Richard Branson will be 75 this year but shows no signs of slowing down. Photo / Getty Images
The billionaire will be 75 this year, but he’s showing no signs of slowing down. Nick Rufford joins him up a mountain to hear his secrets.
I am pedalling towa rds the snow-capped peaks of the Atlas Mountains in northern Morocco with Richard Branson just in front. The road, a series of hairpins and switchbacks, is steep and getting steeper. The old boy may be 75 this summer but so far he’s not flagging.
It’s hard to reconcile the sinewy, Lycra-clad figure on his Rocky Mountain Altitude bike with the young man described by teachers 60 years ago as “a bit lazy, a bit thick” before he left school to start his first business - a magazine called Student of which he was publisher, advertising salesman and reporter. He interviewed Mick Jagger and opened a mail-order vinyl record store that grew into Virgin Records, then Virgin Megastores. The original hippy entrepreneur, he ran his record company from a church crypt and on a houseboat during the Sixties and Seventies. “It was all just hand-to-mouth survival - you know, trying to create things that we could be proud of and have some fun doing it. One thing led on to another but there was no grand plan.”
These days, though, he spends almost as much time keeping fit as he does running his empire (valued at £2.4 billion [NZ$5.3b] by The Sunday Times Rich List). The only time he’ll have for an interview, he warns me, is while training in north Africa for a cycling endurance race. So up the mountain we go, Branson in front, me behind, hoping to discover the svelte 74-year-old’s fitness secrets.
“There’s no reason your body can’t be the same as a 30-year-old when you’re well into your seventies - if you respect it,” he yells as we near the summit. “When I reached 50 I saw friends either looking after themselves or letting themselves go - and I’ve lost a lot of those friends over the years. So I took the first route and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. I love this sort of endorphin rush.” He grins.
Going on a picnic with Branson is no picnic. To stay in shape he takes ice baths. He routinely fasts for 16 hours of the day, often missing dinner, to restrict his calorie intake. No longer the unashamed party animal he once was, he has given up caffeine and alcohol except for “a glass of champagne on special occasions”. He says: “The only time I think of myself as the age I am is if I catch myself in the mirror.”
When Branson is not in the Atlas Mountains he does a twice-weekly bike climb 1,300 feet (396 metres) up a mountain on Virgin Gorda (named after the British Virgin Islands, not his company), which neighbours his 74-acre private Caribbean home, Necker Island. In 2016 he cheated death when he hit a bump during a descent, went over the handlebars and sustained a cracked cheek with bruising, deep cuts and a torn shoulder.
At 70 he became the second oldest person to fly into space (and the first to reach space in his own craft) when the Virgin Galactic craft Unity reached the 80km boundary in July 2021.
He has recently upped his training regime in preparation for a new ballooning attempt planned for after his 75th birthday in July, when he will try to pilot a balloon into the stratosphere to a height of 100,000 feet (30,480 metres) and land in the sea. In 1987 his co-pilot Per Lindstrand bailed out when the pair were flying across the Atlantic. Branson flew on alone until the balloon plunged into the ocean and he was rescued by helicopter. He has also crashed on a frozen lake in Canada in minus 50C temperatures.
He insists this new mission is less dangerous. “I have crashed into the sea on a number of occasions when I wasn’t meant to. This balloon was actually built to land in the sea.”
It’s late afternoon by the time we complete the climb in the Atlas range and head back to the Kasbah Tamadot, a nearby hotel he owns. Normally Branson is up at 5.30am and either plays tennis or cycles before settling down to breakfast, which he regards as the main meal of the day.
“In my early years I ate whatever was put in front of me,” he says. “Since the age of 50 or so I’ve had a nutritionist tell me what’s healthy. So now my breakfast will be things like nuts, Greek yoghurt, chia seeds, avocados, scrambled eggs, sourdough bread, smoked salmon, half an apple.” He sticks to decaf tea. “I have quite a big breakfast because by then I would generally either have played a singles match or have done the bike ride.”
Branson is very disciplined about alcohol. “I stick to fizzy water with a slice of lemon and I’m usually in bed by nine or nine-thirty.” He takes statins to cut cholesterol and every six months does blood tests to track his good and bad cholesterol levels, as well as his blood sugar levels. “I treat my body a bit like you treat an MoT with a car.”
By careful eating he has reduced his weight to the same as it was in his early twenties - 173lb (78kg).
“In the past few years I’ve realised how much better I feel when I eat well - salmon, grains, vegetables, soup, sushi. I’ll have sugar-free puddings, which taste just as good as puddings with sugar. I’ll treat myself occasionally to my wife’s shepherd’s pie or fish and chips and peas - so I’m not completely fixated on everything being absolutely perfect.”
He answers emails only once a day, usually on a hike. “Somebody will come with me and read them out to me and I’ll dictate replies, so I’m sort of achieving two things at the same time.” He also spends 20 minutes each day in the gym on Necker “doing stretching, squats, pull-ups and weights, just to keep the body from getting niggly injuries - the kind that might prevent me doing my biking or my tennis. In the evening, if the wind is up, I might go kitesurfing.” Recovery involves the ice baths.
Another secret to his good health comes in pill form: a prescription drugcalled metformin that works by lowering blood sugar levels. It is mainly used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes but preliminary studies suggest it may slow ageing and increase life expectancy by acting on blood sugar, and through antioxidant effects and better blood vessel health. “If there’s one pill worth asking your doctor about, I would say it’s metformin,” Branson says.
He insists he is not fanatical about fitness. “I just see myself as somebody who’s throwing myself into life. I am doing, I suppose, three or four hours of fitness a day, but in a fun way. If I go to the gym I’ll make sure there’s somebody with me I can interact with. If I go on a bike ride I’ll go with someone I can have a natter with. I play tennis with people who are hopefully better than me. So I don’t think of all this as fitness.”
How will he mark his 75th birthday in July? He won’t, he says, because his wife Joan’s 80th birthday is in the same month. They married in 1989. “That’s the birthday we’re going to concentrate on,” he says. “We only do the figures with noughts.” The plan is to take over the Kasbah Tamadot and celebrate “in style”.
Though partying doesn’t necessarily equal indulgence. He jokes that he has “banned” the word longevity from Necker Island. “We’re not going to live for ever. You’re just trying to make sure your body is as fit and as healthy as possible, so you can enjoy every minute while you’re alive.”
The best role model for living a long and happy life, he says, is his mother, Eve, who died in 2021 just before his space flight. “My mum is a wonderful example of someone who stayed healthy in body and mind all her life and never let age define her. She lived until 96, made cheeky jokes and remained deeply curious about everything right up until the day she died.”
Written by: Nick Rufford
© The Times of London
Is it possible to have a tidy divorce? Leading barrister Sharon Chandra explains how.