#2: Unveiling Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint Protocol for Women: Sierra Clark’s Journey to the Rejuvenation Olympics

In this episode, we are joined by Sierra Clark, a health and longevity YouTuber renowned for her 90-day blueprint challenge, where she followed Brian Johnson's anti-aging routine with her friend Jesse. Sierra, who holds a degree in behavioral neuroscience from Brown University, is now on day 175 of an extended blueprint challenge, sharing her weekly progress on YouTube.

Sierra delves into her journey, sharing insights into the blueprint protocol, intermittent fasting, and how she has tailored the routine to suit her needs as a woman. She also discusses the investments made into the program, logistics, and tips for saving time and optimizing supplement stacks.

What you will learn:

Blueprint Protocol Insights: Gain a comprehensive understanding of the blueprint protocol and its components.

Intermittent Fasting Benefits: Learn essential tips and insights about intermittent fasting and its impact on longevity.

Personalization for Women: Discover how to modify health and anti-aging routines to suit female physiology better.

Investment Strategies: Understand the financial and time investments required for a successful longevity program.

Supplement Optimisation: Learn how to effectively manage and optimize supplement stacks to enhance health benefits.

00:30 What is the blueprint protocol and what does it look like?

01:45 Sierra’s YouTube channel and what it is all about

07:38 What you need to know about intermittent fasting

12:22 How Sierra has modified Brian’s protocol as a woman

18:33 Investments made to the blueprint protocol program

35:09 Logistics and tips that helped save time down the line 

38:26 How to optimize the different stacks that come with taking different supplements

44:37 Three things to note before starting the protocol

Connect with Sierra 

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@sierra-clark

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sierrachealth/?hl=en

Resources mentioned in this episode

Resource: Brian Johnson's Blueprint Protocol

• Detailed information on the anti-aging routine.
• https://protocol.bryanjohnson.com/

Resource: Rejuvenation Olympics Leaderboard

• A challenge to track speed of aging improvements.
• https://www.rejuvenationolympics.com/ 

Course: Ali Abdaal’s YouTube Accelerator

• A course for creators to grow their YouTube channels.
• https://aliabdaal.com/courses/ 

Insta/TikTok: @BiohackingEve
Website: www.BiohackingEve.com

Transcript

Judith Mueller  00:10

 Sierra Clark is a health and longevity YouTuber, best known for doing the 90 day blueprint challenge, where she did Brian Johnson's anti aging routine for 90 days with a friend, Jesse. She has a degree in behavioral neuroscience from Brown University. Is currently on day 175 of an extended blueprint challenge and post weekly blogs offer progress on Youtube. Welcome Sierra.

Sierra 00:33

Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Judith Mueller  00:35

So let's launch right in so tell us about Blueprint, for those who haven't heard about it before, what is about and what does a program look like?

Sierra 00:43

Yeah, so the blueprint protocol was created by Brian Johnson and a team of 30 doctors to figure out the ultimate anti aging routine, and it spans across all areas of health. So it's diet, sleep, exercise, also skin care, oral care, and it's really looking to see what are the tweaks that we can make that will help us live the longest possible and hopefully the most enjoyable life possible as well. And I first discovered blueprint through YouTube. I saw this guy who was waking up early in the morning, and was really into his exercise, and had 100 supplements. And I was like, what's this about? And then I just devoured all of the information and watched everything I could and read everything I could. He has a great website protocol, dot Brian johnson.com, and it just outlines every single part of the blueprint protocol in detail. So if people want to do it for themselves, they can just check out the website, and it just says everything to do good

Judith Mueller  01:45

stuff. So for those who haven't come across your channel, why are you doing in particular? What's what's inspired you? I know you're doing with your friend Jesse. You've also mentioned the rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard.

Sierra 01:57

Well, I love YouTube. I love making videos. It's something that I've been doing since I was a kid, and I was a part of another youtuber's accelerator. His name is Ali Abdal. He used to be a doctor. Now he's a very cool productivity YouTuber. And in the course with Ali and his team, they talk about showing your work and just talking about things that you're interested in and excited about. And at the time, I was so into and excited about blueprint. So I thought, hey, you know, this is something I could just experiment with for myself, and then just bring people along for the journey. So that's how we got here today.

Judith Mueller  02:37

So the rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard. What is that and how are you doing towards it?

Sierra 02:44

Yeah, the rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard is basically a leaderboard that looks at people's speed of aging score. So a speed of aging score of one would indicate that for every day you're alive, you are aging one day. So there's this difference between chronological age and biological age. So chronological age is I was born, and each day I'm living a day, and that's just is what it is. And then biological age is based on a bunch of factors. How healthy are you how how well are you sleeping? What is your fitness? What is your diet? So we have this control, so to speak, over our biological age and changing that with good habits can slow down our speed of aging. So the rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard is kind of a fun game of sorts, where people are taking speed of aging tests and then they put that data into the board, and the board spits out who has the lowest speed of aging score. So it's it's a combination of who has made the biggest changes. So maybe you had a score of 1.13 and then you brought it all the way down to point eight. So it looks at those who's made the biggest difference over time, and then who just has the lowest score in general. So for me, it's a fun challenge just to see, can I continue to reduce my speed of aging over time enough to get onto this rejuvenation Olympics board and be one of the top longevity people, who's got it together? That's the goal. One

Judith Mueller  04:23

of the top professional rejuvenation athletes, as Brian says. So how are you doing towards at the moment? What number you now? Yes,

Sierra 04:30

so for my first challenge, where I just started with three months of blueprint, so 90 days. And in those 90 days, I measured at the beginning and at the end, and my speed of aging did not change. So it went from 0.93 to 0.94 and I think the reason it didn't change over the 90 days is because I was doing a ton. I. Changes. I was experimenting with a bunch of things, but in particular, I was changing my eating window a lot. I was shortening it to just four hours a day. I wasn't eating for the entire four hours, but I was eating within four hours. So 20 hours a day, I was fasting, and then I was just shifting things a lot experimenting with things. So my circadian rhythm, for sure, was off. And the backside story of all of this is the stress of learning how to piece together a vlog every single week and produce produce this beautiful content, which is so fun and is great to watch. And it looks like this cute 12 minute video. But on the back end, it takes like, 50 hours of work. So I'm trying to do this full time job of taking supplements, eating well, and getting to bed on time. I have a full time job, and then I do YouTube, so it's another 50 hours on top of that. So for me, the stress was really, really high in this period of time, these first 90 days, just figuring everything out so it's stabilizing, and staying at 0.94 I think, is actually really good. So we're curious to see, for these next 90 days, things are much calmer. We understand the protocol at this point. We know how to vlog. So we're very curious to see, I'm very curious to see if my speed of aging reduces for these next 90 days. And I think that it

Judith Mueller  06:26

will. And I guess you're five days out from the next measurements, right handed, 80 days. Yep,

Sierra 06:30

yep. We have to start measuring soon. So

Judith Mueller  06:33

we'll keep each other posted on that. Fantastic. Coming back to the fasting window, I think you addressed something very, very interesting. So when I first got into biohacking longevity, some literally 15 years ago, and I started with nutrition, teaching myself about nutrition, actually started eating vegetables for the first time alive, that was a big change. And sort of went down that rabbit hole and learned about intermittent fasting and all these kind of things. And I went really crazy on the intermittent fasting as well. So I was on sort of a four sometimes five hour feeding window, and I felt great to start with. But one thing I've realized more recently, looking at my black belt, is my cortisol is through the roof. I mean, I do have a very stressful life, you know, as the year full time job, and you're producing this, and you're doing that, and you actually want to see some friends, all the rest of it. But then a longevity doctor told me, well, for women, that's actually intermittent fasting, or rather short feeding windows are actually not a very healthy thing to do. So how have you actually experimented with that? What sort of window Have you found? Obviously, you're, you know, six months in, you've done a couple of measurements as a couple more coming. What have you tried? And what have you found is working? And what do you think is still to be determined?

Sierra 07:48

It's a great point. Fasting is this remarkable tool for health, wellness and longevity, and it's something to be thoughtful about, for how we do it, in particular for women like you said, it's it's very stressful. And then for women's bodies in particular, we're thinking about our menstrual cycle and making sure our hormones are okay. So for me, I have experimented with basically every kind of fast that I could think of, and had a lot of fun with that. I'm actually a compulsive eater, so I have been in 12 step programs for eating because it's been an issue in my life that I use eating as a source of soothing, but fasting has actually been really helpful for me and just stabilizing me in my life, stabilizing my mind, my mood, everything. So in terms of the fast that I've tried, and which ones I've enjoyed and have worked the best, I am at a point where 16 eight is just fantastic. 16 eight is the one that really just stabilizes everything. You get a good dose of the power of fasting. You know, around the 18 hour mark, you start to play with autophagy. So it's not quite getting like the full autophagy benefits, but it's a great window. Having an eight hour eating window is perfect. I have done omad in the past, and my eating window has been anywhere between three to four to two hours, you know, just eating once a day. And I think that it was fine for short periods of time, but I noticed for myself and other women, it can mess with the menstrual cycle, and it could be so stressful that women stop getting their periods, and that's not great. You know, we want to be a place where it actually works for us. So I'm sure there are some bodies where one meal a day is fine. I just haven't found that for myself. I have done extended fast also, like three day fast, up to a nine day fast, ooh, the nine day fasts are really gnarly, because you lose a lot of the bacteria in your gut, and so when you try to eat again the refeeding process, you think, you know, you finish. Nine day fast you're going to go out and and eat a veggie burger or something, but no, you actually have to wait a while to allow your body to re acclimate to eating. So nine day fast are just Woo, okay, hopefully you have a really good reason for a longer fast like that if you're going to do that. But I do tend to do a three day fast each year, normally, at the beginning of the year, just as a cleanse, they say that if you do a three day fast, it gets rid of every cancer cell in your body. You know that is to be seen. But the three day fast is really nice for just spiritually grounding, just giving your time yourself time till it slow down, because everything slows down, and just be with yourself. So 16 eight and then one three day fast per year is great, but 16 eight every day works for me.

Judith Mueller  10:54

So sounds like you've tried a lot. I think first of all, thanks for sharing on the overeating. That's definitely a problem. I've been struggling with a lot of my life, and I think the fasting has actually for me being psychologically really comforting, because I know that once I got to the end of my feeding window, you know, whether it was four hours, eight hours, whatever it was, and I knew I had eaten enough for my macros, for my actual chloride intake, and I knew that anything beyond that was just psychological. You know, I was stressed, I was bored, I was whatever might be, nothing that really happens that no, look, it is whatever it is. 6pm 7pm I have eaten enough. I can't stop I'm not going to starve till tomorrow. I need to deal with whatever I'm actually having to deal with instead. So that was interesting. Um, coming back on the period, I personally haven't noticed any changes in in period during the different fasting cycles. But again, you know that surprised with the cortisol, that means just because that outward sign hasn't changed, that doesn't mean it's all fine for your particular body. And again, because we're talking women, you know, women have so many different stages in life. I mean, you've got puberty, you've got childbearing age, you've got perimenopause, you've got menopause and your hormonal cycles. I mean, it's kind of obvious, but a lot of people don't know this, that as a woman and childbearing age, you need to have a longer feeding window. When you're in perimenopause, menopause, you can eat like a man as a way, in the sense that it's much easier and much easier on your body to actually fast. So that's an interesting one. Sticking with women, how do you modify Brian's protocol for your needs as a woman?

Sierra 12:30

Yeah. I mean, the main thing I found is around menstrual cycle and feeling more fatigued or tired at certain parts of the month. And I think for that, what I have found is I still do things, so unless it's like a really serious situation where I just feel totally wiped out and I just need to sleep or something like this, I still did do my workouts, but I would just modify them. So if I'm really worn out and my body's telling me, Hey, today is probably not a high intensity, heaviest weights of your life, fastest run of ever time. You know, I'm still going to work out. I just my modify it, so maybe I do an inclined walk, and I'm in zone two for 30 to 45 minutes. So we're still moving, because the blood flow is quite helpful, and getting the daily exercise is very helpful and pretty natural. So mainly, the way that I responded to that is, okay, yeah, I'm definitely feeling low energy, and I'm just going to work with that. That's okay. That's how we're feeling today, and we're just going to move with that. You have the the iron piece, just making sure that you are getting enough iron when you are losing blood. You know, most things with protein in it have iron, and just making sure you're eating by vitamin C with the iron so that you can get the proper iron absorption. Otherwise, I think there's, there's a lot, I get a ton of questions on YouTube about, can women do this? Is it okay for women? And what Brian found with Kate. So Kate Tolo, someone that works on Brian's team, and she did blueprint like full out, had a ton of tests done for 30 days. And obviously she works every day with Brian, so she was very on it. She was eating the food that he was eating, this kind of thing, and she found, they found that she was able to do pretty much the same thing as him, and that it worked out fine. And I also found pretty similarly, like, yeah, this, this maps pretty well to a person in general. I mean, when you step back and you think about it, it makes sense eat whole foods, and ideally that includes some plants, exercise daily, like, move around and get great sleep. Like, those are. Just like the fundamentals of being alive. So, you know, yeah, if you do those things, it's going to work for most bodies. And then the other things, like skincare and, you know, the oral care that these are kind of additional details, but the main tenants, like the three pillars are, yeah, they're they're solid, and they're going to work for for most people.

Judith Mueller  15:21

So the protocol is pretty similar. How are metrics different? I mean, looking at Brian's metrics, I know that he measures nighttime eruptions, for example, which obviously is not something that we will probably be measuring. But is there anything else that you sort of stop, start, anything that you would have dropped from his measurements, obvious ones, anything that you should have measured, or they should be measuring as a woman to take that into account. Yeah.

Sierra 15:44

So I'm definitely looking at my estrogen just making sure that's okay. I am wanting to have kids at some point, so I'm just making sure I'm not messing up with anything. So what I do for that is just a routine blood work. You know, once every three months is fine. Brian does like once every six weeks, or something like this, but they are much more on top of his blood work. Blood work can be very expensive, or it can take a lot of time to get access to it through a healthcare provider. For example, having conversations with your doctor about why you want your blood drawn so often, that can be a whole thing. I found that with my healthcare provider, that's the way that I reduced cost on these blood panels, is I just did it through my insurance. But yeah, I am checking my blood work, making sure everything is good and okay in terms of other measurements, the measurements that I'm mainly paying attention to are similar to Brian. So I have a whoop band. I'm getting that continuous data tracking trends of my HRV over time, my sleep score. So how was My sleeping what is my resting heart rate? And for anyone, whether you're you know, no matter what your body is, we're really looking at trends, because each person is different. So your HRV could be very different from someone else who has the same, you know, height, weight, gender as you so we're really just That's why whoop and aura ring, these kind of trackers are very helpful, because it's not just a single day we're looking to see, are we trending upwards, are we trending downwards, this kind of thing. But otherwise, a vo two Max is super helpful, because you're looking to see your body's ability to use oxygen, and it is very connected to longevity. So if you can improve your VO two max over time, it generally suggests that you are a likely candidate to live a long time and live a long, healthful life. So that is something I'm doing more regularly, is, you know, once every three months, at this point, I'm looking to improve my vo two max. And

Judith Mueller  18:01

actually vo two Max is a very interesting point, because when people start comparing their measurements to brines, there is actually a difference between males and females in vo two Max as there is and other different measurements. I mean, you know, it's kind of obvious to most people that as a man, you can probably lift more weight than as a woman, just physically, physiologically. But there are the things that we need to pay attention to. But coming back to investments, what investments? And I mean that in the widest sense, was required from you specifically, I guess you didn't spend all day and 2 million a year on doing the program.

Sierra 18:33

Yeah. So I tried to keep it as low cost, simple and effective as possible, I wanted to do the everyday version Brian did the eccentric senti millionaire version, with the big teams and access to all the things. So my intention was to show people that I love and people that are curious about it, how to do this as an everyday person with an actual budget. So the things that cost the most was the testing which most of Brian's costs are testing the 2 million that's largely testing costs. So the test that I did was vo two Max, which cost about $100 or so. The cost is really dependent on where you live. So for me in the Bay Area California, about $100 DEXA scan. So helpful. DEXA scans really tell you what is actually going on the scale tells you very little, because oftentimes when we're starting to work out, especially adding resistance training, we are losing fat and gaining muscle. So the weight on the scale could say the exact same number, but your body internally is completely reconstructing itself, and that is just not obvious at all using a scale. So DEXA scans are incredible, because you can see how much lean tissue, how much muscle Have I grown, how much fat tissue Have I lost? And especially. That fat tissue in and around the organs, that visceral fat. How much of that visceral fat Have I gotten rid of? If that's something of concern, because the visceral fat will get you so we're really trying to get that low, as low as possible.

Judith Mueller  20:12

And note on the DEXA, because obviously you can get body fat scales for home. I think some of them actually do, do visceral fat. I mean, DEXA, apart from being quite expensive, and obviously it takes a while to get an appointment, there's also certain amount of radiation involved. So the advice I have gotten from the providers a space, you know, more than every two years, yeah,

Sierra 20:33

I've seen that too, yeah, which is so tricky, because it's so useful, you know, and it's interesting. In the Bay Area, we have these DEXA scans that are actually in a van, and it reduces the cost a ton. But this is a very San Francisco kind of thing, so it's like $50 and you're looking for the DEXA scan place, and you're like, wow, it's literally in a van. That's how they make the score so low. So they open the door, they got the DEXA machine inside this van. You jump in, they do the scan. You jump out, and, yeah, very interesting. So other costs. So when we first started, we did all of Brian's supplementation, which at this point we're no longer doing this, but in the beginning, we got all of the supplements that he had, which cost us $800 up front, and I split the cost with the friend, we just found over time that that wasn't necessary, the Brian's intention with the supplements, what he's spoken about is he's really testing the edges of everything. So he's looking at the things that have research. He's adding that to see if it moves the needle for him. I'm not really in that camp. I'm more I only add things if we know for sure that it's really, really going to do something or it's absolutely necessary. For example, I am plant based, so taking 3000 MCGs a week of B 12 is absolute necessity. That's just not even a question. I'm not going to try to do that with nutritional yeast like it's just too much of a concern if I don't get B 12. B 12 deficiency is very serious. So yeah, so I'm going to take B 12 because I definitely need to other things, like vitamin D, because I'm really not in the sun that much, iodine, omega threes. These are some of the ones that I've actually stuck with. But in the beginning 800 for supplements, which was like, Whoa, that hurt. That was like, that felt like a lot. Then you have all these pills, and then you've got to sort them, and it's like, oh, load it. So $800 for that. And then the speed of aging tests themselves. We got the cheaper version from true diagnostic, which is about $300 per test. So those are some of the major cost, and then otherwise, the more regular costs are mainly the food. So in bulks, getting macadamia nut milk, the macadamia nuts, this kind of thing, chia seeds, flax seeds, that would cost maybe $150 or so every couple of weeks, and then just the vegetables and berries and stuff like this is pretty normal cost, maybe like $50 a week, depending on the grocery store, and we would do a lot of frozen items that were already pre cut, because It saved a bunch of time for food prep, and also the cost is a bit lower. So these are some of the ways that we've like hacked as much as we could to lower the cost while still trying to get maximum benefits. And

Judith Mueller  23:32

there's also a couple of things that are not as easily available. So for example, I know that Brian is using red light lamb, full bunny, red light lambs, three times a week, 12 minutes. I've actually got one home. I'm a massive fan. I'm just never at home, so I don't use them as much as I should, but obviously they're quite costly as well. So how did you go about the unusual stuff? Yeah,

Sierra 23:53

so the unusual stuff, we haven't done as much, mainly because the cost has been prohibitive. I did get a pulsetto for my birthday, so I've been experimenting with that a little bit. That was a bit of a hassle just to get it, and I haven't been using it that much to be honest. What we've really come back to is just the main tenets of diet, sleep and exercise. What I find is that there's a lot of focus on the tech and the tools so much so that diet, sleep and exercise can be forgotten. You know, it's like, oh, let me use a pulsetto. Let me use this HRV device that's gonna, like, help calm me when I could just get to bed and get enough sleep every night, right? Like, if you're getting five hours of sleep, but you're doing this HIV device. It's like, okay, yeah, maybe that will help with your longevity. But probably the first thing to do, and oftentimes the hardest, is just to set a solid drumbeat of those healthy, healthful habits. So I try not to distract myself too much, because I feel like I'm still getting kind. Consistent. I'm still working on being as consistent as possible and stabilizing myself. I'm still in that phase of my life, so I'm trying to focus there and not get distracted with the extra things. But the extra things are like, fun, additional stuff, rather than like, this will solve all my problems. So speaking

Judith Mueller  25:17

of changes, what was your life like beforehand? What did and didn't you do? Then I

Sierra 25:23

had a lot more compulsive eating before I had started a habit that was actually quite new for me, which was going to fast food restaurants when I was stressed out. I mean, I understand why people eat fast food. It's super easy. You literally don't have to get out of your car. It's incredible. It costs very little. You're like, wow, I'm saving so much money. And I wouldn't say it tastes delicious in the way that, like a balanced meal tastes, but it definitely gives you some kind of hit where it's satisfying in that way, like gives you that dopamine rush. And so I have some fast food restaurants near where I live. And so I found myself getting into this really interesting habit of whenever I started to get really stressed out, I would find myself at a drive through. And it wasn't every single day, but it definitely it was becoming a habit. Or the other one is, I have a corner store near me, and when I got really, really stressed, I would walk over there and solve all my problems by getting a very particular ice cream, Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream. I get the pint, and I would just be like, You know what? You deserve this, and it's going to be great. Like, let's do this. And of course, you eat the first couple bites, and it, it is. It hits you like a train. You're like, whoa, or like a shot of something. You're like, hey. And then you you finish the pint, and you're like, wow, that just doesn't feel that great. But I definitely had a bit of that. I was exercising, not as regularly as I am now, my sleep was pretty all over the place. It was just depending on how I would feel. The more stressed I got, the harder it was to actually get to sleep, diet, sleep and exercise and yeah, that's the most of it. I would say someone interested in health, I think someone would look at me on the outside at that period of my life and say, Yeah, Sierra, Sierra seems healthy, you know, like she looks healthy, she seems like a healthy oriented person, she seems like she makes good choices, and I relatively did, but there was just a lot of this other messy kind of stuff in there as well, and now, or the first 90 days, was really trying to sort all of that out. And it just felt so hard. It just felt impossible. Sometimes like you gotta be kidding me, and really the mental part was. The hardest part is just not having those easy outs anymore and having to build new coping strategies. I mean, that stuff is hard, and if no one's taught you how to do it, and you could just feel like you're on your own with it, but you just got to keep going, and you've just got to keep trying and keep trying and involve your friends. That's why I had Jesse. I thought about doing this 90 day challenge on my own. I was like, that's such a cool idea. Somebody else should do it. But then I was like, No, I do want to do it, but I I do not want to do this alone. That sounds horrible. And then when I thought about involving my friend Jesse, it just changed everything for me. I was like, that makes it fun, that makes it cool and a bonding experience. So if I were to do it all over again, I would make the same decision of bringing someone else into the fold with me, because people are really that motivation unlock. If you are showing up to the gym because your friends waiting for you, it's gonna get you to the gym. If you have a trainer there, it's gonna get you there. Like people really are. What make the difference? So

Judith Mueller  28:57

what has actually been, or what have been the free hardest parts, and what have been the three perhaps most satisfying parts?

Sierra 29:04

I would say number one, food has been the hardest one for me, the consistency of it, especially eating basically the same thing every day for those first 90 days, was really hard. The second thing was the mental part, the reconstructing my brain, letting my brain, like, build new neuronal pathways. It's like there's a reason why humans run away from change. Because, like, it is pretty exhausting. It's pretty tiring, but is it worth it? Absolutely. So I would say that was hard but also very satisfying. It was also a really positive thing, because when you do start to change and you prove to yourself over time that I can do it, that's one of the most satisfying feelings ever. You're like, I'm a badass. Whoa. You're like, I kind of knew that deep down inside. Like now I see it like I'm doing what I said I was gonna do, and it is building this trust with yourself. You're building this more trusting relationship with yourself, and that feels so good. The other thing that's hard is when you're doing well, and then you fall somehow, like you feel like you're going backwards, like you eat the wrong thing, or you forget to exercise one day because you're too tired, or you end up going to bed at midnight and your bedtime is nine, this kind of thing, and you just feel like a failure. That part is so hard, because you're like, No, I messed it all up, and now it's over, I'll never be able to get back, and then it can be easy to start catastrophizing. So I would say that part is hard, but that is the part that requires a lot of love, like, like a baby, like the love you would give a baby. You know, it is those times where you're falling, where it's just a part of it. It's literally a part of it. If you're hiking, and then you have a little trip and fall, you're not going to just, like, lie there dead and just not get up. Like, you would just get up and you would keep hiking, and then you would get to this, like, top of the mountain and look out and be like, Whoa. You forget you even fell back there, right? Like, that's what we're aiming for, and that's how life can be. So I would say now the other things that I've really enjoyed that have been lovely is rebuilding that trust with myself, the bonding of doing it with someone else is beautiful. Like my relationship with Jesse has become even stronger, and it's creates such an incredible sense of purpose when you're doing something outside of yourself. So yes, I'm doing this for myself, but I'm also doing it with my friend, and supporting my friend just gives me all kinds of energy. It's just amazing. You know, like when you do something nice for others, or like you're doing something loving with others, it just changes the whole game. And then I would say the third thing is, it's amazing to feel this good. I'm not feeling good every single day. You know? I'm I'm eating, well, I'm sleeping, well, I'm exercising better than I have in my whole life. Probably doesn't mean every single day I'm feeling like fire, but it does feel pretty great to have way more energy, to be able to lift things, to be able to run fast, to have your brain functioning at a better rate. I mean, Whoo, yeah, it's good. It's good stuff, better, better than the fast food, I could tell you that.

Judith Mueller  32:39

And in terms of sticking with the protocol. As you said, it is difficult, other than having a buddy. Did you find any any hints, tips, workarounds, anything that really helped you?

Sierra 32:50

So accountability is great, some period of reflection every single day. What did I do today? How did it go out of my eating, sleep, at exercise, and what's my plan for tomorrow. I think oftentimes when things go wrong, it's simply because there is no plan or it wasn't thought through. And this doesn't need to be a 15 minute exercise. It's literally five minutes like at the end of the day. The way I do is I text Jesse, but this could be written in a note, you could have it in a journal. It could be any way you want. I like texting it to somebody else because it creates a greater sense of accountability. But it looks like this at the end of my night, I'm just sitting, I'm gonna go to bed soon, and I'm taking five minutes to reflect and then plan. So I say, This is what I ate today. It didn't go as well as I thought it would. But, you know, that's okay. I could just make these tweaks for next time. This is what I did for exercise. This is how it went. And this I'm about to go to bed, so yeah, I'm gonna get my sleep plan. And for tomorrow, this is what's up. Oh, I'm going out to lunch tomorrow because I'm going with a friend, so that means I need to look at the menu to see like or I need to bring my own food. So you're already starting to think through and plan for any changes or inevitabilities that are going to happen in your day. You plan that out. You go to bed, so the next morning, when you wake up, it's just so much easier and easeful to move through that day. So that was very helpful. Yeah, I would say that's probably the top tip. Is make a plan. Have a map for yourself. Make a plan.

Judith Mueller  34:26

And in terms of logistical tips, did you find anything that you know when you start? Obviously, it's a completely new protocol. You're having to eat supplements twice a day. You're having to do you do this at this time. This at that time, you're having to meal prep. Obviously, that takes a lot of time. Did you find any logistical hints and tips that really saved time down the line? So could be meal prep, meal prep, or got meal prep rather, or anything else,

Sierra 34:52

honestly, logistically, what helps save time and make it easier is taking it one. Step at a time. And I know there's this desire to do everything all at once, and that's what I did in the night to day challenge. But if I were to tell my friends, my family members, how to logistically do this, I would say, take it one step at a time. So start with one pillar. Okay, sleep. Sleep is that low hanging fruit? Like, do you think? Does that one feel like you're ready to make a change there? Okay, cool, low hanging fruit. All right. This week, just tonight, let's make sure we get in bed by our set bedtime. Okay? We do that check. This should be like, so easy. All right, next day, okay, can we? Can we do two, two nights of getting to bed at the same night? Yes, check, check, whoo, okay, we're winning, and we're starting to build this momentum. Start to build the momentum. Things start to naturally settle into place. And then once things stabilize for one thing, you add something else, and then once that stabilizes, you add something else, and you keep going like this. I think the mistake that people often make is they want a total body life transformation. And so the thinking is, in order to make that transformation, I need to change everything about me and how I do things, and that might work for three days, three weeks, three months, but oftentimes what I see happen is then, after this, it's just too too much. It's too much change. It's too much hard, it's too hard, and the body naturally swings back to try to stabilize. And so what we're trying to do is not make huge changes. We're trying to make tiny tweaks that are sustainable and stick over time. And once we make those changes, and we build them and they compound, then before you know it, you just have to trust that process. You have to trust the tiny tweaks, these atomic wins. And once you continue to do that, before you know it, you won't even notice, like, you'll be like, who am I? I'm a whole different person. But just give it time and patience. Little, little baby steps. I think

Judith Mueller  37:08

celebrating the small wins is really important, just to to help build these new brain function space here. I mean, you've, you know, you've got the the biologic background and that with behavioral neuroscience, but for for for those who haven't, um, coming back to logistics, obviously, when we said we started, there was a lot of supplements involved, and especially for people who've either already got a lot of supplements, or they're not adding a lot of supplements, it's really difficult what to take when, because some have to be taken in the morning, some in the evening, because they impact sleep and energy during the day. Some have to be taken on an empty stomach. With some of them, you actually get sick when you take them on an empty stomach. Some of them you need fat. Some of them, you know, some of them you can't take them together, because they actually cancel each other out. So iron, you have to be very careful with what you take that with. But then iron, as you said previously, you have to take vitamin C for absorption. How do you how do you go about optimizing that stack, because every stack, every person's stack, is different. The first

Sierra 38:04

question I ask is, how do I make this as simple as possible? What is literally the simplest way that I could do this so and this requires a little thought upfront. I think the mistake is trying to figure things out on the fly, like while you're actually doing it, but actually, just taking 10 minutes to an hour, put that time aside and just think through a plan, make a Miro board or something where you could see it visually, or, like, literally, put your pill containers out in front of you, and you're like, Okay, when does each need to be taken? You start to group them together, and you try to figure out what is the grouping that requires the least amount of effort for you in real time in life. Ideally, you have them in batches. So you have the morning ones, and then you have the ones with your first meal, and then you have the ones with your second meal. I would say, if you can get it in those categories, like the 123, that would be the ideal situation. And then if you have one that's stray, that is just like some weird one that isn't going to fit into those three categories, I would ask yourself, Do I really need to take this like, just ask? Is it worth it? Because, you know, we have to make 1000s of decisions every single day, and is this one stray pill? Is this one really going to move the needle? And if it's not, maybe you could consider taking it out. But we're really looking for consistency here and actual systems that are simple, if they're simple and clear, easy to do that allows us to automate our behavior. So we're really just trying to aim for simplicity as much as possible, I would say that would be the goal.

Judith Mueller  39:43

Good stuff. Let's have a look at results. Are there any particular numbers that you can share where you said this has improved, or perhaps this hasn't improved? Surprisingly, obviously, you mentioned, we're still waiting for the next set of results for the second 90 days, and. The first 90 days, where a little bit all over the place, because so many things changed. Yeah. So

Sierra 40:05

for my DEXA scan, my body fat percentage decreased slightly, which was nice to see. I think it's a little tricky for me, because my body is in a pretty stabilized place already, so I'm not expecting a lot of movement there, but it went from about 22% body fat, which sounds like a lot for a man, but if you're a woman, 22% body fat is like a great place, and that's something to definitely be aware of. Is like what is normal for your particular kind of body but it went from like 22% to 21% I did in the early days this first 90 days, lose some lean tissue, about like, four pounds of lean tissue in my legs, which was a little concerning. And we realized that my protein intake was probably not high enough. I was doing caloric restriction, which is generally, you know, it can be okay and fine. You can still build muscle, but my protein intake was it seemed like it was too low because my muscles weren't able to actually grow, in particular my legs, and I was losing muscle there. So that was actually kind of a negative aspect. But then other things, like HRV has gone up a couple of points over time. You know, when you see it on the daily, it's kind of like a jagged line. It goes up and a little bit down, but the trending line is up, and then the other trending line that is down, which is a positive thing, is resting heart rate, so that going down to it started in the maybe high 50s, like 57 or something like that. And it's now in the 40s. So that's a really great place to be. I'm trying to get it, you know, I want it to be around 44 so, like that would be a great number to aim for. But, yeah, it's in the 40s now, which is great to see. VO two Max, I have only done one so far, so I'm going to do another, and we'll see the comparison. But it was 45 was the number that I got, and I'm looking to increase that. I was on the treadmill for 12 minutes. I'm aiming to shoot for 15. So that was good. My speed of aging was 0.93 and then 0.94 and looking for that to go down. But then I would say a big one was the blood work. So I had some deficiencies in my blood work before I started blueprint, I would say that was the main thing that was very notable, is I had deficiencies in my blood work. And then after blueprint, all of my levels were good. Everything was in the green zone. Everything was positive. So that was fantastic. The one thing I will say that we talked about is my stress levels were high, and I think that was impacting everything a lot. So I think the best results are yet to come for me, and will start appearing, and already have started to appear in these second 90 days. And that's something that I would say for people, is the first three months is the beginning. It's the beginning of a long journey. So that's not a time to get too worried about anything. It's just keep moving forward. As long as you're moving forward, be patient, kind, loving of yourself, do the things, eat, well, sleep, well, exercise, and just focus on that, and everything will come into place beautifully.

Judith Mueller  43:31

I think that's a good point, because one of my questions was going to be, you know, which areas would you have liked to see impacted that perhaps didn't, but again, you know we're missing or what, what we're waiting for, the third set of values, or rather, the second set of values from the from the second 90 days, as aware and things are going to be changing as they are. So I really look forward to having you back and telling us more about that. But in the meantime, are there any secret tips? So what are the three things you wish you would have known or that you wish someone would have told you, someone would have told you before you started this protocol,

Sierra 44:08

I wish someone would have told me it's going to be okay when we're making when I was making a bunch of changes, it feels like everything is falling apart. And it's funny because you think when you're making these changes, you're immediately going to feel amazing, but actually, in the beginning, it feels like a lot. It's just it's a lot changes a lot. And I think what I wish so would have told me is this is normal. You are okay. It is okay. Change is hard, and you're doing a great job, baby, keep going. You're doing the right thing. You've got everything you need. Just take Baby, baby, baby, baby steps. And that's the thing I always talk about, is taking. Baby steps, having atomic wins, celebrating. Because that's something I wish someone would have told me long ago, is the magic is in the small changes. Just do the small changes. And if you do that, magical things will happen if you haven't worked out in 20 years. And today, you put your running shoes on, it's time to celebrate. No if you haven't been able to get into the gym because you're feeling embarrassed and you're worried people are going to judge you. And today you stepped foot in the gym. That is something to celebrate. And if you have been in the gym, but you haven't been able to weight lift, because you're like, I don't know if that's for me. And today, you did 10 reps at the lap pull down bar. Yes, it was like the easiest weight possible, like the lowest weight. But you did those 10 lap pull downs. That is a win. And I think that's something that I wish I had known earlier, is if we can celebrate the small wins, if we can make the small changes, that is when magic really starts to happen. So speaking

Judith Mueller  46:15

of magic, you went to see Brian to give him your results. Tell us about that.

Sierra 46:21

Yeah, Brian's Great. Brian's Great. Him and his team were very open, very understanding. They originally told us we had 15 minutes to film, and I was losing my mind trying to figure out how we do that. Then they gave us 30 minutes, and then we actually ended up filming for about 45 minutes. Think the main focus for me was how to have fun. Brian has become somewhat of a mystical creature in the land of longevity, and he really is a man. He's a man on a mission, but just like any of us, he's always trying to do his best. He is learning as he goes. And so it was fun to meet with someone else who is also into this kind of stuff. And yeah, he's a nice guy. I think there's a lot of opinions about anyone that is in a public facing situation, but the sense that I got from Brian he's is he is genuinely a nice person trying to do good things, and he is on a path that feels really right for him, like it's it's true to who he is. So I really celebrate him. And, yeah, I think it's cool what he's doing, and it was nice of him to celebrate together and also do some dance moves. Yeah, we had a dancing scene and a video, and it was great. Yeah, that's really good.

Judith Mueller  47:42

So speaking of path, I know you're now helping other people tell us about that, yeah. So

Sierra 47:48

we started a first cohort of something we're calling the atomic health party. And basically what was happening with YouTube is people were watching the videos, getting excited, and there was change happening. Like, you'd get comments where people were like, I went to the gym for the first time in forever. And like, you know, I've been stretching and I've been eating healthy. And so the change is already happening just by visually seeing someone else do these kinds of things and overcoming challenges, I think is helpful. But there were some people that wanted to take it to the next level. They really wanted to figure out how to set up automated systems for diet, sleep, and exercise. But this stuff's hard. It's like a lot of small easy pieces, but it can feel like a lot when you try to do it on your own. So yeah, we have this cohort of 17 people where we're building the systems, and people are overwhelmed, and they're they're like, What the heck is happening? But also there's dedication to just figuring out with time and in community. So that's what we've been up to. But long term, the thinking is to make this not just 17 people, but kind of open it up to other people. Have it be like a low cost. It's really, I really want it to be accessible to as many people as possible, and just have this space where together, we can build our automated systems. Together, we can set up the life of our dreams, and then every single day, we take tiny steps towards creating that life of our dreams, and then before we know it, we're like, Heck, yes, look at this.

Judith Mueller  49:29

That's a very good note to end on. So Sierra, where can people find you? They can

Sierra 49:33

They can find me at youtube. Just type in Sierra Clark. Sierra, like the mountains, s, I, E, R, A, last name, Clark, C, l, a, r, k, otherwise, you can find me on the socials at Sierra C, as in Clark health. Or if you see me around, if you see me walking on the streets, if you know what my face looks like, come and say hi. I love talking to people. Reach out anytime Sierra.  

Judith Mueller 49:57

It was very lovely to have you here. 

Sierra 49:58

Thanks so much for having me. Judith. This has been awesome.