This 55-Year-Old Mom Is Reversing Aging Faster Than Pro Biohackers With Just $106 Per Month!

And I've just always been pretty careful about eight hours of sleep. I think I learned that from my dad. And I just kind of have safeguarded it pretty much my whole life. But I wear a sleep mask, I do the mouth tape. I make sure I'm for the most part, in bed by nine. Again, having a teenager, that makes it kind of hard. But in bed by 9. And then I'm probably lights out by 9:15, 9:30. And my alarm is set for 5, 5:15, depending on the.

Listening to my show, you probably have heard of longevity and anti aging and age reversal before, but maybe you haven't heard of this thing called the Rejuvenation Olympics. It's like this, this leaderboard where people can submit the results of a test. It's a very cool test. It's called the Dunedin Pace Test. And I won't go into all the details of it now, but basically these researchers followed people for years and years and they tested their blood and their grip strength and all these different markers of longevity. And then via what's called a regression analysis, they basically dialed in one single blood test that could, with pretty good accuracy, measure your biological age or more appropriately, your rate of aging. So I've done this test. There's this whole leaderboard at Rejuvenation Olympics. And a lot of the people who you might be familiar with in the anti aging industry have done it. You know, like Brian Johnson is probably the most prolific guy. You know, he's designed this advanced blueprint. I interviewed him about these crazy protocols and hundreds of supplements. But what's really interesting to me is that he's not necessarily on the top of the list. There are other people up there. And of course, Brian Johnson is very impressive with what he does, but he spent like, you know, 2 million bucks on reducing his biological age. I think that's his annual investment. And there are some other people on there who are, I guess, perhaps using an approach that might be a little bit more relatable to the average person. And one of those people is my guest today, Julie Clark. So Julie, in an article that I read about her, was described as a 55 year old. Did they get that right? Julie? I don't want to say you're 55 if you're not 55.

I'm 55.

Yeah.

Nose dive into 60.

You don't look 55. But she's a 55 year old single mom, makes less than 100k per year, according to the article. But her aging rate is 0.665. That's impressive. That means for every hundred days, she's only aging, like 66 of those days. But unlike a lot of these tech billionaires, the article goes into how her routine is a lot more ordinary, like 27 bucks a month on a gym membership and 79 bucks a month on one supplement. And eating a wide variety of vegetables and produce, and not necessarily following a myopic, trendy diet, playing pickleball, hooray, Walking, doing some strength training. So I was so interested in this article that I thought, gosh, I should get Julie on the show to talk about, I guess, what might be considered a more reasonable approach to age extension and longevity than necessarily getting your child's blood injected into you or something like that. So, Julie, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Ben. I am so honored and quite frankly, very excited to talk with everybody today. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, yeah. I've been looking forward to this one for a while. There's actually another guy in the leaderboard I'm going to interview too, who's also got kind of a.

More regular approach, Dave Pascoe. But for you personally, I'm very interested. Have you been interested in longevity and age reversal for a while? I'm just curious, what led you up to even considering submitting your blood to a leaderboard called the Rejuvenation Olympics?

Well, we could walk around a bit of a longer block, if you don't mind. Because longevity I only really heard about since 2017. But my interest in health and performance and nutrition, that was probably as early as, gosh, I was eight or nine years old, so. And then we can get into the Rejuvenation Olympics and how I got into that a little bit later, if that's okay.

Yeah, for sure. We got time.

Okay. So when I was, I was a swimmer when I was younger, started probably. I think my older sister was a swimmer as well. So I started pretty young. She's eight years older than me, so I think I maybe six. But somewhere around age eight, nine, my dad would go to my swim meets with me and he'd be like, okay, you know, you've got the 100 meter fly coming up in 30 minutes. Let's give you X amount of a Snickers bar. And you know, you need the, you need the glycogen load for your muscles.

You're reminding me of me yesterday at my son's jiu jitsu tournament. I'm like standing there with a massage gun doing his thighs and getting a little bar so he times it properly. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah, so that's totally my dad. And, you know, it just. But I did feel better in those races because obviously I was practicing all week. But, you know, these races where I was had the sugar in me or the quote unquote glycogen load, I was like, whoa, I can kind of really, you know, go faster. This is interesting. So it just kind of impressed on me that there's some relationship between nutrition and performance. And then just kind of watching him as I grew up, I mean, this is, you know, we're talking late 70s, early 80s. He's making smoothies and what I probably call, like, protein lattes. We called them concoctions. Then it was like, oh, dad, what are you mixing up now? Know, and it was like always he was reading, like, newsletters on nutraceuticals and things. And, you know, that wasn't. I mean, it was part of his career, but not necessarily the focus. So anyway, fast forward to my 30s and.

Again, kind of considering myself somewhat healthy. But I had. I'd gone through a really stressful period. 36 months. I was married, divorced. I moved about four times. I left my career that I had gone to college for. I left. I was in engineer. And with not really knowing what I was going to do next, I had really bad acid reflux, extremely bad. And what happened? I was told I had two lumps in my left breast, and a man tried to kidnap me at knife point. So I was just like, excessively stressed. I went to my doctor for the acid reflux, and she said, well, you know, why don't you just take an antacid every day and you'll be fine. And I was already on an antidepressant that she had prescribed. And I just thought, this doesn't seem right. Like, you know, I think there's a better way to. To fix this problem. Let me at least try. I was in Portland, Oregon at the time, so this is around, like 2000. And I went to see a naturopath to see if they had any ideas for me. And sure enough, she said, well, you know, the first thing she said is, get off all wheat and dairy. Oh, okay. So two weeks later, acid reflux completely gone. I went to see her and she said, you know, we could probably help you get off that antidepressant if you were interested in trying. And I was kind of past all the things that, you know, preceded needing that. So I thought, yeah, let's give it a try. And so that was kind of the first time I was introduced to this Idea of, like, nutraceuticals as a protocol and that they could help, you know, your brain and body. So that was very successful. And I went on to really kind of take my health very seriously from that point forward, from age 30. So fast forward to my 40s, and I'm exhausted. My hair is falling out. And I'm thinking, you know, I work out every day. I. I eat what I thought was a very healthy diet, a vegan diet. You know, I was constantly researching, you know, nutrition and. And what to do. So I was really mystified as to why. Why I felt so horrible. And so I went to see a friend of mine, had said, you know, you should probably go get tested for heavy metals. So she had a doctor who was like, more. It wasn't called functional medicine doctor at that time, but it's, you know, she was basically practicing functional medicine.

Right.

And tested me for heavy metals. And sure enough, you know, those were like. There was just tons. I mean, everything from tungsten to lead to mercury to, you know, all kinds of. So that's, you know, was clear that that was what was causing the issue. And I went through chelation therapy, probably about 15 rounds of chelation therapy. And somewhere around, like, round six, because you do them, like, on a weekly basis. Somewhere around week six, I remember driving home and it was like this fog had lifted from me. And I thought, there really is something to what she's doing. I mean, obviously I could see that the metals were kind of, you know, coming down to healthier levels.

Yeah. And by. By the way, for people. People might not know chelation therapy. Like, what would an average session of chelation therapy look like?

So they would. I would sit in a chair. It was an IV therapy with. And I'm going to. I don't know if it was EDTA or. I think it was edta, not dmps. There's two chelators. And so that was day one, and then the very next day, because it chelates out all your minerals. So you have to go back and then have them replace all your minerals the next day.

Right. This isn't like a diy, take EDTA at home type of detox. You gotta be careful with those type of things.

In fact, I have a. I won't get into the story, but definitely, please do not do this on your own. You have to do this with a doctor who's monitoring all your different levels. And because I kind of went sideways at one point and it really caused some hormone imbalances. And that was just in one Session with one day, you know, how it kind of went off. So definitely do not do this without the help of a doctor, for sure.

So at any rate, that's when I really. And she was also looking at my blood and saying, you know, this vegan diet is not helping you. And so, again, nothing wrong with that diet. It just was not for my body and my genetics. So that's when I really kind of started taking things seriously. And once we got all the metals down to kind of quote, unquote, safe levels, there was still a lot of them. I mean, you know, and I just kept thinking, isn't there, like a cumulative effect of having so many different ones? So I thought, well enough, you know, chelation therapy, let me start just kind of naturally detoxing, looking at what are natural chelators, and started researching it. And that's kind of when the ball really started rolling. My. My dad was an astronaut on Skylab 3. He was.

Oh, wow.

So. So that. And this is like, you know, you got to go back to, like, 19, what, mid-60s. And up until that point, the space program had always been.

Like, you know, military guys. And they placed an ad. My mom found it in the newspaper that NASA was looking for scientists for. For their next mission. And this was the skylab mission. So 2,000 guys applied, and of those, 2,000, three made it. And one was my dad. And he was just, you know, a scientist. He wasn't military. He wasn't. Although he was on the football team probably in high school and college. But he wasn't like a military fighter pilot or anything like that. So he was always really into his health and performance. And I think that's where the motivation came from, you know, that we were always told you could do whatever you want, you know, be whatever you want. You just got to work for it.

Okay, so you. You did the metal detox, and then. Then you started doing your own stuff?

Yeah, I started just because now the Internet is a thing. And I'm like, you know, looking up detox. I find the work of Dr. Klinger. He's up in Washington. I don't know if you've.

Yeah, Dietrich Klinger. He's great.

Yeah, he is great. And then Russell Blaylock, Mercola, and then from Mercola, all his that he would have on. And I would go and read their books. So, you know, again, fast forward. I learn about fasting through. Well, I was like, following the AIP diet. AIP kind of led me to Rhonda Patrick.

Aip, Autoimmune, Paleo Correct.

Yeah. Because my family, my mom's family has quite a bit of autoimmune diseases. So I thought, let me follow that. And. Which is so restrictive. But at any rate, and then eventually was led to. Was it Jason Fung's fasting? And then when I heard about the fasting mimicking diet, I thought, well, this sounds great, because I can actually eat a little bit, you know, so Valter Longo's fasting mimicking diet, and that's was the first time I heard about longevity and then started like, ooh, what is this? How can I be healthier, you know, have a completely healthy lifespan? So, you know, eventually found David Sinclair. And then I learned about senolytics, which again, I thought, oh, that sounds like, you know, detoxing zombie cells. Detoxing. Let's do that. You know, that sounds interesting. So that led me to. I don't. I'm going to maybe mispronounce this. Fisetin. That ingredient. Fisetin.

Yeah, yeah, Fisetin. Fisetin. Tomato. Tomato.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and I started researching that. And when in the process of researching that, I learned about this company called Novos.

And the product, when I researched their product and all the different ingredients, I was like, oh, these are other things I'm reading about, you know, glycine and rhodiola. And I was already taking magnesium and Novos.

Novos is. And I think I mentioned before on a show, N O V O S, they actually have a. What I would consider to be a pretty good longevity test. The Novos age and then they've got. Yeah, it's like a supplement that covers a lot of the bases that you would expect for antisenescence, for longevity, etc. I actually have some in my pantry. They have like a powder and then they have a capsule, correct?

Yeah, yeah. So you take the capsule is nmn and the powder is like a mix of different nutraceuticals. So, yeah. And again, I just want to tell everyone out there, like, I don't work for them. I don't influence for them. I don't, you know, receive. Like, you know, they're not paying for this podcast. I just want to be very clear because I think when something's really good, it's. I think people should know about it. And so they. They were kind of a startup at the time. And so when I was ordering it, they asked if I wanted to be part of a study. And so that's kind of how I got found my way to the Rejuvenation Olympics because they Said, well, as part of the study, we're gonna, you know, take your blood and take a look at. I. I honestly at the time didn't understand what they were measuring, but.

And they wouldn't give me my score at zero. So they did. I think I measured at zero. And then six months and 12 months and at zero, they wouldn't tell me what my score was. Just as a study participant, I guess. I don't know. I had no idea and I didn't really think of anything about it. I just wanted to see if there was a difference. At month six, they gave me both scores. And then that's when they asked me if I wanted to be uploaded into the Rejuvenation Olympics. And then we continued for another six months.

Were you surprised when you saw your results? Like, compared to, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of people are spending a lot of money and doing some pretty crazy things.

Right.

Okay. So I'm just going to apologize to Brian Johnson right here. I did not know who Brian Johnson was at the time. I was more like. Because when it. He. I think he started it. I don't. When it first came out, there was only. I don't know, there wasn't tons of us. And I just was like, what is this? This is so interesting. People just like me that, you know, geek out on health and. Because for anybody who hasn'. Gotten on there, you get to see people's pace of aging, also their change from when they started to, you know, where they are now and the protocol they're using. And that's the thing that I was so most interested in was like, oh, we can now look at how different protocols are impacting different people. I wasn't so much interested in, like, I have this score versus somebody else. It was just. What is the total difference from beginning to end? You know, six months, 12 months.

Yeah.

One point. You know, so that was the part that was most interesting. It wasn't until I think, you know, the Fortune article that people like. I was kind of like, oh, this is sort of a big deal. And learned about Brian Johnson and really what he was doing in the. Which I think is pretty cool. I just wish it wasn't just an n of 1. I wish we could get like 100 people doing what he's doing and be able to study it.

Yeah. And even then, there's the biochemical individuality and the genetics. The fact that a lot of what he does is still going to be specific to him, as is the case with you or me. Like, a lot of this stuff is based on genetic individuality and your response. But I did want to ask you that as far as genetics go, like, I do a lot of stuff, at least relative to the general population when it comes to health and longevity. My wife does not. And I still, you know, not that I want to manifest this, but I joke with my wife that she's probably going to be around for like 20 years after I kick the can just because she's, you know, this hard Montana rancher genetic profile and all of her grandparents live to 90 plus and you know, she barely works out and stays super fit and every time she does blood work, it comes back and it's like, you know, perfect, even though she barely uses any supplements. And so I'm curious with you, do you have a genetic profile in your family in general, especially maternally, of long lived people?

I think so. Well, I think so. So my maternal grandfather, my paternal grandmother died before I was born. She had lupus. So that's thus the AIP protocol and autoimmune diseases all over that side of the family. But my maternal grandfather, I mean he smoked, drank and was living well into his 80s, so I'm sure there's some genetics there. My mom is 80, I think she'll be 85 this year. She does have Parkinson's, but I would not consider her somebody. She wasn't following my dad's program, that's for sure. She wasn't exercising, lifting weights, eating the concoctions, any of that stuff.

So. Yeah, but the mere fact that they're in like their mid-80s, you know, that that's beyond the general population when it comes to longevity.

Yeah, yeah. And only recently developing Parkinson's. So. Yeah, so I do think there's. And I have had, I have my genetic, you know, I did, I think it's live. Well, I can't remember, but I had run a report on longevity and I. Yeah. And I do have like, I think how many. It was like four, four different snips that indicate longevity and then eight more that are.

Just normal life. But I don't have anything for like a shorter lifespan.

Now based on that genetics testing, have you? Because when I tested, for example, I have higher than normal risk for colon cancer, right. So I prioritize things like careful with how much red meat I take in my fiber intake. I do a coffee enema every week. So there are certain things I do for colonic health or for diabetes. Right. I have a higher than normal risk for type 2 diabetes. So I'm cognizant of carbohydrate intake, I wear a blood glucose monitor, etc for you. Did you find things on your genetic test that have influenced the way that you live your life or how you eat?

Yeah, I didn't go too deep into it. I did notice, you know, I've got that MTHFR gene but what was interesting is that, you know, too much folic acid or you know, what do you say? Methylfolate doesn't necessarily help me and they kind of, if I look digged a little deeper there was something about taking a lot of choline so you know, I fix it more with choline than the methylfolate. I still take methylfolate, I just don't take the high doses. Every time I take a high dose I tend to get very, very anxious.

Yeah and it's really more like synthetic folic acid and fortified cereals and grains where. And a lot of common say like energy drinks for example, where you see the label and it says folic acid, not necessarily 5 mthf or a natural form of methylfolate that you need to worry about but, but yeah, I mean certain people need to prioritize choline intake, organ meat intake, et cetera. I'm what would be called homozygous for the MTHFR gene. So you know, I also have to pay attention to that slightly sluggish pathway. Is there anything else that you pay attention to on your genes?

I haven't dug too deep into it quite honestly. I just don't understand it as much. I would love like to work with somebody and develop a diet, you know that really kind of somebody who knows all that stuff and would help me figure out exactly what I need to be eating. Not that I would eat that way, you know, 24, 7 and yeah we can get into my diet here.

But I just, I was gonna say I'm sure everybody's wondering, you know, how, how does this galleat and I, I should also mention by the way I'm going to take notes and put them all@BenGreenfieldLife.com Julie Clark if you want the show notes there. BenGreenfieldLife.com JulieClark so what's your diet look like?

So gosh, let's see, I kind of switching it up just recently but what it's been for a long time is I don't usually eat until about 10 so I usually get up and work out first thing in the morning and I don't usually eat until about 10 and that is usually greens. I just do kind of some Kind of powdered green drink first.

When you say powdered green drink, you mean like one of those done for you, like organifi or athletic greens or something like that?

Yeah, something like that. Sometimes I add some.

Maca to it. I was doing a lot of moringa too.

But I think it was messing with my thyroid. So I've kind of. I'm just taking a little break. I was also doing like a whole tablespoon a day and with lemon and greens and just having some sluggish issues. And I thought, I think this might be messing with my thyroid.

Yeah. So some of those, including moringa, they're kind of what would be called goitrogenic. Right. They can interfere with thyroid function in high amounts.

Yeah, exactly. So I thought I'll just take a break, but I'll go back to it. I think it's a good product. But at any rate. Yeah. And then at some point, a little bit later than that, after I've kind of digested that, I'll go and make either a concoction, as we would call them, a green latte.

In the winter at least. So that's usually like bone broth green. And it's a great recipe. Actually, there is a doctor out there, Kara Fitzgerald, and she wrote a program called Younger you. Yeah. And she has a better broths and healing stews or something I'm gonna miss. We'll get it in the show notes the name of it, because she's got a sweet latte in there. And I swear it's just like every time I make it, I'm like, this is a cup of Christmas. I could just like drink it every day, which I do. You know, here it gets hot in the summer. So like right now we're just in that shift, you know, where it's getting warmer. And the last thing I want to do is have a hot latte. So I start making smoothies. I made a smoothie yesterday, so it's pretty much the same stuff. It's just mixed up with frozen fruit, still some greens. And I cook my greens again, worrying about those goitergens. I cook all the greens ahead of time and then just put a little bit and it's really easy to get, like. So I'll put about 4 ounces of greens in there, and that's like nothing. So that's the morning.

And can I ask you a quick question? Quick question about the fasting. You know, I've talked about this before, and I'm just curious your take on it or if you've thought about this at all that for females, particularly premenopausal females, to do long bouts of fasting seems to down regulate some of the hormones responsible for say, like fertility or muscle maintenance or bone density. Like just Peptin is one, for example. And then in postmenopausal females, it's kind of like the same as guys, you know, around a 12 to 16 hour daily intermittent fast versus more of a recommended 10 to 12 hour for premenopausal females. So for you, for the fasting protocol, you know, hopefully I'm not getting too personal here, but are you postmenopausal or perimenopausal or.

Yeah, no, I've been postmenopausal for a long time. Unfortunately, I probably hit that a bit early too. So I don't know. I mean, it felt early, right?

Yeah. So that 30 year old lean, active female listening in don't necessarily mimic Julie's exact protocol from a fasting standpoint, but especially once you reach postmenopausal status. It's a longevity strategy. And then oddly enough, premenopausal, it can kind of backfire on you.

Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of the thing I'm sort of changing up a little now because. And we'll get into this, but I'm trying to get, get whatever the 100 grams of protein a day and I just quite frankly find it very hard to if I have that short window to get that much. So I'm sort of looking at maybe I should, you know, start like just having a protein shake or something right after the workout. That would just add another 20, 30 grams of protein quite easily without, you know, messing things up too much, I think.

And 100 grams, I mean, it depends on your weight, but technically. I was just talking with Gabriel Lyon about this. That podcast comes out this week. It's one gram per pound of lean muscle. Right. So if you weigh, let's say 200 pounds and you're 20% body fat, you're still looking at what, 140 grams of protein. Right. Which is well above 100, you know, depending on your size and your body weight, of course.

Yeah, so I'm 130 pounds, so I know I'm supposed to be shooting for 130, but I'm like, it just feels impossible.

Well, not, no, not necessarily 130 because it's a gram per pound of lean mass. So you'd, you'd be less than 130. Yeah, so. So probably around 100 is, is a decent target for you.

Yeah, 95.9. 95.9 is my lean muscle tissue.

Yeah, yeah. So around 100.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so I'm kind of looking at trying that. I'm always experimenting and fine tuning. I'm sure your listeners are always doing that as well. So anyway, so back to the diet. Noon, I go downstairs and I'll grab a bowl of vegetables and that's anywhere from 6 to 10 ounces of veggies. Because again, this goes back to the paleo days. I don't know if you ever remember.

That book. Well fed, I can't remember the author's name, but such a great cookbook. And she was always talking about, you know, you gotta eat your veggies, you gotta eat your veggies. And I thought, yeah, she's right, you gotta eat your veggies. So I just kind of started doing that then and I became kind of addicted to celery and other things.

Sure, plants are gonna kill you, but you gotta eat your veggies.

You gotta be careful. I.

That's always varying what's in there. I always try to throw a few olives in there too for the, the salt and the fats and then also just some source of protein. So some days I'm just cooking up chicken breasts which quite honestly get, you know, old after a while. So maybe it's just, I hate to say it, but some cheese sometimes for the calcium, other times it's just something left over from the night before, but kind of focusing more on the protein, not so much carbs at that point.

And by the way, I definitely wouldn't be embarrassed about the cheese. Fermented dairy, hard artisanal cheeses, a lot of these are superstars of many longevity based diets. So, you know, besides a lactose intolerance, which often with fermented dairy like yogurts and kefirs becomes a moot point because the lactase sugar is broken down or the lactose sugar is broken down. I definitely wouldn't have qualms about dairy being on a healthy diet.

Yeah, and sometimes it's just a bowl of, what is it? Goat milk, yogurt. I seem to. The regular yogurt, the cow's milk. I don't know, it's just not working for me these days and it's tend to get a little backed up.

That's pretty common. I did a podcast on goat versus cow back in the day with a goat farmer and it's the protein thermodynamics, the size of the protein and also the lower levels naturally of lactose in goat dairy products that often make them, you know, like me, I, I can't do cow's dairy very well. I'll get bloating. You know, whenever I have ice cream it's coconut or goat milk or something like that. But yeah, that's pretty common.

Yeah. Yeah, so. And I love the flavor of it. So that might be my protein. And then I don't eat again until about 5:30, 6:00 clock when I make dinner. And that is like a mixed bag because I've got a teenager and I want us to, you know, have a dinner that both of us will enjoy. So, you know, some days that's pizza, some days that's pasta. Not a lot, we don't do a lot of pasta in this house. But, but it's, I'm always finding something I love, love, love to cook. So yeah, I just kind of make it healthy. I mean we even fry food. I mean I just use healthy oils and I've even rendered my own beef tallow. I wouldn't recommend, it stinks really bad.

But anyway, what about pizza with a teenager? Are you actually choosing like a healthy pizza or making your own pizza or you just take one for the team and order now?

No, no, we make. But I should back up like, you know, so I, I'm really strict five days a week. Very, very strict. And I learned this from my Italian friends. I used to live in Dubai and I had this Italian friend who was older than me and looked much younger than me, believe it or not. And I just thought, my God, what are you doing? And you know, it was like just, she was very careful. There was a lot of fasting. She was very careful during the week and then it was the weekends. Enjoy, you know, have a, have a nice dinner with your family but have a little less on the weekdays and then on the weekends kind of enjoy yourself. And I don't go box of donuts or anything like that by enjoying. But you know, like a couple weekends ago we made cinnamon rolls, you know, but I try to make it myself. We don't go, I don't like Krispy Kreme. I don't like, you know, kind of, I don't like even like my son doesn't really even like the taste of like fast food. I mean in N out burger, yes, but the rest, no.

Yeah, yeah, I'm similar. I probably average once a week out to a restaurant and I don't have the I'm allergic to seed oils card that I bring with me and I have A cocktail. And I'm still careful, right? Like, I'm not ordering a bunch of fried calamari and having burgers and fries. I'm typically like, you know, maybe the roast chicken or the steak or the fish. But, yeah, typically that meal is enjoyed with a lot of people. It's very social. There's some evidence that there's almost like a protective effect of eating in a parasympathetic state with people, even if the food's not 100% on the healthy scale. And so, yeah, I do think that I'm. I'm not one of those guys who says, you got to live a little. Don't deprive your kids of McDonald's and Chuck E. Cheese's, but I am okay with going out and enjoying, like, a nice meal at a restaurant that a lot of people would still consider to be healthy if they saw what I order off the menu. But, yeah, I agree. At least once a week. Having something where you kind of let your hair down is a decent idea.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's important. And I thought it was funny you were talking about the, you know, eating with other people and the parasympathetic. I just remember my friends in Dubai were always shocked that because at this point, this was when I was much younger, I didn't have my son at that point. And, you know, they're like, well, you know, who do you eat with at night? And I said, well, I just kind of grabbed something and eat it over the sink. And they were just, like, horrified. That's how I was taking care of myself, that I didn't sit down with friends. And so this is really important. I think the rest of the world really. That really matters. They're not eating by themselves.

Even when I travel a lot of times or when my kids are gone and my wife's gone, I'll still set things up. You'll put on a nice YouTube show. I'll watch alone or Naked and Afraid, or I like cooking shows like MasterChef or just a cooking YouTube channel like Joshua Wiseman or Guga Foods. And I still set things up so that I'm not working during dinner. It's kind of like a nice little party by myself, even if I'm on my own. Because as you know, and as you've alluded to, just eating hunched over emails is a. A bad way to feel full adequately and to digest the food properly. So, yeah, it's important. Even if you're alone.

Yeah, yeah, I don't do that. I do eat while I'm. Or yeah, while I'm working for lunch, you know, but at night. Yeah, it's definitely a sit down kind of thing.

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point though. I do that too, Julie. For lunch. But it's. So I save my more reactive work for lunch, like replying to some emails, but I never schedule a phone call or like jump into a deep edit on a book chapter. So, you know, for. It's basically I get to choose my pace of work during lunch, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah. And so then I don't really eat much after that. Like sometimes I have some berries. Like last night I had blueberries. I was craving some. I knew we had jelly beans in the house because we're gonna have Easter here soon. So I was like, oh, I want some of those. But I thought, no, I'm gonna to keep the sugar to a minimum. I'm noticing with menopause, like I just can't seem to have sugar at night. It really causes some hot flashes and, and things. So I just. In fact, I've been using your. What is the. The apple cider. Apple cider vinegar. So like if I eat kind of a little too late. I had heard about it. I think it was in your book or one of your podcasts or Boundless, I can't remember. But I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going to try this. And sure enough, it was like sleep like a champ, because I didn't. My blood sugar wasn't going so high.

You know, I wanted to ask you, and this actually gives me a good idea of your diet. You're eating a diet, wide variety of vegetables, plants, herbs, spices. You're mindful of eating in a parasympathetic state. You're engaging in some element of fasting or calorie restriction. But besides the novo supplement, some of these greens powders, do you do anything else like digestive enzymes or probiotics or anything along those lines?

Yeah. So, you know, as part of my work when I had the heavy metals and, and things, so I had learned I'm pretty much chronically deficient in magnesium. And I don't know, maybe that's in my genetics. I have no idea. Or maybe that's just what everybody is. But so I have been taking magnesium for years. I mean, something like trying to think, it must be like 4 to 600 milligrams a day, you know, throughout the day. Fish oil I've always been taking ever since my 40s. And vitamin D3K2 as well. Those and a B complex. Like I've been taking that for, you know, over a decade, 15 years now. So long before I started novo. So I, maybe that's where the, you know, 75, the score of 75% came from. I don't know. You know.

Yeah, we got a bust. Fortune magazine, maybe it's a little bit more than 79 bucks a month on supplements, but you're not swallowing like 100 capsules a morning.

Right. Like I would be doing those whether, like I'm not doing that for longevity. I'm doing that so I literally just can, you know, function. If I don't have the magnesium, I just start crashing.

And those, those really are some of the fundamentals. Right? Creatine, vitamin D, magnesium, good greens powder and some fish oil. Right. Like those are kind of like, I almost consider those to be base, foundational parts of the diet. Not, I mean they are supplements, but they're really just like the natural stuff that works, that isn't that expensive in the long run.

Yeah, yeah. I don't take, I experiment with creatine and had like half my hair fall out. So I know people say it doesn't do that, but it definitely, like, it was not, it was not a good experience for me, hair wise.

Yeah, you can look that up. Like if you upload your data to self decode or genetic Genie, you can see if you have the genetics that cause hair loss. And I think it's about 20% of people can experience that.

Yeah, yeah. So I just thought, just went off of that and let's see what else. I think I wrote them all down. So let me make sure I'm accurate about this. Yeah, so that's, you know, it's magnesium, vitamin D3, fish oil, B complex. That's what I've been taking for, you know, pretty much decades. Then I added the novos and their, you know, their core and their boost. So the novos core is. People can look up what's in there, but. And then the boost is nmn. Before.

At one, at some point before novos, I was experimenting with NR and I just, I did it for a little bit and I felt pretty good. But then I quickly switched to novos and started taking their nmn. And then, But I've kind of pulled the NM out and I'm experimenting with NR again. And I hate to because I know there's a big debate about this, but I think I feel better on NR than I do nmn.

Yeah, I mean, it's a It's in. Yeah, it's a little bit of a silly debate, I think largely driven by commercialization. Nad, nr, nmn, oral consumption, you're still going to get some cellular delivery. NMN might make it into the hypothalamus in the brain a little bit easier. It's still a good idea to do occasional IVs or transdermal patches or even suppositories for a higher dose if you're sleep deprived, you're inflamed, if you want to top off your levels as you age a little bit. But in the long run, all you're doing is elevating levels of niacinamide in some way to increase NAD availability. And I mean, if you had to, you could even go with dirt cheap niacinamide. But I think what you just alluded to is a pretty good idea. Like try nad, try nr, try nmn, see which one you feel best on or see which one results in the lowest levels of inflammation or the best results on an aging test. And you know, some of it is pretty subjective.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean for me it was like, it's not like I want people to know this. Like, it's not like you are like, woo, I have a, a ton of energy. Like I just drank like 10 cups of coffee or anything like that. It's just that it like almost raises the floor. So say like the first six months of that, the Novos test, I was in a, yet again, a very, very stressful period. I mean, I hate to say it, but almost a parent's worst nightmare. And so the only thing I was doing, and I think that's what people should know, is this. Magnesium, D3 fish oil, B complex, always. And the Novos, my workouts were haphazard. I was barely meditating. I was definitely not sleeping. I mean, I would go three days without sleep. But that's when I noticed like I wasn't, I wasn't so tired, you know, like before I would like lose one night of sleep and I couldn't function the next day. You know, here I'm going three days because of stress and everything.

It's like that floor was raised. And I just notice with nr it's like raises that floor a little bit higher than nmn. Again, that's somewhat subjective, but that's how it feels.

How's sleep now, particularly as you age? Because obviously as melatonin decreases, a lot of people, they sleep less as they age. I'm curious what that looks like for you. And if you do anything in Particular to prioritize sleep. You obviously understand it's important. So I'm curious what you do.

Yeah, and I've been like that my whole life. I mean, again, being a swimmer, you got to be in the pool for practice at 5am so even like in high school, it's like nobody had told me to go to bed. I was in bed and asleep by 9, 9pm every night. Not that I didn't go out on the weekends, but, you know, so. And I've just always been pretty careful about eight hours of sleep. I think I learned that from my dad. And I just kind of have safeguarded it pretty much my whole life. I mean, I go out and have fun and everything, but it was like, gotta get your eight. So now I, you know, I wear like a mask. I can't seem to. I can't black out my room enough, just given our house. But I wear a sleep mask. I do the mouth tape. I make sure I'm, for the most part, in bed by nine. Again, having a teenager, that makes it kind of hard. But in bed by 9. And then I'm probably lights out by 9:15, 9:30. And my alarm is set for 5, 5:15, depending on the day.

Yeah, that's good. By the way, I do the sleep mask even though I have blackout curtains. It's interesting. They actually did a study on this. It was pretty recent, like last year. The pressure of the sleep mask against the face, regardless of how much light it blocks, can help with relaxation. The same way that a gravity blanket or kind of like a heavy pillow on your chest for a lot of people, that's very comforting. It's very soothing. And a sleep mask kind of does the same thing for the face. They even have like weighted sleep masks now. They're kind of like gravity sleep masks. And so it's not just about blocking the light. It's actually the pressure against the face. Isn't that interesting?

That is interesting because it makes sense because last night I was like going to sleep and I realized I couldn't really, like, you know, just turn it on. I realized, oh, I didn't put my mask on. I put it on right to sleep. So, yeah, there's gotta be something to that for sure.

You gotta try this. This little device called a sensate. It vibrates on your chest. That thing knocks me out on a plane. It's like a, you know, it turns the vagus nerve through the collarbone in your chest. It vibrates kind of like that Apollo vibrating device. But unlike the Apollo, it syncs to music that's on the Sensei app. I swear by that. All my friends who I have have Trimine. When they come over to my house, they're like, I gotta get one of these things because they're inexpensive and they just. They're a game changer for sleep on an airplane. Do you use any of these other kind of, I guess, technologies, you know, PEMF and hyperbaric and Red light. Do you ever implement any of those?

So I had ex. I don't want to say I experimented with hbot, but my son, when he was kind of going through things, we learned he had a. Like a TBI when he was a baby. So we were working on that with him. So we had, you know, giving him HBOT sessions. And I thought, oh, let me try that. But I've done a few sessions. It was cool. I mean, I'd love to, like, have one in my house and just do my daily meditation on that. But.

So, yeah, I don't. I don't do any of the light or any of that kind of stuff.

And by the way, that's surprising. Like, you would. You would be an anomaly in kind of like the biohacking longevity industry just based on the fact that you don't have, you know, an elaborate morning routine that involves eight different devices.

No, No, I do not. It's called get out of bed and get your happy butt over to the gym.

Okay, well, I do wanna. I do wanna talk about that. I want to talk about the gym. Do you. Do you still swim or. What's the. What's the exercise routine look like?

Some days I swim, but I don't know, I just, like. Swimming is so boring. I mean, I like. I'm convinced I'm good at math because of swimming. Because I'd sit there and go, like, I've got 20 laps, I gotta do 40. Okay, that's half. You know what I mean? Like, sit there and do all the math in my head as I'm swimming anyway. So, no, I don't do that anymore. I just. I like going to the gym, but I really don't love working out. I just. I like going for the sauna. So I joined the gym for the sauna. And I usually wake up in the morning thinking I'm not going to do my workout. I'm just going to go. I'm going to have a sauna and that'll be kind of my, you know, cardiovascular for the day. But as soon as I walk in, I'm like, okay, you got to do like one set of something. So. So my routine is usually Mondays. I kind of switched it up since the Fortune article, and I'm always kind of of experimenting try, like I kind of switch it up either between 6 months or 12 months. So now I'm doing a full body workout. Let's see, Monday is actually VO2 max, because I figure I kind of got a lot of back to my dad, like, glycogen in my muscles from eating, you know, extra stuff over the weekend. So Monday, first thing, I do the VO2 max and I do a Norwegian 4x4.

That's. That's. That's the classic. Yeah. Four minutes, four minutes hard, four minutes easy. Four times three through.

Yeah, I actually do three. I do three minutes easy, four minutes hard. I do that four times through and then just two minutes, really easy. And then.

I'll see Monday. And Monday is usually like abs as well. So I'll do those two. Then I jump in the sauna. Then I take a cold shower. And people have asked me this, so I'll mention it. My cold shower is as cold as I can get it in Arizona, which in the winter is actually cold. And it's about four to five solid minutes. And I wash my hair. I do. I do everything I'm supposed to do in the shower, you know, but just in the cold.

And.

And most days I don't want to do it, but it feels really good once, you know. It's like a natural antidepressant for sure that. I don't know, it's like a dopamine curve. Apparently that lasts pretty long. So. So, yeah, so that's Monday. Tuesday is a full body workout.

Okay. I was going to ask you how long you average at the gym each day with these workouts?

Yeah, it varies. So, like that Norwegian 4x4. I mean, I'm. That's 35 minutes. 30 minutes for that, 5 minutes for abs. And I stretch, too. Some days I forget, but stretch. And then the sauna is 30 minutes and showers five minutes.

So maybe like in and out, all done. Like a little over an hour or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. On Monday. So Tuesday I do a full body weight workout and I do Tuesdays with free weights and I do it at a different gym that doesn't have a sauna. So we've got like a gym in my neighborhood and it's just a little less crowded. It's easier to kind of get everything done. They've got, you know, all the equipment. So I do a full body that. And that probably Takes me a solid hour. But I'm doing, you know, step ups and all kinds of other things just so I don't have to do cardio on top of the, the weights. And I'm just messing around with all kinds of different stuff every day. You know, I don't really have any routine except for to just, you know, get the upper body really well, get the lower body. And I try to just kind of mix it up.

So.

And that's. So that's Tuesday and then Wednesday is just like abs and I do just like a zone two cardio. And it just depends on when my first meeting is that day. So sometimes it's a 20 minutes, sometimes it's 30, sometimes it's 45. And I'm always working out on either a step treadmill or I sometimes use an elliptical trainer.

And is that, is that fasted or is this after your green?

No, fasted. Yeah, fasted. Yeah, fasted. I cannot work out on, on a full stomach at all or anything.

Yeah, I did one the other afternoon because I had a house guest and he wanted to work out and. Yeah, you know, two hours after lunch and I'm burping stuff up. I have my best workouts fasted in the morning. Sometimes some ketones or some aminos if it's going to be a hard one, but that's about it.

Yeah, I haven't tried the ketones yet. It sounds really interesting. I am experimenting with pre workout. My son kind of got me into this, so I've been using this. Of course he wanted to get the kind of unhealthy pre workout. I'm like, no, no, no. We're getting the healthy stuff, you know, so.

Ordered something from like a nutraceutical company. I don't know. Anyway, we didn't really talk about it, but like my morning routine, I do get up in the morning and drink green tea and pray. That's kind of my, you know, quiet time. But I don't drink coffee. I don't. I just cannot have a lot of caffeine. So when I do pre workout, I'm like, Whoa.

So the VO2 max day, I'll take a pre workout and then Monday and Tuesday, basically pre workout and then sometimes on Saturday. So. Okay, so let's go back. So Monday, VO2 max, Tuesday, full body workout. Wednesday, just kind of zone two cardio. Thursday is zone two cardio. Somewhere between Thursday, Friday or Saturday, I'll do another full body workout. But I'm in the gym and I'm using like all the machines you know, just things that kind of, I don't know, honestly, limit your range of motion, you know, different. So.

And that's not as intense, but I definitely, like, enjoy the leg presses and various things that they have there. So I'm doing another full body workout either Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Lately, it's been Saturday because my son likes to go with me and he works out. So. And I'll do pre workout with that one as well, but the others. So Thursday, Friday, I'll do, like, zone two cardio, and then nothing on.

On Sunday, like, nothing, Nothing. You don't go, like, on a walk or anything like that or.

I've been getting into ruck. I've been getting into this rucking. I was like. And I don't really have, like, the ruck sack or anything like that, but I did. I. I just grabbed my backpack and I have this old cookbook from, like, 1977, which is, like, you know, gourmet. It's, like, basically a year's worth of magazines in one book. So I put that in there. I think it weighs, like, seven pounds. And then last weekend, I put in, like, another. But so, yeah, I'll just go for a walk or. Like, the weather's, like, beautiful here and the hiking is, like, gorgeous. So go out hiking. Just depends on how much time I have and what's going on.

Now, you mentioned kind of a change up here. You mentioned that part of your morning routine is prayer and obviously spirituality. You know, primarily intrinsic religiosity, likes having some kind of a moral code, belief in a higher power, prayer, dependency on some external source of strength. These are, you know, the sense of purpose. These are all things that seem to play into longevity as well, including some of Buettner's work on the blue zones. What's that look like for you, as far as your spiritual life?

Yeah, I'm pretty solid with God, that's for sure. And it was, you know, I was always very. I was raised Lutheran. And it was, to be quite honest, like, you know, my uncle was the minister, so we had to go to church every. And I was just always kind of like, what is this? And it was kind of boring. And, you know, kids would be talking about, well, the gods up there. And I'm thinking, well, my dad's been there. Like, there's no God. There's no guy with a blue robe up in space. You know, like, that's not happening. So I was kind of a skeptic, you know, my whole life. And I started following Buddhism in high school. And love, you know, meditating and things. And then it was somewhere I was in, I was deployed, I wasn't a soldier. I worked with the military for the newspaper for the military with stars and stripes. But I was in Doha, Qatar and I just thought, I'll go to a. I went to a Catholic service and I just, it was like, oh, I could hear what Jesus was saying through like all I had learned about Buddha. I was like, oh, that's what Buddha was saying. That's what Buddha was saying. It just was really intriguing to me. And then of course, course I was living in Europe around that time as well and going to all the cathedrals and that was like the place that just always felt really.

Not only inspiring, but like calming and peaceful for me and my ex husband and my, you know, my son's dad wanted me to raise him Catholic. So as he went through his catechism, I decided to do mine too. And it really, it was kind of came, came at it from a very logical, reasonable, maybe it's worth people understanding.

I was kind of just always searching for a set of practices because I think like many people, you know, I just knew that there's something bigger out there. And every time I remember what that, you know, that feeling of like, oh yeah, there's something bigger than just me and like this daily life out there that's kind of driving forces of all of us, like that life force or the force as they talk about in Star Wars. I just wanted a set of practices that would remind me of that on some kind of daily basis. And I just, I looked at, you know, I looked at what are the practices of Judaism, what are the practices of Islam, what are the practices of Buddhism, what are, you know, and the place that I just always kept returning to was the Catholic Church. And it just felt so, I don't know, just felt like home to me. And that the, the practices for me felt comfort, they felt comfortable and I could finally hear them after having studied Buddhism. So that just has been important to me ever since I did the whole Bible in a year a couple of years ago. And it was the right, you know, right when I needed it, when I was going through some stressful stuff. And then, and then I did my, I redid my catechism, my catechism in a year last year. And you know, I'm not, I'm a cafeteria Catholic. But anyway, that's very important to me. And so every morning I read a little bit from the Bible. I'm reading the Gospels right now and, and Just sit and kind of pray and. Yeah, and I'm at mass, I'd say three, three weeks out of four.

So yeah, yeah, I'm right there with you. You know, for me it's Bible in a Year every morning the One Bible in a Year.org with Nikki and Pippa Gimble. And so that's like, takes about 15 to 20 minutes to read. There's some different prayers that you do as you're reading. There's an audio version, but sometimes, you know, if I put on the audio, I wind up walking around and doing stuff and not focusing as much and not stopping to say the prayers along with them. So I like to do it. My best time is before I get out of bed in the morning because then it's just, I do it and then later on we all meet as a family at like 7am in the living room and we read more Bible and we pray together and we talk for a little while as a family and then we have little, you know, prayer breaks throughout the day, like before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner. And then at night we all gather in my kids room and we pray and we read the Bible again. And then my wife and I go to bed and we pray again together. So you know, I've kind of woven it. You know, even the Bible says pray without ceasing. And that doesn't mean you're just, you know, I'm not praying right now. But the, the idea of weaving that into your life the same way as you would exercise or healthy eating. For me it's probably, I mean it's probably the, it is the most important, important. It's the one thing that I know even if I completely lose my entire body from the neck down, I can sit there and become stronger and more encouraged and happier just reading the Bible and praying. It's underrated. And you don't do it as a hack to live a long time. You do it because it's good for loving God and loving other people. But there's certainly some crossover there as far as just how you feel and your general satisfaction and fulfillment every day.

Well, I think, I mean, especially too, you know, if we're looking at longevity, say, you know, and you asked me this and we'll get to that. But you know, say you want to, you're going to live 100, 125 years. I don't, you know, life is hard. It's thrown me some really, you know, some serious curveballs and you got to have your why and your like bigger push. I mean Like, I had depression. You know, I was on an antidepressant a long, long time ago. And it was like, like the Dalai Lama talks about this. Like, you got to get out and help people. And, you know, I think kind of always being reminded of prayer makes you aware that other people are struggling. There's just so, so much to it that kind of. It makes you feel like. I always just feel like I'm just this little piece of pepper in this whole grammar scheme of things, but also somebody who belongs. Like, there's just the sense of belonging to that whole history that is the Bible, I guess.

Yeah. It gives a different perspective for sure. As far as your own mortality and dependency. You mentioned there about how long you want to live. Obviously some people on the Rejuvenation Olympics have named that, like 160. You know, I personally say I just want to live as long as I'm genetically capable with a good enough lifespan and health span to be impactful and satisfy my purpose in life and hopefully play with my grandkids. And I'm lucky. My great grandkids. How about you? Do you have a number? Or are you just doing this to be around?

No, no. Yeah, no number. I would. I think that's complete. I mean, for me, I think that's complete folly. I unfortunately lost my brother when he was 38 and he was a triathlete. He was er, Dr. Amazing. And you just, you just know. Unfortunately, no day is promised, so I would hate to put a number out there and get hit by a bus the next day kind of thing. I mean, that sounds really morbid, but. So, no, my goal is just to be as happy and healthy and mobile and vital for as many years as I live on the planet. And, you know, and, you know, obviously I've got one son. He's got me, I've got him. And I want to be here to help him as long as possible. And being a single mom, it's kind of, you know, you give up a lot.

I say it's like, you know, there's just a lot of traveling. It doesn't happen. There's a lot of things that you give up career wise. And so I just kept thinking, wow, you know, if I could live another 60 years past the time that he leaves the home, I could have this whole second life and still be here for him. So that's kind of my goal.

Yeah, I love that perspective. You're an inspiration. I'm going to link to the Fortune magazine article in which I first discovered you in the show notes@bengreenfieldlife.com JulieClark send me the Goodreads thing. I'll link to that.

I will.

I'll link to the Rejuvenation Olympics for any of you who want to test your own blood and see where things stand. It's not that expensive. It's a little kit that gets sent to your home. You wait a few weeks and then you just go to the Rejuvenation Olympics website and I'll link to that in the show notes as well. But Julie, I'm just really glad we were able to connect and kind of share this holistic perspective on longevity with people. So I really appreciate you coming on.

Thank you so much. And I hope it inspires people that sometimes I imagine all the biohacking world can get confusing for people and just start where you're at. If you're not doing anything, just get the exercise snacks in. Know just, just start somewhere.

Yeah, cold shower could be confusing thanks to guys like me putting way too much information. All right, well, cool. Again, the the shownotes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com Julie Clark until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Julie Clark signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week. Do you want free access to comprehensive show notes, my weekly roundup newsletter, cutting edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life and a whole lot more. Check out BenGreenfieldLife.com it's all there. BenGreenfieldLife.com See you over there. Most of you who listen don't subscribe, like or rate this show. If you're one of those people who do, then huge thank you. But here's why why it's important to subscribe, like and or rate this show. If you do that, that means we get more eyeballs, we get higher rankings. And the bigger the Ben Greenfield Life show gets, the bigger and better the guests get and the better the content I'm able to deliver to you. So hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review. If you got a little extra time, it means way more than you might think. Thank you so.

Much. Ra.