How Dr Aaron Hartman Thinks About Real Health, Longevity and Doing the Basics Well
Why a triple board-certified doctor thinks the “unsexy” basics will change your health more than any hack, and how to start today.
Watch On YouTube
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Watch On YouTube 〰️
TL;DR
Why mastering the basics of health beats chasing every new trend – in medicine, training, nutrition and recovery.
How to think about diet, movement, fasting and protein in a way that actually fits real life, not social media.
Why curiosity, self-trust and not accepting “it’s all in your head” are critical if you have stubborn health issues.
The overlooked role of oral health, stress and overtraining in hormone problems, fatigue and long-term disease.
How to use tools like wearables without letting the data stress you out and make your health worse.
🎧 Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Introduction
Some episodes stay with you long after you hit stop. This conversation with Dr Aaron Hartman is one of them.
Aaron is a triple board-certified medical doctor who built a successful conventional practice before something close to home forced him to question the system he was trained in. His adopted daughter, Anna, was exposed to crystal meth in the womb, had a stroke before birth, was born functionally blind and “a mess basically”, as Aaron puts it. Specialists expected her to spend life hunched over in a wheelchair, with a feeding tube and very little independence. Instead, she learned to talk, see, write and is now in her twenties, moving out of home and beating every prognosis she was given.
Her story pushed Aaron to become “the 15th doctor” people see when everyone else has told them it’s all in their head. Across more than 100,000 clinical encounters, he’s worked with people dealing with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, mould-related illness, post-concussion issues, complex hormone problems and more, often after years of frustration in the traditional system.
In this episode, we dig into what actually moves the needle for long-term health and performance: simple behaviours done consistently, a deep respect for basics, and a refusal to outsource all your thinking to “experts”. We talk about diet, movement, fasting, protein, overtraining, women’s physiology, oral health, wearables and the mindset you need if you feel something is wrong but no one has given you answers yet.
Listen On Apple Podcast
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Listen On Apple Podcast 〰️
Listen On Spotify
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Listen On Spotify 〰️
Lesson 1: Master the Basics Before You Chase Health “Hacks”
What It Is:
Focusing on the simple, proven foundations of health, food, movement, sleep, environment and purpose, before layering on advanced therapies, supplements or protocols.
Why It Matters:
Aaron sees a pattern in medicine, sport and everyday life: people try to skip the groundwork and sprint straight to the “cool” stuff. New diets, peptides, stem cells, fancy tests, extreme training. All while ignoring the habits that actually drive longevity and day-to-day function. When the basics aren’t in place, the advanced tools don’t work well, don’t last, or even cause harm. Just like an athlete who wants to hit bicycle kicks before they can pass properly, a body without fundamentals in place can’t handle complex interventions for long.
How To Apply It:
Audit your current basics: sleep, food, movement, stress, social connection and time outside. Give each one a simple 1-5 rating for how consistent you are.
Pick one area that is clearly under a 3 and commit to improving only that for the next 2-4 weeks instead of chasing a new supplement or protocol.
Before you buy or start anything “advanced”, ask: “Have I done the boring work in this area for at least 3 months?” If not, start there.
When you hear about a new trend (diet, protocol, gadget), write down how it would sit on top of, not replace, your foundations. If you can’t answer that, park it for now.
Use the Blue Zones idea as a filter: real food, daily movement, clean environments, community and purpose. If a new idea doesn’t fit with that, be sceptical.
Pro Tip:
If a health promise sounds like you can “win the marathon in the first 100 metres”, it’s probably skipping the basics you actually need.
Try This Today:
Write down three behaviours you already know you should be doing (for example: 7 hours sleep, 8,000 steps, cooking one real-food meal). Circle one and schedule it for today.
Lesson 2: Trust Your Body, Stay Curious and Don’t Accept “It’s All in Your Head”
What It Is:
Choosing to trust your own experience of your body, staying curious, and continuing to look for answers when something feels wrong, even if you’ve seen multiple doctors already.
Why It Matters:
Aaron works with people who are often told nothing is wrong, or that their symptoms are purely psychological. Conditions like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia were dismissed as psychiatric for years, even though we now know they involve inflammation in the brain. When you hand over all your authority, you can get stuck inside the blind spots of the system. Experts are human, systems are slow to change, and guidelines often lag decades behind what the best clinicians are already doing. Curiosity and self-trust are what keep people searching until they find someone willing to look wider and think differently.
How To Apply It:
When you feel something is off; brain fog, gut issues, sleep changes, weird pains, write it down. Symptoms, timing, triggers and anything that makes it better or worse.
If a practitioner says “your tests are normal, there’s nothing wrong”, ask: “What else could we look at?” If they dismiss you, that’s useful information about fit.
Educate yourself from a few solid sources rather than endless scrolling. Use that to ask better questions, not to self-diagnose everything.
Look for clinicians who are willing to say “I don’t know yet, let’s explore”, rather than “these are the five things I treat; you don’t have one, so you’re fine.”
If you’ve seen many doctors, aim for one who will walk alongside you over time, not just tick boxes in a single visit.
Pro Tip:
Being curious about your health doesn’t mean ignoring mental health, it means not letting “it’s all in your head” be the end of the conversation.
Try This Today:
Take five minutes to jot down your top three recurring symptoms and one clear question you want to ask at your next appointment.
Lesson 3: Food, Movement and Longevity: Why Sitting Is the New Smoking
What It Is:
Building a long, healthy life on the core pillars seen in real-world long-lived populations: real food, regular movement baked into your day, clean environments and strong social ties.
Why It Matters:
Aaron points to Blue Zones: places like Okinawa, Sardinia and Nicoya, where people often live past 100 without access to high-end hospitals. They don’t share one magic diet, but they do share patterns: they eat mostly real food (not ultra-processed), live in relatively clean environments, move as part of daily life, stay connected to family and community, and have a clear sense of purpose. In contrast, modern sedentary living and constant sitting drive up the risk of diabetes, heart disease and “all-cause mortality”. Movement really is a super drug, but it needs to be sustainable, not another form of overtraining.
How To Apply It:
Shift your focus from “perfect diet” to “mostly real food”: plenty of whole, minimally processed foods most days, in whatever pattern fits your culture and preferences.
Break up sitting time: set a timer to stand, walk, or do a few simple movements every 30-60 minutes during the day.
Build movement into your lifestyle, not just your workouts, walk to the shops, take the stairs, carry things, play with your kids.
Schedule one meaningful social interaction each week that isn’t on a screen a walk, coffee, dinner or training session with someone you care about.
Ask yourself what gives your life purpose right now, raising kids, doing good work, serving your community and keep that front of mind as your “why” for health habits.
Pro Tip:
If your step count is low and you’re glued to a chair all day, you don’t need a peptide, you need to move more, consistently.
Try This Today:
Go for a 10–15 minute walk outside after your next meal and leave your phone in your pocket.
Lesson 4: Fasting, Protein and Overtraining: Getting the Nuance Right
What It Is:
Using tools like fasting, higher protein intake and serious training in a way that respects your current health, age, sex and life load – instead of blindly copying what you see online.
Why It Matters:
Fasting has real benefits for things like metabolic flexibility, brain clearance and mitochondrial function. But Aaron sees many people who are too nutrient-depleted, stressed and toxic to tolerate aggressive fasting straight away. They feel awful, blame fasting, then swing back to constant snacking. Similarly, most people under-eat protein, especially as they age, when recycling and absorption drop. On the other side, men and women alike are often overtraining on top of full-time work and life stress, then wondering why testosterone is low, cycles are disrupted, sleep is wrecked and recovery is poor.
How To Apply It:
Build a base before fasting: tidy up your diet, increase protein, and make sure you’re eating real food consistently for at least a few weeks.
Start small: try delaying breakfast by an hour or having a 12-hour overnight fast before attempting longer fasts. Notice how you feel.
Aim for at least roughly 1 g of protein per kg of bodyweight as a starting point, and more if you’re very active or older. Adjust to your own context and medical advice.
Look at your weekly training load honestly: if you work a full-time job and are doing long, intense sessions most days, you may be overtraining rather than underperforming.
Women in particular should pay attention to menstrual cycles, energy, sleep and body composition as feedback. Irregular cycles, losing normal fat in feminine areas and extreme fatigue are red flags, not “discipline”.
Pro Tip:
If you “can’t skip a meal” without getting angry, shaky or foggy, that’s a sign of metabolic inflexibility, not a personal failing and a clue to work on your foundations first.
Try This Today:
At your next meal, build your plate around a solid protein source first, then add carbs and fats, instead of the other way around.
Lesson 5: Oral Health: The Tiny Habit That Affects Your Whole Body
What It Is:
Treating your mouth as a key part of your immune and cardiovascular system, not just a cosmetic concern.
Why It Matters:
We swallow trillions of bacteria a day. The bugs living in your mouth seed your entire digestive tract and even show up in places like arterial plaques and aneurysms. Bleeding gums, tartar build-up, poor oral pH and chronic dental issues can drive systemic inflammation, increase the risk of heart disease, pregnancy complications and gut problems. On top of that, the way you care for your mouth, including the type of mouthwash you use, can affect nitric oxide production, blood pressure and metabolic health. It’s one of the simplest, most overlooked levers for long-term health.
How To Apply It:
Brush your teeth thoroughly twice a day and floss daily, paying attention to whether your gums bleed or feel sore.
Notice your breath, tongue and tartar build-up. Persistent bad breath, a coated tongue or rapid tartar can be signs of oral dysbiosis (an imbalance of bacteria).
Be cautious with strong antiseptic mouthwashes used daily, they can wipe out beneficial bacteria that help with blood pressure and metabolism.
Consider testing your mouth pH with simple strips; a very acidic mouth can reduce natural tooth mineralisation and alter your oral microbiome.
If you have stubborn gut issues, cardiovascular disease or autoimmune conditions, talk to your dentist and doctor about how your oral health might be contributing, rather than treating them as separate worlds.
Pro Tip:
Your mouth is the front door to your gut and bloodstream, treating it well often pays off far beyond a nicer smile.
Try This Today:
Spend an extra two minutes tonight brushing and gently scraping or brushing your tongue, then notice how your mouth feels in the morning.
Lesson 6: Wearables and Data: Using Numbers Without Losing Your Mind
What It Is:
Using devices like rings, watches or continuous glucose monitors as feedback tools, not as judges or sources of anxiety.
Why It Matters:
Aaron likes wearables because they can give useful data on sleep, movement, heart rate variability and temperature - all things we talk about but rarely measure. They can help you see patterns: how late meals, screens or alcohol affect your sleep; how stress spikes your heart rate; how illness shows up before you feel it. But for some people, the data itself becomes a stressor. Worrying about every sleep score, glucose spike or lab result can send cortisol up, push blood sugar higher and make things worse than if you didn’t track at all.
How To Apply It:
Be clear on what you want from a device before you buy it: better sleep? More steps? Early illness warning? Choose one or two metrics that matter most.
Check your data at set times (for example, once in the morning), not constantly throughout the day.
Use trends over weeks, not single days, to guide changes. One bad night or one high reading is a data point, not a diagnosis.
If you notice you’re becoming obsessive, anxious or changing behaviour out of fear rather than curiosity, step back - or stop looking at the data for a while.
Remember that for some people, numbers are better held by their coach or doctor, with summaries shared periodically, rather than self-monitoring everything in real time.
Pro Tip:
If checking your sleep score ruins your mood for the day, the device is using you - not the other way around.
Try This Today:
If you use a wearable, look at only one metric tomorrow morning (for example, total sleep) and ignore the rest for 24 hours.
Mini Case/Example
“Movement is the new super drug.” - Dr Aaron Hartman
“If you don’t give people what they want, you can’t give them what they need.” - Dr Aaron Hartman
“If working with me makes you stressed, you’d be better off if you’d never met me.” - Dr Aaron Hartman
“If she could do this, you can do it too. No matter where you’re at, no matter how hard things are, there are answers.” - Dr Aaron Hartman, speaking about his daughter Anna
Quick Wins Checklist (Do These Today)
Go for a 10–15 minute walk outside after one meal, without checking your phone.
Add an extra serve of protein to one meal; for example, an extra egg, a bit more meat, fish or a higher-protein plant option.
Take five minutes to write down your three main symptoms or health concerns and one question you want to explore further.
Brush and floss slowly tonight, then gently clean your tongue and notice whether your gums bleed.
Turn off all screens at least 30-60 minutes before bed and dim the lights.
Tomorrow morning, step outside with your coffee or tea and watch the sunrise, spending a few minutes feeling grateful for one thing in your life.
Closing Insight
Underneath the science, the protocols and the big medical titles, Aaron’s message is surprisingly simple: the basics still matter most, and you’re allowed to trust your own body. You don’t have to accept that feeling tired, foggy or “off” is just your new normal, and you don’t have to chase every shiny hack to get better. Instead, you can build a strong foundation, real food, regular movement, good sleep, lower stress, a healthy mouth, meaningful relationships and a sense of purpose, and then layer the clever tools on top if and when they make sense.
Curiosity and self-respect sit at the centre of all of this. If something feels wrong, keep asking questions. If data or advice is making you more anxious than empowered, change how you use it. You’re not a lab result or a sleep score; you’re a human being living a real life, with real responsibilities and hopes. Start where you are, do the simple things well, and let consistency do the heavy lifting over time.🎧 Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Watch me on YouTube
Listen to the True From Podcast:
Apple Podcast -
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-true-form-podcast/id1593804496
Spotify -
https://open.spotify.com/show/6RVH2O6MbLOCohBKPhXO0L?si=ZI8D3MnhSfSjnohSXYN_MQ
Everywhere els -
