

Ep 120 - Amanda McVey: Longevity, biohacking and Bulletproof Coffee.
This episode of the Escape Your Limits podcast is an inspirational story for athletes, entrepreneurs and the public alike. With a never-say-quit attitude, Amanda McVey, VP of Upgrade Labs, is revealing the secrets of longevity and wellbeing through application of technology and pioneering research.
Part of the Bulletproof family, Upgrade Labs at the Beverly Hilton is where you’ll discover the world’s first human upgrade centre, from the birthplace of biohacking and Bulletproof Coffee.
Watch the full episode on YouTube.
Amanda McVey used to work on Wall Street; she’s always had a start-up mentality and spent a lot of time in the finance space. In addition to her professional life, she was working out a lot of evenings and weekends but was also a dancer. Movement has always been part of her life.
She had everything you’re ‘supposed’ to want – great job, great location, big salary – but wasn’t happy. Following an a-ha moment, she pivoted her career and moved to Equinox on minimum wage. She’d realised that happiness isn’t about chasing pay checks.
Following long-term experience as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor with Crunch and Equinox, Amanda got into boutique fitness and developed her career to the point of helping build facilities herself.
She oversaw the global master trainer team at POUND Rockout Workout – the world's only cardio jam session inspired by drumming. Travelling around expos, Amanda soon realised how much technology was going to influence the future of fitness before discovering Dave Asprey and finding a new hunger for further career progression.
Amanda McVey has always been somebody who follows her gut and isn’t afraid to make her own template for her future success, through a fearless application of passion and a need for moving forward.
Upgrade Labs is the brainchild of Bulletproof Founder and “father of biohacking”, Dave Asprey. With more than 15 different technologies in two signature locations dedicated to improving mental and physical performance and recovery, Upgrade Labs is the first to offer state-of-the-art biohacking equipment to the public.
Facilities include an atmospheric cell trainer, full-body detox massage and lymphatic drainage tech, adaptive resistance machines, cryotherapy, brain training, light therapy techniques and more innovative wellbeing treatments.
Episode highlights -
- How the general public now has access to the technology that was previously only available to the 1% for improvements in health and wellbeing.
- Why high-tech ‘earthing’ through pulsed electro magnetic field therapy will give you more energy, remove inflammation and make you feel recovered with every use.
- How you can supercharge your mitochondria through red light therapy for increased energy and youth restoration.
- Why you may not even like treatments like cryotherapy, but including them in your routine will bring big benefits for your body.
- Where biohacking came from, and how it helped Davey Asprey on his own journey before realising he could use a computer hacking approach for his own health benefits, and to pioneer a new sector.
- Hear the origin story of Bulletproof Coffee.
- How to remove ‘brain fog’ that comes through poor nutrition and other fatiguing influences.
- Why starting out with an unconventional business model disrupted a market before it had even been fully established, and how the biggest opportunities arise from passion and understanding of potential.
- What is biohacking and how it’s a challenge to find specifics that make you better.
- Why your cells may be incredibly complex, but they’re also very simple when it comes to basic needs of water, oxygen, light and other elements that allow them to thrive.
- How Upgrade Labs is split into three groups… The future of fitness, with facilities billed as a workout in 60 minutes that can replace a week’s worth of exercise, recovery and beauty, or self-health, brain and cognition therapies.
- What further progressions can be implemented to pull in data through technologies and use machine learning to offer huge benefits for members with both workout and recovery facilities.
- How a cold HIIT workout combined with compression will send a signal to your brain through lactic acid build up that initiates the release of multiple hormones to benefit your body.
- What the challengers are with building a brand that leads the market, and how you need to be educators instead of piggybacking on other trends.
- How the role of a trainer is going to shift in the future with the onset of recovery technology and new innovative approaches to fitness.
- What goes on at the Upgrade XP conference and how experts on human biohacking, behaviour and brain activity from around the world come to and educate and learn together.
Join Matthew Januszek in conversation with Amanda McVey…