Thread by @Camp4

💥 How to Kick Ass at Everything

For 30 years I've been obsessed with health & fitness. I've spent over $100k & tried 100's of things (some wacky) to overcome illness & become stronger & sharper at 51 than I was at 30.

Here's what I’ve learned—maybe 1 thing will inspire you👇🧵

🤒 My journey began out of necessity after being struck by a mystery illness (probably viral) in my 20's.

It utterly wrecked my health—within just a few weeks I went from being a vibrant, athletic adult to essentially bedridden, with symptoms ranging from crushing fatigue to...

... panic attacks to recurrent infections. It's hard to look at pics of myself from that period (but I included one below).

Conditions like this (including "long COVID") are poorly understood. At the time the best traditional medicine had to offer was psych meds & steroids.

No thanks. I instinctively resisted the urge to mask symptoms and took matters into my own hands, spending 100's of hours researching so-called “alternative medicine” & trying countless things. Over time my illness became a blessing in disguise & led me to an epiphany:

Not only could I regain my health, I could become healthier than before! And that’s exactly what I did...

📸 How it started: Sick at age 21

📸 How it's going: Healthy at age 51 (my wife overruled the shirtless pic I was gonna post 🤣)

I'm proud to be an outlier, still performing at my best. This isn't a boast, it's simply the result of hard work & tough choices compounded over decades.

👉The older we get, the further the average health of our peer group declines. Unless you're OK with that...

...YOU need to become an outlier too.

Longevity isn't about mere survival, it's about thriving—performing at the highest level in everything you do for as many years as possible.

Here are 10 things I've learned. Some are treatments and some are strategies. I'm leaving out a TON of detail—this is just a starting point.

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor (and I don’t take advice from most of them). Your health is YOUR responsibility—nobody else’s—so own it.

⬇️

1️⃣ Don't take advice from unhealthy people. This applies to everything, not just health. Take your advice from people who have DONE IT, who ARE what you want to be.

Talk is cheap and there are lots of bad takes out there. I want to see *results*!

This applies doubly to doctors and it applies to this 🧵 too!

Average choices lead to average outcomes which means bad health. If you want a better outcome you have to swim outside of the mainstream. Most mainstream doctors have forgotten the first rule of medicine: Do no harm.

They dispense pills to mask symptoms and have little interest in optimal health or disease prevention.

My doctor is someone I admire: Cornell MD, elite Jui Jitsui athlete, passionate about health. He has the same goals as me. It's a partnership 🤝

Find your health partner.

2️⃣ Diet isn't complicated. Everybody wants a silver bullet but it doesn't exist. Diet boils down to a few simple things done consistently:

Eat real fresh food (mostly cooked at home)
Don't eat too much
Very little sugar/alcohol
Fast occasionally (#4 below)

There are nuances but these simple rules are 90% of success.

👉Consistency is better than perfection—if you complicate your diet you won’t stick with it. If you’re eating clean and getting plenty of exercise (see #3) then calories matter very little (within reason).

Coincidentally, I'm eating my fav lunch right now: The "kitchen sink" salad:

🥬 Spinach & arugula
🌱 Flax seed, hemp seed, toasted walnuts
🥑 Carrot, radish, avocado, dried cranberries
🧂 Salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic reduction
🥚 2 boiled eggs

5 min to make & 😋

3️⃣ Fitness is more than “working out”. If your idea of fitness is hitting the gym 2X/week you’re not going to achieve optimal health.

Your body is your (only) vessel for experiencing life so treat it accordingly. Fitness should be a lifestyle, *part of your identity*.

There are no shortcuts—just hard work—so it’s best to find an athletic pursuit that you enjoy. Find something that takes you outside, is highly varied, and has a strong mind-body—even spiritual—component. And while you're at it get lots of direct sun.

We evolved over 300k years to live in harmony with nature, and only recently have we retreated indoors under artificial light. If you’re not spending time outside you’re fighting biology.

If you need a recommendation for an outdoor athletic pursuit, I do have one idea 😜

4️⃣ Inflammation is the enemy. Increasingly, research suggest that inflammation is the the root cause of many chronic illnesses (including depression). My #1 focus is controlling inflammation—it’s really what this whole thread is about.

Because climbing is so demanding I notice even the slightest flare-up, especially in my hands. Sugar is the #1 offender for me. We’re all more in tune with our bodies than we realize so pay attention to what makes you feel good or bad.

5️⃣ Try fasting. Fasting is the closest thing we have a panacea. It costs nothing & has massive upside with no risk. Yet almost nobody does it!

Fasting stimulates *autophagy*, which is the body's way of cleaning out damaged cells in order to regenerate new, healthier cells.

You don't have to understand or believe the science... JUST TRY IT and see how you feel. The best way to start is intermittent fasting: Simply don't eat between 6pm and 10am most days. It's super-easy and you might be surprised at how good you feel after just a few days.

If you're ready for something more advanced try a fasting-mimicking diet like the @prolonfmd 5-day. It's a kit with all the food to make everything easy and it's backed by tons of science. Check out the book The Longevity Diet for more info. It's like a reboot for the body.

6️⃣ Vitamins & supplements. I used to take a ton of supplements and now I take almost none. IMO most are garbage, a waste of money. They're generally poorly absorbed and can even create problems.

That said, I keep a few on hand for specific issues. My favs are:

Vitamin D: This is one that I do think should be taken regularly, especially in the age of COVID.

Cordyceps: A mushroom that is great for energy and athletic performance. Check out @FourSigmatic for some great mushroom coffee mixes.

Astaxanthin: A super-strong anti-oxidant, great for endurance & recovery and even acts as a natural sunscreen. You may notice better eyesight an hour after taking this one.

Digestive Enzymes: Helps with digestion, inflammation and injury recovery. I use Wobenzym.

Allicin: A derivative of garlic that works wonders for digestive issues & inflammation. I recently got food poisoning for the first time ever and Allicin knocked it out in a few hours. The best brand is Allimax.

Colloidal Silver: For respiratory infections put 1 tsp in a nebulizer 2-3X/day and it usually works 24 hours. Because of this simple, super-cheap treatment I can't even remember the last time my family used an Rx antibiotic. The brand is important—I use MesoSilver 20ppm.

7️⃣ IV Vitamins—The Big Gun. In 1960ѕ, Dr. Jоhn Myers from Jоhnѕ Hорkіnѕ developed a cocktail of vitamins & minerals (the "Meyers Cocktail") to be administrated intravenously, achieving much higher plasma concentrations than from food or vitamins taken orally.

The Myers Cocktail is effective for a wide range of conditions, especially viral infections. When I started doing IV vitamins 20 years ago it was a fringe treatment—now there are "IV bars" in every major city. But here's the problem:

Most clinics don’t provide adequate dosages because the ingredients are expensive. Vitamin C is the most important ingredient so ask for at least 5 grams (not mg) and ideally 10 grams.

I turned @Levijameshere onto the Myers Cocktail and he's become an evangelist (and addict... in a good way). Most people experience a "relaxed energy" and increased mental clarity after their first treatment. It's incredible for head colds.

8️⃣ Adrenal support. Modern life hammers the adrenals. If you suffer from PM fatigue or are generally feeling "run down", try my "adrenal stack" for a few days you may feel like a new person:

Dr. Wilson's Adrenal Rebuilder (start with 1/day)

Twist 25 DHEA Cream (men only)

My friend Tim, a firefighter, struggled for weeks to recover from COVID and it helped him bounce back in just a few days.

If you use these regularly I recommend doing 3 weeks on, 1 off.

9️⃣ Oxygen/ozone. This includes hyperbaric oxygen & various ozone therapies. Most of these aren't accepted by mainstream medicine in the US but are widely used in Europe.

I won't get into details of the science (you can go down the Google rabbit hole) but these therapies...

..have been used for decades by millions and are helpful for a wide range of health issues and played a major role in my recovery. I currently have an ozone machine at home and use it (rectally 😳) sporadically when I'm feeling sick or run down. I just used it yesterday.

🔟 Gut health. This deserves its own thread but for now I'll just repeat what old-school docs have said for decades:

Health begins in the gut.

If you've got gut issues (many do) you'll want to work with an expert to address it. Naturopaths are great for this.

🤫 There's one more—and it's a big one—but it's a bit controversial and this thread is already too long so I’ll save it Part 2.

Just know that a massive amount of research & investment is happening in the longevity / anti-aging field and big discoveries are on the horizon.

My hope is that everyone who reads this finds at least one thing that helps.

Think of it this way:

If you do 10 little things that each make you 1% healthier or fitter that's a 10% improvement—a noticeable difference! Now imagine doing 30 little things... 😜

Lastly, don't take my word for any of this stuff—do your own research, find a great doc & try a few things. The proof is in the pudding—something either makes you feel better or it doesn't.

Now let's go crush 2022 🤙