Kayla Barnes, a 33-year-old wellness CEO based mostly in Cleveland, was keen to choose up her date from the airport one spring night final 12 months. It will be the primary time she would meet Warren Lentz, who lived in Los Angeles, in particular person, and the following step in a month-long burgeoning relationship that included numerous FaceTimes, texts—and, most notably, an in depth change of non-public well being info.
After assembly Warren on Raya, a non-public, membership-based courting app, and earlier than their first date, Kayla requested his well being labs—together with a intestine well being take a look at and a complete toxin take a look at, measuring ranges of heavy metals and environmental toxins within the physique, plus a slew of different assessments, of nutrient ranges, irritation, and a spread of biomarkers. Warren dutifully had all of them carried out by a neighborhood California clinic with out hesitance. And Kayla knew, nonetheless unromantic, that each his compliance and his outcomes would present greater than another courting compatibility take a look at or peculiar deal-breaker query ever may.
“He did all of them with out query,” she tells Fortune. And good factor, she provides, explaining that it was essential to have a associate who appreciated and inspired her strict life-style—and admitting it might “by no means work” to have a person who got here residence, drank beer, ate chips, and watched TV.
“Well being outcomes are so significantly better when we’ve a fantastic assist system round us,” she says. Fortunately, his labs seemed good, with some room for enchancment to strengthen and optimize his intestine well being, she says. Most significantly, he was additionally wanting to see the outcomes and to get more healthy together with her.
He handed different exams, too—together with Kayla asking her suitor if he frequented L.A.’s elite natural meals retailer Erewhon (he did), in addition to rapidly stalking his Instagram to ensure he was following an sufficient variety of well being influencers (he was).
“I had by no means had anybody ask me for my well being labs within the context of courting,” says Warren, 36, the chief income officer at a advertising and marketing company and former founding father of a expertise company for Gen Z influencers. “However I preferred how she was assured about the truth that that was necessary to her.”
***
Kayla has at all times chased perfection. As a child, she labored to hone her gymnastics abilities; as a younger grownup, to review vitamin and obtain a mind coach certification from Dr. Daniel Amen, a neuroscientist recognized for giving rich public figures mind scans.
And now, as an entrepreneur, it’s a part of her job: She’s host of the Longevity Optimization podcast and co-owner of LYV the Wellness Area, an as much as $1,000-a-month membership precision well being and longevity clinic headquartered in Cleveland, the place novel know-how and well being trackers should not solely inside attain, however profession necessities.“I at all times had tremendous excessive ambitions for myself, and I simply wished to grow to be the very best model of myself,” she explains.
Right here’s only a glimpse of how she goals for that now: strict 8:30 bedtimes, set meal occasions of solely natural meals with by no means a drop of alcohol, morning energy classes, weekly physique composition measurements, chilly remedy, pink mild remedy, sleep monitoring, grip energy exams, strolling conferences, routine blood and toxin exams, and quarterly stem cell therapies for preventative functions.
She admits her life-style and values should not in the least relatable. However whereas some could name her a well being nut or health fanatic, in at the moment’s lexicon, Kayla is the epitome of the trendy biohacker: somebody with a pure dedication to experimenting and optimizing well being by utilizing information, know-how, and life-style interventions. Within the age of longevity, the place extra individuals are wanting to spend within the title of residing longer, we’re accustomed to many novel biohacking life-style selections. However there’s a brand new frontier we’ve but to listen to about: the biohacking courting market.
Kayla says she trusts the science of protocols like stem cell therapies to sluggish growing older, particularly as a result of she’s interviewed so many within the area on her podcast. Nonetheless, she acknowledges that that is her private protocol and doesn’t think about herself a well being supplier for the broader public, regardless of co-owning a long life clinic.
However naturally, she yearned for a associate who does greater than spend money on a high-end health club membership, gulp down a inexperienced smoothie, and attempt to eat natural. Discovering an appropriate biohacking mate, she realized, would show to be an entire totally different feat.
However then got here Warren, who ignited Kayla’s craving for connection and her need to have a associate who would slot in together with her life-style.
An atypical first date
Following their first encounter on the Cleveland airport and a stroll, Kayla confirmed Warren her residence, the place it was exhausting to overlook the quite a few “well being robots,” as Warren nicknamed them, distributed all through. A $7,000 sauna shared her bed room, together with a $2,500 Faraday cage to guard in opposition to electromagnetic pulse, a $45,000 PEMF to cut back muscle fatigue after train, and $2,000 pink mild panels on the again door of her closet to cut back pores and skin growing older (based on the Cleveland Clinic, whereas small research present promise in low-level red-light remedy, longer-term analysis is required to name it a viable remedy for treating the pores and skin).
“Being wholesome as a life-style not as a burden was undoubtedly on the forefront of her life,” Warren recollects about observing her cupboards, which resemble pharmacies reasonably than houses for boxed pasta and paprika.
“I knew immediately he was gonna be in or out as a result of in all probability not on daily basis that you just go to fulfill somebody you’re courting do you open up the fridge and see syringes [full of peptides to reduce skin aging],” Kayla says.
On the primary assembly, Kayla additionally gave a tour of her longevity clinic and the pièce de resistance of the date: an hour-long session for 2 in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber—a therapeutic tube for the physique initially meant to deal with individuals with carbon dioxide poisoning and to extend oxygen in scuba divers after stress modifications, based on the FDA. And there, albeit not throughout from one another at a candle-lit dinner, the 2 had on a regular basis first-date conversations, concerning their pursuits and life-style values, all whereas enclosed in a Again-to-the-Future-esque tube.
Their chemistry was evident to each.
“We had been fairly intentional, which I liked,” says Warren, who was health-conscious already at that time, albeit to not Kayla’s degree. “If different individuals heard [about the date], it may not sound tremendous romantic, but it surely was so thrilling to us. It was what we had been ready for.”
Kayla Barnes-Lentz
A fast however necessary notice about biohacking
Whereas the $27 billion longevity market is embraced by many, its particular practices should not at all times scientifically backed, FDA-approved or physician-recommended—a proven fact that Kayla and Warren perceive and are comfy with, however which newcomers may need to parse out on their very own.
Nonetheless, the business has amassed a cohort of loyal followers, from Silicon Valley’s Bryan Johnson to researcher David Sinclair and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. Girls like Kayla are additionally main the way in which in taking preventative measures for his or her well being to stay longer, more healthy lives. And inside that dialog, the necessity for social connection is seldom talked about—regardless of sturdy proof that it’s the energy of our interpersonal relationships that the majority usually predicts our happiness, and which in flip prevents stress, nervousness, and melancholy, all accelerants to growing older.
Biohacker Wedding ceremony Bells
After simply three months of courting, Kayla and Warren bought engaged whereas long-distance within the mid-point of Austin, Texas—though she jokes, she would have liked it to be at their go-to date spot of Erewhon.
Courtesy of Kayla Barnes
On the wedding ceremony lower than six months later—an affair the place 150 company loved bone broth, natural grass-fed, grass-finished meat, and an natural keto cake—the hitched Lentz and Barnes-Lentz sported matching Ranges Dexcom steady glucose displays, seen on every of their arms.
They now stay collectively in L.A., and disclosed they make seven figures, making it potential to spend within the low six figures on their longevity protocol. Whereas she is aware of her protocol isn’t accessible to the lots, Kayla admits that no-cost life-style modifications are crucial in making individuals more healthy and in addition hopes to affect individuals to make a fraction of the modifications she makes. Since shifting in collectively final 12 months, Warren has adopted Kayla’s lead in consuming a purely natural weight-reduction plan, going to mattress by 8:30, and limiting all so-called responsible pleasures allowed with the famend 80-20 rule, an age-old precept that champions being disciplined 80% of the time and giving your self wiggle room the opposite 20%.
Kayla Barnes-Lentz
Earlier than assembly Kayla, Warren would keep up previous midnight and indulge within the occasional ice-cold Eating regimen Coke or Dr. Pepper, although he admits it was a trait she hated, prompting him to provide it up.
“It’s in all probability one of many hardest issues, sadly, that I did or had or needed to do for the betterment of us as a pair. However man, a Eating regimen Dr. Pepper,” he says, seemingly dreaming of 1 nonetheless. “Kayla is all in, 10 out of 10 the healthiest particular person I’ve ever met,” he says, admitting that “doing longevity as a pair is exclusive as a result of there’s at all times going to be one one that is perhaps pushing tougher than the opposite.”
That’s Kayla, in fact—one thing Warren says makes him a fortunate man. Now, he calls his spouse the “chief well being officer” of their household. For instance, Kayla has reduce out microplastics, refusing to drink from a plastic cup, although Warren nonetheless makes use of them sometimes.
It’s a nickname welcomed by Kayla, who admits, “I knew that it was going to take somebody actually distinctive to suit every little thing that I used to be in search of,” she says. “However being married has been one of many largest biohacks I’ve ever achieved.”
Masha Maltsava
Being married has been one of many largest biohacks I’ve ever achieved
Kayla Barnes-Lentz
A lot as they assess their bodily and psychological well being, the biohackers have a month-to-month marriage optimization assembly to make sure their partnership is optimized, too. “It’s created an area for her to inform me, ‘Hey, while you eat previous 8 p.m., that doesn’t make me pissed off or act out of the blue, but it surely makes me unhappy as a result of I need you to be your greatest.’” Additionally they make house to go with one another, and each agree it strengthens their emotional bond.
FOMO? By no means heard of it
After all, the duo has to forgo social plans if they’re too late into the night and intervene with their bedtimes. And no, they inform Fortune they don’t have FOMO, primarily as a result of they’ve one another. The sport they’re enjoying is just too enjoyable, and so they wind down their nights by studying or watching a present on the sofa.
Nonetheless, they attempt to make some social plans work by leaving them early, consuming earlier than a cocktail party, or providing an alternate. “I’m turning into somebody like Kayla who doesn’t get pleasure out of consuming meals that’s not natural or grass-fed completed,” Warren says. “I’d reasonably have glowing water with some lemon than a cocktail,” he says, including his household is curious but accepting of their life-style.
On the wedding ceremony, Warren’s sister paid homage to the distinctive pairing. “His sister mentioned I used to be essentially the most ‘unrelatable particular person,’ however I liked it. It was the very best,” she says. Now, Warren’s members of the family all come to Kayla’s clinic to get their very own exams.
Masha Maltsava
With biohacking collectively comes the truth that, if all holds up nicely and the protocols work, the 2 may spend way more time collectively than the typical married couple—maybe one other half century until loss of life do them half. “I don’t know to the extent we may push 200, however I feel it’s a very thrilling time to be alive proper now,” Warren says. “We’re in it for the lengthy haul.”
Regardless of preliminary changes, Warren says adhering to this strict routine was a “no-brainer” and has helped him really feel more healthy—all within the title of affection.
“I’m undoubtedly all in,” he says. “Only a few individuals go the additional mile to get an ideal rating, and that’s what she’s been doing.”
Since assembly Kayla, he shares, his testosterone, the intercourse hormone answerable for libido and sperm manufacturing, has gone up 200 factors (a wholesome vary is from 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter), and he has not craved sugar fixes like he used to.
Says Kayla, “I need to stay so long as my husband does, in order that implies that I must prioritize doing every little thing in my energy with all my assets, entry, and data to optimize his well being. For an optimum marriage, we each must be working on the similar pace.”
The couple is getting ready to financial institution their stem cells for rejuvenation down the highway, for once they get sick and for emergencies, all of which Kayla plans to put up about on her private web site and social media accounts.
“We’ll proceed to have a look at biomarkers to see what’s enhancing, and that’s form of the entire title of this sport,” she says.
And with that, the couple hopes to introduce a brood to their abode—5 to seven kids, to be actual, whom Kayla hopes will likely be biohackers, too. “I’m excited that we’re going to have the ability to have the healthiest kids ever,” she says, noting that a part of the plan consists of investing in a biohacking residence exterior of town. There, whereas curating a wholesome life-style for her kids, she plans to stability the next: “How exhausting will we push into [health optimization], and the way exhausting will we allow them to discover their very own path?”
For Warren’s half, he says that Kayla pushes him in the appropriate path—and will seamlessly achieve this for his or her youngsters, too. “That is somebody who would clearly not simply be an incredible spouse,” he says, “but additionally an incredible mother.”
