In this episode of the VUCA Fit podcast, we dive deep into the fascinating world of biohacking and its potential to optimize the human system.
We define biohacking as taking control of your body's systems, influencing them, and using them to achieve desired outcomes. Our discussion covers various aspects of biohacking, including:
- Nutrition: How our diet can be a powerful tool for enhancing our physical and mental well-being.
- Breath: How to use breathing techniques for better health and performance.
- Attention: Strategies to focus and channel our mental energy effectively.
- Body Posture: The impact of how we carry ourselves on our overall health.
Throughout the episode, we emphasize the importance of balance, cautioning against taking biohacking to extremes.
We also explore the relationship between biohacking and longevity, stressing that a purposeful and fulfilling life is more valuable than merely extending lifespan.
Takeaways
- Biohacking involves taking control of the human system and using inputs to optimize outputs.
- Inputs that can be hacked include nutrition, breath, attention, and body posture.
- It is important to find a balance and not take biohacking to extremes.
- Biohacking can contribute to longevity, but it is important to have a purposeful and fulfilling life.
- Biohacking is a personal journey and individuals can choose which practices and instruments to implement.
More about Kevin:
Kevin Oldham is an entrepreneur from Kansas City with businesses in management consulting and wellness. He founded Diffactory, a consultancy that helps small to mid-sized businesses grow and retain customers. Kevin also co-owns The Smoothie Shop & Supplements, offering quality nutrition products and supporting entrepreneurs. His latest venture, VUCA Fit™, helps business leaders find fulfillment in their work and life. Kevin is dedicated to growth and well-being in all his endeavors.
More about Jose:
Jose Eduardo Bolaños, a pioneer in coaching in Nicaragua, has over 10 years of experience as a change agent in more than 13 countries, helping leaders and entrepreneurs enhance their effectiveness and driving cultural transformations in organizations. As the first and only professional certified by the International Coaching Federation in Nicaragua, he has worked with hundreds of executives and business owners, influencing thousands through talks, courses, and seminars. Certified in Presence-Based Coaching, Jose focuses on full awareness for leadership growth and performance. He spent 5 years at El Laurel Leadership Center as a facilitator and trainer and has taught at universities including UNI/BID, the American University, and Thomas More University. Additionally, he has advised NGOs like Vital Voices Global, World Vision, and Technoserve. Jose enjoys surfing and adventure sports, embodying his philosophy of integral development and exemplary leadership.
More from Kevin:
Instagram: thekevinoldham
Facebook: koldhamkc
TikTok: koinkc
LinkedIn: kevin oldham
More from Jose:
LinkedIn: joseeduardobolanos
Instagram: jose_bolanos_unbreakable
Facebook: Bolaños Jose
More from Vuca Fit:
Website: https://vucafit.com/
Facebook: vucafitlife
Instagram: vuca_fit
and we're live with the vukafit podcast we get to talk about things that fall into the realm of being volatile uncertain complex and ambiguous but before we do that before we do that I want to encourage you to go to vukafit.com that's v-u-c-a-fit.com we've got a bunch of free resources most of which are done by my good friend and co-host Jose Bellanyos biohacking let's go let's go we want to talk about it we're going to talk about the biohacking biohacking perspectives what does that freaking mean if somebody doesn't know what does that mean so let's look at what is hacking what is hacking mean somebody like you know I asked him what does hacking mean is it shortcuts is hacking is a shortcut that's the way I think of it it's like you know if you're a true hacker going back to like computer hackers it's like hey they're trying to actually they're trying to find an exploit or something to take control of something it's really what hacking has been but then what I've been what I've been noticing is it's also done for the sake of typically something and a lot of times that's a shortcut but what's your perspective you you guys say when I said something there initial I like it which is to take control of something it's a way to hijack a system take control of a system and start influencing a system so but we can look it up you have the ability to look it up as we're here you usually do have the ability out of it hacking what is there any more hacking so the word hacking for those love way people there's so many different types but let's go to as a matter of fact what is hacking and IBM is the first people first first ones that come up way before technology hacking you know this is funny you got security hackers you got so many different hackers but let's look at the word hacking meaning and to gain unauthorized access to data in a system or computer all right it's narrow unauthorized authorized access we gotta go deep so hacking is taking control tapping into a system that influencing and using that system so the biohacking this was this perspective was offered to me in a breath in a breathwork course in a breath mastery course so the biohacking perspective is basically you have a system that you are that system you are the system now humans are not just ones we're one system actually but we divided in multiple systems so we have the nervous system we have the digestive system we have the cardiovascular system we have the bongrel skeletal system we we divide everything but in reality all these things are connected it's actually one human system one right you know your human system so the biohacking perspective you know we'll talk about it you know true what vukafit has cured it because the vukafit methodology is a biohacking methodology basically what it is so you have a system which is to say you know you have to own this system in this right but the biohacking perspective is very simple it's you have an input you have a system and you have an output and that output can be multiple things the input so for example we take weight as an example I have a weight yeah more scale in my closet and every day I weigh myself when I weigh what a formula in that process I'm looking at the output so you know 168 pounds use the output with me so far nobody likes a bragger nobody likes a bragger dude 168 pounds 168 pounds I'm gonna buy five pounds overweight frickin it keep going keep going keep going mister almost sick what's your body fat what's your body fat percentage on that I don't know how to check that would be another output so if you do an imbalance in body if you do an in-body yeah you get the output no that's the output of the system so biohacking sounds mystical it sounds modern it sounds cool it sounds sophisticated but it's very simple it's you look at the output and then if you want to change the output where do you think you need to start making changes with the system the system where in the inputs the inputs the inputs and then the system systems you do what you just get do and then have an output so you start with the system so basically it's minimizing the negative inputs biohacking perspective to optimize the output you want to optimize the performance whatever the output is the output can be weight it can be health it can be it could be state and that's what we're going to get to that your state is also an output so bear with me here we're still working with the weight so the weight you go back and you start hacking the system by changing the input over my sugar for me it's it's simple if I want to lose weight just cut all sugar from my like all dessert all processed sugar I just reduce that and I start dropping weight because I work out enough the sugar is when I'm getting too much energy too much surplus of calories that I don't need but I'm really addicted to sugar so that's where my weight starts going so if I want to lose weight if I look at the output and I say I don't like the output where the output's going up the weight's going up I know that I just have to stop sugar for the next two three weeks and I'll come right back down but that new map loop is very slow between you know when we talk about weight that's like in 10 days five days 10 days 15 days a month so it's a very slow biohacking process makes sense absolutely makes sense so we have all this technology now that gives us all these outputs you have your your your watch giving you output you have the in body now you can take saliva swabs and send them to someplace in the analyzer they tell you what you can tolerate and not tolerate and that's basically biohacking I just did it I recently we just did that man I did it with Vyome yeah it's embarrassing actually how many apps I have on my phone so like on my home screen I have four different apps related to what we what we're talking about here which would be kind of biohacking I've got my my streaks app which keeps up my streaks of physical and mental like all my all my practices my my fitness pal that I'm using to track my nutrition my whoop band that I never take off that monitors but it monitors everything but I use it to monitor my sleep and then my apple watch which I actually use mostly to monitor my activity so it's a little bit well like this look at this well it's not it's insane man it's insane yeah and you let me you need one of those aura rings yeah I tried it I didn't like it but my point is my point is there's a lot of tools to help you meet me hot yeah I'm totally totally hacked I'm jacked in it's embarrassing embarrassing I'm glad it's for the sake of it's for the sake of of of try to live my longest and most healthy life yeah and and also today like to you know to dial in today we can biohack for performance we can biohack for longevity we can biohack for fitness and vanity and what but that's all it is all it is is understanding and reducing the negative inputs increasing the positive inputs into the system whether it's nervous system digestive system whatever system and then reaping on the output that's basically biohacking drinking a cup of coffee is biohacking it's all biohacking yeah I mean you're trying to get you're trying to you know it sounds a lot like which is funny like the methodologies that people might use to advance their their their goals it's a lot like marketing it's a lot like a lean startup theory for businesses it's like you know going back to when I used to mentor startups in a previous life I'd be like do more of what works less than what doesn't boom boom boom you know through the six month process to have an outcome and the outcome was to have their minimal viable product ready to show to investors at demo day and it was a lot it was very similar it's like oh but you know go for more noise when you find or you know go for more signal when you find more noise go back to the signal so very similar I love it yeah you always have such a great way of making sense of stuff and simplifying it man that's my that's my talent that's my freaking that's what you do it's it's the only time it's the only thing you show up for it's good a lot of somebody somebody in the in the vukafit dojo Spanish cohort we're we're basically at month five now and one of the girls said like I'm really glad I'm here I'm really happy to be here because I've seen all these things all over the place and I've tried some of them and I do things but I don't know why I'm doing them and you've just been able to really make sense of everything and simplify it in a way that makes sense so yeah beautiful and philosophical things that I was I was talking about vukka that I was talking about vukka from a stoic philosophy I was talking about vukka from a Buddhist philosophy from a Christian philosophy it's like hey they all the Buddha say duka the the Stoic say adversity and and the Christian say trials and tribulations and they're all not necessary to grow yeah so now we go back to the vukafit method you know to be in vukafit it's it is a bio hacking perspective that we're bringing to people it is a method to bio hack on multiple levels but here's a fascinating part that the three instruments attention breath and body are actually inputs that we can play with that impact the system and actually produce a certain state over time a certain trait over time I can change the trait I can change my way but immediately breathing differently a different breathing will come and produce a certain state like the quickest boom these are hacking uh rules that we have for our state breathe differently so every breathing pattern produces a state every attending pattern everything that how I attend to things like how I pay attention produces a state you know energy follows attention and every body posture every embodying it every way that I embody myself produces a state also like if I smile if I tell you smile give me a fake smile if you're listening right now give us a fake smile that's an input that's that's an input into the system and it changes your state yeah I feel like a fraud now with my fake smile I feel like a total fraud I feel like I'm just being disingenuous Jose no you're being you got to fake it until you know you can actually but smiling is a hack for viewing with adversity I ever tell you about that big way surfer I think I did tell you one time that the big way surfer smiled in the difficult situation like if you smile your sympathetic tone your fight flight will come down and you'll relax and you'll be at a better position for survival because you'll be in the most state but anyways the bio hacking perspective is that a that we bring is breathing attention and body or input that if we learn how they function if we learn the underlying principles that govern breath body and attention we can actually optimize the system and produce better optimal states and with time and practice a repetition we can actually produce auto that are going to help us be better able to fulfill on our commitments and what's important to us yeah love it isn't that fascinating it really is it really is and when you start you know this is something you beat into my heads but the listeners probably haven't really grasped it but I think that when we talk about the fact that we are the system we are the system our body is super complex there's so many things we don't know about how we in the brain works and all sorts of things it's a mystery it's actually really really cool because if you were if you were an experimenter when you were a kid which I was I was always like taking things apart and examining how they worked and trying to put them back together on all these things it i.e. tinkering you realize that you've got this system that you can tinker with that you're just it's your system you're stuck with it whether you like it or not it's your system this is the one's hey meat bag this is the one system you got so knowing that you're always you're always with your system you are your system and you are you have inputs yep and you have inputs that some of which you can control some of what you can cannot control and knowing that if you control some of those in a deliberate manner to with with you know in some cases there's research in some cases there are science in some cases there's just faith you know you just got to believe it right that's one of those spiritualities see but it's absolutely there's placebo but knowing that we can we can mess with these things like they have dials you know it's like oh okay i can if i'm feeling empty in the and the name of this podcast used to be the hole in the soul right if i'm feeling empty and i'm trying to stack it let's say with stuff like material goods electronics whatever it is right it's nice to know that that system that i'm trying to fill with purchases consumerism or whatever that i'm in control of it there's dials there's switches there's things that can be changed i just got to want to change them you just have to have the awareness to want to change and the default setting for a lot of humanity is just go through life a little bit more reactive not as proactive i guess right with whatever life's going to hand off offer you and i think it's encouraging for people that are doers and achievers and that's probably why you see a lot of bio hackers as people who are achievers you know driven individuals people that i mean every everybody that i know that's messing with their stuff is not a lazy asset in on the couch yes and i would say there has to be a middle way because i also have bio hacking friends that are overly excessive yeah like there is the bio hacking perspective that the wanting to get it right the wanting to optimize to the fullest extent is causing them so much so much suffering also right right yeah well you gotta fucking relax man like yeah enjoy the ride like it's okay you know yeah like relax a little like how how is this serving you so you gotta be really aware though you know i'm not pushing anybody 20 extremes there's gonna be a middle path a middle ground where you know where it's not so obsessive yeah because i know people that are obsessive um and i know people that they're they're not doing anything to to be better to feel good to that you know in the end i think you need to you need to be able to feel good so yeah and i think the the bulk of the methodology is a bio hacking uh method that we can pick and choose it's not something that you have to implement like i told somebody today that's learning you know this methodology i told them look you're gonna learn the principles you're gonna learn the tools you're gonna look you're gonna have a toolbox and then you can need to apply it at your however you want to apply it it's like you're going to get to choose what promises what instruments what but now here you have all this toolbox we'll play around with the system we'll see what how this impacts go see how this changes and you know you know what happens you know i think i think i mentioned last time the roofers that we're working with and that one of them understood this he come in he got it he's like i get it i just don't know if i want to like now i got to choose if i want to be this person that actually applies all this in my life and for right for the time being he's choosing not to that's a choice yeah it's a valid choice too like i'm just gonna bulldoze my way through this yeah see how far i get before the system breaks down i think a lot of people do that and as a matter of fact i'd say it's again probably the default state for most most most people it's like all right because it isn't if you don't know this stuff's available or you think it's really weird or you say hey that's not for me or maybe like just the term biohacking almost sounds like a terrorist term i mean it bio brings up when i hear the word bio i think i i like something bad i know that sounds really weird but and then it happens not necessarily yeah exactly and hacking is not exactly a term that's super positive either and it can almost sound scary now now what i like is when you google when you google biohacking one of the things that shows up in the knowledge panel is do it yourself biology and i'm like oh when you when you actually kind of call it diy biology okay cool i'm going to see what you know see what different levers i can flip with my body you know and and absolutely just see if i can you know make myself feel better or you know i was i was by no means going to endorse this i don't know all the the entire story but i was at our mutual friend uh Adam McChesney's um builders of authority a couple of weeks ago in st. Louis and there was this gentleman speaking about videography and he had cured himself with through cancer stage four cancer all naturally all naturally right i literally saw the dude he's he's doing great he's awesome that in essence would be an extreme form of biohacking where you're like looking at the medical establishment and and research and all those things and saying you know what i'm in a bed on something else and luckily his bet worked out for him he's not the only one i know by the way i know somebody else who beat cancer yeah cannabis well so yeah man there's there's extreme cases there's extreme cases for sure i heard somebody goes for us to say that no nutritionist can actually tell you what the perfect meal for you is they can't unless they have every freaking information about all your data your your bacteria gut biome your all of it everything everything you know how everything is impacting the system to tell you exactly how and that's why they're going to be possible in the future with ai and all these gadgets that you're when the when the when the little chip is inside like it's just gonna be right right following us exactly like hey you need a little bit of magnesium and a little bit of this and a little bit of that and we would recommend you eat this this and that i mean it's going to get to that level of self uh self-regulating like self-fighting what it would be called it doing yourself biology it's personalized what role is there dude i mean it's like when we look at when we look at biome you know i did a i did a stool blood and saliva sample i send them off and then they gave me like you know their whole thing is they want to do they want they want you to buy precision supplements right of course that are geared towards exactly what you know you lack and so for example my precision probiotic uh formula has 15 ingredients in my formula quote unquote my formula right we're not i mean we're we're kind of there where you can you can start to do that with supplementation it'll be really really cool when you can get there with not just supplementation but just overall nutrition so for example i got a list of i learned through this process that led us is like on the no-fly zone no-fly list for me like i shouldn't be eating lettuce so all things it's my body doesn't agree with it i was super thankful to figure out that there's a lot of other things alfalfa sprouts are off the list darn it hold the lettuce hold the lettuce the alfalfa sprouts sprouts but what i'm thinking today bro you did send that picture you know what it's spinach i can't eat not that my my list my list is actually very short and it's it's stuff that i don't like which is awesome but cane sugar is on there but you saw these saw a picture you sent today of yourself dude i looked bloated like who was that yeah yeah that wasn't even fat that was that was inflamed that was swollen swollen i was i was buddy every cell was ready to explode water was about to explode oh you're cheap so i was i was on testosterone back then too like a hormone replacement therapy i'm so glad i got off that crap i mean that's another thing that's like you know biohacking is uh hrt hormone replacement therapy is readily available now like there's just so many different things that are readily available right now that people are an ht sort of experimenting with but really you know it's your own body you can do what you want to it a lot of people are experimenting with it but then we have you know we have breath to hack our state with we have attention we have body we have nutrition uh then we have stress we have ice baths we have all these practices these are all biohacking instruments to optimize your system and we got to understand the basic principles of them so that we can are optimal and show up as our best selves for ourselves and for others and keep keep the balance like don't take it to an extreme i mean so far you have the woop the watch the saliva skin you you are implementing a lot of this biohacking perspective in your life so i'm gonna take it a step further one of our listeners they hold them let's take it to yeah another level so when i go to my dad's house he has um so like all his food is labeled with various things that he's identified like how many servings he can have a day or whatever he basically eats like very similar type of diet but then he also has a master spreadsheet that he walks all this stuff in so that he can say see patterns and deviations and whatnot and i'm like holy smokes next level um there's a fantastic book by the way out there that is called uh what's it called outlive is that it outlive the science and art of longevity by peter etia um that's a pretty good book that has you know it's about personalized strategies for you know nutrition exercise sleep emotional well being it's super thick by the way it's so have you seen that book i think somebody referred to me i don't know maybe it was you it's so thick it's really really good though um it's it's it's probably like the opposite of how you teach which is you give people what they need so that they can implement it and not be overwhelmed whereas this book is more like a it's more like a resource that you're gonna probably reference back and forth throughout maybe a lifetime uh for for an OCD somebody with OCD biohacking yeah it's probably spoken about because then all of a sudden they'd have so many different levels to what if you look at the um if you look at the blue the blue zones of people that have lived outlived like they lived a long time it also comes down to inputs like good relationships like purpose like there's psychological things that overrun like again i know people that are so obsessive about this they can't even have a relationship because the person that they're with doesn't buy into all this and they're trying to control the person and they're like why can't fire i find somebody that eats healthy is into all this i'm like shit you're gonna die alone you're just scarce you're gonna scare away every mate that would ever want to be with your friend so you kind of relax a little bit you know yeah yeah i've read one quote one time that i love we all came into this world to poison ourselves we just do it in different ways so pick your poison facts pick your poison you know i'd like to pick a poison that does allow me to live a long and and healthy life so i think that he's like he's longevity important to you longevity is important to me with a caveat my dad and i talk about this a lot it's like all right as long as i still have a certain degree of independence so like if i've got to have somebody wipe my butt or something sorry yeah really yeah yeah we're done um so so somewhere between somebody wiping my ass and me wiping my own ass there's a there's a there's a no-go zone for me where longevity doesn't matter and and more than that i mean it's not just your basics it's um uh because my wife said she wiped my ass for better or for worse when we when we got married she she went in front of our friends and said that she'd do that so i'd be okay with that it's somewhere else so it probably has to do with the mental aspect like if i if i can't communicate with others if not i don't know man at some point where the quality of life isn't there if you're drilling and shooting on yourself it doesn't matter too many more that's it yeah you're drilling and shitting on yourself i don't know what that i i don't know what that point is right um i i do have like a legal definition in my trust with my wife like we we both have advanced directives that actually say like different things that we do or don't want to happen but i know what what's your perspective is and is longevity important to you it quality of life is very important you know this whole identity yeah i mean i know there's no control attached to living a long life yep you know you look at people push this couple driving down there and they both they both died and you know that's kind of i recognize that it can happen at any moment so i don't want to obsess with with a lot like living a long time like really stressing today about living a long time of very free life i like this uh everybody's like you know i thought i was going to be dead by now i just don't die so i'm just living and he's looking at me he's a bonus bonus rounds right i just don't die i just keep on going i just i love that my life is like i just don't die i just keep on living and i keep on living and i keep on living and it's beautiful and amazing and you know i'm it's cherry on top and dying empty every day i just want to die empty every day i want to i want to live a life worth dying every day um yeah yeah because because we don't know what we do with you man yeah i think i'm with you on that it's like longevity is important as long as there's a there's a purpose to it just living a long life to live a long life to me yeah but let's say hey i've got you know a lot of really cool things happening with my kids or maybe grandkids or great grandkids uh hell yeah hell yeah or maybe there's something cool going on with myself you know my to my later years i don't know yeah but i do want to get to make it i want to get to the point where my grandma got to let my grandma you would ask my grandma hey how you doing grandma and she's like praying that the lord takes me today really she was just kind of done well she was done but she was done but she was good but she was done it wasn't like you know what she was good she did it she's like hey i did it again lived a full rich life we're good like i'm good yeah i feel good feel grateful yeah she was you know she was just i'm done like i want to be done like i don't know it's a beautiful place to be on the path but there you go man color well there you go that's the bio event i think this is good i think i like it i like it i'm glad that we talked about this because i don't know we've ever used the word biohacking on the show i don't think we have i don't think we've mentioned it that way yet and i don't think about the vukafet methods being biohacking but you know that there is there's all months so that's it that's it there you go i rap that's right there you go that's it we're done we're done that's a pod uh just two quick asks number one if you haven't left a review and you're listening and you still like what we're doing then you know please let us know leave a review and number two smash the subscribe button because if you don't smash the subscribe button you don't know what's happening with the show until next week i'm kevin he's hose we're uh we're just two dudes live in life and we hope that you have a phenomenal week be well (upbeat music)
