How I Manage my Health

Here's what I'm doing after taking full ownership of my health

Over the past year, I’ve taken my health more seriously. I found the best tests available in the market, great concierge doctors to work with, and have learned a lot (and am continuing to learn). Here’s some info on how I’m approaching my health. This will be helpful if you’re exploring your own health journey or starting to take ownership of your health. I’ll walk you through the tests I do, the foods I eat, supplements I take, workouts I do, and some other weird & esoteric things I do/products I use.

Testing.

Here’s the tests I’ve done:

  1. Alzheimers: This test assesses genetic predisposition and early indicators of Alzheimer’s disease. The thing I like about genetic testing is you can identify where you have a genetic predisposition to a higher probability of some type of disease and then you can start incorporating proactive lifestyle behaviors to reduce that risk.
  2. Cholesterol Balance Test: evaluates heart health, cholesterol levels, and hormonal balance. A really interesting thing about this test is that it will identify if you naturally have a genetic predisposition to producing and absorbing more cholesterol than normal. For example, my body naturally produces and absorbs my cholesterol. Knowing this information helps me make intelligent decisions. For example, cutting Steak out of my diet won’t help me significantly given my body’s natural reaction to cholesterol. However, placing more emphasis on cardio will have a great impact.
  3. TruAge: this measures your biological age in comparison to your chronological age. Basically, how fast or slow are you aging.
  4. Grail: detects early signs of cancer.
  5. Blood Panel: tested over 90 biomarkers (testosterone, free test, LDL/ HDL, APOE, APOB, vitamin D/C/A/K, etc.)
  6. Dexa - checked body fat, visceral fat, muscle, etc. If you do this, make sure they will do both Body Composition and Bone Density Scan. You want to get both.
  7. Cleerly: test for heart disease and check arteries. This one is HUGE. Heart disease is the #1 cause of death in the US. In particular, they will look for plaque in your arteries. I’m pretty healthy and we had identified a small amount of plaque in my arteries and a tiny portion of it had calcified. It’s not a big issue today, but in 5-7 years it could start to become a real issue. I’m so happy I got this test. My cardio has changed significantly (aka I started actually doing cardio) — I talk about it more in the workout section later.
  8. MRI’s / Radiology Imaging: did Full Body MRI, bilateral joints, etc. The whole workup.
  9. Nutreval: micronutrients analysis, evaluates metabolic function, toxic exposure, mitochondrial dysfunction, fatty acid imbalances, and oxidative stress.
  10. Food Sensitivity: Determines how your body reacts to different foods. You’d be surprised by some foods you eat / spices you use that are spiking inflammation in your body or causing some other reaction you haven’t noticed before.

Stem Cells

I would frequently hurt my lower back over the years from squats and deadlifts. After getting the results of my MRI, we identified there was muscular degeneration in the L4/L5 region of my spine. We harvested my stem cells and also deployed them into the area. I’ll do it once again later this year. And I have my stem cells now banked for the future. In addition to that my MRI revealed some issues in one elbow and my shoulders. I get shockwave therapy for that from time to time.

Supplements

Based on the results of my tests, I take some supplements everyday (once in the morning + once in the evening). It’s 6 pills in the morning and 8 at night. Here’s some of of them below. One important thing to note is that there’s a lot of low-quality supplements out there. You have to get your supplements from legit manufacturers.

  • Probiotic
  • Betaine
  • Ayur-Ashwaganda
  • DHEA
  • Glutathione
  • Vitamin A
  • Alpha-Lipoic Acid
  • Liposomal Vitamin D (achieves better absorption in the body)
  • Magnesium Glycinate
  • Zinc
  • Fish Oil
  • Red Yeast Rice Synergy
  • Green powder - I take Yaeyama Chlorella. I think Athletic Greens is the mainstream popular solution for people looking for greens. But there’s a lot of unnecessary duplication of other supplements I’m taking and there isn’t enough of most of the individual components to be able to eliminate other supplements. They are a good option for people who are trying to get an all in one supplement if they aren’t taking anything else - it’s better than nothing but usually not ideal from an individualized perspective.

Workouts I do

My short-term/mid-term goal is to 1) add 30 pounds of muscle, 2) Increase my VO2 max, and 3) Improve my Cardiovascular Health. #2 and #3 will be easy, but #1 will be tougher. I think I could accomplish this in 18 months. It’s physically possible - it just takes some focus, hard work, consistency, and patience. My challenges are – given I’m doing significant cardio b/c of goals #2 and #3, it may be tougher to build muscle. Also, I love pizza. But we’ll test it and see how it goes!

I’m also doing some Mobility stuff. I think this is really important. Here’s the plan to get there:

  1. 3x/week - Lift weights
  2. 2x /week - 20 mins Zone 2 cardio + 4 min High intensity at end
  3. 1-2x/week - Zone 5 training (4 mins high intensity + 4 mins recovery, 4 rounds)
  4. Target 10k steps per day minimum
  5. Macros: Eat in 200 calorie deficit vs. baseline calories needed. Protein = 1.5x grams/pound of body weight; Carbs = >90% grams/pound; Fat = > 90% grams/lb

Food I eat

I’m prioritizing foods that are real and nutritious. Avoiding as much food as I can that is processed, has added sugars, or contains chemicals, or a bunch of ingredients that don’t look real to me. I’ll eat a diet that is high protein, fairly low carb, and mid-low fat. That mostly consists of mostly chicken and fish. I’ll have beef 1x/week max. Outside of that it’s mostly greens, healthy fats (nuts, olive oils, etc.), and fruits. I’m avoiding things like: burgers, fries, pizza, low-protein, candy, and “fake food”. Except for Sundays. I’ll give myself one day on the weekend to eat whatever I want. The rest of the 6 days are dialed in. We have a meal prep guy that cooks us food and drops it off twice a week. I highly recommend this. Especially for people who are busy and find it hard to meal prep yourself & stay consistent with it. For lunch, I’ll eat the same thing 6 days of the week: Chicken breast, greens, and a healthy fat (eg. avocado, nuts, olive oil). I drink alcohol at most once per month. And if I drink it’s only wine and no more than 2 drinks.

Peptides

Peptides are chains of amino acids. There’s Endgenous peptides (produced within your body) and Exogenous peptides (come from food, supplements, medications, etc). They’re necessary for many things from healing injures to how cells communicate with each other.

I take 2 peptides: BPC-157 and CJC 1295. BPC is helping with my lower back injury. CJC is going to help with fat loss, muscle growth, and recovery by helping my body produce more growth hormone. CJC has also improved my deep sleep.

Here’s some other things I do

  • Skincare routine: Here’s the products I use:
    • SkinCeuticals C E Ferulic. It’s like almost $200 a bottle which is annoying but it’ll last you at least a year. Their patent expires on their particular formula end of this year so I’m sure it will be much cheaper next year.
    • Kari Gran Essential SPF 30 Face Sunscreen: Mineral sun screen w/ non-nano zinc oxide (I’ll explain more below).
    • Vitamin C Face Wash
    • Rahua shampoo / body wash / conditioner.
  • Sunscreen: I think sunscreen is very important. But not all sunscreens are equal. In fact, most products are terrible for you. I use Mineral sun screens w/ non-nano zinc oxide. This protects against both UVA and UVB rays. It contains particles too large to be readily absorbed by the skin. Many sunscreens (particularly the non-Mineral based sunscreens) contain complex chemical ingredients that are easily absorbed into the skin and may lead to Endocrine issues. From a practical perspective, you need to rub the sunscreen in more with the mineral sunscreen because it can more easily leave a white tint because the particles are bigger. I buy my sunscreen from a company called Raw Elements. I originally heard about the dangers of low-quality sunscreen products from Justin Mares who has some good writing on it in this newsletter.
  • Tracking: I use the Oura Ring to track my sleep metrics and Apple Watch for my workouts. Something to note about the Oura – don’t get obsessed with your sleep score and constantly trying to improve it. I’ve seen people stress out over this and it’s not worth it. In fact, it makes your sleep worse. Just use it as a tool to be aware of what helps and hurts your sleep. And then make proactive lifestyle changes. Don’t stress about optimizing a number.
  • UV light sanitizer box: I throw my phone and iPad in here every evening.
  • Bright light in morning: I have this LED lamp in my bathroom that emits over 10,000 lux of light. I turn it on first thing in the morning when I go to the bathroom
  • Get outside and get sun: Try to spend at least 2 hours outside each day.
  • Mobility stuff everyday: every night I’ll do a mobility routine. Right now it consists of couch stretch, pigeon stretch, thoracic rotation and extension.
  • Water: I bought a 64 ounce water bottle off Amazon. I’ll drink at minimum at least 1 of those per day. Ideally I drink 2

So that’s the stuff I’m doing today. Hope this helps on your own journey. LMK how it goes!