Why Biohacking Is a Scam for Longevity (Do This Instead) | Mind Pump 2622

Biohacking, it's still around and it sucks. We're going to talk about why it sucks for longevity and what actually contributes to real longevity. Why does it sound so spicy? It's good. Triggered some people right now. I did. I did. So let's define biohacking first. Uh, this is like a big space in, in the health space. And I, you know, when we first started the podcast, biohacking started to become a thing. It was getting a lot of momentum. It was, and it's, it's pretty huge now. And you have a lot of, uh, people that are, you, you, if you type in biohackers, they'll pop up and who these people, some of them are good friends of ours. Yeah. But biohacking essentially is a practice of using science technology, lifestyle interventions to optimize physical, mental performance, health, and longevity. Now the problem that I have with biohacking is it focuses a lot on like minor contributors or technology or the latest supplement or whatever. And they miss the forest for the trees. Uh, and so you see like biohacking podcasts and, and social media posts, they focus so much on these small things, uh, that I think they add a lot to confusion. Um, and honestly, if you did none of the things that they advocate for and just focused on the things that we know that the data shows, uh, has a big impact, you would have the best longevity. Uh, so it's just, uh, it's just one of those topics I like to dismiss. I remember the first time when we went down to visit a Paul check and he was kind of, um, talking about a lot of these new technologies. I think we were even talking about HRV for a minute and he was just always referring back to like the most basic principles of learning your heart rate and learning how to, um, control, you know, your sleep and eating habits and all these things would make such a bigger impact and dent into everything. It was always like a lot of information, but, but condense it down to like the, what the biggest blocks are that matter. What was it? Didn't he have a, I know I'm going to screw this up for doctors. Yeah. The four doctors, Dr. Sunshine, Dr. Sleep, Dr. Pain and diet. I think it was. Yeah. Maybe look that up, Doug. I know he's, I think it's such a great way and I wasn't even thinking of him to bring him up right now. What came to mind when you said the biohackers that are in our friends is our buddy, Ben Greenfield, who I actually think, uh, when I think of the biohacking community, he seems to be the guy who does a pretty good job of actually checking the big rocks or doing the big rocks too, in my opinion. Oh yeah. Like I think I have a, and that's why I have so much respect for him. I know he, he, he gets a lot of heat and stuff like that. And a lot of people think he's weird, different, whatever. I love Ben. And I think that a lot of the things that I have a problem with the biohacking community, he addresses. And what that is is he's not out there doing all these weird biohacking things and then also not doing the big rocks. Right. So like, I feel like he's really checked the box with the big rocks that make a difference in longevity, which I think they're the points you're going to make. And then he's also doing these other things. So I like to me, I, he's one of my favorite people to watch, experiment with these things. Then you meet other people that are in the community. They're so into the nerdy new science stuff that, and they're trying all this stuff and injecting all this ---- and shining lights in weird places. And then they have poor relationships and they have a terrible inconsistent diet. And it's just like, you know, you, if you just improved one of those things by 10%, you would get a hundred percent return versus trying this weird thing that may or may not give you a 5% return. You know what I'm saying? Yep. A hundred percent. And so what we did is we listed like the top three categories, I would say, uh, that biohackers, biohackers like to focus on. Oh, there we go. Say Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, Dr. Movement, and Dr. Happiness. I just think this goes so well with this conversation. Like you thinking about those things right there and really, is there an area in happiness, movement, being quiet and silent, right. And, and diet that I can improve by a percent or two. And the return on that is far greater than the greatest biohacking stuff that you guys are all saying. 100%. So I, like I said, I listed a few things, a few categories in the biohacking space that are popular. Um, and we'll kind of go over them and talk about maybe, you know, why they stick around or why they're around in the first place, the pros and the cons. And so I'll start with wearable devices. Now, wearable devices, these are trackers, right? They've been around now for a little while. I remember when the body bug first came out, uh, which was, I don't know, it's gotta be at least 15 years now that that's been out. This is one of the first ones that actually measured, you know, they would say metabolic rate or calorie burn, uh, would measure steps. Um, and it was one of the first kind of wearable devices. Now we have so many, right? We have, uh, like the aura ring. We have things that can measure. Fitbit was huge for a minute there. That was probably the first one that really kind of opened up. Yeah. Movement and sleeping patterns and heart rate variability and all that stuff. And I remember years ago, I don't know if you guys remember this, we had a whole discussion on what their value was. And I had really made a strong point at that, at that time. This was a long time, at least eight years ago where I said, you know, the people that are really going to use them are the fitness fanatics. I don't see them making an impact on the average person. I don't see the average person putting on an aura ring and then it's significantly improving their health. I could see like, you know, one of us using it, uh, or, or somebody who's really into it. But I don't think data or data points is the missing link. Um, and so, and also there's another side to it. Like you can, a wearable device can then start to become your master. And I've seen this as well with, I've seen this with tracking. I see this calorie track, which by the way, tracking your calories and macros will do more for you than any other wearable device or tracking device would do. But even that I see so often becomes tyrannical because then you're so afraid to go off of your diet and everything has to fit within my macro type of deal with these wearable devices. That's also the other, the other side of it is where I remember when Doug said this with, with the aura ring, he actually had worse sleep because he was so focused on improving a score. You're competitive about things you probably shouldn't be that competitive with. That's right. It's kind of similar to the science community with the, in the fitness world too, is that I don't think we lack any more science. I think what the reason why as a, as a whole, right. Speaking about our, our, our society, why we are so overweight and not in shape is not because we need more science. We need more information. You know, like we have, we have over, we have more than enough. What we lack is self-control, self-discipline, consistency, sacrifice. I mean, there's so many things that if we just, which by the way, these are like, I mean, go back to biblical times and stoicism. I mean, of these practices, if we can learn just to apply those to today, everybody would be healthy and fit, right? If we didn't overindulge, we didn't binge, we didn't abuse, we didn't, you know, we weren't late. Like we didn't do all those things. Take out all the great science that we have today and you would be incredibly healthy and fit. So it's similar to that, right? I remember as an early trainer thinking that if everybody were more educated on nutrition and stuff like that, like that, if we just had more information available that that would solve the problem. And then I read a study, I brought this up on past episodes. I haven't brought this up in a long time. One of my favorite, this was a study that totally shifted my paradigm. There was a small town somewhere that passed a law that said that all restaurants had to display the calories next to the meals that they were offering. And the thought was, well, if people saw how high of a calorie count the particular meal had, better decisions, they would make better choices. And so what they did, and I love that they did this because it's, it's illuminating. And what they do is they studied it and they said, okay, what are people choosing? Are they making different choices now? What are the purchasing habits now that we're listing these? So all these restaurants, everybody, everyone in this town was, was obligated. They had to have it up there. So this is 500 calories, 600 calories, whatever. Here's what they found at the end of the period was that people actually ate worse. They justified the bump. Oh, that's only a hundred more calories for the double bacon cheeseburger. That's right. I was going to eat a salad, but now instead of somebody going, Ooh, I'm going to go with the lower calorie option. Like, well, that one's only 300 more calories and that's tastier. I'm just going to go with that. It's what they theorize, but it clearly not only did not help, but actually went in the opposite direction. So it's not an information problem. I don't think wearable devices will solve it. I think it's in how you communicate the information and it's how you're coached through the information. That's what a good trainer and coach does. But wearable devices, uh, I don't at all think that these are going to cause any benefit. I think it'll be great for the fitness fanatic who you give them more things that they can track and they're just happy as hell because they love to track every little thing. But even then, like I said, like, I don't think a somebody who's fanatical and obsessed is healthy as well. And you, you brought up, uh, you know, uh, having relationships. There was that one study, I think it was Stanford that published that having poor relationships was as bad for your health as smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. So it's like, okay, you're this. We know a lot of people like this in our space who are so fanatical about looking ripped and, or even people are just fanatical about health that they don't have good relationships because they don't go out and do the things and meet with people because it's not perfect or whatever. Or they skip things because I got to miss do my workout. They ended up having poor relationships. I ended up trading one thing for another and they ended up turning fitness from a healthy thing into an unhealthy thing. And I believe that wearable devices when you place too much value on them, like a lot of biohackers, you know, or I should say the data points, they place so much value in data points. I don't think, I don't think it's helping. Yeah. It's overrated at the end of the day. Yeah. I think it definitely could be over-emphasized with its value. I think initially too, and this is where I also think coaches that utilize these probably has the most value so they can interpret a lot of the data. They can guide and direct based off of some of the data that, that, that shows glaring differences that they can make micro adjustments. A lot of times people can't really see through a lot of that to really navigate. So I think if there was a little more of the coaching element involved with that, but even then, like there has to be a plan to, to then you know, evolve past that. So we don't need these devices. It's good to point out things, but at the same time, we don't want to be stuck there. I definitely think that from the coaching perspective is extremely valuable. Cause then it's how you coach it. Yeah. Cause cause let's, let's be honest. The average person is unbelievably unaware of their activity level and what they're doing. Right. So when I started making my clients wear tools like Fitbit, it was not for me to really educate them. Other is make them, make them aware. You know, it was more like, you know, I'm, I'm reading the data and going like, Oh wow. You know, she's reporting to me that she's so active and she does a little stuff. And it's like, when I look at the thing, it's like weekends. Yeah. You're you used one data point mostly, didn't you? Yeah. Steps. Yep. Just movement. That's all I really need to know. I didn't really care about the, you know, the HRV stuff that they have on there and the heart rate and comparing what exercise modality burn more cow. I mean, that stuff with that to me was insignificant. Really. It was what I knew was, I mean, look at what, going back to Paul check and his four doctors, Dr. Movement is one of the doctors, right? And so I cared about movement and activity. I know how much that promotes overall health and longevity is just being active and moving. And a lot of people think because they're busy, think they're active. And so because that I, it would give me that insight to then be able to coach them and say, Hey, you know, we're, I know you were busy yesterday, but you really didn't move much. And we want to be moving this much because it's good for us. Right? So to me, that's where those things are better suited. Uh, using it as a biohacking tool to me, uh, is, uh, insignificant in comparison to the coaching. Today's giveaway is the maps super bundle. If you want to win, leave a comment below this video. The first 24 hours that we drop it, subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comments section, we also have a brand new maps program. Maps longevity is here. You can get it for $50 off plus free access to our private forum for an entire year and more go to maps longevity.com. Use the code 50 long for the discount and the free stuff back to the show. Next are these categories of supplements that'll be put in the category of new tropics. So these are things that are advertised to improve cognitive function and performance. Okay. So you have like a classic one would be caffeine. Everybody knows what that does. Then you have the race attempts, uh, you know, category of, uh, of drugs that are supposedly, uh, you know, will help with mental performance, lots of stimulants and other things in these categories. Lots of, there's a huge supplement market now for new tropics. And the reason why I think these are oversold, is because if you want to improve your mental performance, tooth, there's a few things that'll make a massive difference, but one of them makes the biggest difference. Yeah. Good sleep. Like that's foremost. Yeah. That's really it. And so I think what I know what happens with new tropics and with people who use them is that they, uh, this becomes a way to bandaid over their poor sleep. And they also, what's funny about them is what, what seems to be perceived as better cognitive performance when they do studies on this stuff actually is the perception sometimes perceive people perceive themselves to be performing better in reality or not. Why is that? Well, there's a famous studies on, uh, like methamphetamines, like Adderall. Adderall is a big one. And people are like, Oh my God, when I do take Adderall, I'm like way more like, I learned better. I'm like, no, you actually just like what you're doing. Like no matter what you're doing, you like it more. Yeah. So it gives you a perception. You're not smart. You're not more productive, but you think you are. Yeah. Oh, great. It's kind of like people who like smoke weed and they're like, I'm way more. I come up with these ideas. Listen to your ideas the next day. Yeah. Robbins. I swear they were creative. Yeah. So, you know, nootropics again. Um, I mean, being healthy is the ultimate, uh, nootropic, uh, and supplements that promise to help with that. By the way, the one, even the best ones like caffeine, which do, uh, have a positive effect on performance, especially when you're tired. Your brain and your body adapt to them so rapidly. you, you receptors start to down regulate and you start to produce less of whatever, uh, catecholamine you're producing more because the new nootropic order to the point where, like everybody knows this. I'll give you the example. I like to use caffeine. You have caffeine every day. At this point, if you've had it every day, it's just to feel normal. Go off for a week. Try it again. Now it's like a miracle drug, right? Because your body adapted to it. It's not really giving you any benefits anymore. Now you're chained to something like you wake up with. I know a lot of people wake up in the morning, they don't have their caffeine. They're screwed because now it's become a dependency. Yeah. I know. Again, I mean, the there's ways to even the best studied nootropics that are out there pales in comparison to improving your sleep by 10% by even, and even your diet, of course, uh, moving over to a lower carbohydrate, uh, to where the brain's firing and utilizing, uh, ketones more often will make a difference. Uh, cognitively. So if you're looking for those benefits, there are natural ways that just, I mean, they're not even in the same universe as some of these things that we tout as so amazing. And we sell again, the, our space, like we get so excited about new science and new stuff. And these, a lot of this stuff is attached to sellable products. And so we overhype the science. We overhype the, the biohacking capabilities of it when it's like, well, you do know that there's some things within the diet and sleep and movement and stuff that are, that you can tweak just a little bit. And you're going to get Forex the return in comparison to this newest, latest, cool drug that someone introduced to you. By the way, longevity for me, when I talk about longevity for us, it's really health span is what I think about, not just how long you're alive, but rather how long you're healthy and independent and functional. One supplement that is really popular in that space. And there's data to support. Uh, it is NAD, NAD for mitochondrial health. Now, uh, I know what the data says and I, but the data points to certain metrics and not necessarily, uh, overall outcomes. In other words, I may take a supplement that shows an increase in fat oxidation. They can measure fat oxidation. So we can say, Oh my God, you're burning more body fat. But if at the end of the study, I lose more, no additional body fat than everyone else who cares. Like it doesn't matter, right? You can see this for muscle growth as well. This increases this particular marker of muscle growth by 50%. So people are like, Oh, let's take that supplement. But at the end of the study, I'm not any stronger and didn't build any additional muscle because the human body's incredibly complex. NAD has some stuff to support it, uh, in, in some of these markers. But whenever somebody talks about a supplement for mitochondrial health, I look at them and I go, have you heard of creatine? Yeah. Have you heard of creatine? Creatine has end result benefits. It's across the board, uh, the best supplement for mitochondrial health. It takes off the load of your mitochondria from producing ATP because it supplies it so readily. And now we even have studies that show it to be, uh, they're going to start using it intervention for people with Alzheimer's and dementia, but creatine is cheap. It doesn't sound exotic. NAD does. You have NAD drips. Now people will get IVs of them and all that stuff. And so that's another one that I'm like, I mean, go for it. If you've got, if you're doing everything else, by the way, even creatine doesn't get pales in comparison to exercise, diet, and sleep. Exactly. So obviously exercise is a big part of that. My mitochondrial health. Yes. So you, you've sold me on the idea that, uh, biohacking is overrated or a waste of my time, but I do want to have a longer health span. I want to live a healthier, longer life. Um, what does that look like then? Yeah. Well, number one is to, uh, avoid heavily processed foods or eat only whole foods. Whole foods are foods with one ingredient. So fruits, uh, you know, vegetables, meats, uh, you know, minimally processed grains like rice, uh, you know, tubers like potatoes. When you look at the studies on just how the brain, now we're going to get into this, but I just found these studies. So I'm going to be doing a talk, uh, pretty soon in a few days in Las Vegas. And this is going to be one of the topics. And they have brain imaging, uh, on people who consume a diet that's predominantly made of heavily processed foods, which is the average American. So 70%, 80% of the calories come from heavily processed foods. And they show how the brain has now adapted to these hyper palatable foods. And it is a drug like effects. You see adaptations in the brain because these foods have been engineered to light everything up. Like they're irresistible precisely because scientists have engineered them to be so. And so the brain actually adapts and they find that it takes 30 days, I believe for the brain to go back to normal. So you've got to go off everything 30 days. Then the brain resets. It's almost like going off a drug and how you have to kind of reset things. So it changes dopamine. It changes the reward centers in the brain. It caught, they cause you to overeat because they're engineered to, they've been scientifically engineered to make you overeat. There's so what's called palatable, which is very complex. People think palatable is just taste. There's so many things that go into that, that avoiding those foods. Number one, you eat less naturally because you're, you're full faster. Uh, number two, you, you don't have these drug like adaptations of the brain, which when you, when you get your brain to adapt, when you get your reward centers to adapt to heavy, heavily processed foods, it's like it's adapting to other drugs, meaning other ways of experiencing reward also get hampered. So the brain actually becomes hampered and hamstrung from constantly eating these foods. So, uh, that's number one. Like if you just avoid heavily processed foods, stick to whole foods, you'll get a radical, uh, impact on your longevity. I've never had a client who has stuck to a 30 day whole food diet, right? And that's normally what I try and challenge or ask family or friends that I know that have never done something like this. I have never had a single person who has stuck to that for 30 days and not felt and seen a significant impact on like all aspects, significant hair, skin, mood, sleep, digestion, energy, like across the board. And I want to be clear that, you know, this conversation that we're having obviously around biohacking and longevity in this point you're making is not to demonize processed foods or even to act like we don't have processed foods in our diet. But when you become aware of how good you feel from eating only whole foods and by doing something like that, it makes the ability to not, or to pass on these foods way easier. And that's one of the biggest challenges when you're helping a client through this process is that pool that they have to these highly processed foods. And that's why they love glomming on to the content that talks about, Oh, this idea of demonizing, you know, processed foods. We all eat processed foods and everything's processed and try and convince people that justify those behaviors. And it's like, listen, I'm not going to tell you to never, I'll never tell a client that, and I don't eat that way, but I do know how good I feel when I eat nothing but whole foods. And so when I have those moments where I have this pool to go eat something that's processed and not good for me, it is much easier for me to go, you know what? I don't, I don't really want that because I know how good I feel when I don't. And when I make whole food choices, you know what? I'll pass. And then there's times when I'm at a birthday and then there's a cake in front of me and there's like something that's processed. I was like, okay, I'm going to enjoy, I'm at a ball game and I'm going to eat something. So what I'm very aware of, but becoming aware of that to me is such an important exercise for somebody who wants to pursue living a healthy, long life is do that. If you've never done that. It starts as a practice, right? It's something that you have to implement. You have to be aware of it first, awareness. Now you have to bring it in. You have to practice it. And I think a lot of these that we're talking about, really the goal here is we're trying to implement these types of practices that promote better behaviors that actually prevent disease, that actually promote, you know, preventative matters against like the environmental stresses and the things out there that actually will kind of start to slowly deteriorate your cells in your lifespan. Yeah. A hundred percent. So like, so just to keep hammering this with, with processed food. So when the, so this is the true history. When the tobacco industry started feeling the pain of the regulations that the government was finally putting on them, the, the tobacco companies, very smart businesses hedged their bets and went and bought at the time, this is late seventies early to mid eighties. These were the largest corporate purchases and mergers in history. At the time, they went and bought food companies. They bought general, you know, general mills and you know, these, you know, was it Pacific Hawaiian? Like these huge food companies. And what they did is these tobacco scientists that understood addictive qualities. This is what they did with cigarettes. They learned how to make their cigarettes more desirable than other cigarettes. They understood how to create things that were addicting. They moved over to food and what they did is they looked at food and they said, okay, let's break this down scientifically and let's find out what makes something enjoyable and let's hack into it and engineer and create foods that do that. And that's what they did. So if you look at obesity in America in particular, if you put a chart of heavily processed food consumption up against the chart of obesity, they match up pretty nicely and you can see the more of them, we, the more obese that we get, but because they make you overeat, but what's really crazy, and I'm going to go back to this, the reward centers of the brain because you're getting hammered with this hyper palatability in these experiences that you would never get in nature. You would never find a Dorito in nature. You would never get a pop tart in nature. It just, it just wouldn't, it just would never have trees when you, when you consume these foods, the re over time in a very short period of time, the reward centers of the brain adapt, which means that they become less rewarding. You know what else becomes less rewarding? Everything that actually affects all of your behaviors. So for overall longevity, simply, and we're not even telling you macros, calories, proteins, carbs, fat. We're not even gonna talk about that. Just eat whole foods. That one step right there will have a massive, massive impact on your longevity. Next up is sleep. Sleep is a huge one. Now poor sleep is really a modern, a relatively new modern problem. And it started with the invention or the application of electricity in people's homes. Yep. You know, before that, like it got dark, candlelight and fire. Yeah. And then you went to bed and activities are done. And in winter people slept more than people did in the summer. And this is just what you did. and in sleep is so important. I've made this point before. Sleep is so important, uh, that we still do it even after thousands of years of evolution. Uh, every animal does it. And let me tell you, evolution would have figured out a way if that's the case, would have figured out a way to get rid of it. Like you, when you're asleep, you are useless. You're not building, you're not hunting, you're vulnerable yet. We still have to sleep. So it's super, super, super important. You can't get rid of it. Can't change it. And with the invention of electricity, people get less sleep. Electric lights will stay up longer. Now we have endless streams of, uh, you know, entertainment. Now you're seeing sleep patterns and kids are terrible because of their electronic devices. This has profoundly negative impacts on health. And all you gotta do is look at the studies on people who work swing shifts. And you look at their rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, uh, even if they're not overweight, even if they exercise, uh, it's higher. Um, it's, it's a terrible, um, contributor to poor longevity is poor sleep. So sleep needs to be it's, but, and here's where I'm getting at. It's not gonna happen naturally. If you live in a modern society, you can't just expect to get good quality sleep because everything's designed to keep you awake. So you have to like structure it. This is the time I go to bed. I go to bed at the same time every night, wake up at the same time every day. And I'm going to get my brain ready for sleep an hour before or two hours before. That's how you get a good sleep. Otherwise it doesn't happen. Hey, this episode is brought to you by Viory. Go through our link and get 20% off. That's Viory clothing.com forward slash mind pump back to the show. I think the hardest part about sleep is that I think most people don't even realize that they're getting poor sleep. They just, and then that just shows you how like resilient we are as humans. Like you've just figured it, you've just adapted to it. This is how I always feel. Or you're blunting the signal with caffeine and all these things. And so you just assume that this is what you're supposed to feel like. And you have never put, this is again, same type of an exercise, right? Like I suggest to go eat whole foods for 30 days, you know, prioritize sleep for two weeks, you know, like, and what I mean by that is like put a routine together where you're like, you say, Hey, for 14 days, I'm not going to let myself stay up later than 9 p.m. I'm going to be in my bed. All the lights will be off and I'm going to lay there and I'm going to go to bed and then I'm going to get a full night's rest and then get up and like, like do that for 14 days and notice if you notice, see if you notice the difference in two days. Yeah. Close to sundown and sun up as possible and hit those rhythms and it's, it's, I mean it's built in our wiring and the further away we get from that, like we feel the effects of it. It's tough because it's built in our wiring. And yet our culture has shifted so far away from it. I mean, I'll never forget the first time we talked about this and that when it really dawned on me and I don't remember, I know that Sal's repeated it multiple times. I can't remember who the first person who said it to us or on our podcast or where we saw it. We talked about Mondays, the jet lag of Mondays, like how wide, like that's crazy that it's, it's a cultural thing that we all joke about. We shift our circadian rhythm every weekend. Everybody knows that the Mondays are a thing. It's a joke. Everyone said it forever. There's memes about it. It's like, it's in every sitcom, funny thing like Monday and it's like, yeah, where does this come from? And it's like, Oh, it's because on the weekends we all stay up super late, drink or do our thing. We're like that. Trying to sleep in. Yeah. And then sleep. Like we totally throw off our, our, our circadian rhythm and then expect on Monday it's supposed to just reset and go back to normal every week. It's like, Oh my God. And that makes so much sense why Monday sucks so much. It's like, it has little to nothing to do with the shitty job you show up to. It's because how you feel showing up to the shitty job and you probably, yeah. So it's funny too, because if, if you took, let me ask you guys, what do you think would happen if you took a group of a, you took 10 people here in Silicon Valley, you put them in a cabin with no electricity. Do you think they would all sleep more? Yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Cause you're like, well, I got nothing else to do. You get bored. It's dark. Let's go to bed about it. But you like, for example, if I, if I'm, I'll tell you like the opposite is if I'm driving in the car with my kids, and it's, it's a two, it's too late for them to take a nap. Every parent knows this, right? You kid takes it like a sleeps in the car too close to bedtime. You just going to screw up bedtime. Right? So you're like trying to keep them awake. It's like a funny thing. Parents do you open the windows train? You know what? You know, if I, this is my last ditch effort, you know what I'll do? If I give them something to watch on my phone, they won't go to sleep. Oh God. No, it'll keep, even though I see them nodding off, I give it to them. They'll stay awake. Yeah. This is what we're doing to ourselves by being on electronics. Uh, it's like, you're not good. You're stimulated. You're not going to go to sleep and it's going to screw. And the reason why that's not the most effective way to do that is because it overstimulates. That's how powerful it's like you go from, Oh, just try to keep them awake to now giving them that. And then they become overstimulated. That's how powerful those tools. No, it's wild. I mean, I feel like a lot of these things that, uh, what I love about, we're going over for the longevity thing. It's like, if you just put some, some small goals and, and practices in for just a short period of time of like, okay, I'm just going to be really consistent in this. I don't need to sell you on it, but you'll see that you'll, you'll feel the difference in, uh, in your days, your energy, your attitude, your mood, your workouts, like everything will be improved. And then if you really care about longevity and that's your goal, then this is the way you approach it. It's like, here's these big rocks and there's room for improvement on all of them all the time. Focus on that and watch the return. Yeah. And, and you know, just a little preface here. Um, everything we're saying requires a little bit of structure and thought because modern societies are not designed for longevity. Okay. So that's why you got to kind of like, okay, I have to avoid eating processed foods. Okay. I need to have a structured way of sleeping or going to bed because if you live according to a bit counter-cultural, if you just live in modern society, longevity is the last thing. You're going to get, the odds are you'll be sick chronically, uh, at some point in your life. So next up is to walk daily a lot, walk daily, a lot daily activity is profoundly healthy, but here's where we're at. Okay. We're not, this isn't about you becoming an athlete. I didn't say run. I'm not saying join a race, become an athlete. I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying walk daily because here's where we're at. We're not at a point where I'm telling you to improve your performance, to improve your longevity. We're at a point where we're at a, a, a activity deficiency. We're at such an activity deficiency that just walking 8,000 steps a day has profound health benefits. It's literally like you have a nutrient deficiency. Like I'm not eating enough vitamin D. My body's breaking down. Take vitamin D. I feel great. Vitamin D is not magic, but going from deficient to sufficient produces miraculous results. Not moving. Like most people, the average person that works a desk job, which is most people now probably takes closer to four or 5,000 steps a day. Double that. Watch what happens to your vitality and your health. And that right there, just daily activity is again, it's very strongly connected. It's one of those things you could do that has a huge impact on overall. I wish we had the data to compare this to like, just say 50 years ago. How many steps people took? Yeah. It'd be interesting just to see. I mean, I, we all have our, I'm sure a speculation on what that, what that is, but it'd be really neat to see like what a profound difference. And what I think I'm most interested in or why, why this convert, this conversation or this point is most interesting to me to talk about is because very quickly we are moving in the wrong direction. Like, I mean, and I, and just this is being honest about even my own behaviors. Like I went from a guy who didn't know what DoorDash was and, and Instacart to going through COVID being introduced to it and using it as a Oh my God. Now it's like the only way that I get groceries and the only way that I get takeout food and I don't ever go and do that. So what's, those were all steps like going to the grocery store and walking around for 45 minutes to an hour, at least once a week was activity that has been eliminated. So what, where did I get it? Am I now getting it somewhere? I have to make, now I have to go actively go out and go get it. And so we are, as technology continues to evolve, we continue to cut all this stuff out. And I think it's, I think it's a problem already. I think it's getting worse faster. So the, in the 1960s, the average American walked 15,000 steps a day. Today. How do they know that? Yeah, it was average based on what people did on their day during their day. I did read that. I did read that before. So they're estimating that people, how often they walk, how many people own cars. I mean, you've heard me talk about that. So I've said this, or I knew, I knew about today. I knew today was under 4,000. So they have it at 4,000. I know that then I've read of other places is between 3,400 and 3,800 steps. So that's pretty accurate because we have, we have data for that, right? We're tracking people's stuff. Um, but I mean, if that, if that is true, that's four times a quarter. Yes. So in less than a generation, here's your best, here's your, the best data that I can think off the top of my head for something like this. If you look at the, the longevity, the health span of people who live in cities, we're driving is inconvenient versus people who live in areas where you need to drive to get everywhere. You see a pretty, pretty stark contrast, uh, in health. Now I personally know this for family. I have family members that moved to San Francisco. Yeah. Uh, and because San Francisco, it's like having a car is annoying. It's dumb. Like driving and parking and finding a parking space while you have your apartment could cost you 400 bucks a month. Yeah. So my family members got rid of their cars and there were like little shops. So they just walked everywhere. Everywhere they went, they walked and everybody lost weight. Everybody got healthier and their trust me, their diets did not change. It was just because they were moving on a regular basis. And so again, this is one of those things that your life is not. It used to be, the reason why it was 15,000 steps before is because if you wanted to go to the store, you probably walked, you know, most houses had one car and it was with dad who was at his work. And so I'm going to go to the post office. Let me go for a walk. I'm gonna go pick up the kids. We go for a walk. Let me walk to the school. Let me walk to the grocery store. And so people just moved. There's also another compounding effect to this, Sal, that we haven't pointed out too, that I think that we're overlooking that is, is extremely important. And this seems to be top of mind for me right now. Uh, I've mentioned on the show that like I have a pool now and so I'm out of the pool all day in the sun and it's like, yeah, it's dramatically different. Just, just a year ago, my life of the amount of sunlight and like, I can feel the difference. And so if you don't take a lot of steps, there's a very good chance that you're sitting in a building, sitting in a car, sitting in your house all the time. And so not only is the movement so important, but also just getting out. Compounding factor. Yes. Getting out in the sunshine and getting out in the like that, the value of that and the importance of that again to our overall health and longevity is profound. And if you think that just in the sixties we were doing four times the amount where we've reduced that dramatically, just making an effort to get outside and walk those 8,000 steps. If you took three walks a day after breakfast, lunch and dinner for about 10 minutes, it would make a huge dent. That's it. And also timing it. The reason why I'm saying this timing, this is the coaching side of me, right? If I tell someone to walk after breakfast, lunch and dinner, they'll actually walk more consistently than they would if I said to do 30 minutes. Yeah. It's called habit stacking. It's habit stacking. And if they miss one or two, they still got one or two in. It also has better effects on insulin sensitivity. Post eating, moving improves insulin sensitivity more than if you did it at a separate time. So that's the strategy. I tell people like after breakfast, lunch and dinner, just go for a walk for 10 minutes and you'll, you'll get pretty close up and it makes it much easier to get pretty close to what we're talking about. Uh, next up is lift weights, lifting weights or strength training is extremely protective and it doesn't take a lot for longevity once a week. Once a week is what you'll see. The data, the data. Now we're not talking about being a bodybuilder or getting your max lift in or whatever, but once a week is more than enough to derive the longevity benefits of strength training. Strength training is unique to other forms of exercise because the adaptations that occur happen afterwards and stick around longer. So you build strength once a week, you keep that strength. You don't need to do it every single day. Plus the calorie burn from strength training is not the benefit. The benefit is the strength gain. And it's also protective. If your day involves a lot of sitting, like most people have some strong muscle on your body, your insulin sensitivity is way better even though you're not moving. Your mobility is way better even though you're not moving. Your hormones look way better. You have a metabolism that is more flexible because you have more, more calorie burning muscle and it only takes once a week to do that. At minimum, it's muscle preserving too. And you know, and I have clients that have actually made tremendous gains because of the fact of overdoing it for the longest amount of time and really not emphasizing active recovery and allowing their body to really rebuild and, and you know, move forward in terms of strength and muscle building potential. Yeah. I think of all the points that we're going to talk about, this one is the most misunderstood. I think there is this belief of how much you need to do to reap the benefits of health and longevity and overall strength. It's so crazy. It's crazy minimal. And again, to your point, we're not saying this is the best way to get your body composition changed or be an athlete or be jacked and body like, no. But when I think about 90% of the clients that I trained, this is what they all were wanting. And they were all happy. Yes. They weren't. I can count on one hand how many people sat in front of me or just like, Adam, I want to get on stage or I want to be an athlete. It's like lean strong. Most of my clients were middle-aged people that just wanted to be healthy and fit. They weren't asking for anything crazy. They didn't even want to be jacked or ripped. It was just like, I just want to be healthy and fit. I know I'm getting older. I know I'm out of shape. My doctor showed me my blood work. I know that I got to fix all this stuff. And it's like to do that. It's one time a week or one exercise a day. Like however you want to break it up. You want to break it up in one movement over five, six days. You could do it that way. One day or you do one day you do it and you will reap tremendous benefits. Yeah. It's, it's funny. You talked about not losing muscle. We have studies on that, Justin, in two weeks. Yeah. One workout every two weeks will prevent the muscle loss that happens from aging. That's literally. So in other words, once a week we'll progress, you progress as you, that's the point. You'll get stronger and you'll build. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, once a week, Bill's minimum, you preserve it. You can literally build if you repeat at least half of my clients that I was with for longterm only did strength training once a week. That's all they did. And then they walked the other days and everybody was very satisfied with their health and their fitness. And I really feel like if the, if the general pop really understood this and then I hope that's what we're getting. When people are just like, yeah, that's a chore. That's not a lot to commit to. I can commit to that. And then, Hey, and then maybe you have periods of time when you're in a rhythm and you're feeling good and you get an extra day or two in there and it's like that ---- compounds. And if you just make a commitment to yourself, I mean, I love the interview that we did with a, with a Jamie, right? Where he said like, Oh, I just, you know, I'm, I've now identified as I'm the guy who works out four days a week. It's just like if you just become the person who like, I never not train, you never not brush your teeth. You never not shower. Like just never not, not work out one time. Like make that like a non-negotiable and it's not a crazy major commitment. And if that's always a non-negotiable and then at other periods of your time, you have a little sprints where you get a couple more times a week and you're in a really good discipline. Like, wow. Then just imagine what a profound difference that can make in your life over course of a year or two. Especially if you've built such a solid foundation and going into your later years to maintain it's, it's literally like the majority of your year could be on that schedule of once a week. And you know, intermittently we could introduce a little bit of stress and like really a challenge in there. But the majority of your entire year, you know, if you, if you keep dialed in with this consistency, you're going to have a great result to put it differently. Building muscle takes time. Uh, keeping it is really easy and a lot easier, really easy in comparison. Strength training is just wonderful in those ways. Lastly, you want to find, and I made this general, uh, but the, but you really want to find and prioritize a consistent quote unquote big picture practice. This typically looks like a spiritual practice, but this also includes charity, volunteer work or, in other words, community work where you look at things from a big picture and the data on this is, is remarkable. It's hard to find anything that has better outcomes than something like this. Like you look at the data on people that are part of a church, go regularly, right? So the part of that community, the rates of everything bad is so much less than the average person. And the rates of things like happiness, satisfaction are so much higher. And humans, we're just complex. Okay. We're complex. Uh, we need big picture practices cause life can be hard and we can make anything hard just by thinking about it in a particular way. And this puts things in perspective. And a big part of this is community. This is a big part of it. And what's happened, especially in modern times is we've, what we've done to food we've done to personal connections. So we've, we've taken food and turned it into engineered food and we've taken connections and turned it into engineered connections. So now I have a bunch of friends on social media, but that's such a terrible replacement for real friends in person. And the data on this is, again, it's, it's exceptionally clear. Um, so loneliness now has become one of the number one, uh, risk factors for poor longevity is especially true for men. So I would've, I would've worded this different. I think I would've said like, uh, find a way to serve, give or teach. There you go. Um, and it's like, that's straight out of like Arthur Brooks's formula to like happiness as we age, right? Serve, serve, give or teach, find a way to do that. And I think, you know, cause even if you struggle with the spiritual side or aspect of it like that, like I think you can get behind, um, that, that like, Hey, I, you know, find something I can, I can serve, give or teach to others. And I think the rewards from that and happiness that will come from that and how much that plays a role in, uh, your health span, I think is, is tremendous. And so I agree. I think that there, you have to find one of those somehow, whether you go the direction you're talking on the spiritual side or you go the direction I'm saying. It's a spiral, you know, you're really given back and enriching other people around you and you're involved in other people. You're thinking outside of yourself. The vibrance of your, your social networks is directly related to the vibrance of your health and your longevity. It's very important, but it's actually, you know, it's crazy. It's actually not crazy. This is a right along the lines of everything we're talking about to the default today is not that it used to be the default. Like you used to have to be a part of communities and socialize and meet with people because that's what your day called for today. A lot of people work from home or in an office, uh, and they don't, if they talk with anybody, it's on social media or through text. And it's, it's having a terrible effects on all of our health. You need this, you absolutely need this. And because your life doesn't call it to happen naturally, you need to schedule it. You have to kind of seek it out, which means it's uncomfortable. By the way, all this stuff can feel uncomfortable because it requires some structure and discipline. You know, I know a lot of people, it's funny. People now make jokes. It's like when, when there's like these memes or these videos where, where people like friends will randomly show up to their house, they'll hide. Like, what are they doing here? They should have told me they were coming or whatever. That used to be society. People didn't like call you, Hey, can I come over? They just showed up. Hey, how are we doing now? It's like, Oh my God. If someone shows up like, you know, I don't want to, you know, be around anybody right now type of deal. Uh, but the, the health effects, it's crazy. You know, speaking to Arthur Brooks, he was talking about great ways to spend money, which I think, um, it kind of illustrates this. And he said, the worst way to spend money is to buy things. The, one of the best ways to spend money is to spend it on experiences with people that you love. And he says, it's funny because we think of things as being permanent and as experiences being temporary. But the truth is in terms of happiness, things provide temporary happiness, whereas experiences provide permanent happiness. So this last part right here, and again, you can look at the data on people who attend, for example, the church data is the best because that's the most, I think the most consistent is that people attend regularly. Who work with their church and their community, their health outcomes are remarkably good. And I'm going to tell you this right now. Oftentimes they're not fit and healthy either. So this just goes to show you how powerful this effect is. Uh, the, the oftentimes aren't lean and fit and healthy, and yet they have better health outcomes because of this big picture thinking. All right. I know you liked that episode. If you did check this one out, 30% body fat for men. This is way too high. This is actually a bit high for women as well. So today's episode, we were talking about how you can go from 30 to 10. What is 10% body fat? This is when you have a visible six pack. Can you go from 30 to 10%? Yes, it's possible, but not if you guess along the way. So we're gonna talk about how you can do that. Today's episode. Now there's a huge range, right? Of like body types. Yeah. Some people can run a little bit heavier or a little bit higher.