Illustration: Matija Medved

Optimize Me

The Guy Who Ran a Marathon in His Driveway Is on to Something

It might seem ridiculous, but people doing extreme health challenges are probably handling the pandemic better than the rest of us

Dana G Smith
Elemental
Published in
5 min readMay 12, 2020

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Optimize Me is an Elemental column exploring (and fact-checking) the weirdest self-improvement trends. It comes out every Tuesday.

Geoffrey Woo is practically famous for intermittent fasting. The CEO of H.V.M.N., a biohacking and nootropic company, is an outspoken advocate for the health benefits of the practice and has been quoted about intermittent fasting multiple times. But when Covid-19 hit and all of our normal routines and dietary habits were thrown into disarray during quarantine, even Woo — who also follows a ketogenic diet — had a lapse.

“The first week or two was like, ‘Oh, this is weird. Maybe we’re all dead in three months. Maybe I’ll have a beer,’” he says. “I think we all lost context of what was the mental state we were in. We had no context, and I think when people have no context, they don’t keep their routines.”

Woo quickly got back in the saddle and renewed his normal 16:8 routine, fasting for 16 hours and eating within an eight-hour window every day. He also added a new component to…

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Dana G Smith
Elemental

Health and science writer • PhD in 🧠 • Words in Scientific American, STAT, The Atlantic, The Guardian • Award-winning Covid-19 coverage for Elemental