The Beginning: A Gut Feeling
They say knowledge is power. But at 49, sitting at the edge of a trail he once visited as a beginner runner, he wasn’t so sure anymore. He had spent most of his life and career looking for something meaningful that would help others – dozens of patients with mysterious gut illnesses, Autism, even depression – often using a treatment most doctors still find unthinkable: fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). But his own body? His own vitality? For a long period? Slipping.
He wasn’t sick. Not really. But things were off. Recovery took longer. Sleep wasn’t deep. Food didn’t energize – it sedated. And perhaps worst of all: his curiosity had dulled, like an old scalpel forgotten in the back of a drawer.
That was when the question hit: “Can I use everything I know to change my life?”
This wasn’t just a midlife pivot. He had already done wild things: fasted for days, ran a marathon on a 400 m track, in a somewhat rogue experiment had transplanted gut bacteria to Olympic swimmers with a handful of colleagues and once from an elite endurance athlete into himself. A week later, he ran 71 kilometers without hitting the wall. Coincidence? Maybe. But that planted a deeper idea: Could microbes hold the real key not just to performance, but to transformation?
This blog – this journey – isn’t about biohacking or longevity for longevity’s sake. He is chasing something deeper. A kind of wholeness he calls "healthevity" – health and vitality fused. Longevity is part of it, for sure. But who wants to live longer in a state of slow decay? Not him.
In these next 31 weeks, he’ll test everything: food, fasting, fecal therapy, stress, sleep, sex, sun, supplements. He’ll dive into studies, run self-experiments, revisit patients, and yes – he might even poop in a blender again.
But this time, it’s personal. The goal? Not just to change his life – but to prove that the path to real, embodied, resilient health runs through the gut. Through the trillions of microbes we ignore, yet who may hold the secrets to living not just longer – but better.
Next week: "The Invisible Organ: Meet My Microbiota."