize that he only used steroids as an excuse to do what he should have done long ago. He didn’t need them at 138 pounds and he surely doesn’t need them at 160 pounds either.

Real information about steroids, fitness and diet

• Muscle memory is great… too bad it doesn’t last
• Why I decided not to take Anabolic Steroids
• Gaining Weight 101: Tips from a fellow Hard gainer
• LL Question: Even with bad genetics, can I become the world’s strongest man?
• Better Living Through Chemistry
• Taking Time Off and Muscle Memory

Buzvia: Steroids Saved My Life (Television Series)