The biohacking entrepreneur talks about monitoring the frequency of his ejaculation and a two-second trick to get your brainwaves in “alpha” mode.
September 29, 2025
Photo courtesy of Dave Asprey; Getty Images
“How did a fat computer hacker get abs like this?“ Dave Asprey is looking at his body. “Like, I have veins.” The tech-exec-turned-biohacker tilts his phone screen toward his six-pack. “And I’m 52,” he adds, “allegedly.”
Ribeye sears in his Zoom background. It’s afternoon in Austin when I connect with Asprey—best-known as the man who put butter in coffee (a ketogenic diet trend he started with his former brand, Bulletproof) but he's also helped popularize a bunch of other “biohacks” like blue-light blockers, collagen, cold plunging, and PEMFs (pulsed electromagnetic field devices).
Our call caught the chiseled influencer prepping a pound of local steak between podcasts (he said he had six different shows to record after this).
The wagyu was breakfast for Asprey, who, famously, intermittently fasts. Earlier, he just took about 100 vitamins, cognitive enhancers, and nootropics. The stack, he said, gave him the clarity to bank a couple episodes of The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey—his long-running podcast, which answers questions like “Should You Eat Dirt?” (episode #1,289) and “Who Should Take Herbal Ecstasy?” (episode #1,306).
Stepping away from sautéing herbs in beef tallow, Asprey pans the camera to his sauna, where he often starts his days at dawn, drinking Danger Coffee—his line of beans, mineral-fortified and mold-free (Asprey is outspoken about toxic mold, as evidenced in his 2015 documentary MOLDY).
Author of The Bulletproof Diet—and four other bestsellers—Asprey is known to make controversial health-related claims that are not always backed by science and for his strong takes on specific foods, like oatmeal, which he calls overpriced “peasant food.” Also bad: peas, falafel, raisins, and hummus, which he says “make you weak.”
Most recently, Asprey released Heavily Meditated (HarperCollins, 2024) a book about how to have “big peaceful brainwaves,” as he put it on a recent episode of The Dr. Phil Podcast.
We caught up with Dave to see what's new in his daily health routine, and talked about brain hacks, swallowing sixty supplements at once, and why Asprey ejaculates every eleven days to protect his chi.
GQ: Hi Dave!
Dave Asprey: Hi. I’m cooking steak, if that’s okay.
Perfect.
There might also be butter involved.
I have a snack, too. [Holds up Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Collagen Protein Bar by Bulletproof.]
My old company.
Do you still eat them?
No. I think they started using plant-based stuff. I use their MCTs [medium-chain triglycerides] though.
Most people probably know you as the man who put MCT oil in coffee.
I got the idea in Tibet from yak butter tea. I trademarked Bulletproof [a brand built on blending MCT oil into coffee that helped launch the “butter coffee” craze], and venture funded that. I didn’t trademark “biohacking” but I made it something for society. Merriam-Webster added it as a new word in 2018, and my name is in the definition. It’s totally crazy. Just from this idea that we can control our own biology—you just have to know what to do.
You once posted a picture of 84 pills captioned “breakfast.” I also read somewhere that you spend—is it $3000-a-month on supplements?
That’s exactly the number.
What’s your morning routine?
This “morning routine” idea is kind of toxic. You end up doing stuff your body doesn’t need just because it’s your “routine” instead of listening to your body and saying: How stressed am I? Do I need more stress? Or more recovery? The body improves when it’s in a recovered state. Don’t push harder. Recover harder. I have an at-home Upgrade Labs [Asprey’s chain of biohacking centers that offer red-light therapy, cryotherapy, neurofeedback, etc.]. I have an AI machine for cardio, an AI machine for putting on muscle, and a whole body vibration platform. You have to do what your body needs.
It’s hard to know what you need.
It was. That’s what AI is for. I’m not here to pump all my stuff so no need to write about this but we have an app that looks at your data and tells you what to do to reach your goal. No one is going to study all nine of my books, 3,000 blog posts and 1,300 podcasts. So we trained an AI model so you can just say: “I look like this. This is how I am. Tell me what to do.”
I saw you post your $17,000 espresso machine.
Literally, I made coffee on that an hour ago.
Does it taste like a $17,000 coffee?
For a true coffee nerd it makes a five-to-ten percent difference. Mine is chrome and sexy so I feel like I’m driving a Ferrari when I make my Americano.
You seem to have very selective taste. I know you feel strongly about certain foods, like oatmeal “pisses you off,” you often say, and “fuck peanuts.”
All from experience.
How do you eat out?
You can get this at every restaurant. [Holds up raw meat.]
What is that exactly?
Grass-fed wagyu ribeye cooked in tallow over a fire in my backyard to prevent indoor steak smoke fumes. I add rosemary, oregano, marjoram, and thyme for antioxidants and longevity.
Beautiful.
I eat this everyday.
Is this your first meal of the day? [It is 1:30pm.]
It is. I took cognitive enhancers this morning, nootropics and all. Now I’ll throw this on a cutting board and show you my supplement stack.
Oh yeah, let’s circle back to that. How many do you take a day?
About 150.
Wow.
I’ll show you how I do it because I’m about to go on a three-week road trip.
That has to take a whole suitcase just for pills.
It’s, like, manageable. By the way, this here is daikon radish, a couple onions and cauliflower, all sautéed in butter. [Shows the rest of his lunch ingredients.]
Do you do one meal a day?
Usually two. I’m 6% body fat. I used to be obese. I’ll show you my abs. [Shows his abs.]
Yeah.
I have veins and I’m allegedly 52 years old.
Is that a six pack or eight?
Six. Eight packs are genetic. You’re just lucky if you have those extra two abdominal muscles. But how is it that a fat computer hacker could have abs like this? It boggles my mind. And I don't exercise much—probably twenty minutes per week. It’s not hard to have muscles if you know how to eat.
When you go to a restaurant, you get steak. But what if someone wants to make you a meal? Would you eat hummus socially, for example? Do you ever feel like you have to be flexible about food to be polite?
I just make fun of people who eat hummus. Like, “Oh, you chose weakness.” I’m only half kidding. People used to call me crazy but now they’re respectful. I won’t eat chicken on purpose but if I'm at someone's house, okay, fine, I’ll have some chicken.
[Laughs.]
I'm going to show you my supplements now. Don't publish a picture of this because I don't want people to copy me. It’s very customized. People have offered me thousands of dollars to tell them what I take and I'm like, let me help you take what you need, not what I need. So, yeah. [Pans camera to show a walk-in closet lined floor to ceiling with pill bottles like a private GNC.] This is my supplement cabinet.
Holy shit. Wait. Stop. I'm obsessed. Oh my god.
Basically I start here in the morning with this shelf. Then, like, go down here. [Runs his hand along several feet of supplement-packed shelving.] How the heck would you do that when you're traveling? I’m going to Romania and Ecuador for this Unlimited Life Mastermind retreat I host, then to L.A. and I'm seeing Steve Aoki in Vegas. [Unzips a big black packing cube.] This is what I wanted to show ya. [Holds up a plastic baggie bulging with pills.]
Wow.
These are my supplements for one night.
How many are in there?
I’m guessing 50. That’s one evening stack.
How many pills can you swallow at once?
Probably 60. Here’s my morning bag. [Holds up another bulging baggie.] It’s bigger—eighty to 100 pills. I could swallow that whole but it’d be work so I take two swallows. But if you drank beer in college, you know how to take supplements.
Were you a big beer drinker?
I was just generally big. Like, 300 pounds big.
[Plates steak.]
How many ounces is that steak?
One pound. I have half a cow in my freezer, from a local ranch.
I’ve heard you say going thirty days without ejaculation helps men get more attention from women. Is that something you practice?
Yes. 100%. Tantric practitioners and some shamans figured this out in different parts of the world. There’s an equation for men: your age minus seven divided by four. Say you’re forty. That means you should ejaculate once every eight days, or less frequently, to maintain your energy. And, Cara, I set out to disprove this. For one year, I tracked my masturbation, sex and ejaculation.
Was this a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet. I also scored daily happiness.
How do you score your happiness?
Before bed, ask, “Do I like my life? How much?” I realized there is totally an ejaculation hangover. It drives men nuts. Guys just hear: “Have less sex.” Have more sex. Just don’t ejaculate. If you don’t ejaculate, you can have sex twice a day. If you learn to have really good sex without ejaculating, you can still work out. Just don't ejaculate. Maintain your energy or “chi” and then you love your life and your partner. You're just fired up. I've taught this to many men. People approach me and say, “Dave, I got a $30,000 raise within the first 30 days.” These are young men. Another guy started two companies. It changes their life because they're just leaking energy all over. So, for me, I’m fifty-two, so, my goal is to ejaculate every eleven days.
Do you keep a calendar for when to cum?
I’ve been doing this for 10 plus years. I just know.
I love the idea of “leaking energy”–a perfect segue to the last thing I want to ask. On Dr. Phil’s podcast yesterday, you were sharing insights from your new book, Heavily Meditated. You mentioned, being able to sense when someone has “big peaceful brain waves.” Do you think we still feel each others’ energy as much when we’re chatting over Zoom and stuff?
You're not gonna feel my brain waves via magnetism. You'll feel them through Quantum.
Oh, say more!
Well, the world we perceive, it's actually not the world that's out there, right? We perceive time and space because they're very useful. But that’s just your eyes and your nervous system interpreting the quantum energy that we float around in. I run Forty Years of Zen, which is kind of an energetic mystery school, in addition to a brain optimization program for executives, so, I know that people are quantum entangled with each other. You've probably had someone, like, just know to call you. How did they know?
You and Dr. Phil talked about “alpha brain state.” You said there’s a “quick and dirty” way to access it at any moment. Could you help me do that now?
Totally. Think of it like learning a chord. One chord isn’t a whole song—meditation is the song—but this is how you hear the sound. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Roll your gaze up toward the middle of your forehead, eyes closed but slightly lifted. Then breathe into your chest and notice what your heart feels like. Exhale and keep your focus on that spot in your forehead.
What do you mean “feel what my heart feels like”?
It’s called interoception—our ability to sense what’s happening inside. Breathwork, meditation, and somatic exercises train a gentle awareness: What’s going on in my chest? You might feel an opening around the heart. Breathe in, focus there, keep your eyes lifted toward your forehead. It sounds complex, but the principle is simple: What is my body doing? It's just like learning a note on the guitar. I teach people to play the sound of peace. How do you play the song of focus or flow or restoring yourself to equilibrium? How do we control our state so we show up the way we want to? That's what alpha brainwaves feel like.
I want to let you eat your steak. Is there anything else we should know about your real-life diet?
Food-wise, just tell them: 200 grams of protein from animals. And saturated fat and olive oil. Avoid bad oils and processed food. And it's not that hard to have muscles even as you age.
And what’s your AI app you mentioned?
It's called AXO and it's part of Upgrade Labs.
Does it include the equation for ejaculating?
Oh my God. It will now. I never thought of it but we're so adding that.
I'm curious if, for women, there's, like, an orgasm protocol as well. But that might be a topic for another magazine...
If you want to go for 30 more seconds, you'll like the answer.
Yes.
So Taoists teach that women walk away undiminished from orgasm. Orgasms, for a woman, increase EQ [emotional intelligence], oxytocin, and vasopressin. But here's the equation—and a lot of research went into this—it's: until she feels like she's gonna die, plus two.
In Real-Life Diet, athletes, celebrities, and other high performers talk about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.
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