From 45 to 29: How Stress and Lifestyle Changed One Entrepreneur’s Biological Age

Atanas Raykov, a father of two, entrepreneur and angel investor, spent 10 years helping build Viber.

During a major career transition and an intense period of family caregiving, his biological age rose from 35 to 45. Just six months later, it had dropped to 32, and his latest result came back at 29.

In roughly one chronological year, his measured biological age had improved by 16 years.

We spoke to Atanas about the year behind that turnaround: the routines he changed, his new relationship with work, the ways he brought more movement into everyday life, and the habits that helped him stay consistent even when life was demanding.

You first came across GlycanAge through an investor study. What initially made you interested in longevity, and what made you want to test GlycanAge for yourself?

My interest in health started around 15 years ago. I experimented with different versions of vegetarian and pescatarian diets before eventually settling on a predominantly Mediterranean diet, which is still more or less how I eat today.

Over time, I became interested in longevity more broadly. My priorities have usually been endurance and long-term health rather than things like building muscle, and I’ve tried different services, tests and approaches to understanding what is happening in my body.

So when I was introduced to GlycanAge through the investor study, I was already curious about biological age and about the potential of these kinds of measurements. I wanted to understand the bigger picture and, more importantly, whether the things I was doing were actually helping.

GlycanAge’s investor study is a 10-year longitudinal research program following more than 150 investors, LPs and fund managers. Participants receive one GlycanAge test each year, together with a specialist consultation, allowing the study to track changes in biological age over time alongside lifestyle, health interventions, medications, diagnoses and other voluntarily shared health data.

You were 39 when you received your first GlycanAge result of 35. On paper, you were already eating well, taking supplements and thinking quite deliberately about your health. What did your everyday life actually look like at that point?

It was still a fairly typical office lifestyle.

I had a good diet and was already taking supplements, but there was a lot of sitting. My days were full of meetings and office hours, and because the office was very close to where I lived, even my commute involved very little movement.

I had moderate levels of work stress and a certain level of dissatisfaction. Objectively, I would probably describe the stress as moderate, but subjectively I think I experienced it more strongly.

I also had less time to train than I do now. My children were younger, so we weren't doing as many active things together either.

At the time, I was also experimenting with intermittent fasting, usually around 13 or 14 hours. That wasn't particularly good for me. I probably had less muscle, and I felt that metabolically it was creating more stress than benefit.

So while I was doing many things that I considered healthy, the overall picture wasn't necessarily as optimized as it might have looked.

You were four years younger biologically. How did you feel when you saw it?

I was actually a little disappointed. I had already been putting quite a lot of effort into my health, from my diet and supplements to experimenting with different approaches, so I think I expected the result to be even better.

I remember thinking about the “return on investment” of all that effort if I was going to keep it up for the next 50 years. At the same time, I knew being four years younger biologically was still a good result, and I could see there were areas where I could improve.

After the consultation, I made a few adjustments, but nothing dramatic. At that point, it was more about refining what I was already doing than completely changing my lifestyle.

A year later, your biological age had increased from 35 to 45. Thinking back to the months leading up to that second test, what had changed in your life and your everyday routine – and did the result make sense once you looked at everything that had been happening?

That period was much more intense.

About three or four months before the test, I had started preparing to leave Viber after 10 years. It was a major career transition. There were a lot of responsibilities around handing over my role, changes happening at work and pressure around preparing for what would come next. There was also frustration and stress around the situation.

Then, literally the day after I told my boss that I was leaving and that we needed to start the transition, my mother had a serious accident.

She already had some support during the day, but after the accident she needed much more care. We had to organise almost 24-hour support, and I was taking a significant share of that myself.

That meant spending long periods essentially confined to the apartment. I couldn't move around normally, my usual routines were disrupted and there was also the emotional pressure that comes with caring for someone close to you.

So at the same time that I was going through a major professional transition, I suddenly became a caregiver as well. My life became extremely sedentary for periods of time, and there were several different sources of stress happening at once.

The supplements hadn't changed much across that period, and fundamentally my diet hadn't changed that much either. What had changed dramatically were the circumstances around me and what they were doing to my normal routines.

When I discussed the result with the GlycanAge team, it made sense in the context of what I had been going through. By then, I could also see that many of those circumstances would eventually settle down, which was one reason I wanted to test again after around six months. I wanted to see what would happen once life started to normalize.

If Atanas's experience sounds familiar, our article on the Manager's Profile looks at how demanding, fast-paced lifestyles can show up in biological age even when you're doing many of the “right” things.

During that period, simply being told to “reduce stress” wouldn't have been particularly useful. You couldn't stop caring for your mother or immediately remove everything happening at work. How did you adapt when the situation itself wasn't under your control?

I believe a lot in habits.

At the same time, I'm not someone for whom habits come naturally. I've had to become quite disciplined about how I build them.

The way I think about it is to find things that could have a meaningful impact without requiring so much time or effort that I'm unlikely to maintain them.

Then I try to connect those things to the life I'm already living.

When I was caring for my mother, for example, I couldn't leave for a long walk or go away for a proper workout. But I could leave for 10 or 15 minutes.

So instead of deciding that 10 minutes wasn't enough, I started doing short, intensive runs. It compressed the exercise into the amount of time I actually had available.

Food was similar. I couldn't easily get to the shops I normally used, so I started ordering groceries online. I had never really done that before, but it meant I could still get exactly what I wanted.

I did the same with supplements. I could be away from home for three or four days, so managing all the individual bottles every day created unnecessary friction. I started preparing pill boxes for around two weeks at a time.

I still do that now.

The principle is basically to remove friction. If something creates unnecessary effort, I try to find a system that makes it easier.

Because when life gets difficult, that's exactly when the habits that require the most effort are going to disappear.

Six months later, your biological age had dropped from 45 to 32. What had happened during those six months, and what was different about your life compared with the period leading up to the 45 result?

I felt much more liberated. I had more flexibility and more control over my time.

But I wasn't on holiday or taking a six-month sabbatical. I was doing an executive programme, setting up one business, exploring another business that I'm now scaling, meeting people and doing a lot of different things.

So there was still plenty happening.

The important difference was that I was doing much more of it on my own terms.

I had a much higher level of personal satisfaction and felt that what I was doing was more meaningful and engaging. For me, that translated into much less work-related stress.

Entrepreneurial life has uncertainty too. It's certainly not free of pressure.

But the way I experienced that pressure was different.

After the low point of the previous summer, there was also a period of reflection. I developed a more positive and hopeful outlook towards what I was doing and what would happen next.

Beyond work, what else had changed in your everyday routine by then?

Movement probably changed more than anything else.

My diet improved somewhat, but I would estimate maybe 10%. It wasn't a complete dietary transformation.

Activity was a much bigger change.

I started exercising more regularly, including higher-intensity exercise, and I changed the way I moved around the city.

Previously, I would have a very short walk to the office or take the metro. Now, around 90% of the time, I use my bike.

I live in a hilly part of Sofia, so when I go into the centre, I always have to climb back up on the way home. That naturally turns transportation into a decent amount of exercise.

I also built a small gym at home with weights and a bench.

Again, it's the same philosophy of reducing friction. If the equipment is already there, it's much easier to fit exercise into the day.

My children also became old enough to ride proper bikes and scooters. My wife and I would go out on foot while they rode, which basically meant running after them.

I like that because it combines two things. It isn't a choice between family time and exercise. The family time becomes active.

I was also sleeping better and continuing to work on the mental side of things.

I've always kept a diary that is also a planner, and I started incorporating more reflection and gratitude into that. I think it helped me develop a more positive outlook and appreciate smaller things more.

It wasn't one dramatic intervention. It was a set of routines that fitted together and were easier to sustain.

Your next result was 29. By that point, had you made another major intervention, or were you mainly continuing in the same direction?

I would describe those next six months as an evolution rather than another major change. The routines were developing in the same direction.

Supplements have been another consistent part of your health routine, and over the years you’ve experimented with quite a broad range. What made you start building such an extensive routine, how have you decided what to introduce or remove over time, and looking back across your four GlycanAge results, how important do you think supplements have been compared with the other changes in your life?

I've been experimenting with supplements for quite a long time. At one point, I started looking at some of the supplement protocols offered by longevity companies and trying to understand what was behind them. Over time, that led to things like berberine, resveratrol, omega-3, turmeric, probiotics, B12, vitamin D and several others.

But the short version is that the supplements didn't change that much across my GlycanAge journey.

There were adjustments over time, and I’ve continued to refine the routine. Most recently, for example, iron became relevant after my bloodwork showed iron-deficiency anemia. But there wasn't a completely new supplement routine introduced after the 45 result that I could clearly connect with the subsequent drop.

That's why, when I look back at the whole period, I think the other changes were probably much more substantial: becoming much more active, changing my working environment, having more flexibility, getting through the caregiving period and building routines that were easier to maintain.

I still take supplements and think they can be useful, but I wouldn't isolate them from everything else I was doing.

You've written publicly about whether we have to sacrifice health for money, or money for health. After moving from a senior corporate role into entrepreneurship and investing, how has your own answer to that question evolved?

One thing that changed was the amount of freedom I felt I had.

Even without the corporate salary and annual bonuses, my net worth had continued to increase through compounding. That gave me a lot of peace of mind for myself and for my family.

And that independence allowed me to step back and choose my next moves more carefully.

I could spend time with people I found interesting, choose the partners I wanted to work with and focus on things that felt meaningful to me.

That changed the experience of work.

I'm still building businesses. There is still uncertainty. There are still things that can go wrong.

But I have much more control over what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

For me, that sense of purpose, independence and personal satisfaction makes a big difference.

Has having several years of data changed the way you approach health decisions? Do you now think more in terms of testing, making a change and then checking whether it actually worked for you?

Yes - that's one of the things I appreciate most about GlycanAge. I like that the results are dynamic and can reflect what is happening during different periods of my life.

It's not only about genetics or something that has been developing for decades and that I can't influence.

And I'm the kind of person who gets motivated when I see a bad result.

If something moves in the wrong direction, I want to understand why and improve it. Then I can test again and see whether what I'm doing is actually taking me in the direction I wanted.

That's why I think measuring over time is more useful than focusing too much on one result.

Life changes. You can move out of your routines. You can go through difficult periods. Your results can move in the wrong direction.

Then you make adjustments and measure again.

For me, that feedback is the most valuable part.

If you're thinking about using biological age in the same way - as a baseline, then retesting after a meaningful change - this guide explains when to test and how long to wait before testing again.