Andy Scoggin - Trade Hustle For Health: Build Strength, Sleep Deep, Live Long | Ever Onward - Ep. 105

Welcome to Ever Onward—and the start of a new 2026 format. Each month, Tommy Ahlquist will run a theme-based series with a co-host, beginning with a foundational conversation that frames the topic and sets up the episodes that follow.

We’re kicking off the year with Health & Longevity—and Tommy is joined by January’s co-host, Andy Scoggin, CEO of Scoggin Capital Investment, to lay the groundwork for what “living long” actually means: not just adding years to life, but building a longer healthspan—more strength, energy, clarity, and capability for the people and purpose that matter most.

In this kickoff episode, Tommy (58) and Andy (63) get practical about the shift that hits many high-performers in their 40s and 50s: you can’t keep mortgaging your health for hustle forever. They talk about when to “pull the throttle back,” how to re-stack priorities, and what they wish they would’ve done sooner—because you can’t bank sleep, and you can’t rewind a decade of inconsistent habits.

You’ll hear:

• Healthspan vs. lifespan and why the goal is “square the curve”
• How to major in the majors (exercise, strength, sleep, nutrition basics) instead of obsessing over minor hacks
• Andy’s personal operating system: the first hour that changes the other 23 (gratitude, prayer/meditation, mental training, movement)
• Strength + VO₂ max + consistency—what actually drives long-term independence
• Sleep protocols that work in real life (routine, cool/dark room, caffeine cutoff, magnesium, and getting back to sleep)
• Nutrition fundamentals that compound—especially protein and metabolic health
• The unsexy longevity edge most people ignore: avoid preventable accidents (yes, like texting and driving)

This is the foundation for the month—a framework you can use to reset your routine, refocus your goals, and build a life where success doesn’t come at the expense of your body, mind, or relationships.

New episodes drop Monday mornings in January 2026 (Jan 5, 12, 19, 26).

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Transcript

New Year, New Format

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Ever Onward Podcast. This year for 2026, we're going to do things just a little bit differently. Each month, we're going to have a topic, and I'm going to have a co-host for those topics, and they'll do the podcast with me. I'm excited to do it a little different, mix it up. It keeps it exciting for me and hopefully for you. We add some value in the way we organize and have some strategy against what we talk about. Sure appreciate this. We've been doing it for a few years and appreciate everyone listening. This month, uh to kick off the year, um Andy Scoggin will be my co-host, and our topic is going to be health span and lifespan, longevity and all things health and wellness. Uh in the first podcast, Andy and I will do a rundown and review kind of our thoughts on he's 63, I'm 58, and we're talking a lot about longevity and health and wellness. Um as you know, Andy Scoggin is the CEO of uh Scoggin Capital Investments. He was the CEO and chairman of investments uh for uh SCI Capital. Uh he began his career as an attorney uh with San Francisco law firm and then came back with Albertsons Corporation and then Albertson's LLC. Uh he is on 14 boards, seven nonprofit and seven business boards. He has six other businesses actively currently. Uh he is uh a husband, a father, a grandfather, a community leader. Uh he's done everything. He's a true Renaissance man and a dear friend. Um, why I picked Andy for this first topic is almost every time we talk, we talk about longevity wellness, what vitamins we're taking, um, our exercise, our fitness. I knew he would be just perfect for this month. So really thankful for Andy Scoggin, who is our co-host, and he'll be the first guest today on our Ever Onward podcast. Andy, this is gonna be fun. Thank you for coming back so soon. And I know how busy you are. When I when I text you, I'm like, hey, I know it's the holidays, but let's uh figure this out. So, so by way of introduction, um, we're gonna do some themed base uh podcast this year, every month, a different theme with a co-host. And this first month we're doing kind of new year. It's kind of everyone focusing back on health, which happens to all most of us as part of our goals, but but I couldn't you left a big mark on me when you were here talking about the way you kind of organize your life for longevity, health, and happiness. So I called you and I said, let's do a whole podcast on that one thing in preparation for the guests we're gonna have uh this month. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

I love it. How are you? I love it. I've been great. Uh I've been I'm lucky to uh to live in a great place around great people and um have learned a few principles from you as well as many other great leaders and mentors, and I think we're gonna talk about a few of them today. I'll probably learn as much from you, maybe more, uh today than uh than I'd ever be able to tell you. Well, this will be fun.

From Money Goals To Health Goals

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Uh you were just we were just shooting the shooting the bull while you got here, but uh you just showed me your new boxing space in one of your buildings downtown. Yeah, yeah. So ta tell us I think it's a great place to start. You started boxing.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

About three years ago, but it kind of goes back to something a bit earlier, which is that I had this um little light bulb go off maybe in my mid-40s. That there comes a point in your life, so we all have to start building a foundation. And one of the important foundations we're gonna build is financial. We've got to take care of ourselves, we've gotta take care of our family, we've got to take care of those around us, maybe give back. But nobody really tells us when the throttle switch should be pulled backwards in life. When, okay, your focus for many of us in our 20s, 30s, and into our forties is probably tilted pretty heavily toward taking care of that, you know, that part of the uh equation. Um so that we have the ability to go do the things we need to do. And then we become so good at it, some of us, or so accustomed to it, many of us, that there's not an idea that, okay, now I change lanes a little bit. And where that comes from is my fig my insight for me, and everybody's time's gotta be different, gotta be personal, was you hit around 50 and you r radically shift from this sort of financial health to the other aspects of health, which is physical, of course, which is mental, of course, which is social, of course, and you know, and then is uh one that should I was gonna say that one should be running throughout. Yeah. But even there, you know, but the but the yeah we all work to try and keep, I hope, uh a baseline through those years when you're really building that foundation financially. But that baseline has to shift for for me for three reasons. Reason one is because I was only, you know, maintaining I was on planes all the time, maintaining baseline. If I'm lucky, try to work out in a gym, try to, you know, eat the least worst food in the restaurant or the airport or wherever it might be, um, you know, uh, and you know, try to find a little bit of time in the day to do what needs to be done. Um, so that's two decades of not having you know the the focus that I'd like to have. Um two is at that same time our bodies are naturally shifting, metabolism, bone building, uh, you know, the the ability to recover, all of those things are gonna be changing. And so if you do what you did in your 20s when you know you were playing sports and teens and twenties, etc., and we were all you know very um resilient in your 60s, not gonna be there if you aren't really intentional. So A, I had that time frame that I needed to, you know, that that I wasn't really focused the way I wanted to eventually be. Now the body's gonna react.

Health Span Over Lifespan

SPEAKER_02 6:24

And then C is that I think this is so infighting. I'm gonna add two things to what you just said, because I think sometimes when you're in that phase of your life, I know we've talked about this, you also are enjoying it. Yeah. Which is if you find something you're passionate about, yeah, you're in it. And you're in the middle of it. So you're you're not aware, and you almost it's okay to mortgage your health a little bit because you're like, hey, I am in the prime, I'm in my 30s, my 40s. I am this is my time to develop my career. So it's okay. You you you tell yourself, because you have to, I'm uh it's okay if I if I eat bad, it's okay if I don't exercise much because I love it. And there's a gonna be a time for that. And I and I had the same experience as you. Then all of a sudden you start having health issues, or you hit this 50 mark and you're on the other side of it and you have regrets. I think a lot of people do. You still love your thing, your trade as much, but you're like, I've got I you're almost forced into I gotta figure this out because my body is telling me something like Yeah, you need you need to focus, right? And so people get there differently, but I think uh for people listening to this, and I'm really excited for the different guests we're gonna have together, is okay, for those people listening that are in their 30s, they're in their 40s, what would old guys like us have done a little bit differently? Yeah, and then secondly, when you hit 50, 60 like us, there's no way to make up for that time. You've you've uh, you know, there's no, you know, I think Huberman on sleep, right? It's not like you can sleep twice as long tomorrow. It's not like you can bank it up. You've you've wasted the bank, and now you got to take the reality of where you're at and say, okay, what can I do for the rest of my life?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

So but I like the word you use mortgage because I had this insight 20 plus years ago. So I knew that the time would come. I just knew that I had to set it or it wasn't gonna act magically happen. And so that word I use, baseline, was very important to me. So I ran some marathons, I did some triathlons, but they were you know spur um spurts of energy in between everything else. And they also can be pretty damaging to you versus having a much more consistent and thoughtful approach to things. I'll say the other thing that people that are listening to this that are maybe a decade or two younger or three um is that when I'm growing up in the 60s and 70s, going to high school, there was no science, there was no data. It was so minimal. And then to the 80s, you know, we didn't know what you're going to present over the next month with incredible um minds um about what really does create an impact that is measurable and that is sustainable and that's repeatable. And we're gonna talk about that. But there's so much more out there that we can that we can use today. But it's also interesting that you can go back thousands of years and find certain principles that have always applied that we some seem to forget and then have to re-remember as well. So we'll talk about those.

Squaring The Curve And Aging Strong

SPEAKER_02 9:31

And I think in Western, well, uh we're gonna go all over the place, but I I a lot of things you say just spark so many thoughts because you know, same you're we're you're a little bit older than I am, but we're kind of kind of the same thing. But I'm I'm going through this and I'm in the I'm a freaking physician. I'm in the middle of the side. I'm in the middle of this thing, and I look at my night shifts for 10 years straight. I was running other businesses. I I look if I looked at my sleep patterns for probably 15 to 20 years of my life, you know, I used to use this. Uh now it now it seems silly. I'd say, oh, sleep's overrated, you know, kind of a thing. And and and there is a lot of science now. I think wellness, longevity, these principles, I think a lot of this is getting around traditional Western medicine. It is. Right. If you think about the pol the things we're going to talk about in these next few podcasts, a lot of this stuff is because there is a lot out there. You can now, you can dive deep and hear science. There's also the chance for people to take advantage of this new thing where you can go straight to the consumer with supplements or things that may not be science-backed, but there's a lot out there. And so um, I think I think we're more educated. And and my advice to anyone listening that is on the 30-year-old, because there's a lot of folks that listen to this that are, is you you got an advantage over maybe us. Right. Because if you can stick to some of those foundational principles, the basic things, the things that make a big difference, and really stay disciplined, knowing that you can't get that back, um, that'll be another good thing that comes out of today, I think.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yeah, yeah. Now I'd like to take that word longevity, because you've mentioned it. And when we talked before this, you also said, Hey, I want to talk about this concept of longevity. And I it's a little bit cliche now because a lot of people that get an interview about this will say the same thing I'm gonna say, and you would say, which is I can't control length. I can in I can enhance the opportunity to live longer, but I can walk out the door, get in my car, and in the crazy eagle traffic, I could not make it home. I don't know. But what I but what I can control is for the length that I get to spend my time in this you know mortal realm, this this big uh round marble floating through space, I can enjoy the use of my body and my mind and my um ability to to serve and to interact and all those things. I can enhance that. And that's what a lot of the science, I think, really helps us with. Yes, I may add more years to my life, but really the thing that I can do is I can go pick up a grandkid and uh you know run them around in my back at the park. Uh, we can go ski together. I can mountain bike with my 30-something-year-old kids and not be left 10 miles behind them because I'm doing what it takes to be able to keep that uh ability now. And 10 years from now and 20 years from now, if I'm so you know fortunate that I'm still doing this and I'm still around, I want to be able to do those kinds of things. So, really for me and for you, what we're talking about as much as anything else, it's enhancing whatever time we have with strength and with resilience.

A Goal System In Five Domains

SPEAKER_02 12:46

We're gonna drop a few names. We've talked a lot about who we like, our can't miss podcasts, people we follow. For me, one of them is Peter Atia. Yep. And and so for anyone that hasn't listened to him, uh incredible. He's he's he's he's an incredible communicator, brilliantly smart, science-backed, but very good communicator. But he'll he'll talk about lifespan and health span. Correct. And he'll say some of the things that we do, cancer awareness and prevention, cardiovascular disease treatment, some of the basic metabolic things that we can do actually may increase lifespan some. If we're if you're in your 50s and you do these things, you probably will live. But then he talks a lot about health span. Yes. During that same time. So he talks about kind of squaring the curve where, yeah, you may live a few years longer, but your health span over that time allows you to do the things with your grandkids. And it's different as you get older and and as you start um considering what do I want. He he talks a lot about what do I want that last decam decade of my life to look like. Right. And none of us are gonna outrun this thing, right? I mean, that there's a few things that we know are gonna happen, and that decline's coming, but how do I how do I stay as healthy as I can, enjoy my life as long as I can, and the things that really bring me, bring me joy. I I do, I want to make sure we hit um when you were with me last time, you talked about really setting goals. This, this, this will be our you know, January. For me, I'm I'm a big goal guy. Yeah, I I love, I can't wait. In fact, I got my new planner today. I can't wait to open that thing up and say, here, here's my goals for next year. I'm gonna I'm gonna lay them out like I always do. Um, I try to go back to them, I try to make them be achievable, measurable. But you taught me something last time, the way you put the quadrants and how you kind of look at your your life and the way you stack it. Can you go into that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Love to. And you know, I learned it from I wish I remembered the guy that first brought this up when I was a teenager in a meeting I was at. And um, and but he took it out of the Bible, Luke 252, which is talking about Jesus growing as a youth into a man, and he grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man, which was wisdom, our mental, stature, physical, and favor with God, spiritual, and man, social. So those things um have such a nice organizing principle that you can start to say, okay, instead of I want to be a better person, which I want to be better next year than I was this year in in ways, but in what way does that mean be better? And this gave a structure, a framework, an idea of okay, what do I want to do physically over the next year? What do I want to do mentally? What do I want to do socially, and what do I want to do spiritually? And I added a fifth, and you'll remember this, which was um financial, you know, so that because we work um in order to live, hopefully we don't, or I you know, live only to work. But what do we do? What am I doing all those in order to make sure that they're all moving forward? And uh eventually I took the four, which was the physical, the mental, the social, and the financial, put those four in this sort of a circle with four quadrants, you said, and then put a big uh ring around it, and that's sort of the spiritual or higher um, you know, higher self, higher purpose, higher, whatever it is that that should guide why I'm trying to be physically uh you know resilient and strong and capable, and and why I'm trying to maintain um a mental acuity and why I'm trying to be you know social with others is not to aggrandize myself, but to go out and do things that raise the level around is something that I will say you know with no intention of flattery, but what something you do and have done as long as I've known you, which is you you go and say, What can I do better in the place I live, and then you go make it happen. Those things are we're gonna be better at if we are operating at a higher level in these areas than if we're not. If I'm tired, if I'm worn down, if I'm you know losing my ability to kind of think and move and act in a way that is really uh you know higher on the uh you know for my age or for my you know capabilities for my environment, I'm not gonna be able to give back as much. I'm not gonna be able to take care of my family, my friends, my you know, uh, you know reference what I want to my God, to all of those things. So I've by doing those, and and for me it's okay, am I gonna read books that might go into my mental side? Am I going to you know go do this big hard thing from a physical standpoint? But it's also what do I do every day? And so now I've dialed it over the last five years into the first hour of every day is very, very specific. And I'll just say that that makes all the difference in the other 23 hours of the day.

The First Hour That Shapes The Day

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Let me set the stage because I I think uh this is the third pop first podcast of the month just to kind of set the stage for what's coming. Um, second one, Andy and I will be interviewing someone that hot and cold plunge, uh sauna, you know, some of those treatments that are out there now. Uh we're gonna have a doctor in to talk about supplements and cancer prevention and cardiovascular prevention. And we're gonna have finally we're gonna have Dr. Caleb Redden. We're gonna talk about exercise, strength exercise, VO2 Max. We're gonna get into all those things.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

But those are awesome because those are the experts that I'm not, but that I listen to and try to learn from.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

And and one of the things that Peter Attia says is hey, as we think about health, you know, make sure you major in the majors, the things that really make a difference. And we're gonna hit those on the other podcasts. And he said some people major in the minors, like they get stuck on things that yeah, it's probably 10 to 20 percent of your health, but you should exercise, sleep, the or maybe only three to five percent of your health.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Maybe only three to five percent and become so focused on those things that you missed the big picture.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Yeah. But I what I want to do with you, I do think um, Andy, listen, I've known you a long time. I've I've I've looked up to you honestly, and I've told you this forever, but when I look at guys that I want to be like, you're that guy. I mean, you are, and I look at the discipline you have and the way you've structured your life, and I and there's a lot to learn from you. So I wanted I want to go a little deeper. So you you've talked and we've talked a little bit about how important that morning routine is. Pay attention to all these things. Just a couple of things. There was a Harvard study of adult development that I want to go to that talks about happiness and joy in life, all phases of your life. And the number one thing on there is high-quality relationships, going back to your social. Uh, they go into depth, trust, emotional stability, how we treat others, how do we look out, how do we give back is number one in their study the most important thing. Um, number two, sense of purpose and meaning. This is for happiness. Um, three is physical function and independence. So we do get into some of those. Emotional regulation, psychological resilience is number four. Um, my point of going through this is you could have goals in other areas, but we need to pay attention to spiritual, emotional, social health, the things that we know are going to keep us there. And I think what we can talk about in this first hour is also ways to keep our mind sharp, right? I will also Make an argument. I've been thinking a lot about getting ready for this today. I've been thinking a lot. When I was in my 20s, I was so driven. I just, I had my mindset on what I was going to be doing. So when I would make those goals every year, it was pretty easy for me. And I look at my 30s, same thing. I mean, it was, I had so many lofty goals that were so driven around my career and still my family and what I was doing, but it was pretty easy. Um, 40s, same thing. Now that I'm in my late 50s, I'm you know, I'm I'm hitting 60. It is a little different. And for those people listening today, you do now start saying, okay, I'm gonna shift a little bit now. I've got to find purpose and meaning in this later. And there's books, I I've read three books this year just on this of where do you find that same drive and purpose later in life that gives you passion, happiness, and all the other things you want. So I want to hit on all that with you, but I think a place to start is you're very structured in the morning. You you pay attention to these things that I know you exercise, and we I started this by asking you about your new boxing gym, but but but talk us through the morning mindset, kind of that perfect day thing where you're every day God gives us this circadian rhythm where you're able to hopefully go to bed at night and say your prayers and do kind of an evaluation of how I did today. But then you get this fresh morning, you wake up and you're like, okay, today's the perfect day. And I I do the same thing. Um, and sometimes it's only perfect till 9 a.m. Sometimes I make it to noon, but but I try to set set the stage each day.

Languages, Learning, And Neuroplasticity

SPEAKER_01 21:27

But go into your routine for us. Yeah, so this is a refinement over 40 years of what hasn't worked and the few things it do. And uh, I want to use first the word you talked about with discipline, because for me, discipline feels hard. And so what I've done is try to create uh autonomy where things are happening without me being disciplined, without saying, I gotta do that next. But and then what flows from that is joy. Like I enjoy my morning so much that I can't give it up. But I start, like you said, you know, with this quiet, you know, 10 minutes to 15 minutes, 20, if it's it's prayer meditation, it's kind of reflection. Reflection and also gratitude. Like, wow, the day that I got a new day. I got another day, and I get to go do this stuff. So that's starting and then it's what I'm gonna stop you because I want I want to learn from this.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Um as you do your meditation, your prayer, and your your thought in the morning, because I think we we start similarly. What are some of those key principles you would suggest to others? What what's kind of on your list of things that you want to have trigger you and and make you think that get you where you need to be?

Boxing For Balance, Reaction, And Grit

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Okay, so I I'm thinking about specific people. And it's usually four or five different people that I want to think about, whether it's a grandkid that's gonna do something exciting or going through something, whether it's a sibling, whether it's a good friend, whether I'm gonna get to meet Tommy today, so that in the morning, who am I gonna meet? Who am I gonna spend time with and what are what are my thoughts on or who needs you know something that I can give? And now I'm gonna have to sit back and think about how I'm gonna do that. Um, it's just wow, today it's snowing out. I love the snow, or it's sunshine. I love and so I'm noticing, I want to notice, I want to be in the moment that I'm in, and I want to give thanks and gratitude for that moment and not just sort of take everything for granted, which has been very easy to do for much of my life. Really slow down, think about people around me, what I should be doing for them, think about um principles. You know, have have I gained something this last week from a book I was reading from a friend like Tommy that I was talking about. How do I inculcate that now? So all of that stuff is fresh because the morning for me is really fresh. I'm when I I used to sort of try to do this at night. I don't, you know, for years I thought, oh, I'll read, you know, scriptures or um, you know, books of of wisdom and things like that. And I like the stoics and I like some of that too, mixing it in at night, and it's like uh I'm off. Um, you know, or my mind's wandering, whatever. My mind doesn't wander that way in the morning, and I can really just it's quiet, um, and I'm by myself. Uh so I'm doing that, and then I do so I I shift from the time with me then reading, and uh I do read, and I read both uh or I after I'm done reading like a Bible or other scripture, then um I go to my language, and so every morning I do my Spanish, I didn't know this, German, and um, and then we have some good friends that um are from China and they really want us to go with them to China. So I made a joke about oh, I should do some duolingual China, and the wife of this couple goes, Yeah, you should. I said, No, no, no. She says, Yes, you should. She's I love grown up in in China, moved here in her 30s, and so I'm actually doing I'll never learn anything, probably. But what I love is that these are opening up you know, new so I read the the news in German every day. I watch and read the news in German. I will read books or scriptures or others. I just finished a spy novel in German, and then I've been working on Spanish for years. But that is for me is is this mental language thing that makes these synapses work and it's not fun at the beginning, but it gets really fun after a year in or two years in or three years in. Um and uh now I'm starting a new thing that this I just watched this guy who's a brilliant teacher of languages. He said, You know how you would learn? He says, I will tell you because I tell every student I have, and none of them do it because it's so hard, and I found out it's really hard. And he says, You write down um something, you take something from English and you translate it without any help every day. And I like a paragraph. And then you look at how badly you did, and then you figure out where you made your mistake, and then you go do it again the next day, and the next day, and the next day. And it's fascinating when you start to all of a sudden see these little things open up. Um, so I've been doing that, and I pick one new thing every year. Um so uh that's gonna be a new talent. So the last few years it's been Spanish, and then it was chess, golf. I'm the world's worst golfer, and I my friends golfed for all of my life, and I never golfed until last year, and now it's once to twice a week. I mean, so these are new things where I love, I've come to love being really uncomfortable, at least once a day.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

I Andy, there's so much to learn from that. I I've told the story last time you were on the podcast, but when you walked in my front room once and you saw the guitar and walked over and picked it up and called my son down and you were learning jazz guitar, I want to say one more thing. Uh, I do I'd do something very similar. I rotate out um when I where I sit in the morning, where I do my where I read and do my thing. I've got a card with kind of affirmations, if you will. Love it. I I read it like Atomic Habits and I rotate it a little bit, but but what always stays at the top of that list, number one, always stays gratitude. Um number two, what I've been doing lately is adding something that I need to work on. And probably the most impactful thing for me last year was sometimes I go just too hard and too fast. And I wrote kindness as my second one, and then I wrote slow as fast because I just thought I I need to be a little more intentional and kind I because it's not like I want to, but sometimes I just get going so fast that I don't stop and talk to somebody that I should or express gratitude or thanks or just be kind. And I will always leave kindness number two on my list now. I think it just it it for me, and I think everyone listening may have different things and qualities you need, but but the point is is you have something there that just triggers the mind to get where you need to be. It's it's a set. Um for people that do this. I think it is the secret to, I mean, this early morning thing, kind of setting your day right, getting you square. And for me, it's kind of square with God, right? It's square with myself, it's getting rid of all the kind of BS and saying, okay, here's here's what I'm going after today. I I just don't know how to function without that now.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

So then, thank you. And by the way, you're much more kind than most people, and you just don't give yourself credit for it. But uh, and you notice people around you. I've seen that, I've seen it in a crowd where you're going, that person needs a handshake. But uh then it's physical, right? So then it's the workout. And um two days a week, as you mentioned, I've got a great boxing coach. Uh, and my dad passed away at Parkinson's about three years ago, and he at as we were working with that, uh, you know, he was just this strong guy, uh just very physically active for so long, and that Parkinson's took him down. And so as I was working with the people that caregivers and others, um, when I go back, they lived in Ohio. I would um start researching, you know, what can I do to help dad? And on the top of the list in the Parkinson's, you know, whatever the association is that that leads that um research and et cetera, is boxing. Are you kidding me? Racket sports is number two, but boxing, it's it's balance, it's reaction, it's et cetera. So then I started digging in, I go, there are uh A, I always thought boxing was just this stupid sport where people just bash each other. Um I love that by the way. And there's the biggest fan. So much strategy and thought. And my boxing coach does not allow any touching of the head. So we don't touch the head, so it's all he he's he wears these heavy duty pads and things, and and but most of it is just reaction and slipping and moving, and and the older you get, the harder that is to maintain. And then it is, you know, when I started three years ago, we would do 45 second, two-minute rounds, and I'd lay on the floor trying to catch my breath. We now do six to ten three-minute rounds in an hour.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

I I'm gonna say something.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

It is brutal.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Last time I saw you at an event, I said, How are you doing? He's like, You're like great. And you're like, I'm even getting shoulders now.

Strength, Cardio, And Daily Movement

Cold Plunge, Stretching, And Recovery

SPEAKER_01 30:17

I did. I never had shoulders, and this it's a it's a massive shoulder workout. Um, you know, because you're just because we do a lot of um warm-up for about 15 minutes beforehand, and most of it is either you know, up and down, up and down uh with weights and squats and jumping up and down in boxes and all that, but then it's just working the shoulders because boxers just use their shoulders. But the main thing is that it keeps you reacting to stimuli. And he's amazing because he in three years now, every month he has moved to a new thing that we're gonna learn. So we don't, you know, we build on, but we don't just get stuck in a rut. So no matter how much I think, okay, now I got this and I'm good at it, he goes, okay, now we're gonna work on this. You know, send me a video of some really well-known, renowned boxer that you know uh can either um you know faint or slip or uh counterpunch or and okay, now we're gonna do that. So don't get comfortable with what you just did. I mean, we jump rope. Oh yeah, we jump rope and we do you know pull-ups and we do um yeah, so I've gotten pretty good at jumping rope. Uh, you know, I was not as good as I was when on the playground when I was in first grade, but we're still uh yeah, you know, boxers are great at jumping rope, and it it's another thing where it's coordination, it's all those things that that we need to be able to do. So I do that a couple days a week, and when I don't do that, I do uh you know um a bike ride up in the hills when the uh you know mountain biking, um running or walking uh with some sprints in it, usually down by the river. And then I've got uh a little gym also down in my basement. So if I'm not able to go downtown and get down there and resistance, resistance, resistance, you know, pushing uh heavy pieces of metal around for about half an hour. And then I'm done, you know. And so really I try to keep that whole thing to an hour or a little bit more. Um, and that's why I say that one hour changes the other 23 hours for me. And I need it and I long for it. And if I'm on the road and I've just feels different a little bit of a off schedule, I'm still gonna find the time to do it. And I'm gonna do it the way you know you you look forward to you know, dessert at the end of uh a meal, whatever it might be. You you get to the point where it becomes really important to you. The other one I do, and I don't want to forget it, is I'm a unbelievably inveterate napper. And I've been doing this for 20 years, and it's I don't I won't go half an hour, so it's 26 minutes, is what I set on my clock, and and it is around noon to one o'clock, and it is if I can get it in seven days a week, I will. If I only get five days, I feel like I missed something. Really? But I've been doing that for really good for 15 years, and I was tired for 40 years of my life, and now I'm never tired. Wow, never. But it's doing the things you talked about, getting the right kind of night's sleep, but it's that little bit, and there's a ton of research now on it. My wife, who's not a napper, but she always sees little, you know, little news article or whatever on that from Harvard, do this or that. She shoots it and goes, You're right, you're right. Uh and I don't know why it worked or where I came up with it, but it is a non-negotiable for me.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Um, just to just to tell you, I'm right with you there on the first first part. And then uh I found stretching as I get older. So, so back when, you know, in as a younger man, you just I'd go right into it. And now, boy, if I don't do that 10-minute deep stretch kind of same routine every day, it's it's it's pretty routine because I do the same thing every day, but I I do that, and then I do strength training three days a week. Nice and then some cardio. I I have been, I am, I had just passed the six month mark on on 100% days cold plunging. Awesome. And um it I I saw you like a year ago and I said, What what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

You go, uh might have lost a little weight. And it looks great. You look great. It's been awesome. It's working.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

I can't wait. We're gonna have a whole podcast on cold plunge and we'll get into the science of it. Yeah. Um I I bought one of the ones that was kind of harder to maintain and it was outside, and then I went to one that's inside. Um, but uh I I I am now to the place where if I don't do it, I'm like, it just it's weird to me. It's that same thing. I did go see uh Dr. Eric that's gonna be on here in a bit. I I do it right after I work out, and you're not supposed to do that, but but other than that, I love because then that's how I end my you know, workout cold plunge in the shower and kind of off for the day. Yeah. But I but um I think those perfect mornings are a big deal in in a lot of different ways. So if you think about our mornings we just talked about on days that we accomplish them, at that point you're kind of set right, you're focusing on the day, you're looking at your priorities, you're ready to kind of go go do the things you're gonna go do in the right attitude. Yep you've already kind of got physical checked off. And what people don't realize is the emotional side, right? So you think about regulation, emotions, uh, metabolic, all the other things that end up happening as you age. If you do those simple things, I mean, I don't want to make this too too crazy. If you sleep well, which we'll get into this in these podcasts, and you wake up and do a routine that checks all those boxes, and you're consistent with that, that's probably most of the battle.

Sleep Protocols That Actually Work

SPEAKER_01 35:52

It is most of the battle. It's being common sense on how you eat. Yep. Which, you know, um Madison Avenue, we used to talk about that. I don't have to talk about it, but anyway, the advertising industry um, you know, doesn't necessarily want us to eat common sense, but eating common sense, um, fresh fruits and vegetables and you know, whole grains, that's it. And then it's hydrate. We both got our uh hydration with us. You know, we grew up when you and I were you know 15, 20 years, people didn't drink. We were so dehydrated as a nation. And now it's like some, you know, luckily we figured this out that those things, oh, why do we feel better? Why do I feel better now than I did 30 years ago? And by way I do, by an order of magnitude. Oh, me too. It's because of those little things. I love that you said it's those things. All the other stuff are nice add-ons, but it's those four or five basics that change the trajectory.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

I'm gonna talk. I I I think because this is going by way too fast, I knew it would. I want to hit the highest impact things you could do, and I want to bring it back to what we just talked about, Andy. So if you do those, if you have a routine that we just talked about, I want you to see how we're checking the boxes here. So highest impact for health and and longevity. Um, one, VO2 max. If you're doing what you just said and I'm doing what I just said, you're doing that cardio, you're doing what things you need to do every morning and getting that.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

It's not just the long, slow cardio, but it's burst. Pushing hard multiple times per week.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

Let me read this. Individuals in the top quartile of VO2 max for their age have a 60 to 70 percent lower risk of death compared to the lower quartile. Zone two aerobic training plus periodic high intensity intervals is optimal. That's what we said, right? Um, 150 to 30 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activities, one to two minutes of hilt sessions per week, um, hit hit. Yeah. Yep. And um, and that's that's number one. So if you were to pick one thing that we're talking about today, it's it's exercise. Yep. And and the bang for your buck is consistency over time with exercise, is the number one. Anything you want to add to that before we go to number two?

SPEAKER_01 38:06

It is that first morning is sets the stage, but it's throughout the day. There's so many micro opportunities that we give up if we're not thinking about them. Like, do I walk or do I, you know, drive? Do I bike or do I drive? Do I walk from here or do I, you know? There's a phenomenal book. I hope you've read it. If you haven't, you need to read it called The Black Swan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Oh, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Nasim Talib. It's an amazing investment book. But I I loved uh just one thing that stuck with me, is which is that he used to observe people, and he watched, he lived in New York and Manhattan, made a lot of money during the uh, you know, the 2008-2009 downturn because he bet against the mortgage default swaps and all that stuff. But he, based on what he he'd studied, but he watched people going, um, and these were Wall Street, very wealthy people, going to their expensive gym, which was two stories up, and there was an escalator up to the gym, and there was a staircase next to the escalator. And he just watched for a couple of days and counted the percentage of people going to the gym where they're paying, you know, a thousand bucks a month for personal trainers, et cetera, that would take all their fancy gear and get on an escalator and not just do the two to the two flights of steps. And it's that sort of mentality of, oh, those things are those free gyms that that live you know exist wherever we are that we don't do, you know, I rake my own lit yard. Um I you know mow my own lawn a lot of times. I do you know things that you know, I vacuum. You know, we can hire somebody to do all of those things. And in some ways, we've gotten to the point where we say the more successful you are, the less that you should do using your own body. Or if you do do it, you should only do it in an expensive environment with somebody specialized. But just doing things I love being out of my yard working, right? And and you have a branch.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Yeah. So

SPEAKER_01 40:00

And you've got so many opportunities to get yourself and your family outside and do stuff. Not everybody does have what you have, but everybody has some plot of thing that they can take care of and they can do something every day that is free. So I wrote down this is really important for me. Simple, repeatable, affordable, and enjoyable. I love that. Simple, repeatable, affordable, and enjoyable. To me, that is really important. Um, because then we're gonna do it and we're going to enjoy what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

That is that is number one. A, B, C, and D is exercise. We do want to hit strength. So strength resistance training is number two. So sarcopenia, okay, as you get old, atrophy of muscle and the bone is the major driver of late life disability. And they have shown with research just two to four sessions a week make all the difference in that health span. Yeah. Right. So now we're talking not lifespan. They're saying, well, if you don't lift weights, you know, but but your health span, your ability to do the things late into life, it is it is getting that routine of strength training uh two to four sessions a week. That's great. Um, let's go to sleep. So sleep optimization, right? Now I am I am trying to make up for, and it's not, you know, I know that I can't, but there's no catch-up. There's no catch up for this. But I have found um my sleep routine in the last two years since I've really uh been into this. I do I do uh magnesium glyconate uh 240 milligrams every night before I go to bed. Life changer. I mean, if if if no one's taking it, try it. It's it's cheap, it's easy.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

And and a lot, you know, I I don't believe in all the every supplement, but there's so much research coming out on just that we're a magnesium depleted society just from the yes, you know, we're not getting it in the normal food intake, so and that impacts sleep.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

So two minutes to two two tablets. I take two tablets at night. Uh cool room, cool dark room, um caffeine.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

66 degrees is pretty nice.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

People don't realize caffeine has a super long half-life. So I think no caffeine after 1 p.m. if you're having trouble sleeping. Um, and then avoid screen time. Just let it quiet down at night and cool room. And I've I my sleep is I I am at a different level than I've ever been in my life now, just doing these simple things. Beautiful. I wish I would have done a long time ago. Yeah. Anything else to add on sleep?

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Uh naps. But I I but I I think it's uh, you know, it is a thing that, like so many things, um, builds on itself. So once you start sleeping better, you'll keep sleeping better. Um so you've got to start that, and so many people that I know will say, I just am a terrible sleeper. And then you'll say, Well, have you because I was, but have you tried this, this, this, and this? The things you just said are kind of the critical ones. The great um researcher, Matthew Walker. Yeah, yeah, he's great. Yeah, on sleep. So people grab the his stuff, look him up. Um and the when they do try it, they go, Oh, maybe I wasn't such a bad sleeper, maybe I just didn't have the right protocol to get myself back to where you know your body wants sleep. It needs sleep. It's not like it's going to not sleep. We're living in an environment that doesn't lend itself to rewarding the habits until you get it. And then when you get it, it's like, oh my gosh, I want this.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

There is fantastic uh podcast. You can you can uh Huberman has a couple great, great episodes on sleep. Yeah, talks about brain health and how just biochemically what happens in your brain when you sleep. The amount of time. Yeah, he has a full series. I think it's like six six podcasts long where they really do a deep dive into science. But a takeaway of all of that is no caffeine after one, no, no screen time, consistency in when you go to sleep, cool room, magnesium, and and just those things will cure anything that's ailing your nights.

Food, Testing, And Practical Nutrition

SPEAKER_01 44:03

So there's one other thing that's worked for me. Everybody has so that there's always this idea that you're gonna wake up sometime at three or four in the morning, and how do I get back to sleep? And a lot of people say, that's the worst part. I can't get back to sleep. I've taken up in the last three years to memorizing. So I've got this ridiculous uh number of poems now in my head, some of them very long, like Shakespeare sonnets, all this stuff. But I do those anytime I wake up now, because I I don't have to turn on my phone and look at something. I don't have to do anything.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

So I've got all these It's so funny you say that. I heard that from someone and I do the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

You got it?

SPEAKER_02 44:36

I have the same thing, and that's what I do. I sit and I sit and I rehearse the same thing over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

And it I go back. If I because what you do is you just need a minor distraction from the things that you're thinking about for the next day. And for me, I got I would get in those loops, and the way I got rid of it. The other thing is breathing. If you do wake up to go to the bathroom, come back, do a couple deep box breaths. So four seconds in, hold four seconds, four seconds out, do a few of those, start reciting your poem or whatever you have in your brain, and you go right back. So four seconds.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Don't pick up seven seconds, yeah. Four seconds, hold seven seconds, release for eight seconds, hold four, and take in for four. What you know, there's different um military protocols, whatever, but it's that you're right, that breathing resets something that's triggering. And then for me, it's uh I love Shakespeare, I love Robert Frost, he's a great poet. Uh, you know, there's a few others out there that they're really good, useful stuff. And it also plays with that idea of the brain, because the more that you work your brain, uh, the more that it will work for you.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Uh these this next one's metabolic, um, metabolic health. We are learning, I think, in the last year and a half, two years, more and more about insulin sensitivity. Yes. Um, and you will hear, I think for as long as I can remember, there were always fad diets. There were just fad diets are always going to be around. But I think what we're learning from the science of diet is the more we can control our insulin through whichever diet you pick, because all the diets that are successful, really, if you look at them, they're hitting the insulin sensitivity for people, most of them. Right. Whether that be intermittent fasting, whether that be Mediterranean, the different ways people eat, but you're really trying to control those insulin surges.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Some people do it being a vague, and some people do it being a carnivore. And it's funny that there's a few really good studies that came out about the last three years saying any one of them can probably work as long as it impacts the insulin properly and as long as it controls for the right number of calories in versus calories out. You know, just the basics. And so all this idea that there's only one that's magical doesn't seem to be true.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

I I do I I do want to get into a couple of these things on diet because I think we're gonna hit protein. Um it is impossible. So I think the the recommended amount of protein uh that you'll hear from the experts is 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram. Yeah. Remember, kilograms, 2.2 pounds per day, higher for active or older adults.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

And I think that's really important because you know, the one size fits all doesn't work. Your body's changing, yep, and you're doing different things.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

But I would argue if someone truly, if if you're gonna count macros, get whatever app you want to count on and count your grams of protein, take that up where you follow that guideline, and if you eat that much protein, it's almost impossible to not help your glycemic problems going on. It just is because your protein will it'll satiate you better, yeah. You're in a better spot, you don't eat as much, your caloricin tracks less. And I just happened to be with a guy. I didn't know this I knew I knew before today Andy had a food company, and uh but but uh he brought me in a uh uh PB Fit bar here. Uh tell us about your company.

Nature, Sunlight, And Outdoor Training

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Oh shameless buck, shameless buck. Yeah, spent too much time, but um PB Fit is just one product that came up out of a little company of a couple of uh friends uh started, one in particular phenomenal guy named Steven Richards, who is our CEO. And we now have I think 48 or 50 SKUs of um we've got these blending mixes that you put in your smoothie in the morning. We've got a lot of seeds and we've got oils, and we've got and we're selling mostly into Costco, Walmart, Sam's Club, Kroger, Albertson's, and we're selling 150-ish million, and we've got a couple acquisitions uh in in the works. We've got a couple international projects now, one in Africa, uh, one in South America with just a little cycle. With avocado oil, et cetera. It's a it's been so much fun, and we've seen it grow from you know, four employees were a few hundred now, and we're uh we've got an East Coast uh presence, et cetera. But um a lot of what we do is try to provide better for you kind of food products. But I'm something that's really interesting when you talk about protein is that I thought I was doing okay. I went back a year ago, last December, so it's right on a year ago, to New York, this facility that they start you at 8 in the morning and you're there till almost 8 at night, meeting with doctors and technicians. I had every kind of scan you can imagine in my brain and heart, and um, you know, they took multiple, you know, fluids from me, and they um, you know, they I had to do balance tests and sniff tests, and then they run everything through AI and come back out with it and you know, DEXA scans, and and you know, we did it all. Um and just wanted to kind of see is there anything, you know, I'm in my 60s now, mid-60s, what's going on inside that I ought to know about, and luckily nothing. Uh, one thing you'll appreciate, it turns out I have a bicuspid heart valve. The rest of you guys all have three flaps, I only got two, and they said that's not a great thing, but uh so far it's working. But found out a lot of that, what's going on, and one of the things that came out of all this AI review of all of my uh stuff is you gotta do more protein. I thought, oh, I'm doing okay. So they the doctor that I worked with, and she's amazing, you really dialed it into my specific um you know tests and uh so I say I say test and supplement versus supplement and then test if you can. And there's it's gotten a lot easier to do now. There's there's you know groups out there, and I'm not gonna name any of them because you can go do your own research, but here locally, and we probably will talk to some people that will give us a lot better idea. And also you can send stuff away, but whatever it is, you know, if it's just supplement because it's some you know influencer or fitness fluence, whatever you say, that's less valuable than if you can test in supplement. But the the protein was one where I thought I was doing okay, and I had to take it up about 30 percent. Did you more that more than you were doing? More than I was doing, and you know what? The muscle followed. Yeah.

Safety Habits That Save Years

SPEAKER_02 50:51

You know, and and I think uh when people say, could you can you eat too much protein? I would say no, because most people, once you get up to the number that you really need, you're you're you're you're full. You're satiated. You're satiated.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

You can, and it and we do excrete excess protein, right? And the only risk there is that it can bind with calcium. So so you still need to be wise, but the fact is most of us are probably underproteined, therefore the risk to your point is pretty low versus not doing enough of it and instead filling those calories with uh you know sugars.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

And there's a lot of great proteins out there. I think the other thing that's happened is with technology and competitiveness and people's awareness, lots of different ways to get it in. Clearly, the best way to get it in is is eggs. I love eggs. Eggs, uh, eggs, yolks are the myth of the egg is gone. Uh eggs are fine, yolks are fine. Yeah, whey protein is pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Whey protein's great. Yep. My daughter makes kefir. I don't know if you're familiar with that or kefir, however you say it, which is uh she makes it at home. So she got me started on that about six months ago. Now I make it every day. That's on the counter, brewing away, and it's just this uh sort of homemade yogurt thing, high in protein um and pre-digested. Really good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

I are we running out of time? We are we are out of time. Let's let's do another five hours.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

We should have probably done another five hours.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

I I want to say one other thing. Yeah, do as much of it as you can outdoors. You know, now Japanese are um sort of popularizing this idea of forest bathing. But I'd said, you know, a little bike ride in the green belt to the foothills versus on a stationary bike if you can walk a hike or run through the hills or along the river versus on a treadmill, ski in the mountains, swim in a lake, you get a twofer. You use your body for the movement and you get the uplifting energy benefits of nature. So when we're doing a lot of things, sometimes we lock ourselves in the gym. We didn't hit sunlight in the morning. Oh, sunlight in the morning and sunlight in the evening, both are you know, so you listen to Andrew Huberman, you talked about him. His his specialty is ophthalmology, and he's done deep research on the light hitting the cornea and working its way in, triggering a whole cascade of stuff that if you get light at eight in the morning, you're gonna sleep better at 10 at night. It's all tied together. Crazy, but true. Hey, if if if you know, I'm not but get outside, get a dog, get outside, get a dog, dog's great, ride a horse.

SPEAKER_02 53:12

I have I have four dogs, and that's my my more my morning starts when I go let them out, and we we hug, we jump around, take them outside.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

Are the greatest motivator to get out and you and and use your little kids and and dogs, and so but do it, you know. So, from my perspective, and I'd said this one to you, and I want to finish with we talk about longevity and we fall down these rabbit holes. Some are really great, some probably aren't, of you know, get into this really you know obsessive kind of thing. And I said so many people were bombarded with elaborate extreme protocols to gain maybe an extra few weeks or months of life, but then we don't talk about the stuff that's uh not monetizable but gives us decades of extra life potentially, like don't text while you're driving. We talked about this. You know, I can you you can get so caught up and I've got to you know get that sunlight or I gotta get you know my vitamin D supplementation. But then I'm sitting there and texting, you know, wherever, you know, on a crowded city street or something, I've got to get this text out. I'm driving down the freeway at 80 miles an hour, I'm going text. How stupid could I be? But but I'll do that. You know, that's gonna that can cut decades off my life because it can just end up.

Wrap‑Up And Month Preview

SPEAKER_02 54:19

So when Andy told me this, he's like, the one thing I'm gonna hit on the podcast is hey, pay attention to all this other stuff, but don't text and drive. And that day when you had told me I was sitting at a stoplight, I was sending this email that I just had to get off before the light turned green and I and I did a little fender better on the front of it.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

I bumped him.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

No one was hurt.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

But secure your ladders, wear a helmet, don't text and walk, don't drink and drive, slow your car down just a little bit, tie your load down properly, make sure your tires and brakes are you know, just things that we don't, you know, they're not sexy, but the fact is that there's a lot of you know, the the four fourth or fifth, depending on which you say uh you look at reason for early death in the United States is accidents. So just slow down.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

I've got it right here. I've got it right here. Uh top causes of mortality, one heart disease, two cancer, and right to your point that gets overlooked in all these podcasts, unintentional injuries and accidents is number three in the United States. Fourth is stroke. Yeah. So spot on. Hey, uh this went way too fast.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

It's gonna be I'm looking forward to your whole month worth of podcasts, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

It's gonna be exciting. Andy and I will now uh do the next three together. Join us this month. Uh, but hopefully you get something out of this. Andy, thank you very much. This was great.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

Stay healthy, everybody. Be healthy and enjoy your life. Thanks, everybody. Next time.