Experiences with offsetting aging effects

This theme came up from discussion in a Reddit aging related sub-group, here.  The title for that post was "experiences with reversing aging," which this title version probably corrects a bit.  You can really offset some of the effects, maybe even reversing what is regarded as an irreversible outcome in some cases, but in general it's about positively affecting general health, not turning back the clock.  

To me it's not about aesthetics, but it could be for others.  It also doesn't tie so closely to health markers, from doing bloodwork (general health assessment), but I did just check those results within the last couple of months, and they look ok.  I missed the last two company health checks or I could've assessed changes.  I've started fasting practices and have escalated running volume over the last 2 1/2 years; those recent markers should be better than earlier ones.

Let's start with that post; it also includes limited intro, so a lot of that would be overdoing it:

It's not really one of my things, as it is with Bryan Johnson and those other typically sketchy aging research guys, but I've had limited experience with seeing the effects of aging reverse. My hair was greying some years ago, and it has almost entirely returned to the original color. To be more specific my son counted 13 grey hairs about two years ago, and there are just a few at my lower temple now.

To back up a little I'm 56. In some other ways, partly related to appearance, I haven't aged as fast as I might, with my skin holding up decently, not using reading glasses, still exercising, etc. I can't know direct causes but I'll speculate about that here.

I took up periodic fasting just over 2 years ago, now fasting 5 days at a time, 4 times a year, but it was more that first year, nearly a month in total. I've been running a lot for 3 or 4 years, but I've levelled off at being able to run 10 km three times a week; I can't seem to recover from more than that. I don't know if it makes a difference but I've been eating a little goji berry most days for a number of years (said to help maintain eye health). I've improved my diet quite a bit based on resetting it related to fasting, and have been keeping up with sleep for years. A long cycle of meditation practice may have helped with memory issues.

I have kids, and had them late, so most of that didn't apply in my 40s. I was definitely out of shape over that decade, not exercising much, but I stayed active. I suspect that being a little underweight during my 20s and 30s, related to being a vegetarian then, may have been an earlier cause for slower aging.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that people try to suspend aging, but maintaining exceptional health seems reasonable.

Feb. 2025; looking a bit middle-aged, ok for 56

The "typically sketchy" part, about aging researchers, relates to them often seeming to package a product as much as search for answers for the benefit of society.  It's as well to not get side-tracked on that critique; parts of the research must hold up to further review, and will benefit many people.

Commentary

That group focus on a narrow range helped shaped what I tried to communicate there, on aging as affecting appearance and some narrow ranges of health.  Without that group-location framing I'd tend to focus more on discussion of just improving health, in general.  I'm also in a biohacking group on Reddit, which I might comment in but never post to, which would be more concerned with supplements, especially experimental versions.  Some people there see fasting as a functional form of biohacking.

Since I don't know the cause and effect sequences of making a few lifestyle input changes it's all vague enough.  I think fasting made a lot of difference, but any positive changes could have related mainly to better diet and getting more exercise.  I'll run through some potential positive changes in more detail here.

Life and location change as a possible input:  three years ago my family moved our kids to Honolulu, Hawaii to go to school here instead of Bangkok, intending to relocate my work, which never worked out.  I've been back and forth since, spending most of my time still in Bangkok, and working remotely part of the time.  

It may be that living a more active life in Hawaii changes things, even though I've only been spending 3 months a year here, while they spend 9.  I swam a lot this spring (in March through the end of May); an input like that couldn't hurt.  "A lot" is relative; I was swimming about 500 meters about 3 days a week, in the open ocean, out to a flag and back in a swim lane.  My son trains for competitive swimming and his daily practices cover a lot more distance, every day versus my weekly total.

out for an early run around Diamondhead

I swim out to that flag, and see turtles there (tourist for scale)

Diamondhead from my daughter's former school

Genetic factors:  one input I see as relating to appearing younger is kind of a random thing:  I have oily skin.  If I don't shower twice a day I end up looking a bit greasy, while living in a warm or hot climate.  That may be relatively equivalent to people using a lot of moisturizer in a cooler and dryer place (which I don't use).  My sister also looks quite young, also in her 50s, and good genetics for aging gradually probably go well beyond that.

these guys are holding up well

Food preferences probably have a lot of effect, along with eating what might be considered a good diet.  The luck of the draw might factor in, related to the former.  Thai food is typically based on natural, whole foods, not involving that much processing, even though use of frying and addition of some sugar does come up. 

I drink an awful lot of tea; it's odd that I didn't mention that in passing in that post.  I've considered before that beyond some polyphenols potentially supporting health, or offsetting aging effects, just ingesting extra minerals every day might make a difference.  Tea plants collect and store minerals, in addition to some contaminants, so I may be keeping topped up on a range of minerals.  Who knows about effects beyond that; maybe it is unusually healthy.

I started drinking coffee again within the last 6 months.  I can't imagine that's having a lot of effect either way, especially since I never drink more than one large cup a day (maybe 10 to 12 ounces), but it's an example of how other inputs keep shifting.  I last meditated regularly nearly two years ago; that's another example of ongoing changes.

Supplements, including anti-aging supplements:  I mostly take a multivitamin, magnesium, and D when I'm not getting that much sun.  I was also taking fish oil for awhile, and replace some salt intake with a potassium chloride based salt product; that's about it.

I also eat some goji berries most days, which is said to contain zeaxanthin, one of two compounds that promote eye health (along with lutein).  My wife said that it would help with eye health and hair loss, but who knows about traditional Thai medical claims.  It seemed like a bit of extra vitamin A couldn't hurt; those are supposedly a good source of that.

There are a broad range of other supplement or drug compounds being developed and tested now, but I don't really investigate those much, never mind taking any.  I'm more ok with aging normally than being a test subject, even though I am concerned enough about health to put effort into all of it.

Recommendations, and justification for them

Exercise:  there's no need to justify endorsing exercise, right?  I can add that running just a little early in my practice, starting nearly 7 years ago, seemed to make a lot of difference, but my cardio conditioning only improved once I ramped up volume.  I run 20 miles / 30 km a week when I'm more active, and maybe two thirds of that when I'm inconsistent, with some extra multiple week periods "off" in the past year or so.  I was more consistent and diligent before moving back and forth to Hawaii made that difficult.  It's not about making the time, or jet-lag disruption, but instead valuing the time with my kids in a different way after we re-unite.

If I run consistently for about 6 weeks my conditioning will change a good bit right around that time, but if I run consistently for only a month it won't.  I'm not implying that your health would change a lot, if you could lean into it all for 2 to 3 months.  Maybe that's true, and probably race conditioning works like that, but I don't know what supports general health well enough, versus what will "drop time" on training paces.

Fasting:  I suspect that fasting makes a lot of difference, but I'm not completely sold on hearsay related to autophagy, the process of your body recycling mis-folded proteins or whatever other damaged material.  Supposedly this always occurs in your body, and helps offset varying long term health issues, but vigorous exercise triggers more of it, or fasting for around 48 hours or longer does.  But if you try to look up research papers linking that this does occur, and that it relates to specific health-related outcomes, it's not easy making the connections.  

Again this isn't a claim either way.  I suspect that I am slightly mentally clearer related to periodic extended fasting, but who knows.  You could observe what you expect to, to some extent.  I also feel like I have more energy when running, that maybe greater "metabolic flexibility" helps with that, training my body to also use fat as an energy source.  I don't mind at all when meals run late, or skipping one is fine; I'm a lot less constrained by habitual eating now.

Diet changes:  my diet was never bad enough for me to see change effects in the same way someone moving off a truly bad diet could.  I took up being a vegetarian over 30 years ago, and tried to eat a healthy, balanced diet based on essentially no actual meat input for that next 17 years.  I was the "lacto-ovo" type; I still ate dairy and eggs, thinking that it would help me avoid deficiencies.  Then I think the deficiencies did enter in, around 13 years ago now, and my immune system stopped working normally.  I had been fine for that first decade, living in the US, watching my diet and eating supplements to help, but after I moved to Thailand I ate meat-based dishes without the meat, and it wasn't the same.  More idle speculation, probably, but that was my take.

So I'm describing improving an already pretty decent diet over the last few years, already based on input of plenty of fruits and vegetables, and whole grains, along with good quality meats input.  I've not eaten much for junk food, processed snacks, and fast food for a long time, with the exception of eating a good bit of ice cream.  Moving back to the US did add some challenges, since it's easy to appreciate different kinds of snack foods, that weren't options back in Thailand.  Those tubs of chocolate chip cookie dough are nice; I may have noticed the input of eating that on my body weight and cholesterol score.

Summary perspective:  the implied claim here, in all of this, is that I feel like I'm really 30 or 40, and not 56, and I guess that sort of holds up.  My exercise recovery is a lot slower; it's all that I can do to recover from around 30 km of running a week (20 miles), which to me doesn't seem like that much.  I switched to 12 km runs here in Honolulu, with hill sections (running around Diamondhead), and I could keep that up indefinitely on an 8-day, 3 run cycle, but not quite 3 times a week.  With more conditioning I could've got there; I was trying to ramp up and maintain that within a 2 month or so cycle.  But it's hard to make changes to training volume or intensity at this age, and I've experienced very minor injuries before that highlight that those can only occur gradually.

I guess that I feel fine.  I keep busy and active, walking a lot, doing many other things, and never feel like it's too much.  I don't notice much for aches and pains, or digestive system changes, or whatever else.  I really did feel less clear in my early 40s, when I was still adjusting to a busy office-life experience, but adding running seems to have resolved some of that.

I wouldn't consider TRT / HRT because all of that seems fine to me.  I don't see anything wrong with others making that choice, but I don't experience any of the other symptoms it's supposed to correct for (low energy, mood issues, problems with exercise, body composition, or sexual function, etc.).

Recommendations:  I should close this by recommending truly low-hanging fruit, what I think would make the most difference the fastest.  It's diet change.  For people accustomed to drinking soda just dropping that out would make a lot of difference.  Drinking water should be fine, or tea or coffee as a healthy input, or tisanes, herb teas.  Maybe drinking enough water alone would make a difference, versus falling short daily, or just getting enough sleep.

Changing diet could relate to making small, periodic changes, like swapping out fast food for cooking healthy natural food versions, or chips for nuts, or maybe replacing processed deserts with fruit.  Fasting makes this easy, because it's easy to see each break and renewed eating cycle as a reset.  But there must be other ways to push the same effect, like making a few small changes at the start of every month.  I "only" fast about 20 days a year, so not a high proportion, and I've gained weight over the past two years, so using fasting to lose weight would require a more specific focus on that.

Listening to your body is important.  The amount of sleep that's enough would vary by person.  Poor diet inputs or unusually helpful inputs also would vary by person in relation to positive or negative impact.  Related to exercise more would be better up to a point, but at middle age injury is an early warning sign that you're progressing too fast, and that's no good.

Being open to life changes may make a difference.  Of course it would help if those are positive.  I went through a period of meditating a lot, the second I've experienced in my life, and that seemed to help.  Getting a new pet can change things in a positive way (although losing one can also be really rough).  Life connections and activities seem to make a lot of difference.

Having kids late seemed to help.  I've been playing in kids' play areas for years (14 or 15), going to water parks, ice skating (a lot; the kids took lessons), biking and hiking with them, and so on.  That decade off exercise involved a lot of activity.  Some of it is just mental, not seeing yourself as sedentary and inactive, but it seems important for that to connect to physical activity.  I don't think it needs to be all that strenuous; hanging out laundry or doing gardening could be enough, to maintain flexibility through varied movement.

my other babies; I miss them terribly, while I'm away for this month

Beyond all of this I think accepting long-term transitions like aging is helpful.  You can focus on health, and change that, and some "symptoms" might diminish.  But in general life is about change, and walking a changing path, so feeling negatively about that context could be unhelpful.  Leaning into whatever activity works for you could tie in with feeling positive about your capacity, and enjoying different activities.  We--as a family, essentially--took up pickleball this year; it's nice when those can involve some limited exercise.

more on this here, especially relevant to people in Honolulu

good experience of meaning can't hurt

What fasting is like when it doesn't work out

 

Day one:

This is my fourth trial of fasting, moving on to a habit or accepted regular practice.  It made perfect sense to try it out as an experiment, but I could be clearer on what I expect from this.

It's not losing weight; I didn't weigh myself before or after the last five days, less than a month ago, but at a recent health check I'm 1 kg over my normal weight last year, up to 75 (165 pounds).  My blood pressure was up too, so general health isn't looking better, instead worse.  I've been running a lot lately and wonder if I'm not stressing my body a bit much, if recovery isn't a burden for it.  Of course I ran today, on the first day of the fast too, so it's not as if I'm acting on that as a concern.  

The theory behind that was from online discussion input that if you can burn up some available glycogen reserves on the first day that can speed up switching to ketosis, use of stored fat as energy (mostly that, at least; your body can use your own protein based tissue too, muscle, per my very limited understanding).  Supposedly even hunger might seem less an issue.  It is strange how I keep forgetting I'm fasting today, when in the past days 1 through 3 have always been rough.

There are a list of supposed, somewhat mysterious health benefits attributed to fasting (especially autophagy), and maybe it really is all that, the appeal of something wonderful being possible, just not clearly defined.  I'm also curious if the experience keeps changing, if it gets easier and easier, and some degree of benefit emerges with more exposure.  I may be slightly clearer mentally; something like that.  

I've been eating a continually healthier diet since I've started fasting some months ago, but it seems like the "diet reset" function is largely finished, that I'm as "switched over" in terms of clean diet as I'm probably going to get.  Most sugar and processed food is already out, and I eat a bit like those people who go on and on about it on social media, the streams of ultra healthy meal photos, I just don't mention it.

Day 2

Done already; I woke up in the night and couldn't go back to sleep, and felt an odd and disturbing sensation in my chest, and eventually called it.  I woke to drink water, with some extra electrolytes, but then over an hour later it wasn't resolving, so I ate a snack.

Maybe an electrolyte imbalance?  Seems most likely.  I was very careful about measuring out recommended amounts of sodium and potassium, and took a mid-level supplement range of magnesium, in pill form, in a multi-vitamin, and in a dissolving tablet, about 500 mg worth in total, but it still may have been that.

Two variable conditions came into play, which could've worked together.  I ran yesterday, thinking that it might help switch me over to ketosis to clear glycogen stores.  Since it was a short run (2.1 miles) I bumped intensity, to see how that would go, running that as 4 fast half-mile (800-900 meter) sections.  Of course that went badly; I don't train exactly like that, even though adding a fast 800 meter section at the end is normal for me.  Making a change in form might've been a bad idea.  I hadn't eaten for 15 hours or so at that point but I was expecting reserve energy level to hold over from the day before.  It kind of did, just not completely.

That step definitely seemed to help to smooth transition; I wasn't hungry at all yesterday, and an hour could go by without me thinking of being on a fast.  When I did walk by a snack food I'd often not notice, or the inclination to eat seemed muted.

A second variable was going to a health check-up a week or so ago and registering higher blood pressure than I've ever experienced (150 / 85).  I don't know why that happened.  My mother said that high blood pressure runs in our family, that she switched to experiencing it quite suddenly in middle age, in "spells," and there is probably a trigger I'm not clear on causing it.  

I've been increasing running distance, frequency, and intensity over the past 3 weeks, and that breaks a golden rule of running training, exceeding something like 10% weekly increase in any one or set of those.  That alone could be it, that my body is shocked by the change, experiencing higher recovery demands causing stress.  Or I suppose it's easy to see how working with a standard electrolyte supplementation input may not apply at all coupled with increasing running training.  

I checked total weekly running distance while editing this and I covered about 27 miles in a week, 43 km, when my past total never amounted to half that, at the same time I've been dropping pace down to around or under 6 min / km, around 9 1/2 minute miles, across run distances up to 10k.  Stopping eating without stopping running was foolish, even if it was the plan to take a couple days off for the fast.  It was surely too much recovery demand to put on my body even if all the running occurred just prior to the fast, with the last run in the first half day.

I'll move to Hawaii in two weeks so there's a lot that I wanted to get in (running, fasting, and of course packing), and compressing it together is probably not a good idea.  My kids are there now, and have been there, and I spent last Sept. and October there, so it's an odd staged move.  

I've "trained up" to a point where a lot of new running options are open to me, I'll just have to not rush to try too many at once.  I really should start tracking my heart rate, and just eating a good diet may not be enough, I may need to check into a few extra key supplements.  I switched over to running 6+ miles in distance back in Honolulu last year, including hills there, so it's not really sudden, but checking timing and pace recently probably caused me to increase that.

my longer running route there goes around this, Diamondhead

we live in that background shown there, with my heart and soul in the foreground

I want to distill this to what I take to be a lesson, to advice, but to be clear I'm no authority on any of it, and the main thing I would recommend is caution (so don't do what I do).  Fasting seems like it can be quite safe, interesting to experience, and probably healthy, but dialing in electrolyte supplementation, drinking enough water, and eliminating other variables seems helpful.  Going into it with concern over a health condition is probably always going to raise level of doubts, and with or without that activating a significant risk it could be quite uncomfortable.  Stepping up to longer time-frames seems much better, which I didn't do earlier, but then I pulled the plug on my first fasting trial after three days as a result.

Then there is an odd balance theme that comes up, how keeping busy enough to not focus on not eating seems critical, but being over-taxed by physical and mental demands won't work either.  Something like watching a movie can provide enough distraction, or cleaning the house.  I packed for the move yesterday, or started to, and I suppose it's conceivable that embracing the stress of wondering what I'm going to need, and what's going to happen, could've added mental burden.  During fasting would be a fantastic time to get out and experience a bit of nature, which luckily is all around me where I live now, even though I'm in Bangkok.

papaya in the yard; that squirrel just ate another one, long before it was ready

I don't feel bad about this test not working out.  Of course I'm more concerned about my general health; I keep saying that I'm going to moderate running intensity but I'm addicted.  Maybe I'll test how slowly I can run this evening, or taking a day off would make more sense.  [later edit:  of course I ran, and tried to keep it slow, but did drop below that 6 min / km pace on a light 4 mile run, which seems moderate because it's normal now].

More on electrolytes

It sounds like it should be simple to dial this part in, right?  There's an RDA for minerals like potassium and magnesium, and surely some normal range for sodium, and ingesting that should keep you in the clear.  One problem is that people claim you go through more of those in ketosis, and if you end up drinking a lot of water (which is recommended, to support different body function using different internal energy source), and add in exercise, then who knows what the actual suitable input level is.  

Let's take a look at what I'm working around, that Reddit fasting sub reference, cited in high level of detail here to talk around (but there is more to check out; the rest is worth a look):

So potassium deficiency can cause irregular heartbeat and low magnesium levels insomnia; sounds about right.  Fasting is no joke; I get it why people often recommend consulting a doctor before trying it, which of course I didn't do.  Then you would have the problem that if you talked to 10 different doctors you would probably hear a range of advice, from some seeing it as a great idea with low risk and others saying not to do it, with advice in the middle varying.

Checking RDA is pretty easy, since you just need to look at the back of a multivitamin bottle and multiply out the percentage value (in the US; the same approach could give slightly varying results elsewhere, but it would be similar).  Magnesium (on mine) lists 50 mg as 12%, so that's just over 400 mg per day.  Then it's a bit complicated sorting out bio-availability concerns and amount of a compound in a salt form.

I had read through all this, made simpler for taking a 300 mg magnesium supplement capsule that first morning.  As best I could I sorted out using a variation of what they referred to as "Lite Salt," filling a container of water full of the sodium and potassium mixture for a day (the "chloride" version of both; I had tried mixing baking soda as an input before, as they recommended in one place, but it's disgusting).  It should've been fine.  Maybe especially the magnesium input, since I ended up taking around 500 mg, versus that 300 - 400.  Mixing a day's worth in advance like seems best because you can not worry about tracking amounts, and can mix that solution with water or an herb tea as you like.

Adding running is a variable though; it has been cool out, for us, so level of demand seems to be not as much an input as when I'm running in the mid 90s F (mid 30s C), but I should've tried out a slow, easy run.  I was still undergoing muscle recovery from a run the day before too; it's hard to factor that in, but I guess that process may or may not also utilize electrolytes (why wouldn't it?).

Related to taking it easy, or not, I ran another "short" 4 mile / 6 km outing the evening after bailing the night before, and 10k the next day, and as I finish final editing I'm forcing myself to take a day off.

I discussed in a recent post how getting new running shoes is part of wanting to get out more

I think if people had to wait until conditions were perfect to try out fasting, or extend duration of trials, that they never would get to it.  Work is always going to enter in, or exercise, family demands, or other external stresses.  Some degree of moderation must be required though, which of course I didn't factor in.  Naps are perfect for adjusting energy level imbalances, more of an issue in early fasting trials, but that's not a standard practice most people could include, outside of during weekends.  Days 1 through 3 seem the hardest, so starting on a Saturday could include the first two then.

I was awake in the night some last night, not related to fasting, and it's obvious then that if I had been fasting I might see that as a potentially significant side effect, when really it just varies how long it takes to fall back to sleep.  A lot of it is psychological, that if you expect it all to go well and see minor issues as minor then it's not so bad, but with the opposite negative expectations little issues could add up.  I think that I really did screw it all up for not moderating exercise, as described, that it wasn't mostly about expectations this time.