This was the mystery I’ve been chasing for the last 10 months. On the 1st of August 2025, I set an incredibly ambitious North Star: I was to explore every way possible to quadruple my HRV, as a proxy for improving the health of my nervous system. No timeframe was set. This was a lifetime journey.

At the end of last year, I provided an “Update on my Mission Impossible“; I was able to move my average HRV from 24 to 44, and my highest ever recorded was 54. Since then, despite a surgery and constant travelling, my highest ever recorded HRV increased to 56.

Yet, I still hear from many (including some scientists!) that HRV is all about genetics and we don’t have much control over it. These claims always rise after one has given a few months of trying someone else’s protocol.

This article is about why improving one’s HRV is a complex and difficult goal for many, and how you can build a personalised protocol that works for you. I promise, it will work for you.

One pre-requisite for this exercise: you must put on your mystery hunting, Detective Sherlock hat.

I highly recommend reading What is HRV and Why Having a High HRV is Important, if you don’t know much about this topic.

What is a “Low HRV”? What is a “Healthy High HRV”?

We don’t know.

We do know. But health measures (like blood tests) are based on two things:

1. Are you in a critical health condition?

2. Are you in the average of the population (assuming majority of the population is healthy)?

If the 1st is a ‘no’ and the 2nd is a ‘yes’, doctors and most HealthTech companies will send you off as ‘healthy’. Hence, nobody has studied the “optimal” HRV ranges for individuals. That’s why, we don’t know what is a sign of poor health vs optimal health in this topic (and frankly, in many other topics).

There are still ways for us to figure out what a healthy level of HRV looks like.

• HRV fluctuates up and down, so it is best to observe it daily over a 2-week period.

• Generally, the higher your HRV is, the better. So far, theoretically and practically, we have not discovered a point where one’s HRV is too high that it’s causing them problems. Feel free to aim high.

• It is common for healthy and fit men with regular cardio trainings (i.e. soccer players, runners) in their early 20s to consistently hit between 130 - 170 HRV. Some hit even higher than that. 200 HRV is certainly not unheard of.

• Men generally have higher HRV than women do. We could safely subtract 10 points and assume that young female athletes in good health can expect 120 - 160 HRV. These ranges cater for bad night sleeps, stressful days, pre-menstruation tiredness, etc.

• Chronic HRV below 20 for both men and women can signal serious health problems in most people. This could range from bad flus that drag, infections, post-surgery recovery, sports accidents (i.e. bad sprains, broken bones), serious psychological trauma, cardiovascular health issues (i.e. stroke risk), heavy alcohol consumption issues, overtraining syndrome, insomnia, and high blood pressure.

• Younger people generally always have higher HRVs, and HRV drops with age.

• See the approx. HRV chart by age group below. Again, averages or the “norm” don’t mean the optimal for health.

Based on this information, it is your call whether or not to improve your HRV. Everyone’s “good enough” is different when it comes to health.

The Diagnosis

It’s wild that most of us are stuck at the first step of improving our HRVs: the diagnosis. Actually, most of us never even think about diagnosing what is going wrong with our bodies, to cause an unusually low HRV.

Last year, in one of the longevity events I’ve attended, a neuroscientist tried to convince me to not bother much about improving my HRV, as this number seems to be related to nothing but genetics, from his personal experience. Yet, when I asked some follow-up questions, he failed at the most simple tests. Inconsistent bedtime, ~5 hours of sleep every night, eating ~2 hours before bed, and no daily habit of calming the nervous system (i.e. meditations, NSDR, visualisations, boxed breathing). To his defence, he has tried cold showers and 3x a week cardio.

Where did he go wrong? The diagnosis.

Upon chatting with him, I realised that he has never thought about the root cause for his average 30 HRV. From my perspective, it was his shitty sleep, which was something that he hasn’t thought of before.

First set of questions: Did you have an unhealthy upbringing as a child? Examples: abuse, neglect, domestic violence, grief, etc. Are you diagnosed with C-PTSD? Are you, or you might be, diagnosed with a psychological disorder? This includes chronic anxiety, depression, etc. Do you have drug addictions, including alcohol?

If the answer is ‘yes’ for any of these questions, you now know why your HRV is chronically low. There is 0 point in focusing on anything else but fixing these issues, as they cause the most amount of damage to the nervous system than anything else.

Your recovery protocol is going to look significantly different (and more challenging, complex) than others. I want to emphasise that following a psychologically healthy person’s HRV protocol could cause you more damage than good (high risk).

If the answer is ‘no’ for all of these questions, then the next questions cover basic health: Do you have insomnia? Do you have a cardiovascular health problem? Could you be diagnosed with the overtraining syndrome? Do you have high blood pressure? Do you have an autoimmune disorder, or cancer?

If the answer is ‘yes’ for any of these questions, you now know why your HRV is chronically low. There is 0 point in focusing on anything else but fixing or managing these issues. Your recovery protocol should look very different than others.

If the answer is ‘no’ for all of these questions, then let’s examine lifestyle factors. This includes chronic stress (i.e. going through a messy divorce, in severe financial difficulty, toxic work environment), bedtime routine & sleep schedule, diet, exercise (especially cardio), hydration, climate, habitual alcohol consumption, and daily busy-ness (i.e. never having time to wind down and take a break).

If you are exploring your lifestyle factors, then lucky you. This is the profile of people who can double their HRV within 3 months. Only if you are consistent and disciplined.

How to Test Each Exercise to Include in Your HRV Protocol

For a fair measure of progress, make sure you have a 1-month baseline of your HRV levels - what is your lowest and highest ever recorded, and what is your average HRV?

To accurately test the effectiveness of each exercise, try them one by one, between 2-4 weeks. What works for one person may not work for another, so testing is very important, rather than copying someone else’s protocol.

HRV recovery protocols range from beginner to advanced. Just like exercise progression, do not jump into advanced activities before completing beginner ones.

Treat your nervous system as a muscle. It needs slight stressors to challenge it to grow, but then enough time to recover and adapt. Progressive overload. Adaptation can take more than a month for the nervous system. The slow road is the safest and most effective road.

Remember that most women see a natural dip in their HRVs 1 week leading to their periods, then a natural increase straight after their periods.

Track: HRV levels, your mood, RHR, and sleep quality every day.

It is possible for some exercises to not have a measurable impact on your HRV, but lift your mood during the day. These may still be worthwhile to include in your protocol. That would be your call to make.

Severe Childhood Adversities, C-PTSD, Psychological Disorders, Addictions

Your HRV is chronically low, because your instincts and nervous system don’t feel safe. They are not convinced that the danger is over, yet.

This group of people have serious nervous system damage and it may take them decades to heal, depending on how much they are willing to invest in this journey. I’m so sorry for whatever has happened to you. But I have to be real about healing; it is not easy or a quick-fix.

Firstly, if you are in danger, or if you are a danger to yourself, seek help to remove yourself from danger ASAP. Your HRV is extremely low because it is reacting to a real threat.

If you are not in danger, it’s time to heal your psychological health. Seek professional help. There is no going around this. 99% of people do not heal themselves via daily affirmations. Some would like to think that they have healed themselves, when in fact they have only tuned down the screaming anxiety, and replaced it with anger or unhealthy coping mechanisms. This process is so much easier, if you have a group of support.

Consider rehabilitation (addiction recovery centres), eating disorder treatment centres, etc, if this is applicable to your condition.

Consider seeing a trauma-informed psychologist or a clinical psychologist for advanced therapies, like EMDR, DBR (Deep Brain Reorienting), hypnosis, or CBT. It’s now widely accepted that EMDR can improve HRV by ~10 points (Chen et al., Psychology, Health & Medicine, 2025).

Remove triggers and stressors from life, as much as possible. This includes going no-contact with perpetrators, even if it means parents.

Actively work on re-wiring traumatic memories and beliefs with healthy ones to build confidence and healthy behaviours.

Resolve recurring nightmares via trying different versions of IRT (Imagery Rehearsal Therapy). The one that has instantly worked for me was imagining and re-writing the nightmare with a very ridiculous and absurb ending (i.e. you realise that the scary witch who’s chasing you with a knife was actually enthusiastically running to cut a giant chocolate birthday cake). This is one of the most effective ways to instantly stop a specific recurring nightmare.

Once all of this is done, try NSDR (non-sleep deep-rest) or yoga nidra. It typically takes 10 - 30 minutes and requires you to lay down. It uses guided body scans and minimal breathwork to lower heart rate, reduce stress and restore focus. Feels like a nap without being a nap.

It is a proven exercise to improve HRV by ~10 points and improve sleep quality (Cureus, 2024; Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 2012). I found out about NSDR on a Huberman Podcast (listen to “30 Minutes of This Feels Like 8 Hours of Sleep” for more info).

Here is an example NSDR practice you can try at home. There are many audio tracks on YouTube, some with sound healing music playing softly at the background, some guided by a male or a female voice.

Note: through therapy, some people may discover they feel safest in rigid routines. Therefore, NSDR in general may not help, but rather one specific audio track of NSDR that is predictably played every night at the same time, in the same room, helps. My recommendation is to do what it takes to heal.

Once your therapy work is on track and you can comfortably do NSDR without an anxiety attack for a few months, you could consider ashwagandha as a supplement. But be careful and start on very low dose. Some people can have a bad reaction to adaptogenics.

Ashwagandha has improved my and a lot of people’s HRV (Smith, Lopresti & Fairchild, Sage Open Nursing, 2023), but most people also report their nightmares coming back. This is a temporary “side effect”. May be the best kind of side effect, because having old nightmares resurface after ashwagandha generally means your nervous system feels strong enough to try to process unresolved issues.

The reason why I cannot recommend other strategies for people in this category is due to the safety risk. After therapy, you would have gained enough self-awareness and realisation of the past to conclude what triggers you. Unfortunately, most advanced HRV training exercises cause extreme distress in trauma-patients. Some examples:

• Ice baths are great, unless you have memories of medical neglect where you’re shivering in fever as a child and your mum is screaming at you for it.

• Taking a walk in the park to connect with the nature is great, unless you’ve been attacked by a dog as a toddler.

• Boxed-breathing is great, unless silence and peace caused intense anger and irritability in your BPD father.

• Repeating affirmations is great, unless your parents always criticised you and called you derogatory words.

Sometimes, even falling asleep or remaining asleep is very difficult for trauma patients, who’ve experienced fear of danger during the night. For example, I had a habit of waking up with an intense feeling of being late every morning at 5am. The normal strategy of “lay back down and cuddle, enjoy the peaceful morning” for normal people was more likely to cause an anxiety attack.

So, before you get into exploring alternative exercises, make sure that you have this part of your HRV protocol nailed down. Then, start with the activities that won’t trigger your nervous system.

Basic Health Problems

Seek professional help to resolve basic health problems. When the body is under heavy stress from lack of sleep, toxins, training too much, or an illness, then it cannot declare ‘safety’. This naturally results in a chronic low HRV.

Most common health problems that lead to low HRV are insomnia, cardiovascular health problem (i.e. increased chance of stroke), overtraining syndrome, high blood pressure, autoimmune disorder, and cancer.

While some issues could be fully resolved, like overtraining syndrome, others will need to be managed, like autoimmune disorders. But all of these are beyond my level of expertise. Before taking basic health issues under control, following an advanced HRV protocol won’t help much.

That being said, some activities could help you recover from your underlying health problems AND improve your HRV.

Examples: Zone 2 cardio (very important), strength training, doing NSDR (or yoga nidra, as a meditative practice), removal of alcohol from your life (or limiting to one serving a few times a year), adoption of a healthier diet^, and establishing a healthy bedtime routine & sleep schedule^^.

Side note: if you have diabetes, blood sugar spikes and crashes throughout the night causes additional stress to the body. You cannot improve your HRV when your body is under stress during the night.

^”Adopting a healthier diet” advice can open a can of worms. In general, removing ultra-processed foods, not eating out, lowering sugar consumption, avoiding deep fried foods, ensuring you are consuming an optimal amount of protein, fibre, healthy fats, antioxidants, and greens, is a good start.

^^”Healthy bedtime routine & sleep schedule” includes avoiding food 4 hours before bed (unless instructed otherwise by a health professional), having a consistent bedtime, sleeping 7-9 hours every night, removing stressors 1 hour before bed (i.e. endless scrolling on social media, reading the news, engaging in arguments), including relaxation 1 hour before bed (i.e. reading a book, listening to soft music, prayer), adjusting the room temperature so it is not too warm, avoiding sharp bright light 1 hour before bed (warm lights are more soothing for the eyes), avoiding driving or being a passenger in a vehicle 2 hours before bed, sleeping in complete silence (might want to investigate in earplugs), sleeping in complete darkness (eye masks are great), and removing disruptions from the bed (i.e. if your dog wakes you up every night, you might want to say, sorry buddy, out you go).

This is a long list! Some people only need to make 1 change to see big improvements in their sleep quality, so start from somewhere. Routines only work if you can consistently execute every night.

Side note: there is increasing anecdotal evidence that tools designed to cope with ADHD (i.e. Neurode) help increase HRV via calming the mind.

Lifestyle Factors

Be honest with yourself: what are your unhealthy habits that could be preventing you from improving your HRV?

Alcohol has proven impacts on lowering HRV and sleep quality. If you are looking to improve HRV, it’s best to avoid even a single glass of wine. If you must drink, make sure to consume a lot of water to dilute it.

If you are going through chronic stress, you may want to seek help and support. Try to remove the major stressors from your life. You could consider ashwagandha or other adaptogenics, but be careful, as some people can have a bad reaction to them. Additionally, incorporate rest and wind-down time every day, ideally 1-2 hours before bed.

Activities that could be relaxing: colouring, meditation, NSDR (or yoga nidra), boxed breathing, gentle yoga, sound bath (or sound healing), prayer, affirmations, knitting, reading, expressing gratitude, watching the sunset, going on nature walks, and weighted blankets. There are probably many more!

Avoiding food 4 hours before bed will be highly effective. Avoiding heavy dinners with oily, deep fried foods, heavy carbs and sugars will also help. Blood sugar spikes before bed will cause low HRV and poor sleep quality. Digestion is a stressor to the body. It’s very challenging for your body to digest heavy meals and try to relax for the night at the same time.

Make sure you are consuming enough water. It will help your body to cool down before falling asleep.

Speaking of cooling down, try to control the temperature of your bedroom to ensure you are not too warm while sleeping. It makes ~5 HRV point difference for me. There are mattresses (i.e. 8 Sleep) that automatically cool down for an optimal temperature to sleep. It’s too expensive for me, so I do my best with the aircon.

Sleep quality is highly important and one that gets ignored the most. Have a consistent bedtime and sleep 7-9 hours every night. Remove stressors 1 hour before bed (i.e. endless scrolling on social media, reading the news, engaging in arguments). Avoid driving or being a passenger in a vehicle 2 hours before bed. Avoid sharp bright lights 1 hour before bed; warm lights are more soothing for the eyes, or you could try blue-light blocking glasses.

Sleep in complete silence and darkness. If you live in a noisy and bright neighbourhood, I highly recommend earplugs and eye masks. They feel awkward at first, but you get used to it. Remove disruptions from the bed. So, if your dog wakes you up every night, you might want to say, “sorry buddy, out you go.”

But not everyone’s nervous systems need to be relaxed. Some people need the opposite. Going back to the idea of “training the nervous system” via progressive overload, there needs to be a challenge for healthy adaptation (and an improved HRV). Resistance training in the gym is not enough.

There is so much evidence behind doing regular Zone 2 cardio early in the morning and improved HRV. In fact, a vast majority of people who double their HRV within months simply sleep well AND exercise. Exercise ensures you are getting regular healthy stress. Our bodies like to tackle challenges in the morning to receive adrenaline and motivation hormones pumping in, and calm down before bed for a peaceful sleep.

Once your sleep and exercise routine is on track, check out the advanced HRV training techniques below.

Advanced HRV Training Techniques

Let’s get into the micro things that move the needle. These are generally called vagus nerve training exercises and tools.

It’s important to have a high-level understanding of the vagus nerve, so I recommend having a quick read about the Vagus Nerve & the Polyvagal Theory. Some ideas to experiment with:

• chanting and humming (gentlest entry point)

• acupuncture

• massaging the neck

• using controlled breathing devices like Oxyfit

• using vagal-nerve stimulating devices like Pulsetto

• ice baths (you could start with cold showers and progress)

• sauna (you could start with warm baths)

Additionally, you may want to experiment with ashwagandha, or other adaptogenics.

Your HRV cannot increase if your body is under stress while sleeping. This is why controlling the room temperature is important; heavy sweating stresses the body.

Likewise, most people have no idea how stable their blood sugar is during the night. Blood sugar spikes and crashes throughout the night causes additional stress to the body. It is worth investing in a blood sugar tracker for a month, especially for women, because hormonal shifts throughout the menstrual cycle impacts blood sugar levels.

Example: if you are noticing regular blood sugar crashes every morning around 4am, addressing this issue will help your metabolic health and your HRV.

Having a strong nervous system is highly linked to having a high resilience to stressors in life. So, think about how you can take on challenges and adversities without traumatising yourself. Maybe sign up for public speaking, or another activity that puts you out of your comfort zone.

I want to emphasise that there is no need to experiment with advanced techniques if you are struggling to get the 3 pillars of your health on track (sleep, exercise, diet). Also want to emphasise that it could be highly risky to experiment with advanced techniques if you are struggling with C-PTSD/PTSD, self-harming behaviours, mental health disorders, addictions and insomnia. So, this section is truly for the advanced.

So, how come some people can turn on a “magic switch” and double their average HRVs within a few months, while others take decades to move the needle?

On one hand, people with basic health problems are comparing their HRV to healthy and fit 22-year-olds hitting 150+. They’re trying meaningless advanced vagus nerve training exercises and tools.

On the other hand, people with C-PTSD are seeing influencer videos talking about Zone 2 cardio doubling their HRVs in 2 months. After 6 months of running, they’re wondering what’s wrong with them.

And of course, the famous, “I don’t need to sleep, I feel fine on 5 hours” crowd, waiting for a magical pill to lift their HRVs.

These groups have arrived to the same conclusion: “it must be the genetics.”

The reality is, improving your HRV is a highly personal process and cannot be hacked via copying someone else’s protocol.

The “magic switch” works for some people and not others because they accidentally started from the right place. Lucky them.

This article aims to provide guidance, so you can self-diagnose your place on this journey. Everything after that is just patience.

Cheat sheet for convenience

All the images I use have been generated using deepai.org (the pop art generator). 🦸‍♀️

If this post is helpful to you, it will probably help others too. Share with a colleague, and if you haven’t done so, subscribe.

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For more information, see below:

1. Chen et al., Psychology, Health & Medicine (2025) — EMDR improves HRV in hypertension patients: randomised controlled trial: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40301706/

2. Cureus (2024) — Impact of yoga nidra on HRV in cardiac patients: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12535617/

3. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (2012) — Yoga nidra increases HRV: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22866996/

4. Smith, Lopresti & Fairchild, Sage Open Nursing (2023) — Ashwagandha improves HRV: randomised controlled trial: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10647917/

5. Systematic meta-analysis (2025) — Long-term exercise intervention and HRV indices: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12198180/

6. Systematic review with meta-analysis (2021) — Exercise training and cardiac-parasympathetic activity in sedentary people: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9656115/

The green imagery is visually appealing. It also feeds into the assumption that developing nations have whole, “clean” foods, while the Western world is buried deep in fake food like factory-made veggie patties.

These influencers also imply that the island life is what is best for the environment, unlike the big buildings Westerners build. The “ethnic people” know better than “white people.”

Here I am, travelling through South East Asia for almost 2 months now. Not the first time I’ve visited developing nations for an extended period of time. Do you want to know what the “ethnic people” and I think of this narrative?

WHAT A SCAM! It’s a fairy tale these folk are selling.

I never enjoyed staying in the tourist hot spots, or big cities, so the experiences below are from regional towns of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Vanuatu, French Polynesian Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Malaysia. But these are not just “travel stories” I’ve gathered from talking with the locals. These are research-backed points that challenge the longevity fantasy shown on TikTok.

So, why staying healthy has been genuinely difficult?

Let’s explore nutrition in developing countries chronologically - from how food is sourced, all the way to the point it enters your stomach.

Where is the “natural food”?

The myth is “the earth is clean and abundant here”

This leads to another assumption; healthy food is everywhere and cheap. “Nature provides.”

The natural food is in people’s backyards, so they don’t starve. Harsh start to this chapter, but as of mid 2025, almost 3 million households in Central Visayas (Philippines) depend on their backyard gardens to survive. That is 44% of the population. If only they harvest excess food, or collect an excess amount of eggs, they will set up a stand outside their homes for sales. Most of the time, this doesn’t happen because extended families live in the same block or as neighbours, which means, food gets shared with them. Why? Most people can’t afford buying a new property, and in struggling communities, it’s better to support each other as a family, than to try surviving in a nuclear family.

At the same time, a lot people don’t have large acres of land to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables. When food is prioritised, high-calorie foods that are the easiest to grow get planted. So, the “natural foods” are not ones in your “superfood” list, like blueberries, walnuts and leafy greens. They are coconuts, mangoes, bananas, corn, rice, sweet potatoes, and cassava.

Wealthier families have “organic” chickens and cows out on their farms. But they’re skinny, looking sick, grazing among a blanket of rubbish that’s been accumulating for months, maybe years. It really does not look appetising. The concept of putting bins in public places don’t exist in many regions.

Farm land has higher traces of heavy metals found in them. Not sure if I would recommend buying your dark chocolate or rice from South East Asia. Elevated heavy metal contamination (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, zinc) is found in agricultural soils across Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, at levels exceeding local standards.

Average figures for rice for traced contamination:

• Thailand (1.25 mg/kg for arsenic)

• Vietnam (30 µg/kg for cadmium)

• India (178.3 µg/kg for lead)

“Rice absorbs heavy metals that are naturally present in soil, but it tends to accumulate significantly more arsenic, making it a unique and concerning source of exposure” (British Food Journal, Volume 122, 2019). Even Vietnam at arsenic concentration of 0.142 mg/kg is well above the recommended threshold for health.

Why? “Rapid industrialisation, unregulated mining, excessive agrochemical use, and untreated wastewater irrigation have altered soil chemistry across large parts of South, Southeast, and East Asia” (Environmental Geochemistry and Health, 2005). But also think about the relationship between heavy metals with old pipes, pesticide use and synthetic fertilisers.

Some farms genuinely look dirty! Soil-borne diseases kill people every year. There was an incident while we were in Krabi. “South Asia is estimated to have 44% of the global disease burden” for melioidosis, which is caused by burkholderia pseudomallei, and “spread through contact with contaminated water or soil” (Nature Communications, 2019).

Coastal towns with fishermen give the impression that the fish caught will be widely available in the town. Not at all. Availability of fish does not mean distribution of the food supply. Those men are fishing for their families!

Why? Many people we met in Cebu said their daily earnings was 300 Pesos, which is the equivalent cost to a kg of locally grown dragonfruit. The average citizen in regional towns cannot afford to shop.

Quoting our 22 years old tour guide: “My little sister is very spoilt. She sometimes says, I want pineapple, I want pineapple. Because it’s very sweet, she likes it. When I can, I ask the neighbours. They don’t have corn. We trade.”

What happens to those “natural foods”?

The myth is that “the food is unprocessed.”

Where do I start? Perhaps from the problem statement: how to make the small amount of food produced available at cheap prices to a mass population. Take into consideration the annual damage typhoons do to crops, especially in the island nations.

Let me give you some hints.

Almost every yoghurt has added sugars and flavourings. Likewise it’s very rare to just find milk. No simple labels. Some products don’t even have labels. You only realise once you have a spoon of the yoghurt - tastes like honey.

You can find a white, sugary sponge, called “bread” in the supermarkets. It’s quite different from the sourdough you buy in Western countries. You have a higher chance of finding instant noodles than fresh noodles.

Everything has higher ratios of preservatives and lower amounts of protein. Every food item has to be optimised via additives. The “whole food” might only make up 50% of the food you actually buy in the markets. The rest is a bunch of sugars and palm oil, which happen to be the cheapest things found in every country.

But the synthetic items aren’t only for lowering costs and increasing food availability. They are also key for food distribution, which is another major challenge of developing countries. Highly processed foods last longer. More on this in the next chapter.

Food production companies can afford this because they have less stringent regulatory frameworks on their backs. Western countries on the other hand have a stricter approach towards food additive ingredients and chemical substances that have carcinogenic effects on humans.

How does the natural food reach people?

The myth is that “the food is from farm-to-table.”

Refrigeration systems in logistics are more unreliable than Western countries. This has been documented by the Asian Development Bank and the WHO as a significant food safety risk.

“The primary challenge in implementing a cold chain is lack of access to affordable and reliable energy” (Discover Food, 2024). This means food waste is higher in hotter countries - hint hint: the island nations on your TikTok reels. It also means that the frozen strawberries you buy from the supermarket in Thailand have most likely been frozen, defrosting, frozen, and defrosting, during the journey. You can tell by the appearance and taste. Disgusting. And it doesn’t raise confidence to buy frozen meats.

Some mind-blowing stats:

• “Developing countries could save 144 million tonnes of food annually if they had the same level of cold-chain infrastructure as developed countries” (UNEP and FAO. 2022).

• “The average cold storage capacity in North America, Western Europe and Oceania is around 200 cubic metres per 1,000 inhabitants, whereas in the least developed countries it averages only around 20 cubic metres per 1,000 inhabitants” (UNEP and FAO. 2022).

• “More than 40% of food losses in developing countries occur at post-harvest and processing levels” (FAO 2022).

That means, you have to shop every 2nd day. You can either do this via a small corner store, or a street market. In both cases, “fresh” food is warm, very ripe, and coming to the end of its lifetime. If you instantly put most of your groceries in the freezer, you are not saved from this problem. When staying in Bali and Cebu, our electricity was cut off for 1-3 hours once in every few days. In one of those times, the milk that we found in difficulty went off.

To sum it up, the healthy island nation in your fantasies happens to be the nation of food-borne illnesses and deaths.

Speaking of food-borne illnesses and deaths, if you want to buy any type of meat, it’s either sold fresh on food stands (combatting 35 degrees, 90% humidity, dust and flies), or in the open behind glass doors at many supermarkets. You have to stick a metal spoon in and take as many grams as you want - self-serve.

This system has been banned in many European countries for a reason. What happens when someone forgets and leaves the glass door open, exposing all the meats? Consume the day you buy, or risk sharp abdominal cramps. Who decides when the chicken sitting in the heat by the road is starting to go off? Please avoid.

If you’re wondering how others are ok with this, the locals are used to this. And for the ones who aren’t, they contribute to the annual mortality statistics. At the moment, it’s about 420,000 deaths each year (FAO 2022).

Several studies of gut microbiome composition reveal the significant differences between western and non-western populations. Developing nations have a very resilient digestive system. I know some Westerners who feel sickly after eating an overly ripe mango. The difference is not comparable.

Finally, let’s answer, what type of food reaches people? It is the type that the locals can afford. Supply and demand circle means:

• Olive oil is not the norm. Seed oils and margarine are commonly found in supermarkets, because they are the cheaper options.

• Rather than fresh milk, you may find long-life milk, or milk powder.

• Rather than fish, you may find dried fish.

“The increase in volume sales of ultra-processed foods were highest in Southeast Asia at 67.3%, while for ultra-processed drinks, the increases in volume sales were highest in Southeast Asia at 120%” (Lancet Regional Health, 2025).

Packed and highly-processed foods are just cheaper, so some local markets do not even bother to store anything fresh. We’ve seen multiple supermarkets with no options for cheese, yoghurt, milk, or meats. Protein is very expensive!

Reality of food consumption

The myth is “healthy food is cheap, abundant and available everywhere”

Again, the “nature provides” assumption.

Firstly, unless you specify, you’ll most likely be served coffee, juice, and your smoothie bowl with sugar, syrup and long-life milk.

Speaking of “health,” unless you are up for eating pork skin with rice, bananas and whatever vegetable has been harvested that week like the locals do, then get prepared to pay for western prices. That is about 4-5x more than what locals pay. Not very cheap. And that doesn’t guarantee your blueberries, almonds, collard greens and chia seeds. But it may guarantee higher quality foods. Given the scarcity in some areas, sometimes it’s healthier to eat out in a restaurant than to try to find and cook food.

If you are wondering how restaurants find fresh food... do not wonder. Eat. You get what you’re given. Wondering helps no one. Unless you have allergies.

For people with intolerances or allergies, food handling is very challenging. Expect getting sick. You will be lucky to find 1 or 2 people to know what gluten intolerance, coeliac, lactose intolerance, shellfish allergy, or nut allergy means. I’ve been told that cheesecake with crust, cereal, and crackers were gluten free, because “it’s only a little bit of wheat.”

Even if they do, what’s the point? Everything is stored, prepared and cooked together. Most South East Asian sauces will be contaminated with nuts and wheat. Your best bet will be to avoid certain groups of foods altogether, and always ask the sauce to be on the side. Or only eat in expensive cafes and restaurants in city-centres. As mentioned before, some foods don’t even have labels on them.

By the way, burnt food is quite common in regional Malaysia, as not being able to afford a stove is not unusual. It’s quite challenging to control the temperature when you’re trying to cook on open fire in your garden. Organic charcoal - yum!

Beyond food...

1. Clean, rainforest air

If you have asthma, please don’t follow our trip itinerary. Open fires are not just a Malaysian specialty. They are very common in Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu, for a variety of reasons. Especially past 4pm, smoke covers the streets. Good luck to your lung health.

Also, good luck trying to dodge dust. Developing nations are trying very hard to develop as fast as possible. There is construction everywhere. Day and night, roads are being built, people are renovating their family homes in cheaper ways, and better infrastructure is being put in place. But life goes on. Construction is open, exposed and completed in practices that could be called hazardous. Dust and many pollutant particles are flying up in the air. When travelling on a scooter, you feel the dirt stick on your skin and fly in through your nostrils. Make sure to not yawn.

Almost everywhere regional is green. But I am not sure about using the adjective, clean.

2. The daily exercise shown on social media reels

If you enjoy jogging outside for cardio, run on sand. Hopefully, the beach doesn’t have rocks. Actually, if you are staying near the beach, go for a swim. That may be your best chance for cardio.

Unless there is an established route in a national park that everyone knows about, I do not recommend following a random flat-looking trail. If you are lucky, there will be a gym driving distance that has treadmills.

I know you are thinking, “just run outside! Why isn’t that possible?” It is. I have transformed into a vehicle, travelling outside early morning along other vehicles on the road, trying to avoid inhaling dust, falling into a pothole, and getting run over. We take pedestrian footpath for granted guys. That doesn’t exist in some countries.

If you are wondering what mothers with young children do, the only places we’ve seen a pram were the rich parts of Krabi and New Caledonia. Toddlers walk. Babies get strapped around their mother’s chest.

Footpath is not a priority here. Given the fact that nobody likes walking in extreme heat, humidity and showers of rain, I don’t think it will become a priority anytime soon.

Gyms are like small houses, or large bedrooms, with random, old equipment dumped together. No place to warm up, as everything is very crammed. Some dumbbells show kgs, some show lbs, and some are rusty. There is also a poor fan running on high speed, trying very hard to cool a handful of people sweating through their asses. Admitting that gyms in touristic towns in Thailand are better in quality, and Bali has the most amount of options.

3. ”Living with nature” is peaceful

Stray dogs are everywhere! Have you ever been woken up several times throughout the night by 6 stray dogs barking with intense emotions?

Buildings are cluttered and squished. There is traffic on the road almost all the time, and a scooter/car honk could mean several things (hello, behind you, watch out, on your side, give me way, thank you, look at me). I would describe the life here as energising, hustle-bustle, and constant chaos. I mean, try crossing the road as a pedestrian in Ho Chi Minh City.

You could find peace near a luscious green waterfall… only if a wave of tourists don’t arrive. “Gonna do a back flip! Gonna backflip and dive!” “No, that’s not the right angle, my butt looks flat.” “Mum, mum look, mum look, look!” Splash splash splash.

4. ”Living with nature” in developing countries is better for the environment

To put it simply, nothing in South East Asia is good for the environment. People do live in nature. But there is no infrastructure or widely used system to cleanly live in nature.

Rubbish on the ground. Rubbish everywhere. People get creative and build random stuff on their land to expand their property because they are having their 5th child. Everyone is trying to find creative solutions to survive and that often comes at a cost to the environment. Plus, no one has the time for what Westerners call, “volunteer work,” or “a hobby.” No one has the time to clean up the neighbourhood for fun.

Developing countries recognise the trade offs between prioritising the environment vs economic growth (poverty, cost of living). And they have clearly chosen to sacrifice certain things.

Living in nature causes the local monkey to steal your eggs from the kitchen in Indonesia - cheeky bastards! It’s tourists who demand the aesthetics of rainforests for the Instagram shots. It’s also tourists that make up over 21% of Bali’s economy (BukitVista, 2024). Of course, the government is not going to feel sensitive about ruining the marine life by building a resort at the foot of a beach, when this is expected to bring them back millions of dollars in revenue, and open up many employment opportunities for the Balinese.

No one is intentionally trying to hurt the animals or the environment. In fact, I’ve seen some incredible development from locals who build rooms around trees to blend into nature. However, some people are not educated about how to treat animals and the environment, and when push comes to the shove, everyone seems to prioritise economic growth and survival.

We seem to forget what Western countries can afford to discuss sustainability. We can afford to have vets. We can afford to prioritise animal rights and environmental policies. Be grateful for that.

Some Afterthoughts

“Doa, what the f*ck are you doing in these countries then?!” Dunno, trying to die, I guess.

I must say, we booked our trip before doing all of this research. Despite never buying into the influencer narratives, in certain towns, my experiences were very surprising. It led me to conduct this research, and I felt shocked by some of my findings.

This article did not even touch on the high rates of traffic accidents, rabies, and other developing world problems that impact longevity.

I think a better indicator of whether a place is suitable for a healthy lifestyle is the average lifespan of the locals living in that region. That’s something you can search. In short, despite travelling to 33 countries, I haven’t come across a “longevity island” so far. But I do like the sound of it.

While staying healthy is a big challenge, most of the time, it is somewhat doable, especially if you don’t mind a slight caloric deficit. In certain towns, we’ve been lucky to find various types of mushrooms, herbs, spices, organ meats, and exotic fruits filled with antioxidants; my gut felt incredible, my HRV hit its best numbers twice. Vitamin D is plenty in supply.

I also admit that forcing my healthy lifestyle in towns with poor infrastructure and accessibility issues has been somewhat stressful. Occasionally, being healthy became completely impossible, and we had to eat out 2x a day. Currently, we are staying in Alcantara, and it feels like we are exploring the “how to die” protocol.

“Natural” is one part of the puzzle for a healthy life. Infrastructure, distribution of food, accessibility, and availability are the other parts. Longevity is directly related to options. And first-world countries provide options.

So, unless you put in the effort to build your self-sufficient longevity system in a developing country, the dream of eating wild-caught fish from the ocean under a coconut tree after doing pull-ups in an outdoor gym is a marketing myth.

I explored a very large volume of data, therefore could not include every piece of information. If you are wondering why I only mentioned a few countries and not others in my research article, that is because I did not want to overwhelm my readers. Scroll to the bottom to find my citations.

We only have a week left in the Philippines. Looking forward to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Mongolia. Very curious about my blood test results when we arrive London. I’ll hold my breath, see what the damage is, and move on with my life.

All the images I use have been generated using deepai.org (the pop art generator). 🦸‍♀️

If this post is helpful to you, it will probably help others too. Share with a colleague, and if you haven’t done so, subscribe.

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For more information, see below:

1. British Food Journal, Volume 122 (2019) — Rice arsenic contamination: ingentaconnect.com/content/mcb/070/2019/00000122/00000001/art00009

2. Environmental Geochemistry and Health, Springer Nature (2005) — Heavy metal contamination in Asian agricultural soils: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10653-005-4670-7

3. Nature Communications (2019) — Agricultural land use and infectious disease risk in Southeast Asia (includes melioidosis burden data): nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12333-z

4. “Asian Development Bank and WHO cold chain reports”

5. Discover Food, Springer Nature (2024) — Cold chain energy access challenges: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44187-024-00129-0

6. FAO / UNEP (2022) — Refrigeration infrastructure gap; cold storage capacity comparison: openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/cf42e3c6-157e-4ea9-8873-8b3cc9242b96/content

7. FAO (2022) — Post-harvest food losses in developing countries: fao.org/4/mb060e/mb060e02.pdf

8. The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia (2025) — Ultra-processed food volume growth in SEA: thelancet.com/journals/lansea/article/PIIS2772-3682(25)00104-0/fulltext

9. Nature npj Biofilms and Microbiomes (2021) — Western vs non-Western gut microbiome composition: nature.com/articles/s41522-021-00248-x

10. BukitVista / RoadGenius (2024) — Tourism as a share of Bali’s economy: roadgenius.com/statistics/tourism/indonesia/bali/

Over the past 5 years, the research coming out on gut health have been fascinating. While we know that every organ interacts with and impacts other systems in our bodies, how it all works and where the gut fits into this picture has remained mysterious for most of medical history. Viome is working towards uncovering insights for us, so I used their gut health intelligence test kit as an experiment in early February 2025.

I’ve been wanting to write this review for the past 6 months, but waited patiently to retest before sharing public opinions. Glad I didn’t jump the gun. 6 months ago, I may have been Viome’s biggest fan and cheerleader in social conversations, and have not paid much attention to some red flags due to my subjective feelings and excitement about the space. My knowledge on longevity and HealthTech innovation has 10x-ed within the past 12 months, which has also rewarded me with a more critical and scientific lens to view products.

You may want to skip to certain sections that are relevant to you because I tend to write essays. To give you a shortcut, in this article, you will find…

• Backstory, gut microbiome science, and company info

• What I dislike about Viome

  • Including some snippets of my results and David’s results

  • Including Viome’s official response

• Thoughts of innovation

• What I like about Viome

• My goals & future experiments

• Final words

Backstory, Gut Microbiome Science, and Company Info

To bring everyone on the same page, Viome started as a gut health intelligence test kit provider, then extended itself to oral health, and jumped on the ‘biological age’ testing trend.

The company now has a partnership with Evvy (vaginal microbiome testing) led by Priyanka Jain, the daughter of Viome’s CEO. So, the family has taken on an ecosystem to specialise in the research and analysis of microbiomes that are not commonly studied, contributing to advancements in medical ‘mystery boxes’.

The gut health kit collects a stool sample, the oral health kit collects saliva, and the full body intelligence test collects stool, saliva and blood test. The results from the test kit are revealed in different categories (like ‘gut lining’, ‘TMA production’), given a score out of 100, and a ranking (attention, improve or maintain). These categories and scores are then used to produce a list of recommended foods and supplements, along with a list of foods to minimise and avoid (for the next 6-12 months).

This is a huge step into personalised nutrition. Personalised health has been the theme for longevity experts in 2023 - 2024, because everybody has slightly different needs. AI is making the transition into personalised medicine even sooner, and Viome takes advantage of this technology.

Let’s dive into the gut microbiome science.

The gut is another organ, just like the liver and kidneys, and the ‘gut microbiome’ includes all the bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea and eukaryotes that inhabit the human body.

• The gut is about 6.7–9.2 meters long, depending on the person’s weight (not height). Given the length, foods generally take 14 to 58 hours to move through one’s digestive tract (the average time being 28 hours).

• There are ~10x the number of microbial cells in the human gut than in the whole human body, totalling roughly 38 - 100 trillion microbes, and 1,000 - 5,000 different species.

• Women (before menopause) have a much higher variety of gut microbiome than men, and require a larger plant variety for a healthy diet. After menopause, the female gut microbiome starts to resemble the male gut microbiome. This is assumed to influence the “menopausal symptoms” like mood swings.

• Women need +25g and men need +35g of fibre a day. More recent research is suggesting a diet of 1 : 2.5 ratio (fibre : protein) for the most effective protein digestion and longevity. So, if you are consuming 120g of protein, this means consuming at least 48g of fibre a day. However, most people don’t consume more than 15g of fibre a day.

• It’s recommended to consume +30 different types of plant foods in your diet every week. This number includes herbs and spices.

• Individuals with the highest fibre consumption have a 22-23% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to those with the lowest intake. A 10g increase in fiber per 1000 kcal corresponds to roughly 4.3 to 5.4 fewer years of biological aging for some individuals.

• Everyone’s microbiome is different, just like their fingerprint. Even identical twins are known to only share about 34% of the same gut microbes. Unrelated people share about 30%.

• Couples who live together tend to have more similar gut microbiomes than siblings. In fact, the longer a couple lives together, the more similar their gut microbiome becomes. This is largely driven by shared diets and intimacy. For example, a 10-second kiss can transfer about 80 million bacteria. Choose your partner wisely!

• The gut produces 95% of a person’s serotonin and 50% of their dopamine. The gut has its own nervous system (enteric nervous system) with neurons and neurotransmitters, allowing it to communicate with the brain, influencing mood and anxiety.

• 70% of the immune system resides in the gut. Your gut microbiome and the foods that travel through the gut influence (or “train”) your immune system in how it responds to irritants and disease.

• Key vitamins produced by the gut microbiome: B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12 (in colon) and K2.

• Leaky gut is highly associated with chronic stress, PTSD and C-PTSD, due to the damage elevated cortisol levels cause to the gut lining. These profiles also commonly experience vitamin B deficiencies, especially B5 and B12 (for women). However, in most countries (including Australia), testing for certain B-vitamins, like B5, is not available and discouraged.

• Up to 40-50% of adults globally experience chronic, uncomfortable gut symptoms, like bloating, constipation and abdominal pain.

• Faecal Microbiota Transplantation can be used to treat certain diseases. However, individual experiences show that it comes with the risk of inheriting the “healthier” individual’s “unhealthy” traits. For example, one may cure their severe acne within weeks, but take on depression in return. Fascinating stuff! Due to the risks associated with this method, healthcare professionals currently only prescribe this method under controlled care to treat severe bacterial infections in the colon.

• Gut dysbiosis is linked to obesity, Type-2 diabetes, heart diseases, IBS, immune diseases and mental health diseases.

This brings me to Viome’s mission statement: “to digitize, decode, and decipher human biology for the prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of chronic diseases and cancer.”

How? Well, by matching the trillions of microbial cells to different pathway activities and diseases. It’s the logic of, “X profile with groups of Y and Z always links to Type-2 diabetes.”

To access these insights…

1. Fill out their questionnaire that asks about specific symptoms (i.e. skin conditions, mental health conditions), including how much you poop and fart.

2. Collect your samples. For gut health intelligence tests (which is what we have done initially), this is only a stool sample. For full body intelligence tests (which is what we have done as a follow-up test), this is a stool, saliva and blood sample.

3. Ship the testing kit back to Viome’s lab in the US.

4. An AI model analyses the samples to produce “health zones” (individual scores for specific markers), “microbiome profile” (i.e. diversity, dysbiosis), and “recommendations” (foods and supplements). If you purchased the full body intelligence test, you will also receive a biological age and inflammaging score.

5. If you live in the US, you can purchase your custom supplements directly from Viome.

If you think there is a lot of pattern recognition and correlations going on, you are spot on. That’s how Viome operates. And that’s what most of the scientific research on gut health has been based on (along with some fancy trials of faecal transfers, changing diets to track changes in the gut, etc).

On one argument, Viome “must be” super precise and accurate, as there could be trillions of different combinations of microbiome a person has, some of which gut health specialists are newly discovering (i.e. the Tanzanian villagers who eat +100g of natively grown fibre a day). On the other hand, this is an extremely challenging space to operate in with “too many” combinations and possibilities to comprehend.

Side note: I won’t comment about the oral microbiome side of things. I know when to step down, and this isn’t my area of expertise… for now. Out of everything I have obsessed about in the longevity space, oral health is still on my list of things to research. All I know is that my dentist thinks my gums are very healthy, and I only have 1 filling from past carelessness (the average is 4.6 for people aged between 20 - 35). This space (how oral microbiome impacts the rest of the organs) is also very new, with lots of mysteries to still uncover.

The catch with Viome was their personalised recommendations. The world is a paradise when someone has all the answers for you. Eat exactly like this for longevity — how easy. What’s the other option? Keep guessing what your body needs? I mean, sure, it needs “whole foods”, but maybe it needs some whole foods more than others. It’s very tempting to know that you can crack the code, especially if you have the discipline, diligence and passion to follow through, as David & I did.

On top of that, there comes the very inspirational vision statement: “Imagine A World Where Illness Is Optional” — by Naveen Jain, the CEO of Viome.

I had a few things I wanted to work on and understand about my body early last year, so I thought, why not? And I wife-pressured David to purchase a separate kit too.

I had 2 main goals:

1. Find out which type of seafood was making me feel like sh*t.

   I love seafood. Most of the time, I experience no issues when I eat seafood. Occasionally, when I get a “seafood mix” with +4 types of seafood, I experience an intense stabbing pain and sweating for about 2 hours. We went to the hospital twice for it in the past. However, we could not figure out the mystery, so I stopped having seafood altogether.

   I knew that Viome is not an official food intolerance test kit, but I thought it could give me a rough idea. No harm trying.

2. Find out whether I could have an impact on my PMS symptoms by making my gut healthier.

   About 4 days before my period, I generally experience the standard PMS symptom package that 40% of women have: bloating, mood swings, food cravings, constipation, etc. It was never severe enough for me to seriously pursue in the past, but I did not want to have any sort of monthly discomfort. If I can fully eliminate it, why not pursue this?

David had one goal: improve mental clarity and sharpness. Fair. For most individuals, cognitive health begins to decline from age 30, with faster and more noticeable changes typically occurring from age 60. So, if there is an age one should get on top of their cognitive health, it should probably be NOW.

I normally start my review with the pros, but honestly, there isn’t a lot to say, and the pros do come with some “exceptions”. So, I’m leaving that to the end.

What I Dislike About Viome?

The app that never loads

There is a line that a product needs to cross for me to complain about the technology, and it’s quite a generous one for HealthTech companies — rarely happens. My patience with HealthTech companies when it comes to user experience comes from the fact that the accuracy of testing and science backing of the model matters the most (by far).

However, somehow, Viome crossed that line for David & I, multiple times. It took me over 50 minutes to complete their “5-minute questionnaire” due to how slow each question loaded and the constant crashes. The process was so painful that I aged during the process (pun intended), and for the first time ever, I was bothered enough to bother going to the Google Store and leave feedback. It still makes me feel bad, because I dislike complaining when there is a team of people working hard to improve an app. But the app just does not work half of the time. Maybe because we live in Australia and the US time zones with dev release crossover. But I hardly ever use the app now. Given up. And it seems like we are not the only ones. Sharing only 2 examples below.

Just use the desktop version.

Customer Service

I’ve had a few experiences with the customer support team, and if I was to put an adjective to describe my experience, it would be ‘sloppy.’

The US changed their tax laws for overseas imports and exports on the 29th of August. Unsurprisingly, living in Australia and having no connections in the US, I was not aware of this and what it meant for Viome parcels.

I tried to send my parcel to Viome mid-October via Australia Post. After a couple of weeks, my parcel was returned. The only explanation given was that other “biological and non-biological samples were also being sent back.” So, I wanted to reach out to the Viome’s team and explain the situation. Their customer support email was hidden, almost impossible to find. I had to explain the situation to the chatbot, which kept on telling me that this is my problem and Viome is not responsible for returned parcels. Then, I asked for the customer support email. Eventually, the chatbot gave me an email.

Between the 15th and the 22nd of October, we discussed the situation and what to do about it. Here is a snippet from the conversation:

“I can go ahead and process a free replacement kit for you if that works. Could you please confirm your shipping ZIP code and the month and day of birth so I can verify your account and set this up? When your kit gets to you and you’re ready to send it back, just give me a shout and I’ll walk you through the steps.”

I thought, “oh, that’s great. It seems like they are experimenting with a chatbot. They need to refine it, but my problem is resolved. Thanks, team.”

But my problem was not resolved.

On the 7th of November, I sent a follow-up:

“I just want to double check that another Viome parcel was sent to ………………………. AUSTRALIA? I did not receive anything (and usually parcels from Viome arrive pretty quick), so wanted to check with you.”

On the 11th of November, I received a very odd response, asking if I have the package on hand so they can look up the tracking number. Clearly, someone didn’t read my email properly. So, on the same day, I respond with:

“Not sure what you are referring to, sorry. I don’t have the package. That’s why I am following up. I didn’t receive an ID number.”

A day later, I realised that no one actually sent the parcel to me.

“I took a look at your account, and it looks like no new orders have been processed or shipped to you. The most recent order we have on file is the kit you sent back to us in October. Right now, we haven’t received those samples at our lab yet.”

So, I took a deep breath in and replied back with:

“We emailed each other about 4 weeks ago. My original parcel could not be shipped. So you replied with……………..[quoting].”

So, my parcel was sent on the 14th of October. It was a downer because I was so excited to send my results. It was also frustrating that someone forgot about a customer. I guess it was a human mistake. And maybe their support email platform does not show the interaction history (the same email thread). Felt sloppy to me.

Here’s the other thing: they never informed me that the root cause of the issue was US tax laws. So, we had the same issue, again. As a consumer, I didn’t know I was expected to read up on every country’s tax law updates for different sized parcels. Generally, I trust the company to explain the shipping process to me and the post office to ship my parcel appropriately. To my luck, both didn’t happen.

My parcel was held for a week in US customs because “Viome has to pay taxes,” said someone from DHL on the phone. I was quite confused, but the person on the phone was confident that Viome would know about this. So, my back-and-forth emails resumed. Here’s a summary:

• Viome’s stance: “When shipping test samples internationally to Viome’s lab, all customs duties, taxes, and related fees are the responsibility of the sender. Viome does not cover international shipping or customs-related costs, including duties and taxes.”

• DHL’s stance: “As discussed, Duties & Taxes are US government fees charged for items entering the country. Duties are the responsibility of the importer (receiver) when it comes to payment. Linked here is a guide explaining this in more detail. For that reason, we can’t accept a payment from you.” [referring to me, Doa]

• My stance: “I bought this test kit before the US tax laws changed. This isn’t a rule imposed by DHL. If it were, then I would have paid at the counter while shipping. No one mentioned this to me. I asked the lady on the phone if I could make the payment on Viome’s behalf, and she said, no. I can submit payment or transfer money to Viome, and Viome can pay the taxes, if that’s an option.”

This went around in circles for way too long. I wanted to pay. DHL would not accept payment from me, as they were not the ones demanding payment in the first place. Viome would not even try to help my situation and took the attitude of, “too much hassle, not my problem.”

So, how was this resolved?

I called up several people in DHL over a week, and a lovely customer support lady had a genius idea to create a “business profile” for me, so I can “appear” as the “importer.” She bent herself backwards to resolve my problem creatively, when Viome did not give a f*ck. Viome did not even explain my why this was happening, making the assumption that I am supposed to be on top of US tax laws, while this lady spent 30 minutes on the phone taking me through the changes that happened on the 29th of August. She also mentioned that their team has been trying to contact Viome to assist with this issue as well (and no one responded to them).

Kudos to DHL! They had no incentive to help me. But they still did.

This is when the Viome experience turned rotten and left a bad taste in my mouth. Sloppy? Seemed more like once you pay for their product, they don’t care.

I don’t mind slow service. I don’t mind when products or people hit restrictions or limits. I minded but also forgotten about the initial sloppiness (forgetting to ship the testing kit). But man… the attitude of, once you pay us, it’s your problem, is unacceptable.

And this attitude is across every part of their business decisions.

End-to-end of their product experience, from the marketing emails (vs the number of educational product emails) they send you, to their app experience, and business model (selling “personalised” supplements)… it feels like the finance and marketing department threw a coup and took over the product and customer support leadership. Everything screams out, “I want to sell you more, more, MORE!”

The “personalised” science

Yep, here I am, critiquing Viome’s model. I want to make a few things clear.

1. I am NOT criticising the research behind gut microbiome and how it impacts the rest of the human body. Absolutely not disputing scientific evidence.

2. I am criticising Viome’s model from a Product Manager’s perspective, based on clear inconsistencies, lack of transparency, and lack of acknowledgement from the wider scientific or medical community.

3. I do not want to pull the focus on my or my partner’s results, because my criticisms are irrelevant to our results.

I will first share my experience, then brainstorm potential explanations, and share Viome’s response. You be the judge.

• In February 2025, I was given a list of foods to avoid, minimise, enjoy and superfoods, along with a list of gut biotics and supplements. David did the same in March.

• We were determined to stay strict to all recommendations and keen to explore some new supplements. David and I had a supplement routine like Bryan Johnson’s for a while. Eventually, through trial and error, we refined our list of supplements into the “basics” + “specifics to cycle on and off.”

• My symptoms (bloating and sharp period cramps) disappeared. Those were self-reported in the questionnaire Viome gets you to fill out before the test. David somewhat achieved his goal of mental clarity too. However, this was mostly due to adopting a healthier diet and avoiding sugary foods/drinks on an empty stomach which used to give him a sharp blood sugar rise and drop.

• David completed the next round of tests after 4 months, purchasing the full health intelligence test. He religiously followed through all recommendations, except for ‘superfoods’ (about 70%, as he didn’t like the taste of apple vinegar, sauerkraut, etc). Results: he’s had slight improvements in certain areas, but almost all of his supplements changed, his ‘avoid’ list disappeared, and most of his ‘superfoods’ changed. This was a bit confusing. Viome claims that one must avoid a food in the avoid list for 6-12 months. So, how come it’s suggesting after 4 months to “enjoy” these foods (not even “minimise”)? In fact, lean beef even moved from avoid into the “superfood” list, with the suggestion to consume this food almost daily.

• I completed the next round of tests after 9 months, also purchasing the full health intelligence test. I religiously followed through the supplements and superfoods, and followed the ‘avoid’ list for 80% of the time. My results came back worse on many areas, stayed neutral in other areas, and only improved in a few areas. The shocking bit was that the specific markers for “leaky gut” worsened when Viome’s superfood and avoid list was all aimed at improving leaky gut. So, 9 months of effort for nothing? Some of my ‘superfoods’ and ‘avoids’ were flipped, which was quite concerning. So, by following Viome’s recommendations and regularly consuming artichoke, kefir, yoghurt and asparagus, etc, I successfully irritated my gut, and these became foods that I should ‘avoid’ for the next 6-12 months. How? On the flip side, buckwheat suddenly moved from avoid to superfoods, with no in-between recommendation of “make sure you slowly introduce buckwheat, as this was in your avoid list for the past 9 months.” The supplement list also changed significantly, with “tribulus” being introduced.

• Despite being completely suspicious of these recommendations, I tried to consume buckwheat 3 times since the results. Each time, I experienced bloating and sharp stomach cramps. I did not need to consume 605g of tribulus (as suggested) because I already know how that would impact me. Last year, I accidentally took David’s tribulus supplement (known to boost testosterone in men) in 250g for a week (mixed up our pills). Let me tell you something: that week was a nightmare. Sometimes, we look back and laugh about my behaviour during that week. Let’s say I’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like to be a 14-years-old boy… with full blast anger, “you wanna fight, you think you’re tough, I’m tougher” energy, “leave me alone dude” attitude, and a never-ending horny-ness. At one time, I got so angry after burning the eggs that I walked outside and hammered that pan on the grass until it broke off. Not kidding. David looked scared because I generally either feel happy, dreamy, bubbly, bouncy, sometimes sad, but very rarely, angry. Not something I wish to experience again. And Viome recommends 2.42x the dose. Not sure what to think. My mouth dropped open.

So… what do you make of this story?

I was very confused and concerned. There were a lot of questions circling through my head.

I needed answers. I was not ready to rule out Viome, and wanted to give them a chance, an opportunity to explain this before any I came up with my theories and conclusions.

So, I sent them an email. It’s long with a lot of questions — no accusations, I respect the team and the vision they are striving towards. 9 days later, I received a strong response. I really appreciate that.

Here are my thoughts and theories… and Viome’s responses

Viome’s recommendations are purely based on the questionnaire/survey (or heavily, >50%, influenced by it)

This could explain the sudden shifts between ‘avoids’ and ‘superfoods’.

Example: buckwheat moved from “avoid” (for leaky gut) to “superfood” (for mood) after I selected a mood-related goal, even though leaky gut indicators remain present.

A few other foods have also changed, following this logic (from my observations and deep-dives).

The downer is that it defeats the whole purpose of Viome. I mean, I could have asked ChatGPT, “recommended foods and supplements for female hormonal balance and mood.” It would have also handed me a generic risk.

Seems like others arrived at the same conclusion, too.

Viome’s response:

“Food recommendations are driven primarily by your health scores, which reflect gene expression activity across pathways. Self-reported goals do not override your biological data. Instead, the goals help highlight which pathways to prioritize and focus on when generating recommendations to support those specific outcomes.”

So, I guess we agree.

This comes down to subjective opinions, but I don’t see the value in following Viome’s recommendations any more than avoiding ultra-processed foods, refined sugars and carbs, and using my own AI model to ask advice based on specific health goals that I have.

Maybe I am being cynical, but I want to opt in for a model that identifies and prioritises what I need, rather than what I think I need (or what I want). It kind of kills the selling point for me.

Viome sample quality degrades over time (shipping & transit time impacts accuracy)

Viome’s response:

“Your sample remains stable for up to 30 days due to the preservatives used in the collection kits. There is no week-by-week degradation curve, and extended transit times do not meaningfully affect accuracy within that window.”

If there is no week-by-week degradation curve, then why have a “30 day” rule? Maybe the degradation curve starts after 30 days. I can accept that.

Viome’s recommendations and results are only accurate with full health intelligence tests (when a blood sample is also collected)

Maybe, the reason behind my markers getting worse, and the food and supplement recommendations list dramatically changing is due to the fact that the gut health intelligence test was never accurate to start off with. We assumed this may be the case after David’s results looked very different as well.

The idea that getting a full comprehensive test with more markers collected (blood AND stool) showing more accurate results makes sense.

The real danger is that you could be recommended foods and supplements that actually harm your gut and other organs. This really concerned me. Feels unethical to sell the gut health intelligence test (at least without clearly highlighting the risks associated with it) when data is not reliable?

Potentially, the recommendations could harm someone. Maybe that’s why my results have become worse over time — maybe Viome’s recommendations caused further harm to my gut.

However, how come neither the stool sample nor the blood sample could not pick up that certain foods/supplements were impacting me negatively — i.e. buckwheat and tribulus?

Viome’s response:

“Viome results are a snapshot of your biological needs at a specific moment in time. Your microbiome, cellular activity, and immune responses are highly dynamic…

In your case, this change is also influenced by the fact that you upgraded from Gut Health Intelligence to Full Body Intelligence. Your newer recommendations are no longer based on gut data alone. They now incorporate gut, oral, and cellular (blood) gene expression. As a result, a food that was previously beneficial for one system may be temporarily limited if another system now needs priority support.

For example, in the case of buckwheat, even if some gut lining indicators remain present, your updated data may show that its compounds now provide a stronger net benefit for pathways related to mood or neurotransmitter balance, while other foods are better suited to address gut lining support at this stage.

This is why recommendations can feel like a tradeoff, but they are designed to optimize your overall biological function rather than a single marker.

Gut Health Intelligence recommendations are not harmful. They are simply narrower in scope and may be refined once additional biological data becomes available through Full Body Intelligence.

Our recommendations do not guarantee that specific pathway scores will improve linearly, especially because the microbiome and immune system are influenced by many factors beyond food and supplements, including stress, sleep quality, illness, medications, and environmental changes.

It’s also not uncommon to see certain scores decline while symptoms improve. This can happen when the body is recalibrating... Fluctuations do not necessarily indicate regression. They often help guide the next phase of personalization, which is exactly why retesting is valuable.

Firstly, glad to hear that recommendations are not harmful. Makes me less concerned.

Secondly, I think this proves that the “recommendations” feature isn’t valuable.

The “avoids” list doesn’t contain foods that actually harm a biological system. If you choose to avoid those foods, you may optimise one aspect of your health. Emphasis on “may” because, depending on which test you purchase, what you should “avoid” will change. Also, because recommendations are a “tradeoff.” By avoiding certain foods, you are only “helping” one particular goal, while simultaneously not helping another goal. You can never win, never do the right thing for your health! There is no net positive. It’s net neutral, “which is exactly why retesting is valuable,” as Viome said. How convenient for the business!

It’s the attitude that every food is helping AND harmful to you, depending on the angle you choose to look at it — quite cynical (and vague), not a mindset I’d like to adopt with whole foods.

Thirdly, I am questioning the reliability of the model altogether.

• “Biological needs at a specific moment in time” — how specific? Monthly? Weekly? Daily?

• “Highly dynamic” — how dynamic?

• Hence why, “fluctuations don’t necessarily indicate regression” — how much fluctuations within what time frame? What is the point of testing?

“Viome does not evaluate individual biomarkers in isolation. Instead, we analyze gene expression patterns and map them to functional biological pathways.”

Which genes? The human genome has approximately 30,000 genes. Some resources suggest between 20,000 - 25,000 protein coding genes.

Worse is that some of these genes (expression) change on a daily basis! I’ve lost my head in research papers for a couple of hours, then took another hour on LLMs for a different opinion. Conclusion: “inputs (dietary change, stress, sleep, etc) can shift gut microbial gene expression within 24-72 hours.”

Viome mentioned that stress can also impact the test results. 2 weeks leading up to the test were a stressful time for me due to family conflict. But this week, I feel incredibly excited to head off for an amazing hike in Tasmania. So, did I suddenly become “biologically younger,” or did my leaky gut suddenly move from X score to Y score? Do you see how murky the waters get?

Given all that, and even for the sake of improving accuracy, how is Viome comfortable with collecting only 1 stool sample? See the section below for my elaboration on this topic.

Viome’s just trying to make money

I mean… they make their profits from supplement subscriptions (which are expensive). This is a common criticism the company receives. If I was a Product Manager at Viome, I would put a ton of focus into building customer trust, especially when the business model raises suspicions.

I think I can comfortably make the assumption that most of their customers don’t purchase their test more than once a year. Some of their customers may purchase their test 2x a year. Plenty of their customers never repeat the test. That’s the nature of how “testing” companies work. Repeat customers are very challenging. People who are into regular testing (like I am) will most likely follow this approach on comprehensive blood tests instead, where they can actually see their exact results.

As mentioned before, how convenient it is that fluctuations can happen regularly, so customers should purchase a test and keep updating their supplements frequently. Not to mention their recommended supplement list is both long and in very odd quantities, so individually purchasing them online is a huge hassle, especially if you have to update them every 4-6 months. You may as well open a local chemist.

Hypothetically, if a company were to constantly update the supplements recommendations list it would incentive customers to purchase an ongoing subscription to their supplements service. But it can’t be too bad, right? After all, the gut loves a bit of variety! (Deliberate sarcasm).

Model limitations: how is Viome comfortable with collecting only 1 stool sample?

Many clinical stool tests deliberately require 2–3 samples collected on different days for well-studied reasons.

1. Stool is highly heterogeneous. A single bowel movement is not biologically uniform. Different regions of the same stool can contain different microbial communities; gas-producing microbes may be unevenly distributed.

2. This often falls through the cracks, but day-to-day variability is also influenced by stool transit time, circadian rhythms, hormonal fluctuations, and the last meal.

Hence, some studies show that one’s ****gut microbiome composition can vary from day to day, especially at the gene expression level, which is what Viome focuses on.

Examples:

• Clinical parasitology guidelines often require 3 samples over 3 days because a single sample can miss up to 30–50% of detectable organisms.

• In 20 healthy Belgian women with daily sampling over 6 weeks (713 faecal samples)…

  • For 78% of genera, day-to-day absolute abundance variation was larger within a person than between people.

  • 72% of genera showed >10-fold shifts between consecutive daily samples.

Why is Viome asking for 1 sample? Here’s my suspicion: it’s a hassle. Some people experience regular constipation. Asking customers to collect 3 samples may be annoying for people. It’s a tradeoff — by simplifying the process, they are lowering the accuracy of understanding one’s biological needs. It’s also cheaper for Viome to only work with 1 stool sample.

Viome’s response was sure of their AI model’s accuracy. I believe them. But an AI model is only as accurate as the samples provided. And the gut microbiome result accuracy does not mean accuracy of “recommendations,” as there are quite a few people who point out that Viome can’t tell if someone is intolerant or allergic to certain foods. One example below.

Model limitations: how come Viome cannot recognise intolerances?

So, they are confident that they can recognise when a food causes inflammation in the gut, but they cannot recognise intolerance. How? I thought that when one consumes foods they are intolerant to, these foods will cause inflammation in the gut. So, theoretically, Viome should be able to pick up when foods are not good for the gut. Right?

I know they have labels to say that they are not a medical diagnosis tool and shouldn’t be taken as an allergy test. But I would assume that they can see to some extent whether a food or a supplement hurts the gut or not. It just makes sense!

So, how come they recommended tribulus as a supplement? How come buckwheat (which gives me sharp stomach cramps for hours) is my superfood? How come tomatoes moved from ‘avoid’ to ‘enjoy’ when they still make me bloated? There are other examples like this too. How come Viome’s AI model can’t tell?

Model limitations: I don’t think I was being compared against others of my age and gender

I suspected this after the dramatic contradictions between TruDiagnostic and Viome test results for energy pathways, mitochondrial health and oxidative stress. Guys, not to brag, but I’m 16 years old with my OMICm biological age (9 years younger on TruDiagnostic) for a reason. My energy pathways are like fireworks.

Something that I learned from the TruDiagnostic experience is that inflammation and oxidative stress change immensely from age 18 to 80. “High oxidative” stress for a 40-years-old could be “excellent” levels for an 18-years-old, due to the high (or appropriate) levels of compounds tracked in the person that play a critical role in cellular health.

I don’t expect the exact same results, and it’s not realistic to expect that either, given the differences in models. But my results across almost all fields were exact opposites of each other. So, I asked, “are results benchmarked against age/gender cohorts or the general Viome customer population?” Here is the response:

“Your results are benchmarked against a large internal reference cohort of over 600,000 samples analyzed to date, rather than narrow age or gender bands alone.”

I hate to be right. Viome is comparing apples to oranges. Of course, the male and female microbiome is different. There are also several studies showing postmenopausal microbiomes as less diverse, and more similar to men than the premenopausal microbiome (e.g. postmenopausal women have higher Bacteroides sp. Ga6A1, Prevotella marshii, Sutterella wadsworthensis, and lower Escherichia coli–Shigella spp., Akkermansia muciniphila, Parabacteroides johnsonii).

I wonder… Who are these +600,000 people? Mostly women or men? What age range are they in? What % are pregnant or breastfeeding as they completed the test? Are they overall on the healthier or unhealthier side (i.e. what % of their customers have +1 chronic diseases due to lifestyle factors)? Who was my data really benchmarked against?

This may explain why their supplements are recommended in very strange doses (i.e. not taking male/female, body size into account). Just 2 examples, so I don’t bore you:

• 605mg of tribulus for me? That was shocking, especially given how I reacted to 250mg.

• David was recommended the tiniest amount of ashwagandha, even for a woman. He’s a tall and big man. I’ve done a lot of research on ashwagandha for both of us as part of my “healing nervous system” protocol, and he has even tested out the recommended amount. The dose is too low. Maybe it’s “enough” to aid with one gut-related goal, but not enough for noticeable improvements.

Model limitations: biological age heavily relies on gut health

I had this suspicion due to the contradictory results from TruDiagnostic and Viome. I hypothesised that their model heavily relies on the stool sample (instead of blood tests, because this is their original area of speciality), and uses blood tests as an “extra” or “addition” to “complete the picture” — meaning, the blood test is only used when it’s not possible to view a pathway via the gut.

Here comes the truth:

“Viome’s BioAge and system scores are derived from functional gene expression across gut, oral, and blood samples, with significant input from microbiome activity. Other platforms, such as TruDiagnostic, rely more heavily on epigenetic or methylation-based markers from blood alone.”

Nothing wrong with that, but it needs to be made clear from the beginning. When a blood test is included in the testing kit, there is a certain assumption that comes from the customer.

While gut health is very important (and certainly a goal for me to work on over the next 3-5 years), I’m not interested in my “gut health age”. It’s a subjective opinion or a mindset (a certain way of viewing health) — I acknowledge that a lot of gut health research is based on correlations, and this is still a very new field — so, I view gut as one organ among many other organs, rather than the key determiner of mortality/biological age.

Again, nothing wrong with that, but want to share with my audience, so you are aware of Viome’s bias towards gut health.

Model limitations: questions around scientific backing, reliability and transparency

I don’t mind that Viome is not FDA-approved. But I expect full, end-to-end transparency and evidence of reliability, accuracy and science-backing. This is where Viome enters into the “dodgy” territory.

Here’s their response:

“Viome has conducted internal validation and repeatability studies, and our science is supported by peer-reviewed research. You can explore published studies and methodology in more detail at viome.com/publications.”

Yes, this link does show that Viome has peer-reviewed publications describing their RNA/metatranscriptomic* approaches and some clinical work. I tried to consume a lot of this content and used LLM to assist me.

But, almost all of this work is produced and validated by Viome (how convenient) AND it does not automatically validate the consumer-facing “health scores” + recommendation engine.

*Metatranscriptomics: study of the total RNA produced by microbial communities at a specific time. It reveals gene expression within microbes, their metabolic activities, and responses to environmental changes.

“Peer-reviewed research” ≠ “independently validated consumer product”.

Maybe the study is there, but I could not find a publicly available table to answer (and to share in my blog):

“If I do the test 3x back-to-back under controlled conditions, what’s my expected variance band?”

This is the question I sent to Viome. In retrospect, I should have also asked to see this table across shipping delays.

It seems like I am not the only one who noticed this. In fact, it seems like someone even tried to send multiple samples to Viome to run this test.

See 2 other researcher reviews from people smarter than me.

Exert from XCODE.life (screenshot):

Found a review on Wired recently.

“In reality, there is very little clarity to these “insights,” there’s almost no transparency behind the “health scores,” and the list of food recommendations is all over the place. If I were a cynic, I would think that Viome is making things deliberately obtuse so people get overwhelmed and just shell out for Viome’s wildly expensive “Precision Formulas” (i.e., supplements). I might be a cynic.

…

At this point, I was three layers deep, but Viome does not tell you in the app what it’s actually testing. We reached out to Viome, and Grant Antoine, a naturopathic doctor and the nutrition and clinical lead at Viome, responded that Viome uses RNA sequencing to decode the gene activity of mitochondrial proteins; the company does have its own research facility with its own proprietary sequencing methods. Antoine also pointed out that the raw data from RNA sequencing isn’t interpretable or useful without Viome’s AI-enabled bioinformatic analysis.

Without any numbers that I could double-check or run past any other experts, it was hard to trust these results.”

Interesting. I’m the sort of person who would get a 2nd opinion on most things relating to my health (i.e. go to see 2 specialists, if a surgery is required, maybe even 4 specialists).

If I was a product leader in Viome… in such a new field with lots of caution about longevity science, rather than trying to keep my model inside a black box so potential competitors don’t copy my secrets, I would try to optimise my product for transparency so I collect customer trust. This is especially important because to my knowledge, Viome is not selling their test kits to dieticians (as it’s not a medical diagnosis tool).

And there you have it. Mini essay on “cons” is over.

It’s such a shame because I’ve been a big fan of Viome for about 4-5 months last year. It’s also a bit embarrassing because I talked them up a lot in my social circle and now am tracing my steps back with the attitude of, “my mistake, don’t judge me.”

Thoughts of Innovation

Given how long my “what I dislike about Viome” section was, I will keep this short.

• Unfortunately, supplements are not shipping to many countries outside of the US. Would have been convenient for us to order directly from Viome. On the flip side, I discovered Bioniq (UK company), which does custom supplement mixtures.

• Despite not being able to ship supplements to Australia, I was able to go through their “upgraded” funnel to “purchase” the option with a subscription for supplements. I hope that’s a product mistake/accident. Just make sure you read their T&Cs and check that you will actually receive every component of the product to your address before you pay.

• Test Kit (collecting samples): would be nice to add an additional finger prick. It was very hard to collect blood for me. David did not struggle as much, but it was still challenging for him.

• Email comms are out of date (about 7 - 10 days after). Example: if my parcel arrives to Viome on the 2nd, I will receive an email on the 10th to inform me that my parcel arrived. Likewise, for when my results are available to view.

• The “recommendations” list should recognise the customer context/history and provide tips accordingly. Example: it would be nice to provide a tip to a customer on how they can slowly introduce broccoli to their diet as a “superfood” after avoiding this food completely for the past 6-12 months. That way, changes would not be shocking to the gut.

• Collaborations: it would really help their credibility to get out of their ecosystem and collaborate with external HealthTech businesses, gut health professionals, etc. Not longevity influencers they can pay — I do trust some of them, but again, it breaks trust when you pay someone to say nice things about your product.

• More thought-leadership: Viome strikes me as a company that is too marketing-heavy. I would like to see more thought-leadership and educational communication (and less promotional) by the company. I don’t want them to lead the market because they are the first one who entered into the space — that’s not a long-term strategy. Currently, they still exist in their own eco chamber.

• On Viome’s questionnaire, have an option to skip the “goals.” If recommendations are influenced by the goals a user selects, then I would not want to intervene with these results — I would like the option to skip this question or select “improve general health.”

What I Like About Viome

First Time Recommendations “Worked”

Now, this is going to sound contradictory. I went on and on about the faults and lack of transparency and potential risks (or ineffectiveness) of trusting Viome’s recommendations. Now, I’m saying that they actually work. What???

I think this goes back to an earlier comment I made: “the goals help highlight which pathways to prioritize and focus on when generating recommendations” (quoted from Viome’s response). So, it’s no surprise that when I faced some challenges with my gut health (during the first test) and filled out the questionnaire with noticeable symptoms in mind, the recommendations helped.

For full transparency, this is what worked.

• Bloating: especially leading up to my periods, I used to experience noticeable bloating. Sometimes, without an explanation, after dinners, I would bloat too. I was suspicious of tomatoes (which are a big part of the Mediterranean cuisine, my birthplace), white rice and gluten. Turns out, I should be avoiding those. I felt validated. No more issues ever since. Viome now reckons I can “enjoy” tomatoes, but I’m still limiting my consumption, as I feel like consuming a lot of tomatoes still cause the same issue.

• Constipation** leading up to periods: not sure if Viome’s recommendations really helped with this, but I know that eating more fibre did. I used to follow the standard guide for female adults: 25g of fibre a day. Guys, that’s the bare minimum. Your life will change if you consume more fibre, as long as you slowly introduce more fibre. There is a ton of scientific evidence for that, conducted in “healthy” individuals. I have slowly worked my way up to 40g of fibre a day last year. I experimented with 50g of fibre and realised that this is the threshold for how much fibre my body can handle, so eventually settled down for 45g of fibre (on average) every day. I also set a goal to track my water intake and increase my water intake, which greatly helped. So, not sure how much of the credit actually goes to Viome for this.

• Sharp and heavy period cramps that require a ton of pills: this was probably the 2nd biggest win after the bloating mystery. Viome introduced me to 2 herbal supplements, which were a game-changer. I later found out that these supplements were known in traditional herbal medicine for period cramps and regulating female hormones. Dandelion Root and Nettle Leaf. I would like to highly recommend these to everyone suffering from period cramps, because I have not taken period-related pills ever since May 2025, but… I am aware that everyone’s body is unique, so don’t want to take the responsibility of making recommendations. If you want to try, approach with caution.

• The unexplainable sharp stomach cramps with sweating and fever 2x a year: we already knew that this was due to a type of seafood, as it only happened when we cooked “seafood mix”. Viome suggested it could be scallops and clams. So, I tried every other type of seafood individually — I had the guts to do that — and all came out clean. Ever since, I never had scallops or clams, and I never experienced food reaction. However, within the questionnaire, I suggested my suspicions about seafood. So, maybe, they took a hint.

**Constipation means 1 day of not going to the bathroom properly. I have to clarify this because people generally think of constipation as not going to the bathroom for more than a couple of days (which is a BIG PROBLEM in my opinion).

AI-powered result analysis & hyper-personalisation

It’s a pro in theory. It definitely gives them an edge in the market. I am not convinced of the reliability of their recommendations. But it is convenient to receive a list of things to eat and avoid (if you don’t have time to do your own research).

I shared Viome’s response in my blog. Not for me. But maybe for you.

It’s very disappointing because I deeply believe in the idea of “personalised medicine.” However, this month, with some of my other research as well, I’ve been questioning the practical reality behind this idea. If you have the finances to get tested on a daily or a weekly basis on multiple different tests, you could constantly adjust your nutrition and supplements, like a product manager on edge. But if you don’t have a team of advisors and health professionals following your every step and testing you frequently, like some of the longevity influencers do, how accurate is “personalised” medicine when the frequency of data is far apart, like every 6 months? Or perhaps this again comes down to the reliability of each test (product).

Marketing, product packaging, discounts, vision & mission statements

As mentioned before, they have an excellent marketing team. Too good in my opinion. Great marketing strategies, seasonal discounts for affordable test kits (in comparison to other options in the market), modern slick design, and an inspiring and ambitious vision & mission statements. Loved their shiny test kit boxes that come with a card from Viome’s CEO. Promotional activities have been very well thought through. Good for Insta posts, if you’re into that.

My Goals & Future Experiments

I gave up. I surrender. Going to travel around the world for the next 6 months with a YOLO attitude eating Taiwanese fried chicken, spring rolls, taquitos, churros, philly cheesestakes, Crumbl cookies, and whatever else is in my YouTube feed.

Jokes.

Not the travel part, though. When this post goes live, I will be starting the most daring hike in Tasmania, then the 2nd most daring hike. There is a Turkish saying, “the world is a pan and we are the ladle, round and round we go.” That’s the plan.

During this time, and for the rest of the year, I am going back to the basics again — avoid clinically tested intolerances/allergies and eat a variety of seasonal whole foods.

In the past, I crafted my diet based on how well I knew my body. I wish I could offload this to Viome or another company. But given my track record of blood test results, it seems like when I was hands-on with my diet, I had pretty good health. What does being “hands-on” include?

• Comprehensive blood tests 2-4x a year (depending on my budget) to identify areas to work on. I aim for optimal results across everything, not the ‘averages’.

• Adopt a “leaky gut” diet for full protection and continue working on healing my nervous system. I sound like a broken record, but trauma is highly linked to leaky gut.

• Consume 45g of fibre a day. This amount is specific to my body after 12 months of testing, in proportion to daily protein amount.

• Drink an adequate amount of water every day.

• Eat a variety of foods (50 types of plants a week), adopting the rainbow-diet mindset.

• Avoid ultra-processed foods, refined sugar, refined carbs and artificial sweeteners.

• Try to source ‘organic’ options for certain heavily sprayed plants, or ‘wild’, ‘hormone-free’ etc, where/if my budget supports.

• Cap takeout and restaurant foods, especially after my long world trip.

Additionally, in London^, I am planning to get a proper food intolerance and leaky gut test done to identify foods to avoid. If anyone has any recommendations on this, please let me know!

Final Words

At the end of the day, ask yourselves, why do you want a gut health intelligence test? When I really thought through this question, I realised that there is a better product out there for every reason.

• There are clinically approved food intolerance tests that I can complete, provided by medical professionals.

• There are comprehensive blood tests I can purchase to track certain metrics.

• If I’m interested in my biological age, I’ll go with TruDiagnostic.

The use case for Viome is no longer there for me. Because after 12 months, despite still believing in the role gut microbiome plays in longevity, I learned that the gut likes variety.

To finish off, I highly support HealthTech businesses to be innovative and ambitious. I understand how many iterations are needed to perfect formulas and frameworks. However, certain HealthTech products carry a heavier risk and responsibility, hence my strict judgement on Viome. Hope they continue to grow and iterate. I’m curious to see how Viome’s products change over the next 3-5 years.

^Oops, did I mention London? I guess I have to share the news now. We won’t be coming back to Australia anytime soon. September onwards, keen to connect with fellow product people, HealthTech workers and longevity nerds in and around the UK. I’ll be applying for product roles as well. In the meantime, don’t expect to receive many articles from me. I’m planning to be very busy drinking coconuts near a waterfall.

All the images I use have been generated using deepai.org (the pop art generator). 🦸‍♀️

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See my other HealthTech product reviews below:

• Exploring Whoop & starting a major health experiment

• TruDiagnostic Review

• Neurode: Product Testing Experience

• Pulsetto Experiment: Vagal Nerve Stimulation to Improve HRV

Approaching my 25th birthday (which still doesn’t feel real), I decided to put my experiments through a comprehensive test, which would reveal the ‘health status’ of my organs compared to those of others of my gender and age. Of course, I had to pick TruDiagnostic.

I have been really excited to write this review, even though the topic of health and longevity is very sensitive and triggering to some people. Let’s get started and keep our curious scientist hat on (and the judgemental hat off).

You may want to skip to certain sections that are relevant to you (because I tend to write essays). To give you a shortcut, in this article, you will find…

• Backstory (and company info)

• What I love about TruDiagnostic

• What would I love to see improve/change

• Common criticisms of TruDiagnostic

  • Including tips on getting the most accurate outcome of your TruDiagnostic test results

• My results & goals

• Additional links

Backstory

To bring everyone on the same page, TruDiagnostic is a US-based company that specialises in epigenetics and biological age testing. They have 2 main products.

1. TruAge Test

   Provides biological age score (OMICmAge) on a cellular level, organ systems age scores, telomere length info, pace of ageing (DunedinPACE), smoking & alcohol impact scores, grip & gait strength, immunity & inflammation info.

2. TruHealth Test

   Provides a comprehensive view into your body’s essential systems and nutrients via comparing your +105 biomarkers, +75 antioxidants, vitamins and fatty acids with others your age and gender.

You can also get a package option for a cheaper price. Both require blood samples, which you will need to collect by pricking your finger. See below for more details.

They also have many interesting peer-reviewed research publications and clinical trials if you are interested in reading more about longevity.

I knew about TruDiagnostic from my partner; he knew about the company from Bryan Johnson. This was back in early 2023. He got tested, came out 3 years older than his chronological age, and dug into solution mode. We were both fascinated by the report and insights, even though TruDiagnostic was a new company back then. In retrospect, their reports are way more useful and detailed now.

There were 2 reasons why I did not get tested back then. Firstly, I didn’t have the money to spend. Secondly, I didn’t think I would get much value out of the test when I was only 22. However, my excitement and impatience took over, so I made a note to get tested right before my 25th birthday.

How to purchase testing kits from Australia?

I purchased both tests from Chris Barnes. He is an epigenetic performance coach and the Australian partner for TruDiagnostic. The company no longer ships testing kits directly to Australian consumers. You will need to go to Chris Barnes Wellness website and send an email requesting a quote. The process is very easy. The plus side of ordering the kit via Chris is that he can help you to interpret your results and set achievable goals. He’s literally the expert in the field; I felt grateful to grab 30 minutes and bombard him with questions. He also sells a genetic testing kit, if you are interested in that.

Did I “train” (or prepped) for it?

Not really. Firstly, while I wouldn’t call myself very healthy (doing just the standard stuff, like regular exercise, eating lots of fruits, veggies and salmon, etc), I also never had major unhealthy habits (i.e. don’t smoke, don’t drink alcohol, don’t do weekly/fortnightly takeouts, don’t use sauces and excessive sugars, don’t stay up late at night, etc). So I didn’t feel the need to put in a major effort to prep for a test. I also genuinely wanted to see how my current sustainable habits impacted me. My relatively healthy lifestyle was easy, affordable and fun for me. There are two caveats to that, though.

1. Unfortunately, in early 2024, C-PTSD really damaged my health. I won’t get into the details, but needed plenty of help to function well and desire life.

2. In 2025 (and kind of late 2024), longevity became my nerdy hobby. I swung to the opposite direction with the belief that holding a high quality of life is a must-have for being alive (as in… what is the point of living if it mostly consists of suffering?). This is what I wanted to strive towards; healthy habits meant self-care, self-love and self-respect. Hence, my longevity experiments began.

Did I have any expectations from the test?

I expected to learn about my body, the impact of my historical and more recent behaviours/routines/lifestyle choices. I expected to take away some action points and have health goals to work towards.

Besides that, I had no idea what to expect. C-PTSD is a chronic illness impacting multiple organs and systems of the body (unlike the common belief that it’s just “emotional stuff”). Evidence is growing to show the link between trauma and poor brain health, disrupted nervous system, disrupted hormonal health (including lack of, or irregular periods for women, something that I relate to), higher chances of cardiovascular disease, gut health issues, and respiratory problems (if the child has been exposed to smoke).

Trauma can also cause changes in DNA methylation (which alters how genes are expressed) and can even be passed down to future generations. In short, I would not have been surprised at all if I appeared older across most of my organs.

I have also spent the past 12 months having health and longevity conversations with people from various age groups and backgrounds (mostly non-health professionals). This was a part of my HealthTech research as a PM. Something that I learned throughout these conversations is that 90% of people (strongly) think that they are very healthy, just 1-2 steps away from Bryan Johnson, because (quoted) “what’s the point of life if I’m going to be an obsessive freak like him?” Bryan would laugh his ass off hearing that confident claim.

Hearing about the lifestyle and daily habits of most people, I could point to +3 reasons why they were not very healthy within 5-10 minutes. Most common reasons are regular alcohol consumption, poor sleep habits, lack of movement, over-consumption of takeout (and ultra-processed foods), and poor consumption of fibre and omega-3s. However, 90% of people are sure that they are only struggling with their health (i.e. chronic back pain, being overweight, digestion issues) because of their genetics (as in… there is nothing they can do about it).

It’s a very humbling experience to have these conversations — shocks me so much that over the past 6 months, my confidence in my health has dropped. I thought, we must all be deluding ourselves. I have instead started sharing, “I don’t think I am very healthy, but I am definitely doing my best to set healthy habits in my life and improve in sustainable ways.”

One advice I have for people wanting to take the TruDiagnostic test is to approach it with curiosity. Overconfidence, plus a lack of self-awareness, knowledge and responsibility is a recipe for disappointment. And for long-rage threads on Reddit, cursing the company (which some are hilariously childish). Also, keep in mind that the damage from a decade of an unhealthy lifestyle cannot be magically undone by 6 months of trying to be healthy to prep for the test. This isn’t a uni exam you can cram in the last few nights. Just setting the right expectations.

What I love about TruDiagnostic

Accuracy & reliability

This is the most important aspect for an epigenetic test, and TruDiagnostic is arguably the best international provider.

Research behind the 2nd and 3rd gen tests has been developed in partnership with Harvard, Yale and Duke. The company is leveraging the largest private DNA methylation database in the world and has been through rigorous tests for its reliability and accuracy in comparison to the standard blood test results.

Below shows the reliability of different biological ageing clocks. Testing reliability is simple; participants had to get tested using the same test multiple times, and if the results can be consistently replicated, the test is fairly reliable.

Note: some people left reviews online to point out that the reliability is off when the test is repeated in 1-2 months. In 1-2 months, someone can catch a virus (without even showing symptoms), be sleep deprived, have their period (for women with regular monthly cycles), go through additional stress, etc. Blood tests can vary within 1-2 months, or even 2 weeks, as well.

TruDiagnostic’s tests have accuracy because their algorithm is optimised to predict chronic disease and remaining years of life. We still don’t have a standardised ‘golden’ method for measuring biological age (i.e. is telomere length X% important, or X+5% important in predicting overall ageing).* The algorithm of ‘speed of ageing’ is designed based on correlations and the clinical trials scientists have done to date. Therefore, these tests have certain limitations and generally become more accurate as years pass and more research is conducted. However, measuring biological age based on mortality and disease prediction (which come from tracking DNA methylation**, epigenetic biomarkers, collected via blood test) logically makes the most sense.

*Note: TruDiagnostic tests show the telomere age separately, if you are curious.

**Note: DNA methylation is a complex thing to explain, but I’ll do my best. Methyl tags get influenced by environmental factors (i.e. stress, diet); they then influence how our genes are turned on and off (i.e. the gene for dementia or cardiovascular disease). We have thousands and thousands of genes, some are expressed and some are hidden; this is the study of epigenetics. The accumulation of certain methylation patterns is linked to the process of chronological ageing (or having an unhealthy lifestyle, which contributes to biological ageing) — this is now a predictable process for scientists due to the amount of data we have.

In such an important space that needs science backing, TruDiagnostic does not give you the ‘feel good happy talk’ vibes, handing out everyone a gold star for ‘being young.’ Unfortunately, the players in the ‘epigenetic test’ space have increased over the past few years, and some have damaged the credibility of the ‘biological age clocks.’ To be blunt about it, some products are a scam (or completely unscientific), unable to filter out noise in large data samples, showing everyone slightly younger (and fit people dramatically younger). This is where you hear stories like, “I’m 55 and my biological age is 19.” I don’t want to assume it’s intentional, as I’d like to believe that all PMs and scientists are trying to do their best. At the same time, consumers choose to engage with products that make them feel good — basic psychology. I have observed that even the healthiest people can find action areas to focus on from the TruDiagnostic test reports, as you are given results of over 105 biomarkers.

I’m not saying that they are perfect. But neither are standard blood tests; you can expect error rates between 1−6% for many common lab tests. If it helps, you can view the reports as a sign of ageing (or a sign of health) to take away health goals, rather than ‘your set in stone biological age’ (and honestly, it doesn’t matter whether you are 28.2 or 28.8 years old). Arguably, trends of ageing matter more.

For more information on the accuracy and reliability of biological age tests, refer to this page.

⁠Fast turnaround time

From the day I shipped my parcel (express shipping in Australia), it took 2-3 weeks for the results to arrive. They are speedy — won’t make you melt in anticipation.

For people who want to experiment in this space, fast results = quick pivots & iterations on your end = agile testing cycles. 😉

Also, the process was quite easy end-to-end. Completing the questionnaire was quick (even though I overthought each answer), the instructions were clear, and collecting the blood sample was easy (left a mini bruise on my finger afterwards).

You are compared to others of your age and gender

It’s sad to state this as a “pro,” but unfortunately, the blood tests we complete after a GP’s referral don’t compare us to other healthy individuals our age and gender (except for hormone-related or other gender-related tests).

Traditional health runs on a system of “one size fits all.” For example, the recommended fibre amount for everyone is 25g a day, whether you are old, young, 100kg man, 45kg teenage girl, the result is the same. Likewise, the “healthy range” we see on our pathology reports are given to everyone AND they are calculated based on the average of others who get tested in the same lab. That means, this data is influenced by people with chronic illness and people in their 70s (reminder, the average age of mortality for women in Australia is 82.5 years old). Hence, throughout the decades, the “healthy range” displayed in these reports has shifted (often towards a poorer outcome). For example, doctors currently expect lower testosterone levels for men and lower iron levels for women, and accept them as “normal” (or the average), in comparison to the levels expected in the 1990s. I’m not saying these ranges are wrong. I’m saying that they are averages, and average doesn’t mean optimal health outcome for you.

This is a very important point that I think the majority of the population doesn’t know.

This is why some people are shocked to see some of their blood results appearing to be poor in TruDiagnostic’s tests (when compared to others their age and gender), while in a standard lab test, they appear average (in the middle of the “healthy range” for everyone).

Speed of ageing

You will get to see not just how your historical lifestyle has impacted your organs, but also how your current lifestyle is impacting your speed of ageing.

DunedinPACE test is a reflection of how your recent health interventions are impacting your pace of ageing. This is a great way to test if you are heading towards the right direction with your daily habits. It applies an optimistic lens by revealing that you can take control of your health at almost any age.

Active involvement in the scientific research community & transparency

As someone nerdy about longevity (and without a medical background), one of my challenges is accessing information. So, I have a high appreciation of companies that are transparent with their clinical trials and other scientific research. You can read about the work TruDiagnostic is involved in via their website.

Knowledge + Consumer Effort = Empowerment. 🧠💪

Side note: I also ⁠love their involvement in the longevity research community overall.

Another note: I appreciate the ethical business practice they adopt when talking about other players in the longevity space. Their CEO, Matt Dawson, approaches all discussions with data, kindness and professionalism. I cannot stand companies in HealthTech with a marketing strategy of bashing each other up (without data backing, but with lots of unnecessary visuals of ‘hot gym girls’) to prove that their way of doing health is superior. Also, health is not directly correlated to a person’s sexiness; please don’t pick your HealthTech company based on it visuals.

Privacy and data collection

Another ethical business practice of TruDiagnostic is the respectful way they handle customer data. It is HIPAA compliant and doesn’t use third parties for testing or sharing customer data. You can also opt out of participating in TruDiagnostic’s research programs.

What I would love to see improve/change

Product does not have a slick user experience

If you are purchasing a test from TruDiagnostic, it’s because of their product’s quality (the science behind their testing), not because you love their user experience. Let me explain with some examples.

• I would have loved to receive an email; “your results have arrived”. Except, I found out about my results after thinking, “hasn’t it been 3 weeks? Why haven’t they let me know that my results are ready? Let me check this.” Throughout their experience, small helpful things like that are missing.

• Customers often have a lot of questions after seeing their results. If you are not as nerdy as I am and you don’t have a medical background, then you will most likely be wondering, “what does this marker mean, why is it important, so what should I do about it?” I also had a bunch of questions to dig up. This process is fun for me, but not sure if other customers have that much time.

Overall, they don’t provide a very engaging product experience. You can participate in the Rejuvenation Olympics after 3 tests (link is at the bottom of the article), but the product experience ends once you receive your reports. However, I really appreciate that the majority of TruDiagnostic’s resources are going towards uplifting their product quality (scientific research and perfecting their testing algorithms).

I think their target customers are nerdy into the longevity space, because their content is technical and scientific for an average person. Or maybe this is their way of remaining credible, which works for me. By the same token, I believe their product is inaccessible for the segment of customers who care about longevity (and will take actions to improve their health), but don’t have the time and/or deeper interest to do extensive research.

Side note: I imagine a future where the roles of some doctors shift into ‘longevity coaches’ and they work with patients examining reports like the one TruDiagnostic provides. Or maybe we’ll all visit longevity clinics for regular check-ups with these tests (as this becomes more affordable), and the idea of visiting the doctor becomes a big deal (i.e. for emergency purposes, black swan injuries). So, I wouldn’t be surprised if TruDiagnostic is planning a B2B strategy, rather than focusing on B2C initiatives.

Lack of personalised recommendations

Adding to the point above, while there are some ‘action points’ recommended for users to follow based on their epigenetic result in TruHealth Report, it wasn’t enough to put together a plan or a personalised longevity protocol. I expected more. Also, their recommendations in the TruAge Report are generic and given to all, rather than being based on your results.

I understand that the company is trying to upsell with personalised coaching (for an additional cost), but this option is unclear on their website. I would not have known that I could get coaching if I didn’t reach out to the company’s support team over email. Maybe this is a new path they are exploring and experimenting with. Despite doing a lot of research, I still found a 30-minute consultation with Chris Barnes to be helpful, so if you are based in Australia, reach out to him.

Side note: red wine is still under their generic recommendations (shocking!). I’ll happily argue with anyone on this topic. There are far healthier ways to get resveratrol than drinking neurotoxins. By the same token, baklava could be a longevity superfood too, because it contains pistachios (lutein and zeaxanthin), walnuts (omega-3s), and the sugar will give you a massive energy boost. 🥜 My Turkish genes are screaming, “go baklava!” 😋

Expensive

I don’t need to beat around the bush. Advanced longevity treatments are very expensive. Getting tested is also expensive. I can’t afford this test more than once a year. I wish I could!

That being said, getting your basics right in health (the main pillars) isn’t expensive. Sleep is free. You can get your cardio done outside on the streets. Meditation and box breathing don’t cost anything.

Being healthy doesn’t depend on purchasing an epigenetic test. However, the more you understand your body, the more precise you can get with your lifestyle choices. This is how I justify the cost. Health is one of my biggest priorities in life; I guess I’m boring.

Reports don’t actually show blood test results

The TruDiagnostic reports show percentages and how you compare against people your age and gender. This is a useful view and it was certainly interesting.

However, I expected to see the actual results (in numbers) of my blood tests. I was a bit disappointed and had to take additional tests to double-check my results (it cost me additional time and money).

Despite being a big fan of TruDiagnostic, I might explore other options that reveal my blood test results clearly (or alternate 2 companies/tests) — need to research this.

Fitness Report

I am really confused (and curious) about how the fitness report is calculated. It seems quite off for most people. This section is not very important (and takes up a small space in the wider report), as you can test the following in other ways (that are probably more reliable): ‘fit age,’ ‘grip strength,’ ‘gait speed’ and ‘VO2Max.’

My partner’s results appeared to be too low 2.5 years ago, when he was regularly going to the gym and running. My VO2Max is showing to be 46, but on Whoop, it’s showing to be 50. Not a huge difference (still very good), but it’s not the first time I’ve heard that TruDiagnostic underestimates the fitness markers for fit people.

Common criticisms of TruDiagnostic

Not a genetic test kit

Some people comment that the TruDiagnostic test reports are not useful because they do not provide a genetic test. I think both provide different views on your health, and what you purchase will depend on your interests/priorities.

Right now, I would rather know about how my organs are ageing, so I can take action steps to slow down ageing. However, I would be keen to purchase a genetic test kit in the future, as it would also provide interesting insights that I can use to further optimise my health.

Not FDA approved / “My GP doesn’t know about the test, therefore it’s not credible”

I understand the credibility FDA approvals give. I also understand that it takes years and a ton of money to get a product FDA-approved; it’s a huge hassle. If I were a Product Manager at TruDiagnostic (what a dream!), given how niche my audience is and the fact that my product is not a diagnostic test (meaning, it doesn’t require an FDA approval), not sure if I would spend my main resources trying to push for an FDA approval. In fact, I’m sure I would spend the time and money on continuing to develop my product’s quality in other ways.

As to the comment about GPs… just a reminder, your GP is not your longevity coach or a personal trainer — their job is not to improve your health, but rather to assess if you have a critical condition to be referred to a specialist. They are the middleman between hospitals/specialists and patients. They don’t need to understand how epigenetic tests work, the latest research on longevity science, how vitamin deficiencies impact each organ’s function, the connection between gut health and mood disorders/PMS/cognitive health, or how specific protocols can impact DNA methylation. GPs assess you against the norms (i.e. dying at age 80 and spending the last decade of your life taking 6 prescription pills with one or more chronic diseases — this is the norm of Australia, as to the stats in 2025). I’m not bashing GPs, but instead reminding you that there is a reason longevity clinics with quarterly consultations charge between $5000-$20,000 per year for membership.

Collecting dried blood

Hot take, very controversial topic to discuss. For someone without a medical background, fresh blood sounds more reliable than dried blood. By the same token, working with recent blood (24 hours old) is probably better than working with blood that’s 7 days old. I would love to hear an explanation from the TruDiagnostic team about this. My thoughts/research…

• Research conducted at Uppsala University (Sweden, 2017) revealed that the drying process had a “negligible effect on the protein level in the blood samples.” Some government-funded diagnostic tests also rely on collecting dried blood; the NSW Health website states that DBS tests are “close to 100% accuracy.” There is a lot of research you can find online about the accuracy of dried blood collection. Hence, some labs around the world are considering switching to dried blood collection, as the process is easier, more scalable and efficient.

• Collecting dried blood is still shown to be more accurate than collecting saliva, which is the method that a lot of other biological age testing companies rely on.

“Inaccuracy” of the blood test results

This generally goes along the lines of, “I tested my liver values a month ago, and my bilirubin was 12. On this test, it looks much higher. This test is so inaccurate!” I briefly touched on this under another point, but to summarise…

1. “Healthy ranges” for blood tests compare you to the average population (including people in their 70s). TruDiagnostic compares you to others of your age and gender. Maybe you thought your markers were good when compared to an unhealthy average.

2. Some blood test results vary month by month. I completed an experiment in 2023, getting blood samples to see my liver results 4x during the year, about a month apart. For some markers, I received different results each month. The fact that I was stressed and had the flu totally impacted the results.

3. TruDiagnostic is not basing your “organ age” on 1 value only. It’s trying to paint a big picture by considering a range of markers. Not all markers matter equally when judging someone’s health, and some markers can fluctuate month to month.

To get the most accurate outcome of your test results…

This is the advice from my AI longevity coach to avoid elevated inflammation markers. I would love to hear TruDiagnostic’s recommendations as well.

• Don’t test within 4 weeks of getting sick or injured.

• Don’t test within 6 weeks of having surgery (depending on the type/invasiveness of the operation).

• Don’t test after a strenuous workout; ideally, take 24-48 hours off from the gym/running before you test.

• Don’t test when you have seasonal allergies flaring up.

• Don’t test 5 days before and during the first 3-4 days of your period, depending on how long and how much you bleed (for women).

• Replicate the same testing conditions each time you test.

Questions about oddities in data

Not sure why people provide ridiculous examples; it might be due to the other biological ageing clocks that operate on ‘happy vibes’ and low-science. 2 common questions that get asked online;

1. “What if your biological age is 20 when you are 45? Do you have 60 more years to live?”

It’s almost impossible to appear at age 20 when you are 45 with TruDiagnostic. Throwing out exaggerated examples like this is unhelpful, as such cases exist in such rare amounts that they skew the overall data.

If a person were to exist like this, then there is absolutely nothing wild about living to 105 years old. There are people who have lived to 105 before. “In the US, 2021 records show that in a population of 336,996,624 people, there were 89,739 centenarians (a prevalence of 0.27%)…with 15% having no disease at 100.” In fact, “by 2050, nearly 3.7 million people are expected to live up to 100.”

I’m curious to see how data from TruDiagnostic will shape over the next 50 years, as more and more people will pass 100 years old.

2. “My biological age is 10 years older than my chronological age, but my parents died at 80. So, my genes are great, clearly. Are you saying that I’m going to die at 70?”

Not necessarily, when considering future medical advancements. Medicine is progressing; there are always means to keep someone alive. But it might show a very good indication of how much and how early you begin to suffer from a chronic illness.

Denial of data

Sadly, it seems like a lot of people are simply upset with having a biological age older than their chronological age. A lot of the criticisms I’ve heard and seen are from people with no scientific background, who correlate certain activities and appearances with “excellent” health. These go something along the lines of…

• “I can run 10km, clearly I’m not older than what I am, this is stupid!”

• “Everyone says that I look younger than my age and I am skinny, so I don’t have any health problems, not sure why this test would show that I’m 5 years older.”

• “How come my brain health is 7 years older? I got 95 in my ATAR, I’m smart, and I’m sure that I can perform well.”

My only comment is that it’s immature to blame the algorithm because you didn’t perform well (and this is not a performance; it’s a helpful tool for you to understand your body). This is equivalent to a teenager blaming their teacher for being mean to them because they didn’t get an A+ on their assessment task.

TruDiagnostic is a mirror pointing at your organs and historical behaviour. The company isn’t trying to shame anyone, but it seems like data can shatter one’s ego. We are all trying our best to be healthy, but sometimes we face barriers (and it’s not our fault), like not having access to scientific information, a lack of support from our environment, or being stuck in damaging situations.

Reading through Reddit threads and chatting with people as a PM has been an illuminating experience; we really don’t have much knowledge about our health. Social media confused us even more with unrealistic beauty standards. Traditional medicine wants to claim that blueberries and spinach are everyone’s “superfood,” when they disrupt some people’s gut microbiome and cause diarrhoea. For women, accessing information is even more challenging and being gaslighted is very frustrating (i.e. “not having your period for 6 months is ok”).

This post is getting really long, but people most commonly underestimate the impact of sleep, stress, gut health, hormones (i.e. having regular periods), hydration, and walking (not just weightlifting).

My results & goals

I’ll keep this section short; I don’t think anyone really cares about someone’s results. But it might be helpful if you are experiencing similar challenges. That being said, I am not a doctor (just someone who regularly researches, experiments and refines her routine to become healthier), nor an expert on your body, so don’t blindly follow what I do.

In hindsight, the results were kind of predictable. I have 3 main things to work on.

1. Hormonal health (my number 1 priority; almost 3 years older than my chronological age)

Not surprising at all, given how much disregulated nervous system (complex trauma) impacts the hormonal health of women. I have also been on a very high caloric restriction for many years (probably since I was 16, maybe even longer), which further damaged my hormones. There is a lot of research that proves slight caloric restriction as a longevity hack. I won’t go into the scientific details (it’s something that I believe in) — but, emphasis on the word, slight (not starvation). Lastly, I also used birth control pills for 18 months (between 2024-25), which didn’t help.

The biggest sign of poor hormonal health for me was the irregular periods. One of the biggest lies young women hear from their doctors is that it’s completely ok to not ovulate and not have their period. For some reason, we have come to believe that while men need their testosterone (although our standards for that dropped a lot, too), women don’t need their vital hormones to function properly. Very interesting. Very delusional belief.

Fun fact: having regular periods doesn’t mean you are ovulating each month.

Another fun fact: having poor hormonal health can lead to early menopause. Delaying menopause plays a huge role in the longevity journey of women. It’s one of the biggest differences in longevity protocols for men and women.

I’d highly recommend looking into some of Kayla Barnes’ podcasts for more information. Some links below…

• https://www.kaylabarnes.com/podcasts/endometriosis-with-dr-sasha-hakman

• https://www.timeline.com/blog/kayla-barnes-on-mitochondria-and-ovarian-longevity

• https://www.kaylabarnes.com/podcasts/exercise-and-fertility-with-dr-sasha-hakman

Here’s what I’m doing about it.

• Continue the experiments (and validated strategies) to heal my nervous system

• Come to a maintenance in daily calories (still working on it, but getting close)

• I stopped taking birth control pills to track my natural menstrual cycle

• Vitamin B5 supplementation (very strange, but I seem to have a deficiency in comparison to other women my age), as it’s linked to regulating hormones and menstrual cycles

• Red light therapy 3x a week for 15 minutes (there is a lot of anecdotal evidence and emerging research on how RLT supports hormonal health, modulates hormone levels for regulating periods and managing PMS symptoms, including cramping, so it’s worth a try)

2. Lung health (not too bad, just a few months older than my chronological age)

This was not surprising given how much 2nd hand smoking I’ve been exposed to growing up. I had asthma, and my dad wasn’t certain about the diagnosis until he tested the condition a few times. Istanbul was also a highly polluted city back in early 2000, before I moved to Sydney. Otherwise, I have never smoked in my life. Most of my smoke exposure was before I was 10. It’s very clear (and also sad) how impacts can last more than a decade after such exposure.

Here’s what I’m doing about it:

• HBOT 50min 2x a week + 90min 1x a week (high pressure)

• Taking marshmallow root and tinospora cordifolia extract as supplements

• Researching about mullein leaf extract for additional support

• Purchased an Oyxfit breath trainer. It’s on my list of health experiments for next year

To my knowledge, we never had a mould problem, but it’s always good to check. We already have an air purifier. Planning to purchase an air quality monitor as well (on my list of things to do for next year).

Other things to note (stuff I’m already doing); regular exercise (especially cardio) and lowering salt can reduce airway inflammation, and of course, the famous trio (antioxidants, vitamin C and fish oils) helps protect the lungs from damage.

3. Liver health (not too bad, just a few months older than my chronological age)

This is something more people should care about, as liver disease has increased 400% in the last 50 years (and the rates of diagnosis are still accelerating). What’s interesting is that the leading cause of liver disease is no longer alcohol.

My drinking history: I had a 10-glass-a-year limit on alcohol between 2018-2021 (about once every 2 months, 1-2 servings each time). This dropped to 8 servings between 2022-23, then to 5 servings in 2024, and 4 servings this year (had 2 so far and 98% sure that I won’t hit my limit).

I listened to a talk by Siggi Clavien last weekend and learned about the impact that stress/trauma, corn syrup, high fructose foods, preservatives, soft drinks and microplastics have on the liver. From this list, the item I really need to remove/manage is the unhealthy stress. I mentioned this before, but during 2023, when I ran a test to see my liver results 4 times, the months when I had elevated values were related to high stress. Here’s what I’m doing about it.

• Continue the experiments (and validated strategies) to heal my nervous system

• Taking milk thistle, turmeric, astragalus, dandelion root, artichoke leaf and bee pollen^ as supplements (I was never confident about my liver, so began taking those since early 2025, and have overall seen an improvement with my liver values)

• Researching ginseng supplementation for a future experiment

^ I just want to clarify the myth that bee pollen does NOT grow your boobs, girls. Sorry. I wish. But it’s great for other reasons.

I felt very proud overall. Last year and this year, I made changes to my diet and routines, which at times did not reflect the ‘social media ideals.’ I followed a personalised routine which I created based on data from my body and scientific research. It meant that I put on some weight (about 7kgs), slept at a time others called “not cool” and “unattractive,” drank a tea that was apparently “not feminine” because it “stunk,” and explained over and over why I prefer tart cherry juice over wine. I generally don’t care about judgments in social settings, but humans are visual creatures, so what poked my insecurities was actually the “online gym girls” with abs and glowing bodies (still not sure if it’s the lighting, or if they pour oil over their bodies) representing the epiphany of female health.

It was reassuring to see the rest of my results. I can’t lie; it’s very flattering to be biologically young. I felt really proud and 10x more motivated to continue the “self-care, self-respect and self-love” pathway. I’m also very excited to see David’s results back because he’s been on this journey with me for a while.

Suddenly, nothing mattered. Whether the outlines of my abs were showing, if I could do a 5kg or 10kg pull-up, if my nose appeared big from a side angle…nothing mattered. That day, I told my partner, “nothing is sexier than being healthy.” It’s true, and I wish more people felt that way. We put so much pressure on ourselves to look a certain way, so much effort to be “beautiful” (which is a one-dimensional, inflexible ideal that aims to clone women), and not enough money, time and effort into providing our bodies what we deserve (which is health).

Nothing is sexier than hiking through Tasmania with your partner at age 70, being able to rock and roll at age 80, making pottery or puzzles or baking at age 100. Nothing is sexier than vitality, kindness, and the joyful glow and excitement you carry through life.

ME: “I’m still not sure if this is real. Do you think their algorithm broke?”

HIM: “No, I knew it. That’s why I’ve been calling you a young lady all this time.”

ME (singing): “My name is Doa and I’m really glad to meet you. Hey, ooh, is this illegal? Hey, ooh, it feels illegal.”

HIM: “Ok, stop boasting. You’re such a health freak.” (Pause. Thinking…) “Though I think you’re actually legal.”

ME: “Maybe. Depends. Definitely not for marriage.”

HIM: “I guess I can call you a naughty girl and send you to your room if you talk back at me then.”

While I bounced around all day with a teen girl attitude (we joke that it’s from the excessive spermidine I have), the reality is, no one cares. I’m on this journey for myself, so there are only two people in the world I desire to make proud. And I think I achieved that.

Rejuvenation Olympics: a challenge one can participate in after completing three biological age tests within the last two years. TruDiagnostic has partnered with Bryan Johnson and Dr. Oliver Zolman to bring this ongoing longevity competition live.

TruAge Sample Report

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I ramped up my running routine quite fast during May and June, running 4x a week and doing a leg workout in the gym 2x a week. I enjoy running, love eating (hint hint), and wanted to have a great time during the race (instead of feeling miserable). So I saw no issues with working my legs 6x a week.

35 days ago (yes, I’m counting it), while on a 16km run at Centennial Park, I felt my right leg going numb and with a diagonal electrical (pins and needles) feeling, from the inside of my lower calf, to the outside of my upper quad. I was confused for a few minutes before I realised that the right knee did not want to bend at all. I was 8km in, and I walked back to the Jeep, thinking it might be a nerve issue. By the time we got home, I could not step on my right leg properly, the knee refused to bend, and I was silently freaking out.

Summary: inflamed right knee tendon (mild), overly stressed IT band and lower calf, and DOMs kicking in for the other leg muscles — all from overtraining. I could not even foam roll any part of my legs for the following 3 days, due to pain.

I was told that rest would be the best way of recovery for my situation. So for the next 2 weeks, I spent a lot of time in bed, going on light walks, massaging my leg with heat creams, eating very healthy for a speedy recovery, and trying to use the foam roller. The winter cold really didn’t help with joint stiffness.

It was very disappointing and unexpected, even though in retrospect, I can see why it happened. Running and training legs were a regular activity in my life, so on most mornings, I felt like a sulky slob. For most parts of the recovery, I also felt like my body failed me. Now I understand that I failed my body by not allowing it to rest and adapt appropriately.

If you have a patella tendon injury, feeling down, and are worried about recovery, it will get better with time (slow and steady). I documented my progress below.

• Day 0: mild patella tendon injury

• Day 2: can walk slowly

• Day 3: physio appointment for professional advice

• Day 7: could foam roll the legs (very painful and tight muscles)

• Day 11: 3.5km run (too early, bad decision, please don’t do that)

• Day 13: 3km easy hike (stopped after getting quite tired)

• Day 14: 6km hike with lots of stairs (stopped after getting quite tired)

• Day 19: aching/pains of the joint at night in bed disappeared (I blame the cold for that)

• Day 21: 4km run (felt very stiff for the first 1.5km, then relaxed afterwards — stopped after getting quite tired — 6.8min/km very slow)

• Day 22: introduced daily 5-10 minute cycling to help recovery, and I could foam roll the legs without a lot of pain

• Day 23: first lower body modified gym workout since injury (avoided step-ups, Bulgarian split squats, and barbell squats, reduced original weights by 40% — got bad DOMS afterwards)

• Day 25: 3.5km run (felt very stiff for the first 1km, then relaxed afterwards — stopped so I can run again on the weekend — 6.75min/km very slow)

• Day 26: lower body modified gym workout (avoided step-ups, Bulgarian split squats, and barbell squats, reduced original weights by 35% — got bad DOMS afterwards)

• Day 27: foam rolling the legs normally

• Day 28: 7km run (felt very stiff for the first 0.5km, then relaxed afterwards — stopped after getting quite tired — 6.7min/km very slow)

• Day 29: morning stiffness of the joint has (almost) disappeared

• Day 30: lower body modified gym workout (avoided step-ups, reduced original weights by 30%, introduced Bulgarian split squats again — no DOMS)

• Day 31: 4.5km run (felt great, but realised that my cardio endurance has regressed — 6.57min/km slow)

• Day 32: lower body modified gym workout (reduced original weights by 25% — no DOMS)

• Day 34: 7.3km run on an up and down route (good, but realised that my agility, turning corners, needs some work, and going up and down small hills tires my knee a lot, 6.56min/km slow)

I did not trust the process of healing for the first 3 weeks, and felt hopeless (emotionally crashed) on Day 13 and Day 14. But the progress is clear; that’s something to be proud of.

Even while injured, I have to be out in nature. Connecting with nature makes me happy. In my opinion, it’s important to feel positive and happy while recovering.

A few learnings (so you don’t do the dumb stuff that I do)…

• Progressive overload in running could look like increasing a kilometre a week, if you are focused on the distance. It does not look like suddenly adding a 4th day of running that’s 10km long (my mistake).

• One goal at a time. I tried to progress fast in both gym (resistance training) and running. Trying to build muscle and endurance in one training program was too much. 2 days of strength training and 4 days of running were also too much for someone who had only begun running 12 months ago.

• DOMS is not ok if it persists and doesn’t go away. It is not a sign that your workout program is working well, but instead, a sign of stress that needs to be resolved before your next workout. Having severe DOMS after every workout for months will eventually lead to injury.

• Muscles recover faster than tendons and joints. Just because you can lift heavier, doesn’t mean you immediately have to push harder and apply progressive overload. It’s ok to repeat some weeks with the same weight, reps and sets, to let the connective parts catch up.

• Overtraining will become a barrier to muscle growth. A lot of ‘muscle growth’ happens while we rest and adapt to the stress, so without appropriate rest, there won’t be appropriate adaptation and growth.

• There seem to be a lot of people on social media who could “run a marathon in a year.” It may or may not be true. But what I certainly don't know is the full story. Are they also going through a heavy resistance training gym workout for the legs 2-3x a week? Did they have an active background, play team sports, or run before? How did they “complete the marathon”? It's funny that when I ask some of the people I know, they mentioned they walked some of the track to catch their breath. Nothing wrong with that, but “complete” doesn't necessarily mean running it all the way with no stops. Did they go on holidays and take 2-3 weeks off from running during those 12 months of training? There are so many questions to ask to get the full picture of someone's training journey. Without knowing all of that, it's easy to think, why can't I do what others can do?

• I could run 7km after a patella tendon injury that happened less than a month ago. This time last year, I could only run 3km (really slowly). My ‘injury recovery self’ is so much better than ‘me a year ago’. Taking off 2-3 weeks pushed me back a lot; I won’t be able to do the half-marathon I planned in August. But I’m not starting this journey from 0km. My body is weak and strong, weird and incredible at the same time.

• This is the same for the gym. My “gentle” lower-body workout in the gym was equivalent to what would have exhausted me back in January this year. The body remembers. The body recovers much quicker than we think.

• My next training program has ‘rest days’ and ‘rest weeks’ built in. For the first time, I planned out specific days to rest. Excited to see how that impacts my progress until the end of the year.

Injuries cause the biggest setback. 3 weeks of rest (or not doing much) lost me 2 months of muscle gains and gave me 700g of fat, pushing my body fat percentage up to 24.6% (equivalent to 1.5 years ago). Seeing that on a DEXA scan gave me a shock. Not sure how much I’ll force building muscle moving forward (given how slow women progress with that anyway), but I’ll certainly focus on not getting injured.

Excited to see how I progress during the next month. Looking forward to building back my endurance and strength, and continuing my training journey for a half-marathon.

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• Test your max in preparation for a hybrid strength training program - ✅

• Get Dexa scans done - ✅

Today was the last day I went to the gym before our hiking trip to New Zealand. Learning from the past setbacks, I decided to give my body a break before attempting a strenuous hike.

Below are some of the questions that circled my head in 2023. Since then I’ve done a lot of research, so will try to answer them as best as I can.

Is resistance training necessary for Grade 5 hikes?

I’ve seen people with many years of hiking experience built up on them. They could do tough trails with impressive energy without having a regular gym routine.

However, being strong in your lower body when you are carrying +15kg on your back and climbing on rocks as tall as your hips for 8 hours per day on a 5-day track will be very advantageous.

Side note: I train hard for reasons outside of hiking. I don’t think one needs to go to the gym 5x a week, run 3x a week and push to stretch their limits. My schedule is not an example of what should be done for tough hikes.

Does upper body resistance training help with Grade 5 hikes?

Yes, but it’s not a must-have. There is a difference between surviving a hike and really enjoying a hike. Being strong in your upper body will allow you to carry your heavy bag for long durations without feeling super tired. It’ll allow you to continue hiking with your bag on (rather than taking it off, dragging it around, handing your bag to your partner to hold) when climbing on rough surfaces, holding onto ropes etc. On the South Coast Track there was a rowing section which was very hard to complete. There were also sections where you had to push through the bush and remove branches in your way. Overall, the stronger you are, the more you’ll enjoy hiking.

What are the best gym exercises for hiking?

The ideal formula (in my opinion) is probably mobility (balance, flexibility) + cardio (running) + resistance training (that replicates hiking motions).

Some examples of exercises that can replicate hiking motions are dumbbell step-ups (calf height, knee height, hip height), crawling/squatting motions with weights, and reversed/lateral/walking lunges with weights (imagine you are leaping over deep mud with your backpack on).

Most common hiking injuries involve ankles, feet, calves and knees. Exercises that can strengthen these areas are calf raises, banded lateral crab walks, single-leg hopping, and running barefoot or backwards.

Fun fact: building glute muscles can take off the pressure on other parts of your lower body when hiking (which reduces chances of injury). This was a recommendation by a few of the physiotherapists I’ve seen.

Progressing on the balance ball with various exercises is one of the best things a hiker can do (in my opinion). I’ll make another post on this topic.

Does running and resistance training clash?

There are a few reasons some people don’t like to do running and resistance training at the same time and my opinions.

• It’s challenging to recover your lower body when you are doing both.

  • Yes, true. It’s important to progress slowly to prevent injury, eat well, sleep well, and engage in recovery activities. I love rolling almost every day to ease my muscles.

• It’s confusing to estimate the right amount of calories to eat (if that matters to you).

  • Maybe, but you can adjust your calories based on your hunger levels, waist measurement, or Dexa scan results. You can always gradually increase or decrease your daily calories (rather than instant jumps). It feels like the end of the world if you eat 50 calories more than you should but it is not. I need to remind myself that.

• The goals may seem to clash if you only view running as an activity for fat loss and resistance training as an activity for muscle building.

  • While I was never properly able to achieve this, David was able to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. It is possible. I also prefer to not view running as an activity only for fat loss. Running can be a fun new challenge; it can improve mental health, cardiovascular health and endurance; you can see beautiful natural landscapes faster than hiking.

My Jan-April volume training program split (week 12)

Monday:

• Upper body & mobility gym: dips bodyweight (6-8 reps, 4 sets) + incline chest press 7kg (8-10 reps, 4 sets) + tricep extensions 18kg (12-14 reps, 5 sets) + calf raises with 8kg dumbbells (10 reps, 3 sets) + black band crab walks (24 steps there and back) + balance ball push-ups (5-6 reps, 4 sets)

• Beach run: 3.5km on soft sand

Tuesday:

• Lower body gym: hip thrusts with black band 60kg (10-12 reps, 4 sets) + reversed lunges 30kg (10-12 reps, 4 sets) + hip height box step ups 5kg (10-12 reps, 4 sets) + single leg deadlifts with 2x 6kg dumbbells (10 reps, 4 sets) + hip abductor machine 11.5kg (12-14 reps, 4 sets)

Wednesday:

• Upper body & mobility gym: chin-ups bodyweight (5-6 reps, 4 sets) + T-bar row 7.5kg (8-10 reps, 4 sets) + balance ball calf raises (10 reps, 3 sets) + balance ball knee up feet circles eyes closed (10 reps, 3 sets) then touch toes (6 reps) + lat pull down machine 10kg 2x (10 reps, 5 sets)

Thursday:

• 6km run around the block focused on pace

• ~20 min core workout: 1 min planks (x3) + 20 V-crunches (x4) + 20 toe touches (x5) + 20 cocoons (x5)

Friday:

• Lower body gym: pull-ups bodyweight (3 reps, 3 sets, 30 sec rest), barbell over shoulder squats 30kg (10 reps, 4 sets) + reversed lunges 30kg (10-12 reps, 4 sets) + knee height box step ups 6kg 2x (10-12 reps, 4 sets) + cable kickbacks 15kg (12-14 reps, 4 sets) + hip adductor machine 13kg (10-12 reps, 4 sets)

Saturday:

• Relaxing yoga with stretches

• Rock climbing alternating with bouldering: had to stop after 3 weeks due to injury

Sunday:

• Long distance run: have been hitting 10km the past 6 weeks

Some reflections

Wins

• Introducing a strict mobility program into my gym sessions. My balance has improved so much over the past 3 months. It makes me feel more confident.

• Running barefoot on sand. I feel that my feet, ankles and calves are tighter and stronger. This also improved my running capabilities overall.

• Overall gaining almost 600g of muscle in 3 months. That’s pretty good for a woman who’s no longer a newbie in the gym. I can confidently say that the volume program (including running) was designed well.

Failures

• Bouldering over Saturdays has been a good idea in theory, but executed poorly. I introduced that around the same time as introducing pull ups on Friday, which meant that I was pulling my body weight up on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. I was also not warming up before the Saturday sessions. Eventually caused my shoulder injury which took me a month to fully heal, set my training program back and caused minor muscle loss.

• Balancing out the imbalances by training the weaker side more. Honestly, not sure why this didn’t work. I had a very sore left side for 3 months and still grew more muscle on my right side. Need to do some research on this.

Learnings

• I have hyper-mobile shoulders. I discovered that during a physio visit after my shoulder injury.

• Muscles adjust to progressive overload faster than the connective parts of our bodies. The last month of the volume program has been a grind. Each week, I was getting too tired and sore, finding it more challenging to complete the sets and recover. That’s also when I began to feel my joints and the connective tissues getting rusty. I wonder if I should not have progressively overloaded every week during the 2nd half of the program, or significantly lowered the intensity during period weeks (rather than reducing weight by 10%).

• I will not run hungry in the morning again. Terrible idea. I don’t perform or progress well when hungry.

• We all have a genetic potential to build muscle in certain parts of our body more than others. For me, this seems to be my trunk. 3rd consecutive time that I either built the same (or even more) amount of muscle on my trunk as I did for the glutes and legs combined.

Other Reflections

• I have gotten scared about injuries, more and more as I train over the past 3 years. Having an injury means I don’t get to hike or run — don’t get to be out in nature exploring, regulate my hormones, and feel confident. It sucks! I need to build a better mind-body connection. Sometimes, I don’t know my body’s limits and push too far, too much and too soon.

• I felt confused about how much to eat over the past 3 months. It’s not easy to estimate the required calorie intake when you are building up your running volume. Calculators on Google recommended me to eat 1800 calories back in January for maintenance. I began this training program with 1560 calories (which was a +60c from December) and built up to 1680 calories. I wanted to do a slow build-up as I was scared of gaining fat. I was properly hungry for a third of the program. This is reflected in the fat loss I had on most parts of my body.

Some stuff that I have been experimenting with (not advice, as I’m not a professional)

Lowering the intensity of workouts leading up to my period

• Rationale: to reduce heavy cramps + regulate period timings

• Result: I have been able to reduce period cramps. However, this can also be attributed to healthier eating overall, summertime (cold always makes cramps worse), or getting older. Did not help regulate period timings.

• Observation: not sure if lowering intensity by 10% was enough for this experiment to work. 20-25% may have been better. This experiment mostly helped my body take a bit of a break from the constant increase of sets in my volume program.

Taking Powerade powder before gym

• Rationale: recommended by some exercise scientists for people who train on an empty stomach (early in the morning), especially if they are female running on a lower body fat % or are on a calorie deficit, for having a good amount of energy during training.

• Result: helped me to uplift my energy levels in the gym. It also masks the taste of creatine.

• Observation: I should swap with a lower-sugar electrolyte sachet as it will be healthier.

A variety of dietary modifications to improve my gut health based on a gut health intelligence test I completed in late January

• Rationale: gut is the only other organ that receives and sends signals around our body, other than our brains. That’s why our guts are called the “second brain.” Studies by gut intelligence research companies like Viome reveal the connection between gut health and metabolism, hormonal health, immunity and energy levels. Surely, having a healthy gut will support your training goals, right?

• Result: great results. Going down this pathway was an incredible learning experience for me. I should post about this separately because there is a lot to cover here.

Running barefoot on sand

• Rationale: to improve feet, ankle and calf strength. Recommended by various physiotherapists, longevity researchers and exercise scientists that in the long-term, walking and running barefoot will reduce chances of injury.

• Result: already mentioned, very successful.

Some stuff that I will be experimenting with after the New Zealand trip (not advice, as I’m not a professional)

Pomegranate & tart cherry juice after workout

• Some research suggests this mixture helps with post-workout recovery.

• More promising research suggests pomegranate juice can relieve pre-period and period symptoms. This can again boost my performance and mood during training.

• Results from the gut health intelligence test I’ve completed show that pomegranates and cherries are my “superfoods,” specifically great for muscle recovery, immunity and reducing inflammation and cell damage.

Animal movements (mostly in research phase)

• These movements aim for agility and mobility — can be another great way to prevent injury (something I could incorporate during my warm-ups).

• If you’re confused, check out the 20 Flow Animal Movements.

A variety of supplements to improve my gut health based on a gut health intelligence test I completed in late January

• The personalised dietary modifications made a visible change within 2 months. However, I’ve only applied a third of their recommendations. Now, I'm keen to dial up to 60%.

If you’re curious, here are my results

Max Strength

• Dips: +8.65kg is 1 rep max

• Dumbbell chest press: +15kg x2 is 1 rep max

• Chin-ups: +8.65kg is 1 rep max

• Seated cable row: +45.5kg is 1 rep max

• Lat pull down (neutral grip): +45kg is 1 rep max

• Hip thrusts (with barbel): +97.5kg 1 rep max

• Stiff leg deadlifts: +61.25kg 1 rep max

• Barbel over shoulder squats: +55kg 1 rep max

Dexa Scan Results (3-month period)

~580g muscle gained (approx equal split between lower body and trunk) & ~180g fat gained = 23.5% body fat (same as the previous time).

If you’ve never seen a Dexa scan image before, here is a generic example (found on Google). They look very cool.

Questions: as always, if you have any questions, drop a comment (or send a message) and I’ll reply.

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