Thin and Thinner, Part II

More on Influencers, Diets, Food, and Me

This is the second essay in a two-part series. If you haven’t read the first essay, you can find it here. And because I am trying not to clutter up your inbox with two versions of this newsletter from me, the audio version of this newsletter is included in this email, at the bottom of this newsletter.

Bryan Johnson doesn’t want to die. Which isn’t shocking. Lots of people don’t want to die. What makes Bryan Johnson different is that he doesn’t plan to die. Ever. And, as Don’t Die—the Netflix documentary about Johnson—details, he is expending enormous amounts of money (reports say at least $2 million a year) to make that plan a reality.¹

Not too long ago, Johnson was just your average tech bro, who had sold his company, destroyed his marriage, and found himself with too much time and money on his hands. Like many of his peers in Silicon Valley, Johnson had also developed an interest in prolonging human life. Then, four years ago, that interest became an all-consuming passion, with Johnson reordering his whole life around one goal: not dying.

Critics call Johnson a lab rat in his own experiments. He calls himself an explorer akin to Ernest Shackleton or Amelia Earhart. Either way, Johnson has spent the past four years meticulously tracking his own health markers and the effect that various sleep, diet, and exercise patterns (as well as vitamins, drugs, supplements, and therapeutic treatments) have on those markers.

Everything Johnson does is rigid (and impractical for anyone with actual human beings in their life). But some things aren’t completely outside the box. For example, he sleeps deeply every night from 8:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. (which sounds like a lovely, but impossible dream to me). Other practices, however, are bizarre. Johnson has received plasma transfusions from his 17-year-old son, undergoes daily shock therapy, and uses a sensor to measure the duration of his nighttime erections. Each day, Johnson takes a whopping 91 supplements and consumes 2,250 calories, divided up between three meals (all vegan, always the same), eaten between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. He also has an extensive skin care routine, does multiple HIT workouts and weight training sessions throughout the day, wears a red-light therapy hat every morning to prevent balding, screens everything that enters his body (including every glass of water he drinks) for microplastics, and does regular cold plunges to keep his body in a mild state of hypothermia.

According to Johnson, all his efforts have paid off. He is, he claims, the healthiest man alive.

But at what cost?

No chocolate, no meat, no bread. No waking up to a hot cup of coffee in the morning or lingering over a glass of wine at night. No baking cookies on snow days or stirring risottos to serve to friends. No sitting down to a table at someone else’s house and delighting in what they put before him. No joy of discovery at a new restaurant. No summer cookouts. No Thanksgiving feasting. No feasting at all. No sharing a meal with anyone at all. No cooking a meal for anyone at all.

No inconveniencing himself for anyone, either. If your flight arrives late and you need a ride home from the airport, don’t bother calling Johnson. He can’t. He has to sleep. And he interrupts his sleep routine for nothing and no one. The same goes for his exercise sessions, his red-light therapy, his cold plunges, and his skincare routine. Impromptu outings, lazy days curled up with a book, aimless hours meandering through new cities or towns, unexpected visits with friends—none of those have a place in Johnson’s life. His fitness and self-care regimen comes first. Always.

Bryan Johnson is okay with what his pursuit of not dying costs him. Physical health is what he wants, and so he has happily sacrificed just about everything else— money, time, relationships, freedom, even cheese—to get what he wants.

I don’t respect Johnson for his choices. I think they’re wrong, and believe if he doesn’t change course, he’ll profoundly regret it one day. What I do respect him for, however, is his consistency.

Johnson is a wellness extremist. But there is a coherence to his extremism. If what you want, more than anything else in the world, is to stay young and healthy forever (and you also happen to have $400 million dollars at your disposal), then it makes sense to do what he’s doing. You chase after that health. You make a god of it. You worship it. You give your life to it.

Johnson is doing that in a grander, kookier way than most people, but he’s certainly not the only one doing it. Social media is replete with people who, like Johnson, are consumed by their goal to be healthier and their fear of being sick, fat, or old. It’s also replete with people who are making a mint off that fear, dispensing advice about how to lose belly fat, build muscle, gain energy, eat clean, avoid microplastics, and improve sleep.