Conquering aging seems like a monumental task if you haven’t set out on the journey yet. I know you have loads of questions, and I’m going to attempt to gently guide you down a path that will set the stage for perpetual success.
In this Start Here guide, you’ll find all the Level 1 foundational steps that will get you fast and tangible results as you begin to traverse this road. Make no mistake, this isn’t a fad diet or overnight weight loss tea. These steps are work, but they get easier as you consistently apply effort.
How to apply these steps
I’m the kind of person who makes lots of huge changes all at once. That’s called “the hard way” and I highly advise against it. Please, if you intend to continue on this journey for the rest of your extraordinarily long life, make a couple of small changes at a time, then adjust, then take the next steps. There is a lot here to digest, so don’t feel like you need to bite off the whole set of steps at once.
Pick one or two, get really comfortable with them, then pick one or two more. We’ll refine together as we go forward.
The first real question that you need to ask yourself is, why do you want to live a healthier and longer life? Why do you want to break from the status quo, from the standard of care, and have a more extraordinary life? This is a highly personal question, and no one has any right to judge you for the answer. It’s for you, but it needs to be powerful enough to keep you consistent as you work to improve your choices. Why, exactly, are you skipping the drive-through to get a more nutritionally dense, work-intensive dinner at home? Why are you getting up at 5am to run in the cold? Your WHY will keep you on track.
We just touched on two of the major tenets of extraordinary longevity: food quality and movement. Each person will have a slightly different plan for both of these, and it takes a little time to find out what works best for each individual.
Nourish your body
As a rule of thumb, eat nutrient-dense whole foods, close to the source, as fresh as possible. These foods are what make you who you are, and I mean that on a cellular level. Giving your body what it needs and avoiding the things that cause harm will make an astronomical difference to your health and longevity. Focus on high-quality protein from muscle and organ meats, and include marine protein sources as much as possible. Choose vegetables that are high in micronutrients and low in toxins. Eat fruit sparingly, as it’s far sweeter than what we’re adapted to.
Evolutionarily speaking, we’re tuned to find dense sources of nutrition in any form we can digest so we don’t starve. Our ancestors would eat honey from the hive, and it was a treat because such sweetness was a rare find. Fruits often had more bitterness, and even vegetables today have much milder flavors. Great for epicureans, not so great for controlling intake. Modern foods are so easy to overconsume, and we’re not even talking about processed foods yet.
Avoid processed food and added sugars. I’m not even saying this gently. Cut this shit out. Fast food, fried food, packaged food, food with modern preservatives, big fat no. Death in well-designed boxes. Listen, I know they’re delicious. And I know you’ll pop a few Oreos or fries every once in a while. So will I. But the goal is to find smarter and more nutritionally sound ways to satisfy those cravings so you do less damage that your body has to repair.
Go hungry sometimes
Practice some form of fasting. There are a LOT of ways you can use intermittent fasting for your benefit. A 16:8 schedule, where you eat in an 8-hour window, OMAD, where you eat one meal a day, fasting for a whole day once each week, or several days once each month. We’ll compare each one of these elsewhere. For now, experiment with going hungry sometimes and see what method works best for your life.
Get up and move
Movement! It’s true that you must move it or you will lose it. Movement is essential for your body and your brain to function at their best. When you need a break, instead of heading to the fridge, go for a walk, even if that means up and down flights of stairs in your house. (Why yes, I do write most of my work at home, how did you know?)
Get in a few harder workouts during the week. HIIT, High-Intensity Interval Training, is excellent for maintaining health and metabolic flexibility and is great for your cardiovascular system. Make sure to get a couple of weight training workouts each week too. Strength, flexibility, speed, agility, and balance are all important to maintain. Find workouts that you like, and add variety when you start to get bored. And if you message me, I’ll give you my Spartan race schedule so you can join my team.
Vices
Smoking will age you faster than most anything else, so don’t. Binge drinking, habitually drinking more than one or two drinks a couple of times a week, and drug use cause damage throughout your body that is difficult to heal from. It might be fun and it might feel good in the moment, but these substances are toxins. There are a few exceptions to the drug use rule, including high-quality CBD oil or water-soluble CBD drops, metformin (for most people), and some types of entheogens, among a handful of others we’ll discuss elsewhere.
Recovery
Sleep is an essential piece of the health and longevity puzzle that we all love to ignore until it makes us awful irritable angry exhausted humans. Most people need 7-9 hours every night, and it must be split between Light, REM, and Deep sleep phases. You can get a tracker, I like tracking my sleep phases, but at this level, it isn’t essential. Eliminate sources of blue and bright light in the two hours before bed so you can sync up your circadian rhythm and naturally shift your hormones into a state that will allow you to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep all night.
Freaking relax for once in your life! Or really, every day. Stress will, in fact, kill you, so every single day use one or several methods to reduce the stress in your life. It’s not just in your head, stress produces inflammatory reactions in your whole body and robs your mind of peace. You can’t think clearly and your body thinks you’re running away from saber-toothed tigers all day every day. Some ideas are meditation, journaling, qigong, or a spiritual practice. There are a hundred variations for each of these, so finding the ones that work best for you might take some trial and error. Keep working on it. It’s important.
Attitude adjustment
Be grateful. Seriously. We’re alive here, now, in this age of wonders. We all have problems, and life is freaking hard sometimes. Every day, take time to be deeply grateful about 3 things, and I challenge you to make one of those things something that looks like a problem. Every problem is there to teach us something. What can you learn? What would overcoming that problem look like? This world, this life, is a gift, even when it sucks. We’ll dive deep into how your mindset and beliefs affect your health and longevity in another section.
I read all of your comments. Share your stories, your questions, and your ideas below. Let’s keep it constructive. We’re all here to live longer, healthier, better lives.