Routines Report for June 2017
What is the best morning routine you have to share with our audience?
That was the question that I was asked at a peak performance panel.
Also, the diagram above shows how much more we ask that same question since 5 years ago.
Why is that on the rise?
Is it because we evolve to understand the purpose behind developing a solid morning routine better?
Is it because we are becoming increasing reliant on someone else telling us what the best morning routine is?
I think we ask because at some point we started believing there is a morning routine that is better than others.
Also, another factor involved is that the stress on body and our soul is on the rise also.
There is no such a thing as the best morning routine that we can religiously follow for the rest of our life.
As we age and develop ourself, we have different needs and therefore our morning routine should change.
Not only every year, I believe, every month should have a different morning, afternoon and evening routine.
Even if we try it’s very tough to keep everything stagnant in our life.
For example, this month with 4 speaking engagements coming up in the next couple of weeks my routines are very different as they were in March, April and May2017.
Consider that’s not just me.
Your life will be different every month if not every day so it’s best to focus on monthly routines as opposed to lifetime routines.
As a biohacker I want to hold my routines to a high standard.
I want you to see the raw part of living a biohacked life.
Also, I feel that in the health and fitness industry is so easy to hide behind a computer and easily tell your clients and follower what a proper monthly routine is.
I want to bring forth a bit more transparency on what actually goes on in a life of a biohacker.
Who likes the oncologist who smokes and tells you how smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer?
There is barely any workability in following that doctor’s advice.
There will be a slip up in everyone’s routine and it is the transparency that holds us accountable to each other.
Every month, I’ll be sharing my Routines Report (RR).
Once biohacks.tv is launched, you will see the videos of me practicing my routines also.
Until then, I will be sharing my routines for each month so that way you can follow my routine each month, experience it with me and ask any questions you may have.
I want to emphasize one more time that there is no best morning routine.
The better question is: What are some good routines when I’m on a vacation or on the busiest schedule with my job?
Even better question is: What are some good routines to enhance my cognitive performance during the busiest time of the year.
The specificity in questions is what I want you to consider.
I believe in varieties and also priorities.
There are definitely parts of my morning routine, evening routine and workout routines that are repeatable.
As for other parts, I rather make changes based on my goals, new experiments, new research and my current lifestyle.
Please be sure to look at my other articles where I explain why each specific item in my routine is beneficial.
I want us to be mindful of the biases we have when it comes to executing our routines.
In an article I’m simultaneously writing with the this one, I discuss how there are a lot of misconceptions that can confuse us.
For example, “the way you do one thing is the way you do everything”.
NOPE. That’s very inaccurate in the context of wanting to exert the same high effort into everything you put your mind into it.
By believing in all or non and the binary world we effectively diminished the significance of priorities.
Priority is a very important concept in hacking our biology.
It is the very reason why we look for a hack to begin with.
Let’s dive in.
Here is my workout routine
First 15 days of the month:
Workout A: A good intro to intermittent fasting
— Shorter hours of fasting: from 10:30pm to 7:00AM.
— First thing in the morning, have 1 shot of bullion.
— Then I have at least 1000ml (1L) total water (add one drop of lemon essential oils to it) including the water with the bullion.
— Workout first thing in the morning. The reason behind this is that typically from 6–8 AM our cortisol hormone (stress hormone) is at its highest (particularly for people who are on a Ketogenic diet).
— Pre-workout: (30 minutes before): take one serving of BCAA.
— 1–3 reps of the maximum weight you can possibly do. Of course, this is not for those of us who are just starting to lift. It’s a little bit advanced so ask for help from a personal trainer.
— Only go as far as 12 sets.
— take 3 minute breaks between the sets.
— Right before the workout, make sure to warm up your body and especially warm up your shoulders.
— Post-workout (right after): have one serving of glutamine, one serving (30g) of protein, 1 bouillon dissolved in hot water.
— foam roll and gut-smashing right after the workout.
— no carbohydrates until 5pm. no fats until 2 hours after the workout is complete.
— at 5pm have one serving of creatine and as much carbs as you can take without getting kicked out of ketosis. Currently, I’m having a good amount of white rice and I still stay within ketosis.
See this Instagram post about measuring how much carb you can take before getting kicked out of ketosis: “Am I producing #ketones yet?”
The second 15 days of the month:
Workout B: Longer fasted hours.
— Fast all the way to 5pm (from 10:30 pm the night before) and workout fasted.
— Drink one shot of bullion cube.
— Have one serving of Knox gelatin.
— Every other hour until 5pm, I have one rocket fuel drink (up to 3 of them). As always if you overdosed on coconut oil, you can always reverse the nausea or any other effects by chugging apple cider vinegar mixed with water.
Rocket Fuel Drink:
Butter, Coconut Oil, Hot water, 100% Cacao Powder
— The last rocket fuel drink is 30 minutes before the workout.
— Pre-workout: (30 minutes before): take one serving of BCAA.
— Take 2 minute breaks between the sets.
— 5 sets of 5 reps including major muscles.
— the last 2 sets can be combined sets.
— Right before the workout, make sure to warm up your body and especially warm up your shoulders.
— have creatine
— Post-workout (right after): have one serving of glutamine, one serving (30g) of protein, 1 bouillon dissolved in hot water.
— foam roll and gut-smashing right after the workout.
— Have carbohydrates the latest during the night the better. This will keep you in a muscle reserving state (ketosis). Take as much carbs as you can take without getting kicked out of ketosis. Currently, I’m having a good amount of white rice and I still stay within ketosis.
— Take shoes off and ground yourself as often as you can.
I have created a bunch of private channel on Telegram App which you can download for free. Create your own channel and name it 10ToGratitude_Past&Present
During your workout you can list 10 things you are grateful for from past and present time.
Note that I avoid using machines for my workouts as much as possible. There have been studies on the efficacy of free weights versus the assisted machines. You’ll build more muscles by using the free weights.
Use the free weights as much as possible. The gravity for balancing a barbell adds to the efficacy of your workout.
Between assisted machines, go with the cable machines for any exercises you want to do.
Workout B:
M: Cable Inclined Press 5*5, Cable Declined Press 5*5, Bench Press 5*5, Dips 5*5, Shrugs 5*5, Triceps Push down 5*5
W: Deadlift 5*5, Overhead Press 5*5, T-back 5*5, Curls 5*5, Barbell Row/Seated Row 5*5
F: Squat 5*5, Leg Extension 5*5, Leg Curl Seated 5*5, Hip Abduction 5*5, Hip Reduction 5*5, Calves 3*35, Leg Curl Laid Down 5*5
Workout A:
M: Bench Press, Triceps Push down, Cable Declined Press, Cable Inclined Press
W: Deadlift, T-back, Curls, Barbell Row/Seated Row
F: Squats, Leg Curl Seated, Leg Extension, Leg Curl Laid Down
The number of reps/sets, the gap in between, recovery routine and diet account for 80% of your gain. The rest is how you lift and what exercises.
Additional Supplements: A more comprehensive list I curated can be found on biohackingresources.com
- EAS 100% Protein Shake: ONLY if you need it for saving time or hitting your protein quota.
- Tones Chicken Bouillon Cubes: 1–2/ day
- Vitamin D3 Life Extension 5000 IU: 1/day
- Ashwaganda Swanson 450mg: 1/day
- Calcium Citrate Douglas Laboratories 250mg: 1–4/day
- Lugol’s Solution 2%: 1 drop/day (especially for females)
- KAL — Magnesium Glycinate 400mg: 2/day
- Triple Strength Fish Oil Omega-3 Gold 2100mg: 2 softgels/day
- Hyperbiotics Immune 2tablets/day (I take this for the 67% zinc and vitamin C it has)
- IndeZone 1–2 servings/day. This has been super strong (AND AMAZING) for me and the reason could be that I’m already super energetic because of high amount of ketones in my body.
- Knox: that’s for people who are following my extreme weight lifting routine and it’s really helpful for our joints.
*My rule of thumb as always for taking supplements and especially nootropics is that unless you get a huge response DO NOT TAKE them. I tried one other nootropic (not to be named here) for 10 days and had no significant response to it. That nootropic will not be recommended in biohackingresources.com neither.
You see we barely have any research on the interactions of supplements in our body and it’s an act of God to capture and isolate the effect of each supplement in comparison with each other and also a control group.
Any nootropics or other performance enhancing supplements that I take, find helpful and find research to back up the effect will make it to my Instagram handle and then subsequently into biohackingresources.com.
Alcohol, caffeine, and social media consumption:
- Zero alcohol consumption.
2. A lot of social media use which I’m not very proud of. I take responsibility to report back on this with a better outcome for July.
3. Very little caffeine probably around 300mg total in the entire month.
Snacks:
- Ketoprimal kind cal each.
Restaurants and Cafes I ate out:
- Demitse. Green tea
- Misfit. 1/4 serving of fries
- Urth Cafe African Latte with Almond milk
Quantitative Measurements: For a more comprehensive list see: biohackingresources.com
Qualitative Measurements:
- Mega conscious of how I feel before and after nootropics.
**Morning Routine Essentials:
- Take my indeZone nootropic that has 5-HTP in it. Blue light exposure matters for 5-HTP conversion to serotonin.
- Measure my ketones fasted. In the morning it reads somewhere around 70 on my Ketonix.
- Take 1 bullion and 30g of protein shake.
- Turn the Wifi back on.
- I wear my blue light blocker glasses on before turning my phone back on.
- I do not have any lights on in the morning as in Santa Monica, we have sun in the morning.
- I spent about 15 minutes outside my house listening to an audible. Right now I’m reading a book by Richard Branson.
- Plug myself into the human charger for 12 minutes.
- On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I work out.
- I currently do not have cardio days on Tuesdays and Thursdays as I’m cycling to my most destinations.
- Because this month is all about content creation, the first thing in the morning is to write. On Pandora app, I play the Hans Zimmer radio.
- Wear my posture corrector on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday because it literally holds my body upright. It takes a lot of energy, beyond we can imagine, to hold our posture upright. I don’t wear it on workout days as it’s too much stretching of the muscles on the same day.
- What I eat or drink is based on workout A or B that is explained above.
- Brush my teeth with My Magic Mud. See more here
- 15 minutes Brain.FM. This piece is a fluid one and I do it when I know my attention is low. The biology behind it is depletion of 2 neurotransmitters that are responsible for attention. You can deplete the them by just going through your Facebook feed for sometime.
- 20 minutes TM meditation
- I write on a Telegram app 10 things I’m grateful for.
**Notice morning routine does not have to be in the morning. Of course the name hints to the timing of the routine being in the morning. However, there is no one to say you can’t continue or complete your morning routine in the evening.
*With that being said, there is also no need to become obsessive about completing your morning routine every day.
*The statement I just made is not a moral licensing and it’s very important to realize priorities trump completion when we are in an overwhelmed stage of our life.
Evening Routine Essentials:
— Sleep at around 9:30 and 10:30.
— 4–5 nights slept at 2 am because of having transformational conversations with some of the closest people in my life.
— Shut circuit, Wifi, Bluetooth off
— Phone is escorted outside the bedroom and is placed on airplane mode until morning.
— 400mg Mg.
— Super cool room temperature. I have a Haier in my bedroom and the cooler all the way up to 8. The highest is 10 so you can imagine it’s very cold. You want it around 63–67 degrees.
— I’m wearing my blue light blocker glasses almost all day. You can only do that when you do get sufficient amount of blue light from sun and human charger. We do need some blue light and preferably from sun and human exposure not the mobile phone or computer screen.
MISC:
— Microdermal electric, Vitamin C and High Frequency at Olga Facials. As I’m preparing to launch my podcast on age regression, I want to try out exotic and alternative treatments. Be sure to check out my IG handle for more on the treatments I did at Olga Facials.
— here or during the routine talk about the glasses and check out my 53 Instagram posts and talk about the water I use etc
— I now stay far away from microwave during its operation.
— Added 4 spoons of olive oil to my routines every day.
— In my daily travels, I have my phone on an airplane mode.
What I tried and didn’t work:
- A pre-biotic starch. I got a massive acne breakout after using it for a week.
- Overdosing on Magnesium by taking 600mg supplement in addition to the Mg I get from protein shake, meat, etc. The outcome was disaster pants.
Experiments:
My experiments are never to be tried out unless with supervision and possibly only for some weird geeky biohackers like myself. The reason I do these experiments is to figure out the cheapest lifestyles with the lowest amount of effort and organization for you.
Also, I want to see how dramatic the difference becomes in my biomarkers, gut biome and other quantitative test when I have the cheapest diet compared to a less affordable diet.
My mindset is to hack my hacks and figure out what hacks are absolutely essential and which ones are kind of fun to try out.
This month my focus is to find the cheapest version of my routine for clients. Some days I’ve lived only on protein shakes and some days only a non-grass fed beef.
The cost of staying on a Ketogenic diet with the cheapest options available in a month came down to around ~130/month.
More on will come in a different article.
The biohacking life can be expensive so my intention is to publish an article with the most affordable options for those of us who cannot afford the lifestyle just yet.
I’ve also experimented with 30+ different products and not all of them are going to make to my social media.
There are some products that I do not want my audience to use them so they will not be featured on my Instagram. Instead, I tell you why you shouldn’t use them by explaining the science behind it.
For example: see this post on IG.
Also, I’ve been exploring the effects of nootropics and ketones combined.
In July’s report, you’ll see more on exogenous ketones, nootropics and their combination.
Concluding thoughts:
I welcome your thoughts and opinions on my routine and want to hear how it helps you with. Please share the article with at least one person you think would benefit from it.
If you have a product that you want me to review to be presented in front of ~15K total social media audience, please DM me on Instagram @hackmybiology.
If you are interested in my biohacking mini-course head over to hackmybiology.com and download your course. That is a good start for anyone who wants to start their biohacking journey.
Arvin Khamseh Coaching. (“AKC”) article content and information provided by AKC staff is provided for informational purposes only. Such information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease or to provide medical advice. Nor is it intended to replace a relationship with a health care provider. Nutrition information on this article represents the opinions of the respective author and is protected under the laws of copyright and trademark.
No statement on this article is intended to imply that supplements can or should be used in place of a drug or medication or that supplements can cure, treat, or prevent disease. Any questions you may have concerning your use of drugs, medications, or supplements should be directed to your healthcare professional.
None of the product statements on the AKC article have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
