Life span, health span, and joy span
How I'm increasing my longevity as a founder dad
“This has to change.”
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.
I could no longer fit into my suit. My eye bags looked like someone had punched me. Wait, did my hairline recede?
It was a few months after my son was born. I had expected to not sleep well for the first year but the fatigue was wearing me down. I went from exercising at least once a day to about once a month. Eating healthily? Eh, I needed that brownie with chocolate ice cream the night before—a celebration for surviving the day.
I threw my daily routine, the one I had optimised over the years, right out of the window the night our son came into our lives. I had thought I could wing it. But I realized I needed a new routine—one that would allow me to be present with my wife and son, keep me healthy and fit, and have the energy to work on our startup.
Honestly, I haven’t figured it out. But here is what I have been trying across my fitness, nutrition, sleep, and mental health.
Fitness
My workouts used to be at least an hour but now I try to fit my weekday workouts, the commute, and the shower into an hour. I shifted from long workouts to shorter but more intense exercises:
Runs (20-45 minutes)
My favourite workout now is running. I can put on my shoes and start running from my house. No commute, no hassle. And I get to be outdoors. I aim for a mix of intensities each week. If I can only run once that week, I do a short hard session.
5-minute warmup, 1 on 1 off x 5, 5-minute cool down (hard)
4 on 1 off x 5 (tempo)
30-45 minute jog (easy)
Strength (30 minutes)
On days when my wife is on early or night shifts, I do some static exercises at home before my son wakes up.
Arm: Push-ups, lateral dumbbell raises, bicep curls, tricep extensions
Core: Front plank, side plank, glute bridge, Russian twists
Legs: Squats, backward lunges, calf raises
Stretch
Swims (20-30 minutes)
I have a public swimming pool near my house. Deducting the walk and shower gives me about 20-30 minutes to swim. I target at least 1,000m for each session. I usually swim on Saturdays when my in-laws come and play with their grandson.
4 x 100 IM, 10 x 50, 100 cool down (hard)
4 x 100 IM, 5 x 100, 100 cool down (tempo)
5 x 200 (easy)
Rides (2 hours)
About once a month, if my schedule allows, I ride with my cycling club on Sunday morning, starting at 5 am.
Walks (30-60 minutes)
If my son is up early, I go for a 30-minute walk with him. My wife and I also try to go for an evening walk with him after dinner.
I aim to do at least three workouts every week (unless my son is sick). Also, when I’m working from home, I do 40 push-ups before lunch.
Nutrition
My wife and I eat out a lot because we are often too tired from work and parenting to cook. And, conveniently, we have a coffee shop right under our flat. But the food isn’t the healthiest. A few things we have been trying:
We have oatmeal with raisins and almonds for breakfast. Sometimes with a banana.
My lunch is usually chye peng (mixed economical rice in Chinese), which includes chicken, vegetables, and tofu.
On days when my wife is home, she cooks a simple dinner, usually a herbal chicken/ABC soup with rice or baked/steamed fish and boiled vegetables with rice. We don’t add salt or sugar.
We have been drinking at least a cup of coffee every day. I’m probably addicted to coffee now, which doesn’t feel great. I have been trying to cut down on that and switch to green or chamomile tea.
We try to stock our fridge with Greek yoghurt and some fruits so that we default to a healthy option when we want to snack. We used to indulge in brownies and ice cream every other day! (Okay we still have ice cream once in a while.)
I feel we can do better. What would you recommend to parents with young children?1
Sleep
We decided not to sleep train our son because we could not bear to see him cry. We even carried him to nap for about nine months because we like the idea of contact naps. Maybe because of this, he still wakes up about three times every night.
To be fair, my sleep has improved a lot from the early days when we fed our son every three hours and still had to burp him and rock him to sleep in the middle of the night. Nowadays, we pass him his milk bottle and he drinks and falls asleep himself.
I have been tracking my sleep for the last few days:
Awake: 22 minutes (5%)
REM: 2 hours 16 minutes (32%)
Light: 3 hours 20 minutes (47%)
Deep: 1 hour 5 minutes (16%)
Average: 7 hours 3 minutes (or 6 hours 41 minutes if I exclude the awake time)
Because I wake up to feed my son several times, I don’t get as much deep sleep as I should. But almost seven hours is incredible for a parent! And this should get better as my son grows up.2
Mental health
I believe a big part of mental health is working on what I want to do since we spend a huge chunk of our lives working. For me, that is working on something that I believe in and that challenges me. I’m fortunate I get to run our startup with my cofounder Swee Kiat.
Besides that, I journal with the Day One app every night before I sleep. I love it so much that I paid for a subscription. I almost never pay for any mobile app subscription. After using it for several years, I get the additional benefit of looking back on this day for the past few years and seeing how far I have come—and how much my son has grown.
The only other mobile app I subscribed to was Calm. I used to meditate for about 10 minutes before my daily standup with Swee Kiat. Admittedly, I cannot maintain this habit and find it sufficient to meditate only when I’m overwhelmed.
Last but not least, I spend time with my wife and son every evening. While parenting can be frustrating and tiring, it helps put things in perspective better than most other things I tried. That nasty comment? That argument? That setback? They still hurt but they don’t affect me as much nowadays.
Longevity
While I have been exploring the healthcare space, I noticed more and more startups tackling longevity to help people live not just longer but better. Mito Health, Superpower, Lifeforce, to list a few. I love they are striving to make longevity cheaper and more accessible, from $ 10,000+ down to just $100+ per month.
Also, influencers like Peter Attia, Casey Means, and Andrew Huberman are helping to get more people interested in taking charge of their own health and providing them with the knowledge to do that.
Generally, I think these are good trends. I wish they succeed and help transform how humans think about their health.3 But because these solutions are still expensive and the information is still complex for most, I suspect it is only the biohackers and health freaks4 who adopt these solutions and listen to these influencers. The general population won’t bother.
To improve humanity’s health, I believe we need something even simpler and more affordable. The 10,000-step recommendation, while not actually scientific, has given us something easy to aim for and got people walking5. While we want to be scientific, what is ultimately most important is people taking action to make themselves healthy. Of course, the ideal is something that is scientific yet simple enough to make people change their behaviour.
My life has been kind of an experiment for this. While I aim to be as healthy and fit as possible, I can’t be bothered to dive into all the nitty gritty. Most people can’t too. I use rules of thumb that I believe are optimal for me; optimal in that I will be healthy (life span and health span) without stressing too much about the minute details (joy span6). For example, I run regularly without worrying if I have enough Zone 2 time.
Here are my rules of thumb:
Exercise regularly, with mixed intensities
Eat a moderate mix of carbohydrates7, protein, vegetables, and fruits; avoid sugar, salt, and fried food
Go to bed around 10 pm and sleep 7-8 hours nightly (ideally uninterrupted)
Challenge myself with something I believe in; meditate when stressed
That said, I still wonder if this is sufficient to keep me healthy, functional, and happy as I age. I’m looking into this and will report back!
How are you working on your health?
I’m generally not a fan of supplements but open to recommendations.
Or did I just jinx it? Only parents will understand this. 😂
As someone who is health-conscious and active, I cannot understand why people would ignore their health.
I don’t mean this in a rude way. I love people who take care of their health. The healthcare system will be a lot less burdened if more people are like them.
The idea of 10,000 steps was a marketing campaign by a Japanese company selling a pedometer. 10,000 was chosen because the Japanese character for 10,000 looks like a person walking. Nevertheless, while the ideal number of steps depends on the individual, walking has its health benefits.
I made up the term “joy span”. While I love to be healthy and fit, I think over-optimising and stressing about it takes away the joys in life. ChatGPT defined it as “how long you can enjoy life fully, through meaningful experiences, relaxation, and a balance of indulgence and well-being.”
As an endurance athlete, I consume more carbohydrates than most people.