I am 53.
I am documenting every vanity metric
measurable signal of getting
older, on purpose.
A public midlife longevity experiment — tracking biomarkers, DEXA scans, TRT, sleep, and biological aging without a billionaire budget.
No $2M health team. No supplement company to sell you. Just a Brazilian-American restaurateur who pours cocktails on Saturday night and would like to be the grandpa who shows up at 75.
Every protocol below is shown with the lab work behind it, the dosage, the cost, and whether it actually moved the needle. The data is pulled weekly from Apple Health, Oura, Withings, a Stelo CGM, and bloodwork drawn in Maceió. Why I’m doing this →
The dashboard, today.
A snapshot of one body, in motion.
Chronological 53.6. Lifted by elite bone density and TRT-supported lean mass; dragged down by VO2 max and a stubborn HOMA-IR.
The premise.
Modern longevity has been hijacked by two camps: the doctors who say “wait until something breaks,” and the billionaires running personal medical labs out of their basements. There is a third path. This is that path, in public — on a restaurateur’s budget.
Longevity is engineering, not lifestyle.
The interventions that matter — HOMA-IR, VO2 max, lean mass, sleep architecture, glycemic variability — are measurable, dose-dependent, and well-documented. You don’t need a guru. You need a panel, a plan, and a year.
If it isn’t measured, it didn’t happen.
Sixteen blood panels since 2019. A full Bioma metabolic genome decoded. DEXA twice a year. Continuous glucose monitoring through every restaurant shift and every Sicilian pasta night. Protocols stay only if the numbers respond. Hope is not a strategy; a spreadsheet is.
What works gets a star. What doesn’t gets dropped.
Tirzepatide: kept — 70 lbs gone since 2008. CPAP: prescribed, fighting myself to use it. Bisoprolol: rethinking. Rapamycin: not yet, talk to me at 55. Every supplement has a column for cost, source, biomarker moved, and my status. The doubts are part of the data.
Latest from the lab notebook.
SpO2 dropped from 98.5 to 95.9%. The CPAP isn’t optional anymore.
17 months of Oura SpO2 data with a Breathing Disturbance Index averaging 7-16/hr. That’s mild-to-moderate OSA. The machine is in the closet. The data says it’s the single highest-leverage move in the entire protocol — it would simultaneously lower resting HR, hs-CRP, and HOMA-IR.
BDI 0 → 7-16/hr
A 23-bpm jump in resting HR is not a coincidence.
Four months after the December pellet insertion, RHR has climbed from a 5-year low of 49.5 to 72.6 bpm. Two prime suspects: TRT-driven hematocrit rise + airway collapsibility. Adjusting cadence to every 5 months; investigating OSA as the upstream driver.
Cadence 4 mo → 5 mo
Panel №16 is live. HOMA-IR stuck at 3.50, Free T4 still falling.
Sixteenth comprehensive panel posted in full, with the raw IPC Maceió PDF and the prior values for every marker. Free T4 has now dropped across four consecutive draws (1.03 → 0.87 → 0.97 → 0.70). Adding Free T3, Reverse T3, TPO antibodies to next panel.
HOMA-IR 0.5 → 3.50
DEXA Day #1: a machine scanned my body. 2.68 lbs of VAT.
First BodySpec scan at $49. The headline isn’t the 19.3% body fat — it’s the 2.68 lbs of visceral fat hiding around the liver that the scale never showed. Lean mass at 120.3 lbs is the floor I refuse to lose during the recomp. Bone Z-score 1.8 — 93rd percentile.
A/G ratio ? → 1.09
56% hyperuricemia risk. In a guy who owns a Sicilian restaurant.
Bioma Genetics decoded the metabolic panel: GLUT9 homozygous, RREB1 T/T, PEMT T/T. The genome is screaming purine restriction at a man whose business is anchovies, prosciutto, and ossobuco. The supplement stack is now genome-informed — methylfolate, phosphatidylcholine, Mg, Zn — every dose has a variant behind it.
NAFLD risk 43%
Pellet inserted. Testosterone went from 266 to 1,041 ng/dL.
First-ever TRT pellet, prescribed after pre-cycle T came back at 266. Six-month cycle. Lean mass is responding (120.3 lbs on March DEXA). E2 climbing to 55 pg/mL — aromatization to watch. Hematocrit pending on next panel; if it’s above 50, the cadence stretches.
Estradiol 19 → 55 pg/mL
I want to be the grandpa who shows up. Not the one in a photo on the wall. The difference between those two sentences is the entire experiment.Emma · 3 yrs · Matthew · 1 yr
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One man, real data, sent only when something moves. No noise, no supplements to sell, no daily check-ins. Just field notes from the experiment.
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A public, documented experiment in midlife longevity by Saulo Cruz — Brazilian-American restaurateur, father of two, grandfather of two, optimizing his way to 75 sharp. Independent. Self-funded. Not a clinic.
This is not medical advice. I am not a doctor. The protocols on this site are documented for my body, by me, with a real medical team (Dr. Tolani · Dra. Penélope Tabatinga · Dra. Mayara Ferro). Do not change your medication, training, or supplements based on what one Brazilian restaurateur on the internet is doing. Talk to your physician.
© 2026 The Vita Experiment
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