How To Become The Healthiest Man Alive

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Excerpted fromDrop DeadHealthy by A. J. Jacobs. Copyright © 2012 by A. J. Jacobs. Printed bypermission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. In stores today.I’ve neverbeen a fan of exercise. I haven’t worked out at a gym my entire adult life, a factJulie finds deeply upsetting. I have several arguments to justify this.Argument 1: The Jim Fixx argument.Here we have perhaps the mostclassic line of reasoning against exercise, and against healthful living in general.I’ve heard it often, and I’ve repeated it just as often. It goes like this:Jim Fixx—the man who helped start the modern fitness revolution, theauthor of the 1977 classic The Complete Book of Running—died at agefifty-two. He collapsed of a heart attack after his daily run in Vermont. So why bother?You never know when death will take you.The brilliant comic BillHicks—who himself died young, at age thirty-two, of pancreatic cancer—had afamous bit about Jim Fixx. He imagines an angry Fixx in the afterlife grumbling that hejogged every morning, ate nothing but tofu, and swam five hundred laps a day, and nowhe’s dead. Whereas hard-living actor Yul Brynner drank, chain-smoked, and had youngwomen stroking his “cue-ball head” every night of his life. And he’sdead, too. At which point the frustrated Fixx utters a long, stretched-out“shiiiit.”My friend Paul gave me his own version of this argumentrecently. Actually, he whispered it to me, because he didn’t want ourwives—both gym fanatics—to overhear us. “Think about it. An hour a day.That’s three hundred hours a year. That’s three thousand hours in ten years.Think of all the crops that could be planted in that time. Think of all the communityservice that could be done. And you’re extending your life. Why? So you can havefive more years of drooling in a bucket?”Argument 2: In the end,medical advances will save us.The old long bet. It’s anotherfavorite of mine. My friend and former intern Kevin—who is just as bad an influenceas Paul—put it this way: “I don’t smoke, but I would consider starting.Because it takes, what? Thirty years to get lung cancer. And by the time I get cancer,they’ll just give you a gene-coated nano-robot pill and it’ll fix it in fiveminutes.”I think about this point often, because medicine is moving atmach speeds: By the time I’m morbidly obese, they’ll probably have aweight-control pill or pineapple-flavored shake to cure me. By the time my teeth havebecome rotten yellow nubs, you’ll be able to grow flawless new bicuspids from stemcells.In 2010, a Harvard lab headed by Dr. Ronald DePinho actually reversedaging in mice. They did it with an enzyme called “telomerase,” which acts likelittle protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. The caps stop the chromosomes fromwearing out, a major cause of aging. In ten years, who knows, they might have a humanversion. Health saints and health sinners might have equal life spans.Argument 3: Gyms aregerm-saturated diseasevectors.As a mild OCD sufferer, I’m a sucker for the microbialargument. Do I want to pick up a dumbbell that has been pawed by a thousand sweaty palmsbefore me? The National Athletic Trainers’ Association addresses this topic in adelightfully nauseating paper. It says skin infections from gyms and sports are common,and account for half of the infectious diseases suffered by athletes. They list suchunpleasantries as MRSA, athlete’s foot, jock itch, boils, impetigo, herpes simplex,and ringworm. As The New York Times warned in a headline, "Be Sure Exercise IsAll You Get At the Gym."So these have been my excuses, the lard-assed devilson my shoulder. And they are somewhat compelling arguments.But this year,I’m going to have to ignore this thinking. Or shoot the arguments down in my head.Which I can do. After all, Jim Fixx is just one data point, right? Exercise increases lifespan in general. And being in shape is pleasurable in its own right, so if I eatdeep-fried Mars bars and wait around for medical advances, I’m depriving myself offeeling good. Exercise also increases efficiency in everyday life, so I’ll be ableto plant more crops, think more clearly, and do more community service.Plus,almost every reputable source recommends regular exercise. Exercise, exercise, exercise.I’ve read it a thousand times. It cuts down on heart disease and cancer. It soothesstress and improves concentration. It’s like Prozac and Lipitor and Adderallcombined. Surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to do much for weight loss, partly because agood workout makes us hungry, and we end up bingeing.But the other benefits?Well documented. Continue Reading

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