Throughout his life, Matt Kaeberlein felt healthy enough. Despite his day job studying healthy aging, he didn’t have a very regimented workout routine, loved eating red meat, and never really thought much about sleep.
“I’ve been lucky that I haven’t had any major health concerns,” Kaeberlein, 54, told Business Insider. “I’ve been relatively healthy despite not living a particularly healthy lifestyle.”
While he devoted his career to longevity research, it wasn’t until a few years ago that he started to seriously reevaluate his own habits. In 2023, he left his job as a professor at the University of Washington to start Optispan, a healthcare technology company focused on making proactive healthcare and longevity practices more accessible to the general public.
Now the CEO, he said the career change was a “big positive” for him was learning how longevity is more than simply prolonging life.
“We’re talking about quality of life for as long as possible, and that’s where lifestyle really has a huge impact,” he said. “If you think about what you could do in 15 years and all the great times that you could have with people you care about, that’s important.”
This new thinking prompted him to make significant changes to his diet, workout routine, and even relationships.
Cutting ultra-processed foods from his ‘American diet’
Kaeberlein said his diet was the biggest area of change for him.
“My diet was a pretty typical American diet for most of my life,” he said. He loved hamburgers and loaded nachos. Now, he eats those more in moderation to cut down on cholesterol. “I like meat, but I don’t eat steak every day.”
He also focuses on reducing ultra-processed foods “as much as possible,” as well as being more vigilant about reading packaging labels when he shops. “Some types of food are always going to have some level of added sugars, but there’s a big difference between 4 grams of added sugars and 14,” he said. Ultra-processed foods are linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, and early death.
After about 6 months, he said his tastes had changed. “If you had asked me 10 years ago, would I be going out to dinner and ordering a salmon salad as opposed to a steak or a hamburger, I’d probably say, ‘no way,'” Kaeberlein said. “You can make habits.”
He stopped keeping alcohol in the house
While he never struggled with sleep, Kaeberlein was curious about tracking it, anyway. He ended up with a clear takeaway: cutting back on booze would improve his sleep quality.
“Everybody who wears a sleep tracker learns alcohol trashes your sleep,” he said. “As much as I wish that wasn’t the case, that is the case.”
Like many people at the height of the pandemic, he and his wife drank almost every night, sometimes splitting a bottle of wine. “If you do that every night, you’re going to have chronic sleep deprivation,” he said. “It’s also empty calories.”
Kaeberlein adopted a more moderate drinking habit by no longer keeping alcohol in the house. “That made a huge difference,” he said. At most, “my wife and I will go out to dinner once a week and have a couple of glasses of wine.”
Besides improving his sleep quality, Kaeberlein said he saw “bigger picture” benefits to his health from cutting back. He used to make “poorer food choices” after a few drinks. He also felt a self-esteem boost from being able to control his drinking more.
“Most people know when they are ‘drinking too much’ and don’t feel great about it,” he said. “So when you stop, you feel better about yourself.”
Strength training helped change his body composition
Growing up, Kaeberlein played basketball and ran track, referring to himself as “athletic-ish” in high school.
Later on, he did some form of resistance training and generally disliked cardio like jogging. “I wasn’t very intentional,” he said, and wasn’t as consistent with working out as he is now.
These days, he devotes four days a week to strength training, which helps build muscle and promotes healthy aging. The rest of the time, he focuses on zone 2, or lower heart-rate, cardio exercises such as walking, biking, or using the elliptical machine.
He and his wife also move around a lot in general. They love hiking together and carve out time for a cardio challenge once a week: they climb a set of 130 stairs in a nearby town 10 times. Kaeberlein said it’s improved his VO2 max, or how strong his heart is — a key sign of longevity.
He says he’s in better shape now than he’s ever been before, which he attributes to a combination of regular resistance training, eating more lean protein, and supplementing his testosterone with weekly injections.
He prioritizes friendships more
Given how important strong bonds are to healthy aging, Kaeberlein started to focus more on his friendships.
“It’s very common for men my age to not have a lot of relationships,” Kaeberlein said, particularly friendships outside immediate family. He’s made bigger strides to connect with people besides his wife and kids.
“I’ve tried to be intentional with reaching out, taking active steps to reach out to friends that I’ve had for many years,” he said. When he has, he’s realized how easily they can pick up where they left off.
It’s also inspired him to be more open to social outings. He remembers savoring his alone time and turning down dinner plans because he wasn’t in the mood. Now, “I usually try to say yes,” he said.
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