Health

Below is my current health protocol. It's for educational purposes only and not to be taken as medical advice.

If you are looking to take your health into your own hands focus on basic lifestyle interventions: sleep, diet, exercise, stress management, spending time in nature and with friends & family.

Yes there's lots of fancy stuff you can do but the basics will bring you the majority of the results. Like with all things in life, it's better to do things you can stick with for life not just a few weeks.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

My health journey started back in 2017-2019 when I was relentlessly trying to build the next Silicon Valley unicorn while simultaneously running a consulting business to pay the bills. Nobody would hire 18 year old Skylor so I created Swanson Carlyle, a semi-fictitious management consulting firm that could garner clients. I was back and forth between Waterloo and SF trying to build my startup and fulfill all the client work. However, I was only one human that was unaware of labor leverage that had 3-5 consulting gigs on the go at one time; each required 4-6 hours of work per day.

After a couple years of poor life hygiene (high stress, near zero exercise, a diet of convenience, and 3-4 hours of sleep per night), I was at the grocery store grabbing a quick 10pm dinner when I nearly dropped dead with a sudden heart attack. Thankfully a hospital was just down the street where they saved my life. As you can imagine, my first message upon waking was not to my family but to my clients.

Up until this point I was in an all out pursuit of wealth. This was the first time in my life that I would trade wealth for health. Ironically, I sacrificed my health in the pursuit of wealth and now I'm spending wealth in the pursuit of health.

I spent the next few months in and out of the hospital trying to reclaim my health. Once my heart was stable, I spent the better part of the next year traveling around the world in the pursuit of health tactics that would give me the confidence that my heart wouldn't suddenly fail me again.

I tried all the fad diets from keto to vegan to carnivore, I tried all the latest and greatest health supplements popularized by health podcasters and influencers, I tried every fancy exercise regime I could get my hands on; I saw every doctor under the sun from the best cardiologists money could buy, to traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, to naturopathic doctors, to functional medical doctors, to an 'intuitive medical psychic'. I even spent a month as a monk.

I was desperate to regain the confidence in my heart and finally get my health back. Even with this desperation I would still regularly succumb to eating ultra processed unhealthy junk foods. Like a drug addict, I was a junkie.

I didn't feel confident in my heart nor my health until ~1000+ hours studying the domain experts above and stumbling upon what Bryan Johnson was doing with his health Blueprint. I immediately dove in head first and followed the protocol minus the pharmaceuticals for two and a half months.

I lost a lot of weight, improved many biomarkers, lowered the frequency of my heart palpitations, and overall felt more confident with my heart and my health again.

But I was starving and thought about food 24/7. And this makes sense since the protocol is optimized for Bryan not for Skylor. Knowing what I know now, I should have increased my caloric intake as I was in too big of a deficit since I have more mass than Bryan and am more active.

I have deep respect for what Bryan Johnson is doing with his health blueprint but I wanted to optimize for Skylor and remove some of the restrictions it brought to my life. I started working with a Functional Medicine Doctor who introduced me to Dr. Peter Attia. I binge watched every single Peter Attia video I could get my hands on and paid a pretty penny to get inside look at what being a client is like inside of his medical practice.

I finally understood that true health had nothing to do with one fad vs another but rather identifying personal risk factors and building sustainable lifestyle habits that you can stick with for life.

I added meat, eggs, and some of the foods I love back into my diet. I did my bloodwork and only supplemented with what I actually needed cutting the amount of supplements I was taking by ~70%. I eat my last meal between 4-7pm instead of 11am like on Blueprint.

It's small changes like these that allow me to actually enjoy life. Stress management and quality time with friends and family are linked to longer lifespans so to me it's not worth stressing over going out to dinner with your friends at 6pm.

I want to enjoy my time on this Earth. Not be a slave to my health.

After taking Dr. Peter Attia's medical program, I finally understood what actually mattered to me in regards to my health. My personal motivation so to speak. I want to live until 100+. At 90, I want to be able to lift up my grandchildren, walk a large dog, have sex with my wife, play sports with family, and be able to enjoy my life without restrictions.

And most importantly I want to enjoy life from now until then. Freedom is what matters to me. So when I'm in Paris I will eat the croissants. When I'm in Italy, I'll have pasta, pizza and the gelato. And in day-to-day life, I'll go out to restaurants once a week or whenever I want because it's something I enjoy.

I fell in love with this new way of life so much that in an attempt to try to solve the health problem for other founders, I launched 'Ownership', a David Goggins-esque health bootcamp aiming to give founders the kick in the butt they need to start prioritizing their health. I used my network and a friends newsletter to get 5-10 people a month to come to a luxury AirBnb for a weekend of biohacking. During that weekend, we'd get a chef to cook healthy meals, get a phlebotomist to come draw our blood, and hire an ex UFC fighter or Navy SEAL to kick our ass. While the healthy food and blood party aspect of this was fun, I quickly found out that the 'Hell Weekend' bootcamp idea sounds great in theory but the actual reality of it does not have product market fit amongst Silicon Valley knowledge workers lol.

After Charlie Munger sadly passed away I recalled that he says, "produce what you would want to buy on the other end." I took that to heart and genuinely put together the program I wish I had before I suffered serious health consequences.

I call that program Ageless and you can check it out here.

To me, it's insane how we walk around not even knowing what is happening in our own bodies.
‍
Knowledge workers know infinitely more about their company from dashboards than they do about themselves.

Why? When we have all the tools necessary to understand this stuff at a relatively affordable price for most knowledge workers.

There's a reason why Jeff Bezos got jacked and Mark Zuckerberg started working out and training MMA. You can have all the money in the world but if you don't take care of your health you'll still feel and look like shit.

Putting my health before wealth is the best decision I've ever made. If I live until 80+ I can compound my way into becoming a billionaire anyway.
‍
If you have the resources I'd love to help you along your health and longevity journey. If not, you can replicate some of the things I do below:



AGELESS STARTER GUIDE:
1. Meal Prep
2. Supplements
3. Starter items
4. Fitness plan
5. Track progress with measurement

  1. Meal Prep

I eat 3-4 'meals' per day. The Ageless smoothie, 1 snack, 1 core meal, and 1 dessert.

The Ageless Smoothie:

  • 1 cup raw milk
  • 1 organic banana
  • 1 cup organic berries (usually frozen)
  • 25 mg collagen peptides
  • 2.5g creatine
  • 500mg cocoa flavanols
  • chlorella powder
  • supergreens (veggies + probiotics)
  • ceylon cinnamon
  • Supplements (I usually put a lot of my supplements in my smoothie so I don't have to swallow 12-15 pills a day)

‍Snacks & Dessert:

Snacks
Usually I keep my snacks quite simple. Examples include: 2 pasture raised eggs, organic fruit, organic veggies, grass fed yogurt, beef jerky, or a clean protein bar.

Desserts
I have a major sweet tooth and actually want to be able to stick with my diet long term so I make sure to have dessert every single day. Example desserts include: power balls, homemade protein ice cream, raw honey + banana/organic fruit, nutty pudding, protein cookies, protein berry crumble.
‍
Core Meal:

This core meal varies daily. Examples include: Mexican sweet potato, steak + veggies, ground beef + white rice, soup, salad, Pork Chorizo Hash

Super Veggie

  • Black lentils, 45 grams dry, ~150 grams cooked
  • Broccoli, 250g
  • Cauliflower, 150g
  • Shiitake Mushrooms, 50g
  • Garlic, 1 clove (a piece)
  • Ginger Root, 3g
  • Lime, 1
  • Cumin, 1 Tbsp
  • Apple Cider Vinegar, 1 Tbsp
  • Hemp Seeds, 1 Tbsp
  • After prep, drizzle 1 Tbsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Cooked via low temperature. Can eat raw or puree.
‍

2. Supplements

Note: this supplement stack is optimal for me at this point in time based on regular measurement. Your optimal supplement stack will differ.

Consumed after workout:

  • Taurine
  • Acetyl L-Carnitine
  • L-Lysine
  • Magnesium L-Threonate
  • B Vitamins
  • Lycopene
  • Ubiquinol / CoQ10
  • Vitamin D3, K2
  • Omega 3
  • Garlic
  • Ginger Root
  • Glucosamine Sulfate
  • Iodine
  • Hyaluronic Acid
  • Broccomax

Other:

  • Amino Acids
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Protein Powder
  • Chlorella Powder
  • Supergreens
  • Cocoa Flavanols
  • Ceylon Cinnamon
  • Creatine

3. Starter Items

I personally use these items:

  • Epigenetic aging test
  • Withings smart scale
  • Whoop
  • Blood test
  • Blood glucose test
  • Gut microbiome test
  • Air & water filters
  • Lighting
  • Oral hygiene practice
  • Bed sheets, pillow, mattress, blackout curtain

4. Fitness plan
Below is the workout regime I follow:

Monday & Thursday:
Full Body (leg heavy)

  • Squats
  • Deadlifts
  • Hamstring curls
  • Leg extensions
  • Push ups
  • Pull ups
  • Rows
  • Dips
  • Tricep extensions
  • Standing overhead press
  • Tibialis raises

Wednesday & Friday:
Chest + Back

  • Incline db press
  • Incline cable flys
  • Standing cable flys
  • Flat bench press
  • Lat pull down
  • Seated row
  • Back extensions
  • Calf raises

Tuesday:
Shoulders + Arms

  • Seated db shoulder press
  • Barbell curl (superset w/ different grips)
  • Overhead barbell press
  • Lateral raises
  • Face pulls
  • Tricep pulldowns (superset w/ different grips)
  • Skull crushers
  • Calf raises

I don't lift weights on the weekends. I also walk, play basketball, train MMA, and/or go swimming 5-6x per week. I aim for 8000 steps per day as a minimum.

5. Track Progress with Measurement

Show results of blood test, gut test, CIMT etc.


Oral Health Protocol
The four big killers that cause the vast majority of deaths for people over the age of 40 are diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimers. Poor oral health is increasingly linked to Alzheimers and numerous other conditions. Below is my oral health protocol:

  • Brush teeth 2-3x per day (fluoride free toothpaste)
  • Floss 1x per day
  • CoQ10 gel
  • Herbal mouthwash
  • Bi-annual oral microbiome salivary test
  • Chew xylitol gum for microbiome benefits
  • Night guard to correct bruxism

Sleep Health Protocol
Perhaps the most important wellness practice. Read Why We Sleep, and you'll walk away thinking Sleep is the new coffee and that getting high-quality sleep is the best protector and enhancer of health and cognition.

  • Blacked out room
  • Aim for the same bedtime daily
  • Cool room, temperature controlled
  • 30min-1hr downtime before bed, no tech
  • Track via Whoop

‍Skin Health Protocol

  • Paraben free, face wash 1x per day
  • Paraben free, face serum 1x per day
  • Hyaluronic Acid 1x per day
  • Zinc based sunscreen (avoid oxybenzone, major endocrine disruptor)
  • I also supplement with collagen peptides and drink 3-4L of spring water per day‍