H E A LT H
I tried the live for ever plan
Could a normal man benefit from millionaire “biohacker”
Bryan Johnson’s extreme regime — minus the blood swapping?
Y
ou might have heard
about Bryan Johnson,
the 46-year-old
Silicon Valley
biohacker who is
spending $2 million a
year trying to reverse
the ageing process.
You’ve possibly seen
pictures of the
milky-skinned
multimillionaire strapped to
various machines like a shaved
guinea pig in his quest to
be 18 again. You may have
read about the team of
30 medics he employs to
monitor the biological age
of his brain, heart, teeth,
skin, hair, bladder, rectum,
genitals … and you’ve
probably decided that, on
balance, Johnson’s regime
52 • The Sunday Times Magazine
“I lost so much weight, so fast,
that facial recognition on my
phone stopped working”
— which includes waking at
4.30am, eating all his meals
before 11am, taking 111 pills a
day and bathing in LED light
— might not be one for you.
Andrew Boyd, a 23-year-old
YouTuber from Chattanooga,
Tennessee, has put a
budget version of
Johnson’s programme to
the test, following his
diet and exercise plan for
75 days — and he was
shocked by the results.
One of the most
eyebrow-raising elements
The supplements Boyd took
Ashwagandha
“Winter cherry” — may help
ease stress (short term)
Vitamin B12
For the nervous system
Vitamin C
Protects and maintains cells
Vitamin D3
Balances hormones
Bryan Johnson, 46, has the lung
capacity of a teenager. Right:
Andrew Boyd tried his regime
of Johnson’s regime was the
transfusion of blood plasma he
received from his 17-year-old
son. Boyd didn’t go to those
extremes. “I didn’t swap blood
with anybody,” he says with a
laugh. “Some of the things
Johnson does are a little bit
fringe — on the border of what
is known to be scientifically
sound.” Indeed, Johnson has
said he won’t be swapping any
more blood because there were
“no benefits detected”.
Instead, for two and a half
months, Boyd homed in on
Johnson’s highly regimented
diet, exercise and sleep plan,
called Blueprint. This restricted
him to consuming 2,250
calories a day in a five or six-
hour window, exercising for
at least an hour and getting
roughly nine hours of high-
quality shut-eye every night.
“I lost so much weight,
so fast,” says Boyd, who
documented everything for
his YouTube channel, Project
BRYAN JOHNSON / BLUE PRINT, PROJECT ANDREW / YOUTUBE, GETTY IMAGES
Calcium and vitamin K2
Good for your bones and
heart; aids blood clotting
Ginger root
May improve digestion
Cocoa flavanols
For cardiovascular health
Lysine
May prevent fatigue

Andrew Boyd
Andrew, on which he puts and one other veggie meal.
different health regimes to Boyd took only a fraction
the test. He had been making of the 111 supplements on
corporate films for wineries Johnson’s daily menu.
before jumping into Project And being half Johnson’s
Andrew full-time, and weighed (chronological) age, he decided
about 13st 7lb when he started. not to take testosterone, which
Over the 75 days he shed 2st. Johnson supplements via
“At one point my face had patches. “I was worried it would
changed so much that the lower my natural levels. If I was
facial recognition on my phone above 40 years old, I would have
wouldn’t work.” considered taking it.”
Boyd insists he “felt great” Still, he lost weight so
on Johnson’s diet of veggie quickly that his testosterone
meals, “green giant” algae nosedived — taking his libido
shakes (chief ingredients with it. While obesity and
are water, chlorella powder excess belly fat are
and collagen peptides), known for decreasing
vitamin pills and male testosterone
supplements. “You have a levels, rapid weight loss
lot of energy. My emotions can do the same.
didn’t seem to fluctuate “My sex drive
as much throughout the decreased — a lot,” he
day and I felt like I had says. His relationship
clearer thought processes. suffered in more ways
There was never any time than one. “It was
when I felt tired or full because difficult for my girlfriend. If we
of food.” His blood glucose were going to a restaurant I’d
levels, which he measured with just hang out and sip water. It
a monitor on his arm, “were sort of isolates you from people.
incredibly stable”. Then my sleep schedule was
He did his weekly grocery really strict and regimented.
shop at Aldi and ordered And so we ended up spending
everything else in bulk online, less and less time together
spending about $112 (£90) a throughout the 75 days.”
week on food and supplements. Improved sleep was what
Johnson’s three meals a day he thinks he benefited from
include the “super veggie” most. “I’d try to get in bed
— a cauliflower, broccoli, around 8.30pm and spend
mushroom, ginger and black nine hours in there, usually
lentil dish; “nutty pudding” — getting about eight and a half
a berry and nut blend; hours’ sleep. It was the best
sleep I’ve had in my life,” he
says. “Before, I’d probably get
about seven hours a night.
Now, I feel better in the gym,
I feel better when I’m running,
I feel better when I’m working
or writing.”
Andrew Boyd’s
daily routine
6.30am Get up, light
exposure, skincare routine
6.40am Drink a “green
giant”: 570ml water,
2 tbsp chlorella powder,
2.5g creatine, 20g
collagen peptides,
500mg cocoa flavanols,
1 tsp Ceylon cinnamon.
Also take supplements
7am Gym workout
7.45am Start heating
the “super veggie”:
300g black lentils, 250g
broccoli, 150g cauliflower,
50g shiitake mushrooms,
1 clove garlic, 2g ginger
root, 1 lime, 1 tbsp cumin,
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar,
1 tbsp hemp seeds, 1 tbsp
extra virgin olive oil
8am Zone 2 training
8.45am Eat super veggie
9.45am Eat a “nutty
pudding”: 50-100ml
almond milk, 2 tbsp
ground macadamia nuts,
2 tsp ground walnuts, 1 tsp
ground flaxseed, ⅓ brazil
nut, 1 tbsp natural cocoa,
1 tsp sunflower lecithin,
½ tsp Ceylon cinnamon,
1 cup berries, 2 cherries,
60ml freshly squeezed
pomegranate juice
12pm Eat final meal, such
as sweet potato stuffed
with chickpeas, tomatoes,
avocado, radishes,
coriander, jalapeño, lime,
lemon and chilli powder
7pm Wear blue-light
glasses. Take sleep
supplements
9pm Go to bed
Boyd woke up at 5.30 or
6am. “You want to get exposure
to a bright light, ideally
sunlight, as soon as you can.
Then from about 7pm I was
limiting exposure to screens
and blue light — I used these
blue-light-blocking glasses.”
He measured his sleep
patterns using a wrist device
called a Whoop 4.0 tracker. For
a short time he took melatonin,
a hormone that occurs naturally
in the body and helps control
how and when we sleep. It’s
sometimes prescribed to people
suffering insomnia — but only
for short-term use. “Before you
blindly hop into something like
this, you should talk to your
doctor,” he warns. He stopped
taking melatonin because he
was having “crazy dreams”.
Instead he switched to a trio
of sleep supplements,
magnesium threonate,
L-theanine and apigenin, and
saw “significant improvements
in deep sleep, slow-wave sleep
and REM”.
Not so challenging for Boyd,
who was an avid “soccer player”
when he was younger, were
Johnson’s workouts. “He does
some intense work on the
cardio side, but he’s not lifting
very heavy weights. Most of the
exercises are fairly light and the
idea is to flex and stretch every
muscle in your body.”
Boyd also did “Zone 2”
training — which involves
not letting your heart rate go
above a certain number of beats
per minute — and his resting
heart rate dropped from the low
sixties to the low fifties.
After 75 days, Boyd says, his
biological age was 19.2 —
according to a blood biomarker
analyser called Inside Tracker
— while his chronological age
was 23.7. “It’s interesting,” he
says, “but I don’t put a lot of
weight behind this, because this
biological snapshot is based on
a really narrow window of time.”
Meanwhile Johnson, who has
many more tools and lab tests
at his disposal, has said his own
heart’s “biological age” is 37,
while he has the lung capacity
of an 18-year-old.
So what did Boyd learn?
“Bryan’s regime works really
well for him. But if you don’t
share the exact same goals —
say you want to run a marathon
or lift more weight — then his
diet isn’t for you. For me, doing
it as an experiment was great.
But it’s not how I’d like to live
the rest of my life.” He values
travel, eating out, his girlfriend
and his mojo too much n
By James Palmer
The Sunday Times Magazine • 53