197. Ben Greenfield: When Biohacking Goes Too Far—What Actually Matters for Longevity

What happens when optimizing your health starts taking over your life? Ben Greenfield has spent decades at the forefront of biohacking, fitness, human performance, and longevity—testing the technologies, tracking the biomarkers, competing at an elite level, and pushing his body to its limits. But after years of relentless self-optimization, he realized something important: living longer means very little if the pursuit of longevity takes you away from the people and experiences you're trying to live longer for. In this conversation, Ben opens up about the side of biohacking we don't talk about enough. He shares how his obsession with performance and optimization affected his marriage, his relationship with his children, and his own sense of fulfillment—and the moment he realized his priorities had to change. We explore how to find the line between taking care of your health and becoming consumed by it, why relationships and community may be among the most powerful longevity tools we have, and how Ben has radically simplified his approach to fitness while remaining exceptionally strong and healthy. In this episode, you'll learn: When biohacking and self-optimization can go too far Why Ben nearly lost his marriage—and the wake-up call that changed his priorities Why relationships, family, community, and purpose belong in the longevity conversation How to know when you're "healthy enough" instead of endlessly chasing better biomarkers Ben's current approach to strength, mobility, VO2 max, power, mitochondrial health, and cardiovascular fitness How he now stays fit with roughly an hour a day instead of allowing optimization to consume his life We also discuss body composition, wearables, sauna and cold exposure, healthy aging, family legacy, grief, and what losing his father taught Ben about our obsession with trying to outrun aging. The goal of longevity isn't to spend your entire life trying not to die. It's to build a body that allows you to fully participate in the life, relationships, and experiences that make those extra years worth having. Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: drshah.com https://drshah.com Clinic: next-health.com https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: @darshanshahmd and @extend_podcast Learn more about Ben Greenfield: Website: bengreenfieldlife.com https://bengreenfieldlife.com/ Instagram: @bengreenfieldfitness Thank You To Our Sponsors: Next Health Longevity Summit: Join us on September 12th at the Conrad Nashville for the FIRST Next Health Longevity Summit. Head to next-health.com/summit https://www.next-health.com/summit to purchase tickets, for my listeners only, I would love to offer you a discount code! Use code EXTEND25 at checkout and get a Summit Access Pass for $25! See you there! Momentous: Head to livemomentous.com https://livemomentous.com and use my code DRSHAH at checkout for up to %35 off at checkout!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Before we get started with this episode, I'd like to invite all of you to the first ever Next Health Longevity Summit, happening in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Conrad Hotel on Saturday, September 12th, 2026. This is an all-day summit where you're going to be hearing from some of the best speakers in longevity's medicine, including Dr. Vonda Wright, Dr. Luisa Nicola, many of the podcast guests that you've heard here on the Extend Podcast, and of course, I'm going to be there, curating the entire day. We also have incredible vendors coming, so you can try the latest technologies in health, wellness, and longevity. Go to next-health.com/summit and buy your ticket today. We only have 400 spots and

• 0:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  they're going quickly. That's next-health.com/summit. I look forward to seeing you all there. Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview

• 1:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 1:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend. I'm Dr. Shah. I'm dedicated to giving you the latest information on cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols to help you extend your health span. Today, I have a special guest. He's a pioneer in the world of biohacking and longevity, Ben Greenfield. Ben holds a bachelor's and master's degree in sports science and exercise physiology. He's a certified sport nutritionist and a strength and conditioning coach. He was voted America's Top Personal Trainer in 2008, and he's a bestselling author of over 17 books, including Boundless and Beyond Training. He's a former Ironman triathlete, a professional Spartan racer, and he's completed 13 Ironmans over 120 races. Today, we're going to dive

• 2:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  deep into the evolution of biohacking through Ben's eyes. I've had Ben on the podcast before, and it's incredible to see how he's come full circle in this entire movement of longevity. We're going to talk about his new documentary on his life, and how he discovered the balance between self-optimization and having a truly fulfilling life. Get ready for an illuminating conversation with Ben Greenfield.

• 2:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ben, this is awesome. Here we are again.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  It's good to be back, man. Studio's looking good.

• 2:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Getting more and more refined every time I'm here.

• 2:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes. You know, you've been, we were just talking, you've been podcasting for 20 years. This is like my second year now doing this, and I've learned so much from you, being on your podcast and how you do things.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  I was going to say, you probably haven't learned that much about my podcasting studio, because it's still pretty bare bones. It's like-

• 3:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You're still on a treadmill when you're podcasting, right?

• 3:10Speaker 01

  You're lucky if I put a shirt on, yeah, or pants. Yeah, I'm actually in the process of building like a real big boy studio right now.

• 3:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In your house?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Still in my house.

• 3:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Nice.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  But yeah, one where you actually sit down and you look like you actually thought it out, and you know, like you chessboard and plants and books.

• 3:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Make it look nice.

• 3:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to podcast with you there one of these days.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Come up to Idaho, be a guest.

• 3:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I will.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  On one of your frequent trips to North Idaho.

• 3:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. North Idaho is beautiful, though. It's gorgeous, especially where your house is.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's super alpine and mountainous, and then where we live, it's like out on what's called the Palouse, which are all the rolling hills of glyphosate-infused wheat. Fortunately, our neighbors don't spray, but because of that, like, we built this new house last year with just picture windows looking out over the prairie, and you just see like, friggin' like, God painting a sunset on the canvas every single night. And it is beautiful. It's big country out there.

• 4:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  And hopefully, this podcast does not get out there far, because I don't want the word to get out that Idaho is so cool.

• 4:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Go to Southern Idaho. Go there. Go to desert potato country.

• 4:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Everyone's leaving California. They're going to be making a bee line up to that.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  You know, you hear about stats like that, like that it is way more expensive to get a U-Haul from like, whatever, California to the inland northwest than it is back the other way, just based on the traffic coming up that direction.

• 4:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's absolutely, I see it happening in real time, but it's crazy. So this is like a full circle moment for me with you, because I remember first meeting you when you were coming out with your first Boundless edition, actually, and we did a huge book launch for you at the Century City Mall here in Southern California.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  That was super cool.

• 5:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That was really cool. Yeah, and I was like-

• 5:07Speaker 01

  I think even the mall cops were like getting all nervous, because we had like a line out the door. Yeah, you and me went on stage, we did the Q and A.

• 5:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I know. Yeah, and I was like, I was so just like, you were like, the biggest in biohacking, and you still are. Like, I mean, everyone knew you. People came from other states, and people even flew in to come to that-

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The book signing that you were having.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Go to the mall and get a book signed.

• 5:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And now, here we both are, you know, sitting here in my podcast studio, and you know, Next Health has grown to like 25 locations, and you are now today, and I'm super honored you did this today, because in just a few hours, it's going to be the premiere of a documentary about your life.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's incredible.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, the film Boundless. Yeah, that's why I'm in town. But yeah, it is funny, because I used to go to Next Health Century City, or I used to go to the Century City Mall, to go to, not Next Health, but actually, no offense, Sun Life, to get like a vegan donut or a billion-dollar smoothie or whatever. I used to like, look across the hallway, and I'd see Next Health, and I'm like, oh, it looks like kind of a cool place. You know, it almost looked, I think the way I described it when I did a blog post about you or whatever, was it looked like you walked into some spaceship, you know, with everything just like whitewashed and perfect and just so. And then, yeah, I think I wound up coming in there at one point and getting some treatments, and you and I met, and yeah, and now, look how it's grown. It's crazy.

• 6:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It is crazy. And you know, I feel like we've lived in real time, because this was way before COVID. We've lived in real time through the entire evolution of biohacking, which then became longevity, and in there were integrative and functional medicine, and this, like, everything has evolved so much, so rapidly in the last 10 years, or plus, that we've known each other.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, throwing a little spicy looks-maxing and everything.

• 7:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh. Wow, yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Breaking jaws. Taking crystal meth, yeah.

• 7:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. It is wild, right? And so, yeah, I would love to get like your perspective, like, how's the industry evolved since you started, where it was maybe five years ago, and where it is now?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I think the idea behind biohacking hasn't changed that much. Like, how can you science and technology and self-quantification to somehow get the body to operate in a more quick or efficient way than it might have been able to do in its native state, you know, in the same way that a computer hacker might hack an OS? I think the number of tools and technologies that are at the disposal of not just the Silicon Valley billionaire, but now the average consumer, has increased, right? Like, you can get your hands on some pretty good red light therapy, and you can, you know, not spend the equivalent of a sports car to get maybe like a soft-shell hyperbaric chamber in your house, and you can, you know,

• 7:59Speaker 01

  you can hunt down PMF, and now even, you know, peptides are becoming increasingly accessible. I think stem cell therapies are something that are no longer considered fringe, and a lot of the things that I think we would consider to be kind of along the lines of true biohacking have become more accessible. I still think that we have, we've wandered pretty far from like the OG biohacker idea, where you were wetware, and whatever you installed in your body was hardware, and you'd have like magnetic implants in your fingers to interact with screens, like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, or what, you know, like a compass that vibrates when you face true north, or, what's another one? They had like the chlorophyll injected into the eyeballs. Like, to me, like, when I hear biohacker

• 8:43Speaker 01

  still, you know, I kind of sort of shy away from calling myself a biohacker, because I'm like, not really. I just like work out and use technologies in an intelligent way, and now you can call yourself a biohacker if you put, you know, collagen in your lasagna or whatever. But I think the idea of thinking beyond, let's say, like, what we may have seen a lot in the health and fitness industry in the 80s and 90s, right? Just like, run, lift some weights, you know, eat, depending on the era that we're talking about, either low carb or low fat, and it's just like, you know, diet, nutrition, a few choice supplements and exercise is what you can do to get by and be healthy and live a long time. I certainly

• 9:26Speaker 01

  think that a lot of that forms the foundation of what we need to do. But there is so much more that we can get out of our body and brain when we use a lot of these other tools.

• 9:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And that all being said, I mean, you know, coming full circle back to this, this film, you can take a lot of this too far. Like, the whole world of self-optimization, at the same time that having more tools to be healthier and live longer, or have a good combination of health span and lifespan are at our disposal, those same tools, based on their accessibility and affordability, can now become pretty- Big distractions that lead you to self optimizing, selfish pursuit of health, unreal ideation of aesthetics and a lot of time spent in something that ultimately at the end of the day can be pretty unfulfilling or can at least be a little bit of a waste of time and money if you take it too far.

• 10:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think about your journey in particular, like you dedicated pretty much all of your life now to the writing of this field and also discovering and speaking about and talking about it. And you know, you talk about this a little bit in the movie. I've only seen a preview of the movie, but it did have some of those negative implications for you as far as, you know, relationships, family and maybe even your own health.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like, how did you talk a little bit about that? And how did you eventually find balance?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, part of it is that, you know, my background, like my formal education is in exercise physiology and biomechanics. And I think I did get lucky in that respect in that my whole pursuit of health and fitness and longevity was based on a core foundation of, you know, pardon the expression, like blood, sweat and tears, right? You don't, you don't see a lot of that in the whole like biohacking industry still, like people, you know, not to stereotype too much, but they still want the shortcut. They still want to pop the pill. They want to take the supplement. They want to, you know, maybe not go, you know, underneath a heavy barbell to do some squats or pick something heavy up. They want to just go lay on the PEMF mat and let that

• 11:35Speaker 01

  exercise the cells for them. It's like, well, you actually do need, need a good foundation, I think, no matter what. At the end of the day, there is some hard work that needs to be put in, not in a masochistic way. And I certainly got sucked down that rabbit hole, but, but definitely in an intelligent way. You do, you do need to load the body. It does need some hormetic stressors. Now, I started off in that whole world and just got deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of what else can we do to get the most out of the body and brain? I've always been wired up to be a little bit nerdy about this stuff. I was homeschooled K through 12, was very autodidactic. I like to take stuff apart and figure out the details and what made stuff tick. And so when I was in college, you know, I, I didn't just do

• 12:20Speaker 01

  the exercise physiology biomechanics, right? I did microbiology and biochemistry and O chem. Went so far as to take the MCATs, you know, I, I did a lot because I wanted to know everything I could about biology and anatomy and physiology. And then when I started all these personal training studios and gyms up in, in the Northwest, I was kind of known as the guy who was an early adopter of a lot of these technologies, right? We had one of the first PRP machines back in the day where we were, you know, drawing blood and spinning it and doing tennis elbows and indirect calorimetry for measuring carbon fat utilization during exercise, high speed video cameras for gait analysis, underwater video cameras for swim analysis.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  If, if, if there was something out there that could make somebody better, stronger, faster, I was, I was looking at it right away, especially from a technology standpoint. And, and I think that there's definitely something laudable about the idea of, of coming, going about getting the most out of the body in a really smart and efficient way. But then, like, there, there's a fine line between that and starting to do as much as you possibly can to either grasp at the straws of immortality or pursue aesthetics or what we now call looks maxing at all costs. Or engage in these elaborate, you know, you see this in our world, like two or three or four hour routines

• 13:48Speaker 01

  where you're doing all the things that you heard about on the podcast and you're writing the blogs and you're writing the books because you've convinced yourself that self optimization is the, the best mountain that you need to climb. I was convinced for the longest time that like Ironman triathlon and Spartan racing and adventure racing and all these adventures that I was off on the globe, around the globe doing were super important. And that was where I found my identity. I've seen other people get, get sucked into similar identity pursuit when it comes to health optimization, longevity optimization, et cetera. So I think what happened to me and what the film actually gets into is I realized that you can get pretty darn close to the top of the wrong mountain.

• 14:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Right. Your, your pursuit of fitness, your pursuit of longevity, your pursuit of aesthetics. Cause I, I got pretty far up those mountains, right? Like I was one of the fittest guys in the world. I did Ironman world championships six times. I was competing professionally in, in obstacle course racing. I was a, just a massive chunk of bodybuilding muscle before I even got into those sports. I played tennis at a high level. I, you know, I started to get into the, the self quantification world and, you know, really dialed in blood and biomarkers and, and every last thing that you could optimize. And I was also making pretty good money and making a name for myself at the same time. I mean, in, in 2008, I was literally like voted as America's top personal trainer. And I'm like on the covers of these fitness magazines and

• 15:15Speaker 01

  you know, on all, all the podcasts and, and my family life was kind of falling apart at the same time. Like you'll, you'll see this in the film, like my wife and I almost got a divorce. I was not very present for the first six years of my son's life. I grew distant from my community, from, from my relationships, from the things in life that we know, not just intuitively, but also scientifically are what really make us happy, really make us fulfilled, really paradoxically, in this case, contribute the most to longevity and health. And all of that was slipping away from me while at the same time I was deep in the world of self optimization and it took almost losing

• 16:01Speaker 01

  the stuff that is the most important in life to realize that all this other stuff is just filler, right? And there's definitely something admirable about the pursuit of health and fitness and keeping yourself in good shape. But there's a difference between finding that ideal combination of health span and lifespan that equips you to go out and make the most impact with whatever it is that you've been called to do for this world and spending all of your time trying to look, feel and perform like a, you know, supermodel pro athlete, right? And, and it's that latter part that I think a lot of people are starting to get sucked into.

• 16:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I, I fully agree with that. And I think, you know, what is the purpose of all the things that we're doing here, right? As far as optimizing our health and getting, getting our biomarkers exactly dialed in. The purpose of that is really to have more time on this planet to spend with the people that we love, doing the things that we love, right?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  When you do the optimization, at such a high degree that you sacrifice that time for what the original reason was, you're doing it in the first place, it gets very, it's paradoxical and you end up then regretting it. And that's, that's sometimes I think where, you know, I found myself in that place too, you know, like with this business, just going out there and doing all the things that, that I wanted to learn about it. I want to see how it affected me. And I saw the positive effects and before you knew it, my wellness routine was six hours a day, right?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and then you combine that with, and this is a thing now that you see, I, I think it, it almost parallels a little bit of the controversial discussion right now about the drop in masculinity that seems to be occurring, you know, with men who are not going out and doing dangerous things, not going out and whatever, like talking to girls at a bar or, you know, and or, or, you know, engaging in what might be considered dangerous or even risky activities because they're just completely satisfied with, with VR and porn in their parents' basement. And that's just life and it's very safe and it's in this protected bubble and it's very controllable.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  And you can kind of draw a corollary between that and health optimization. You can get to the point where like, you're not like out in the sun, you're not swimming with the sharks, you're not going out and climbing mountains or staying out past your bedtime dancing and having an extra glass of wine on a date night with your wife because everything is about self optimization. And anybody who stepped outside of that, especially after being stuck in like this, you know, optimize health at all cost world for a while, realizes that gosh, it actually is kind of fun to just like, you know, throw a dinner party and have people over and stay out past your bedtime. I'm, I'm working on a father, son adventure guidebook right now.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  And we are skydiving and swimming with sharks and, you know, we were last week, you know, hunting hogs with knives in the middle of the night down in Florida and doing things that, that definitely are not going to help me live a long time and that many people would probably label as mildly stupid things that, that could threaten to shorten your lifespan. But man, like living life to the fullest and doing so in a responsible way. But in a manner that, that, that doesn't put health optimization at the very top of the totem pole, I think is a much more fun and fulfilling way to live your life than to just like be in this protected optimization bubble 24/7.

• 19:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 19:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 20:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 20:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Was there like a moment in time where you decided to make like an abrupt shift? Did something happen or where you said, I need to refocus on my family and my relationships?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So my wife and I were like, starting to fight more and more. And this was like 10 ish years ago, to the point where it was pretty obvious that things were not gonna work out. And we were starting to talk about getting a divorce. And you know, there were a couple of times where she just like left the house with the boys. And you know, and when, when that happens and they're gone and I'm home by myself, it's like, gosh, what the hell is going on with my life right now? Like, I've got everything put together by, you know, by what the world would judge to be. When, when, when looking at me from the outside, but everything's just like falling apart here at home. And there was, there was one day where I just like went on a long walk and I came back.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  I remember just like holding my wife and sobbing out in the driveway and telling her that things were gonna change. And they did like, like that was when I really buckled up and I was like, okay, I need to be present for my family. I had to shift the priorities instead of the priorities being health and business at the top. And then my faith and my family and my community at the bottom. Now, like the actual order of priorities is my faith, my spiritual walk, my time with God, my time with my spouse, my time with my kids. The family, the legacy, the community, and then comes health and then finally comes business. Right. And a lot of people have that asked backwards because it's very easy.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Again, to stereotype a little bit, I think especially for men to be off slaying dragons and sending home the paycheck and justifying to yourself that you're not there just because you're like providing for the family, when in fact, the, the thing is the most important. It's right there in front of you is being neglected. And it was, it was almost losing that. And then at the same time, beginning to, to schedule and calendar and prioritize the type of things that gave me the boundaries that I needed. And what I mean by that is we did a lot of family legacy work. We created like a family constitution and a family logo and a family mission statement and a family crest and family values.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  And we started to implement a lot more like day to day comings and goings that helped us stay together as a family. It helped me to lead better as like a father and a husband. So, and, and we still do to this day. I mean, my sons are 18, they're, they're still both at home. We have a morning family huddle at 7:00 AM where we all gather and we sing and we pray and we read and we talk. And we just have this first like 15 minutes of the day that's just like us together. And then 7:00 PM, same thing. We have like an evening family dinner time where I bust out the guitar and we sing a song together. And we pray again and we bring out food that everybody has prepared to eat and we play family games. And we've got one-on-one date nights with the boys that we do and one-on-one date nights with my wife and I.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  And all of that was just like Lucy Goosey up until about 10 years ago. And, and then, and I have a, I have a book that kind of flies under the radar called Boundless Parenting.

• 23:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I was just gonna mention Boundless Parenting.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  I talk about that book a lot, but it's, it outlines a lot of this. And like the family constitution has grown big time. Like it's like almost 150 pages long and it has my sons, interviews with me and interviews with mom. My interviews with my own parents, our family tree, our family like end of life and memorial plan wishes are what we do on Christmas, on Easter, on Thanksgiving. These day-to-day comings and goings. And everything that, that it means to like be a greenfield is in that document, which will be something I can hand to my sons when they go off and start their families to kind of like pass on not just generational wisdom, but also generational wealth.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I mean, like, like a lot of this, if you look at, for example, uh, you know, wealthy families like the Rockefellers, for example, there's typically a family constitution that's tied to a family trust. The family trust is where the family wealth resides. But the only way for an heir to actually tap into the wealth in the family trust is if they're actually adhering to what is spelled out in the family constitution. So this, this is all stuff that I've just like learned along the way. But, but one of the, one of the sparks for me to start to learn about this, like, well, what does it actually mean to like have a really strong family and be connected with them? And, and to build these relationships that give you the most fulfillment in life resulted in me talking to a lot of these like legacy building experts. Some people who, who walk in the same circles that you and I are in.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Rich Christensen is one guy with Legato Family Foundation. He was really good. My family and I spent like three days at a cabin with him. Garrett Gunderson, I think you know him or maybe.

• 25:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think so. Yeah.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's like a financial advisor, but he also does a lot of like legacy based work. Uh, and he has a book called Habits of the Rockefellers.

• 25:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's right.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  There's another guy named Jeremy Pryor, who's really good, who, who gets into the idea of the American sense of like individualism, go out, carve your own path, be whoever you want to be is good to a certain extent. But it has created kind of a shift from these like nuclear families where like, you know, the, the children grow up doing some of the things that their parents done and it did. And that wisdom was passed on to them, just like everybody's like scattering and going off on their own adventures. And so what sparked me just like delving into all of this though, was nearly losing the family.

• 25:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  And then realizing, hey, you know what? I bet life is, is a lot more than just like, again, like how do I look, feel and perform? And you know, how many Ironman triathlons do I have under my belt? And how much time do I spend in the gym and how perfect is my diet and my biomarkers? It's like, that stuff is important to a certain extent, but man, it's, it's not fulfilling at the end of the day.

• 26:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  And this film is about like, where do you, where do you strike the balance? You know, how can you be healthy and still have like lasting, meaningful, fulfilling relationships at the same time?

• 26:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So true. And I think that it's easy to go down the rabbit hole of physical optimization because we have markers to track these, right? And we can look at our whoops and we can look at our biomarkers and we can say, okay, I'm headed in the right direction. But unfortunately, when it comes to like these fuzzy topics of family, community, uh, relationship with your children, there's really no biomarker. So it's really easy for this to like go in the wrong direction because you, you know, a lot of people like us, we're numbers guys. Like we like to see the numbers being exactly dialed in and there's not a marker of that. And what, what ends up happening is it goes in the wrong direction for years and years and years, just like your health does for years when you're not looking at your biomarkers. And then you end up in a really bad place and you were lucky enough to be able to turn that around.

• 27:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I actually read, uh, I think like about half of Boundless Parenting as well, because I remember when you wrote it and you put it out there. You were telling me some stories about these, uh, things that you did with your kids, like you let them go out into the forest by themselves and find their way home. Exactly. The rites of passage. Yeah.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you know, I think it takes energy and effort to be able to do those things, just like it does for your own health, right? Like to put your kids out of the forest and have them find the way home. You spend hours and weeks training them yourself out in the forest with them.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And, um, you know, without putting that amount of energy into your children, you end up ending in a bad place. Same with your wife.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it's, but it's messy, right? Like people are messy. Like, and, and the health optimization world is something that's really attractive because it's a way that we can control. Well, and that's good to a certain extent. Like if I have a really stressful day and I can go to the gym and just like control what I'm doing and, and move heavy stuff and breathe hard and direct my body in a certain way, then the rest of the day goes a lot better because I've, I've done something I can control. And the same thing like if, if something stressful has happened and I like go hit the sauna and jump in the cold plunge. And I'm just like shifting my physiology in a way that I can control. That's really valuable in many ways.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  But that same feeling of power and control that a reasonable amount of physical activity or self-optimization can give you is the same feeling of control that can result in body dysmorphic disorder and anorexia and bulimia. And looks maxing to the extent to where it becomes selfish or harmful to yourself or others. Uh, it's very similar to the dopaminergic stimuli that's generated from chronic repetitive endurance sports. Like triathlon and marathoning and, and these things that we know when overdone can contribute to arterial stiffness and atherosclerosis and, and thyroid deprivation and endocrine disruption and, and joint issues.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  And it, one of the reasons is that it feels good. It feels good to produce forward motion. It feels good to be in control when, when you're moving and eating. And this is like the one thing like I can actually control, like what I'm putting in my mouth and how I move in my body. That's great. But that, the same elements that make these things beneficial to a certain extent can make them harmful and addictive and selfish pursuits. If you don't check yourself, create boundaries and just have like the self-awareness. Like that's a big part of what I hope this film does is create the self-awareness in people for them to realize that, oh, maybe I am taking this a little bit too far. And maybe this isn't where all of my happiness is going to come from, right?

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe me going after veins in my abs is like, at the end of the day, not going to be the thing that actually makes me happy. And you know, don't get me wrong, like having a strong core is great for longevity and great for you being able to help others in life. But yeah, it is, it is kind of like paradoxical and I think it's, it's a soft science, right? It's a little bit Lucy Goosey to determine like how much is too much. Now you mentioned wearables, metrics. I think that those can actually help to a certain extent, right? If you're, if your goal, let, let's say, let's say whatever, like your readiness score, your sleep score, your HRV. If you're trying to get those to be perfect versus like you have a certain range that you're shooting for, like, like.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  If I can have a sleep score from like, whatever, like eighty-five to ninety-five, but but get a few extra, whatever, like date nights with my wife during the month and then spend some time with my kids and then maybe get up a little bit earlier to work on some projects, but short sleep a little bit. That's great. You look at guys like, there's a lot of people, I haven't done this yet, but there's a lot of people who have produced metrics. What I mean by that is like, how long can you hang from a bar?

• 31:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Um, can you deadlift your body weight plus fifty percent? How long can you hold a plank? What is your VO2 max, which is easily calculable even at home now with things like carol bike, or you don't have to go to an actual physiology lab.

• 31:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  What would be a couple of other examples? Uh, how many pushups can you do unbroken? You know, what is your, what's your average walking speed or even just your step count during the day? And if you have a list like that and people like, like Dan John, Mark Sisson, uh, Kelly Starrett, Peter Attia, like, like if you start to delve into some of these like books and resources out there, a lot of people have created their version of like, well, here's, here's like some of the metrics that you should go after as you age. If you have a list like that, and I should put one together at some point, I would love to. And you just know, okay, well, that's good enough. Like I can plank for three minutes. I've made it. Great. I don't have to get to six minutes. I don't have to get to eight minutes. I can hang from a bar for two minutes. I'm good.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  And if you know, like what it takes to actually like be healthy and live a long time and then you can get there and just be like, all right, I'm good. I don't have to go farther. I don't think you're shorting yourself or being lazy if that's the case. I think that more people could benefit from some kind of healthy metrics that allow them to define like, well, have I made it? Do I still need to go farther? Have I taken this too far? You know, cause, cause like you know this, like you, you can stay pretty fit and pretty useful to the world by devoting about an hour or so a day to taking care of your body.

• 32:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Right? As long as you're engaged in like low level physical activity throughout the rest of the day and not, you know, not, you know, eating ultra processed food all day long. You can do pretty well with that amount of time carved out.

• 32:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, that's such a great point. So this list that you're talking about, I actually have one on my website at drshah.com/fitness. Yeah. I collected all these different metrics from like the people you mentioned and some of the ones that I like as well. And I put them just in a list like, and I, what I love about this list is like, it gives me a place for my patients to aim for, right? And then also you keep checking it like once a year, maybe you just do the whole list and see where you're at. I like to do it once a quarter just to see where I'm at. And I've added like grip strength in there with a dynamo and those kinds of things. And it gives people a place to aim for, but I think what you're saying is the opposite, the reverse, coming at it from the reverse angle is also valuable because now you know that once you've got there, that's good enough. You don't have to keep going and investing even more time. Right? Exactly.

• 33:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You've got there, maintain, and now the rest of the time that you have is for other pursuits in life.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Like body fat percentage. I was talking with somebody the other day and they're like, yeah, and it was a guy and he was at like fourteen percent body fat, which is great for a lot of people. And, and he's like, and I'm naturally really lean, like I eat like a horse and I just like, I'm at about six and a half or seven percent body fat and that's not intentional. I just like, that's, that's my genetics. And this guy is like, dude, I'm coming for you. I'm going after single digits. And I just did a podcast where I, I delved into the actual research on the combination of both attractiveness. Just like, you know, sexual aesthetic attractiveness and health from like, like an endocrine standpoint or fertility standpoint.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  And the sweet spot for guys is about fifteen percent.

• 34:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Right? So if you're a guy and you're listening in, and by the way, for women, it's around, it depends. It's a little bit more variable, but it's like twenty to thirty percent. Definitely not single digits and definitely not below fifteen percent. But like, if you're a guy and you're at fifteen percent body fat, congratulations. Like you don't necessarily have to go lower than that and, and you know, spend an extra three minutes every day in the whatever, the cold plunge to strip extra fat off your body. It's like, I think some people just need to understand that more is not better and you can reach a certain point and just sustain. And then guess what? You've got time left over to hang out with the family and pursue relationships and, you know, pick up guitar, piano and, you know, read some fiction. It's like, doesn't have to all be, you know, all day long optimization.

• 35:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. And also there's something really admirable about sustaining, especially as you age past your forties and fifties, because it does take work to sustain, right? But if you know what your metrics are and you're holding to them and you've gotten them normalized for the least risk for that age of your life, like you're going to work to sustain, right? It's still going to take like, to your point, and at least an hour a day. And that's good. Like you should be spending that on yourself, but not two, three, four, six hours a day. I just think that, you know, sometimes at Next Health, we see people in there and they come in for like five hours. I'm like, wow, that, that's great. I love it that you have a place to go, but I'm hoping you're not doing this like, you know, three or four days a week because you're spending too much time on this.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Right. Unless it's your job. Like if you're a pro athlete or I don't know, maybe in Hollywood, like there's, there's a few jobs where it's just like, yeah. Part of like, you're just like in charge of making your body do or look a certain way.

• 36:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Cause you're getting paid for it.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

• 36:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. So, you know, I think like this bubbles up for me, um, the value of community, family, uh, relationships and longevity, right? And so we know there's science around this. The people that are the happiest in life and live the longest, even disease free, have a very tight relationship with their community.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so, you know, I think about all the people that are doing the looks maxing and the, you know, the biohacking to the nth degree, but they don't have a community and they actually live less time than the ones that aren't, right? And so it's, it's so important for people to make this a part of the program.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, you know, um, being ostracized, um, being excommunicated.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Some, something happens physiologically inside of us. Rise in blood pressure, increase in sympathetic nervous system activity, increase in heart rate, increase in cortisol. When we are in a situation in which we feel socially isolated because that would have been a survival mechanism at one time. Like if you were banished from the, the village, like the primal village and you were out on your own in the jungle with a saber tooth tiger, then a big part of your body was screaming for you to figure out a way to get back around people. Right? And now we don't necessarily have the danger of, you know, in most cases, you know, being forced to wander around in our loincloths, you know, out in the middle of the forest.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  But those same physiological mechanisms kick in when we don't have what even our subconscious reptilian brain would perceive as love and relationships and community in our lives. And interestingly, we can do that to ourselves. Like we can create that for ourselves. We can have the majority of our relationships be digital, uh, which in no way replicates a real flesh and blood relationship when it comes to, you know, whatever. The oxytocin or the pressure receptors in the skin or the eye contact or the brain and heart wave synchronization or anything else that happens when you're in the same room with somebody. But we can, in addition to, to thriving on just digital relationships,

• 38:12Speaker 01

  go down this route of self optimization that again, doesn't leave the time to build the relationships, to have the family dinners, to throw the community dinners, to go out to concerts and events and activities with other people that take you all past your bedtime or wake you up too early. And when you start to strip all of that away, as you were just alluding to, you remove what even Harvard's longest running study on longevity has shown to be the most important thing when it comes to lifespan. And that is the quality of the relationships and the amount of love that's in your life. Now, some people might hear that and be like, so you're saying I should go be around people to keep my

• 38:54Speaker 01

  telomeres from excessively shortening. It's like, well, don't, don't think about it that way. Like, don't do it. Be like, don't take your frigging like spouse on a date and be like, I'm doing this because my HRV is going to be higher tomorrow because I'm with you.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  But do it because you, you really truly want to love other people and be with other people and serve other people. And I think that's where the magic is. I think there's, there's something about, um, subjecting yourself to the messiness of other human beings, learning how to put up with that and eventually learning how to love that and serve others and thrive on that. That somehow sparks this response in the human body that, that also makes us healthier. And as you were just saying, even healthier than the amount of time that you spend at the gym.

• 39:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. It's, um, it's really interesting. I just had an evolutionary biologist on the podcast and we were talking a little bit offline and some of the conversation got to the emotion of love and how love is really like a bio, evolutionary advantage. Because when you don't have someone to love, you are usually alone and being alone, you're just much more likely to be, you know, like you said, eaten by a saber tooth tiger or die, right? Humans, humans are, have taken over the world because of our ability to really thrive in communities, right? And make those communities larger and more successful and less dangerous, right? And so this is built into our biology and unfortunately, like many things, we've

• 40:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  evolved past our biological evolution and we've created these devices that now keep us glued to them, thinking that we're having relationships that create some of these same emotions, right? Dopamine, oxytocin. And it tricks us, right? And, but our physiology still suffers.

• 40:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's not helping at all, right?

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because you think about it like, like two ways. Yes, you, you want love in your life because of the, the amount of satisfaction and potential, just like parasympathetic activation that it can give you. And then there's times when you don't want oxytocin, right? Like, you know, when, when intranasal oxytocin became a thing. I think I've said this on the podcast, I'm like, don't go buy a used car when, you know, right after you've had an orgasm or done intranasal oxytocin or anything like that, because it actually makes you very trusting of other human beings, much more likely to be in a lovable and loving state, you know, increased parasympathetic activity. So there are some situations in which you, you, you do want to, uh, to, to grind and be a little bit hard and avoid the oxytocin.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  But for the most part, you know, having those elements in your life is the most important thing.

• 41:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, life is always throwing us curveballs and, um, one of the things that happens to every single one of us at some point is we end up experiencing massive grief from a loss, right? And I think one of the things you talked about in the movie, if I'm not mistaken, is the loss of your father. Is that correct?

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  When did that happen in your timeline? And can you talk about the impact of that and how you recovered?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think that maybe like a lot of people in in the world that we're in, the whole health optimization world, they really like put togetherness in sometimes almost like an obsessive compulsive fashion like and and I have for my entire life, like really enjoyed, you know, order and um health and togetherness and things not being broken. And if if if I own something like a bicycle or a motorcycle or guitar to have like a little chip or a dent, it would just like drive me nuts. And I still have like brain rumination thing where like if

• 42:37Speaker 01

  some problem isn't solved, it will drive me nuts until that thing has been delegated to somebody else or written down or calendared to fix. And my dad, he he came down with colon cancer about three and a half years ago. And, you know, as as my little make everything perfect brain wanted to do, I just went into full on like save dad mode. Because I thought that that I had it in me to be able to just like connect him with all the right people and all the right medications and all the right clinics and just like fix him and make him whole and, you know, get back to everything just like being in order.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  And it was anything but that, right? It was it was messy and it was painful and it was super difficult to watch and, you know, and and witness, you know, the man who raised me basically just like, you know, shrink down to to nothing and eventually, you know, pass away while I was right there in the room with him. And that and there there's kind of a a part of the film where I'm out by his gravesite, which is on my land in Idaho, talking about how it's is that brokenness that we become most intimately familiar with

• 43:57Speaker 01

  when we're around death, such as the death of a loved one, that is the same brokenness that exists in every human being. And rather than trying to attempt to create some fake element of perfection in our life, we should accept the fact that we are all broken to a certain extent, like entropy happens, dude. Like you and I, even sitting here right now, like, we're both aging males, like, we we are experiencing sarcopenia and testosterone depletion. And, you know, our brains are probably going to be more tangled in 10 years than they are right now. And and there's plaque deposition and stiffness and arteries

• 44:42Speaker 01

  occurring and all these things that even though you and I are very healthy, at the end of the day, all of this is going to fade. Like, we're all broken creatures. And if we pour all of our energy into just like keeping ourselves from being broken and denying that that's ever going to happen, then we're gonna be pretty shocked at the end of the day when we're on our deathbed and we think back, we're like, gosh, like, why did I spend so much time trying to keep the shell put together when it's that spark, that eternal spark inside? That's what matters most. And if you look at the finite around us, like the finite is the money in the cars and the homes and the sex and the health and six pack abs and the glutes and even the things that we're on top of right now, like the hyperbaric machines and the red light and the crowd therapy and all that cool shit.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Like, at the end of the day, it's helping us to keep something together that is going to fade in the end. But once you understand that it is the the eternal that is the most fulfilling, right? Like, we have this eternal yearning in our soul for something infinite. And we are surrounded by a bunch of other infinite eternal beings. And when we start to fill that eternal hole in the soul with that deep spiritual connection, that sacred connection to other people and prioritize relationships and family and and for me as a man of faith, even my relationship with God. And we fill a hole with that stuff,

• 46:07Speaker 01

  all these other things, kind of paradoxically, become more fulfilling and they become more meaningful and your perspective on them shifts. But for me, it took my father's death to reinforce even more that that pattern that I'd been developing over the past several years that do like, you need to check yourself with how much time you're spending on something that eventually is gonna fade away and we're all gonna be on our deathbed at that point. Like, what is it that you want to look back and realize that you've really prioritized in life? And for me, like, I want to be close to my wife. I want to be close to my sons. I want to be close to God. I want to be close to my community. Like, those are the things

• 46:49Speaker 01

  that that you that that are ultimately just like eternal.

• 46:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow. Yeah. It's so incredible to see like your personal evolutions as I've known you, you know, you you you're one of the people like from your background, just the knowledge that you come from, and you're an incredibly smart guy, you've given, you know, you you've done the deepest dive ever into all of these technologies. I mean, this book is like a textbook boundless behind me over here. It's a textbook. I'm so glad you updated it, too. That's great. It it really shows where you are now, how important it is to make this a focus of your energy, because you've you've basically lived deeply in that other world of being deep into science and doing all of this for your body and your brain and, you know, the the whether you want to call it biohacking longevity, whatever

• 47:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  it is. And now to see where you've ended up, it is kind of like a lesson learned for all of us. Like, you know, listening to this podcast, I'm sure a lot of people that listen to this, they're deep in the self optimization space, self quantification place. But you being the OG and Gavin gone through this journey to hear this from you is just is just really a lesson for all of us to learn and don't learn it too late.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly. And that's that's what this this film is. It's a wake up call for a culture that is potentially obsessed with health and self optimization. And it's instead really meant to to shine a light on what's really important.

• 48:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I can't wait to watch it tonight. I'm so glad I'm.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  And by the way, I still do inject peptides and I just did stem cells at Next Health yesterday. It's like, I still do these things, but but it's a different perspective.

• 48:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's a difference. I think specifically, to me, it sounds like you've changed your allocation of time, allocation of mental resources to focus more on family, God, community, and make that the priority. And then I think, you know, just changing that allocation and prioritization leads to you being still an extremely healthy individual, but still fulfilled now, which is before you were healthy, but maybe not so fulfilled.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? Yeah. So, you know, it seems like in this journey over the last few years that you've had, you've probably like really honed down your routines, your activities into what is like the most valuable, right? So I'm gonna take it back to, you know, the medical and the biohacking stuff.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What do you find now, from your perspective now, is the most valuable four or five things that you do?

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Yep. You know, as as a good little physiologist would, I chunk I chunk the the body into systems.

• 49:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yep.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  And so the areas that in no particular order of importance, I suppose, I focus on the most now are number one, mobility and what I would call young muscle, right? Like working out fascial adhesions, doing deep tissue work, doing foam rolling, using a percussion gun, getting a massage twice a month. And for me, um, kind of tying this into the whole spiritual thing, like, I wake up in the morning and I listen to the Bible. And while I'm listening to the Bible, I spent 20 minutes doing mobility, foam rolling, stretching, and just like laying that foundation of fascial integrity and mobility. So that's one. Number two is strength, the ability to produce large amounts of force. And I've found that

• 50:08Speaker 01

  unlike my old days that you might have labeled as like CrossFit-esque, high rocks-esque, Spartan-esque style metcon training, I do a lot of just like super slow controlled lifting for my strength. I actually have a machine called an ARX for this, and I do it twice a week. And I can do a full body workout in about 25 minutes. And when I travel, I actually kind of like to hunt down the machines I used to just like joke about, like the Nautilus machines or whatever, because like I can get a pretty darn good workout and stay strong without injury with just like leg press or squat, deadlift, chest press, overhead press, pull down, row.

• 50:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's it.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Just a few single sets of failure. Number three would be power, the ability to generate large amounts of force in a short period of time. You could use kettlebells for this. You could use calisthenics for this. I like sports, right? So I play tennis, I play pickleball, um, I chase my boys around, I play a little bit of ultimate frisbee, but I find that I can get pretty good fast twitch utilization when I travel and I have less access to those type of things. I'll usually throw down something like a quick kettlebell workout or something where where I'm producing power, just because you're not getting a lot of that like fast twitch type 2B type of stuff when you're doing strength training or super slow strength training. Number four would be lactate tolerance, the ability to be able to buffer lactic acid,

• 51:26Speaker 01

  either converting it via the coricycyle back into glucose or buffering it otherwise. For that, I'm a huge fan of Tabata sets and I'll often use those as a quick starter or finisher for a strength training set. That would be eight rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. So when you're looking at lactic acid accumulation, if you use like a two to one work to rest ratio, if you think about it, you're building up lactic acid more quickly than it can be removed and it doesn't take long. You're just trying to like flood yourself with lactate. Another really good way to do that is with blood flow restriction bands.

• 51:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  And you could just basically take your strength training workout and do that with some BFR bands on if you wanted to do the lactic training at the same time.

• 52:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Are you doing it about on the treadmill, bike, or just whatever you can find?

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Whatever. Like I did the others, burpees.

• 52:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Just crank out 10 burpees, take a few breaths, crank out another 10 burpees and do eight rounds of that.

• 52:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  And then number five would be VO2 max. A lot of people talk about that now. I won't lie, like the four by four, you know, classic, you know, whatever they call it, the Norwegian trip. Basically, the idea with VO2 max is if if you were to do, and I don't think there's ever actually been a meta analysis on this, but I've just seen enough of these studies, if you do about a four to six minute effort and you do that four to six times through. With a one to one work to rest ratio, then you can keep your VO2 max elevated or even increase it by doing that once every one to two weeks.

• 52:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Right. So this would literally be just like hop on an aerodyne, warm up four minutes, jam hard four minutes, maximum sustainable pace, recover four minutes, do that four times through. That's your VO2 max protocol. Uh, and then the last two, uh, number six and seven would be, uh, your mitochondrial health. So whereas lactic acid would be more like a two to one work to rest ratio. And whereas VO2 max training would be longer efforts with a one to one work to rest ratio, mitochondrial stimuli is best achieved with short bursts followed by luxuriously long recovery periods. So this would be like a 10 to 30 second sprint within like two minutes of really easy recovery and doing that anywhere from eight to 10 times through.

• 53:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  And then the last piece is your fat burning capacity. And a lot of people like go all cardio bunny and spend way too much time on this. But what I mean by fat burning capacity is like, I think once a week is a pretty good sweet spot for this is what I go for. Go out and do something for a long period of time at a easy aerobic conversational pace with a minimum amount of like trail food and energy bars and you know, nuts and stuff going down there. So for me, sometimes this is just like go play 18 holes of frisbee golf.

• 54:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  You know, with a bottle of water and my kids, you know, without having eaten breakfast and you know, and so you're kind of like doing fast and long fat loss style cardio. It might mean riding a bike, you know, eight miles down the road to your favorite coffee shop, having a coffee or a tea and, and riding home. It might mean just like going for a hike with a good audio book or podcast in, um, but about once a week going out and going just like moving 90 minutes to two hours or so. Uh, if you were to string all that stuff together, mobility, strength, power, lactate tolerance, VO2 max, mitochondrial capacity and fat loss together and do that in a week, you can easily fit that approximate one hour per day of self optimization that you and I were talking about. And then the only other

• 54:45Speaker 01

  thing I would throw in there is I have to give a head nod to thermal stress.

• 54:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Right. I act like I do that stuff, but then typically at about like four or five o'clock in the afternoon, I take a quick break from work, go out, sit in the sauna, 15 minutes is my sweet spot, jump in the cold plunge, go back to work. Uh, there's, there's a lot that thermal stress does for you. And so I definitely weave that into the day too.

• 55:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. That's awesome. What a great protocol. I think that, you know, to just have all that kind of spelled out. I think it's going to be extremely valuable. And we'll link it all in the show notes and type it out for people. But I, I know, I've known you for many years and your workouts have changed and they've gotten more and more efficient over time.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And, um, it's incredible to see where you've ended up at this one hour a day. I think it's perfect. And, uh, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to give that whole protocol a try myself at you this weekend.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Sweet. Do it. I mean, don't do it all at once.

• 55:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, no, no, no. Yeah. I'm going to get started on it. This was awesome, man. I can't wait to, uh, see the documentary, see the kids in their life again. And it's been awesome. Yeah. And, um, so for people that want to watch documentary after they see this, where can they go see it?

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Um, right now we are, uh, depending when this comes out, uh, probably still going to be showing some screenings around the country, Austin, New York City, Miami, I think London's on the list, possibly Australia, boundlessdoc.com is in boundless documentary, boundlessdoc.com. And then around October, so it'll probably go to streaming.

• 56:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. Fantastic. And, um, if people want to read more about some of the things you talked about with the parenting techniques and the family work that you've done, I really like Boundless Parenting. I think that's, that's a fantastic book. So I know it's a under the radar book, but it's a great book.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's, it's the one that I might consider to be the most meaningful book. Though I actually have a few spiritual titles, Endure, Fit Soul, The Spiritual Disciplines Journal and Boundless Parenting. And those books to me like inside, based on everything we've just got done talking for the past hour, like those are the most meaningful. So.

• 56:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. And what's the next book?

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Uh, Father, Son Adventure Guidebook with the current working title is Boundless Together.

• 56:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Boundless Together. Love that. Boundless Together. I have a son, so we're going to, yeah, we're going to buy that one for sure. Thank you, man.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 57:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you liked this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and it's always important to seek their guidance.