719

Some years ago, faced with the ever-sweet temptation of procrastination, I started breaking up my time into months. I’ve found that this unit of time is the ideal one for me when it comes to planning and getting things done and it’s absolutely perfect for work-life balance. It allows for both predictability as well as progress towards long term goals.

This however brought along a grim realization—I’ve only got so much time to get things done, live life as well as I could and, if possible, leave a good legacy. So taking into consideration my current lifestyle, habitat, family health history and barring any accidents or natural disasters, I’ve reached a total number of months I still have to live—a number I’ve made peace with back then. Currently, that number sits at 719. That would put my approximate date of death to March 19th, 2076.

And that’s cool. Most people would be grateful and happy to live to be 95. It’s a beautiful age, most people would be grandparents by then and would have enjoyed a happy, fulfilling life.

But you see, I have a slight problem with that. I believe that by only living ±100 years, we miss out on a huge amount of interesting things. And my feeling is that the next 500 or so years are going to be the most interesting years in the history of humanity. And however crazy this sounds, I’d like to be around for most, if not all of it.

I’m quite confident that during my natural lifetime I’ll witness the first human mission to Mars (hi Elon!), the introduction of free, unlimited and clean energy for all, and quite possibly the complete elimination of disease from the human DNA.

But I also want to be around (and perhaps even contribute) for the first intergalactic human mission, for the day humanity will truly proclaim itself to be a multi-planetary species and for the day we make contact with other intelligent species from this Universe.

And for that to happen, there’s one basic thing that needs to happen: to live a little bit longer than my projected 95 years. If you’ve been paying attention to the news, scientists are tinkering with transferring consciousness into machines, trying to merge human intelligence with artificial intelligence and even lengthen telomeres. And these are all worthy scientific endeavours.

The fact however is that most people alive today are NOT able to immediately access the benefits of said research and won’t be able to for a long time.

Here’s another fact: prolonging your healthy life is easier and more within immediate reach than you might have been led to believe.

And you’ve probably guessed it: It only has to do with *your* body. This body is not a finely tuned machine, nor an ideal vessel for your brain. It however has a source code that more or less can reveal how to best take care of it: your DNA.

If you ever wondered why some of your friends can eat pretty much whatever they want and work out once a week and look beach-ready in a matter of days and you barely eat, workout every day and STILL can’t lose any fat, you can now blame DNA, your “source code”.

What I’m going to say now is going to be very unpopular: You can blame your DNA only if you’re ignorant. Because the more you learn about it, the better you can take care of your body. Your DNA can reveal what you should eat and how much, what type of exercise will yield the best results for you and eventually, how you can prolong your life.

With this in mind, I’ve started a “life prolonging” experiment, with myself as the primary subject.

Under the supervision of a certified nutritionist and lifestyle coach, as well as a personal trainer, I’ve been preparing for the past 18 months for what I call a rolling start—getting my body (and mind) as close to “normal” as possible (I’ve been morbidly obese for most of my adult life) and then switching to a strictly DNA-based lifestyle, following a full genome sequencing—which includes fully personalized nutrition and targeted workouts.

We’re a couple of months away from the “switch” and the results are outstanding: I’ve already lost a surprising amount of fat, I’m more fit than I ever was and I’ve accomplished this without feeling miserable or eating like a herbivore. And if we’re to trust science, the best is yet to come.

As family members and friends started noticing the results of our experiment, many asked if they can join. And hence, what started out as a personal quest to become healthier and live a little bit longer is turning into a challenge to help people live longer, healthier lives in a sustainable way.

Building on the technical and medical legacy of my hometown of Cluj-Napoca, I strongly believe that not only we have the best prerequisites to make this happen, but also the responsibility to do so.

So if you’re overweight, unfit, not eating right or simply want to become just a little bit better than your old self AND you believe that science and technology are the key to a long and healthy life, hit me up here and we’ll be in touch. In the meantime, I’ll be working on pushing past 719.

It is said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. And since I’ve always been particularly forward-looking, I’ve imagined how I’d like lifecare services (nutrition, fitness, physical and mental health, monitoring and intervention) to look and work in the future, for all of us. I’d appreciate if you could share this article with people that need to lose weight, become healthier, fitter and live longer. And if you also want to be a part of it, click here.