I Can't See My Abs, But My Bloodwork Says I'm 27

Author

Aaron Hayslip

Published

Jul 24, 2026

Read

8 min

Practices

Fuel, Anchor

I'm no health expert, and if you saw me shirtless you probably wouldn't want me advising you on fitness.

But I'm also probably just like you in that I've got three kids, I run a business, my wife works full time, and I hardly have enough time to focus on my health and fitness.

But when I ran a 100+ marker blood panel back in December, a doctor told me my biological age was 27, a full 10 years younger than my actual age (37).

So despite not being able to see my abs for most of the year, my testosterone is similar to that of a 20-year-old (naturally), my resting heart rate is 44 bpm and I have near zero disease risk.

I don't say that to brag. I'm just saying that advice from a ripped 25-year-old needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but thoughts from a fellow busy founder who has used systems to maintain a baseline level of health and, in certain sprint seasons, extreme health are helpful.

Here's my systems approach to how I've been able to stay healthy in the midst of it all.

The Goal: Build a Sustainable Baseline, Then Sprint in Seasons for the Abs

I'll be vulnerable here. I grew up heavy. I'm 5 ft. 11 in. and when I graduated high school I was 235 lbs. Not a great look.

But my freshman year of college I lost 70 lbs. in one year virtually without trying and I've never gained it back.

What happened is I completely shifted my environment. I moved to Austin, started road biking, watched the documentary “Super Size Me,” and declared that I would never eat fast food again.

A guy who just lost 70 lbs with no muscles still doesn't look great shirtless, but he's way healthier.

Since then I've been trying to have the experience that so many of my peers had when they were younger but I missed out on - feeling comfortable shirtless.

I remember friends of mine who all through high school had six-pack abs and never sweated at a pool party. But that just wasn't me.

Finally about three years ago, I did it. I cut enough weight down and had enough muscle to where I could finally see my abs. As soon as my Mexico vacation hit they vanished immediately 😆

I say all this because I'm typically pretty bummed about my fitness. I compare myself to professional CrossFitters and think, “maybe I need to work harder.”

But my blood test last year revealed what's actually been happening. Though my efforts have not led me to look like Brad Pitt from Fight Club year-round, they have made me far healthier than 99% of my peers - I guess a “shoot for the moon, land amongst the stars” kind of experience.

The things I'm doing to maintain this health, thanks to habits and systems, are sustainable year-round.

The things I did to get my abs were less sustainable, but also in the grand scheme of things, far less important.

Which is why I say the goal with my health is to build a sustainable healthy baseline and then in different seasons I can sprint towards more extreme goals (like abs 😆).

Rule of Life for Health

If you've read my article on my “Lifelong Commitments” you'll know that there's a document I read every morning that has 14 lifelong commitments. 2 of them are:

• #3 What I eat: I eat intentionally, like an athlete. For the most part, I'm tracking what I eat to bulk (cleanly), cut, re-comp, or maintain.
• For the most part, I avoid alcohol, sugar and processed grains, but also live a little during celebrations, vacations or dates with my wife.
• #5 Workout: 4 to 5 days a week I workout, either lifting, running, mountain biking, Peloton, triathlon training, etc, but mostly lifting close to failure. Muscle mass is important as I age.

Maintaining elite health year round is essentially the result of sticking to these two commitments. Note that for me, in order for them to be lifelong commitments, they need to be things that I can commit to any week of the year, any year of my life.

But for some of you, keeping these commitments is far harder than it is for me, simply because you haven't built the systems that make them easy.

The Systems That Make Health Easy

When I think of my health I think of these three buckets that I have control over:

• Sleep: Quality and duration
• Nutrition: What I eat
• Exercise: How I move

How you look (body composition) and how healthy you are (measured by your bio-markers) are simply the result of how you control these three buckets.

Let me walk you through the principles that make it easy to get quality sleep, maintain a healthy diet, and stick to frequent exercise routines:

First: Sleep, Nutrition, and Fitness Are Symbiotic

First, note that these are all intertwined and have to be tackled together. It's hard to sleep well when you're not exercising and you're eating like crap. It's hard to exercise when you're running on no sleep.

Or to say it positively, it's far easier to stick to a healthy diet when you've been working hard in the gym.

And it's far easier to push hard in the gym when you've been fueling yourself well.

My “System” for Sleep

I track my sleep with WHOOP so I know for a fact that I sleep better than most of my peers.

Honestly I do all of the same boring stuff that everyone else recommends that you do:

• I go to bed at the same time every night. My wife and I have ALWAYS gone to bed at the same time together (I think that's important) and we more or less wake up at the same time.
• I keep my house at 67 at night. It's expensive, but worth it.
• I have blackout curtains.
• We watch The Office on my laptop almost every night 😆. You're not supposed to, but it helps my brain check out.
• I take Melatonin every night. You're also not supposed to do this but I do and it's great.
• I try not to drink caffeine after 12pm.
• If I have even one drink of alcohol, I know I'm rolling the dice on a crappy night of sleep.

Typically I'm getting 6.5 to 7 hours on the weekdays and on the weekends I'm getting more like 8 hours, thanks to my kids getting older now and sleeping in.

My “System” for Nutrition

I've tried every fad diet - vegan, paleo, keto - and here's my honest conclusion: they all “work” for the same reason.

They get you eating more real nutrients and less processed junk.

So I stopped chasing diets and kept three simple rules: high protein, minimal processed food, and control my calories.

In practice that's mostly lean meats and vegetables, plus whatever I want on top - a true 80/20.

But the real system is household habits, and my wife is half of it.

Every Sunday we set the week's menu, order groceries online for delivery, and I meal-prep my lunches (usually 7-8 oz of chicken with a vegetable - our grocery budget is, honestly, insane).

Monday through Friday I make food boring on purpose: a protein bar for breakfast, a prepped lunch, a high-protein snack, and a dinner from our rotation of high-protein-plus-a-vegetable recipes (the kids get the spaghetti; my wife and I have the giant salad with the meatballs).

That keeps me in a slight deficit all week - which is exactly what buys me Friday and Saturday to actually enjoy food, a drink, and date night without guilt.

Across the week it nets out to roughly maintenance. I'm not going to have abs eating like this. But I'm going to be healthy, every single week, without spending any willpower on it.

Then, if there's a season where I want to lean down or bulk up, I start tracking everything.

My “System” for Exercise

Exercise is where I keep it simple and just stay consistent. I'm not the expert here - go listen to Huberman - but the one thing I'm certain of is that muscle mass and strength are the highest-leverage things you can protect as you age (you start losing muscle over time, and more muscle with less fat happens to look better too).

So I lift three to four days a week, no matter the season.

What that looks like changes - some seasons it's CrossFit (I love that someone else programs it and there's a barbell involved; it's how I went from not being able to do a single pull-up after our first kid to 15 strict ones), and right now it's a guided app called Ladder on a bodybuilding block.

I add a little steady-state on top: a ~3-mile run once a week, walks, and a treadmill under my desk for easy steps during the workday.

I also like planning training in seasons - more lifting in the winter, sports in the spring, a Hyrox for fun this fall.

But the biggest hack, by far, is to orient your life around the workout instead of squeezing it into the cracks.

I literally keep my office inside a gym, so working out is the path of least resistance - and yes, as a founder, I'll steal workout time from the workday and treat it like a client treats golf. That's how it actually gets done.

It's Not Really About Fitness. It's a Whole Life.

Step back, and none of this is really about fitness - it's about a whole life that quietly makes fitness the default.

My wife and I are aligned on the things that actually move the needle: when we go to bed, how much we drink, the food we keep in the house, and protecting each other's workouts on the weekend (she runs, I run, we take walks together).

That alignment is the real system; sleep, nutrition, and exercise just sit on top of it. It's what lets me hold a genuinely healthy baseline year-round while being fully present as a dad and locked in at work - no six-pack required.

Then, a few times a year, I get to sprint.

Right now I'm taking my wife to Mexico in October, so for a season I'll push toward “extreme” and maybe even find my abs again (until the first beachside margarita makes them disappear 😆).

That's the whole game: build a baseline you can keep any week of your life, and save the sprints for the seasons that are actually worth it.