On Feb 2nd I was aging at 1.2x faster than my chronological aging. Today, it’s -0.8x!
I’ve used WHOOP for 8 years, over 4 generations of the product, starting with gen 2. Here is my take on the latest product and how it compelled me to change to take drastic action vs the last generations. This post will also cover what it was like being able to work on and close with product engineering teams. Please note that as an employee working on this product, I have had access to it early on and, as such, have had time to utilize it long enough to tackle this journey. I'm now excited to be able to publicly share my experience now that it's released.
Let's begin with my starting physiological state before I began this journey, which started as soon as I put on the WHOOP MG.
40.2 years of age vs my actual age of 33.3!
| Metric | Quantitative | Qualitative |
|---|---|---|
| Healthspan / Chronological Age | 40.2 / 33.3 (actual age) | I feel pretty terrible seeing this, as it confirms my feelings that my bad habits were leading to poor health. What I wasn’t expecting was such a loss of time in my life as a result. This was a wake-up call that something needs to change |
| Pace of aging | 1.2x | My habits are clearly continuing to take off more years of my life if continued. |
| Blood Pressure | 144/82 average 169/89 max | Doctors consistently tell me I should take BP medication. I really did not want to do so. Note: these readings were taken by a blood pressure cuff before this journey. |
| Weight | 225.1lbs | Stomach pain waking up in the morning, slow to move around, heavy breathing when going upstairs. Note: I am 5’10” in height. |
| Lean Body Mass / Body Fat | 70% lean / 29% fat | Not happy with the appearance, this shows in the mirror |
| Resting Heart Rate (6 month average) | 67bpm | High stress and tough time relaxing. |
| Average Heart Rate (6 month average) | 80bpm | Not much to note here. |
| Vo2 Max (6 month average) | 39 | I wouldn't call myself an endurance athlete. |
| Recovery | 68% | Fair but never really a strong green, or consistent for that matter. |
| Heart Rate Variability (HRV) (6 month average) | 60ms | It felt like crap getting up in the mornings after sleeping. |
| Restorative Sleep % | Between 49 and 52% | Not much to note. |
| Sleep Consistency | 62% | Never been my strong suit. |
| Calories burned | 1500 - 1700 cals range | Certainly not a calorie deficit. I love Bennett's subs, which might be my biggest downfall calorically. |
| Day Strain | 5.2 | Even with this low, I still feel exhausted all the time. |
| Steps | 4600 | I run around in the office a decent amount, but I am an engineer, so I sit at a desk for a living. |
Aside from my weight, two new metrics with WHOOP MG shocked me, even though I knew I was not practicing healthy habits:
- My Healthspan was way above my actual age - 7 years older!
- My pace of aging indicated my healthspan was getting worse, and I was on the wrong trajectory, which, while I knew I wasn’t the healthiest, it was still a wake-up call.
The third new metric, blood pressure, didn’t surprise me, but was also a contributing factor to the message my new WHOOP was sending me – you need to change your lifestyle, or else expect a shorter life span. I have always been hypertensive and just borderline on taking BP medication. My BP in particular has affected my recovery from surgeries in the past, where I could not control bleeding, and I also experience periodic heart palpitations under extreme stress.
The Mission
So, having been smacked into reality by my healthspan, I set off on a mission – Get back into fighting shape and aim to aggressively get there within 6 months.
My setup was simply WHOOP MG, a Withings scale to track body composition and weight trend, and Macrofactor to track caloric intake and adjust my grocery shopping.
The metrics I wanted to focus on to get to that position were as follows:
Turn my healthspan around and get it below my actual age of 33 – My North Star
Reduce my weight from 225 lbs to 155 lbs - fighting weight
Reduce body fat percent and increase lean muscle mass, and maintain bone density safely
Consider reducing blood pressure as a secondary objective
Reducing weight by 70 lbs, while a lot, I knew I could sustain that weight healthily since I was once that weight at my peak performance, and I wanted to feel like that again. My sport of choice: boxing, such a good stress reliever and amazing full body workout.
I sought friends and co-workers whom I could inform about my mission to generate some self-pressure to keep me accountable.
The How
Such a drastic change was going to need a drastic response, so I cut cold turkey into the following diet:
Intermittent fasting with a 4 hour eating window from 11:30am to 3:30pm Saturday through Thursday.
Fast 1 day a week on Fridays for the whole day.
Hydrate heavily, ~1 gallon of water a day.
Go cold turkey into an entirely new dietary plan with a large caloric deficit - heavily weighted towards lean protein intake totaling ~1100 calories – brutal.
Take a vitamin mix to help keep up with what my body needed when under reduced food intake
Generic multi-vitamin in the eating window
Creatine during the eating window
Thorne Amino acid complex at night
Thorne multi vitamin elite pm - mainly for the magnesium
Weigh myself on a weekly cycle on Saturday morning after fasting - I don’t like seeing daily fluctuations because I want to avoid a tendency to react and overcompensate.
Gradually increase cardio and strength training.
Here is a look at my macros strategy, along with some recipes I eventually landed on for meal prep each week. Macrofactor has helped me adjust the caloric intake and substitute certain food choices to maximize my protein intake while keeping calories low. In addition to the recipes below, I also take an additional protein shake each day, totalling about 60 grams.
I went cold turkey into this new diet, and let me tell you, going from eating delicious Bennett’s Italian subs to this was brutal! The first fasting Friday was painfully tough. The hydration throughout the day was key, along with enough salt and potassium. I could not avoid giving up coffee, as I very much enjoy it in the morning. I drank about 1-2 cups of iced coffee with no additives a day.
The second major change was my time spent in the gym. I ramped this slower and got more aggressive after my diet started to feel second nature. An incredible perk of working at WHOOP is that I have access to an amazing gym and am surrounded by sports scientists and experts that helped me craft custom workouts that can keep me on target for weight loss but improve the quality of my muscle tissue all whilst meeting my requirement of retaining motion (I enjoy boxing and range of motion was important to me in that regard). Here is a look at my strength trainer workouts that I use to track my progress. Note that Fridays were a day off, as aggressively fasting and pushing my body to exercise on top of that was likely to be an overrotation.
The diet and fasting alone increased my energy levels drastically after the first week. The mental clarity in my daily work skyrocketed. I could not believe how much better I felt mentally, it blew me away. The hunger whilst fasting after about week 6 started to subside, and I opted to start pushing the workouts harder to burn more calories rather than reduce my intake further. My caloric intake was already so low that going lower would likely mean sacrificing protein intake. So I ramped up the gym time to 5-6 days a week and increased the intensity of them.
The Results To Date
Okay, so I got the wake-up call, got some advice, have people holding me accountable, and I changed my habits. Now let's go over the results. I am currently in week 12 as of the time of writing this. Here are the same stats from the start of this post:
| Metric | Quantitative Before | Quantitative After | Qualitative |
| Healthspan / Actual Age | 40.2 / 33.5 (actual age) | 36 / 33.5 | Pumped at my progress here, adding nearly 4 years to my life! |
| Pace of aging | 1.2x | -0.8x | Quite literally, I feel like I turned my health around. |
| Blood Pressure | 144/82 average 169/89 max | 122/73 | No longer experiencing heart palpitations! I couldn’t believe the impact on how my chest and heart felt. I felt so bad for so long, it just started to feel normal. |
| Weight | 225.1lbs | 177.3lbs | No more stomach pain, in part, I think, because of the fasting before bed. |
| Lean Body Mass / Body Fat | 70% lean / 29% fat | 81.2% lean / 18.8% fat | Feeling better about appearance, not quite to where I want to be, though. |
| Resting Heart Rate (6 month average) | 67bpm | 60 bpm | I feel more relaxed throughout the day and at night. |
| Average HR (6 month average) | 80bpm | 74 bpm | Not much to note here, but it's decreasing. |
| Vo2 Max (6 month average) | 39 | 42 | Trending up and feeling fit to take on physical challenges. The WHOOP staircase no longer puts me out of breath. |
| Recovery | 68% | 65% | Roughly the same. I had some long, late nights leading into 5.0 launch! |
| Heart Rate Variability (HRV) (6 month average) | 60ms | 70ms | I feel much better getting out of bed in the morning. |
| Restorative Sleep % | Between 49 and 52% | Between 53% - 57% | Slowly increasing, but I feel like my sleep has been more efficient. |
| Sleep Consistency | 62% | 65% | Stayed roughly level, trying to get to bed earlier. |
| Calories burned | 1500 - 1700 cals range | 2,000 - 2,130 cals | Step function increase in burned calories, coupled with the cleaner eating, I don’t feel as bloated or uncomfortable anymore. |
| Day Strain | 5.2 | 8.2 on off days - 15 on workout days | Pushing into the recommended WHOOP strain range. |
| Steps | 4600 | 7900 | Cardio is boosting my steps drastically. |
4 year reduction to my age!
The Engineering
It is not very often that as an engineer you get to work on a product that has this level of impact directly on your life. Part of why I joined WHOOP and have stayed at WHOOP has greatly in part been to working on a product that influences my life and well being as an end user. Being able to push the boundaries of what is possible in the wearable tech market is also an amazing added benefit. Working on and with our Health development teams that have driven such passion and thought into the new WHOOP MG & Life features I find myself extremely lucky to have them as colleagues. I am extremely excited to see the impact now that it’s publicly available to other people’s lives through proactive health!
Seeing the trend on my healthspan has been extremely motivating to get my ass in gear. Driving that metric down has correlated heavily with feeling better physically, and that within itself has been super rewarding. I currently have about 22 lbs more to lose and a few more years to drive down my healthspan and just over 2 months left to hit my target. Stay tuned for a final post at the 6 month update!