Dossier · the minimum effective dose

The Brut Protocol

Brut, as in champagne: nothing added. This is the whole protocol with every optional, marginal and merely pleasant element removed, leaving the levers with the largest effect per unit of time and money. The selection rule is not comfort — several survivors are unpleasant and several casualties are enjoyable. It exists because the maximal version has a failure mode the maximal version cannot see: almost everything here is dose-over-time rather than dose-per-session, so a full protocol run at 60% adherence loses to a minimal one run at 95%. If you only ever read one page on this site, read this one.

Research vintage · Q3 2026

The whole thing

Nine levers

In descending order of return per unit of effort. If you stop reading partway down, you have still got most of it.

RCT / meta-analysisPrimary literature

1 · Fix the wake time. Seven days.

The single highest-return decision available, and it costs nothing.

Mechanism

Why regularity beats duration

The suprachiasmatic nucleus is entrained by light hitting melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells, and it sets melatonin onset roughly 14–16 hours later. A fixed wake time with morning light exposure therefore sets that night's sleep pressure and timing — you are not choosing when to sleep, you are choosing when the system will let you. This is why bedtime consistency predicts mortality better than total duration does in large cohort data: an irregular schedule means the clock is permanently being re-entrained and never fully aligned.

Same wake time every day including weekends. Bedtime standard deviation under 30 minutes; under 15 is the target.
Daylight in the eyes within ~30 minutes of waking. Outdoors beats any lamp; through a window is largely wasted, because glass cuts the intensity by an order of magnitude.
Room cold and dark. Sleep onset requires core temperature to fall, achieved by dumping heat through the hands and feet — a cold room accelerates the gradient.
No alcohol. It suppresses the slow-wave sleep that drives glymphatic clearance and growth-hormone pulsatility, which is most of what sleep is for.

Cost: zero. Time: zero. Everything else on this page works better when this is fixed and worse when it is not, which is why it is first.

RCT / meta-analysisResearcher, own field

2 · Lift hard, three times a week, 45 minutes

Mechanism

Why this dose is enough

A muscle fibre grows when it is fully recruited *and* under high mechanical tension simultaneously — which in practice is the last ~5 reps before failure. Everything before that is a fatigue tax paid to arrive there. So the minimum effective session is a small number of sets taken genuinely close to failure, and the reason for three sessions rather than one is that 1–2 sets recover in about 48 hours while 6–8 take more than four days.

Three full-body sessions, every other day. 2 sets per movement, 5–8 reps, taken to within a rep of failure.
Six movements, and only six: a squat pattern, a hinge, a horizontal push, a horizontal pull, a vertical push, a vertical pull. That covers every major muscle with no redundancy.
Load the stretched position wherever the exercise allows — lengthened partials match or beat full range for growth.
Add weight or a rep whenever you can. Progressive overload is not a technique, it is the entire mechanism.

This is genuinely below the ceiling the volume literature supports (roughly 5 sets per muscle per session, scaling with frequency). It is chosen for adherence and time, not because more would not work. If you stall, the room is in adding sets toward five — not in adding days.

RCT / meta-analysisPrimary literature

3 · One hard interval session a week

The largest single mortality signal in medicine, bought for 25 minutes.

Mechanism

Why intensity and not volume

Mitochondrial biogenesis runs on PGC-1α, induced by AMPK (falling ATP:AMP), calcium-calmodulin kinase (contraction frequency) and p38 MAPK (mechanical and oxidative stress). Easy aerobic work produces only modest AMP accumulation and correspondingly modest signalling — the adaptations concentrate above roughly 65% of peak work rate. One genuinely hard session buys more ceiling than three easy ones.

4 × 4 minutes at an effort you could not hold for six, with 3 minutes easy between. Or 30 seconds hard / 15 easy × 12–16. Run, bike, row, ski-erg — the modality is nearly irrelevant.
Total session including warm-up: about 30 minutes, once a week.
Each 1-MET improvement associates with roughly a 13% reduction in all-cause mortality, with no observed ceiling.

RCT / meta-analysisPrimary literature

4 · Walk. A lot. Outdoors.

Mechanism

Three mechanisms in one free activity

Sedentary time carries a mortality association that a single daily workout does not abolish — prolonged sitting suppresses lipoprotein lipase activity in the legs and impairs postprandial glucose disposal independently of whether you trained that morning. Walking restores both. Done outdoors it also delivers the light exposure that anchors the circadian clock, and done after a meal it blunts the glucose excursion directly, because contracting muscle takes up glucose via GLUT4 translocation without needing insulin.

8–10k steps daily, most of it outdoors and in daylight.
A 10–15 minute walk after the largest meal is the highest-yield placement.
Break up long sitting every 30 minutes, even briefly.

RCT / meta-analysisPrimary literature

5 · Hit protein. Ignore the rest of nutrition.

Mechanism

The one nutrient with a threshold rather than a gradient

Leucine binds Sestrin2, which releases its inhibition of GATOR2, permitting the Rag GTPases to recruit mTORC1 to the lysosomal surface where Rheb activates it. This is a threshold effect — roughly 2.5–3g of leucine per feeding, meaning 30–40g of quality protein — not a smooth dose-response. Below it you get a blunted response; above it you get little extra. Protein also carries the highest thermic effect of any macronutrient (20–30% of its own calories, versus 0–3% for fat) and the strongest satiety signal, so it does most of the work of a diet without requiring one.

1.6–2.2 g per kg bodyweight daily, spread across 3–4 feedings of 30–40g.
Prioritise animal protein and dairy — highest leucine density per gram, so the threshold is cleared without effort.
Do not count anything else. Protein plus whole foods plus not drinking your calories handles the overwhelming majority of what a tracked diet would achieve.

The deleted 80%: macro cycling, meal timing beyond a rough eating window, fasting protocols, supplements beyond the four below, and every debate about carbohydrates. None of it is where the outcome comes from.

RCT / meta-analysisPrimary literature

6 · Four supplements

What	Dose	Why it survives the cut
Creatine monohydrate	5 g/day	Best evidence-to-cost of anything in the category. Phosphocreatine buffers ATP regeneration in muscle and brain; the effect on repeatable high-intensity work is large and consistent
Vitamin D3	1,000–4,000 IU, titrated to a measured 25(OH)D of 30–50 ng/mL	Only if deficient — which most people at temperate latitudes are. Do not take it blind; the trials in already-replete people are null
EPA + DHA	1–2 g combined	Membrane incorporation and resolvin production. Read the label — most fish oil capsules are mostly not EPA/DHA
Creatine again, because you skipped it	5 g/day	Genuinely: it is the one people leave out because it seems too boring to matter, and it is the one with the best data

Everything else — NAD+ precursors, spermidine, taurine, collagen, the whole longevity aisle — is either unproven at the outcome level, refuted, or delivering an effect too small to notice against the levers above.

RCT / meta-analysisPrimary literature

7 · Sunscreen, and a retinoid at night

Mechanism

Attacking the initiating event rather than the damage

UV generates reactive oxygen species that activate MAPK cascades converging on AP-1, which simultaneously upregulates the matrix metalloproteinases that degrade collagen and suppresses the TGF-β/Smad signalling that makes new collagen. Degradation up and synthesis down, from one transcription factor. Sunscreen blocks the input. Retinoids bind nuclear RAR/RXR and directly inhibit AP-1 — the same factor — while raising procollagen transcription, so they attack the cascade from the other end.

Broad-spectrum SPF 30+ daily, on the face, every day, indoors-adjacent included. This is the best-evidenced anti-aging intervention that exists.
A retinoid at night — tretinoin if you can get it prescribed, otherwise a stabilised retinol. Start twice weekly and build up; irritation is the main reason people quit.
That is the entire skincare protocol. Cleanser and moisturiser as needed. Everything else in the aisle is marketing.

Limited human dataPrimary literature

8 · Floss

Mechanism

The cheapest inflammatory-load reduction available

Periodontal pathogens — Porphyromonas gingivalis in particular — sustain a chronic low-grade systemic inflammatory burden, and gingival bleeding provides a direct bacteraemic route into the circulation. The association with cardiovascular and neurodegenerative outcomes is consistent across large cohorts, and the mechanism is plausible enough that this is genuinely one of the most under-rated items in health.

Two minutes a day, costs almost nothing, and nobody will ever make a video about it. Which is roughly the profile of every item on this page.

RCT / meta-analysisPrimary literature

9 · One blood panel a year

ApoB — the atherogenic particle count, and the number that matters most. Target under 80 mg/dL; under 60 if you want the elite band.
Lp(a) — once in your life. It is ~90% genetic, elevated in one in five people, essentially never ordered, and it changes how aggressive every other target should be forever.
Fasting insulin and HbA1c — insulin climbs for years to hold glucose normal, and that compensation is the disease process. A glucose-only panel misses it for a decade.
hs-CRP, a full lipid panel, and 25(OH)D.

One draw, once a year, roughly the cost of two months of the supplements you were about to buy instead. Measurement is what separates a protocol from a set of habits you feel good about. A free tracker with the panel, the targets and a training log pre-built is at /protocol-tracker.xlsx.

What it costs

The bill

Priced honestly, including the things that are free and usually pretended not to be.

Primary literature

Monthly

Item	Cost / month	Note
Fixed wake time, light, dark cold room	£0	The highest-return lever on the page is free. This is not a rhetorical flourish — it is the actual ranking
Lifting, 3× weekly	£0–35	Bodyweight and a pull-up bar works. A budget gym is ~£20–35
One interval session	£0	Running, or the same gym membership
Walking	£0	—
Protein to target	£35–60	Marginal cost over eating anyway. Whole food beats powder per gram unless convenience is binding
Creatine monohydrate	£3	500 g of monohydrate is ~£15 and lasts 100 days. Do not buy the branded blends
Vitamin D3	£2	A year's supply is under £15
EPA/DHA	£8–12	Read the label — most capsules are mostly not EPA/DHA
Sunscreen + retinoid	£12	SPF ~£8/month at daily facial use. Adapalene 0.1% is over-the-counter and ~£10 for three months
Floss + brush heads	£4	—
Blood panel	£12	Amortised. A private ApoB/insulin/lipid/HbA1c panel runs ~£120–150 once a year

Total: roughly £75–150 a month, and about £20 of that is the part people think of as 'the protocol'. The rest is food you were buying anyway and a gym.

The four highest-ranked items on this page — sleep timing, walking, one interval session, and flossing — cost nothing. The most expensive line is food, which you were paying for regardless. Anyone selling a longevity protocol that costs hundreds a month is selling the part of the curve where returns have already flattened.

The one-time costs

A pull-up bar (~£25), a set of adjustable dumbbells if training at home (~£150–300), blackout curtains (~£30), and a cheap thermometer to find out what temperature your room actually is. None recurring, all optional.

The other 80%

What was deliberately removed

Not because it does nothing — because the return per unit of effort does not clear the bar.

Primary literature

The cuts, and the honest reason for each

Cut	Does it work?	Why it did not survive
Zone 2 volume (4–6h/week)	Yes, genuinely	Large time cost for an adaptation the weekly interval session largely covers. First thing to add back when time exists
Cold exposure	Real catecholamine response	Mood and alertness benefit is real; blunts hypertrophy if placed near lifting, and delivers no unique long-term outcome
Sauna	Good observational data	Cut only for access cost. If you have one, use it 4+ times a week — it would otherwise rank around fifth on this page
Meditation twice daily	Real effects on attention	High adherence cost, slow-accruing benefit. The walk delivers part of it incidentally
Supplement stack beyond four	Mostly unproven at outcome level	Cost and attention with no measurable return. Several entries were actively refuted in the last two years
Macro tracking and meal timing	Works, but redundantly	Protein target plus whole food captures nearly all of it without the logging burden
Wearables and daily HRV	Real data	Measurement without a decision attached is a hobby. One annual blood panel beats a year of daily readiness scores you never act on
Everything prescription or experimental	Varies	Requires a physician, real risk, and it is not where the first 80% lives. Earn the ceiling of the free stuff first — it is far higher than most people reach

The uncomfortable observation: almost everything cut here is more interesting than almost everything kept. Interest and effect size are close to uncorrelated in this field, and the content economy pays for interest.

Primary literature

When to run Brut instead of the full protocol

Always, if you are not currently running anything. Nine things done properly beats forty things done partially, and the ramp is what kills most attempts.
During any period where adherence is under real pressure — exams, a launch, travel, illness. Brut is the floor you do not drop below.
As a diagnostic. Run it clean for eight weeks; whatever has not improved is where the additional 80% of effort should actually go, rather than where you assumed.
Not as a permanent ceiling, if maximisation is the goal. This is the base of the pyramid, not the pyramid.

The claim in the title is approximately literal. Fixed sleep, three lifting sessions, one interval session, walking, protein, four supplements, sunscreen, floss, one blood panel — call it an hour a day and about £15 a month. Against that, the full protocol adds perhaps another two hours daily and an order of magnitude of cost for the remaining fraction. Both are defensible. Only one gets done for a decade.

Research notes, not medical or financial advice. Every prescription or experimental item named here is named with its mechanism and its risk and without a dose, on purpose — several require physician supervision, several are unregulated, and several are inappropriate for a body that is still developing. Start from your own bloodwork and a doctor, never from someone else’s regimen.

Non invenitur. Fit.