Whenever I observe the culture around me, especially that of the health and fitness world, I notice that, like so many other areas in life, people tend to neglect the basics—the simple and essential—in favor of strategies that supposedly guarantee better results in half the time.
Unfortunately, and again as in other domains, the outcomes are usually worse in the long run than if folks had just taken the time initially to master the fundamentals.
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re one of two people: (1) You don’t exercise at all, or perhaps minimally, and are overweight, lethargic, and looking to kick-start your health and fitness. Or (2) You’re on the other end of the spectrum, exercising for hours each week and, despite your best efforts, have fallen short of your desired goal and perhaps burned yourself out in the process.
Whether you are the former, the latter, or somewhere in between makes no difference.
Because no matter where you lie on that spectrum, you’re probably some combination of overweight, undernourished, overstressed, and sleep deprived. And if you’re chronically suffering from any or all of these, it will be nearly impossible to shed body fat, build muscle, or live life fully, with energy, passion, and focus.
I believe it is futile to attempt to separate the body from the mind; and that any wellness program that doesn’t focus on the whole individual will eventually come up short in terms of true and long-lasting progress. After all, what’s the use in a strong body if the mind is weak? And how beneficial is a brilliant mind without the health and vitality required to share its insights with the world?
The following four habits, if practiced consistently, will help you reestablish the physiological foundation required to not only get back on track physically but also initiate the process of changing the way you think about, and interact with, the world around you.
Remember: how someone does anything is how they do everything.
Commit wholeheartedly to these guidelines for the next 30 days.
Hopefully, by doing so, you cement this template as the cornerstone of a new approach toward health, fitness, and life.
1: Eat an Anti-Inflammatory Diet (At Least 90% of the Time)
Inflammation is an integral part of your immune system.
When something damages your cells— such as an infection, injury, or toxin—your body releases chemicals in response in order to combat the threat and repair damaged tissue. Without this vital process, cellular damage would never improve, and even a minor infection could turn life-threatening. In a healthy human body, this process lasts anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the specific threat and severity.
Chronic inflammation, however, is when this process lingers, leaving your body in a constant state of vigilance and stress. Eventually, this condition can start to damage cells, tissues, and organs—and, if left untreated, can lead to DNA damage, tissue death, and internal scarring.
As it turns out, chronic inflammation may be the root cause of many of the conditions that currently ail modern society, such as heart disease, cancer, arthritis, cirrhosis, autoimmune disorders, neurodegenerative diseases (like Alzheimer’s), and obesity.
While several factors can both cause and affect chronic inflammation within our bodies, diet is perhaps the single greatest underlying component of them all. The foods (and other substances) we consume on a daily basis directly contribute to whether we thrive or degenerate.
Sadly, most of our population are eating foods regularly that trigger and sustain inflammation: As I’m writing this, over 70% of Americans are either overweight or obese, 48% have some form of cardiovascular disease (accounting for over 600,000 deaths per year), and 33% of them are either prediabetic or have diabetes. Conversely, it is estimated that only 12% of American adults have a healthy metabolism.
Clearly something is amiss.
And despite spending almost 4 trillion dollars every year on healthcare, our government and medical establishments are failing miserably in reversing these trends. As a matter of fact, they seem to be getting worse with each new year.
Part of the problem lies in the mainstream analysis: For too many years, our doctors have sought to treat symptoms through pharmacology instead of advocating for holistic lifestyle changes that get to the root of the problem. The result is a society in which people are living sicker longer, draining resources from the system while failing to live up to their full potential, both as human beings and responsible citizens.
The following recommendations, if followed aggressively, will help put the power back in your hands. Understand that nobody is responsible for your health but you, and that the foods you choose to put in your body have an overwhelming impact on your body composition, energy levels, mental state, and immune system.
If you are walking around chronically inflamed, no workout regimen or supplement will make up for a poor diet. Concurrently, if you are suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure, or have a poor lipid profile, please note that these are all symptoms of an underlying problem—and any pill prescribed by a doctor will do nothing to cure you, only keep you alive longer as you degenerate further and possibly develop more maladies from the plethora of side effects these drugs induce.
So, the first step toward a healthier diet is eliminating processed foods, refined sugar, and industrial seed oils from your daily menu.
Nothing in our modern diet spurs on inflammation quite like high carbohydrate consumption— specifically from processed foods and added sugars—and the high amounts of omega 6 polyunsaturated fats found in these oils: Corn, Soy, Canola, Rapeseed, Safflower, Cottonseed, Grapeseed, Sunflower, and Rice Bran.
If you do nothing else regarding your nutrition except rid your diet of these 3 foodstuffs, your health will improve substantially.
In the 2.5 million years of human evolution, we’ve only been ingesting these products for the last one hundred or so years; and it is in this last century that all of the diseases ravaging our society have surged.
This is not a coincidence.
And the more we investigate chronic inflammation and the effects that high quantities of sugar and omega 6 fats have on our bodies, the more we begin to see a clear and debilitating link.
The second step is to build your daily menu around these food groups: vegetables, fruit, meat, whole eggs and full-fat dairy, raw nuts and seeds, sprouted beans and grains, fungi, herbs, and spices.
This style of eating most closely resembles our evolutionary history as omnivorous hunter-gatherers, and it will give you the nutrition—the macro- and micronutrients—your body expects in order to thrive.
I recommend opting for organic vegetables and fruit whenever possible, and only consuming sustainably raised (pastured or grass-fed) meat, wild fish, pastured eggs, and grass-fed dairy—as these are all void of many pro-inflammatory compounds while higher in many anti-inflammatory nutrients. (This type of sourcing is also better for the animals and the planet, by the way, so well worth the effort and investment.)
The final step is to make sure you are properly hydrated.
Water is responsible for a host of important mechanisms within the body—from DNA maintenance to cellular regulation, to creating lymph fluid and regulating body temperature, even making the synovial fluid within joints and discs.
I recommend drinking half of your body weight in ounces per day of spring water, as the dissolved trace minerals within the H2O are vital in several chemical reactions throughout our bodies; furthermore, drinking water devoid of these essential nutrients will actually dehydrate you further.
If you only have access to purified water, I recommend adding a pinch of high-quality sea salt for every 16 ounces consumed, and even dropping in some fresh fruits or veggies (lemon, cucumber, mint, etc.), as these will also provide a healthy dose of vital minerals and electrons.
For the next 30 days, I’d like you to forget about everything you’ve been told about “healthy” eating habits, including the need to track calories or eat every few hours.
Instead, I’d like you to focus on the recommendations above and try your best to eat 2 to 3 whole food meals per day while also drinking half of your body weight in mineral rich water.
I also advise that you include a protein source, as well as one or more non-starchy vegetables (of which leafy greens are the most nutritionally dense), at every single meal, including breakfast. Base your portion sizes on what satiates you for at least 4-6 hours after eating—not on what you think the “right” size should be.
These are the basics of nutrition, and therefore, the first steps toward reclaiming your health and life.
By following these guidelines for the next 30 days, you will begin to reset your metabolic machinery and feel a substantial improvement in body composition, energy levels, mental clarity, and overall mood.
If you suffer from any of the conditions associated with systemic inflammation, this is how you begin to reverse the trends and—yes—heal yourself.
Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t overcome genetics or that you will have to rely on a pharmaceutical concoction of pills just to live a long life.
These are the lies our society has perpetuated for far too long.
Refuse to be another statistic: take responsibility for your health and begin to fuel your body with the foods that enable you to feel and perform your absolute best.
2: Walk (At Least) 5 Miles Daily
There’s no question that walking has been one of the most vital human activities for several millennia. Whether it was foraging for food or trekking to the nearest watering hole, gathering supplies, or looking for a new place to settle down, walking was something our ancestors did daily, for many miles.
In fact, when anthropologists analyze the lifestyle of modern hunter-gatherer societies, it turns out that the average tribal member walks at least 5 miles (7.5 miles on average) every single day—more than double the distance walked by the average American.
Studies have shown that walking consistently every day, for distances in line with our evolutionary roots, helps combat systemic inflammation, heart disease and stroke, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, as well as certain types of cancers.
Beyond that, and in accordance with the Philosophy of the Fittest outlook, long walks have also been shown to reduce stress and boost creativity.
All throughout history, some of the most brilliant minds—from Socrates, Immanuel Kant, and Frederick Nietzsche; to Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs—took their daily strolls in effort to spur on some of the most profound ideas the world would ever know. It was Nietzsche himself who stated, in his work Beyond Good and Evil, that ‘All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.’
Whether you haven’t exercised in years or you find yourself burned out from an extreme workout regimen, walking should be the first activity you partake in on your journey back to health.
If you’re out of shape, a daily walk will help to build a baseline of cardiovascular fitness as well as prepare your musculature and supporting ligaments and tendons for more aggressive routines down the road; and if you’re overworked from too much high intensity training, 30 days of low-impact, slow and steady movement will allow for extended muscle recovery as well as help reset your central nervous and endocrine systems, ensuring that you are metabolically healthy before beginning another high-level program.
The idea is to move your body daily in accordance with human evolutionary history and to forget about “working out.” Your pace and heart rate do not need to be monitored—in fact, I advise against it—and the only metrics I recommend keeping track of, at least initially, are your mileage and step count, to ensure that you’re working up to (and even beyond) the prescribed recommendation of 5 miles per day.
Break up your daily walks however you see fit and take that time to explore the outdoors, listen to your favorite album or podcast, converse with a preferred walking partner, or—in the mold of a Kant or Nietzsche—let your mind wander and connect the subconscious puzzle pieces buried deep within your psyche as you contemplate life’s big questions.
While going for a walk may seem too easy or perhaps (gasp) boring to some of you used to the fast-paced lifestyle of modern times and the upbeat routines promoted by the current fitness culture, understand that that’s the whole point—to slow you down.
This change of pace may be hard to get used to at first, but I guarantee that if you stay consistent, you’ll come to appreciate and enjoy your daily walks as much as I do.
More crucially, your overall health—mental and physical— will improve dramatically, especially in combination with a sound diet and the following two habits.
3: Maximize Your Sleep Quality (And Stay Consistent)
Contrary to popular wisdom, sleep is not the “cousin of death.” In fact, almost nothing will do more to increase your productivity during your waking hours and extend your lifespan than consistently getting enough of it. For most of us, aged 18-64, this is approximately 8 hours per night—although this could vary, more or less, depending on genetics, stress levels, exercise frequency and intensity, or whether your immune system is combating an illness or injury.
Sleep is responsible for numerous key physiological mechanisms within our bodies. These include energy restoration, muscle tissue repair, information processing and memory formation, DNA regulation and genetic expression (from body composition to skin health to our ability to prevent chronic illness), immunological memory, and clearing out waste products that naturally accumulate within the brain throughout the day.
About one third of American adults are sleep deprived.
And because sleep is directly connected to so much of what promotes a healthy mind and body, it’s no wonder that chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to systemic inflammation and all of the symptoms associated with this affliction: obesity, heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative illnesses, as well as various cancers.
If you are truly serious about transforming yourself physically as well as mentally, getting enough sleep should be a top priority. In my many years as a health and fitness professional, it never ceased to amaze me how many people who supposedly cared about their health—many of them exercising for hours each day, multiple times per week—failed to prioritize their sleep. Most of them would have seen better results in terms of their physical fitness and body composition goals by exercising less and sleeping a bit more—not to mention the other, more important, areas of their lives that probably suffered as well.
Now, understandably, because of the many responsibilities we have in life, there will be some nights when sleep gets sacrificed for a greater good—no doubt about it. However, there is no excuse, especially if you want to perform, look, and feel your best, for consistently skimping on quality rest. Contrary to popular opinion, this says less about your level of importance or success than it does about your lack of time management skills and failure to prioritize efficiently.
Aside from allotting the recommended 8 hours or so every single night for sleep, the following 10 recommendations will each contribute to ensuring that, when you do lay your head on the pillow, you maximize your sleep quality and wake up reenergized and ready to capitalize on the day ahead.
1: Sleep in a dark, cool room (65-70 degrees).
2: Go to sleep and wake up at the same times every day.
3: Get sun exposure early in the day.
4. Be physically active for at least 30 minutes every day.
5: Eat an anti-inflammatory diet, as recommended above.
6: Cut off caffeine and alcohol consumption 8 hours before bedtime.
7: Include a serving of starchy carbs with dinner, as they promote the production of serotonin (a precursor to melatonin) within the body.
8: Finish eating your last meal at least 2-3 hours before bedtime.
9: Avoid blue light exposure from electronics 2 hours before bedtime, as it suppresses the body's production of melatonin.
10: Spend at least part of those two hours before bedtime practicing the next foundational habit below.
4: Read A Book (Work Up To 1 Hour Per Day)
While it may not seem as pivotal for your overall health as the previous recommendations, make no mistake about it: reading (from a physical book)—especially in today’s world—is not only just as important as exercise, diet, and sleep but, if done consistently and with purpose and discernment, has the potential to radically transform your life.
When I first got started in the health and fitness industry years ago, I began to read everything I could get my hands on in terms of nutrition and physical training. At that point, as a young 23-year-old, I was obsessed with optimizing athletic performance and mastering dietary principles. While I did eventually achieve a level of expertise in these areas (though I still continue to learn and refine my skills), as well as a notable degree of strength and athleticism, I realized that there were still entire aspects of human health—and much less the world around me—that I knew little to nothing about.
Furthermore, I gathered that most people in American society operated in the exact same manner, including, if not especially, those residing in the top tiers of the economic hierarchy. And it made perfect sense: Our modern economy highly prioritizes and rewards this type of specialization. Unfortunately, however, this often comes at the expense of developing other areas in our lives that would make us better human beings.
Worse yet, many times it fuels our egos in the opposite direction, feeding an inflated sense of self-worth based less on individual character than on the ability to derive a large income stream—and therefore social status—from a tremendous amount of knowledge accrued in an extremely narrow niche.
This, along with the explosion of the internet, the 24-hour news cycle, and social media, has created a society in which many of us know a lot about a little, but because we are constantly bombarded with news and information, we feel more “informed” and knowledgeable about the greater world around us than we in fact really are.
It wasn’t until I got out of my comfort zone and started reading books in realms outside of exercise physiology and nutrition that I realized how much more there was to life.
Books on psychology and philosophy made me question my motives and contemplate what makes life worth living.
Studying physics and biology awed me and stoked my sense of wonder and curiosity about the origins of life and our universe.
Reading history humbled me and made me realize how little human nature has changed throughout the centuries despite our technological and material progress.
Biographies on the remarkable people that shaped the trajectory of humanity inspired me and gave me guidance.
And great works of literature helped me get out of my own day-to-day reality and into other people’s shoes, heightening my sense of empathy while simultaneously increasing feelings of gratitude for the life I’m fortunate enough to live.
In other words: it made—and still continues to make—me a better, more well-rounded individual.
And contrary to what our culture promotes, the readings I’ve done in the fields outside of my specialty have only improved my abilities within my niche: My capacity to focus intensely has improved dramatically, benefitting both the quality of my training sessions and my ability to process, synthesize, and recall new information; and the exposure to new ideas and words has expanded my horizons as well as my vocabulary, enhancing my “soft skills,” such as the ability to communicate effectively with diverse groups of people.
Beyond that, research shows that reading consistently not only supports but improves neuroplasticity, safeguarding the brain from the cognitive decline otherwise associated with aging. And, in an era in which the average human attention span continues to plummet, it is of the utmost importance to counteract the effects that smartphones, email, internet browsers, and social media are having on all of us.
If you haven’t dedicated yourself to this habit in some time, you might find that it is quite challenging to sit still and concentrate for even just 10 or 20 minutes. However, just like with strength training and conditioning, start lightly and gradually build up.
Over time, and pretty quickly if you remain dedicated, you’ll find that you are able to sit down and read longer, with less impulses for mind wandering or to reach for your smartphone. Eventually, once you’ve literally reconfigured your brain, you’ll notice that 10 or 20 minutes turns into a full hour or more, and that what was once a chore has now become something you look forward to and can’t live without.
I recommend getting started with something that you are absolutely fascinated by—no matter the subject or genre. The point, at least at the very beginning, is to reacquaint your mind with this type of activity; you are more likely to remain engaged and stay consistent if you begin by reading something that holds your attention, regardless of the quality or content.
When I first decided to get back into a sustained reading practice, I transitioned from nutrition and exercise physiology to contemporary self-help books. Then, based off of what I learned there—because the great thing about books is that they usually spark new areas of interest in the reader—I moved on to more substantial works in the domains of philosophy, history, hard sciences, literature, and so on.
Whatever you do, though, don’t force yourself to read books you don’t like; that’s the easiest way to get discouraged and ensure you never pick up this amazing habit.
If you don’t know where to begin, feel free to shoot me an email stating your current areas of curiosity, and I'll be happy to reply back with a few suggestions from my personal library.
I have discovered over the years that these four habits ground, and help keep, me mentally and physically healthy, no matter what is going on in my life.
Some days I miss my mark, and on others I go beyond the minimum prescriptions.
Perfection is not the goal, however: improvement is.
The main objective is to be consistent across time and reorient your mind and body, so that you are able to see things clearly and act accordingly.
The pace of the world is only getting faster, and paradigms are shifting rapidly before our eyes. If we don’t build a solid foundation—not only in terms of health and physical fitness but philosophically as well—we become susceptible to manipulation and unnecessary hardships down the road.
Too many of us are falling prey to the proverbial traps our modern society continues to lay down for us.
The result is that many of us feel like victims when in reality we have it better than ever before.
We are angry and self-righteous when we should be humble and forgiving.
We are overfed, yet malnourished.
We are stressed beyond belief because we value the wrong things.
And we are losing our ability to think for ourselves because we don’t know how to block out distractions and focus on what’s essential.
So, for (at least) the next thirty days, choose a different path.
You owe it to your community.
You owe it to your family.
And, most importantly, you owe it to yourself.
Hey JJ. Long time no see. We met at rccl. U helped me with a paleo challenge at one point in my life. I was wondering if you can whats app me at 7866580181. Would like to chat with u for a moment please. Thanks