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The Stephen McCain Podcast
Insightful interviews, strategies, and advice from people making world-class decisions in human optimization, performance, & longevity with Olympian Stephen McCain.
The Stephen McCain Podcast
The Man Who Is Beating Bryan Johnson In The Rejuvenation Olympics For Pennies On The Dollar. Unlocking the Secrets to Longevity with Dave Pascoe. EP 015
Ever wondered how to age gracefully while maintaining peak physical health? Join us on the Stephen McCain podcast as we sit down with Dave Pascoe, a formidable contender in the Rejuvenation Olympics, to uncover the secrets behind his youth-preserving regimen. From exosome treatments revolutionizing his shoulder recovery to simple daily habits like optimized sleep, diet, and a healthy dose of gratitude, Dave's journey offers invaluable insights into holistic well-being. He delves into the origins of his disciplined lifestyle and shares the importance of mindful exercise routines, particularly when using gymnastic rings to avoid injuries.
Facing a health scare at 50 despite a diligent fitness regimen? Learn from a personal story that reveals the hidden dangers of chronic stress and its dramatic impact on biological aging. We discuss the vital role telomeres play in longevity and cancer risk, and the advanced treatments available, including telomerase activation and gene therapy. The episode also covers hormone optimization, highlighting the benefits of testosterone replacement therapy for men. We dive deep into the significance of sleep and personal care routines, illustrating how these elements are crucial for overall health and well-being.
Curious about optimizing your aging process through diet and lifestyle? Discover practical strategies for health optimization, from regular blood tests to innovative home gardening methods. Explore the fascinating world of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and the latest advancements in NAD supplementation. The conversation also touches on the importance of metabolic conditioning and maintaining VO2 max for sustained energy and functionality. Finally, we wrap up with a heartfelt discussion on the power of gratitude and its profound impact on achieving a balanced, fulfilling life. Tune in for an episode brimming with expert advice and personal anecdotes that will inspire you to prioritize your health and well-being.
Checkout links to everything we discuss at: https://stephenmccain.com/pascoe
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Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Stephen McCain podcast, where I bring you people making world-class decisions in the field of human optimization and performance. This week's guest is Dave Pascoe. He is right up at the top on the rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard. What that means is he is slowing down his rate of aging and in this podcast we discuss all the ways in which he's doing that, and you'd be surprised. A lot of these are just fundamentally simple habits that he continues to do, which, in this world where we're all looking for a magic bullet, it is a nice reminder that sleep and diet and exercise and gratitude really can have an impact on our rate of aging. And this guy's 62 years old. I've met him in person. He's in great shape, he looks phenomenal. So let's dig in and let's really learn from this guy. I hope you enjoy the podcast. Let's do this. Dave Pascoe, welcome to the Stephen McCain podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey, stephen, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:It's my pleasure. We met at the Club ExoZone recently in Vegas and I knew about you. I was fascinated by your approach and we're very similar in terms of a lot of us that are going after this health thing. I don't know how you really want to define it. Maybe we'll do that on this podcast, but it was really cool meeting you and, just so everyone knows, you were in really great shape and we're going to talk about your exercise routine, but did you?
Speaker 2:notice anything from the exosomes. Yeah, actually I was surprised because I've been having trouble sleeping on this shoulder. I mean, this is the shoulder that I got the injection in, so I was having rotator cuff issues. But that night I was able to sleep on my side just fine. I never expected anything that quick.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah that was impressive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just so that everyone knows, club exosome is a joint venture between me and Dr Sandra Kaufman and we just trying to democratize access to some of these really cool modalities and we have a lot of fun with it. It's pretty casual. We do it quarterly in Vegas and you know, yeah, it was really. The conversations are phenomenal and I look at it as a networking event. And here we are. I met you there, you came out to it and you're on the podcast and just a bunch of really cool like-minded people. And I've been using Exums for about a year and a half pretty consistently. I do them quarterly and I tell you I had a shoulder issue from COVID using that X3 bar. I wasn't fully warmed up and I'm like it's just something. It's not. You know it's not right. And after about three treatments of a pretty low dose it fixed, it, forgot which side it was, and so those things are amazing.
Speaker 2:I ended up screwing up my shoulder again shortly afterwards because I was feeling so great that when I came home I have a pair of Olympic rings in my backyard.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Tony Horton. I'm a big fan of his. I still do his P90X workouts and I watched something that he did on Instagram where he was doing this really cool flip thing. So I thought you know what, I'm going to give that a try. Yeah well, I should have warmed up a little bit first. I also should have given this a few more weeks to heal up, but uh, yeah, I did some of the flips with it. I felt like, oh, this pull. So now I'm a little sore here, but yeah, it is what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always tell people I have a lot of friends that are into fitness and and like, oh, rings, you've got to show me stuff on rings. And I said, listen, tread lightly. That is the easiest way to jack your shoulders like 100%.
Speaker 2:Trust me, those things are dangerous. They are amazing. Yeah, you could have talked me out of doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe I should do like a little ring routine, small course or something how to safely navigate rings. I would definitely watch that. Okay, well, we'll put it on the list. But look, you're an interesting guy. Right now you are a head of Brian Johnson, who's gotten a lot of press in the Rejuvenation Olympics, which is essentially a leaderboard for people that are doing this. Methylation, biological age tests, and whoever is aging at the slowest rate is highest on the leaderboard, and you're number six, which is probably. You must be getting a lot of attention for this, I imagine surprisingly so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't expect the amount of attention that I would get from that, because I'm just just me living my life. You know, I didn't think that was a big deal until people were like but you're beating a billionaire who's spending $2 million a year. That that's something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's noteworthy, say the least. I mean, you look at everything you're doing on your website and it's, it's, it's an impressive array of of. You know it's a discipline, but there must be some genesis to all this. What happened? Did you have a moment? Did you have a dark moment? Did you have something that really spurred this, or are you just always this way?
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've kind of always been this way, but it's been an iteration over time where I just keep adding and adding and adding. I was always a weird kid. I used to really look into how adults around me behaved, like. What made them successful in anything, whether it's finances, relationships, successful right In anything, whether it's finances, relationships, health and wellness, what, what is it? Why do some people do really great at some things and other people just seem to suck at it? And so I could get off on a whole tangent about my parents going up with my father, but that I don't. I don't know if I really want to go there. I've done it on a few other podcasts, so if people hear multiple podcasts, they'll be sick of hearing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so as far as health and wellness went, I could see some people were very wealthy while other people struggled a little bit more. My family wasn't real well off, but I didn't know any better because that's the way my neighborhood was, that's the way all my friends were. But I would see couples. I would see couples that got along like best friends and others that fought like cats and dogs, and I wanted to know what was it about these relationships that made them work the way they were or not work the way they were. So the same with health and fitness.
Speaker 2:I noticed that people that did certain habits always had great success, and people who didn't do those habits or had other worse bad habits always seem to get the same results too. So I noticed that people would get really, really old looking if they drank a lot and smoked a lot. And that was sort of an experiment that I did going through high school, where I watched friends who I knew were really hard partiers because I had the strongest suspicion that they weren't going to look so good later on in life. And, sad to say, that's so true. Some of these friends that I graduated with. I look at them and I go, oh my gosh, these people are so old.
Speaker 1:I can't identify with them anymore.
Speaker 2:They're of a whole different generation than me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like you've had a high level of curiosity and perspective on just looking at them.
Speaker 2:You did have a what I did have, a scare. I mean, everybody seems to have some sort of health scare.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm looking for. What was?
Speaker 2:the scare. Mine was minimal, I mean, compared to a lot of folks, because I always tried to eat right. You know, based on whatever the you know the understanding of what eating right was of the day, I can't say I always did that. I mean, growing up as a kid I ate a lot of sugar and crap, but I can't say I always did that. I mean, growing up as a kid I ate a lot of sugar and crap, but all right, I've lost my train of thought.
Speaker 1:I hate when that happens. You were going to talk about your scare, your scare.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. All right, so it was about the time I was turning 50. I was training for my first marathon, I was doing P90X, I was taking care of both of my parents who were down pretty hard with cancer at the same time, and I just thought I was Joe Cool, I thought I was just. I had it all together. It was Mr Fitness, I was in great shape. I mean, here I was at 50, much better, healthier, stronger, faster than I ever was in my 30s, and looking better, healthier, stronger, faster than I ever was in my 30s, and looking better, all because of changing in my lifestyle diet, exercise.
Speaker 2:But then I heard, or read, I can't remember which, about a test for telomeres. Now, telomeres being those like. Imagine them as the little end caps on the end of your shoelaces that keep your shoe from unraveling. They're the markers on DNA. I mean, I know, know, you know this. I'm just saying this for whoever might be listening. Yeah, um, it's. They're kind of like a separator between uh, snips of dna, separate genes, and I'm probably butchering that explanation, but anyway, um, the idea is that as time goes by and cells replicate, these telomeres tend to get shorter, and the shorter they get, basically the older biologically you are. And so I thought, yeah, I'll go get this test, let's see how I'm doing. I'm sure it's going to come back and say I've got the telomeres of a 20-year-old, right? No, it was completely the opposite. It told me I had the telomeres of a 68 year old, right? No, it was completely the opposite.
Speaker 1:It told me I had the telomeres of a 68 year old at age 50.
Speaker 2:And I thought, whoa, uh, yeah, that's, that's not good. I'm obviously missing something really huge here. What is it? Thankfully, the company that that offered it? Well, they're not around anymore, but they offered a consultation along with the test.
Speaker 2:And so I got on the phone with their staff physician and the very first thing he started asking me was things about my lifestyle. Really, at the time it wasn't very well known that lifestyle could trump genetics or that lifestyle really even mattered. Well, I guess if it was known, it wasn't known by me, let's put it that way. So I just thought these were really strange questions that he was asking me. But through the course of the conversation, I mean I'm explaining that, yeah, I'm a sole caretaker for both of my parents who have cancer. Doing the P90X which I thought was excellent, doing marathon training. I've got an incredibly stressful job. And the guy stops me right there and says well, okay, he says we have seen this in endurance athletes having much shorter telomeres because of the stress that they put themselves under. We've also seen it in caretakers. We've seen it in people who have incredibly stressful jobs for a living. And you've got the trifecta you're, you're basically, you're killing yourself with stress.
Speaker 2:yeah, and that was a huge eye-opener for me and so they suggested things like you know, yoga, meditation, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, yeah, I used to do yoga and meditation. How did I ever forget about those? I guess just through the course of life and everything that was happening. Those things got pushed into the background Totally forgot about them so.
Speaker 1:I had to pull those back out of my back pocket and start again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the fear of God can be a powerful motivation. I have found that most people who are really dialed in in this industry or have really committed to it, they had a moment, some moment that really was a light for them, basically where they were confronted with their mortality, their life, and so thank you for sharing that story. And what's interesting about yours is you have cancer in your family lineage, and shortening of telomeres is a cancer risk, right, because now these DNA are left to mutate, because there's no end of the cap, like the shoelace cap at the end of them. And so what have you done for your telomeres? I'm sure you've had them tested and I'm sure you've activated some telomerase. You've probably done some epitalon, some TA65. You've lowered your stress levels. You've probably done quite a few things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tam818. Yeah, I mean, at the time I was searching everywhere, there really wasn't anything available. It took quite a while for things to become available that could increase telomeres with telomerase. I don't think that was even known back in what was that? 2012. I think it was a few years later that it became widely known through cancer research that they saw that cancer cells produced their own telomerase, and so I was like, wow, cool. So as soon as products became available, I started taking those. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Have you considered I know it's really expensive but Liz Parrish's telomerase gene therapy at all?
Speaker 2:No, no, I'm not even familiar with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I always my first podcast guest, paul Tozer I always say this almost because he's jumped on the bandwagon to a lot of these things but it's basically a gene therapy where it just makes your body produce telomerase which will increase your telomeres, and he's had it done. It's very expensive. That's the only problem.
Speaker 2:For now.
Speaker 1:For now it's very expensive and I'm sure it will come down in price over time. But that's maybe the holy grail of telomerase telomere treatment. It's interesting that that stuff is is out there. But look, it's not about doing the most expensive treatment. I mean there's lots of behavioral modifications you can do, like limiting your stress. I mean the goal isn't to live a stressful life and then find some sort of magic bullet that's going to just fix it right. I mean the goal is to try to do things in the most holistic, organic, simple way and then, if you're really still in a state of emergence, add some of these high-level hacks or whatever you want to call them, to move the needle on this issue. But it's very interesting that you had that experience and it's on par with a lot of my guests and stuff. I'm always curious like what is it? What happened to this person?
Speaker 2:what is it? What happened to this person? You know, and I've always been amazed, that people have to wait to become a cancer patient to start doing the interventions that you would do as a cancer patient. I'm like why wouldn't we start eating healthy beforehand? Why do we just clean up our diet, you know, in result of a diagnosis?
Speaker 1:Why not?
Speaker 1:preventative yeah, I completely agree. I have my own longevity framework, um, optimal frame. I could still kind of to figure out what what the name is for. But the very first thing, which I consider the longevity part of it, is managing your bottlenecks, and so that refers to something in your genetic lineage. You should know this. What did your ancestors die from? What is your blood markers? What is your DNA testing?
Speaker 1:It's all pointing that you have a propensity for a specific disease, usually one of the four big killers. Right, for me, it's heart disease. So my first step in my entire protocol is disease mitigation. I have to have a plan. There is no law. All longevity means is the absence of disease to me. Right, I mean, yeah, not dying in a car crash or falling and breaking your hip, but it really, at the end of the day, you, the whole Blue Zones, documentary, all that stuff these are just people that don't get disease, you know. And so for you I imagine you potentially have this cancer in your family Are you doing any sort of advanced screening for that? Because it seems like cancer is all about early detection and screening, advanced screening for that Because it seems like cancer is all about early detection and screening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, got all kinds of things in my family. Gosh, my dad had COPD. He was borderline diabetic, which I mean when they say borderline. If you're borderline, you're basically diabetic. I mean I don't think there really is any borderline.
Speaker 1:You're there, you just need to start doing something about it. The only reason why they say borderline is because you need to cross the threshold for the insurance company to allow you to actually use your insurance to pay for it. So they're like no, you don't have it yet, you don't have it yet. Now you have diabetes.
Speaker 2:Now you can get some medication that teeter-totter tip and now you're really screwed, okay, absurd, yeah, yeah yeah so I mean I, I had all my. I've had my genetics run um several different times, but then I finally did my entire genome and I I guess I wasn't surprised to see that I have three genetic markers for the same um macular degeneration that my dad suffered from both one and dry.
Speaker 2:Um, so part of my supplementation is addressing eye health. But yeah, there was heart issues. I know my father's mother had angina. There were other. There were so many health issues in my family so I'm pretty much trying to combat all of them. Yeah, wow, good for you. I regularly go see like a cardiologist.
Speaker 1:In fact next gosh.
Speaker 2:What is it In my family, so I'm pretty much trying to combat all of them. Yeah, wow, good for you. I regularly go see like a cardiologist. In fact, next gosh, what is it? Next week? I think I've got an appointment with America's healthy heart doc, dr Joel Kahn. He's got his own podcast, too. Great guy Nice. Is he going to have you on? I don't know, I don't think so. We've never talked about it, but he usually does solo-sodes, so that doesn't usually have guests.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, I mean there's so many. I would love to talk about your eye protocol. You know what? Let's do it. What are you doing for your eye protocol? Because that's the only thing I've noticed. I'm 50 now. It's the only real thing I've noticed in terms of aging and so far, distance, no problem, like a hawk. But up close reading I'm getting a little bit blurry and I have these low, the lowest prescription readers. I hate it.
Speaker 2:I hate them. It's a problem then? Because I can't see very good from far, but close up, I'm, I'm fine which was great because, you know, as a network security architect and engineer, I was always had my face in a laptop, so I needed to be able to see close up.
Speaker 2:Well, and I never had an issue with that, but, um, I need usually need a wingman, like you when I'm out, to be able to tell if the girls look good from far away and then I can tell you whether they look good from close up or not.
Speaker 1:That's great. Well, that's great. It's at almost 62 years of age. Your hormone profile sounds like it's good. If you're talking about the female and wanting to figure out, you know they look good.
Speaker 2:But what do you?
Speaker 1:do. Yeah, that's great. That's great. I mean, that's a. There's a. There's an epidemic going on with that. Men's testosterone is Jesus. I've basically come to this conclusion that every man on the face of the earth is practically going to have to be on hormone replacement at some point in their life.
Speaker 2:Almost all of my friends seems like everybody I know is on testosterone replacement therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and other people shy away from it. I don't want to be on steroids. It's like, look. It's not about redlining your body. It's not about like overdriving this and being some like you know it just puts your down now I don't even know what it is, but it's.
Speaker 1:It's something that it really is like well below it's normal now. Oh my god, I can't even imagine, you know, I I can't tell you how many guys call me and they're around that 35 plus, somewhere between 35 and low 40s and they know something's happening. They're like something is not right.
Speaker 2:I can feel it and you're talking total right, not free.
Speaker 1:You're talking total testosterone yeah, I'm talking total, yeah, okay. So, yeah, total. Yeah, I usually speak in total, but I know the. It's a lot of it, most of us bound up, and your free testosterone is the only active, usable portion of it. But in general, typically if you have 300 compared to 900, you're probably going to have a commensurately less testosterone. You're going to notice it. It's a huge. It's a huge thing. And then there's a lot of these clinics that you know they're.
Speaker 1:They're not really up to speed on fully how to do hormone optimization and I always tell people that's one of those things you need to. You need to learn from a doctor first. Like go get, go get a really good doctor that is really good at hormones, learn the ropes for a few years and then you can do it by yourself. But you really need to work with a professional. You've got to look under the hood, you've got to know these values and you need to know what moves the needle and what to look for in a blood lab.
Speaker 1:So if you want to manage it yourself, I mean I've been managing my hormones stuff. I might take a predaline, pregnenolone and DHEA and I take some HCG and. But I've been managing that for a while, but I learned from a really great doctor and I spent years paying a lot of money to learn that system. So if you need it all the men listening out there testosterone is vital. It's not just about building muscle. There's a whole host of necessities for testosterone. Saw you, you know you're in good shape. You've somehow bulletproofed yourself and I'm sure a lot of that is your diet and your personal care products and you're probably very protective, I imagine, of yourself oh, and of my sleep too.
Speaker 2:I mean you, you gave me a great offer to go out that night and I'm like I really need my sleep.
Speaker 1:I was still on detroit time, so I was like three hours you know later, so yeah yeah, so I I hooked up from my club exosome team this I have a friend of mine, he's the head of entertainment for mgm and so he is a lot of connections, and we did this dinner performance dinner thing where it's all like music and all this stuff really cool. It was called mayfair at uh, bellagio, and then we walked over to pinky ring, which is bruno mars. Um, it's like a, it's supposed to be. I thought it was a bar, but it's kind of a club with a really, really good band. But it's got this. It's a cool vibe. And he came and sat right behind us, this guy. He hooked us up so we could be right with Bruno Mars and he gets on stage and he's belting it out and it was fun.
Speaker 1:But I mean I couldn't last past one. As soon as 10, 30 comes around, I'm bobbing and weaving. I'm like I can barely keep my eyes open because I'm I've been so regular with my sleep for so long. Sometimes I love it, but at the same time some there's sometimes I'm like God, can't you just stay awake till one? You're at this thing and all I could think of is I'm screwing my circadian rhythm up. Right now I barely can keep an eye open, but the people I invited to this were really having a good time. I wanted to be there for them. Some of them were like huge fans of Bruno, but when you said you texted me and you said it's a little past my bedtime, I can't do it. I had so much respect for you. I really did. I thought this is why this guy is on the leaderboard.
Speaker 2:Really, Seriously, I was thinking you were going to say oh my gosh, this guy is old.
Speaker 1:No, that's what I'm going to be graded on my age, you know. Yeah, but starting at 930, that was 1230 for me.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I was still on Detroit time and that was just going to be way too late to get started.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's even adding more insult to injury. Yeah, but I really respected it and I was an Olympic athlete. I had to live that way for a long time, where I had to put my force fields up around everybody. Even as a kid, when I first started gymnastics, I had friends that after school would be playing and they're like can't you just not go to gymnastics today, can't you just skip it? And I said, no, I can't do it, I can't, this is what I do. The little devil on the shoulder always yeah, exactly. So I've really respected it. But look, I want to circle back around to this eye thing. What are you doing for your eyes? Because maybe you're doing something I haven't heard of.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you went back there, because I was going to try to circle back to that too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, a lot of astaxanthin, zeaxanthin, lutein, eating lots of food that's red and orange and yellow, getting a lot of the carotenoids and stuff in the diet, just really focusing on that and of course not smoking.
Speaker 2:So my dad was a really big smoker, big drinker. That didn't help his eyesight any. And then, of course, he also got shingles which took out one of his eyes completely from that, oh, really Interesting. So I did bite the bullet. I got the shingles vaccine. I know a lot of people are very adverse to vaccinations but, honestly, I've been vaccinated for everything under the sun, because I traveled to Africa in 2019. So I needed a bunch of vaccinations for travel for that. So, yeah, yeah. But it hasn't seemed to impact my longevity at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean again, when you're doing all these other things, it's not that one vaccination, you know, vaccination maybe for a very unhealthy person with massive metabolic disorders and things like that. I mean, I'm sure there's a gasoline and fire sort of scenario for a lot of these comorbidities. But with the eye stuff, I'm a big fan of astaxanthin. I don't think I've missed a dose of astaxanthin in the last 14 years.
Speaker 2:Maybe Love it, it's great for DNA repair in general, so it's a terrific stuff, yeah mitochondria inflammation.
Speaker 1:I mean it's one of those ones that it's I know it's Sandra Kaufman's favorite and I agree with all the odds.
Speaker 1:And it's a natural sunscreen too. So for someone that's really fair like me, it offers a natural sunscreen and I've seen this work. I've been in places where I normally would have been fried Someone with the same sort of skin tone as me and it really works. But I have that vitamin A snip that doesn't. I don't convert carotenoids into vitamin A very efficiently, so I think what I'm going to do now is I've noticed that this really is a light issue for me. If I'm at a restaurant and it's really dark, if I just shine my torch light from my phone on the menu, I can read it. I don't need glasses.
Speaker 1:So I'm thinking I might have ventured into a vitamin A deficiency because of this inability to convert carotenoids into vitamin A. And also I've supplemented vitamin D religiously for a long time D with K2. But you really need to have A in there with D, like. I've been doing a lot of research on this and I've noticed a few little skin things that show up for what would be people that have low vitamin A. So I'm going to have that properly tested and I'm going to get that level dialed in and see what it does. But I've tried the NAC eye drops drops, which are really good. I've tried the same here yeah, the.
Speaker 1:Have you tried the peptide ones, the um uh visal visamitten?
Speaker 2:no, oh wait oh, um bioregulator, yeah, yeah, yeah, visalutin or whatever. It looks like it's russian, but yeah, I have. I have tried it is Russian.
Speaker 1:I've actually bought it in Moscow before, from the equivalent of a CVS in 2019. And I put it in my eyes and by the end of the week I thought they upgraded my iPhone. I was like, what are they? I'm like, oh my God, those eye drops. Problem is you can get them here. They don't seem to work as well. The lady in the pharmacy said keep it cold. So I think by the time they ship all the way over here.
Speaker 1:They're really not as effective and I cause I was trying them here for a while. I'm like, yeah, what helps? But it doesn't have the same punch they did when I was in Moscow, so somebody needs to make that product here. The other thing I done is taken cause I'm in the exosome business. Is whatever like anything that's left over in the vial at all, and usually we do a good job of clearing it absolutely. But I will, for my own, I'll take the exosomes and I'll just use them as eye drops and I have noticed that that has had an effect yeah oh cool, because, yeah, they're so small they're very less than 115 nanometers, I believe they're.
Speaker 1:They absorb through the skin, through them, so they can get into the eye, and I would like to do a more regular protocol of those where I'm hitting it more consistently. The problem is is that as soon as you thaw out an exosome, you have to use it. So how do you thaw out only you know a few drops worth and then use those. So I'll figure it out. But I'm really starting to take a stronger. I even have that. I even had bought that program years ago the eye gym, where you do all these exercises for your eyes and you, you know, because some people will say, oh, you're just not able to, the muscles are atrophying and the eyes so you can't focus as well. So I have that. I think I'm going to at some point here, take like a strong approach to it, because it's the only thing I notice and I do everything else pretty well, but the I sing, I, I, just I.
Speaker 1:I kind of feel like I've started to accept it and we've had this conversation now and now I'm not going to accept it fight it, fight it the whole way, kicking it, fight it the whole way, don't let the old man in I told you this guy uh yeah, this uh famous sculptor and he's in his mid-70s and I was like, man, you're really active for your area, what do you do? And he's like I don't let the old man in and I thought there's a country song by that name that somebody was just telling me about the other day oh really, yeah, yeah, oh, maybe people that are watching are going.
Speaker 2:it's so, and so you idiots, but we don't know who that is so yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll dig it up, I'll put a link to it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'll put the podcast or the Spotify link to it. But look, let's dig in a little bit to your protocol because something's working and I'm interested. Obviously, we don't have time to really go through all of what you're doing, but I would like to hit your major sections and maybe what you think were the biggest movers for you, because I guess, to frame this, have you noticed, like I did my methylation test and then I'd made some tweaks and then I did it again and it improved? Have you pinned down certain things in your protocol that you feel are obligatory to your protocol and that they had the biggest swing effect?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm sure you've heard it said a million times that you can't supplement your way out of a bad diet. Right, yeah, and for the longest time I guess I was trying to do that. I noticed that. All right. So to figure out how I'm doing with any of my protocol, I, you know, I always do like a monthly blood test and look at what my blood markers are and then doing true diagnostic. When I learned of them and the telomere testing, those were indicators of other measures that I wanted to look at to make sure that I was on the right track with my protocol, because I wanted to make sure that by taking all these supplements I'm not injuring myself in some way. Maybe there's some weird interaction between these. Or you always hear people say, oh, you can't take that many supplements, you're going to ruin your liver or your kidneys or whatever. And to be able to verify whether that's true or not, I have to do all these testing.
Speaker 2:And thankfully no, many of the things that I take are actually good for my liver and my kidneys, so it's not a concern and my markers are pretty good. But getting back to your question, what's the biggest mover? When I found True Diagnostic and began, I took my first test. I can't remember. I think my score was like 0.72 maybe and then my next test.
Speaker 2:I think I was up to 0.8. And then my third test I was at 0.66. And that was, coincidentally, my qualifying score for the Rejuvenation Olympics. The only thing that really changed between the 0.8 and the 0.66 was my diet.
Speaker 1:Was what.
Speaker 2:My diet. Oh, okay, the foods that I was eating. I was eating pretty clean, but this was right about the time that both of my parents had finally passed and I was doing a whole house renovation and I wasn't always able to food prep and eat clean.
Speaker 1:So I was doing some cheating.
Speaker 2:You know I would. I would buy two large pizzas and I would package those up and I would eat like a couple of slices for lunch and a couple of slices for dinner. You know, in between working on the house, so you know, the diet kind of slacked off a little bit. But once that was through and I began, you know, I got back to eating nothing. But, you know, clean, healthy stuff. Yeah, that's when I got the 0.66. Wow, my pace of aging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what's interesting is, I did that test not that long ago and I'm in the 0.6 something. I forget what it is. I should just put my name in there. I don't know why I haven't done that. I think because you should, I really should. I kind of almost am afraid a little bit to ping that competitive nature in me because I was an Olympian and I'm a little bit look, I almost lost two separate girlfriends to family games of Monopoly over the holidays Like that's how competitive I can get, I refuse to lose. And I'm just a little bit like I'm slightly concerned to go there because then I'll be like okay, I'm going to go about this like a professional athlete. I'm going to be like a race car driver with all the sponsors I'm going to be reaching. I use your product to get you know to be the number one guy and I'm going to you know my brain will go in that direction product to get you know to be the number one guy. And now I'm going to you know my brain will go in that direction. But regardless of that, I the food cannot be under appreciated. I can't.
Speaker 1:A lot of clients and people that I work with I asked them. How often are you eating out? I just worked with an actor when it took. He wanted he's losing roles because he took off a shirt and he's going to have the physique that somebody else did. And he's like I'm just sick of it. I'm sick of losing to these guys that have a better physique.
Speaker 1:And I said, well, how many times are you eating out? He said almost every meal, I said, and he had some gut issues. He wasn't digesting his food very well. It is really hard to have a six pack if you have digestion issues. Your digestion is how you expel things and how you absorb things, and you've got to have at least one good bowel movement a day. But I I got him and just said you need to start cooking. Just simplify, get yourself a steamer, you know, if you eat meat. Get some responsible meat, get some organic vegetables and a nice array. Use some healthy fats, use your starch around your workouts, cause that's when you'll absorb a lot of that glucose. And it worked. It started. He was like man. I feel so much better. I realized just eating from home and controlling my meals has such a difference. But when I look at your website, you're doing it to. Not only that, but you're doing it to the next level. I mean, you're growing some of your own food. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Before I go there, I wanted to you actually touched on several different things.
Speaker 2:I wanted to make comments on Um. So when you look at somebody like Julie Gibson Clark who is on the rejuvenation Olympics and I think she's in um on on the, there's two different leaderboards. There's an absolute and then there's a regular leaderboard. On the regular leaderboard she's right behind brian, but her pace of aging is even better hers is better than mine and his and she doesn't do a whole bunch of supplements. She doesn't do a lot of crazy stuff. She nails all the basics. I mean she's, she's out rucking, so she's very physically active all the time. She does do no Novo's core as a supplementation, but it's not like you know. That's great for autophagy and cellular cleanup, but that's. We're not talking spending hundreds or thousands of dollars a month on supplements. She just nails all the good stuff, all the basics.
Speaker 2:She's got sleep, diet and exercise down and to me I think those are the biggest movers. Seriously, the supplementation is just like you said it's icing on the cake, it's hitting another layer. So when you look at things like True Diagnostic, they will admit that when they developed their test it's specifically designed such that a disease state will not affect the reading that they get for your epigenetic age, because originally it was designed to be able to age a cadaver or to tell, like if you had somebody that comes over from this country, from another country, does not have paperwork, you'll be able to tell basically how old they are, but it had to be independent of heart disease, of diabetes, high blood pressure, all these major systemic issues. So when I look at pace of aging and epigenetic age, to me the biggest movers of those are the sleep, exercise and diet, but my supplements I take to address more organ systems like a higher level or a higher layer of a complexity, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely agree with you and I didn't know that about that methylation test, that it is independent of disease states. And even more back to my framework because, like I said, the beginning is longevity and that that really is like shoring up any sort of disease mitigation. Because, like, people get very cute with these tests and they say, oh, I reduced my biological age by 10 years. And I say, did you reduce? I reduced my biological age by 10 years and I say, did you reduce the plaque in your arteries by 10 years? So you can't put the cart before the horse. You need to have some strategy to manage that disease state. That's in you, it's in your lineage, right, and then you move into what I call the health span. That's your sleep, that's your nutrition, that's your exercise, that's your stress and management your relationships, overcoming past traumas, things like that.
Speaker 1:And that to me is that behavioral, those behavioral changes that really you know how well can I live these years that I have on this planet? And I couldn't agree with you more. And you've got to be, you've got to have some discipline or good habits. I don't think habits free you from discipline, because discipline kind of implies I really don't want to do this but I should, whereas habits are. I don't even have to have any cognitive expense whatsoever. I just do this without even thinking about it, like brushing your teeth, right? None of us go like, do I really have to brush my teeth again today? No, you just accept it, you do it.
Speaker 1:And I think if you can put those four movers the nutrition, the sleep, the diet and the exercise all in that bucket and build these habits now, you can start stacking 500 habits right Now without any cognitive expense. That's how someone goes Jesus, how do you manage all this? It's habit, don't even have to think about it. Of my framework is really the regenerative part, that is, the pathways, that is the hallmarks of aging, and that's where you can use all these medications and supplements and compounds and novel molecules and all these things to address all those pathways of aging.
Speaker 1:But a lot of people they want to get fancy, they want to come down to that bottom level, because that's the kind of rage right now. But yet they haven't done the pre-work, they don't have the habits, they haven't mitigated their disease, and so it's an interesting sort of state that the environment is in, because people are kind of grasping at straws a lot of times, instead of just having a solid framework and you have a damn solid framework I do want to ask you what are you growing or doing to control your food?
Speaker 2:I do want to ask you, what are you growing or doing to control your food? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I would love to grow more if I had the space and if I had the know-how on actually how to prepare some things.
Speaker 2:Right now I'm growing sweet potatoes again in my yard. I grew those. I've been growing them now for a couple years and I keep learning a little more and more each time, making my soil a little more sandy each time because it's helping the potatoes to grow larger. Originally they were like tiny little things. I like string string potatoes. I couldn't do a whole lot with them, but you know, the more sand I'm adding to the soil, the better, the better and larger they're getting um. So I've got lots of those going um. I'm growing turnips, oh gosh. I'm trying to think of all the things I planted. I planted onions, parsnips, I've got carrots, tomatoes, of course. You've got green peppers, yellow peppers, red peppers, swiss chard, lots of herbs. I've got basil growing, I've got oregano, rosemary, gosh, and I've had those lots of herbs growing in my basement under grow lamps throughout the winter. But I've got more outside now, which is nice. So just about everything I can think of I try to grow.
Speaker 1:That is impressive. And how did you get into that? Is it a massive ordeal? Because I've done the herbs before, I've never planted food, and I'm highly curious, especially after seeing your site and I know that, oh, this would be so nice. And I mean, if you think about it, you can put seeds in soil and you can grow food for free. Basically, yes, it takes time out of your day to nurture it and all that, but, like you, you can forget that.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean food's gotten pretty damn expensive? Yeah, it has. I, you know I used to do it the hard way. My, my dad used to have a garden and we used to rent a rototiller. And you know me being the young guy, he would always have me working the rototiller out there in the back. And if you've ever seen a rototiller, it's just this giant machine with blades and it just tills up the soil, it just tears everything up. Getting everything ready for planting. It's a lot of work, I don't do that anymore it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when my dad started getting older, like in his late 70s, early 80s, I came up with this idea for him that he could continue his garden without having to bend over, without having to bend down. I bought a bunch of these things called earth boxes, it's uh. Well, coincidentally, back when I was 10 I came up with the design for earth boxes on my own. And now here, all these decades later, somebody made a product out of it. And I'm just kicking myself that I ever let my dad talk me out of it, because he told me it was a stupid idea back when I was 10.
Speaker 1:So oh really, yeah, yeah, I'm like I had. Don't sleep on the next one, right exactly. Sleep on the next idea, yeah that's great, it was.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, it's so. It's basically is this box, plastic box. It's got a um a reservoir in the bottom with a with a that you can pour water into. It fills the reservoir so the plant's roots will grow down into the reservoir and drink as much as they want, and it also has a plastic cover that goes around the plants so water's not evaporating. You only use a little bit of water so it's not like just seeping into the ground and going away. So it's very water conservative.
Speaker 2:That part I absolutely love For him. I put them up on stands so all he had to do is just walk right up to them and be able to pick and do his pruning and everything else. He never had to bend down. It also kept the animals out of them, because we have lots of bunnies and squirrels and possums and skunks and all kinds of things around here. So it was just a great idea all the way around and he loved it and I still continue that to this day. Of course I've got better stands now, but all of my stuff is in Earthboxes and it's up about waist high and, yeah, I love it. It's all along the south side of my house, so it's in sun all day long, but the great thing about that is I also set up.
Speaker 2:Earthboxes, yeah, but the great thing about that is, I also set up earth boxes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, earthboxcom. I'm not. I'm not sponsored by them. Hopefully they'll get lots of business from this, cause it's a really. It's just a great thing for a suburban gardener If you don't want to have to dig up your property at all and you can move them around anywhere you want, cause they're not that heavy. You can put them in sun, put them in sun, put them in shade whatever works best in your yard. Yeah, I also set up a watering system and I put some of this on my website. I need to flesh out that page a little better now that I have time.
Speaker 2:I have a watering system that takes care of everything for me. So really, I planted them and I forget about them. I go out every so often just to pick some stuff to eat, but I don't have to weed because no weeds grow in them, because I got the plastic covers on them. I don't have to water them because they water themselves every morning. It's just a timer comes on and runs for one minute because that's all it takes just to fill up that reservoir and there's a hole in the side so it can't over, can't overfill and drown the plants. Water will drain out the hole, you know which is halfway up.
Speaker 1:So, it's set it and forget it.
Speaker 2:You know, I was able to go away for 30 days in Italy and not have to worry about my plants. I went away for the weekend in Vegas. I went away for the weekend in Dallas for the biohacking conference. Didn't have to worry about my plants dying while I was gone, it was all just automatic.
Speaker 1:That's phenomenal. I mean, you're making it very enticing. I certainly am going to. I'll include links in the show notes to all this stuff earthboxcom, and you can find that at stephenmccaincom, backslash Hasco. How do you spell your last name, dave? P-a-s-c-o-e, p-a-s-c-o-e. Yep, got it Okay, but you're definitely making this very enticing because I would imagine in my mind I've built it up to be something where I'm like oh man, I don't want to be tending to a garden all day long, but it sounds like what you've developed is makes it pretty simple.
Speaker 2:The way to work smarter, not harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that Especially when it comes to gardening?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, because my neighbors have a garden on the ground and you know they're a little bummed because their tomatoes are getting eaten by the animals.
Speaker 1:You know what are you going to do. Well, that's great. I'm gonna look into all of that and I might even reach out to you if I have some questions, because this is sort of the next iteration for me in terms of food control. I sometimes worry about all the stuff that's being sprayed on our food, even if it's organic. I used to live I used to live in la. There's this grocery store called air one and, my god, you could get biodynamic food there. And for people who don't know, biodynamic farming is essentially where they've prioritized the soil health, so everything is about the soil health. Nothing is sprayed on anything. Obviously, glyphosate is in the rainwater, so you cannot get away from it, but there's nothing that they do to the food. It's the most organic really. You can get away from it, but there's nothing that they do to the food. It's the most organic really you can get. And what are you doing for your meat? Because you're not a vegetarian, you're not plant-based, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I'm probably more plant-based than not, but yeah, I do eat meat. I order from ButcherBox, if you're familiar with them. They have grass-fed grass-finished beef, free-range chicken. Wild Alaskan salmon.
Speaker 1:How often are you eating?
Speaker 2:meat.
Speaker 1:Pardon, how often are you eating meat?
Speaker 2:I'm eating meat almost every dinner. Okay, not quite, yeah, but usually very small. Like my meat is like condiment size, I mean mostly it's vegetables, large salad. So the meat is just. It's a garnish almost.
Speaker 1:I got it, got it it okay, and I do eat eggs. I eat eggs on the weekends okay, yeah, and, and fish is in that same category.
Speaker 2:I eat fish a lot um just because it's so easy to make. Um, the salmon is just wonderful. I can put it on my um, my, what was it? I'm trying to think what it's called. Now your plate.
Speaker 1:It's an infrared cooker.
Speaker 2:I can't even think of the name of it. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Oh really, you have an infrared cooker. The mind is the first thing that goes. Is it a ninja or something like that?
Speaker 2:The mind- yeah, it's so funny, I mean because I call it by its name all the time but right now, because I'm on a podcast, I'm totally blank.
Speaker 1:It'll come. It'll come back to you. Yeah, it's a new wave it's a new wave of it. Yeah, new wave.
Speaker 2:So it's a new wave of it, and so I can um, I can take a piece of salmon out of the freezer. I can, you know, put it in a container like warm water and thaw it out within a matter of minutes. You know, cut the plastic, put it on the grill, cook it for six minutes each side. It's done, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, yeah, and so I'm doing that often because it's so easy. And that's the thing is. I think, a lot of times when you try to tell people, look, you need to eat from home, they start going oh, I'm not a great cook, I've got so much work and it's all about again working smarter, not harder. And there's so many kitchen tools these days oh my God, there are so many ways to make things easy, do you do any sort of smoothies at all?
Speaker 2:I was. I need to get back to it again. Um, I do, um, I do a drink in the morning, but it's like mostly almond milk and then a whole bunch of powders, so I wouldn't really call it a smoothie. It's got my protein powders in it. Um, it's got my green powders in it, cause I do like three different types of green powders. Um, again, cause I got lazy. I was doing fresh greens and I got away from that during the wintertime, and now I need to transition back into doing real greens again now that they're plentiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I have my smoothie here right now. I like a morning smoothie, especially because I usually drink it before I go work out, so it's pre-digested. I don't want to eat something big before I work out. I just use a scoop away a scoop of collagen and put some blueberries in there, some almond butter and then not almond butter I use walnuts actually and then some supplement powders AKG, and then I was putting a lot more powders. But now all these drinks, I've got this big.
Speaker 1:I'm using this called iCell water. Have you heard of this supplement? No, so hydration is almost like an operating system upgrade. When you increase the volume of the cells and you get them hydrated, the receptors all work better and everything. But they're realizing now that you can control the osmolarity of the cell through amino acids. So it's got five grams of creatine, it's got some glycine, it's got some glutamine, it's got some leucine, it's got a couple of these proteins and you're just supposed to sip on it all day long.
Speaker 1:And it's great because I live in the desert, I live in Vegas, which is hot and dry right now. So this ice cell water, I just sip on it all day long and it's allowed me to basically consolidate four supplements into one supplement. It's really good the seed scientific research and performance. Dr Bill sees his whole faculty have done the research on this and then one of the faculty members created a line of supplements called new bio age and they were originally sort of designed for people that use peptides. So this is really good for people that are on the glp-1 agonist to maintain their hydration. But they have a really good supplement line. I also use their calcium alpha keto glutarate and they do it in a really good dose, and the only other dose I have found that is commensurate was on Amazon and it was some anonymous brand and I just don't buy it.
Speaker 1:I don't buy cheap supplements Do not age.
Speaker 2:Oh, they do.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. Yeah, but it's not a powder, it's pills. Right, it's pills. Yeah, yeah, I've used some of their stuff. I'm a fan of their stuff. I still don't know what I use of theirs some of their stuff. I'm a fan of their stuff. I still don't know what I use of theirs. I don't know if I'm using anything actively right now, but I would like to go into your supplement protocol, but I feel like that is a can of worms. That is going to be. It really is.
Speaker 2:There's so much.
Speaker 1:I mean, needless to say, I pretty much do everything. All the stuff listed on your website. Are you actively taking that, or is that kind of more a snapshot of everything you have taken?
Speaker 2:Um, no, that's pretty much things that I'm actively taking. Yeah, I mean, there is a section where I say, um, took, took it one time, may take again. I mean that's, those are things that are completely separate. Um, but everything I'm listing are yeah, they're the things that I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1:It's a pretty robust supplement protocol you have there. It's pretty complete. I would like to dive into it, but I think there's so many people talking about supplements these days and that's quite a bit of a rabbit hole. Has there been any supplement that has had a profound effect for you?
Speaker 2:yeah, there there is one that I noticed, uh, right away, which surprised the heck out of me, because I'm a skeptic about everything. When I, when I try something, I try it with the idea that I'm going to prove that it doesn't work. That's usually my mindset. But doing P90X, I've been doing that now since 2008,. I started noticing somewhere around the age of maybe 55 that it was starting to take me more than an hour to get through an hour workout and I just thought, yeah, I'm getting you know, it's probably normal, um, I hated that answer, but that's what I assumed to be the case.
Speaker 2:Well then, I heard a podcast where they were talking about um, a supplement to increase your nad levels, and it was a supplement called truniogen, it was nicotinamide, riboside or nr. And I thought you know what, I'm gonna order this because I'm sure it's bullshit, but I'm gonna try it. And uh, I tried it. And uh, I was surprised because I didn't feel anything right away, like in my day-to-day just walking around, I felt nothing. But two days later, when I did my next P90X workout, I was shocked. I got through the hour workout in that hour and I had so much energy left over, I did another one.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like I haven't felt like this in years, and so it was a huge game changer for me. I didn't realize how low my NAD levels must have been, but it was definitely the rate limiting factor of my energy, and so once I began, supplementing that, it was a total game changer. I was back to my young self all over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's sort of like the supplement that works the best is the one you're most efficient in, or that process you're most efficient in right. So for people who don't know't know, nad is very important for cellular energy production, it's very important for dna repair, I mean it's. Everyone knows about nad now. Have you heard of one, mna?
Speaker 1:one mma no so this is like version three of I've talked about this quite a bit of the nad, like in the beginning it me, these NAD massive infusions, and then we realized your body can't even absorb that much NAD at once and it's probably too big to get into the cell, and not only that, but you can exacerbate senescent cells. So then we got into the precursors, the NR, the NMN, and then now version three. I actually talked about this in my last podcast with dr ureth. She she's one that pioneered this whole movement, the one mna, and instead what it does is it inhibits this nnmt nicotinamide in methyl transferase pathway. That's basically stealing your nad. So it preserves your nad and so you can take this and you can also. So 5-amino-1-MQ was doing that in the past.
Speaker 2:You'll see that a lot in peptide Apigenin also helps with that.
Speaker 1:Well, apigenin is the other one. That is the other pathway. It inhibits the CD38, I think.
Speaker 1:CD38, yeah, yeah, but that pathway is not as it's not deleterious Like the other one you actually want to inhibit, and so you can take this one mna, just to slow down, you know, the nad from being stolen from you, and then you can also do it with your precursors too. So it's it that could be a nice addition. If you've had a profound effect from nad that maybe audition that one in your, your stack, and so interesting. Yeah, I'll put a link to that in the show notes too. That's also offered by New BioAge in their protocol.
Speaker 1:I've been using it and I like the science behind it, and the people that came up with this approach are some of the people I highly respect the most, people like Dr Ureth and Bill Seeds Deal Jesus, that guy is, he's a juggernaut of he's, he's like a savant with these molecular pathways, which is a whole thing in and to itself. I strive to continue to learn biochemistry and it's an endeavor because there's so many pathways and but always something to look forward to. Let's talk about your workout real quick, because we're getting to the end of this, and I would be remiss if I didn't speak about exercise, because to me, that's my favorite tool in the toolbox to really change the way you look, feel and perform, and it hits every pathway of aging in a positive way, and the more you exercise, the more you can hit those pathways.
Speaker 2:So you know, I bought a Carol bike back in November and I love it. It kicks my butt. Um, I know that I I needed to do more hit workouts. I used to do hit. I used to hit before I did marathon training. I used to, uh, run around with a 50 pound weight vest and do sprints, Um, and I think, I think all that ended up doing is just training my heart rate to go super high whenever I tried to work out. So it might have actually worked against me, but once I started marathon training, yeah, I was more into zone two and then just keeping everything steady. But I've actually found that I've got a whole other gear there in Zone 5 that I've really not explored enough. At least I've been told that I haven't explored it because I'm a terribly slow runner. But anyway, I have the Carol bike that I do every other day, P90X and for people that aren't familiar with P90X, because it's sort of an old-school workout- yeah, I love.
Speaker 2:P90X. Yeah, yeah, I mean. I know a lot of people that have tried it and like said, oh my gosh, yeah, I can't, I'm not doing that, that's too much. Uh, cause, it is crazy extreme. But I always tell people that if you stick with it through the first two weeks of all the soreness that you're going to feel, the soreness goes away and then you're golden. You just keep building from there. But it really takes two weeks to get past all the pain and torture of it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did it for a few years and I loved it. I like P90 years ago, 2010, 11, 12, around that era, yeah.
Speaker 2:I found it in 2008 and I think it was out even two years before that. Wow again. That was another one that I thought yeah, this is, this is bs. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it exactly the way they say, and I'm certain it's not gonna make any difference. Wow, was I wrong. I was so pleased with the way I started to look after 30 days and 60 days and 90 days, people noticed and I never felt more confident in my appearance, ever.
Speaker 2:And I owed all that because I was the gym guy before that.
Speaker 2:I was the geek that walked around with a clipboard going to all the different machines writing down the weight that I did the number of reps that I did, making sure that I had some improvement the next week week, and I would even graph this out so I could see my progress or lack there.
Speaker 2:But I never saw me never saw any physical changes like I did doing p90x, but yeah, so like I was starting to say it's, you know, every other day it's a different weight-bearing type exercise. It might be like, oh gosh, chest and back one day, shoulders and arms another day, back and biceps another day. It's a 14-day routine, so there's something different every day for 14 days and in between those they'll have cardio days. So you might do Kenpo Karate one day, you might do extreme yoga another day. You might do Kempo karate one day. You might do extreme yoga another day, you might do plyometrics another day. I mean, it's just always something different. You're hitting every muscle group and that's why people usually feel like absolute crap that first two weeks, because you're feeling muscles you never knew you had before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's wonderful. That's how you know it's working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:It is a comprehensive program. I like it, and the fact that you actually do the off-day stuff too is, I think, really rounds it out. Have you had your VO2 max tested?
Speaker 2:I have, I have. I haven't done it in a while, but the last time I had it tested was like two years ago, and then my Garmin, it pretty much tells me an assessment too, and they're, they were both in agreement. I think that my VO2 max was like 42.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think it was.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I've taken a pretty deep dive on VO2 max. We opened up a clinic called Place AI Prime Life Artificial Intelligence Solutions in Houston Amazing team, I love this team and we went really hard on metabolic conditioning because the studies on VO2 max and survival is pretty impressive. So we got this metabolic expert. He's like one of the best in the world and it has been on just a journey down this rabbit hole with this guy. He is all about you're measuring your lungs, how much are you using of your lungs? How many breaths do you do in each zone? He's given me a protocol. I've started really doing it. I mean, I was low fifties, which is not it's still considered excellent.
Speaker 1:But I saw yeah, for a 50 year old, not bad. For someone who didn't do a lot of endurance and VO two max stuff. I mean I've always been like a gymnast is kind of a power type person. And strength training I love, I love strength training.
Speaker 1:But I watched him when we went to houston. We were in the hotel, the gym in the hotel. They had a treadmill and he's down there. He's like I'm just going to test this panoia out real quick. He's 50 as well. I watched him put up a 70.4. That's like Tour de France type of guy. I mean it's world class. Yeah, so he's running all of our people.
Speaker 1:You can get tested by him. You can get a protocol. He has shirts that you wear. He can see exactly how you breathe during all the training sessions. It's really well thought out. I'm just so impressed with his protocols and so I said I'm in, I'm doing this a hundred percent because I want to start challenging. I want to get up to that 70, you know which is going to be a lot of work, but I'm excited to actually do this part of my the exercise, part of my protocol, with a lot more sophistication. And I know this carol bike you mentioned is an interesting way to raise your vo2 max. They call it it's like a re-hit, isn't that what the term they use? Yep, and so they just it's like a really compressed, high intensity interval training.
Speaker 2:Right, very yeah yeah, I usually do the intense workout, which I think is like two 20 second sprints, which doesn't seem like very long, but, oh my gosh, when you're doing it it's like is this ever gonna end?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, and compared to doing nothing, I mean there's some people that haven't gone into zone five in years. If you think about it, you know it doesn't take.
Speaker 1:That's me I need, I really need to work on my zone five big time yeah, well, I'd be to see hopefully you'll post it on your website what the Carol bike actually does for you in terms of you know, do you think the Garmin is giving you a good reading and whatever, but yeah, just from marathon training I watched myself go up from 36 to 42, which you know that was pretty good movement and I know I've got lots of room to grow still.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but I'd love to hear more about you know what you're doing and you know whatever you can share. I, uh, I'd love to learn from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we have it down, like when it comes to metabolic conditioning. That's it with our guy and all that. We bought the Pinot, we Pinot. We bought like every testing device out there. We were kind of like a think tank. Our CEO is awesome and he, this guy Michael Blazer, he will just look at everything and we'll just put everything on the table.
Speaker 1:And then I found this metabolic guy for my friend, jesse Carroll, and as soon as Michael our CEO chatted with him one time, he's like, uh, is he interested in being part of the team? And so we brought him in and so we have really cracked the code on this VO2 maxing. If you do this guy's protocol, guaranteed it will increase your VO2 max and he walks the walk, and so I'm sold. And if you look at the science on VO2 max, I mean look on average you lose about 10% every decade, and so you can kind of back into where you're going to be disabled, because around, I think it's I don't know somewhere between 15 and 17 is when, if your VO2 max is around there, then that's basically what it requires for you to get up, get dressed, go to the grocery store, buy groceries, carry them back home and do the most basic, fundamental things in life, and so you can say well, I'm this age and I'm this vo2 max and I'm going to start losing 10 a decade. You can start to see where you're going to get into a danger zone, and I have no intention of being an older person with no energy like that would be the greatest. That would be a huge disaster, like I have so many things I want to do in life and energy is the currency, and so I I don't want to be frail and I love strength training. I don't have to put any more wood on that fire. That's burning, but I always am like I don't like cardio, and now I'm doing it with a renewed passion. So really cool stuff.
Speaker 1:I'll keep you informed and I'll send you if you're ever interested in getting tested by him or anything. I can connect you guys and I'll put links to him as well and our metabolic accelerator package and all that stuff. If anyone wants to say, hey, I want this. It was important for me to create something that was. You know, I've always wanted a clinic, but at the same time, I've been an online guy, and so now starting to put these pieces in place where people can go and get real, real results, not just some paint by numbers sort of thing where it's like, oh, just do your four by four and do some your age minus this heart rate and you'll be in zone two. It's like, no, no, I want precision. I want to know that every pedal stroke that I do on that bike is exactly where I need to be in the heart rate.
Speaker 2:That's why my lungs, my lungs are something I've had some major concern about, because when I was in college, I used to work in the dorms. We would, uh, we used to work maintenance and security, but doing maintenance, we used to strip the wax off of floors with rum ammonia. We would just pour like gallons and gallons of ammonia on the floor and we would be in there inhaling that while we're working a buffer machine and stripping all the wax off.
Speaker 2:I did this for like a full summer's multiple years through college so I know I didn't do my lungs any favors from that. Probably did a lot of damage, um, and. I think that's partially why I do have so much trouble with with running, so yeah, I've got a lot of room to grow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean look you're yeah, you're disciplined.
Speaker 1:I mean, I kind of feel like if someone just shows you something and they show you that it works, you'll be like, all right, I'm doing it, and you're that kind of guy. I mean, you came to Club Exosome and you probably saw some videos, saw Sandra talking about it and said you got on a freaking airplane and you flew out to come to this event and so I immediately was like this is my kind of guy. He's exactly like reminds me of me. And then I saw the way you looked and then the shape you were. I thought, jesus, this is what I want to be like when I'm 62. I feel like we're cut from the same cloth. So I have again.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of respect for your approach to this and you know we're getting to the end of this and I still feel like I have questions about you know your sleep and all that, but we all know from earlier that you clearly safeguard and keep your sleep sacred. Are there anything, let's say, someone who's watching this and says, wow, I really like what these guys are talking about and I wanted to start making some positive changes and doing some of these things that Steve and Dave are talking about. What would be your recommendation for maybe somebody who's a little bit earlier in their journey and they're just starting out with this stuff?
Speaker 2:Well, talking about sleep, I was really amazed at what a big difference getting blackout curtains made to my sleep scores and wearing a sleep mask.
Speaker 2:I just didn't think those were even going to be an issue, but once I addressed those, oh, my sleep score is just shot right up. So don't underestimate the amount of junk light you might have coming in through your windows, whether it might be from a street lamp or even a full moon, or just all the electronics that you've got in your house with the little LEDs that are burning. Those things seem to matter. I never thought it was real, but it is, yeah sleep is so paramount.
Speaker 1:It is yeah, yeah, so that's a good one. Yeah, sleep is so paramountly important, it's unbelievable. I'll tell you what's been working for me. The moment I get into bed, I empty my mind. No thinking about the to-do list, no thinking about the day, no tasks, no, nothing. If I'm going to think about anything, I'm going to think about how I feel. How does it feel?
Speaker 1:I try to put myself into my senses. I get myself out of my head and I have found that I will go to sleep fast and I also get better sleep in the night, because if you go to sleep with your brain chewing on something, you will chew on it all night long. That's exactly how you like. Before you go to bed, you say gosh, I have to wake up at this time tomorrow, I have to. And somehow you wake up five minutes before the alarm because you put that in your brain and your brain is tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock all night, waiting for that thing when it knows. And I have found that once you have the dark and you have good architecture and you're going to sleep at the right times and all, just empty your brain, do not go to bed with anything, and then I just feel like the brain just goes and it lets you have sleep. At least that's working for me now. Have you noticed anything like that?
Speaker 2:I do something similar as I go to bed, I start reviewing all of my blessings and there's so many things that we just take for granted, that are absolute blessings, like when I went to Africa and I watched how people live in Africa. They don't have running water, they don't have sewage systems. So many kids die before the age of five every day from lack of hygiene and sanitation there. That's another reason why I'm involved with Team World Vision, because we raise money to build wells in Africa for that. But I'm just the people there. They wake up every morning and they sing. They sing for their life because they're so grateful that they woke up to see another sunrise, whereas our day is totally ruined if they short us a hot sauce going through the drive-thru.
Speaker 2:So I count my blessings just for having running water, for having a sewage system that I can flush a toilet and have things go away. Simple things like that, simple things like that. But I mean obviously there's even bigger things just to be able to have a roof over my head, you know a car that doesn't break down on me, good friends, family, you know people I care about. There's just so many things that you can think about, to be grateful for, and I think about all those as I drift off to sleep and it's just such a great, peaceful sleep.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, that's beautiful. I really think that that has to have a massive impact on your whole holistic health. I've been to China and Russia in the 90s. I've been there multiple times in these countries and in China. The first time I went to China I came back and I said I'm rich. When I turn the hot water faucet on, I don't worry if hot water is coming out, I'm rich. There's toilet paper in every bathroom you go to in America, every one In Russia. You literally had to at one point bring your own toilet paper. I think that the gratitude portion cannot be underestimated enough and I appreciate you sharing that and I think that's a really nice takeaway. I think that's a nice thing to end on and to just to remind people the power of gratitude and really appreciate, especially in this I want, I want, I want environment, that there's nothing wrong with wanting stuff. But at the same time, I think having some gratitude and some blessing for what you have in life is is it just a beautiful thing in itself? It only can promote good thoughts.
Speaker 2:Totally agree. That's a good one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good one to leave us. I really appreciate that. Awesome. Well, I think we covered. I think we got it. I didn't. We didn't get to stretching. I know you do some stretching in the morning. I. To me, stretching is so vital.
Speaker 2:So many things we could cover. Maybe we'll do another one of these sometime.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, you have a automatic anytime you want recurring guest spot on the show. We'll be staying in contact and I want to check in and see what you're up to and see what's come down the pipe. And what you're up to and see what's come down the pipe and I'll be checking out your website. If people want to follow you and they want to get to know you, they want to reach out to you, what should they do?
Speaker 2:My website is DavePasconet and I'm on Instagram as DavePasco. Those are the two biggest places you can find me.
Speaker 1:Perfect, and I will include links to everything we talked about. We had a good one. And what was the name of the planting things? The plant, the boxes Earth boxes.
Speaker 1:Earth boxes. Yeah yeah, I'll put links to everything in the show notes. Stephen, with a PH mccaincom, backslash Pascoe, that's P-A-S-C-O-E. I appreciate you, dave, for coming on. It's been a pleasure meeting you. I look forward to seeing your growth in this industry. I'm sure you're going to continue to be a bigger and bigger name in it. Thank you for coming on the podcast Really appreciate it. Feel free to reach out to me any single time and for all of you that have been listening, hope you enjoyed it and check out the show notes and we will see you on the next episode of the Stephen McCain podcast. Stay healthy, everyone Cheers.