AMA #73: Preserving brain health, optimizing exercise programming, improving body composition, and more

**Peter Attia** (0:10)
Hey, everyone, welcome to a sneak peek, Ask Me Anything or AMA episode of the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can access the AMA episodes in full, along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created. Or you can learn more now by going to peterattiamd.com/subscribe. So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the Ask Me Anything episode.
Welcome to Ask Me Anything AMA episode 73 For today's AMA, we're answering a mix of the most requested listener questions, covering some of our most popular topics, including brain health, optimal exercise programming, and body composition strategies. Specifically, we discuss modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors for dementia, and how exercise, sleep, alcohol, hearing, oral hygiene, supplements, and cholesterol levels influence brain health. How to implement zone two training, why it matters, how to lactate test if you choose to use it, combining cardio modalities, and special considerations for peri- and post-menopausal women. Talk about strategies for how to increase VO2 max, including optimal interval length, when shorter HIIT workouts can help, and why power or rate of perceived exertion is preferable to heart rate training or heart rate targets during these efforts. The benefits of light movement after meals for glucose control, and why exercise-induced glucose spikes are expected and harmless. Finding the right mix of strength and stability work, adjusting for workouts, for sore or sensitive backs, and weighing the pros and cons of lifting heavy weights that press down on the spine. Talk about exercise's role in maintaining fat loss programs, debunking the slow metabolism myth and setting daily protein targets, and managing the lean mass versus body fat trade-off over time. If you're a subscriber and want to watch the full video of this podcast, you can find it on the show notes page. And if you're not a subscriber, you can watch a sneak peek of our video on our YouTube page. So without further delay, I hope you enjoy AMA number 73

**SPEAKER_2** (2:30)
Peter, welcome to another AMA, how are you doing?

**Peter Attia** (2:33)
Doing great, thank you for having me back.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:35)
I really sense that greatness in that tone of your voice right there. I think you really sold people on it. Before we start, for those watching and for those listening, do you want to explain the t-shirt that you're rocking today?

**Peter Attia** (2:49)
Normally you are the one that designs all of our t-shirts. This is the first time I've designed a t-shirt. I'm really happy about this. I guess for those who can see it, it's got f of x equals a big fluffy sheep, and then d by dx of f of x equals a big pile of fluffy wool, and then d2 dx squared of f of x is a wool sweater, which I just think is so great. And I made it so that my daughter would have something to look forward to when she got to high school calculus.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:24)
Yes. And as someone who's never taken high school calculus, I still don't quite know what the letters mean, but I did understand the pictures, so I have that corn for me. Today's AMA, nothing to do with math or sheep. Instead of focusing on one topic, what we did is a little bit more of a rapid fire style, where we're going to have a variety of questions. And so we went to the audience on social media, through the website, through the AMA portal, gathered some of the most common questions we're asked, the questions we see come through all the time, and also some of the questions on topics that we know are interesting to people, which is brain health, exercise, body composition. For today, we'll cover questions around all the different variables, interventions people can do in order to prevent cognitive and neurological decline, obviously of interest for anyone who has a brain and hopes to keep it intact. We'll dive into the most common exercise questions, which are a lot around zone 2, including questions around if females should be doing zone 2 training, as well as some VO2 max training questions. And then we'll look at some body composition and diet questions, which kind of focus a little bit on exercise, but also around losing fat mass, building lean mass, the role of protein. With all that said, anything you want to add before we get rolling?

**Peter Attia** (4:43)
Take it away.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:44)
You think you're going to be able to work your math into it throughout that?

**Peter Attia** (4:47)
If there's a way to get a first or second derivative into this, I will find it.