March 28th, 2006 | 
I’m a middle age guy.
This is only true, at this point, if I actually live until I can see my 92
birthday. I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the the fact that I’m
now finishing my life instead of starting it and I want to know more about
making sure that the rest of my life has neither a steep negative slope nor a
short duration.
The concept behind this book
is that within even my lifetime, medical and pharmaceutical science will
advance far enough to continually extend the life of the average person by . .
. forever. Forever is an awfully long
time. Let’s just say they are discussing
life extension for longer than any one of us can imagine. The primary goal is to teach you how to
manage your diet, exercise and stress levels so that you can live until the
revolution in science that lets you live “forever†is discovered and then
approved by the FDA.
Among geeks, I’m a
rarity. I’m not a huge Kurzweil
fan. I thought this book was going to be
like his usual pie-in-the-sky stuff. I
was pleasantly surprised, though. While
the basic concept of living forever is absurd, and it’s hard to imagine some of
the advancements he suggests happening in the next 50 years, most of the book
was full of practical suggestions and guides that made a lot of sense to me.
What to eat and when; what
supplements to take; stress management, lifestyle changes, and exercise are all
discussed in sufficient detail to make the program he suggests understandable
and easy to follow. It’s not a diet, but
a way of life in terms of what you eat and drink, and how you take care of
yourself. While I haven’t adopted the
full suggested regimen, I have modified my existing one, especially when it
comes to supplements, considerably to conform to his suggestions.
The key here is that most of
the stuff he discusses is not new to anyone who reads on the topic of diet and
health in even a cursory fashion. The
book is just a one-stop-shop of logical information. Tables, charts and diagrams make everything
easy to understand and follow. There’s
some extraneous stuff and some of his predictions for medial/pharmaceutical
breakthroughs need to be taken with a grain of salt, in my opinion, but
all-in-all it’s a good reference book for taking care of one’s self.
If you’re not really into
what you eat, this book will be a bore.
If you are, though, the book is a great reference for information on
healthy living. Mine’s got loads-o-dog-ears for the stuff important to me.
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