I have spent the last twenty years asking a fairly simple question: What is the human body actually capable of when we stop working against it?

That question became personal for me. By the time I was 46, I had a tumor, heart disease and a liver problem. I had aged rapidly, not because I had consciously decided to destroy my health, but because I simply didn't know what I didn't know. Everything changed when I began looking for the truth about the human body rather than another shortcut, health trend or so-called hack.

Recently, I had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Fred Bisci, a man approaching 97 years old who has spent more than seven decades studying nutrition, fasting, human physiology and the body's ability to regenerate. When you sit across from somebody like Fred, the conversation about longevity changes because this isn't a man talking theoretically about what might happen after decades of living a certain way. He has lived the experiment.

One idea kept coming back throughout our conversation: The body doesn't need to be hacked. It needs to be supported.

Your Body Is More Intelligent Than We Give It Credit For

We live in an age obsessed with intervention. When something goes wrong, our instinct is often to ask what we should add. We look for another supplement, another treatment, another protocol or another technology, yet Fred has spent much of his life asking an entirely different question: What should we remove?

He believes one of the most important things people can do is eliminate the foods and habits continually working against the body's normal function. That distinction matters because food itself doesn't "heal" us in the way we sometimes talk about it. The body performs the healing. Nutrition provides materials, sleep provides recovery, movement provides stimulation and hydration provides support, but ultimately the body is doing the work.

I think we have forgotten how extraordinary that is. Cut yourself and your body immediately begins repairing the damage. Break a bone and an entire biological process begins without you consciously directing it. Every second, systems throughout your body are communicating, adapting and responding to the environment around you.

We did not design this extraordinary biological intelligence ourselves. Our bodies were given to us, and once you begin seeing the body that way, health becomes less about controlling it and more about learning how to cooperate with it.

Stop Trying to Hack What You Don't Fully Understand

I have never particularly liked the term "biohacking" because the human body isn't a computer game and we aren't looking for a cheat code.

Imagine you were building a beautiful home and investing $100,000 into a custom kitchen. A van pulls into your driveway with the words "Kitchen Hacker" written across the side. Would you hire him? Probably not. You would want the artisan, the craftsman and the person who respects the complexity of what he is working with.

Why would we treat the human body with any less respect?

There are no meaningful shortcuts to building health over decades. You support the system, nourish it, remove unnecessary burdens, move, sleep, hydrate and continue learning. Then you repeat those things long enough for the body to respond.

That is not biohacking. I think of it as bio-optimization, because the objective is not to outsmart the body but to give it the conditions it needs to function as intelligently as possible.

Consistency May Be the Most Powerful Health Tool We Have

Toward the end of our conversation, Fred said something remarkably simple: "Consistency is the key to everything."

After nearly seven decades of experimenting with his own health, that is one of the conclusions he has reached. It isn't about perfection. It is about consistency and understanding what happens when relatively small positive actions are repeated thousands of times.

One healthy meal will not transform your health, just as one workout will not rebuild your body and one good night's sleep will not restore years of exhaustion. However, repeated signals begin changing the environment in which your body operates. The same principle applies in the opposite direction. One poor decision rarely destroys someone's health, but the accumulation of decisions repeated day after day and year after year can have profound consequences.

Our habits eventually become biological instructions, which means one of the most valuable questions we can ask ourselves is: What instructions am I repeatedly giving my body?

Longevity Without Quality of Life Is Missing the Point

I don't think our goal should simply be extending the number of years somebody remains alive. I want to extend life itself, and there is an important difference between the two.

Fred is approaching 97 and is still thinking about what he can do next. He talks about running again, carries weight, studies, learns, mentors people and spends time with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Most importantly, he is still curious about what his body and mind may be capable of.

That fascinated me because we have accepted an idea that getting older necessarily means progressively surrendering our physical capacity, independence and curiosity. Some changes with age are inevitable, and there are environmental and biological realities outside our control. However, there is an enormous difference between accepting what we cannot control and voluntarily surrendering what we can.

Healthy longevity should not merely mean reaching 90 or 100 years old. It should mean remaining as capable, independent, useful and engaged with life as possible for however many years we are given.

The Older I Get, the More Interested I Am in What Is Possible

There was another theme running through my conversation with Fred that had very little to do with nutrition: curiosity.

At almost 97 years old, he is still willing to encounter an unfamiliar idea and say, "I don't know. Let me look into it." That may be one of the reasons he remains so engaged with life, because the moment we decide we already know everything is the moment we stop learning.

I've experienced this myself. At 46, I had to accept that much of what I believed about health wasn't working. That is uncomfortable, but being wrong can become one of the greatest gifts of your life when discovering that you're wrong moves you closer to what is true.

Fred has lived with that mentality for decades. He studies something, questions it, observes it and carefully puts ideas to the test. When new information appears, he remains willing to investigate it rather than rejecting it simply because it challenges something he previously believed.

Humility and curiosity are not signs of weakness. I believe they are prerequisites for wisdom.

Much Given, Much Required

This is where health becomes something deeper for me. We did not earn these bodies, design our brains or create the intelligence that allows a wound to close, a heart to beat or a child to develop inside the womb. We received something extraordinarily sophisticated, and I believe what we receive comes with responsibility.

The principle I keep returning to is simple: Much given, much required.

If I learn something that dramatically improves my life, I have to ask myself what I am supposed to do with that knowledge. Keeping it to myself has never made sense to me.

Fred feels similarly. For decades, he worked with people because he believed the knowledge he had been given was meant to be used in service of others. His Christian faith became inseparable from that responsibility, and I understand that deeply. To me, serving God means serving people.

Health isn't only about living longer so that we can accumulate more experiences for ourselves. It is also about remaining capable enough to contribute, help, teach, love and serve the people around us.

The Goal Is Not Perfection

None of us lives in a perfect environment. We breathe polluted air, experience stress, encounter chemicals and technologies previous generations never faced, and carry injuries, genetic predispositions and histories we did not choose.

You cannot control everything, but you can take responsibility for what is within your control. That is where I would begin.

You don't need to become overwhelmed trying to rebuild your entire life overnight. Start with something you are genuinely willing to change. Remove something that is obviously working against you. Eat more real food, drink quality water, protect your sleep, move your body, address unresolved pain and injury, pay attention to your thoughts and become curious about how your body responds.

Then continue doing those things tomorrow, the day after that and the day after that. The body responds to consistency far more than it responds to occasional intensity.

Become Younger Than Yesterday

I called my podcast Younger Than Yesterday for a reason. Youthfulness, to me, is not simply a number attached to your birth certificate. It is reflected in your capacity, energy, curiosity, movement, purpose, adaptability and willingness to keep learning.

Fred is approaching 97, yet what struck me most during our conversation wasn't his age. It was how interested he still is in tomorrow and how curious he remains about what his body can do next.

I think there is something incredibly important in that perspective. Maybe the question isn't how we can stop ourselves from getting older. Maybe the better question is: How well can I take care of what I've been given while I'm here?

We don't know exactly how many years any of us have, but we can decide how we meet those years. We can respect our bodies, remain curious, practice consistency, continue learning and share what we discover when it may help somebody else.

Ultimately, health gives us something far more important than additional years. It gives us the opportunity to put more life into the years we are given.