Book Review: "Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity" by Peter Attia

A few weeks ago I wrote about how I was looking forward to diving into this book, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia… and I did! It was finally my turn to listen to it from my library audiobook app (which, if you’re not utilizing your library for access to books and audiobooks, I HIGHLY recommend that!). The book was 17 hours/496 pages, so it’s hefty, but I would recommend everyone check it out, even if you just pick bits and pieces from it. It has decent reviews on Amazon, Good Reads, and also on Red Pen Reviews, which is a site that writes reviews on books from a scientific accuracy standpoint.

Overall, the book discusses how to live a longer and healthier life. The author talks about how it’s important to not just live longer, but also to increase our “healthspan” so that we can live well. The majority of the book discusses how we can avoid or decrease the chances of getting what the author refers to as the “4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse”: cancer, type II diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to lifestyle recommendations, he shares specific blood markers, predispositions, and family history information that may be helpful for each of us to look at.

Let’s get into my thoughts…

• The book is very science-y. This is true. There’s a lot of lingo about blood markers, different diseases, health markers, etc. Depending on your own experiences with health, some of it may sound familiar, some of it may not. However, I don’t think that should deter you. I imagine you can pick up the information that you’d like or is helpful to your situation and not memorize what doesn’t apply to you, and that’s okay.

• The information about nutrition is helpful. I appreciate that Attia doesn’t recommend a particular “diet,” but instead recommends eating in, or close to, a caloric deficit, while sticking to mainly whole/real foods. He recommends being mindful of, or even avoiding, ultra-processed foods and lots of added sugars or alcohol. While this might seem pretty generic, I think it’s great that he doesn’t overcomplicate things. I imagine too many of us end up in the weeds with nutrition and, while certainly we can and should get help if we need it, it doesn’t have to be overly complicated.

  • Nutritionally speaking, the only thing that I didn’t love and that isn’t as much based in science is the use of Continuous Glucose Monitors to track blood glucose and glucose spikes. Again, for the average person this is probably overdoing it, and if you stick to the food recommendations mentioned above, you likely don’t need to worry so much about glucose spikes. Certainly this is different for people who are diabetic and do need to worry about this.

  • He concluded the nutrition section saying that some people may be upset that he didn’t recommend any specific, or their particular diet, in this section. I laughed out loud when he then said, “I have one final piece of advice. Stop overthinking nutrition so much. Put the book down. Go outside and exercise.” Again, not getting caught up in the weeds, and just worrying about what makes sense for you.

• Speaking of, I also thought the fitness advice was helpful, but that it might have recommended too much. It was specific and gave real direction around heart rates, weights used, etc. But, most people are getting little to no movement each day or week, so recommending any training would have likely been helpful. Instead, the book talked about “Zone 2” training for multiple hours per week, getting sprint sessions in, doing multiple strength training sessions per week, and rucking (essentially weighted walking or hiking) workouts on top of that. I totally understand how all of that is ideal, but I don’t imagine is a realistic starting point for most. This is another example of where I think picking bits and pieces from the book and applying them to your life would be a great place to start. Alternatively, if you have already been training and do have the time/capacity to do so, definitely do all of that fitness, and the book has great direction and specifics on what to do!

• Attia’s personal sharing on mental and emotional health was important. I imagine that sometimes we hear things like “take care of yourself” or “go to therapy if you need it” and that doesn’t necessarily mean anything or impact you to make changes. But, Attia shared his own personal battles with anger, mental, and emotional health, which got REAL, and I think that’s more significant than those blanket statements. I imagine it felt very vulnerable to share all that he did about going to rehab centers, issues he had with his family, and his therapy needs, but I really feel like those are the stories people need to hear to relate. Much appreciated.

• The fact that Attia discusses what you need to do NOW to be healthy and viable when you’re 80-90 years old is great! I imagine that many of us simply assume we’ll be able to do things and move well when we’re older, but he puts things in perspective. For example, if you want to be able to get on the floor and play with/pick up grandkids when you’re 80, then you need to be able to lift X amount now and be able to easily do X number of burpees, or an equivalent movement, when you’re 50. That kind of perspective is important! Muscle mass and mobility WILL diminish as we age, so getting ahead of our wants now is huge.

Okay, I think that’s enough! Overall, if you’re looking for a book that you can apply to your doctors appointments, food choices, fitness plans, and lifestyle, this is a good one! It is heavily based in science but reads easily. I’m not always “into” non-fiction books because their lack of storyline is sometimes hard to follow or stay interested in, but that was not the case with this book. Check it out, and I think it’s okay if you don’t apply every single nugget into your life; as I said, use what makes sense and save the rest to build on another time.

If you’ve read this already, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please share in the comments!

As always, thank you for reading,
Sara

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