Introduction
I’m Michael Mentele. I build tech companies to fund longevity. I was a former tech lead at Meta in XR and last startup was valued in the low 8-figures after a year of effort and is growing today. I’m currently working on my next startup — DroidX. We make robots into show and tell Droids.
My PACE of aging is 0.75 after two tests. That’s 70% of someone like Bryan Johnsons results for O(1/1000th) of the cost. My unverified placement is 193 out of ~1300 but post 3rd test I expect to be in the top 15. My wife, who I manage, averages 0.76.
It’s worth mentioning I took these tests after my worst health period since 2014 during a crunch at the last company — it’s crazy what stress can do. My hairline moved, I got grey hairs. As soon as I relaxed it stopped and even reversed. According to MyDNAAge, in the last two years I aged 5 years during those 2 years. I wonder if that impacted my testing with PACE.
Regardless, I look, feel, and perform like someone in their mid twenties (I’m ~35) based on every measure from V02 max, bloodwork, epigenetics, to mobility/strength, and what people think I am. It all seems to line up
Motivation
Three motivators to work on longevity:
- The next 50 - 200 years are going to span an event that will happen once in the universe — going from planet dwelling to space dwelling.
- Fear of alzheimers/death. I visited my grandparents and watched them die badly as a child. If I must die I want to die on my feet. I carry the APOE4 gene so I’m especially afraid of dementia.
- The healthier I am, the happier I am and the more impact I can have.
Longevity Strategy
In my view, people are too eager to jump on a guru’s program. What matters most is a mental model for building and adjusting your own personalized routine over your lifetime. Your routine will need to evolve as you age and be personalized to your genetics. One-size-fits-all advice is nonsense.
We are effectively a series of proteome state changes and we can perturb it by thinking, moving, feeling, and modulating inputs from the environment. Epigenetic tests are a proxy for this.
What you want is a compass and a map to navigate with. It should let you ask good questions about what actions will lead to better states in a virtuous loop. Epigenetic tests like PACE are a good compass with a rapid feedback cycle. Use them as a lagging measure and run experiments with leading measures like bloodwork, wearables data, sleep devices (like eightsleep), V02 max, body fat, etc.
These leading indicators reflect whether you executed well on your experiment. Your north star epigenetic test will guide whether to discard or double down. If you improved great. Generate new experiments and test them. If you didn’t, discard the useless measures, generate new experiments. Test them.
Repeat till you die.
Here’s my guide on measurement tools I use regularly. With this you can figure out the rest and systematically slow your aging.
For example, I was dumbfounded that after dropping 9% BF to 12% my aging rate didn’t move at all. But now I can better focus my efforts on other activities rather than calorie tracking religiously to maintain a body fat level.
Most people do not track and so they spend time doing things that don’t work. It’s tragic.
Longevity Tactics
Without knowing the average picture over decades and the effect size for this or that activity it’s misleading to share a routine so please take this in the context of the prior section. Use it as an example not your goal.
Quarterly+
- yearly birthday marathon or half-marathon (for the last 8 years)
- yearly epigenetic or other aging testing (10 years)
- bi-annual microbiome assessment & probiotics — this is the only supplement that I believe has made a difference, the microbiome filters every environmental input from food to air (10 years)
- life purpose checkin/review at annual and quarterly cycles (10 years)
Monthly
- journal review and strategic planning i.e. what stressors can I eliminate, what experiments will I run, am I on track etc. (last 10 years)
- 48-72 hour fasts for biological garbage collection and mood management (last 10 years)
- blood panel (2 years)
- dexa (1 year, will taper to annual at 10% bf)
Weekly
- Winning the week review (3 years)
- Activity
- 2 hour sunday hike with friends (2 years)
- typically 3 days resistance training / 3 days cardio / 1 day mobility, specifics vary (10 years)
- Meal prep / diet
- macro counting (6 months)
- 1 g / lb body weight protein
- <50 g sugar
- <10 g sat. fat
- >50 g fiber
- avoid mammals (2 years)
- no alcohol (1 year)
- max plants (2 years)
- eat like a Korean (6 months)
Daily
- 0600
- wakeup at the same time everyday, currently 0600 (10 years)
- espresso shot and 50 g whey protein (1 year)
- sometimes creatine, lions mane, daily greens (6 months)
- 0615
- half mile walk (2 years)
- 0630
- focused exercise training 30 m (8 years)
- 0800 - 1800/1900 M-F (last 8 years)
- half day on Saturday (last 8 years)
- take a 5 - 15 m break to move every hour
- 1200
- midday 2 hour siesta (6 months)
- 2-3x / week infrared sauna and cold rinse (6 months)
- 2100
- lights redshift in the house
- no specific routine otherwise, sometimes skin care before bed
- Distributed/adhoc stuff
- journalling with project management for an empty brain (10 years)
- practice stoicism (10 years) — never stay anxious or afraid
- walk 1-2 hours daily or 8,000+ steps (last 10 years)
- distributed exercise i.e. few reps, stretch, etc. (10 years)
Closing Remarks
To summarize:
- process of personalized improvement > interventions
- you can get 70% of the results of the best in the world for 1/1000th of the cost
- relatively boring interventions have delivered my results — sleep, mood management, exercise, diet, gut biome, and fasting
- supplements don’t seem to matter. I have tried many, many longevity stacks/sups and measured no difference. Perhaps, it’s because I’m biologically in my mid twenties.
Everyone deserves exceptional health. Invest in yourself and fall in love with a daily grind! I hope this was useful and thanks for reading.
— Michael