Best Anti-Aging Protocol

What is good Anti-Aging Protocol?

That is actually a very good question. People are familiar with anti-aging protocols made by Bryan Johnson (Blueprint), Peter H. Diamandis, Siim Land, Andrew Huberman and others. They are fantastic source of information and inspiration.

However, there is something in each of those protocols that might not suit you well. For example, Bryan decided to go vegan… no thanks, Andrew is doing less effective version of Intermittent Fasting (skipping breakfast), while I prefer to cut from the other end of the day. Don’t get me wrong; I bet their anti-aging protocols works very well for them, and as I said, they are fantastic.

If you are interested in more in-depth theory and practical tips, make sure to check List of 5 Best Anti-Aging Books curated by me, with additional remarks and free resources.

This article is not health or medical advice. Please contact your physician before trying anything described in this article.

With that said, let me show you mine and explain my reasoning behind choices I made

My Typical Anti-Aging Day

Waking up between 6-7 am (no alarm clock)
Dental Protocol
Weight check
Light exposure
Collagen Peptides, Vitamin C, Zinc Chelate, Magnesium Chelate, Fish oil, Coenzyme Q10, L-Tyrosine, Vitamin D
Walk 30 minutes and additional light exposure
Protein rich breakfast 9 am
Semi-Random Dopamine stack
Protein shake: 90% whey protein 30g, Creatine 5g, Taurine 1g
Work
Exercise in the gym
Cold shower
Lunch 2 pm + 15ml Olive Oil and 2 drops of Oregano Oil
Work/kids
Last meal 5 pm
Warm bath 7pm
Dental Protocol
Setting kids to sleep, reading them book 8-8:30 pm
Pre-sleep supplements (Magnesium Chelate, Vitamin C) 9pm
9-10pm ideally reading book, sometimes work on X/website
10-10:30pm going to sleep

OK, that is the schedule of my anti-aging protocol, now is time to explain WHY and HOW I do what I do. Lets go in order of importance.

Circadian Rhythm Optimisation

Not going against your body and billions of years of life evolution on this planet should be the backbone of any serious anti-aging protocol. The night-day cycle is what has effected the life for ages; daily changes in illumination and temperature are what every organism had to adapt for.

Reading the book about Circadian Rhythms actually set me on the path of fat loss, better health, and longevity. For those of you interested the book is “The Circadian Code” by Satchin Panda.

The key feature that organisms used to sense the cycle of Night and Day was detection of blue light. This was useful because change in temperature followed with some delay after sunrise. What might be a surprise for many people is that our eye has dedicated system for sensing blue light, distinct from rods and cones. The cells sensitive to blue light are evolutionary much older and can be found in simpler organisms (with eyes). This blue light triggers the Circadian processes by telling your brain that the sun is up.

If affects every organ, cell, and most processes in your body. Digestive system is standing apart as it is not necessary to start whole thing when you are not actually digesting anything. However, it can be started by eating and there is simple way to synchronise your digestion/liver system with rest of your body. Let me explain in the next two chapters.

Intermittent Fasting

Fasting is another tool for anybody serious about an anti-aging protocol. During time where energy from food is not available, your body must adapt. It needs to check every corner, make itself efficient, and clean the garbage. The challenge is not to loose muscle mass in that process (while using fat is fine).

Dr. Peter Attia states in his book Outlive that the most reliable predictors of a long life are muscle mass and strength combined with a high VO2 max (overall fitness parameter). Fasting for too long will cause a loss of muscle, so it is why intermittent fasting is handy.

What is intermittent fasting? Most often, intermittent fasting means fasting part of the day and eating in the rest. To see some benefits, I recommend doing at least 10/14 (eating for 10 hours and fasting for 14). For practical reasons, it is the best to use the time when you sleep (you really should sleep at night and not fight natural rhythm) and add some fasting time in the morning or evening or both.

While fasting, your body triggers processes of autophagy (destroying malfunctioning cells) and mitophagy (equivalent in mitochondria) and also uses fat as energy source. To lose fat, you have to be in caloric deficit, which means eat less energy from food than you use.

Intermittent fasting is the easiest way to achieve that because it is challenging to eat the same amount of food as you were previously eating throughout the whole day. Other options include calorie counting or selective diet (or combination), which requires much more work and willpower. Intermittent fasting, however, is one part of the anti-aging protocol that I can easily imagine doing forever.

If you looks at the most common causes of death:

Cardiovascular failure
Cancer
Diabetes related
Neurodegenerative diseases

There is one culprit that increases the probability for all of them: the Metabolic Syndrome. Luckily, everybody can easily check if they have it or not:

Abdominal obesity
High blood pressure
High tryglicerides
High blood sugar
low HDL cholesterol

If you have three of those, you have Metabolic Syndrome. Loosing that belly fat is very desirable as it usually fix other four parameters as well.

I hope that now you see importance of Circadian Rhythm and intermittent fasting in anti-aging protocol. There is another part which fits the puzzle just perfectly.

Sleep and let body do its magic

Deep sleep — *Your body repair and heal itself while you sleep*

Sleep is when your body regenerates, repair, and does all sort of wonderful things. A really great book on this topic is “Why we sleep” by Matt Walker. Sleep, combined with intermittent fasting, really click together and create beautiful base for an anti-aging protocol because both Circadian systems (brain and digestion) are nicely synchronised and further enhance the benefits of good quality sleep.

How to do that? Don’t eat at least 2-3 hours before bedtime (I do 5 hours, as I stop eating at 17:00 and hit the bed at 22:00). By doing that, your digestion is already finished, and your body does not need to spent energy and resources on food digestion. It can focus on what we want: autophagy, mitophagy, regeneration and chasing cancer. Those processes also start faster as you go into bed already hungry.

This might be the problem for some, but just work through it; over time, I started to actually like it. I sleep better and fall asleep faster when I go to bed hungry.

There are many ways to improve your sleep, some of them are:

Going to bed at the same time each day
Sleeping at night, not during the day
Dimming the lights at the evening, avoiding blue light, and switching to orange/red
Taking a hot bath/shower before sleep
Trying sleep supplements; I have good experience with Magnesium Chelate in proper dose
Sleeping in a cool, dark and quiet environment
Not keeping your cellphone next to your bed
Reading a book one hour before sleep
And many others (a dedicated sleep article coming soon)

Exercise

Okay, I am not new to exercise; I started 20 years ago. In 2009, I even obtained fitness instructor certificates and worked in the gym for some time. But, as you can see from the transformation pinned on my X (twitter), I was actually able to slip off and gain quite a lot of fat. It was interesting experience, but definitely not the right direction (anti-aging protocol is not good if it does not address obesity).

Right now, I do 3-4 days per week of combined muscle strength/hypertrophy workouts with a day of rest after each workout. I follow a simple split:

Legs
Chest and shoulders
Back

What about arms? Triceps get blasted in chest workout, biceps in back. I do add some ab exercises to every workout (and I do post every workout on my X).

Rest days are great for cardio, and I am gradually incorporating more of it.

Remember Dr. Peter Attia? High VO2 max = good, but to raise that, you need to train quite a lot of Zone 2 cardio as well (dedicated article coming). You need strong muscles and a good VO2 max. This is where exercise must be a part of the anti-aging protocol, we MUST do the work, this is non-negotiable.

Dr. Andrew Huberman did great work putting complex fitness protocol together and it is very good. You can watch the whole thing and I highly recommend you to do so!

Nutrition Matters

I love that, the battlefield of the internet. Eat only vegetables! Eat only meat! Eat fibre! Don’t eat fibre! Seed oils are Cancer! Ketogenic is the only way! Suddenly eggs are fine? Artificial Sweeteners are worst than heroin! Red meat cause cancer! …

There is common theme: too many people screaming too loudly about what currently might work for them

Some of those diets and opinions are certainly interesting and do change lot of lives for better. Eggs? I’m all in. Ketogenic diet? Some people gain tremendous benefits by treating mental illness with ketogenic diets; see fantastic book by Chris Palmer called “Brain Energy“. Fibre? In my opinion, the ultimate longevity hack. Meat and olive oil? Great stuff. Veggies? I love them…

That is power of being and omnivore on intermittent fasting, as I can pick whatever I like and consider beneficial (As long as I respect the calorie equation)

But I am lazy to count calories; the magic of intermittent fasting is simplicity, and that is why so many people do it. It’s easy and sustainable, and the benefits are fantastic – enhancing sleep, fighting senescent cells, loosing belly fat etc.

chicken with rice — *What you eat matters and you should pay attention to it*

Lets give you a list of some meals that I enjoy:

Eggs in any form
Plain white Yoghurt (often with mountain blueberries and/or Ceylon Cinnamon)
Kefir, Sauerkraut, Cheese (yes cheese, almost in any form)
For lunch combination of meat/vegetables/carbs
Olive Oil
Most meat and fish
Potatoes, Rice, Lentils

Additional remarks:

I like to keep drinks and meals separate (no need to dilute my stomach acid). If I have to, I do little sips with a meal, but I wait at least 20 minutes before drinking any larger quantities of water
In my country (Czech Republic) soups are very popular as lunch starter. I do eat them, but wait 20 minutes afterwards for same reason
I do prefer minimally processed, simple meals
I believe omnivores are fantastic
Your water intake and quality of water should be concern

Supplements

I am a big fan of being mindful about why I use each supplement and what the appropriate dosage is. For that purpose, single-ingredient products are great.

I am NOT a big fan of being ripped off; therefore, I ignore marketing and fancy branding. Buying quality ingredients for a good price is good habit to learn.

Here is list of health and longevity supplements I use, with daily doses (unless stated otherwise)

Vitamin C 100mg to 1g
Fish Oil 4 capsules (total EPA 660mg, DHA 440mg)
Olive Oil (15ml) with 2 drops of Oregano Oil
Collagen Peptides 15g + 5g of Glycine + 250mg Vitamin C + 15mg Zinc Chelate (every morning)
Whey Protein 30g
Creatine 5g
~~Yerba Mate (Caffeine source – dedicated article coming, once or twice per week)~~
~~Matcha Tea, Black Tea, Coffee (another Caffein source, once a week)~~
Taurine 1g
Magnesium Chelate 225mg morning, 500-750mg before sleep
~~L-Tyrosine 500mg~~
~~Alpha GPC 300mg once or twice per week (with additional 500mg of L-Tyrosin and sometimes Caffein)~~
Vitamin D 25μg (only in winter)
~~Coenzyme Q10 60mg~~
Vitamin E 35mg
N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) 1g + 5g of Glycine (one hour before sleep)

What time of day should you take your supplements? This is another rabbit hole. It depends on the supplement and the situation, and this whole topic is often overlooked. I am not an expert, but even I have managed to observe something. Let me give you an example with Vitamin C and Magnesium.

Do I want them available during the day when body is under stress or at night when it repairs itself? Well, I kind of like both ideas. So, I take bit of Vitamin C and Magnesium in the morning and more at the evening. Why did I picked those two? Because I can feel it or see results. Magnesium equals no cramps and better sleep, no surprise here. But Vitamin C? Well, if I am really exhausted and don’t take Vitamin C before sleep, I might develop a cold sore over nigh. But it NEVER happened when I took Vitamin C before sleep.

If any of you has some good source for timing of supplements, comment under this article or on my X. I am looking to learn more. Also Kat Fu has some interesting information about timing on her X and Longevity Vault.

Dental Hygiene

Why should you incorporate proper dental hygiene into your anti-aging protocol? There is a strong link between your dental health and brain and gut health. Especially important is the condition of your gums. Just think about it. Is there any reason to keep your immune system occupied all the time with gum inflammation? Hell no. Your immune system should be chasing cancer instead (when you sleep, hungry).

Well, the good news is that you can indeed have better dental protocol than millionaire Bryan Johnson and do it for cheap.

Here is what I do:

Brushing teeth with electric toothbrush and paste (2 minutes both morning and evening). You can use normal toothbrush and paste of your selection; this is deep rabbit hole by itself.
Using interdental brushes and flosser to clean space between teeth (2 minutes evening)
Using a special brush on the right for 20 minutes while bathing before sleep. This is what sets my protocol apart and helps eliminate all plaque, keeping your gums extra healthy
Tongue scraper (10s evening)
2 drops of Tea tree oil with little water as mouth wash (1 minute evening)
Occasionally cleaning my teeth with flosser after lunch (if I feel like something might be stuck between teeth)
Check by dentist every 6 months
Going for dental cleaning by specialist once every year

Mental Health for Longevity

To live longer, it is good idea to even want to live at the first place. This topic is so big and important and will be covered in a dedicated article.

Synergistic effect in Anti-Aging Protocols

I want to assure you that if you are starting from scratch, you will see benefits as you gradually incorporate desirable habits and choices into your anti-aging protocol. Trust me, start with intermittent fasting, improve your dental care a little, eat a bit cleaner, add some walks or exercise, read a good book, dim the lights in the evening, and the list goes on.

You will feel the benefits very soon. You don’t have to make 100 changes all at once; take it step by step at your own pace. We are all in this thing called LIFE together.

What do I measure/test?

Blood cholesterol
Urine test
Blood pressure
Waist Circumference
Weight
I used to measure sleep/heart rate/steps etc with Xiaomi band, but it was garbage

What I want to add to my Anti-Aging Protocol?

~~Glycine + NAC~~ (added)
~~Blood Sugar (this fall)~~
Hot/Cold treatment (Spring – need to renovate whole room for that)
Vitamin and Mineral blood profile (this winter)
~~InBody Scan (End of October)~~ done – 17,5% body fat
Speed of aging tests
Weekly trips into nature with family (initiated)
More Zone 2 and HIIT cardio to raise VO2 max (initiated)
Heavier Dumbbells (this fall)
Rapamycin
Massages more often
~~Maybe another wearable tracker (looking for something good)~~

This post will be updated and changed in the future, often

Affiliate disclaimer: None of the links are affiliate (yet)

Anti-Aging protocol by Cancel-Aging