Ben Greenfield On What Actually Works For Longevity, The Biohacks He's Stopped Doing & Why Living Longer Isn't The Point

The Bossticks

Ben Greenfield discusses his profound shift in perspective from extreme biohacking for longevity to prioritizing family, faith, and fulfillm

Key takeaways

• Ben Greenfield uses microdoses of Retatrutide (0.25mg) as a travel hack to manage food noise during sedentary periods.
• He has transitioned from a strict ketogenic diet to a cyclic low-carb approach, consuming higher carbohydrates in the evening to support sleep and glycogen levels.

Main topics

• Evolution of biohacking philosophy
• GLP-1 medications and Retatrutide

Notable quotes

You can have more life in your years, not necessarily years in your life.

Conclusion

True optimization is found when physical health serves as a tool for i

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Boss Sticks. Today we have Ben Greenfield on the show. So what happens when you spend decades testing almost every variable of human performance on yourself, only to realize some of the things you thought mattered don't really matter at all? That's Ben Greenfield, and it's been about 700 episodes since we sat down with him last. With that, Ben, welcome back to the show. Speaker 2 (0:22) So I was telling you before we started that you're difficult to do these with, not because, I mean, we could talk to you about a million things for hours and hours because there's so many rabbit holes. The last time you were on in episode 248 and 278 in February of 2020, August 2020, those were some dicey times in 2020, right? So we almost got ripped off the airwaves. But since then, I feel like you got a new updated book. Upgraded, updated, whatever you call it. Yeah. Speaker 3 (0:53) You got a movie that just came out. Speaker 2 (0:54) You got a million things. We want to know all the cutting edge things, the things that we're not going to get thrown off the air for. But to start, what are the things that you're most excited about right now? And what do you think's changed most about you over the last six years? Speaker 3 (1:09) What I'm most excited about, I would say, first thing that comes to mind, probably because this is a discussion I was just having with somebody. who was dealing with Lyme. And then there's microplastics and mold and mycotoxins and all of these things that we're all aware of now that probably human beings have been dealing with for all of time, but we just have better detection methodologies. And many of us are a little bit more orthorexic with a lot of time on our hands and access to advanced diagnostic testing. So a whole bunch of people have things in their body that they want to get rid of. And this whole field of like plasma phoresis, right? Pulling blood out, filtering it, putting typically something like albumin back in and then an IV or like full body blood filtration, which is super gnarly. You can act, you can't do this in the U S but like you can go to Mexico and get all the blood sucked out of your body typically via a catheter in your jugular. Have you done it? Yeah. uh of course it's my job to do all this stuff like i experiment with it not because not because i'm sick but i just i write about it i podcast about it and so um and then there's another version over in europe where you can literally get like your body heated so the blood comes out faster and then they add ozone into that mix um long story short is in the whole field that i'm in a lot health and biohacking this idea of like oil change for the body is kind of like the big new thing and there's i mean you can't swing a dead cat by the tail without hitting the clinic here in austin that now does some kind of like plasma phoresis ozone dialysis like you sit down and you gotta catheter and people were holding Speaker 2 (2:50) the bags up you know they were pulling up the bags look at all my stuff yeah all the stuff Speaker 3 (2:54) they pulled out of my body remember Speaker 2 (2:55) years and years ago this was probably really early and you were probably switched on to this but i think people like thought it was strange at the time they would talk about keith richards because he was you know from the rolling stones and he was he lived so hard and parties right but they said he would go to like switzerland and do these kind of things and Speaker 3 (3:08) it Speaker 2 (3:08) sounded like a like a fantasy it didn't sound real but right maybe he was just switched on if that's true that's Speaker 3 (3:13) the trickle down it starts with like pro soccer and rock stars and then just kind of eventually comes down to the rest of the general pop. What's changed in the past six years? I would say maybe not six exactly, but the reason I came down was for this film, which is about the realization that I had that this whole mountain that a lot of people are climbing of health and biohacking and looks maxing and veins in the abs or whatever is pretty unfulfilling in the long run. And people are spending too much time on that versus the things that we know are truly fulfilling, like faith and family and relationships. I'm totally getting like Disney cartoon esoteric on you now, but, but this, this really is, I think the biggest issue facing the health world right now is people are like self-obsessed and also very carried away with self-preservation. versus like generational preservation, legacy, family, kids, passing on your wisdom. Instead, it's just kind of like, well, how can I figure out a way to like live as long as possible with almost like this attitude that it's game over when you die because there really isn't like a strong spiritual or family foundation. that the identity is tied up with. And instead people's identity is wrapped up in like how fit and how healthy or, or how looks maxed. How Speaker 1 (4:44) do you balance saying, let's go drain our blood in Mexico from our vein through a catheter to then what you just said? Right. Exactly. Speaker 3 (4:54) Yeah. And you're, you're asking like the intuitive question that, that, um, that can be confusing at first glance. Cause, cause you can see like some, you know, elaborate routine of cryotherapy and hyperbaric and i mean you could probably tell by my face i had a spa day with a friend yesterday and we did like non-ablative laser therapy and um and when when you look at a lot of these things you can either be it's kind of like three reasons One, you can be doing them because that's what your identity is wrapped up in, right? Like, how do I look? How do I perform? How fit am I? What do I look like on Instagram? And how many tools and technologies can I use to maintain that reputation and that look as long as possible? Because I never want to get old. I never want to look old. The other, the second way to think about it is I want to prepare my body to be able to be as impactful as I can. for as long as possible for whatever purpose that God has put me on this planet to achieve. And so that's the whole concept of enabling yourself to put more life in your years, not necessarily years in your life. And then the third kind of baby end of things, which is the small niche I fall into is there's also the piece that Speaker 2 (6:09) I'm involved in. A lot of this is like an immersive journalist. So I'm just out like. Speaker 3 (6:13) seeing what's out there in the fringes of the health world and trying it out. And in many cases, a lot of these things that I'm trying, like the blood filtration are not necessarily things that I would say to somebody to just go do to, um, to like be a better person. This is instead lime mold, mycotoxin, long COVID spike protein, like stuff that people really truly are ill with these days. Um, that you would go off and do a more intensive procedure like that for. But a lot of the other stuff like hyperbaric or cryotherapy or, or stem cells, um, it's to look, feel, and perform as well as possible, but not necessarily to live as long as possible. And also not because your identity is tied up in how you look, feel, and perform. So a big part of it is the mindset also. I Speaker 2 (7:02) think it's interesting, especially so for our audience and especially the ones in our audience who have been familiar with you for a long time, I think it's really impactful coming from you because you have been somebody who's been at the forefront of a lot of these biohacking things and a lot of these progressive movements and a lot of these things that maybe people considered fringe for many years. For people that are new to you, I think having this realization, especially at a time now where there's literally just an article in the Wall Street Journal about... looks maxing and brand maxing. And there's Speaker 3 (7:32) a Speaker 2 (7:32) lot of people, I think a lot of young people too, kind of being led astray. So I think it's interesting because you've kind of climbed the mountain of all the things and seen all of it and now come to this realization. So I think that the message is more impactful. Speaker 3 (7:42) Yeah. Yeah. It's so, so for me, it was, it was almost getting divorced and almost losing my family. And paradoxically, all of what I was working to send the paycheck home to, I was losing because I was all over the world doing. not just the biohacking, but speaking and performing and being on stages and chasing the whole like money power game pretty hardcore. Also tied up with health. I was racing Ironman triathlon. I was doing professional obstacle course racing. I was basically by outside perspectives, like crushing life, but then the home life was a wreck because I wasn't Speaker 2 (8:21) a Speaker 3 (8:21) present father, wasn't a present husband. So the idea is You not only don't want to get obsessed with these things because they can draw you away from what we know is truly important and fulfilling in the long run. But then the other piece is that there's ancient philosophers or authors like C.S. Lewis or Penseys or Augustine who talk about this eternal hole in the soul. and how there's like this infinite longing inside of us for something eternal. And you can throw all of the fitness and the health and the biohacking and the homes and the cars and the sex and the money and everything else into an infinite hole. But because those things are finite, you're going to be unfulfilled until you plug something infinite into the infinite hole. And in my opinion, the only two kind of like infinite, eternal things that we can interact with on a daily basis are a higher power and other people. right? So those should be the top two priorities. And in the health and biohacking world, a lot of times they aren't. Speaker 1 (9:23) When did you think that you were going to get divorced from your wife? Talk me, what did that look like? When did you have that epiphany? Speaker 3 (9:30) That was about 11 years ago. And so I was traveling all over the place. I was kind of like my son's funny older big brother who would kind of like be around, but I wasn't really like... I, I, I was not, um, leading the family in the way that I do now. And I can explain what I, what I mean by that. And I was also, I mean, even my son talks about it in the film. He's like, he would see me for one week out of the month and all the other weeks I'd be gone, you know, racing and traveling and training and like for Ironman and a lot of this racing I was doing, like on the weekends, I'd be just like working out all the time. Um, but a big part of it for me. Speaker 3 (10:14) was beginning to set boundaries. So none of the priorities, meaning like putting faith and family first, but also, for example, we have like this big morning family huddle that I started at that point to begin to bring the family together and just talk at the beginning of the day and to put myself in a situation where in the morning I'm leading the family through a routine. And it started off with. meditation and breath work and prayer and journaling. Sometimes like a dance party where we just put on music and dance around the living room for like 10 minutes. Now I read the family, the Bible and we pray and we talk about the day and how everybody sleep and who's got the cars today and where and who's making what for dinner. And we have like a big huddle and clap, you know, like a, like a family football team. and that's super special in the morning for everybody to come together like that because i think a lot of families just like wake up and then it's kind of like ships passing in the night so just this idea of like a morning party every day as a family uh that that was one really um really meaningful and change-inducing practice that i started and then same thing with family dinners i was like i'm gonna organize i'm gonna help make family dinners work and I'm going to be there and be on time and make sure I bring everybody together for this fun, like family again, like a party at the end of the day. So we meet at the end of the day at 7 PM and we have father, son book club. And I play the family a song on the guitar and we sing a song together and we all take out everything that we've cooked for dinner. Um, and we eat dinner together and we play games during dinner for like an hour or an hour and a half. dishes together and people come over to our house for dinner and they're like, you didn't have to throw like a fun party for us. I'm like, this is just like what the evening is like at our house. Um, and, and, and that means that I've built my business more slowly. I get out a little less. Um, I'm not on airplanes as much, but man, like the, the happiness and fulfillment from just beginning to bring the family together and be like the person who's not just like, checking the thermometer in the home to see how hot or cold it is, but actually being like the thermostat in the home, like setting the temperature, bringing the family together at the beginning and the end of the day. Like that was a big change, but all of it, all of that started like 11 years ago. Speaker 1 (12:39) Did that fix your marriage by you setting the boundaries and only working on private? That Speaker 3 (12:46) was a Speaker 1 (12:46) big part Speaker 3 (12:46) of it. Yeah. Yeah. That was a big part of it because my wife wanted a man who was going to like. be a present father and husband and also lead the family in some sense. And, um, we did a lot of other work together. My wife and I did, I mean, we, you know, I had to rebuild honesty. Um, I had to rebuild, like showing to her that I actually like really wanted to be a family man and, and wasn't putting business first or health first. You know, I eventually like quit racing, quit doing all the competing I was doing. Cause it's just like. It's cool, but it's not as fulfilling as, as like leading the family and being there for my kids and my wife. Speaker 2 (13:24) So when you switching gears a little bit here, when you now. look at this after all this time's passed and doing all the things you've done and you see kind of where the biohacking movement is here and there's a lot of people that want to live forever and you know i'm not going to call names out if someone's been on the show fine and there's a lot of people kind of right Speaker 3 (13:40) you Speaker 2 (13:41) know there's somebody on the show there today says if you hang on for five more years you might add another like there's people that are like really wanting to extend how do you view all of that and think about it yeah Speaker 3 (13:49) like terminal escape velocity there's somebody alive today who could maybe be immortal um so First of all, if you look at the longest livid human being on record being like 117 years old or something like that, you know, unless you count the 250 year old Shaolin monk somewhere who they say is like super duper old somewhere in a cave somewhere. Um, and then you see people saying, well, we're going to extend lifespan to 130, 150 or 180, or potentially even just like, we don't even know it's so far away, like potentially immortal. Um, I think that there would have to be a ton of advancements in science for something like that to happen in any short period of time. If you were to go get an aging test today, I mean, do you guys do like genetic, epigenetic tests, aging clocks? They look at 12 different aging systems, so 12 different organ systems, all of which would have to be targeted and optimized to actually gain that amount of life extension. Because Speaker 2 (14:49) if Speaker 3 (14:49) one or Speaker 2 (14:49) two are failures, you're screwed, right? Speaker 3 (14:51) Exactly. So there's a lot of work that you'd have to do. But let's say that in the same way that AI is rapidly advancing how fast we can develop pharmaceuticals, there's potential that as AI progresses and as we get closer to AGI, that... we might unlock mechanisms that would allow humans to live longer and longer and longer at a faster rate than what I would expect. But then the question also still becomes like, well, why? And what's that life going to be like? Because in the Lord of the Rings, Gollum lived a long time. He wasn't necessarily happy and he was living under a rock and a lot of people didn't like him. You look like Speaker 1 (15:33) Gollum when you're old. Let's just call it a day. Let's just call it a day. Speaker 3 (15:38) pull the tubes. Um, so I, I, I think that if the motivation is like I was saying before, like creating more wisdom and making more impact and achieving your life's purpose, then great. But right now, what I see in the whole health and biohacking world is a lot of those extra years that you're getting, you're simply spending, trying to live longer, like the five hour elaborate morning routine and blood tests and two hours in a hyperbaric and Speaker 1 (16:05) 30 minutes in Speaker 3 (16:05) sauna. And like always going to bed at, you know, 9 45 AM or PM. So you have the perfect sleep cycles. It's like, it becomes obsessive and it sucks the joy out of those extra years that you're getting anyways. Like I, I do a lot of the biohacking stuff, but I'm pretty reasonable about it. Like I might have an hour and a half of my day maximum that's dedicated to just like. self-care or being in a hyperbaric or doing a workout. It's not over consuming Speaker 2 (16:32) your entire life now. Yeah. So I think you can have balance. Speaker 3 (16:34) You can still use a lot of these tools, but I think you need balance. And I think the perspective should not be, I'm going to try and live forever and like win the aging Olympics or whatever the website is that's up now for that. But instead, like, I just want to look, feel and perform as optimally as possible. So I can, I can. enjoy the planet and be there for my family. What Speaker 1 (16:55) is the exact Ben Greenfield hour and a half bio, like biohacking? I want to know exactly. And I Speaker 2 (17:02) guess within that, what are the, you've tried everything. You've done the blood, you've done the spin, Speaker 3 (17:06) you've done the Speaker 2 (17:06) thing. Like what are the things that you're consistently going back to? Like, okay, these are Speaker 3 (17:11) worth it. Speaker 2 (17:11) And Speaker 1 (17:11) your hour and a half, you got an hour and a half. That's it. Let's go. Speaker 3 (17:14) Yeah. Okay. So two different questions. Um, the hour and a half piece, that's a super simple answer because I think that exercise trumps a lot. I think exercise trumps a kind of crappy diet. I don't just think that. Research proves that if you're a little bit sleep deprived, exercise can help to combat the effects of sleep deprivation. My formal background and training is in exercise physiology. That's what I have my master's degree in, is exercise physiology and biomechanics. So I'm a little bit skewed or biased towards exercise. So about an hour a day is exercise. That's usually like 8.30 to 9.30 a.m. That's my me time, sometimes with my son, sometimes me. A specific Speaker 2 (17:55) modality or switches? It Speaker 3 (17:56) varies quite a bit, yeah. And again, that's just because of my job. I'm constantly trying out new gym tools and unboxing stuff that came to the house and some new elastic band with Christmas lights and spikes coming off of it. But is it primarily resistance Speaker 2 (18:09) training? Is it cardio? Is it... Speaker 3 (18:12) The older I get, more resistance training because also, well, first of all, you can get cardiovascular stimulus from resistance training, especially if you're doing things like supersets or longer sets or sets to failure. But then I have a walking treadmill in my office. So I get like 12 to 15,000 steps a day. While you're working. While I'm working. Should I be doing this podcast? I'm Speaker 1 (18:36) a Speaker 3 (18:36) pro now at voice to dictation. Maybe you could. Okay. You guys could get little tiny treadmills back there. You don't see our legs when we're down here? Or like under the desk ergometers. I've seen those before. We're doing bicycles down here. Yeah, rolling. And so a lot of, I would say like 70 % strength training, 30 % cardio. um that does not count the 20 minutes in the morning when i get up because i listen to the bible in the morning and when i'm listening to the bible i stretch like i hit the foam roller and i stretch and i do some mobility so that's kind of like extra time in the morning and then uh at about 1 30 or 2 i have like a half hour siesta and usually that's like in the hyperbaric or on a pemf mat or uh using a red light bed or like an ozone chamber or one of these other biohacking modalities where i'm kind of like well i'm gonna sleep anyways because i like to get up early and like if i just push through the afternoon i'm kind of hangry and done with by dinner so afternoon i have like a half hour of biohacking morning i have like an hour of exercise and then occasionally i'll do like a med spa touristy trip like i've been in austin with a week or for the week with one of my buddies and we've literally like every day been like doing IVs and hitting all the cool clinics down here and doing hyperbaric. We both did like blood filtration and stem cells. And so occasionally they'll be like, you know, like a big kick. Speaker 1 (20:00) When you were on here last time, you told me that you were cold plunge saunaing all the time. Are we still doing that? Speaker 3 (20:07) Sometimes. Yeah. But that's usually like in the afternoon or the early evening with my sons. We have this huge like 20 person communal sauna. Speaker 3 (20:17) We just hang out and we talk, uh, we read, we listen to stuff. And we also live on the edge. We have a waterfront property in north Idaho. We live on the edge of a pond. Uh, so we Speaker 2 (20:27) have Speaker 3 (20:27) like a pond on our property and we like go jump into the pond. Um,