Today we've got Seam Lan, whose new book, The Longevity Leap, is a deep dive into the science of longevity and how we can add healthy years to our lifespan. So with that, we're going to do a deep dive into Seam, his backstory, and then as much as we can cover in the book. So welcome, Seam.
Yeah, my pleasure. And I'm happy to be here. Cool.
So there aren't that many interviews of you on YouTube, or at least I didn't see very many. So I think it's important that we... go back and look at the evolution of the process. Because where you started on YouTube is almost a completely different place, although in this health and fitness sphere. But I want to go even further back.
So as a kid, active into health and fitness. So what are your earliest memories of being into the active and fitness lifestyle? Yeah.
So my earliest memories probably have to do with... in terms of fitness have to do with doing push-ups with my dad when we were kids something like four or five years old like in the evening we would do like a push-up contest of how many push-ups we could do and like we were amazed wow my dad can do like a bunch of push-ups so that was like my earliest introduction of hey i want to be kind of strong as well i want to do you know different kind of calisthenic exercises and be strong and healthy i you know as a child i was growing up in the countryside so I was always doing something like physical mostly playing outside and playing soccer with my brother or we also did like this you know medieval battles with each other we like fight each other with sticks and swords that kind of thing climbing trees of course we did some like physical labor as well like carrying some stones or doing hay like we spent our summers in our great aunt's place that where you do the hay traditional way where you like rake the hay you throw it in the barn you stump it so it's kind of old school method and yeah also just doing pull-ups on the tree on a branch when I was like I guess something like eight or nine years old I remember you know in the evening again like trying to do like a few sets of pull-ups and yeah I mean those were the kind of early days of me trying exercise I wasn't particularly like at least with cardio or stuff, I wasn't like very athletic. I think I was in a good condition and fitness with calisthenics. I was in school, I was like the best in calisthenics out of my class, but not for cardio. So yeah, I was always kind of mediocre with cardiovascular exercise.
And yeah, in high school, got into more like strength training. And yeah, since then I you know as an adult started to learn more about all the different topics uh primarily in the beginning learning about how to build muscle and lose fat through like a gym perspective and gradually yeah learning more about different aspects of health and longevity as well all right wait so were there specific people besides your dad who uh you kind of had his fitness role models when you were a kid or a teenager um yeah like um I guess my dad was a role model for the calisthenics side. For overall fitness, I didn't have any particular role models besides that.
I did play soccer a little bit, but I wasn't into sports in that sense. My main motivation was to just... I thought it was just something that you would want to do as a good human being to get strong. and, um, be kind of athletic.
So it's this kind of the Socrates quote, it goes something along the lines that, uh, it will be a shame for you, for you to go grow old without knowing what your body is capable. So, yeah, I think that was maybe one of the quotes as well that has kind of kept me motivated as a, like a teenager. So it was the idea of fitness, not necessarily seeing people who are fit. And while you were at a young age saying, I want to emulate that path, like even sports athletes like soccer players there weren't any soccer players that you saw and you were like wow i want to be fit and you know i want to be fit like that person so i don't think so like you know of course i did watch soccer as a child you know the world cup or the eu cup so like ronaldo and luis figo or those like uh zidane like these old school soccer players back then so of course they were like inspirational like you were as a kid yeah like I had a Ronaldo shirt and stuff like that but I never like you know saw them as like role models for fitness like you know I was just hey I want to play good I want to play soccer well but I was never like interested in it as a you know even not even a career thing or anything like that not to mention the kind of a health and fitness component interesting so how about now are there people in their you know 70s 80s 90s i see you posting like bodybuilder pictures on x and you're like oh this is kind of like the standard of what we can be at 70 and 80 years old are there people that stand out that that uh yeah like you know I post these different kind of videos or clips of older people who are in great physical condition and good health.
You have these 90-year-old gymnasts and 90-year-old rowing champions and pole vaulting champions. So yeah, of course, now being into longevity, those people would be role models of, okay, when I am in a few decades, this is what I would like to emulate in a sense. But younger people, yeah, I don't think I look towards my peers for inspiration in that sense.
I'm kind of past the phase of trying to do bodybuilding as an aesthetic thing. I did it in my early 20s. I'm kind of past that phase currently. I'm mostly interested in, of course, maintaining decent physique because it's a good sign of health and good body composition.
But that's a pretty much it. Maybe like, I don't know, I don't have any specific names that kind of come to mind. And the most inspirational or like impressive of these people, you know, don't have any like social media or something.
They're this kind of random grandpa in China that does like pull-ups at 90 years old. Yeah, I have many, which, you know, so it's almost a completely different path. I mean, like Schwarzenegger, when I was a kid, Schwarzenegger was like big and huge. And then there are other people, Clarence Bass, John Taylor, some of these have died, some of these people have died. But yeah, you get to a certain point where it's not about emulating anymore.
And then it's, it's almost like people are emulating you because you meet, or you get to know those people. And it's not as impressive as you thought. And then you think, well, I can better right.
So So do you have do you have aspirations where you'll be that 70, 80, 90 year old plus, still lean and ripped, avoided all age related decline, you know, it Do you have aspirations? Is that part of the plan? Yeah, well, like, I definitely don't plan to stop taking care of my health and stop exercising.
So I think it's going to be just a natural byproduct of staying consistent with good diet and good exercise for the next few decades. So I don't think it's, you know, these people don't, they're not like particularly like, let's say, unique in that sense. just you know implemented exercise and they've stayed consistent with it for decades and a lot of them don't even exercise before the age of something like 70 and then they start so uh yeah i think it kind of goes goes down comes down to uh staying consistent with it so i definitely you know i don't i'm not gonna try to like you know a lot of these people like do like marathons and and those kind of things like compete in this like 100 year old sports events like i don't have any like desire to do that like you know i think it would be cool yeah like to be the world record holder for some sort of a sprint event like 400 meter dash or something like that but um i'm not like you know super drawn to that so i guess yeah like i don't need any like achievement besides just working on my own like health and longevity you when I'm like older. So I hear that, but I also have some doubt because it's just naturally competitive, right? If you see Brian has a speed of aging at whatever it is, 0.66, right?
There's gotta be some small amount of you that's like, well, I can beat that. Right. So now fast forward.
And then you see people in, whether it's my generation or even your generation, maybe a generation older than me, like Dave, like Dave Pascoe. Right. So if some of those, of that, those generations.
start to actually compete in some of these masters competitions and there's got to be a part of you that's like yeah i can do i can do that right and then before you know it's land is the yeah we'll see like uh but i'm not like doing that for that reason so if i if i have you know reached 100 years of age or even like 80 or 90 then but yeah i mean like the older you get the less competition there is so if you're like 110 year old sprinter then there's probably no one else out there to compete with you so instantly like win so the actual competition is like you know kind of staying alive for longer Definitely, definitely. All right. So your evolution in this field, I mean, I think you started off in the keto crowd and very low carb. And then so how did you, especially when you started making YouTube videos, I think that was about seven years ago, you started mostly on that journey and with autophagy and talking about metabolic flexibility.
So like, what was your thought process at that time? And then how is it the same? Or how has it changed since then? Yeah, like my first videos. was yeah like 2016 so very like up to like eight years ago but it was like very small in the beginning and the first videos were about actually something like personal development and that kind of thing like that was what i was into so i wasn't like into diets or longevity back then and the first videos were about like like i did like the seven habits of highly effective people and stoicism and those kind of videos And then I started to make a little bit about nutrition and exercise as well.
So this kind of, yeah, more like maybe like a Tim Ferriss approach that you talk about productivity, also talk about diet and blood work and those kind of things. And yeah, like back then I was doing mostly intermittent fasting was the first thing that I did. So I did like 16 and 8, one minute a day, warrior diet and different kinds of fasting. And that gained a little bit more traction, those videos.
I also experimented with a ketogenic diet for a few years and I did make videos about that as well. Then I guess the reason I did the keto diet was I wanted to kind of try it out. I heard some things about it, wanted to experiment with it, to share my experience as well as I shared content about it.
So back then there was not a lot, it's very new, not a lot of people were actually talking about it. at these topics so they got just gained attraction in the youtube like search engine so that's where i kind of grew my first audience maybe like 1000 people or something and then it kind of grew from there doing a mix of content about keto doing a mix of content about innovative fasting and the top and those things so um yeah but you know eventually i kind of uh changed my diet you know introduced more carbohydrates doing different types of carbohydrate cycling etc i mean i've always just been like experimenting with the different diets and the different ways of eating and my content has been yeah like about uh that you know it hasn't been like a journey that i'm doing like some sort of vlogs my videos have always been somewhat like educational so i pick a certain topic you know how to increase autophagy and then i make a video about it then it kind of gains popularity because no one else is really talking about it so back in 2018 like no one else but talking about mTOR and autophagy. Like I was one of the first ones to actually like, like create, I guess, like a spot on the algorithm with that, those kinds of keywords.
And yeah, I was kind of early, early in that, in that space. So, so then you experimented with keto and playing with carbohydrates. I'm guessing you played around with protein intake. So how did, how has that journey evolved? hmm like what works best what you know strengths and weaknesses uh independent of blood blood testing like just right because you obviously you you changed from the keto to the higher carbs uh without i don't know if that was a blood test based thing or what was the mindset in in changing it up yeah well before keto i was high carb so like when i was 18 years old up to like 20 years old i was i was you know eating a higher carb diet and then I switched keto for a few days and then I switched back.
So the reason I switched back was because, let's be honest, the biggest motivating factor was strength training. So eating more carbs just makes me stronger and I build more muscle more easily. And I also noticed that my fat loss is also easier, actually become leaner if I eat more carbohydrates. and yeah my metabolic rate is higher and those kind of things so it was just you know i'm going to try this thing uh low carb keto for a little bit and even during that time i was doing some aspects of carb cycling so it was never like completely strict keto it was actually more like a low carb diet so it didn't meet the actual keto specifications of of getting less than 50 grams of carbs per day so i was always eating something like 100 grams or something like that plus some aspects of carb cycling and then I went back to it because yeah I wanted to maximize my like potential for muscle strength and muscle growth so yeah I wasn't like reaching that with like a low carb diet and yeah before and it kind of the reason i made a change was i remembered you know okay before keto i was doing the high carb version and it was working great so like why change it i'll go back to it in terms of blood work then i mean there are some like just simple expectations or like clear expectations that you can expect from changing the diet you know if you're on low carb keto version diet you're you cholesterol typically is going to be higher, your blood sugar might be slightly lower, and maybe triglycerides are slightly lower. And on a lower fat, lower saturated fat, higher carb diet, your cholesterol is typically lower.
My blood sugar is pretty much the same, and my triglycerides are also pretty much the same. So it also made sense from a rational perspective of, okay, it's kind of better for my blood work as a whole. but only on a small segment, because I find that a lot in the keto crowd only focus on metabolic health, which is what you mentioned, glucose and lipids. So at some point, I don't know, have you done the experiment?
Well, I guess we can go through, we can take a deeper dive into diet, right? So have you done any experimentation with, you know, the keto, even at a hundred grams of carbs per day versus the higher carb? And when you say higher carb, just to, you know, illustrate for people who may not be familiar, I'm guessing this is probably whole food based.
This isn't like a. these in cakes because i think when most people hear high carb it's like oh you're eating donuts and ice cream right yeah so have you done any experimentation comparing the you know 100 grams per day or less versus the relatively higher carb and then effects on biomarkers besides metabolic health kidney liver inflammation yeah i mean like i detract my blood markers not as like regularly back in the day when I was doing keto compared to now. I didn't have any other real changes to my blood work except for the cholesterol.
My metabolic health is very good right now. My insulin sensitivity was also very similar to what it is right now. There was no change.
It didn't worsen my glucose or insulin levels going from yeah, like 100 grams carbs to now something like 200 to 300 grams carbs per day. So yeah. So about the same, no change. You can basically thrive right now on any diet, metabolically flexible. Yeah.
And I think that the biggest thing is that, you know, I exercise and I also maintain like a good body fat percentage year round. So, you know, any diet you can see. improvements if you just lose a little weight and you exercise regularly and vice versa. Like any diet, you can see worse results.
You can see blood markers getting worse if you're gaining weight and you're being sedentary. So yeah, I think my personal belief about diet is that, yeah, a lot of people get very defensive about diet, but the truth is that it only moves the needle a little bit. It's not usually the biggest determining factor. Of course, there are some, yeah, minor...
or individual biomarkers that tend to change, but all of them work in the context of the calorie intake and your body fat percentage. So if you're eating a keto diet, but you're overweight, then your insulin sensitivity is still going to be bad. And then the same with a high carb diet, you could eat a bunch of carbs and your insulin could be very low, and your blood sugar could be very low or normal because you're not overeating and you're exercising at the same time.
So yeah, I think many people you know, just focus on the diet, but they're not focusing on the blood markers. So the blood markers at the end of the day are what actually, you know, mediate any potential risk from what you're eating and what actually drive these chronic diseases that end up killing people. So let's assume, yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
So let's assume you've got the, those two diets, right? Lower carb keto-ish, you know, a hundred grams, 50 grams, whatever, or, and then the relatively higher carb, right? So, and again, not 80% carbs, you know, even something more reasonable, 40-ish percent, you know, 50%, somewhere in that ballpark, right? So think about short-term versus long-term potential effects, where right now, in your case, you're metabolically flexible. Your blood data, blood biomarker data is basically about the same on both diets.
But, you know, in order to properly test which diet may be optimal, you'd need a twin, a genetically identical twin, and you're on your diet and he's on their, you know, on the other diet, right? So... who would and assuming all the other factors are the same you know sleep uh exercise intensity duration frequency all that right you'd have to fast forward 20 30 50 years to see, all right, which was truly best based on genetic background. And there's just no way to know right now, right? So what are your thoughts on, although metabolically flexible right now, and biomarkers mostly the same right now, could there be a time when, you know, maybe when you're 50 or 60, or I don't know, 40, whenever the case may be, now the biomarkers start to look a little bit off.
And now you've got to maybe make some changes to whether it's diet or supplements, even changing maybe the exercise up to try to move the needle back towards a more useful state. hmm yeah like of course you know i'm not married to any particular diet like you know i can eat many different foods i kind of i'm not like yeah super like this foodie person like i can eat beans i can eat eggs i can eat sweet potatoes i can eat rice vegetables fish meat so yeah like i'm not like a huge food fan in that sense uh so uh yeah of course i will i would always like adjust my food and the macros, et cetera, based on what my health is currently and also my goals for the moment and what I'm doing. So yeah, if I'm not exercising that much, I'm generally reducing my carbohydrate intake. But yeah, if we don't have the perfect experiment where you have the twin doing the opposite diet for two decades, but at least based on observational data, then there's nothing.
that would indicate that a carbohydrate intake of something like 40 to 50% would increase your mortality. That's actually typically linked to the lowest risk. So yeah, like if you're eating a lot of carbs, like 80% of the calories is carbs, then that probably is not the best solution.
But there's nothing that would indicate that a moderate carb intake would be somehow harmful either. And yeah, I mean, Japanese people eat rice, Mediterranean people eat pasta and stuff. So yeah. I think a lot of people might be afraid of carbs because of, you know, in the past few decades ago, everyone was afraid of fat.
But I think that like the pendulum has shifted that now everyone is afraid of carbs. But whole food carbs aren't really like bad, in my opinion. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to be carbohydrate. It could be anything. It could be, you know, do you need more omega-6 now?
Not omega-6, omega-3. Do you need more, you know, certain types of protein and less of other types of protein? you know, just, uh, yeah, I think people, there's so many in this space that are married to the ideology of it. And even like, you know, without thinking of the broader context, rather than, as you said, what are the biomarkers show?
And then how can I use, whether it's diet supplements, exercise, you know, sleep, whatever, you know, to try to move, move the needle. Right. So.
Yeah. Yeah. And your omega three, like, yeah, if you have a biomarker that connects with some foods or some macros, then yeah, that's a very good thing to keep track of.
So like omega threes, Now the best example you have a specific biomarker omega-3 index that actually reflects your omega-3 status in red blood cells so you know you can use that to gauge okay are you getting enough omega-3s and you know vice versa with some other like lipids and glucose markers etc. Certain foods affect those markers so you can adjust your food intake based on okay is your some of these markers getting out of out of range. So I would add one caveat to that. That's one half of the equation, right? So you'd expect that an increase in dietary intake for omega-3 should increase, you know, whether it's red blood cell or plasma levels of EPA and DHA.
But if they're not, knowing that inflammation increases during aging and inflammation is a driver of degradation for EPA and DHA, just as one example, they can be metabolized into all sorts of other metabolites. If your omega-3 intake is high, but blood levels are low. then that suggests that it's not a problem that can be fixed solely from more intake of omega-3. Like that's a good example of that too, is like taurine. So I don't specifically supplement with taurine and, you know, I do eat fish, but, you know, when I make a taurine video, people are all over the comments talking about, oh, I supplement with taurine, but that's only one half of the equation.
It can be degraded and metabolized into other stuff. And unfortunately, most people aren't measuring that stuff. Right.
So, um, yeah. only focusing on the one one half i think the dietary intake side got to look at the biomarkers right so another so let's dig down into details like how carefully do you pay attention to diet or maybe not at all right now or it's just or even calories do you do you track any of that stuff uh or it's just eat you know eat as much as you want and just exercise so what's your like in terms of the diet prescription in your case uh how can we define that yeah like i don't count calories, I don't like weigh my foods, I don't count the macros either. I'm mostly looking at yeah my body composition and body fatness so I eat until I'm full. And on some days I'll eat more, on some other days I'll eat less. And if I see that, okay, I'm starting to gain a bit too much body fat, then I'll just, you know, for a few days or a week or something, I'll eat less.
And vice versa, if I'm getting too lean, getting too skinny, or getting too weak at the gym or something, feeling tired, then I'll increase the calorie intake. So, yeah, I think, you know, the problem is, yeah, like, even if they're aware, so, like... There's no way to know that, okay, this optimal split of this percentage of protein, this percentage of carbs, this percentage of fats, there's no way to know that that will be optimal for every day for the rest of your life, kind of.
So much rather, yeah, I tend to just look at the blood markers and the body composition and seeing, okay, is my muscle mass decreasing? Then, you know, I need to probably make sure that I get enough protein and ensure like that i do resistance training regularly and the same with like blood markers as well that okay i might be eating too many fats or carbs or protein or whatever the case may be so yeah i don't track anything i kind of eat to satiety i do like prioritize protein in my meals and you know i have you know for some days you know maybe every few months or so i'll track protein and maybe track calories as well. And then I'll see, okay, this is approximately how much my average meal has, approximate amount of fats and proteins and calories. So for the rest of them, a few months, I'm just going to follow that kind of a similar pattern. And then it's going to fluctuate obviously every day, plus and minus five to 10%.
So how would you break it down? Like protein, carbs, fat, fiber, based on those times you do track? Yeah, so like my average protein intake is something I've been reducing my protein intake slightly over the last year. Before that, I was consuming at least 150 grams of protein.
And nowadays I'm eating like 130, maybe 40 grams of protein on average per day. My total calories on average are something like, again, depends if I'm trying to lose weight or kind of. bulk up a little bit, but on average it's something between 2000 to 2500. And maybe on some days it goes up to 2800 if I add a bit more olive oil or something like that. Carbohydrate intake is on average 200 to 300 grams. Fat intake would be something like 70, 80 grams, maybe even 100 grams in some cases.
But yeah, I'm not on a low-fat diet, but I'm not on a super high-fat diet either. And fiber, I don't count fiber specifically, but all the carbohydrates come from foods, vegetables, berries, tubers, some of these whole grains. So yeah, I'm probably getting something like 40 grams of fiber, in my opinion. Nuts?
No nuts seeds? I have like a few. So in the morning... Morning up. My first meal of the day is like a protein shake or even like a you can call it like a smoothie or like ice cream type thing.
I put the protein powder and I blend it with frozen berries. It becomes like somewhat thicker. And with that, I'll have like a handful of walnuts. So maybe five, six walnuts or some on some other cases. It might be Brazil nuts or almonds.
Maybe not almonds. Not that much. But the walnuts are kind of. I think one of the healthiest ones.
All right. So wait, so since we're on that, so then that's the first meal. Then second, how many meals per day? How are you, what's the general day of eating look like?
Yeah, I'll have the protein smoothie or protein shake at 10 a.m. And I'll wait around maybe two hours, three hours. I'll go to the gym or go for a run.
Depends what day it is. And after that, I'll wait maybe two hours. cool down, go to the sauna, and I'll have a dinner right now.
I've been having dinner at 4 p.m. In the past, it might have been at 5 p.m., but I've been reducing it to 4 p.m. I tend to find it that it's better for sleep.
And that meal is usually, as a carbohydrate source, it's either sweet potatoes or buckwheat, maybe some rice, not that often, but occasionally, and some sort of... vegetables like broccoli cauliflower peas carrots steamed usually In some cases I'll have like beans, like black beans or kidney beans. With the protein source, it would be something like fish.
I haven't been eating that much meat recently, but I'll have it like a few times a week. Or some eggs, maybe two, three eggs. So I'll be getting, yeah, something like 90 grams of protein, probably from the second meal and from the first meal I'm getting...
30 grams, 35 grams, something like that. And as a last meal of the day after the main course, I'll have either some cottage cheese or some Greek yogurt with some berries or nuts or something like that. At what time is that?
And that's pretty much immediately after the meal. So it's somewhere around 5 p.m. And then that's it?
No more eating until what time is bedtime? I'll go to bed usually between 9.30 and 10.30. So then you're up at what time?
I'm up at between 6 and 7. So no eating for the first three hours as soon as you wake up? No, yeah. And that's on purpose or why?
What's the rationale? Yeah, I mean, I've been doing this way of eating for... six years or something that, you know, I've always liked individual fasting. It's always felt easy and kind of effortless.
So yeah, breakfast for me just kind of feels like a bit of a, like slow, not slows me down, but it's just kind of a time sink. You have to like make something. So I'll much rather like have something quick. Takes me like two minutes to make that protein shake drink. And then I'll be, you know, doing work.
or something else during those hours. So I'll spend only 30 minutes of the day actually preparing the meal or even less like 20 minutes. So it sounds like when you're up between six and seven, you don't want to eat because it gets in the way and it slows you down. So then you're just getting work done. Like as soon as you wake up, the wheels start turning and you're just getting work done for the next three, four hours.
And then it's like, all right, I'll take a break and drink the smoothie. Yeah, like I just like to work. in the morning. So writing, researching something about content and those kinds of things, emails.
So yeah, that's what I'll do immediately after waking up. I might have, yeah, I'll have tea or coffee, maybe drink some mineral water. But yeah, I mean, I'm not really hungry even within those hours. So I don't dare like feel the need to have anything. All right, wait, what kind of tea?
Black, green, other kinds of tea? What kind of tea? I like green tea.
So I've always liked the green tea. Sometimes it might be also this chamomile tea, or there's one of these like spicy teas as well that I've liked, has like cardamom and those kinds of things, some sort of Indian spice tea. So that eating pattern and that those, you know, foods, is it?
consistent from day to day? I mean, I know that you course correct based on, you know, strength and how you look and all that, but is the overall, the stuff that you're including in a diet pretty consistent day to day, week to week? Yeah.
Like I've, yeah, like I said, I've been following this meal timing pattern for yeah, six years. And, uh, during that time window, I have like, you know, changed some of the foods I've eaten more meat-based I've eaten more carb based, et cetera. So, uh, So those decisions come mostly from me, like blood work decisions.
Gotcha. All right. So a big part of that approach, though, is satiety, right? Because it's hard for most people.
You say you eat until you're full. But for someone like me, I'm a volume eater. That could go 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 calories. So, you know, at 2,000 to 2,500 calories, you've got to be satiated, right? Otherwise, it's very easy to eat just a couple hundred calories over.
And then before you know it, you've got more body fat. And then you've got a course correct. And it's this vicious loop. So.
I guess that on your approach, satiety is like almost 100% where you almost never want to stray from it. And then if you do, I don't know, do you include cheat meals or cheat days or junk or some desserts? How often do you do that? Like, what's your thinking around that?
Yeah, I'm like pretty much always satiated. Like, I don't remember really like a time where I was like, oh, I'm going to super craving for something like that. Or I'm super like ravenous. you know of course I might get hungry every once in a while but nothing like yeah super ravenous and I'm always kind of satiated after meals So it might be something to do with, I don't know, microbiome or something like that.
I don't know. But yeah, like I do have some like quote unquote cheat meals or something like that. The most common one is just like some ice cream.
I'll have like some of these sugar-free ice cream like Halo Top or Nyx or something like that that's very low in calories and tastes like regular ice cream. I might have some regular ice cream as well sometimes. that has like some sugars so i'm not like super like strict about my diet it's just most of the time i'll end up eating the same old the same old that i typically eat and uh yeah i mean i haven't noticed that uh having uh certain of these cheat meals or something would uh worsen my blood markers so might be because i'm exercising a lot but even then like i like to joke that you know all the centenarians if you look at them they all eat ice cream That's kind of an interesting pattern that all the 100 year olds, they're like, oh, I have ice cream every night.
So I do think that ice cream is pretty healthy or it's like at least the healthiest type of dessert. One of the healthier ones, especially if you have like less sugar. But that's a potentially double edged sword, right? Because then if it's at every meal and you're not satiated because it's not a whole food, it's pretty processed.
Then it's like, all right, I want to eat this all the time. And then it's hard to stay on track. So what's the frequency?
of you know or it's just feel it's like i feel like eating a little bit today but then what's the frequency for the next cheat meal how what's that general routine look like once every three days one every day once a week right well i think depends on a person like you know some people they can have yeah like literally one scoop or like one one some sort of a small cup of ice cream and just ignore it or they can like have one square of chocolate And then they'll be fine with it. Whereas others, yeah, like I'm going to eat the entire box of donuts. So people need to know which kind of satiety profile they are.
Personally, I've been both in the past or I've been in periods where I'm able to just take one bite and ignore it. Whereas in other periods of, yeah, like I'm going to eat the entire box and that's it. But I think. yeah like currently like i don't i don't feel like that i'm so sort of like a super craving for for these kind of things um i do have maybe like twice a week or something i'll have like some ice cream but it's usually like i'll have either one of these cones is what you call or like a small cup so you know yeah i don't think i guess that the dose is what really matters yeah like of course if you so what i like to say is like okay if you eat one potato chip every day for the rest of your life, chances are it's not going to have any significant effect on your longevity. If you eat 100 potato chips every day for the rest of your life, then it's very likely that you'll be slightly more overweight and with slightly worse blood markers and you'll probably die sooner.
So where's the sweet spot between one and 100? So it probably depends on the person. Some people it's five, 10. Some people it's 25, I don't know, maybe over 30, it's probably going to be too much. So yeah, the matter is always in the dose.
And for weight loss and body composition, then the calorie intake is still the most important factor that determines weight loss or weight gain. So I've experimented with myself as well that I can lose weight and gain weight as well on both a low carb and a high carb diet. So the macro ratios. are secondary to the actual calorie intake and the health effects are secondary to the body composition changes.
So your body composition will worsen first before your blood markers will worsen in my opinion. So if you're starting to gain weight then you're you can be pretty sure that your blood markers will also like worsen. But if you're lean and you're not overeating calories, you're not gaining weight then it's very it's less likely that your blood markers will also also worsen so you have you know i don't know what the percentage would be so i would suggest that maybe like five to ten percent you can get away with like less optimal foods and uh how big is it is it more on the side of five or is more on the side of ten depends depends on the the person and their you know fitness and uh age and uh metabolic health so i i agree 100 that calories are the essential it's it's probably the biggest part of the equation and then balancing out how much junk to enable you to be able to stick to, you know, the, the lower calories and be lean and have, you know, almost no visceral fat, right.
That's the huge, the, maybe the biggest part of all of it. Right. But, uh, you know, there's, there may be some nuance because what if you've got a pro athlete who's eating nothing but pizza and ice cream and literally has no other nutrition. So you may, you know, their performance may be good and they're satiated and they can just burn it off, but are they getting the nutrients that they need to optimize kidney function and, you know, inflammation and all of the things, right. So, and you may not see it if they're not measuring it.
Right. So, um, I think it's more than just the calories you got, you know, obviously you got to pay attention to the, to the biomarkers. So, but it sounds like.
it sounds like you don't have any issues with this at all, where it's your, you know, it's just course correct. Don't have to track it, you know, um, which is like a gift in some ways, right? Because I think most people can't do that, right?
More people than ever are overweight or obese, and they're probably not tracking. So it's, it's an incredible challenge and difficult for most people to have optimal body composition, just kind of winging it. You know what I mean? So. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Like, you know, I have done the hard work. Many years ago, like 10 years ago, I was tracking calories and macros.
So I did it for a few months. And, you know, you learn a lot about it. You learn actually how much certain foods have in terms of the macros and the calories.
And you like, you know, develop the skill of, okay, this meal approximately has this much. And eventually you're not going to even think about that. But, you know, the kind of steps should be that in the beginning you track everything, you weigh everything.
Then eventually you'll wean off from it slightly. You'll be kind of eyeballing it, you know, in your head or in some sort of a calorie tracker. You'll, you know, look at the food, put it in the tracker. You'll see the numbers and try to stick to those within those ranges, but you're not like weighing it.
And then the next step is, yeah, like you're kind of being somewhat mindful and conscious about it. But again, you're not even tracking it. And then the final step is, yeah, like you eat whatever you want kind of and intuitively or habitually just stay.
in the optimal intake or like a kind of decent intake with the calories and macros. Yeah. That's what works for you, right?
So I've tried that approach. It doesn't work. I actually, I have to physically track everything, you know, and even just eyeballing it, it's not, you know, but I'm, it's, you got to find what works for you, right? That's the bottom line.
So, all right. So you mentioned you cut protein by 20 grams. Why, why the protein cut? I think the biggest reason was that based on the research, you need much less than you think.
So the 150, 60 grams that I was aiming for, I think, let me just quickly calculate my weight in the pounds. What's your body weight in kilograms? That's 77 right now. So that's 169 pounds. So A lot of the research or a lot of people say that, okay, aim for this one gram per pound of body weight, which for me would have been something like 170 or 165 grams of protein.
But the research shows that you get the maximum benefits for muscle growth or they peak at 0.8 grams per pound or 1.6 grams per kilogram. So you need actually much less for maximum muscle growth. than a lot of people suggest so i felt that okay i don't need to eat that much protein so there's no reason for me to do that so i'm just gonna reduce it to uh this 130 40 grams which would be the 0.8 grams per pound for me so yeah and i didn't notice any like loss in performance or uh loss in muscle mass either actually did the dexa scan and somewhat in the when i was eating the more protein and in july i did the second one when I had been eating less protein and I actually gained 0.2 kilograms in the appendicular lean muscle mass index so like the muscle in the arms and legs so actually I gained muscle eating less protein and actually and while at the same time having lost like five percent body fat as well which you know is actually the best result that could be that you lose body fat then you build a small amount of muscle tissue so yeah I think many people overemphasize the idea of protein you need much less than you think yes you want to get something like 0.7 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight for protein every day but that already maximizes the muscle growth benefits and if you eat like one gram per pound then it's kind of overkill if you're very orate then i would like suggest that yeah a much higher protein like that so something like one gram per pound would be more optimal because you First of all, protein is very satiating. So if you're overweight, you want to promote satiety. And yeah, protein makes you eat less overall.
And you also burn a lot of calories digesting protein. So if you're eating something like... 200 grams of protein, then a lot of it goes to digestion and you waste it for, uh, and you waste, waste that energy.
So you're not storing that. So, yeah, but if you're leaner and more physically active, then, then from my own experience, then you need much less than you think. Yeah.
So there's another variable in that equation, which is, uh, blood urea nitrogen. So, you know, it seems like that's the hot topic on, you know, eat more protein. And that may be true for some older adults who barely struggled to even get 0.8 grams.
kilogram, right? So making sure they get at least that minimum may be important, but once we get into like, you know, 150, 172 grams per kilogram or more. So if blood urea nitrogen is high, assuming normal kidney function, so, you know, protein has nitrogen. So if you're not using it, the body's going to deaminate, take off the nitrogen groups and form urea.
So that may not seem like a big deal, but urea increases during aging in part because kidney function declines during aging, right? So that may not seem like a big deal. but urea can degrade.
So if urea is circulating, elevated levels of urea are circulating, the gut is, you know, it has vasculature. So it receives that blood supply. Urea can degrade the tight junctions in the intestine.
So, which means that more stuff from the lumen can leak into the blood. Now you've got stuff that activates inflammation. So I'm not saying very high protein diets will be bad for inflammation.
I'm not. it depends on the individual. It depends on what your data shows. If someone's eating two grams of protein per kilogram or more, and their blood urine nitrogen is relatively youthful at 12, 13, 14, not a problem, but bun increases during aging.
So, you know, this whole drive of eat more protein, eat more protein, you know, uh, for the people who are having a hard time getting enough, I think it's important, but like you said, it's most people get more or most active minded people, as long as they're getting that 1.6. how much above that is very debatable and i'd argue there are a lot of mechanisms that uh yeah may not be good yeah for sure like why take the risk if there's no benefit so uh that's what i like to think a lot that you know high protein guys usually don't like cause kidney disease in other words healthy people but you don't know what it might do to your so if you eat yeah like a two two grams per pound for decades you know are your are your kidneys going to be suboptimal once you're 80 or 90 years old. So like, do not take that risk then okay eat just just that much as is needed and not not more than that.
I wasn't presuming that the very high protein intakes cause kidney disease. Yeah, I know. Many factors there but knowing that kidney function declines during aging and any excess that your body doesn't need for the protein you know it's going to be deaminated and forming urea and knowing that elevated blood levels of urea it you know potentially either in conjunction with poor kidney function leading to the elevated urea, that degradation of the tight junctions, you know, it's a potential disaster, you know, I eat too much protein being a disaster for, you know, systemic health.
There's another, there's another side of this equation too, which is gastric output. So stomach acid production and pepsin levels can decline during aging. And I say can, because some, some studies show a decline, other studies, Don't show a decline. And that's potentially important because if you can't digest and absorb that protein in the small intestine, so we get the protein in the blood and, you know, get, you know, a protein set muscle protein synthesis and all the things that protein is good for more of it will reach the colon where it's fermented by gut bacteria to produce quote unquote deleterious metabolites that can indeed impact not just kidney function, but the heart, the vasculature, the brain.
So, uh, but most people aren't measuring these things, right? So they just think, Oh, I'm eating a very high protein diet. I'm good, but What did the biomarkers show? Yeah.
Interestingly, I think with plant-based proteins, you don't see those negative effects that often as with animal-based proteins, that this protein fermentation as well is less likely to happen with the plant proteins. So yeah, if you're eating higher amount of plant proteins, then that appears to be safer, whereas a higher amount of animal protein typically tends to be worse in the studies at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A hundred percent agree. The only caveat is, is like, as you know, egg and meat, they're, they're, what is it? The biological activity or their ability to induce multiple muscle protein synthesis is higher than plant protein, right?
So now you've got this balance between you want to keep the protein away from the fermentation by the gut, but now, you know, it's like how much meat, how much animal products versus how much plant-based protein, like there's that balance. Nobody's thinking about this. It's just eat more protein, but yeah, these are all variables in the equation. Yeah.
And if you are eating animal-based proteins, then you need actually much less. So you wouldn't need like one gram per pound of animal protein. If you're eating 100% animal protein, then you could probably get the same effect from just 0.7 grams per pound. But if you are eating plant-based proteins, then you need a little bit more, like 20 to 30% more.
So if you're eating plant-based proteins, then you might need up to one gram per pound for the maximum protein synthesis effects. Yeah. Makes sense.
All right. So exercise, right? So how often for how long, uh, how do you decide which days, uh, what's your, what are your thoughts on the, uh, optimal duration for you?
Like I know the published studies and, and it's, you know, most of it, you know, it's in the book or almost all of it's in the book. I mean, you know, 8,000 references. I can't imagine how you left any stone unturned.
Uh, but, um, outside of the published studies, like, you know, the people can get in the book, the seam, the seam workout plan, how do you settle on where you currently are? And what are your thoughts for frequency duration, all that? Yeah.
So I've changed my workout plan quite drastically over the last three, two years, something like that. In the past, you know, between the ages of 18 and 28, I was pretty much doing only strength training with walking. I was, yeah, at the gym or, you know, doing calisthenics or whatever.
maybe four to five times a week resistance training. But yeah, like based on the research, which is why I changed some of my workout plan, then doing like an even split of cardio and resistance training appears to be better for long-term health. So right now I'm doing resistance training three times a week and I follow like a push-pull leg split. So workout day number one, I'll do...
pushing muscles so let's say bench press shoulder press workout day number two i'll do leg muscles so squats maybe this stiff leg deadlifts and workout day number three i'll do pulling muscles so pull-ups or these rows barbell rows or deadlifts as well so yeah this covers the entire body and i think that's you know for me at least that's the kind of optimal amount of resistance training that i found while at the same time also doing cardiovascular exercise. So yeah, if I was to work out six times a week with weights, then it would be maybe somewhat of a different protocol, but I've always kind of followed this idea that cycle between the main muscle groups. And I like to do the main compound lifts because it's the most kind of time efficient way to exercise or do lift weights.
And it's also like more functional. So you're, you know, targeting more strength so i i wasn't like really interested in muscle mass like a bodybuilder i've wanted to be more like stronger so like a more powerlifting approach and with that by focusing on strength you also build plenty of muscle mass so it's kind of you get both the best of both worlds and uh yeah the compound exercises the multi-joint exercises like bench deadlift squat rows they're just like the best that fit in my experience uh for that overhead press uh yeah i like that a lot so uh and this is also the first workout plan that i did when i was 18 years old 17 years old this 5x5 strong lifts program which uh you know has their own like exercises but it's also the main just compound lifts so you don't need to do like dozens of different exercises with machines if you just do the bench press you're targeting your triceps your front delts and your chest etc with rows, you're tired of the lats, your forearms and biceps, etc. So yeah, it just takes me like 30 to 45 minutes at the gym, and I'm pretty much done with that. So I don't spend like a lot of hours at the gym.
Maybe four years ago, I did go through like a mini kind of like a bulking arc where I was trying to build more mass. and uh during that time i did like longer workouts i was doing maybe one hour maybe even like a one and a half hour at some time and uh but that involved still the main compound lifts but i was doing a lot of the accessory exercises as well for the hypertrophy but nowadays when i'm not focusing that much on the muscle mass and just focusing on strength and bone density for example then i do yeah like two exercises pretty much you know in a given workout 45 minutes and that's pretty much it then with cardio so i'm doing uh currently for the last month i've been taking a break from cardio just to kind of yeah take a break from it but before that over the last year i've been doing two to three zone two cardio workouts per week which lasts 55 minutes on average and the intensity is somewhat low so it's not anything strenuous it's kind of like a you know easy jog so i'm always like breathing through the nose i'm not getting exhausted from it i could do it for like two three hours in a row so yeah it's it's been my main focus over the last year to build like this cardiovascular piece And then once a week, I'll do like a HIIT workout as well, some interval training. Now the HIIT workout kind of varies. I might do it once a week or I might also do it like once every other week. But it's not like a staple in my program because I'm already like, you know, exercising quite a lot.
So if I, yeah, feel that, okay, I've been, you know, being too, or I've been exercising too much already, then I'll just skip it. But. But if I do it, then I might replace one of the Zone 2 cardio workouts with the HIIT program.
And then usually I'll have one day of the week where I don't do any exercise. So I might just go for a walk or something like that. And the HIIT program, the HIIT workout kind of fluctuates as well. But I'll typically do something like four intervals, each interval lasting somewhere between two to four minutes. And I like do like a rest interval or like a slow jog for as well, like two to four minutes in between those rounds.
So I'll repeat it for four rounds. And yeah, that's pretty much it for the interval. Wait, so the, the, your HIIT training, you're doing two to four minutes all out sprint, like just hard run as hard as you can for those two to four minutes.
And then it's two to four minutes of slow jog. Yeah, like, so when you're not able to like go all out for in the entire two to four minutes, because, you know, you're only able to sprint for less than 30 seconds, usually. So it's like just a moderate pace.
And I'm aiming for this 80 to 90% of my max heart rate. So I usually wear this polar heart rate monitor during the cardio sessions. And I'm tracking my heart rate.
So I'm aiming for the 80 to 90% of my max heart rate for those two to four minutes. And in the rest intervals, I'm reducing the heart rate to something like 50 to 60% max heart rate. And then I'll repeat it. So you're purposely training, trying to train the 80 to 90% heart rate zone by doing it for that long.
Because you could do it. I'm guessing you get to 80 to 90% within 30 seconds or less, right? And then you could just, right?
So you're literally trying to train that as much as you can. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also like a good metric because...
it can change so to say like you get fitter and then it can increase but you always like try to like you can also use like your rate of perceived exertion kind of so like 80 to 90 percent of your rate of perceived exertion so like 100 is that yeah like you're all out sprinting and you're kind of almost falling down and 80 to 90 percent of that so you can pace yourself according that if you don't have a heart rate monitor but the heart rate monitor is kind of is a very useful tool that I found and it kind of you can see it so you're more like accountable to yourself as well so you're not going to cheat like you're not going to uh I'm going to go a bit slower this time because I mean this interval is pretty brutal it kind of takes takes you out of breath but it's also very effective for vo2max and you know I lost a lot of uh visceral fat as well during that time so I went from like pretty pretty good visceral fat of 350 grams to 50 grams, which is, I don't know if it's too low, but you know, I wasn't planning to get it that low. It just happened. So, and one of the biggest changes to my workout plan was I was doing the intervals and there is research that, you know, the HIIT intervals are very good for visceral fat reduction as well. Nice.
So the HIIT, the total HIIT, you said how many, four rounds? So two to four minutes on two to four minutes off. So at most eight.
So it's about a 30 minute at most 15 to 30 minutes. Yeah, at maximum, it's like 32 minutes. And if I'm doing shorter intervals, then it's usually because I'm feeling okay, feeling a bit tired, I'm going to take it easier. So I'll do shorter intervals.
So I'll do still something. And the first interval is obviously the always the hardest, but the subsequent intervals usually feel pretty good. All right. So day one, push day two legs, day three, pull day four, hit for zone two. or is it no no like i'm alternating between so like monday is push tuesday is zone two wednesday is legs thursday is either rest or zone two fridays either you know, rest hit or zone two, then Saturday might be pool.
Uh, Sundays either rest zone two or hit depending. Yeah. What I did before.
So five days combined weights and cardio or six, five or six, five or six. Yeah. All right.
And then wait, so taking it, take it back. So you're, uh, so in the strength training workouts, you said you're doing, for example, two exercises on that Monday for the push. So, uh, I mean, I guess I'm guessing you're resting between sets.
because it's not like a circuit training based thing. So it's just taking your time and get, or do you have set goals where it's like, all right, I'm going to be in there for 45 minutes. I'm going to do 15 sets.
Like, how do you think about within workout? Yeah, I don't like have a goal. Okay, 45 minutes.
And sometimes I'm time constrained. So then I'll only have 45 minutes or something. But, you know, sometimes it might be 50, 55 minutes as well. Depends, yeah, how much I rest between the sets. So my strength training.
program is something i'll pick two main compound lifts so the for the pushing their bench press or the incline press which is not the same it's just a different angle and the second exercise would be like overhead press or some seated dumbbell shoulder press so kind of the horizontal plane and the vertical plane i'm always kind of training both in the same workout so the horizontal plane horizontal push exercise would be a bench press and a vertical would be the shoulder press For the pulling muscle, the horizontal would be the barbell row and the vertical would be the pull-up or something like that. You can even lean back and do kind of like an incline. Yeah. You can do it in many ways, yeah, but kind of the main directions.
So, yeah, two exercises and I'm aiming for something like four to six reps with those compound exercises. Four to six reps is my working weight. typically and uh i'll warm up you know warm up to the weight do four to six reps for typically i'll try to aim for three sets so the warm-up sets don't count you know when i'm warming up with the bench press i'm gradually increasing the weight slightly every set as a warm-up that takes me to something like five minutes maybe less and then four to six reps for three sets and i'm typically resting something like I try to rest as long as I need to, but it's going to be something like three to four minutes. So I'm not trying to get a cardio workout with strength training. I'm trying to apply the maximum amount of mechanical tension, which is the biggest driver of muscle hypertrophy.
And you can achieve that with many different rep schemes. If you have lighter reps, you're doing 10 to 12 reps, then you just need to go closer to failure, one to two reps. is uh like very close to your one rep max and it's uh gonna be harder to you you would need to do like 10 sets of something like that to reach sufficient amount of volume with that but four to six reps three times at least i find that it's a pretty decent amount of volume that uh is good for muscle growth and strength that development as well so and yeah so i was just gonna say so what are your thoughts on like i get circuit training based approach you'll you potentially limit your maximum strength increases, right? Because it's hard to have all out effort if you're doing four to six reps on a bench press and then four to six reps on a row, right? On a dumbbell row, whatever, you know, the pull rows, right?
So, but you're getting the cardiovascular stimulus. Your heart rate is staying elevated. Granted, it may not get to 80%, but in terms of the biggest bang for the buck, you could argue that maybe you don't have the maximum strength.
You don't have the maximum cardio, but you're getting the kind of the best of both worlds there. Absolutely. no thoughts on but what are your thoughts on circuit training based uh you know approaches yeah i think they definitely work and uh for people who have like not who have like um let's say less time or something then it can be for sure like a good trade-off and you know depends on your goals as well if you don't want to be yeah like you said you don't want to reach your maximum strength and you don't want to reach your maximum cardio then it's a good trade-off you know i liked the idea that you know the man that catches two rabbits or chases two rabbits catches none so i like to be okay in the strength training workout i'm going to focus only on the strength i'm not going to even try to break a sweat like usually i don't yeah like get sweaty doing that and with a cardio workout i'm training only cardio so i i feel like okay if you have the single focus then you'll reach the better results but you will have to like you know have separate workouts for that.
So I'm not usually doing cardio after strength training either because of that reason. So I'm only having a strength day workout and a strength day and a cardio day separately. So your cardio day, you said is on day two, but then you're training legs, you know, with squats, but deadlifts are day three or day two.
It's on day three. Yeah. Like Wednesday.
Yeah. But day two squats. So you're doing, you know, 55, 60 minutes of running, which is, I mean, granted it's type one, type one, type two, a muscle fibers, whereas you're working the type two, you know, two B's two X's when you're doing squats, but there's still, there has to be some element of fatigue going from day two into day three.
right so wouldn't that limit overall strength gains with the squats and all the other you know leg movements i haven't like noticed that like i don't get like sore or anything from any of my workouts really unless i take like a break so yeah like the first workout after not having worked out that muscle for two weeks it's gonna feel like sore the next day but uh if i'm in my regular routine then i don't get sore from cardio like i could do cardio even every day and still work out with weights It will be more like central nervous fatigue. That could be the limiting factor. So if you're just over-training every day, then yeah, your central nervous system will be the limiting factor for strength.
But I haven't experienced that. Because zone two cardio for me, it's not supposed to be intense. You're supposed to be doing it or you're supposed to be able to do it for many hours every day pretty much if you do it the right way.
So I'm not even, yeah. getting my heart rate super elevated. It's like in the low one hundreds, 120, 130, something like that.
Yeah. But it's just the general fatigue, whether it's central or just, just a type one, type two, a muscle fiber fatigue that may limit, or maybe that helps you recruit more muscle fibers when you're doing your leg workouts. If there is some just general leg fatigue, when you're doing, you know, strength training the next day, maybe that actually helps, but you're adapted to it.
And, you know, I think most people they'd be, you know, can't do, you know, even though it's a relatively easy workout for you you've adapted to it whereas a 55 minute cardio workout i can't imagine most people are training legs the next day maybe the other way around where they train legs on day one and then do the 55 minute zone on day two because it's like you're not really training for performance zone two it's just kind of like an easy run right so right yeah i mean there is research that this active recovery is better for like performance so yeah like if you train legs and the next day you go for like a you even like a jog or some easy cycling or something, then that appears to be like better for recovery than just being, you know, sitting. So any movement like light movement is good for recovery, this active recovery, but yeah, you could easily overdo it. But I've been doing it. Yeah. For, you know, I've been lifting for 12 years and I've been, yeah, pretty much exercised a lot.
So my body is very like adapted to it for sure. And then what about using like HRV or resting heart rate? Are you still tracking that or? Do you have enough data year to year where you can see changes in avoiding age-related declines for HRV and avoiding the age-related increase up to around 50 for resting heart rate? Still tracking that?
Yeah. This one I've been tracking pretty consistently over the last four or five years. And I mean, it's pretty much the same as it was.
So it might have improved slightly. I don't recall exactly the number off the top of my head when I started tracking it, but, you know... back in 2019 something like that it was still yeah in the low 40s my resting heart rate nowadays it's something like 38 to 40 so it's slightly better and my hrv is kind of same it's been yeah like 100 over 100 uh the entire time nice so are you expecting to keep those data there as long as you're consistent with the workouts or do you think they'll come a time when the workouts even even though you'll be consistent at some point maybe hrv starts to dip resting heart rate starts to increase If so, what would you do in that situation? Or it doesn't matter. HRV, resting heart rate, doesn't matter.
No, I do think that they're important for sure. Like, I mean, there will, yeah, for sure will be some age related changes, at least based on what we know about aging and in the studies as well. You see heart rate increases and HRV decreases with age. I think, first of all, I would take like a mini break.
So it might be that I, you know, because even now. you know every once in a while my heart rate goes to 44 hrv goes to 89 or something uh so that could be that just yeah i need to sleep a little longer take a like a few days off so i'll do it and it kind of normalizes so there's always like those things small things that uh need to be first like okay taken into account so is it maybe there's something in the diet maybe there's maybe you're getting uh some sort of a cold or infectious kind of conditions whatever it is to first address those before making any conclusions. But yeah, theoretically, so if my HRV begins to tank and my heart rate begins to increase with everything being the same, Then, you know, Paul, yeah, I would, you know, I would first try it out and see, okay, is exercising less going to improve those numbers again?
And then make like adjustments according to that. And even then there might be like, okay, we don't know which one is more important. Like, okay, is it more important to have this low resting heart rate and high HRV versus is it more important to keep exercising? I guess we don't know that data. So at that point, it comes down to, okay, which one you choose, which option.
So I wouldn't necessarily suggest exercising less in that case, right? So I'm guessing that you'll be able to best resist age-related changes for HRV, resting heart rate, and whatever other biomarkers, muscle mass, visceral fat, right? With the consistency of training over a long period of time. But if you did start to see some dip, knowing you're consistent with the exercise, like you said, is it infection? What's the cause?
And then maybe you actually get closer to some kind of root cause of quote unquote aging in your case, which would lead to immune activation and overstressed, which is what the lower HRV and higher heart rate, resting heart rate. So ideally, you could probably catch that sooner because you're paying attention to it. And it may not necessarily have to do with exercise dose, right? So I wouldn't want you to cut down on the dose.
It's a matter of what's that underlying factor that's limiting your ability, right? Because then you're in that vicious cycle, right? All right, I cut my exercise dose, my data goes back.
But now is that going to be bad long term? Because I've cut my exercise dose, and that is below my peak fitness, right? So now you're on that slow decline, trying to optimize it, as opposed to what's the root underlying that HRV resting heart rate. And that's probably independent of exercise, as long as you're consistent with that over time, right?
So I don't think anybody's thinking about it like that, too. For sure. Yeah.
And I think that there's also like a certain reserve that you have. So like, for me, like my heart rate is right now 3840. But 45 would be also excellent. Like, you know, there's actually like no data that 40 would be better than 45. Not that I've seen.
And with HRV as well, like, okay, is a HRV of 150 better than 120 versus 95? Like, we don't know that either, because they're like, so out of the normal in that sense. So yeah, maybe maybe if it goes from 120 to 95. I mean, that's still super good.
and your heart rate goes from 38 to 48, then that's still like a pretty good. So yeah. Pretty good based on the average person, but you versus you, I mean, is, or it just doesn't matter to you, right? As long as you're in the quote unquote, what's, you know, really good, it's good enough for you versus there is an age related change.
It's not my best, but I'm okay with that, right? For me, for me, things changing during aging and, you know, it, those are dirty words to me, but how about, how do you see that? Yeah, hard to say.
Yeah, like it would be for me, yeah, like a heart rate of 48 would be bad. Not bad, but it's kind of heading in the wrong direction. So I would definitely try to make some different adjustments to my diet or exercise, sleep, etc. to try to get it back down to normal. But, you know, if someone else is, you know, going from 45 to 48, then that for them might not be.
that big of a deal. Yeah. All right.
So let's go the two more, two more important, not more important, but also as a, as a part of the optimizing the base, right? So sleep and supplements, right? So do you have like a sleep hygiene approach or it's just, I sleep when I'm tired. How do you think about sleep optimization? Yeah.
Sleep is obviously very important. And I have like a pretty simple sleep routine. So a few key things that I try to follow. So I try to like minimize this bright light in the evening, bright artificial light.
So instead of having like this blue and kind of ceiling lamps, I use like, like a pink chameleon salt lamp in the bedroom. Or, you know, I might have some like red light bulb, like, like something like this. You know, the wavelength nanometers?
No, it's a regular light bulb. but it's red so like it has the red light wavelengths but uh something like that and then i'll wear like some of the blue blocking glasses or something like that as well to kind of have if i'm using like my smartphone to look at something then i'll wear the blue blocking glasses and that's kind of useful now is it super mandatory to uh wear the blue blockers i don't think it's like the first thing that matters the consistency of the bedtime is probably the the you know or like you know first thing is make sure you get to the seven to eight hours and then the consistency of going to bed around the same time on a regular basis those are the most important parts and what i found is yeah dimming down the lights is kind of good for my sleep as well that helps to wind down easily and for example if i'm recording something late like a podcast not today but uh on some days it's like at the 9 p.m which is like one one hour before my bedtime then i do feel that like this kind of very bright light does keep me up a bit longer if I do that. So yeah, I mean, there's some research about the blue blockers being useful for insomnia and sleep. And from a mechanistic perspective, then the bright lights do suppress melatonin.
And in my opinion, melatonin is one of the primary anti-aging hormones. So not only for sleep, but also as an antioxidant and regulator of these other systems in the body like glutathione and autophagy and those kinds of things. So I don't want to like, you know, suppress my melatonin in the evening before bed when you're supposed to have the highest amounts of melatonin. So, yeah, that's kind of what I kind of do. Food intake, I stop eating, yeah, something like five hours before bed.
I've noticed that it's good for my sleep. If I, you know, eat a large dinner too close to bed, then my deep sleep is slightly lower. And, and, uh... it takes me a bit longer to fall asleep.
But if I go to bed slightly hungry, then I get like super good deep sleeps. And in the morning, you know, I wake up between six to seven, but yeah, like if I wake up too early, then I'm going to feel a bit tired. So I ideally want to aim for something like seven, seven and a half to eight hours per night for sleep. So that's when I feel like the best. blackout shades?
Are you paying attention to room temperature and humidity? Do you have bed cooling? Like any of those? Yeah, I do have blackout curtains. So in the winter months, it doesn't matter because you go to bed and wake up when it's dark outside anyway.
But in the summer, the sun does rise pretty early here. So it rises even like 4am. So even though I would have the blackout curtains, some of the light might come through. So I'll use like a sleep mask.
That's like the best thing in the summer. So I'll use that with like air quality. I just usually ventilate the room before bed and in the morning I'd open the windows and let the wind in.
I do have like some air filtration device as well. I might run that for 30 minutes, a few hours before bed, but I don't have like any specific like that. With cooling, I use this eight-sleep mattress. That's, in the summer, is definitely super good because if it's too hot, then I don't really...
Like, yeah, one of the biggest things that mess up my sleep would be if it's too hot or if it's like super bright lights immediately before bed. So yeah, like the cooling mattress is pretty good in the winter and I use it that much, but in the summer, definitely. With supplements, I take like a microdose of melatonin every once in a while.
So like... 0.3 milligrams. And I take glycine with my tea in the evening. So that's like two hours before bed. And I don't take any other like real sleep supplements.
So yeah, that's pretty much it. How much glycine? Yeah, like, you know, I'm getting something like 10 to 15 grams of glycine per day.
And in the evening with the tea, it might be one teaspoon. So that's like three. three grams, I guess.
And I also put it like into my protein shake. So, and maybe with the cottage cheese as well in the evening. So yeah, I'm getting at least 10 grams per day.
And that's based on the glutathione studies and glycine restoration, avoiding age-related decline? Yeah, partly. It's also with the methionine balance.
So, you know, excess methionine and too low glycine status. in animal studies are linked to shorter lifespans. Of course, in humans, it's not possible to know that, but in humans, they find that excess methionine and low glycine status also increases visceral fat or it's associated with higher visceral fat.
So yeah, I think you need glycine for many things like the glutathione synthesis, collagen synthesis as well, you need it for methionine and glycine balance. It also supports creatine synthesis. It's good for sleep, lowers blood sugar.
So I think most people- You just aren't getting enough glycine from the regular diet. So unless you are eating pork skin or pork rinds or... or pure gelatin desserts, or just making jello yourself, then you're not really getting that much glycine. And chances are you're getting too much methionine if you're eating muscle meat, and eggs and those kind of things. So yeah, I think most people would need at least like three, five grams.
And personally, I think like, you know, 10 grams up to 10 grams is better. All right. So glycine sounds like that's the dominant supplement in the approach. What else? Do you have any other?
how many supplements and then what's uh what's the top five yeah currently i'm taking quite a limited amount of supplements i'm taking like six or seven and they are yeah glycine collagen so collagen separately because you only get three grams of glycine from 10 grams of collagen and there's you know a lot of the studies that collagen peptides improve skin anti-aging and skin elasticity. So yeah, I'm using kind of for that reason. Third supplement is TMG, so trimethylglycine. And I take that for my homocysteine levels. So my homocysteine was slightly elevated.
It was like 12. I started taking two grams of TMG and it dropped to nine. And yeah, I'm trying to see if I'm getting it. closer to five, which would be more optimal.
And for supplement creatine, I don't take creatine like every day, but I take it like 80% of the time. So creatine, obviously for muscle strength and muscle power, it also helps with some of the methylation. It's good for the brain.
It's not necessarily useful for sleep, but it can counteract like sleep restriction. or the negative effects of sleep restriction and it can like uh i guess yeah reduce sleep demand so you're able to get away with a slightly less sleep so yeah it's one of the most like research supplements for sports performance specifically i take that and magnesium is the fifth one so i'll take i try to yeah maybe even like 400 milligrams of magnesium a day sometimes less but that's because you know magnesium deficiency is very common And I'm just using that as more like insurance policy to prevent any magnesium deficiency. What else?
Sixth supplement is omega-3s. So I'm taking 1.5 grams of EPA, DHA combined. And the reason for that is to increase the omega-3 index. So it was 9%, which is above the optimal. And we'll see maybe 10, maybe it goes to 10%, but I'm not like really pushing it that hard.
So 9% is pretty good. So over 8% is like the best optimal zone. And the last supplement, yeah?
Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Last supplement?
Yeah, last supplement would be melatonin. I don't take it every day, but a few times a week. So in terms of what's optimal for the omega-3 index, I mean, you could technically look at the, if you have tracked biomarker data. on the same day as an omega-3 index. You could look at correlations, right?
Because just because, you know, you have this reference range and what's considered high, in your case, is that significantly correlated with more biomarkers going in the right direction than wrong, right? And then if not, maybe it's not 10, 11%, maybe actually 8.4% may be best in your case, right? So just an idea for that more titrated specific. For sure, yeah. Yeah, but my biomarkers have improved as well while I've increased omega-3s.
But, you know, I've done things to my biomarkers that don't include the omega-3 supplement. So what about weak spots? So you mentioned homocysteine and then taking TMG, but what do you have current weak spots, whether it's biomarkers, whether it's training?
And actually, wait, before going there, going back to the training real quick. So what about, I'm guessing you're doing obviously full range of motion or, you know, I mean, the bench presses, you know, touch the chest to the bar, you know, ass to grass with the squats. or is it 90 degrees?
And then are you doing any flexibility training, mobility work, you know, balance training, or is this just, you know, you're doing a lot already. So you're, you'll have higher than usual levels of all these things, but not specifically training it. Right. Yeah. I try to do full range of motion with most exercises with the squats.
It kind of varies if I'm doing the high bar versus the low bar squat. So if it's the low bar squat, then I'll go, yeah, like. slightly below 90 degrees so like you know just the hips slightly below the knees um and with with that the weight will be heavier whereas if i'm doing the high bar squat then the weight would be lighter but i would go deeper so yeah like uh glutes touching the the the calves yeah so um yeah depends on a lot of the exercise but you know bench press i'll go full range of motion rows pull-ups and yeah with flexibility and stretching uh like i do some like easy stretching exercises so like some like easy front splits so i'm not i'm not as flexible as to do a front split right now because i'm not like directly training it but i could you know get it in a few weeks if i were to train it so i'm like you know decently flexible but not like crazy flexible because i'm not uh chasing it uh specifically so i do like some mobility exercises like every day i'll try to get into the the deep squat position even when i'm like you know checking my phone or playing with my dog or something like that like just take a moment to do some mobility at the same time i tried to do some of this this knees over toes kind of exercises slightly where you're like uh doing like a lunge with the knees going over the toes so like a full range of motion if i've been sitting a lot like after driving or something like that then i'll do the what's it called the couch stretch or something where you're stretching the front hip part i you know a few times a day i'll do the touch the floor with the hands stretch or touch your toes with the floors every day i'll try to hang from somewhere to kind of decompress the spine and loosen the shoulder joints so if i'm not even training pull-ups then i'll still you know hang from somewhere you know every every workout at the gym i'm hanging there for you know a minute or two on the bar and uh yeah that's pretty much it like you know i do a deep squat i hang a little bit stretching for the for the front split exercise and uh yeah i think that covers most of what i need without like specifically training for mobility and flexibility totally underrated i think flexibility mobility i mean you it sounds like you're doing a lot there right so you're good but i think most people especially in longevity even health and fitness pay almost zero attention to these things. And just using like the knees over toes as an example, I mean, the strengthening in the knee joint itself and the ligaments there, you don't, you're not, I mean, you'll get it from a squat, but by actively going knees over toes, I mean, it's a totally different feeling even doing like a sissy squats.
I mean, I'm doing squats and dead lips and lunges and doing the sissy squats. There's so much stress on the joint itself that it's got to get stronger and, you know, more fit. Right.
So. I think when you consider joint mobility in older age, I mean, you could make an argument that joint mobility may be a huge underlying factor in terms of the youthful gait and phenotype, right? Because if you can barely get off the floor because your joints are weak, even if your muscles are strong, you're going to look older, right?
So. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's pretty underrated for sure. Yeah.
All right. So weak spots. So do you have any weak spots right now that you consider weak spots, whether it's biomarkers or stuff you're trying to get stronger at? in certain movements um or everything is good you're you're just you know um yeah i mean for sure the homocysteine would be a weak spot well not right now anymore has been like it's been normalizing um but yeah it's something that i'm like trying to optimize even more any other weak spots um i'm sure yeah like a lot of people they like to point out some specific small things like okay your this marker isn't in the exact optimal range or something like that but the person i don't consider them like weak spots so um like what yeah like what except the homocysteine part which is improving which which biomarkers would people think that yours aren't in the optimal range i've seen your data it's all pretty close yeah well i mean there's always some people who say your cholesterol is high or your cholesterol is too low so you'll never be able to like uh satisfy everyone with that number so even if my ldl is like 77 i mean that's pretty pretty good and even then some people will say oh it should be 40 or uh you know or it's too low like your ldl should be 150 or something depends who who asks so i don't take like that kind of comments seriously because you know i've seen the data myself i've looked at all the research regarding like what are the optimal ranges for these markers so I'm like pretty happy with that and you know the most important part is maintaining it so right now it's relatively easy for me to do you know the challenge is to do that in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years.
So that's where the real like fun or the challenge begins. So LDL, it's inverse you, right? It's in terms of aging. So it's low in youth, peaks in midlife, and then it's low at an older age, advanced age. So for the people that are saying that it's too low, most of those studies looking at all cause mortality risk are looking at people basically in their 50s versus people in their 80s.
And clearly people in their 80s, I mean, it's the downward sloping thing, right? So how would you know if you're on the lower side of youth or aged, right? Well, if your albumin is high and lymphocytes are high and inflammation is low, it's a part of the phenotype, you're good.
That's how I rationalize. But I mean, more direct measures of atherosclerosis. I don't know if you're looking at like the ankle brachial index, which is a pretty good measure. Because if you have low LDL, but then you've got high lipoprotein A or high, you don't have high triglycerides, but high ApoB.
it is possible to have relatively low levels of certain lipoproteins and higher levels of others that are unmeasured. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the LDL itself isn't the only thing that matters for sure, like other lipoproteins.
My LP little a is low, fortunately. It's actually like 2.4. So that's like, you know, genetically determined. My APOB is also pretty low.
It's like, again, 73 or might be even lower than that uh maybe it was in the 60s or low 70s so that's also like pretty low so uh yeah vldl is low so yeah so those are actually if you if you look under the hood for danita pace so danita pace was trained on 19 biomarkers besides vo2 max was one of them so obviously you're good there right so i think it was what over 60 60 more recently right so ldl is uh so right so you've got these 19 biomarkers and then what's the epigenetic profile of people who had the quote-unquote youthful data versus the age data ldl was there like protein a was there able b was there so you're all good i mean that probably contributes i don't know maybe it's co2 max the epigenetics related to that that's contributing more i don't know but all those other markers that are relatively low and on the youthful side that's the argument against your data being too low yeah i mean well you know the too low argument like you said comes from the studies where localists low cholesterol was linked to higher mortality but that's because they didn't account for things like malnutrition and cancer and frailty and those conditions so yeah like if you're 80 years old you're malnourished you're underweight your ldl will go down because of the malnourishment and you die because of breaking your hip or something like that whereas if you account for those then low ldl isn't harmful at all and especially in the younger age group of you know 18 to 45 uh it's uh there's no this u-shaped association like it's kind of a linear almost so why do you think going back to homocysteine do you think that's maybe the first weakness in the chain in terms of it increases during aging uh why do you think do is this is the sign that you know maybe methylation is one of the first things that may go wrong and you've got to actively work to reverse that um yeah yeah i think i think i might have something yeah methylation related genetics or like shortcomings with there because you know homocysteine also i've seen it varies a lot between people you know joe cohen is another person who has high homocysteine levels and he takes like a ton of different supplements to lower it and it still isn't like uh optimal whereas you know you have some other people who even like take steroids and stuff and their and their homocysteine is five after just taking a few of these uh methyl donor supplements so and you know steroids will increase homocysteine whereas you know me and joe so i've recently introduced some of these uh methyl donor supplements so it's uh going down so for me it appears to work so i just need to like measure it again maybe change some of the supplements i'm taking uh maybe increase b12 intake or something um increase tmg whatever it is but joe for example he's taking already a lot of supplements and he's almost existing is i think he's also like nine right now. Has Joe always, I mean, maybe it's a genetic issue in his case, but has yours always been, has it been lower in the past and now it was at 12 where it's increased during aging? Because that would argue against the genetic component. It's always been something, yeah, like 11, 12, 13, something like that. As far as I can remember from my blood markers or as far as I measured them.
So for Joe, like, you know, he tracks everything pretty much as well, or, you know. He has a very thorough understanding of his blood work over time. So for him, it appears to be genetic.
For me, I think... It might fix more easily than for him perhaps, but I'm going to go measure it like next week after having taken slightly more TMG. So I'm going to see if the higher dose of TMG, because in the clinical trials, four to six grams is what they've used with TMG for homocysteine. So I've been increasing it to four grams over the last maybe month. And I'm going to see if it lowered the homocysteine more.
But there's also the studies that TMG over two grams increases. cholesterol so i'm going to measure that again as well to see okay is there a trade-off so then you need to kind of okay what's the trade-off nice so i don't know if it's specifically related to homocysteine but there are gut bacterial enzymes that uh degrade that remove methyl groups one example being there are caffeine so caffeine has methyl groups at three nitrogens so there are caffeine demethylases that are um the gut bacterial that their activity increases with an increase in gut pH. So more alkaline gut, the gut becomes more alkaline during aging. So I don't know if that's one reason why homocysteine would increase during aging because you've got a lack of methyl donors, maybe because the gut gets more alkaline. I don't know if that's the case in your situation, but yeah, that's something that's, yeah, that's something that's on my mind. All right.
So, so let's all right. So let's get into some of the fun stuff. So like favorite movies, favorite music.
uh what makes you know what's what makes the scene tick right um well my favorite movies are probably like the lord of the rings movies the trilogy so like you know i've always been like a fan of that kind of uh those kind of movies uh i don't like watch a bunch of movies right now like i'm not like tracking new movies and then okay i'm gonna go see them I watched things like Dune when it came out. Yeah, like occasional few movies. But my favorite genre is probably something fantasy related like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dune or those kind of things. Music, music wise, I like like heavier music.
So like death metal and those kind of things, which I've liked since. since as a child almost like i think i started listening this music when i was maybe 13 or something like that so yeah 17 years ago so over half of my life i've been listening to that and uh yeah i mean that's yeah i other than that i like you know play with my dog spend time with my wife and uh yeah kind of uh i don't have any like specific hobbies besides like you know research and uh exercise. I have another question that leads off of that, but wait, which bands, which death metal bands? Is Metallica Rage Against the Machine or How Hard Is, right?
Right. Well, I think, yeah, I mean, Metallica isn't heavy enough. So I like more like a new wave of this death metal. So it's called actually Deathcore, so it's not as old school metal. But my favorite bands, something like Lorna Shore, Whitechapel, Signs of the Swarm.
What else? Immortal Disfigurement is one. Yeah, I mean, I can name a few more, but I don't know if you've even heard of them.
No, I'm going to look them up though. Wait, and so do you listen to death metal when you're working out? What's the workout music? Yeah, I mean, usually it's the death metal music.
I might listen to some podcasts as well when I'm working out. If I'm writing or, you know, working on the computer, then I'll listen to the music. If I'm taking a nap, I'll listen to the music. But is it exclusively death metal, like during the workout, while writing, while researching?
Or is it some variance with other stuff too? I mean, there are like some sub-genres of that. You know, there's like metalcore.
There's like post-hardcore or something like that. But they're all in the kind of same ballpark with that. So I don't like like rap or EDM or acoustic music or something like that.
All right. So cool. All right. So then what doesn't the world know about you?
Like what actually along those lines? So is... you know, making content related to longevity?
Is that the goal for as long as you, you know, as long as you can or want to, or do you see other stuff that you're interested in that you'd be making content on? And then you said you have no hobbies, but, um, Are there things that interest you outside of 8,000 references? What are your thoughts about that?
Well, I studied anthropology in university and I like history. I like philosophy a little bit. I like just the human species or understanding human species. I pay attention to politics a little bit, and I pay attention to culture and those kind of things, and anthropology in general. So I like the idea of human evolution and advancing the human species.
So that's why I'm interested in the longevity idea, that I think that's kind of the next step in the human evolution of extending human lifespan. We're obviously not... anywhere close to that yet but i'm like interested in researching that and i think it's you know the most interesting problem to solve so like you know weight loss is relatively easy in terms of like the mechanisms and understanding how it works but you know aging and longevity is much harder like we don't even know how it works yet completely so that's why i'm like interested in it as like from an anthropological perspective of you how do we actually extend human lifespan?
And I think that's the future kind of human species in the next few century or beyond. And yeah, what no one knows about me or like the future plans with my content at such is I am planning to evolve myself as well. I don't think I'll be staying only content creator i have like a few business ideas that i'm gonna work on with some people over the next few years as well and uh it's kind of but it's in the vein of this uh longevity and life extension uh area so uh yeah i mean the business part is a like a mandatory part of this as well you know i don't consider myself like a researcher obviously i'm not a scientist but i'm not like some sort of uh i don't like to think myself as some sort of uh regular influencer either so uh but i i do like to yeah like the idea of contributing to the field in some shape or form and uh yeah actually providing some sort of a service to people that would support their longevity uh in a more like meaningful and effective way in the future so so that's indefinitely the the you know it's you see yourself continuing on that path for as long as you can or there's like you said i i heard you say about evolution but are there So let's assume that, you know, there is no more death.
There is no more aging. What do you do in that? Well, I think I would think about it when we actually reach that immortality.
So like, what do you do when you're immortal? Like, let's first try to get immortality, I would say. But, you know, I mean, you know, I would probably like spend. So if you have an infinite amount of time to do everything, then you would end up doing everything almost. I don't know.
Maybe not. Because you could travel everywhere. You could experience all the things in the world related to culture and adventures or something like that, food, entertainment, like that, if you have an infinite amount of time.
So I would probably end up doing a lot of those kind of things. But I like my routine. I would exercise and kind of follow the same routines. even if there was like no health benefits to it almost.
Like I like that kind of those activities. My wife is also similar that we both are health conscious, we take care of ourselves and yeah, we enjoy spending time together as well. So, you know, I would, you know, spend more time with my wife and doing different things and yeah, experiencing the world.
But right now I'm already super happy already. So yeah i don't know if what would change if there was like no no mandatory need so if you could just take like in the future you take a pill that uh you know gives you all the benefits of exercise and uh makes you live longer i would still probably do some of my exercise like i would i would probably make it more fun like i would do you know bouldering i would do you know some maybe gymnastics exercises so i would still do some form of like movement like i like to hike in nature i like to uh do some cycling you know that's kind of enjoyable for me yeah so i already know what i would do but uh you know, that's a story for another day, but I don't think, I don't think, you know, you were saying that you don't see yourself as just as an influencer, but not a scientist either. Right. Or a scientist, a researcher either.
I mean, that, that's a very debatable, you know, tiptoe. Right. So the reason I say that is, you know, Harold Katcher, Katcher, the E5, you know, about this, you know, where they're, they, they took the plasma fraction from old rats.
They're trying to give it to young as rejuvenation factors. Right. So he just published. like a short thing showing like some bad aging on one hand. And then he put, he just happened to put on the other hand, the E5, you know, Hey, let's see.
Right. And if you look at the two, one looks really young, his own hand and the other doesn't. Right. So let's assume he doesn't have the credentials, you know, a PhD. Right.
And he posts something like that, which is literally preliminary data. It's not a study of 50 people or a thousand people. So, I mean, I don't see it as this thing where you need to have like you physically or anyone else needs to physically have the credentials.
If they're doing these interventions and they've tracked it in a, you know, rigorously scientific way, you know, whether it's 10 blood tests or five blood tests or whatever it may be, that's science, that's actual research. Right. And I don't think you need to have the credentials granted people who have the credentials probably would be more likely to be doing these things.
But I think we're in a different era where citizen science can be immensely powerful and the credentials don't know. There are plenty of people with credentials who don't train or take care of themselves. And what good is that, right? So that's how I see it. I mean, I see it as preliminary data at the individual level that may actually end up translating to the broad masses.
So yeah, right about this influencer stuff, but the definition of what makes a scientist debatable, right? I see you in that vein. I don't think you could put together a book like that and not have that kind of rigorous level understanding and training.
So. Yeah, well, for sure. Like, I also believe that, you know, what matters, yeah, like, is the actual message or the accuracy of what's said than rather, like, who says it.
So, you know, I use X on Twitter, and, you know, there's a lot of doctors from all different fields spewing nonsense about, you know, diet or whatever it is. So, yeah, like, it's not exclusive to... regular people or influencers to spread misinformation. So like a lot of doctors also do it quite frequently.
So yeah. Not necessarily always purposeful misinformation. It could be just them looking at the data in a certain way. And then from whatever their background or bias may be, they've interpreted it in another way. Right.
So that misinformation versus disinformation, unless it's actively intentional versus someone's interpretation of the data. And then that. being interpreted as misinformation or disinformation, that's a very tricky slope. Even when I hear politicians talk about these things where, hey, we're going to crack down on misinformation, who decides? That's a very subjective thing.
So all right, some more fun stuff. So aliens are real, aliens make believe. What do you think about that?
I mean, it's more likely that they are real. then they're not you know because the vastness of the universe you know even though like it requires such perfect conditions for life to emerge then just the vastness of the universe it almost makes it impossible that it wouldn't have happened somewhere else you know i think there's a lot of different stages of evolution throughout the universe universe like there's there's a planets with lower life forms than ours and higher life forms than ours. It's just that, yeah, the universe is so massive that it's very unlikely that there isn't any other life out there, in my opinion.
Not just the universe, the galaxy, right? I mean, the galaxy, including all of the universes. But wait, you assume that, so the Earth is what? How many? 4 point something billion years old.
Why couldn't they have evolved here and they're still here? And just in line with that idea. 300 years ago, the idea that bacteria existed, nobody knew, right?
And then, you know, this scientist was studying under a microscope and saw this stuff. And then, you know, 300 years later, we know that microbes are everywhere. We live in their world, right?
So who's to say that at some point over the past 4 billion years, or maybe multiple points, rise and fall, some advanced civilization exists and have either cloaked themselves or live in the ocean? Who's to say they're not already here, right? for sure yeah i mean we didn't know that yeah all right anyway okay we covered it all i think so uh So for everyone who wants to get Seam's book, it's at seamland.co.
Giant, giant juggernaut of 8,000 references. So with that, thanks. It's current on Amazon. Yeah, like I switched to the Amazon right now. Ah, cool.
And you also do consulting, right? So people can, you know, use your services to improve their health and potentially longevity, right? So anyway, thanks Seam for being on today.
Yeah, my pleasure. And yeah, always happy to talk with you. Cool. All right.
Ciao.