4 ms·

Yeah I have gone and done it, I have decreased my calories by roughly 30% in the past year or so and dropped around 30 pounds in the process, plus an aggressive

by evo_9 9y ago

Yeah I have gone and done it, I have decreased my calories by roughly 30% in the past year or so and dropped around 30 pounds in the process, plus an aggressive vitamin and supplement routine, along with taking metformin. I also workout 7 days a week including playing hockey 2, sometimes 3 days (and also working out before or after), the group I skate with is highly skilled and the intensity is pretty up there, I've been skating with them for about 15 years or so. I just turned 50 but am regularly assumed to be 36, the age everyone always guess... including by my gf's parents who are just a few years older than me. I am a rather crazy outlier though, I actually enjoy working out and do a hundred+ pull-ups a week, and even on my light workout days tend to do at least 20 or so just to loosen up a bit.

pmiller2 9y ago
I'm assuming you're not diabetic, so how did you persuade a doctor to prescribe metformin?
d1zzy 9y ago
(this may be an unpopular opinion but...) The problem with having a healthy lifestyle is that our lives aren't statistics. Big number theory does not apply, we only have one draw, one life and if it happens that we are one of those unlucky ones to get lung cancer while never having smoked or generally lead a healthy life then we still die within a year and there's nothing we can do about it. Any drastic lifestyle change has costs: serious time, commitment, money and we sacrifice opportunities, things that we could be doing/enjoying instead. So my advice is: for anyone deciding to drastically change their lifestyle to a "healthier" one, do so for all the _other_ reasons (feeling fit and good, looking younger, improved relationships, having more energy, etc) but not expecting for that to increase your life span. Because then you may be up for a one nasty disappointment when cancer strikes and you are left wondering why did you do all that, why did you sacrifice so much. You better have a good answer when that happens is what I'm saying. :) (and that is true no matter what lifestyle you lead)
- csallen 9y ago
  I have two ways of thinking about death that I've found helpful. The first is to sincerely imagine that I will die in 10 years. That's far enough away not to require drastic changes in my life — I still want to work hard on something that I'm passionate about — but close enough to remind me not to fuck around and take these years for granted. There's also a bonus that, if I do happen to run into some bad luck and have my life expectancy cut short, then it won't come as such a shock, because I've been living like it's my last decade anyway. And if that doesn't come to pass and I live a normal life, I'll feel more gratitude for it. The second trick I use is to imagine that reincarnation is true, but that instead of "coming back" as plankton or a bug or another person, I come back as me and relive my life, over and over again, forever. In that situation, I'd want to optimize to have a great quality of life, and spend as little of it as possible worrying about my inevitable death, or agonizing over things that have gone wrong in my past. Since my rebirth is inevitable, I'd just be dooming myself to future agonizing. It sounds morbid, but I've found that this helps me to recover a bit when I feel down about something.
  - andai 9y ago
    What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
sushid 9y ago
Are you taking metformin because you're prediabetic or because you think it can extend your life expectancy (or both)? Don't you have problems keeping warm, sleeping, and maintaining muscle mass at that level of calorie deficit? Also wondering what your supplementations are. I take Vit D, Zinc, pre/probiotics but having an aggressive vitamin routine isn't considered ideal these days.
- giardini 9y ago
  I told two diabetic friends about the results showing that metformin significantly reduced cancer. They looked at each other and then one said "I've got a closet full of that stuff; I never take it!" Turns out that neither were using metformin, but picked up their prescriptions religiously. Next time we met they were both taking their metformin, although intermittently and apparently somewhat reluctantly. One of them was late for our meeting. In way of explanation he said that he had taken a metformin tablet just before driving off but, on the way, a fart proved to be untrustworthy: he had to drive back home and changed his pants. I've heard the drug termed "metfartmin" b/c of its effects on the GI tract.
Waterluvian 9y ago
That's great. But that seems like a large commitment. I don't want to die at 70 but I also don't intend on spending my life thinking and working hard on prolonging it. I'm kind of taking the 80 / 20 approach to living healthy. Don't smoke. Don't eat too too much. Sleep well. See the doctor each year. I'll let you know how it goes.
HugoDaniel 9y ago
Did you try https://how-old.net/ https://how-old.net/ ? It usually doesn't care about hurting your feelings.
saiya-jin 9y ago
You don't sound doing something particularly healthy. Aggressive vitamin routine? Taking metformin? No amount of sport will compensate for fed up liver, intestines and whatnot over the years of this. Working out 7 days a week is properly healthy (if done correctly, I do +-same but with different activities), but for example 100 pullups/week ain't any indication of great fitness, if you do them regularly. I do cca 60 every gym session just in between various other sets to fill up the gaps & during warm up, and I don't even look muscular nor am I any bodybuilder/powerlifter and I do weight >90kg. Now if you add some proper weights on yourself, that's another story. Looking younger - that's often a function of people you are surrounded with. In France/Switzerland where I live, I think I look for my age and nobody mentions it. When I went home for high school reunion, everybody was asking me how the heck am I doing it to look so young and don't age. Similar for family/friends. Same thing happened to me when I visited Russia. Or LA, where almost everybody was overweight. Some cultures simply have utterly bad eating & health habits and then even +-normal person stands out.

by evo_9 9y ago

pmiller2 9y ago

I'm assuming you're not diabetic, so how did you persuade a doctor to prescribe metformin?

d1zzy 9y ago

(this may be an unpopular opinion but...) The problem with having a healthy lifestyle is that our lives aren't statistics. Big number theory does not apply, we only have one draw, one life and if it happens that we are one of those unlucky ones to get lung cancer while never having smoked or generally lead a healthy life then we still die within a year and there's nothing we can do about it. Any drastic lifestyle change has costs: serious time, commitment, money and we sacrifice opportunities, things that we could be doing/enjoying instead. So my advice is: for anyone deciding to drastically change their lifestyle to a "healthier" one, do so for all the _other_ reasons (feeling fit and good, looking younger, improved relationships, having more energy, etc) but not expecting for that to increase your life span. Because then you may be up for a one nasty disappointment when cancer strikes and you are left wondering why did you do all that, why did you sacrifice so much. You better have a good answer when that happens is what I'm saying. :) (and that is true no matter what lifestyle you lead)

csallen 9y ago
I have two ways of thinking about death that I've found helpful. The first is to sincerely imagine that I will die in 10 years. That's far enough away not to require drastic changes in my life — I still want to work hard on something that I'm passionate about — but close enough to remind me not to fuck around and take these years for granted. There's also a bonus that, if I do happen to run into some bad luck and have my life expectancy cut short, then it won't come as such a shock, because I've been living like it's my last decade anyway. And if that doesn't come to pass and I live a normal life, I'll feel more gratitude for it. The second trick I use is to imagine that reincarnation is true, but that instead of "coming back" as plankton or a bug or another person, I come back as me and relive my life, over and over again, forever. In that situation, I'd want to optimize to have a great quality of life, and spend as little of it as possible worrying about my inevitable death, or agonizing over things that have gone wrong in my past. Since my rebirth is inevitable, I'd just be dooming myself to future agonizing. It sounds morbid, but I've found that this helps me to recover a bit when I feel down about something.
- andai 9y ago
  What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

sushid 9y ago

Are you taking metformin because you're prediabetic or because you think it can extend your life expectancy (or both)? Don't you have problems keeping warm, sleeping, and maintaining muscle mass at that level of calorie deficit? Also wondering what your supplementations are. I take Vit D, Zinc, pre/probiotics but having an aggressive vitamin routine isn't considered ideal these days.

giardini 9y ago
I told two diabetic friends about the results showing that metformin significantly reduced cancer. They looked at each other and then one said "I've got a closet full of that stuff; I never take it!" Turns out that neither were using metformin, but picked up their prescriptions religiously. Next time we met they were both taking their metformin, although intermittently and apparently somewhat reluctantly. One of them was late for our meeting. In way of explanation he said that he had taken a metformin tablet just before driving off but, on the way, a fart proved to be untrustworthy: he had to drive back home and changed his pants. I've heard the drug termed "metfartmin" b/c of its effects on the GI tract.

Waterluvian 9y ago

That's great. But that seems like a large commitment. I don't want to die at 70 but I also don't intend on spending my life thinking and working hard on prolonging it. I'm kind of taking the 80 / 20 approach to living healthy. Don't smoke. Don't eat too too much. Sleep well. See the doctor each year. I'll let you know how it goes.

HugoDaniel 9y ago

Did you try https://how-old.net/ https://how-old.net/ ? It usually doesn't care about hurting your feelings.

saiya-jin 9y ago

You don't sound doing something particularly healthy. Aggressive vitamin routine? Taking metformin? No amount of sport will compensate for fed up liver, intestines and whatnot over the years of this. Working out 7 days a week is properly healthy (if done correctly, I do +-same but with different activities), but for example 100 pullups/week ain't any indication of great fitness, if you do them regularly. I do cca 60 every gym session just in between various other sets to fill up the gaps & during warm up, and I don't even look muscular nor am I any bodybuilder/powerlifter and I do weight >90kg. Now if you add some proper weights on yourself, that's another story. Looking younger - that's often a function of people you are surrounded with. In France/Switzerland where I live, I think I look for my age and nobody mentions it. When I went home for high school reunion, everybody was asking me how the heck am I doing it to look so young and don't age. Similar for family/friends. Same thing happened to me when I visited Russia. Or LA, where almost everybody was overweight. Some cultures simply have utterly bad eating & health habits and then even +-normal person stands out.