Mediaplanet spoke with Dave Asprey, the CEO and Founder of Bulletproof, the leading food, beverage, and content company best known for the widely popular Bulletproof Coffee.
Mediaplanet: Why is it important to supplement our diets with vitamins and minerals in this day and age?
Dave Asprey: Our food is not as full of nutrients as it used to be, so a lot of people aren’t getting all of the vitamins and minerals needed from their typical eating habits. Taking the right supplements can recharge your energy, boost your immunity, and improve cognitive function.
Many people take a multivitamin as their only supplement, but it is not the strong defense against malnutrition and disease it claims to be. Most multivitamins have too much of some nutrients (like vitamin A or B6) and not enough of others (like magnesium). The result is overdosing on some nutrients, while not getting enough of others. Many multivitamins are made with fillers and additives that make it hard for your body to even absorb the nutrients as well. So, even if they have the right amount of a nutrient on the label, very little may reach your cells.
If we want better outputs then we have to tweak the things we put into our body and mind to stack the deck in our favour.
Tell us a little bit about biohacking; what’s the easiest way to use it to your advantage?
Biohacking is a term I coined and one Merriam-Webster recently added to the dictionary, citing me as the founder! It is the art and science of becoming superhuman, or in other terms, the art of changing the environment outside of you and inside of you so you have full control of your biology, to allow you to upgrade your body, mind, and your life. If we want better outputs — to have more energy and focus, to be free of disease, to have a better memory, to perform optimally in business and athletics — then we have to tweak the things we put into our body and mind to stack the deck in our favour.
Some really easy ways to biohack yourself include:
- Eating the right foods and reducing your sugar intake. Lots of vegetables and grass-fed butter and protein will help improve your health and rid you of brain fog.
- Making vitamins and nootropics part of your daily routine. They can improve your mental clarity and give you boosts of energy to last the entire day.
- Tracking your sleep. Analyzing how well you’re sleeping will help you improve your sleep patterns and energize your mind and body.
- Being grateful. Increasing the amount of gratitude in your life can literally rewire your brain and make you more positive. Start a gratitude journal or jar to make yourself start listing things you’re grateful for each day.
What motivated you to transform your health and start Bulletproof?
Twenty-one years ago, I was a cloud computing executive who weighed 300 pounds. I was tired all the time, had brain fog, and had a lot of health problems that twenty-somethings shouldn’t have. I knew I had to make a change if I wanted to live a long and healthy life.
I started working out for 90 minutes a day, six days a week for 18 months in order to lose a lot of the fat I was carrying. I cut my calories, I went on a low-fat diet, but it only made me tired and hungry. It was miserable. So it was the that motivated me.
I began measuring different variables, from heart rate to hormone levels. and experimenting with different solutions to tweak my own biology. My inspirationfor Bulletproof Coffee came while I was in Tibet and encountered tea mixed with yak butter. I felt amazing after I drank it, so I took the idea back home and started experimenting with different combinations of butter and coffee until I realized grass-fed butter was the solution. From there, I started to build Bulletproof 360 and created a resource of knowledge for anyone else trying to biohack themselves and take control of their body and mind.
What is your favourite way to reduce stress?
Definitely meditation. It decreases excessive brain activity and increases alpha brain waves that are associated with creativity and relaxation. The goal of meditation is to become more mindful and be more directive with your attention and responsive to your thoughts instead of being reactive. Meditation allows you to identify, observe, and master your emotions. Instead of blindly reacting to outside stimuli, you can optimize your thought process and react as you see fit.
