Episode #81: Biohacking on a budget! The best ways to take care of yourself are often free!
23 min
•Jan 15, 20263 months agoSummary
Dylan Gemelli discusses how to optimize health and longevity on a budget, emphasizing that the most impactful biohacking strategies are free or low-cost. The episode covers foundational practices like sleep, movement, stress management, and nutrition rather than expensive gadgets and supplements.
Insights
- Biohacking is fundamentally about taking control of your health and asking questions, not about expensive devices or extreme measures
- Free or minimal-cost interventions like sleep, morning movement, sunlight exposure, and stress management provide the greatest health ROI
- Emotional health and stress reduction through gratitude, social connection, and spirituality directly impact physical health markers and aging
- Supplement strategy should prioritize foundational nutrients (electrolytes, vitamins D/K/B, creatine, mitochondrial support) over quantity
- Consistency with basic health habits during difficult days, not peak performance days, is what truly shapes long-term health outcomes
Trends
Growing skepticism of conventional medicine-only approaches driving interest in integrative and naturopathic health practicesShift toward accessible biohacking focused on behavioral and lifestyle changes rather than expensive technology and supplementsIncreased emphasis on cellular health and mitochondrial function as key longevity markers in mainstream health discourseRising awareness of stress and emotional health as measurable biological factors affecting blood work and agingPost-COVID movement toward questioning medical authority and self-directed health research among consumersBudget-conscious health optimization becoming mainstream as cost of living pressures increaseIntegration of spiritual and meditative practices into evidence-based health protocols
Topics
Sleep and recovery optimizationMorning movement and sunlight exposureStress management and meditationStrength training and calisthenicsCardiovascular training and HIITPost-meal movement for blood sugar controlElectrolyte balance and micronutrient supplementationMitochondrial health and cellular energyGratitude and emotional health benefitsBiohacking definition and philosophyBudget fitness and gym membership costsNutrition prioritization on limited budgetsCreatine supplementationGrounding and nature exposureSocial connection and mental health
Companies
EOS Fitness
Referenced as example of affordable gym membership option, with max membership at $40/month and smaller options at $1...
Anytime Fitness
Mentioned as example of gym chain offering very affordable monthly membership rates for budget-conscious fitness
People
Ben Azotti
Referenced as respected health advocate who promotes concept of 'vitamin G' (gratitude) for health benefits
Quotes
"January is not about reinventing yourself. It's about taking care of the you that already exists."
Dylan Gemelli•Opening
"Biohacking is you taking control of your own health, asking questions, looking for other means and ways aside from just conventional medicine."
Dylan Gemelli•Early episode
"Asking questions is the absolute foundation of anything and everything that we have going on in life."
Dylan Gemelli•Mid-episode
"It's not how you do on your best days. It's how you do on your worst day. How do you handle adversity?"
Dylan Gemelli•Closing segment
"I will bet my life on it that the happier you are, the healthier you're going to be."
Dylan Gemelli•Mid-episode
Full Transcript
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Curry now engraved 35% off your one month subscription of might appear gummies at timeline.com backslash dilland 35. That's timeline.com backslash dilland 35 and hurry while this offer lasts. All right everybody welcome back to the Dilland Jamele podcast. I have a really awesome episode for you. I was actually discussing this on a couple podcasts that I've been on recently and I thought man this will be an amazing topic because it is so confusing and a lot of the questions that I get asked when I go gasped on other people shows. I always think wow these are really good topics for me to discuss to try to clear up some areas that people are confused. They get overwhelmed. A lot of times I see people getting frustrated and I do not blame you. So I want to clear up some confusion, provide some help, provide some insight. So we're going to talk about biohacking on a budget. But I think it's important to start off first with just kind of defining that term biohacking. I've talked about this so many times and it is so easy to look at that term and turn it into 75 million different things and scenarios and ideas and concepts. Let's just look at the real logistics. What is biohacking? Let's make it very simple. It's not gadgets, it's not gizmos, it's not coming up with some sort of crazy idea that is so far out of the realm. Yeah, that's really these things are part of it. But what really is it all it is is you taking control of your own health, asking questions, looking for other means and ways aside from just conventional medicine. That's what biohacking is. That's why it was even this movement that was started. It was meant and intended to provide you other areas or avenues to take care of yourself. Asking questions is the absolute foundation of anything and everything that we have going on in life. There was a point in time in the COVID time and I'm not going to get into all the COVID stuff. But asking questions was actually being frowned upon and demonized. Now I ask you, anybody that is telling you what is bad to ask questions, don't you think you should question their motive? Shouldn't we all be asking questions about anything and everything so that we can learn so that we can know so that we can understand? Don't you think it's important to understand anything and everything that you do in life, especially when it comes to your health and your body? Asking questions is key. That is how anything and everything was discovered, founded, you name it. It was based upon asking questions. Questions and answers provide education. There are outlets outlets to understanding and the cornerstone to everything that we have. Every new device that you see, every new technology, don't you think there were questions asked the entire time? Don't you think that it would be important to do that type of thing so that we can make advancements in everything that we do? Yes, you should question anything and everything because we're all humans. Every single human alive makes mistakes, doctors, practitioners, we all make mistakes. We all find new information through testing and through other areas that we may have either misunderstood, this Ben misled. Look, every time somebody's wrong, does it make them a bad person or does it mean that they have a bad motive? I've made a million mistakes. Most of the best teachers have made the most mistakes. They just don't make the same mistake twice. So anybody that comes across and tries to act perfect and tries to act like they know everything, you should not trust them. I'm sorry, but you shouldn't because that is a non-existent phenomena. The only perfect person that ever lived with Jesus, okay? That is it. And so that being said, when it comes to biohacking on a budget, a lot of people think that when you talk about biohacking, like I said, it's these extravagant devices and gadgets and things that you have to use and utilize and the people that want to live a million years old and do spending extravagant amounts of money on everything under the sun. That is not biohacking. That is not what it is intended to be. Those are things that are, yeah, it's great that if you can have the money and the means to afford those to utilize, it's like when you're growing up and playing sport. Yeah, if you can afford to get the extra coaching, yes, that's great. It's really helpful and it does give you a leg up at times, not always. But there's foundational things that you can do that you need to do every single day, whether you're training, learning whatever that every single person alive can do. That's free. So let's start off with some basic things that everybody should be doing and can do and needs to do. Prioritizing sleep, I think would be at the very, very, very top of my list of biohacking on a budget as in free. We're going to go over the free things first. Sleep and rest and recovery are vital and integral for every single key aspect of health. If you do not rest, what happens? Sleep deprivation will kick in. You're going to notice that you're going to have a very hard time burning fat. You're going to have a hard time staying focused. You're going to have a higher level of inflammation and stress, higher cortisol levels, and you're never going to feel healthy or right. You're always going to have this sense of tiredness. You probably get headaches often. You're never going to be able to perform at the ability that you should. Your workouts are going to take a hit, your diet, your circadian rhythm. It's all going to be thrown off. Every single key aspect of your life will be a mess. It will never be fully coordinated with what it needs to be and how it needs to be to live healthy and happily. Moode will be very, very, very difficult to deal with. You'll probably notice a low level of patience. And also, you think about it from a working out standpoint. The hard work that you do, if you never rest and recover, you're never going to get optimal muscle growth. I mean, the list goes on and on and on and injury healings going to take longer. So that would be step or at least step one or at the top of my list is prioritizing sleep, rest, and recovery. It is vital. I mean, in the Bible, and I don't follow this and I'm hypocritical at times, you're supposed to have that rested. That's a Sabbath day, right? So even if you're not religious, it's vital for your overall health. And I think that that's why we were set up the way that we were. Number two is movement. And I would say, especially early morning or as you can in the morning, a walk in the morning, to get your day going, to get you started, to get you moving, I don't have this magical 10,000 step a day number to give to everybody. Yeah, that would be great if you can get 10,000 steps in a day. But is that the end all be all number to wow, if you're under 10,000 steps, you're not really doing enough? No, but I mean, you definitely want to get a good amount of steps in. I at least over 5,000 probably, but this magic number that everybody tries to throw out, that's not the end all be all. Is that an ideal number? Absolutely. Yes, 100%. But I just want movement. Morning sun is also important. Sunlight is important. And look, I'm always careful about how I say things because people love to twist words and go, well, the sun will kill you or you'll be doing. I'm not saying go out in the sun for four and five hours a day and that it exhausting heat or get too much sunlight. But what I am saying is that we all need sunlight. It is very important. And there are so many times where people go just extreme one level or the other, no sun or all the sun. Everything is meant to be done in moderation. We all struggle with that. We all want everything right now. And there's a more is always better mentality that so many of us have. It's very easy to do it. It's like the example of taking a million supplements a day when you don't need that many. But this does this, but this does this. So more of the sun and more of this, that's not what I'm saying. But I am saying it is very important to get that sunlight every day to get the vitamin D going to get it naturally, not just reliancey and dependency on supplement. That's where they're called supplements because they're to be supplemented. They serve a very big purpose. I am a huge advocate of supplements, but I'm also not looking at them to be relied upon. They're not called reliances. They're called supplements. So they need to be used and utilized in that manner. So movement every single day movement, getting morning sun. Then look, I'm not trying to tell everybody that you have to be this big religious, whatever you want to call it. I am. I live by that. I'm very God first. I make that note. But something to do where you have some sort of spirituality or some sort of meditation, something that can get you in a good, nice, stress-free state of mind every single day. For me, it's prayer for somebody else. It might be meditation. It might be yoga, whatever that may be for you. And that would include breath work. Deep breaths and breathing and training yourself to be stress-free. To understand that doing these things create a stress-free environment, which in turn makes you much healthier. These are things that the doctors and everybody's not going to give you. They're going to tell you to just take every medication under the sun and do a lot of these things. There are a few that will get into things like this, but mostly it's going to be natural pathics, integrative health practitioners. These are just key important things every day. That getting and also the appreciation of nature and your surroundings breathing in that air. Grounding is a great thing. If you can do a little bit of it, I'm not Mr. Grounder by any stretch of the imagination, but there is benefit there. I'm not going to make it an essential vital. Like some people would say, but I would say that it is something that it would be good to integrate, but at least walking or moving in the mornings like that. Then I would I'm big on strength training. I'm not saying go out and train like Mr. Olympia and lift thousands of pounds of weights. It would be great that if you could live or lift, push yourself here and there to lift heavier weights to get a little bit more muscle-size, but just strength training. Strength training is a multitude of things and it doesn't even have to be lifting weights, push up, sit-ups, jump ropes, calisthenics. That's all strength training. I would encourage people to go lift some weights. Don't have it in your head that you're going to gain all of this crazy amounts of muscle and size either because I think that there's a big, large misunderstanding on the ability and capability that we have to gain a lot of size and muscle. It takes a lot to just put on a couple pounds of lean, sheer muscle and keep it on. Trust me. So don't have it in your head that oh my gosh, I'm going to get so big if I lift weights. Not going to happen. Not going to happen unless you're lifting massive weights, eating on a caloric surplus, taking supplements, taking performance enhancements. It's going to take a lot to put on a lot of size. The size that would make you a little worried that you're gaining too much size so to speak. So don't worry about that. Strengths training three to four days a week, very, very important. I would also put in cardiovascular training aside from just walking. I'm not saying that you have to run a million miles a week, but it would be good to mix in some steady state cardio along with some high intensity interval training. Sprints, circuits, things of that nature. All again, you can do this outside free of charge. The way lifting you might need a gym membership, but anymore you can get into gyms for I mean, I don't know the the costs of some of the cheaper end gyms, but I know there's gyms out there that are even 15, 20 bucks a month. Jeez, even the EOS gym over here. I have the max membership you can get. It's $40 a month. The smaller ones are down in that 15, $20 range. I think some of like the anytime, fitnesses and places like that, you can get very, very, very, very cheap gym memberships to go and do that. Walking after meals. Very, very, very, important. Now I actually bought me and my wife bicycles. And so I am now biking after a meal. So that's also something, you know, that movement after eating is so beneficial for digestion, blood sugar control, mood, helping food move through the system. It's going to help reduce bloating, but really it's going to have a nice help on blood sugar spikes and boosting feel good hormone. So it's very, very important. 10, 15 minutes after you eat is is enough. Sometimes I do a little bit more than that, but those blood sugar spikes that you'll have nice control over those. So that's definitely something else. You know what else I'm going to throw in there is interaction with other people. And I mean good interaction. Not anything, you know, hateful and all of this gossip and these things that are causing problems and separation amongst people. I'm talking about smiling with somebody laughing, just interacting with others in a good quality way, not getting online and talking shit to people behind a keyboard and doing the cowardly things that people do because I will tell you this, the people that do that, they're very miserable and they're actually trying to bring other people into their misery. And I bet you that these people that do that, if you took their blood panels, they would have all sorts of health issues and markers in there. Most healthy people are pretty darn happy and they don't do that. I'm not saying all of them. There are jerks in all walks of life. But the interaction with other people is so important. And then, you know, taking time away from screens, away from phones, these will actually make you healthier. It will because you'll have family time. You'll feel better. Gratitude, appreciation and love. It is proven. So many respected people talk about it. My good friend Ben Azotti will talk about good old vitamin G of gratitude. And I am in one lock million percent lock stack agreement with him on that, that and how that benefits you to be healthy. It does in a multitude of ways. That gratitude, that love, good affection, that feeling, that will drive your health in so many ways. Because let me tell you something, stress is a killer and that is not a figurative thing. That is an actual thing. And the happier you are in the more positive you are, it shows in your blood work, it shows in in your everyday life, you'll age better, you'll feel better, you'll be happier. I will, I will bet my life on it that the happier you are, the healthier you're going to be. You are the more miserable and upset, down depressed, angry that you are, the unhealthier you will be. I guarantee it. So all of these things that I'm telling you, these are all aside from the gym membership, free of charge. It's really up to you to do these things. And stress exists for all of us. It exists for every single human, but there's so many things you can do to alleviate stress. Now, there are things that you can take, that you can use wearables, things that I've talked about that certainly will help. But we're talking about the strictest budget here. Now, let me say this when it comes to eating healthy. I fully understand where everybody's coming from and I am just as angry as everybody else and probably more so, the way that it's structured and set up for all of us to essentially fail because they want to make the more harmful and problematic foods the easier to be accessible. It is frustrating as can be and it doesn't make any sense. But I will tell you this, prioritize your money to be spent on the things that are important for your health and well-being and that would be what you're putting into your body. Now, everybody can afford to buy every single thing organic, every pasture raised egg, grass fed beef. I understand that you can't afford every single thing, but you should always do your best and prioritize what you're putting into your body more than anything. And then supplement wise, you don't need to take 75,000 different supplements, but there are certain things that I would advise you to look at or consider for optimal health. Aside from your basics, like I would always have electrolytes on hand because any sort of electrolyte imbalance and that's like your magnesium, your sodium, your potassium, your calcium, your chloride, when there's imbalances there, your whole body and system is going to be thrown off. It is a mess. Keeping those in check and imbalance is a vital. It absolutely is a vital. You know, your vitamins, D, your K, your B vitamins, these are all important. There are obviously things that need to be addressed. And then if we're looking at other things that I think are very, very important, I always look at mitochondrial health and a G levels, these are all extremely important to our aging process. These are things I prioritize over certain other supplements that are out there that are not, I'm not saying they're not good, but these are things that I prioritize. Criatine is one I definitely prioritize in my regimen. So getting these, if you can afford them, it's still on a budget by prioritizing what you use and what you don't. You don't have to have every single thing out there. It would be great if you could do that, but I would argue it's not exactly healthy to go overboard either. So you want it to look at those types of things as well. But like I said, these gadgets, some of them are phenomenal. I love them and I would love to use them all. But they're out of this world at realm and you don't have to do that. If you have extra money, you have extra means that you can, there are some certainly that are better than others that I could do an entire topic and video on, but that's not the purpose of this. But those are things that can be done, taken some time with family, taken some time to rest. Like I said, these things are going to go a million, a million miles for you doing things that bring joy and happiness. That's what the key is. And try and to really deal with stress in the best manner possible. But I tell you, prioritizing sleep and eating well will alleviate a lot of extra added stress on you, because it will help you to think clear and to stay calmer. And if you're able to get into those states of mind, like for me, if I can get into prayer, it will comfort me and it will help me to calm it down a little bit for you or for others, it may be to, to, okay, let's slow down and get into that breathing pattern that helps me or let's, you know, make this change or try this or do that, but whatever it may be, finding that safe haven in place for you. But let me tell you something right now, multitudes of things that you can do every single day. And I'm sure I'm leaving some things out here that you can do that are free of charge or very minimal cost that can help really, really provide a longer and healthier life. And once you break bad habits and get into these good habits, it becomes part of you and you don't know what to do if you don't do them. I've got a very nice set routine myself down now that I have to do every single day. And it, it always starts my day off right, even when I'm sick or down or just not feeling my best because we all have days, we're all human, we're, some days we wake up and we're ready to take on the world and other days we wake up and we just, anything and everything sounds bad. Even our favorite foods sound bad some days, so you just don't feel like it. You're going to have those days, but that's when you have to try to be at your extra best. When you push through and get through those kind of days, that's what really shaped you. It's not how you do on your best days. It's how you do on your worst day. How do you handle adversity? How do you, how do you do when you're under pressure? Everybody can do well on their best days, but we're trained and we become better when we do it on our worst. So when you're in a better state of mind and you're healthier, you can always deal with those kind of days better. So I hope this was helpful. I hope it brought a broader and better understanding. I'm not saying conventional medicine or practice is bad, but oftentimes it's just far too relied upon in it, in it's far too easy to do and a lot of practitioners now are trained a certain way. And I know this for a fact, because I talk to people to go through the schooling and go through and I see what they discuss and what they don't discuss and it's so troubling and it makes me sad for all of us, but also for them, because a lot of people go into medical school with an idea of saving the world in lives and they don't get the kind of training that really teaches them how to do that. They're led to believe that, but it's just not it's just not true. You have to be able to think for yourself. You have to be able to rely upon yourself and you have to be able to understand and know what your body needs. Some of these things all bodies need and some people have certain specific needs and necessities aside from others. So hopefully this was helpful and enlightening to some and I try to do my best to be encouraging and inspiring and help everybody that I can. So that being said, stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Jamelli, sign it off.