Stronger Than Yesterday
169 Insights for Transforming Your Muscle, Mind, and Motivation

First Edition

By Michael Matthews (www.mikematthews.co)

Copyright © 2024 Oculus Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions of this book. Don’t participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

This book is a general educational health-related information product and is intended for healthy adults age 18 and over.

This book is solely for information and educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult a medical or health professional before you begin any exercise, nutrition, or supplementation program or if you have questions about your health.

There may be risks associated with participating in activities or using products mentioned in this book for people in poor health or with preexisting physical or mental health conditions.

Because these risks exist, you should not use the products or participate in the activities described in this book if you are in poor health or if you have a preexisting mental or physical health condition. If you choose to participate in these activities, you do so knowingly and voluntarily of your own free will and accord, assuming all risks associated with these activities.

Specific results mentioned in this book should be considered extraordinary, and there are no “typical” results. Because individuals differ, results will differ.

Cover designed by Jason Anscomb (https://jasonanscomb.com)

Book designed by Jason Anscomb (https://jasonanscomb.com)

Edited by Mary Adams-Legge

Published by Oculus Publishers (www.oculuspublishers.com)

Dedication

To the family, friends, followers, and fellow travelers who have supported me and my work in any and every way, from sharing words of encouragement and constructive criticism to telling others about my efforts to simply believing in me. This, and everything else I do in my work, is foremost for you.

Contents

Free Bonus Material (Workouts, Meal Plans, and More!)

Why You Should Read This Book

1: Stop Trying to Have Great Workouts

2: The Imperatives of Healthy & Sustainable Fat Loss

3: The Only Way to Fail

4: Simple Diet Hacks

5: Give Yourself Permission

6: Is Deadlifting Worth the Risk?

7: In Which I Give a Physique Update

8: Start Here

9: Screw It

10: The Body Recomp

11: Next Time

12: Should the Future Be Meatless?

13: Fitness White Pills

14: Simple Exercise Hacks

15: The Most Common Fitness Regret

16: Choose Wisely

17: I Salute You

18: Do You Gain Muscle Faster When You’re Leaner?

19: Funny Fitness Disappointments

20: Before You Laugh

21: Gentle Fitness Advice

22: Overrated and Underrated for Female Strength Training

23: If They Can Do It …

24: Maybe They’re Born With It … Or Maybe It’s … Something Else

25: Opportunities Are Whispers

26: Overrated and Underrated for Muscle Building

27: A Few Reasons to Be Fit

28: The Truth About Food Tracking

29: Exercise As Meditation

30: Early Birds Get the Gains Too

31: Do You Have a Personal Constitution?

32: Simple Mental Health Hacks

33: Don’t Let Them Convince You

34: Is Exercise Useless for Weight Loss?

35: The Common Thread

36: Every Day vs. Every So Often

37: The Best Motivation

38: Go For a Walk

39: You Are Not Your Body Composition

40: This Is Like That

41: The Best Way to Get Approval

42: How Fast Can You Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle?

43: It Happens

44: Don’t Get Your Tinsel In a Tangle

45: Are You Voting the Way You Know You Should?

46: Is Running Bad for Gaining Muscle and Strength?

47: The Supreme Warrior Virtue

48: The Science of Productive Daydreaming

49: No Shame

50: Is Strength Training Good for Weight Loss?

51: Your Fitness Is Yours

52: Do You Even Keto Fast Bro?

53: Tough Fitness Truths

54: 10 Top-Flight Training Tips

55: Don’t Just Learn—Do

56: Simple Health Hacks

57: Advice I’d Give My Younger Self

58: Does Cardio Burn Muscle?

59: Some Days

60: A Calorie Calculator Caution

61: Go to the Gym

62: Underrated Core Exercises

63: Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy

64: Simple Life Hacks

65: Lifting Yourself Up

66: So You’ve Hit a Weight Loss Plateau

67: You’re Getting Good

68: The Healthy Enough Diet

69: You Won’t Always Enjoy It

70: Is There a “Fat Burning” Zone for Cardio?

71: Life Periodization

72: Beware the Cults of Scientism and Credentialism

73: Train First

74: Simple Muscle Building Hacks

75: You Love to See It

76: More Simple Diet Hacks

77: You Get to Decide

78: The Diminishing Returns of Overreaching

79: We’ll See

80: The Worst Fitness Advice

81: Complaining vs. Doing

82: 10 Tips for Keeping the Weight Off

83: Never Say Die

84: Are You Sure You’re Overtraining?

85: The Problem With Progress

86: Your North Star

87: Easy, Fast, and Free

88: It’s Not Fat Shaming

89: When You Don’t Want to Work Out

90: Diet On, Diet Off

91: Look At You

92: The Best Supplements

93: Let Them

94: More Simple Exercise Hacks

95: Fun Fitness Goals

96: It’s Not Fit Shaming

97: The Maintain Gains

98: Targeted Fat Loss

99: The Great Vulnerability Hoax

100: Said The Diet Guru Who’s Full of Shit

101: A Simple Rule for Better Living

102: The Case for Isolation Exercises

103: Fun Fitness Wins

104: More Simple Health Hacks

105: Tough Love and Gentle Compassion

106: Weekend Weight Gain

107: The Best Antidote to Weakness

108: Does Protein Timing Matter?

109: You Have to Chase It

110: Said The Exercise Guru Who’s Full of Shit

111: The Worst Form of Stress

112: Stop Watching Porn

113: Three Reasons to Train Today

114: Leaning Into a Lean Bulk

115: Be Worthy

116: Is 1,200 Calories Per Day Dangerous?

117: If This Isn’t Nice …

118: The Mandatory Exercise Myth

119: Do You Believe?

120: More Simple Life Hacks

121: Nobody Owes Us

122: Dial 5-2 for Fat Loss

123: A Training Periodization Plan

124: Sick of Tracking Your Calories?

125: Yes, You Can

126: Should You Finish With “Finishers”?

127: So You’re Happy With Your Body

128: Said The Health Guru Who’s Full of Shit

129: The Paradox of Self-Confidence

130: The Best Exercises and Foods For Losing Fat

131: Take Your Time

132: How Fast Can You Lose Fat and Not Muscle?

133: The Rules Don’t Rule You

134: The Power of Double Progression

135: The Case Against Ambition

136: Believed vs. Checked Facts

137: Your Weight Isn’t Your Worth

138: Will Fasted Cardio Help You Lose Fat Faster?

139: Progress Isn’t One-Dimensional

140: Are Seed and Vegetable Oils Unhealthy?

141: Compassion > Shame

142: The Three-to-Five Formula for Strength

143: Winning = Priorities Priority

144: How Much Change Is Enough?

145: Is It This or That?

146: What Really Makes People Fat?

147: You’re Allowed to Enjoy Your Fitness

148: The Ancestral Eater

149: The Workouts That Matter the Most

150: When You Can’t Get Into the Gym

151: A Warm Welcome

152: Can You Really Do Your Own Research?

153: A Pretty Good Day

154: The Lean Vacation

155: Skip the Social Sizzle

156: This Is Your Brain on Carbs

157: To Strive or Savor?

158: Five of My Favorite HIIT Workouts

159: You Are What You Focus On

160: Resting Is Investing

161: Win Your Spurs

162: Does Energy Flux Matter?

163: So You Say

164: Is It Actually Hunger?

165: I Want You to Be a Pessimist (About Pessimism)

166: The Best Rep Ranges

167: No, You Don’t

168: The Catch with High-Tech Tracking

169: One Day

Free Bonus Material (Workouts, Meal Plans, and More!)

Would You Do Me a Favor?

Also by Michael Matthews

Additional Resources

References

Free Bonus Material (Workouts, Meal Plans, and More!)

Thank you for reading Stronger Than Yesterday. I hope you find it insightful, inspiring, and practical, and I hope it helps you reach your goals (fitness and otherwise) faster.

I want to make sure you receive as much value from this book as possible, so I’ve put together free resources to help you, including:

3 bonus chapters that answer three common questions: “Am I too fat to bulk?”, “How long should I cut?”, and “How much weight can I gain in one day of overeating?”

20 flexible dieting meal plans for losing fat and gaining muscle

An entire year’s worth of my Bigger Leaner Stronger (men) and Thinner Leaner Stronger (women) strength training workouts neatly laid out and provided in several formats, including PDF, Excel, and Google Sheets

Form demonstration videos of my favorite strength training exercises

Product recommendations for workout equipment, gear, and gadgets

To get instant access to those free bonuses (plus a few additional surprise gifts), go here now:

➥ www.mikematthews.fitness/strongerbonus

Why You Should Read This Book

“It takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes, but an even wiser man to learn from others.”

–Zen Proverb

It was four a.m., and I hadn’t slept in nearly three days. I was delirious, holed up in a basement lab in the cloud forests of Guatemala, surrounded by reams of arcane scientific literature, doing things frowned upon by the FDA with stuff outlawed by most developed countries.

But I was also buzzing because I was on the verge of a discovery that would change everything we knew about human optimization. If my hypothesis proved true, the realms of health, fitness, and longevity would enter a new era.

I’m talking about striking muscle and strength gain without stepping foot in a gym, effortless fat loss without dieting, and superhuman health without medicine or even supplements. A true magic bullet breakthrough, watershed moment, sea change—a miracle.

And the capper? None of it is punishing. Or even hard. It just requires small, specific, and sometimes slightly strange interventions.

Want to drop from 18.9 percent to 10.2 percent body fat in 14 days? Forget calories in and out—a toxic colonial construct that’s faker than math and triangles. Timed doses of handstands, bishop’s cap cactus needles, and Sitali breathing exercises do just the trick.

Want to extend the muscle-building effects of whey protein powder? Just do what your hunter-gatherer ancestors did to bulk up fast—add some sprouted galangal root to your grass-fed whey protein shakes.

Want to indulge in weekly guilt-free carb orgies? You just need to train your body to convert excess glucose into muscle-pumping glycogen rather than waist-expanding belly fat. And we can thank Nazi scientists recruited by the US government in Operation Paperclip for a little-known method of doing just that: eating raw German red garlic one hour before the binge. Cloves and cloves of raw German red garlic. The more the better, my unfabricated data suggests.

So … yeah. None of that actually happened or works. But it gives you an idea of what you won’t find in this book—page after page of quasiscientific gibberish and pretense geared toward peculiarity and persuasion rather than practicality and performance. Instead, this book contains a few things:

Simple, evidence-based, tried and tested diet, exercise, and supplementation techniques that’ll help you achieve your health and fitness goals faster, including improving your body composition, reducing the risk of disease and dysfunction, slowing aging, and more.

Motivational musings that I hope will inspire you to wallow in fewer “cheat days,” skip fewer workouts, and generally stay out of your own way in your fitness journey.

Zany meanderings that I hope will earn your smile because, as Victor Borge said, a smile is the shortest distance between two people. And one of the reasons I wrote this book was simply to get closer to more like-minded people, like you.

The main reason I wrote this book, however, is this:

You aren’t stuck with the body you have. You can make it better, even if you’ve mishandled it, and it’s far simpler than many people believe. Even better, once you start changing your body, you’ll realize that you also have the power to change your life.

I’ve repeated those words many times over the last decade in my books, articles, and podcasts because they encapsulate the mission that inspires my work. Every day, your body’s biology is changing. It’s getting stronger or weaker, younger or older, healthier or sicker, and the driving factor behind these changes isn’t your genes, environment, or even your age—it’s your lifestyle. How you eat. How you exercise. How you sleep. How you supplement. And not just how, but how often. Because what you do every day is far more important than what you do every so often.

Hence this daily reader—something to dip into every day for a morsel of education, spark of encouragement, or moment of joy. Don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking you must do everything in these pages, however. Focus on the first few ideas that appeal the most and implement them as your time permits. Then, when you’re ready for greater improvements, find a few more to apply.

Want one to get rolling? If you’re unsure whether you should eat, drink, or do something, ask yourself, “Is this good for my body or bad?” If you can consistently answer that question with knowledge and love (for yourself, your friends and family, and your fate), you can build a body you can be proud of.

It’s up to you how quickly you get through this book, but consider committing to the “minimum effective dose” of one chapter per day. This is just a few daily pages, but over time, it’ll change your body and mind as you gradually upgrade just about every aspect of your health and fitness—your mindset, diet, exercise, supplementation, rest, recovery, stress management, and more.

Let’s get started.

Don’t let anyone convince you that a commitment to your fitness is a flavor of narcissism rather than self-love.

1:
Stop Trying to Have Great Workouts

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

–Winston Churchill

What’s the enemy of great?

A montage of social media posts, motivational speeches, and self-help books probably just flashed through your mind, all proclaiming that “good” is the droid you’re looking for.

Good, they cry, is what’s holding you back from dreaming your quest and manifesting your visions into fantasy. Good, you must understand, is never good enough. To truly live, good must die. You must commit every fiber of yourself—every day—to the pursuit of great. You must strive, suffer, and surpass. You must go big or go home.

Beware satisfaction, as well, they say. It’s not enough to never come up short; you must also never come down with a case of contentment. Whatever you’ve accomplished, you could’ve done a little more if all your chips were in the middle.

On and on this philosophy goes, winning wide approval among people from all walks of life. It rings true because it’s not wholly misguided—by definition, you can’t achieve the extraordinary through the ordinary—but there’s a problem.

It’s impossible to be great all the time. Most of the time, good enough is all we can muster. But that’s perfectly okay because, ironically, a whole lot of “good enough” can make you great. In fact, it’s the only way to get there without losing your nerve or sanity.

Think about it for a minute. When’s the last time you were truly outstanding in your performance of any activity? When your faucet was fully open and you were fully in a state of flow? Now think about how much effort, energy, and presence that demanded, and how drained you probably felt afterward.

Does it make sense to continually expect that from yourself? Of course not. That’s a surefire way to destroy motivation and mood and eventually burn out, because as sexy as perfect is, it’s equally as elusive. Like the muse, it can’t be commanded, cajoled, or contracted. It comes and goes as it pleases. Thus, appreciate the fleeting moments of perfection but don’t calibrate your expectations by them.

Instead, demand something else from yourself—something mundane but also achievable and sustainable. That something else is consistency.

The “big secret” to achieving excellence? Develop your ability to be great at being consistent, not consistently great. This mostly comes down to showing up, again and again, and being good enough to get a little bit better. If you can do that—if you can make steady progress that compounds over time—it relieves pressure and anxiety, reduces the risk of exhaustion, and provides useful feedback.

By the same token, “Did I show up and put my hand to the plow?” is a much more productive question to ask yourself at the end of every day than “Was I great?” Or even worse, “Was I perfect?”

Not that standards don’t matter. “Good enough” doesn’t mean just going through the motions, never forcing yourself to do difficult things, or resigning yourself to mediocrity.

“Good enough” is about accepting and working with what you’ve got where you are, not what you wish you had or where you wish you were. It means acknowledging the fact that you can’t microwave real results. No matter how “optimized” your approach is, results take time.

Consider dieting. Many people want to know the “best” diet for losing weight, and many of those conversations revolve around carbohydrate intake. According to research conducted by Stanford University scientists, however, how much or little carbohydrate you eat doesn’t help or hinder weight loss. What matters is maintaining a consistent calorie deficit. (There’s that word again.) That is, people who are great at sticking to the plan lose the most weight regardless of carbohydrate intake.

The same goes for training. Simple—even simplistic—programming and rock-solid consistency beat even the most scientifically sound routines and shaky compliance every time. Similarly, an obsession with heroic effort in the gym is a vice, not a virtue—one that ultimately and inevitably leads to disappointment, injury, and flameout.

So stop trying to have great workouts. Stop trying to be invincible. Stop trying to rush the process. Strive for consistency instead. Stay patient, and in time, once you’ve given enough “good enough,” you’ll find yourself capable of great.

2:
The Imperatives of Healthy & Sustainable Fat Loss

“A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash.”

—Proverbs 15:14

Telling people who want to lose weight to simply “eat less and move more” is too sweeping to be useful. Eat how much less and move how much more? And eat what? And move how?

Here is more helpful advice:

Consistently eat fewer calories than you burn to produce steady fat loss. 15-to-25 percent fewer works well for most people, which is about 10-to-12 calories per pound of body weight per day.

Eat enough protein to retain lean mass and reduce hunger. Aim for ~1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, or if you’re overweight, ~1 gram per centimeter in body height per day.

Eat enough “healthy” food to cover basic nutritional needs and improve satiety. At least 80 percent of daily calories from nutritious and relatively unprocessed food works best.

Do at least a couple of hours of strength training per week to maintain muscle and strength. Just one or two upper-body and lower-body workouts per week is enough.

Go for a couple of walks every day, and if you feel up to it, do an hour or two of cardio workouts per week. Studies invariably show that doing regular cardiovascular exercise in addition to strength training produces the most fat loss.

And that’s it. Every other “do” or “do not” for trimming fat is about as useful as a third nostril.

3:
The Only Way to Fail

“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”

—Ovid

Getting fit is like doing anything that most people fail at:

It’s harder than we think it’ll be.

It takes longer than we think it’ll take.

We make more mistakes than we think we’ll make.

We can’t fail unless we give up.

Consider my own fitness journey: twenty-one years now and countless mistakes made. The one I didn’t make, though? I never stopped.

So don’t overestimate what’s possible in thirty days and underestimate what’s possible in 365 days. You may be able to establish a habit in a few weeks, but it takes at least a few months to start creating a lifestyle.

No single workout can change your body or life. But a bunch of them can.

4:
Simple Diet Hacks

“Experience is the best teacher, but a fool will learn from no other.”

—Benjamin Franklin

A simple diet hack: Go unfollow anyone who says you should do a “cleanse” or “detox” of any kind whatsoever. Because here’s what you think happens on a cleanse:

Fat loss

Detoxification

And here’s what actually happens:

Fat and muscle loss

No detoxification

Mind-flaying hunger and cravings

Explosive tussles with the toilet

Hours spent cleaning the forty-seven different parts of your $500 juicer

Here’s another quick diet fix: Go unfollow anyone who says you should take a microbiome test to improve your diet. Let me save you the $100: eat vegetables instead of cinnamon rolls and drink water instead of Oreo shakes.

And one more tip for the road: Go unfollow anyone who says you should stop drinking diet soda because it’ll make you fat. Can artificial sweeteners make you crave sweets? Maybe … but probably not enough to matter. Artificial sweeteners don’t stimulate our brains in the same way that sugar does, and studies have found that replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners can help with weight loss.

5:
Give Yourself Permission

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

—C.S. Lewis

Some of the most common causes of weight loss breakthroughs are receiving a surprise diagnosis or health setback, reaching an all-time high in weight, and seeing oneself in a picture or mirror and being horrified.

Save yourself these torments. Commit now.

Don’t let someone convince you that you need their, or anyone else’s, permission for your fitness, either. The only permission you need is your own. Give yourself permission to follow a plan or wing it. Give yourself permission to love the process today and to hate it tomorrow. Give yourself permission to try, fail, try again, and succeed.

Give yourself breathing space to think on the wondrous pleasures that achieving your fitness goals will bring, too. Imagine the glorious moments in vivid detail. See and feel yourself admiring your fit body, savoring your exceptional strength, appreciating your robust health. And then dream again tomorrow and every day until you’re living it.

Saying that the sugar in fruit will make someone fat is like saying that money will make a man sexy. It can, but it takes a lot.

6:
Is Deadlifting Worth the Risk?

“Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.”

—Henry Rollins

Some people say that unless you’re a competitive strength athlete, the deadlift’s benefits are outweighed by the risks because the chances of getting seriously hurt are too high and the injuries too severe.

They’ll also claim the deadlift wears your nervous system to a frazzle and is far harder to recover from than other exercises, making it impractical.

Last, they’ll add, the deadlift is unnecessary, easily replaced with safer exercises that train all of the same muscles.

While it’s true that you can get fit and strong without deadlifting, I mostly disagree with each of these points. In fact, if I could only do one exercise for the rest of my life, it’d be the deadlift. Here’s why:

When performed correctly, the deadlift is safe for most people. The operative phrases here are “when performed correctly” and “for most people.” That is, when us everyday gymgoers use proper form (as I describe in my other books Bigger Leaner Stronger, Thinner Leaner Stronger, and Muscle for Life), the deadlift isn’t dangerous, even as the weights get heavy. Many powerlifters and strength athletes, however, prime themselves for injury in a few ways, including performance-enhancing drugs and extreme training protocols. For these people, deadlifting can become far riskier, what with their extraordinary loads, training volumes, and competitive feats.

While an intense deadlift session is difficult, it doesn’t produce a meaningful amount of central nervous system (CNS) fatigue. In one study, for example, 30 minutes after doing 8 sets of 2 reps of deadlifts at 95 percent of one-rep max, resistance-trained men only experienced a 5-to-10 percent reduction in CNS output. At bottom, CNS fatigue is a real phenomenon that can impair muscular performance, but it’s also a nonentity for us recreational weightlifters.

The deadlift isn’t essential for building a great physique, but it does train nearly every muscle in your body, particularly those on the backside, making it highly efficient. Think of how many muscles the deadlift directly and indirectly trains (calves, hamstrings, glutes, paraspinals, upper-back muscles, core, quads, etc.) and how much time it takes to do a few sets of an isolation exercise for each of those muscle groups versus a few sets of the deadlift.

And so, if you’re a natural weightlifter who’s willing to learn, use good form, and curb your ego, the deadlift is a marry exercise, not a shag exercise.

7:
In Which I Give a Physique Update

“Life is like an echo. We get from it what we put in it and, just like an echo, it often gives us much more.”

—Boris Lauer-Leonardi

I don’t do many “physique updates” because, well, there isn’t much to update.⁣ 6’2, 195-to-200 pounds, 8-to-10 percent body fat … until I leave my body to the worms and toads.⁣

Why?⁣ Because I’ve gained more or less all of the muscle I can ever gain, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise to make people think they can always get bigger and stronger.⁣

Here’s the score:⁣

⁣Guys can gain about 40-to-45 pounds of muscle in their lifetime if they have good genetics. If they don’t, their ceiling will be in the 30s. Women can cut those numbers in half.

As muscle mass is a primary driver of strength, that too stalls out eventually. There’s more variation in potential strength than muscle gain, but a reasonable endpoint for men to strive toward is “3-4-5” one-rep-maxes—3 plates (on each side) on the bench (315 pounds), 4 on the squat (405 pounds), and 5 on the deadlift (495 pounds), and for women, 1-ish-2-ish-2-ish (135, 225-to-275, and 225-to-275 pounds) is doable for most.⁣

Guys and gals will gain, more or less, all the muscle and strength available to them in their first five years of high-quality training. And after that, nothing much will change regardless of what they do, short of getting on a chemical cocktail of anabolic #dedication.⁣

⁣Hence, the goo-roos who blather about how their physiques are decades in the making, and always improving by meaningful amounts, are ignorant, lying, or secretly using steroids.⁣

In reality, what we’re seeing in these people is either five-ish years of productive work and a bunch of maintenance, or drugs that have enabled them to gain far more muscle and strength than they ever could’ve gotten naturally.⁣ Some of ’em are” tricksy little Hobbitses” too, using just enough drugs to keep the needle moving (“TRT”) without making it obvious.⁣

⁣

Do yourself a solid, then, and immediately unfollow anyone who claims to have years of quality training behind them yet brags about some new diet or exercise trick that’s supposedly adding yet another pound (or three) of muscle to their jacked physiques, or plate (or three) to their impressive totals.⁣

⁣

None of that means training has to become a dreary, pointless grind, however. It just means our goals and expectations need to evolve with our body.⁣ We have to learn to appreciate what we’ve got and find a deeper motivation to keep training than bigger biceps.

This can take many forms. It can be feeling more confident and competent inside and outside of the gym⁣⁣, being more productive at work⁣⁣, setting a good example for your kids⁣⁣, tackling new physical challenges like sports, hiking, biking, or running⁣⁣, avoiding disease and dysfunction, or slowing down the processes of aging and retaining a youthful vitality.

For me, it’s several things. It’s doing workouts I enjoy that’ll allow me to stay in peak shape and health for the rest of my life, without pain or injury. It’s keeping the spark alive in my marriage and helping my kids develop a positive relationship with food and exercise—lessons they can pass on to their kids, too. It’s a matter of personal pride and responsibility, of physically expressing my values and worldview, of producing and presenting my best self.

These are privileges and prizes, not compromises or comedowns. Things to celebrate, not understate.

8:
Start Here

“It’s the job that’s never started that takes longest to finish.”

—J.R.R. Tolkien

Don’t know where to start with this fitness stuff? For the first couple of weeks, do this every day:

Eat a hearty, filling meal every few hours, and skip the snacks.

Eat 30-to-40 grams of protein each meal.

Eat at least one piece of fruit and one fist-sized serving of vegetables per day.

Drink nothing but water and zero-calorie beverages (coffee, tea, etc.).

Go for a 10-to-30-minute walk.

Get 7-to-8 hours of sleep.

Once all that’s well in hand, here are two more achievements to unlock:

Eat another serving of fruit and a couple more fist-sized servings of vegetables every day.

Do one-to-three strength training workouts per week.

If all you do is master that simple playbook, you can enjoy outstanding health, fitness, and wellness for the rest of your life.

And if you want to go even further on the path, you can augment your program with tactics like meal planning, more vigorous strength training, and endurance exercise (check out my book Muscle for Life for the blueprint).

9:
Screw It

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

—Leo Tolstoy

Throughout your powerful, transformative, and occasionally miserable fitness journey, you’ll meet many people who will tell you many things. In fact, these fleshy automatons will have so much advice that if you scribbled it all down on pieces of paper, you’d singlehandedly decimate entire swathes of the world’s forests.

Keep your eyes and ears open, but don’t let their moonshine move you off target. “You shouldn’t do that,” they’ll say, wheeling out a litany of reasons why it’s not going to work out, why you should put time and effort elsewhere, why you’ll regret it if you keep going.

To which you’ll say: “Screw it, I’m doing it anyway.” “Screw it, I’m going to wake up an hour early and exercise every day.” “Screw it, I’m going to follow a proper meal plan for a couple of months.” “Screw it, I’m going to drink less alcohol and eat less junk food.”

You’ll probably be afraid, too. Anxious. Uncertain. All that is normal. Remember the first time you rode a bike? This is no different. You move past all the head trash by getting to work. You put in effort, and you get better. You get better, and you build confidence. You build confidence, and you want to do more. It’s a virtuous cycle.

The hobgoblins of fear and doubt will always hop around in your mind, sometimes more noisily than others, and that’s okay. Some of it’s even good; it keeps you moving, doing, working. It reminds you that, as Robert Frost said, “ the best way out is always through.”

10:
The Body Recomp

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

—Maya Angelou

Most everyone in a gym wants to build muscle and lose fat, among other things. What most people don’t know, however, is that these goals are at odds with each other because losing fat requires a calorie deficit, which in turn impairs muscle growth (so much so that it can effectively halt muscle building).

There’s a notable exception to this rule, though: People who are new to strength training or getting back into it newly can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. In fact—plenty.

An impressive example of this “body recomposition” effect in greenhorn trainees was demonstrated in a study conducted by scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on 38 overweight male police officers.

On average, the officers were 34 years old and mildly obese (about 27 percent body fat), and none had any previous strength training experience. After twelve weeks of doing four resistance training workouts per week lasting 30-to-35 minutes, maintaining a 20 percent calorie deficit (eating about 80 percent of the calories they burned every day), and eating 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day, the participants lost 9-to-15 pounds of body fat and gained 4-to-9 pounds of muscle.

Outstanding results for just a few months, but even more so when you consider they were achieved with such a gentle program. A few easy tweaks that would’ve improved overall outcomes by 100 percent or more include:

More strength training (up to 3-to-5 hours per week)

Some cardio (up to 1-to-3 hours per week)

A larger calorie deficit (closer to 25 or even 30 percent)

More protein (closer to 1 gram per centimeter in body height per day)

That, by the way, is the formula for body recomposition: do a lot of strength training, a bit of cardio, aggressively (but not recklessly) restrict your calories, and eat a lot of protein.

Obesity is a problem you can literally run from.

11:
Next Time

“By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity, we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility.”

—Alan Watts

In fitness, you don’t have to get it right the first time. Or the second. You have as many chances to lose fat and build muscle as you’d like.

Moreover, you often have to first discover what doesn’t work (for you) before you can root out what does. So it’s okay to fail at a diet or training program. That means you tried. And learned. And now can use that wreckage to climb a little higher next time.

Just make sure there is a next time.

Because just as courage is the supreme virtue that guarantees all others, showing up is the master fitness habit that forms the nucleus of all others. Knowing what to do is only ten percent of getting fit. Ninety percent is consistently doing it regardless of how you feel.

12:
Should the Future Be Meatless?

“It may be true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”

—Will Durant

There’s a concerted campaign underway to convince us that we can save our health and possibly even the planet by eating plant-based meat alternatives instead of the real thing. Does the weight of the scientific evidence agree? Is the matter as “settled” as some people would have you believe? Hardly.

Nutritionally, while these “meatless meat” products contain sources of protein with amino acid profiles that are comparable to meat, a number of studies have shown that purified plant proteins elicit a lower anabolic response in muscle compared to meat—a strong indicator of the quality of the source of protein.

One reason for this discrepancy is that plant proteins tend to be low in the essential amino acids lysine, methionine, and leucine, constitutive components of muscle that must be obtained from food.

A popular workaround for this deficiency is to combine different sources of plant protein to increase the amount of essential amino acids provided per serving, but curiously, research shows that this may not work as well as we’d hope.

In a study published in the journal Nutrients, scientists created several blends of plant protein powders (pea, pumpkin, sunflower, and coconut) that contained the same amount of essential amino acids as whey protein. Despite this, the participants who ate the plant powders subsequently had 30-to-40 percent lower levels of amino acids in their blood than the participants who ate the whey protein.

Swapping meat for meat-from-plants also makes it difficult to meet other basic nutritional needs, including vitamin B12, iron, zinc, essential fatty acids, creatine, anserine, taurine, and carnosine.

“But the plant foods are nutritionally fortified,” some people would retort, “and you can supplement with whatever else is required.” That’s true, but studies show that in many cases, fortification and supplementation with vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients doesn’t support our health and vitality as effectively as obtaining the same substances from whole foods that naturally contain them.

And then there’s controversy over the carbon footprint of farming for meat versus plants. Research shows that producing plant-based meat may impact the environment less than raising cows, but the methods matter. For instance, a study published in Global Change Biology found that several land management and food production strategies, including using organic soil amendments and restoring trees and perennial vegetation to areas of degraded forests, woodlands and riverbanks, can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of beef production by as much as 50 percent in certain regions, with the most potential in the United States and Brazil.

What’s more, a 2017 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that removing all animals from U.S. agriculture would reduce U.S. emissions by only three percent—a conclusion that was supported by a 2019 study in Agricultural Systems that estimated emissions from beef production at three percent of total U.S. emissions.

These analyses have been criticized, however, for failing to account for the emissions associated with devoting land to agriculture rather than allowing it to return to its natural state (forests and native vegetation can store more carbon than farmland). Even so, it’s uncertain how much of that land could ultimately be given over to nature rather than to plant farming (to meet growing food demands), which can produce significant carbon emissions as well (especially when considered on the basis of carbon-per-calorie).

At any rate, climate researchers who argue for cutting beef consumption like those at the World Resources Institute aren’t even calling for universal abstinence. They claim that a reduction in meat to about 50 calories per person per day, or 1.5 burgers per week, would be enough to nearly eliminate the need for additional beef-related agricultural expansion and associated deforestation.

So, while fake meat can make for a fine addition to an omnivorous diet (maybe you love meat but would like to eat less of it), switching to it exclusively isn’t as healthy or as virtuous as many people believe.

13:
Fitness White Pills

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

—Chuck Close

Sometimes, fitness is a bowl of cherries. You groove from one portion-perfect meal and pitch-perfect workout to another without a hitch.

Sometimes, however, you’d rather drink a bucket of warm spit than stick to your diet for another day. Sometimes your alarm goes off and a workout sounds about as appealing as boiling your head. Sometimes doing the workout anyway feels like you’re trying to walk a feral 220-pound dog.

These things happen. They’re unavoidable. However, there are consolation prizes too, and many are shinier than you think.

People who say fitness “doesn’t get easier; you only get better” are missing something: it takes far less effort to stay fit than it takes to get fit in the first place.

Much of the weight people gain during the holidays isn’t fat but extra a) water and glycogen (due to sodium and carb orgies that dramatically increase water retention) and b) stool weight (whatever goes in takes 24-to-72 hours to worm its way out).

There are no “fattening” foods or macronutrients. If someone insists otherwise, challenge them to eat nothing but 700 calories of their nutritional bogeyman for seven days straight and see what happens.

You don’t have to hit a PR to have a fitness win. Sometimes it’s going for a walk. Or doing some push-ups. Or just not eating the whole pizza or box of cookies.

You can’t gain more than a pound or two of fat in an entire day of feasting and imbibing, so don’t fret over the occasional “cheat meal” gone awry. Even your worst won’t visibly disturb your body composition, so just shrug it off and jog on.

What you see when you work out: Pumped-up pecs and biceps. What you don’t see: Pumped-up willpower, confidence, morale, consistency, and stick-to-it-iveness.

Calories always count, but that doesn’t mean you have to count them. Calorie counting is just one way to calibrate your eating to your goals, not the only way. And it’s okay if it’s not your way.

Training just once or twice per week is far better than training zero times per week, and moderate but consistent training beats out intense but sporadic training in every way. So take your time if you need to.

Something to remember when scrolling: People who are always super-fit don’t have special knowledge or methods. They’ve simply made their physique a top priority, and often because it makes them money, they view training as a form of therapy, and they don’t have kids.

Fitness isn’t just for people who want to change their body composition. Or to burn calories. Or to get stronger. It’s also for people who want to relieve stress, have fun, get healthier, move more, or simply feel good.

14:
Simple Exercise Hacks

“Nature is pleased with simplicity.”

—Isaac Newton

A simple exercise hack: Go unfollow anyone who says your knees should never go past your toes when you squat.

If you’re of average height or shorter, forcing your knees too far forward when squatting or lunging can increase the risk of injury (especially with heavy weights). BUT—if you happen to have long limbs, your knees will probably extend to or beyond your toes as you reach depth in these exercises with good form.

Another exercise quick fix: Unfollow anyone who says that cardio doesn’t help you lose fat. It literally burns fat, which doesn’t guarantee you’ll get leaner, but when combined with a proper diet, can speed up your results.

One more tip that’ll make an immediate difference in your training: Get off your phone in between sets. And not for the reasons you might think.

Surprisingly, research shows that scrolling in between sets can significantly hurt athletic performance. In a study conducted by scientists at Federal University of Paraíba, sixteen experienced male and female weightlifters did 3 sets of squats to failure, and then looked at social media or watched a documentary for 30 minutes before doing another round of 3 sets of squats to failure.

The people who watched the documentary performed about 15 percent fewer reps in their second bout of squats, whereas the people who diddled around on social media performed 29 percent fewer reps and experienced much more mental fatigue (~60 percent vs. ~15 percent).

This effect isn’t limited to just using social media, either—studies show that any activity that produces mental fatigue can subsequently impair athletic performance.

To immediately upgrade the quality of your training, then, do your workouts—and only your workouts—when you’re doing them.

15:
The Most Common Fitness Regret

“If it is to be, it’s up to me.”

–William Johnsen

The most common fitness regret is not starting sooner. So start now. Because a year from now, you’ll reap the fruits of whatever you’re doing right now. Remember that.

But you’re not motivated yet? Of course you aren’t. Motivation doesn’t create action that creates results. Action creates results that create motivation.

But you’re afraid you don’t have enough willpower to see it through? Ask yourself this instead: Are you sure you need more willpower, or do you just need a routine that requires less willpower?

For example, did you know that doing just one strength training workout per week puts you ahead of 58 percent of Americans? Do two per week, and you’re ahead of 70 percent. Do three-to-four per week, and you’re in the top 13 percent.

Start walking a lot, too, and you’re truly a breed apart. Most people take just under 5,000 steps per day—about 40 minutes of walking—so if you can beat that, you’re at an advantage, and if you can double it, you’re at the top of the pile.

And did you know that eating just a few servings of vegetables per day makes you a top-10-percenter? And eating less than 50 grams of added sugar per day is well above average? And drinking eight cups of water per day is a habit of the top 22 percent?

When you look at it that way, the wannabe fit person’s week is almost the same as the actual fit person’s. The fit person does a few workouts, and the wannabe does none. Otherwise, 98 percent of their days can be the same, but in time, the fit person has a physique, and the wannabe has … nothing.

None of this is to say that staying on the beam is easy. It’s hard. But it’s much harder to live life completely out of shape than it is to do a few strength training workouts per week, go for a walk every day, and eat like a responsible adult.

If you scroll on social media for ten minutes in between sets of benching when all the other benches are occupied, nobody likes you.

Sincerely,

Everyone in Your Gym

16:
Choose Wisely

“Until a person can say deeply and honestly, ‘I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,’ that person cannot say, ‘I choose otherwise.’”

—Stephen Covey

Much of the Western health crisis is the result of excess consumption of highly processed food and alcohol, and this mass devastation will continue in lockstep with these lifestyle decisions. Choose wisely.

The risks associated with strength training are far smaller than the risks associated with not strength training. Choose wisely.

“Health at every size” makes about as much sense as “tall at every height” or “rich at every means” or “smart at every IQ.” Choose wisely.

Your sleep hygiene is like your diet—it’s either working for or against you, enhancing or injuring your life. Choose wisely.

And because pseudoscientific “primal” plant denialism is stylish at the moment: Eating moose testicles instead of vegetables is like wiping with a hand scraper instead of toilet paper because it rhymes. Choose wisely.

17:
I Salute You

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

—Franz Kafka

Whether you’re squatting the bar or a pile of plates, if you’re in the gym, you deserve to be there. To take up space. To take up time. Anyone who tries to make you feel otherwise can choke on a rusty spoon.

Whether you ate a bag instead of a bite, ordered a cheeseburger instead of a chicken breast, or drank a barrel instead of a bottle, you’re not a bad person. Or a sad sack. Or anything other than someone who ate some food or drank some drink.

Whether you want to build a few ounces of muscle or a few stones, lose a drop or two of fat or a gulp or three, or gain a whisker of strength or a bushel, you belong in the gym. Just the way you are. Just the way you want to be.

Whether it’s your first year or fourteenth, workouts will feel awful sometimes, like you don’t know what you’re doing, like you’re chasing the wind, like you should quit. It’s okay. Shrug it off, plow on, and it’ll pass.

Whether you did a workout today or just a single set, I salute you. If you hit a PR, I salute you. If you didn’t hit a PR, I salute you. If you didn’t train today but trained yesterday or will train tomorrow, I salute you.

Many people just talk. You’re trying. Salute.

18:
Do You Gain Muscle Faster When You’re Leaner?

“We do two things here. We work hard. And we win. The reason we win is that we work hard. So really, we only do one thing here.”

—Ben Rosenfield

Does your body fat percentage (the percentage of your body weight that’s fat) affect how much muscle and fat you gain when you’re lean bulking (consistently eating more calories than you burn to maximize muscle growth)?

Many people say it does. The leaner you are, they claim, the more muscle you’ll gain rather than fat (and vice versa). This concept goes back to a series of papers published in the ‘70s, but it came of age in research published by Gilbert Forbes in 1987. This research purportedly demonstrated that when people with higher body fat levels gain weight, it’s mostly fat, whereas in people with lower body fat levels, it’s mostly muscle.

Later, this theory was enthusiastically adopted by fitness thought leaders, and a dogma was born: lean bulking when you’re lean (usually between 10-to-15 percent body fat in men and 20-to-25 percent in women) produces more muscle and less fat gain than when you’re “fluffy” (over 15 percent in men and over 25 percent in women).

This interpretation has problems, however. Most notably, Forbes’ work didn’t include, and was never meant to apply to, people doing strength training. Some of his data even came from people who were recovering from anorexia, and in a subsequent review of the research, scientists concluded that once the recovering anorexics were removed from the analysis, there was insufficient evidence of a relationship between body composition and the composition of weight gain.

Here’s what we know absolutely does impact the ratio of muscle and fat gain when lean bulking, however:

The number of calories you eat.

The amount of protein you eat.

The effectiveness of your workout routine.

To optimize your results when lean bulking, you should maintain a small calorie surplus (around 5-to-10 percent), eat a lot of protein (~1 gram per pound of body weight per day), and follow a well-designed training program like my Bigger Leaner Stronger program for men, Thinner Leaner Stronger program for women, or Muscle for Life program for middle-aged men and women.

19:
Funny Fitness Disappointments

“The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it but in what one pays for it— what it costs us.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

Who else can vividly remember the disappointment when you realized just how many calories are in a tablespoon of peanut butter?

And just how lean you have to get to have a six pack?

And just how little protein is in most plant foods?

And that losing “only” one pound of fat per week is actually a win?

And just how small a serving size of cereal, pasta, and ice cream is?

And that the real reason so many fitness influencers are so jacked is just vitamin S(teroid)?

And just how much exercise it takes to burn just 100 calories?

And that nuts are basically pure fat, not protein?

And just how hard it is to bench a few plates?

And that you’re going to have to drink less wine to finally lose your gut?

20:
Before You Laugh

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

Before you laugh at people who think the earth is flat, remember that some of y’all don’t eat carrots because “they have too much sugar.”

And before you laugh at people who think Hillary Clinton is a reptilian shapeshifter, remember that some of y’all still think creatine is a steroid.

And before you laugh at people who think Elvis lives, remember that some of y’all avoid pre-cut and frozen veggies because they’re “processed.”

And before you laugh at people who think 5G is making us sick, not Covid, remember that some of y’all think that artificial sweeteners are more fattening than sugar.

And before you laugh at people who think Greenland doesn’t exist, remember that some of y’all stopped eating broccoli because a smelly juicebag who eats raw beef liver said it’s bad for you.

And before you laugh at people who believe the earth is hollow, remember that some of y’all think adding butter to your coffee will help you lose weight.

And before you laugh at people who say we invaded Iraq to shut down Saddam’s ancient Sumerian stargate, remember that some of y’all won’t microwave food because of “the radiation.”

The only genes you need to get and stay fit are the ones that consistently prod your tired flesh into the gym rather than onto the couch while everyone else mucks about and gets fat.

21:
Gentle Fitness Advice

“To know and not to do is not to know.”

—Wang Yang Ming

So much fitness advice is framed like this:

UNFOLLOW ME IF YOU CAN’T WAKE UP AT 3 AM AND DEADLIFT DOUBLE YOUR BODY WEIGHT FOR DOUBLES IN YOUR DRIVEWAY IN THE DEAD OF WINTER.

Here, I want to talk to you in gentler tones about fitness, because although it requires work and effort and can feel like a stormy love affair that you just can’t quit, too much lectern-pounding bust-your-assery can hold you back and even burn you out.

Everyone wants to tell you what to eat, what not to eat; what burns fat, what doesn’t; what’s evidence-based, what isn’t. But ultimately, whatever works for you is valid. Your fitness is yours. To explore. To evolve. To enjoy.

Train at your own pace. Progress is progress. Sometimes it’s in stone’s throws, sometimes in country miles. I’m cheering for you just as you’d cheer for me because we all want to live in a fitter, healthier world.

Some days are easier, and some are harder. Your best workouts are rarely the easy ones, though, and your hardest workouts aren’t write-offs. This is just the way the cards come out sometimes.

It’s okay to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing because even the fittest people in the gym didn’t always know what they were doing. They learned as they went along, and they made many mistakes. You can too.

Some workouts you just have to finish and get rid of as best as you can. Sometimes, as Jerry Garcia said, you go diving for pearls and come up with clams. And that’s okay. You did what you could. Tomorrow is a new day.

Even a little of the right stuff can go a long way. A 30-minute walk every day can kickstart the process that transforms your body and life. A huge triumph. Most people transform themselves once every never. So start slow if you need to.

Occasionally, you have to trundle through a spate of not-great workouts before you have a great one again. It’s normal. The good and bad are just part of the game. Press on.

Motivation isn’t a puddle that fades in a balmy afternoon. It’s an ocean. It ebbs. It flows. But it never runs dry. It has murky depths and roiling whirlpools, shiny treasures and sparkling beaches. Sometimes you sink. Sometimes you swim.

Comparing yourself to other sweat junkies is a sure way to feel lousy. There’s always someone who looks better, lifts more weight, and has more of whatever you want. The deck is stacked. You can’t win. So turn your gaze inward instead, looking only at who you were, are, and hope to become.

Once you’ve upgraded your body and health, offer your setup to others for their consideration. Leave a light on and ladder out for those coming up behind you. Show them your map so they can better draw theirs.

22:
Overrated and Underrated for Female Strength Training

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”

—Stephen Hawking

Wholly overrated for female strength training:

Using lighter weights to “tone” your muscles

Never resting in between sets to keep your heart rate in the “fat burning zone” (see chapter 70)

Measuring workout effectiveness by calories burned

Trying to sweat more for a bigger “afterburn effect”

Getting really sore

And utterly underrated:

Using heavy weights to get strong

Consistently achieving progressive overload (i.e. increasing the amount of tension your muscles produce over time)

Getting really good at the elementary exercises (the simple ones that involve squatting, hinging at the hips, and pressing and pulling horizontally and vertically)

“So women should just train like men?” Yes and no.

Men and women should generally do the same types of exercises, work in the same rep ranges, and use the same kinds of progression models because …

The physiological mechanisms that drive muscle growth (and fat loss) are fundamentally the same in men and women and thus respond to the same training stimuli in much the same ways.

Male and female fitness goals usually don’t differ in substance (muscle, strength, and body fat), only degree (how much muscle and strength and how little body fat). In my experience, the physique most men want (muscular and lean) requires gaining about 25-to-30 pounds of muscle and achieving about 10 percent body fat, whereas with women (who usually want to look “toned” and athletic), it’s usually around 10-to-15 pounds of muscle gain and 20 percent body fat.

That said, whereas most men want to prioritize their upper body development and most women their lower body, their workout routines should differ (which is why my programs for women in my books Muscle for Life and Thinner Leaner Stronger are different than those for men in Muscle for Life and Bigger Leaner Stronger).

23:
If They Can Do It …

“Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.”

—Nathan Eldon Tanner

Thanks to the “contagious” nature of behavior, your actions can influence the conduct of others in your orbit, especially those who are close to making positive changes to their lifestyle.

For example, studies show that people are more likely to eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, quit smoking, drink less alcohol, and even feel happy when they see others doing the same.

Don’t discount the impact this alone can have. The world desperately needs more people to show what they’re capable of and inspire others to try. And so, by getting and staying fit, you’re doing a little good every single day.

24:
Maybe They’re Born With It … Or Maybe It’s … Something Else

“Show me a man who is not a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all men are slaves to fear.”

—Seneca

How jacked and shredded influencers tell you they’re on a shitload of steroids without telling you they’re on a shitload of steroids:

“I’m on TRT.”

“I did a steroid cycle or two when I was younger.”

“It’s just good lighting and a pump.”

“I look bigger in pictures than I actually am.”

“You’re just underestimating your genetic potential.”

“I tried prohormones once.”

“My dad was a bodybuilder.”

“A fat-free mass index of 28 isn’t that special.”

“My monthly bloodwork is looking great.”

“This new shampoo made me break out.”

Social media is lousy with these “fake natty” clowndicks, and in many cases, their covert drug use harms more people than just themselves.

First, steroid users that have had little experience or results as a natural trainee often give bad advice to naturals because with the right drugs, you can get a lot wrong in the kitchen and gym and still build an outstanding physique.

In fact, research shows that if men inject themselves with enough testosterone, they can gain significant amounts of muscle without any training whatsoever. And in one study, a group of men who only got testosterone injections for ten weeks (no training) gained more muscle on average than a group of men who didn’t get injections and trained three times per week.

Many people “on gear” don’t realize how big of an advantage they have, though, and unwittingly teach their followers to make major mistakes that hobble their progress and, ironically, can bend them toward using steroids too.

Some of these secretly steroided guys and gals do give good diet and training advice, however, and rationalize that this “noble end” justifies the means. I disagree. It’s still immoral to lie about using performance enhancing drugs to build a body that wins people’s attention, trust, and business.

Second, many enhanced lifters create false expectations in others that lead to feelings of disappointment and failure. We can all look great without steroids, but no matter how much moxie we muster, we’ll never be as big, lean, and strong as our chemically augmented peers.

So, give a big side-eye to anyone who in some way makes money from a physique that somehow always looks stage-ready. Maybe they’re born with it, or maybe it’s … something else.

25:
Opportunities Are Whispers

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.”

—Joseph Campbell

Success in any endeavor or aspect of life requires opportunities. Opportunities to grow knowledge and abilities. Opportunities to make profitable use of skills. Opportunities to meet the right people.

Everyone knows this, of course, but here’s something most people don’t know: opportunities are whispers, not foghorns.

Every day, everywhere we go, we’re surrounded by the soft lilts of opportunity. But most of us aren’t tuning in. We’re not listening for murmurs—we’re waiting for thunderclaps. That’s not how the world works. Opportunities don’t announce themselves with trumpets and confetti. They don’t come with a 110 percent money-back guarantee. They’re often nothing more than narrow openings to make something other people are already doing just a little bit better.

Thus, success often stems from quietly noticing and seizing on “minor” details that others have dismissed or overlooked. “While there might be more glamour in coming up with the brilliant new ideas,” wrote the billionaire investor and hedge fund manager Ray Dalio “most of success comes from doing the mundane and often distasteful stuff, like identifying and dealing with problems and pushing hard over a long time.”

And how do you find problems worth solving (i.e. opportunities)? Be curious about the world around you. Ask questions. Do research. Go deeper than most people are willing to go. That’s how you get ahead.

Resistance training is the elixir of life. Sleep is the panacea of the gods. Dark chocolate is the ambrosia of heaven.

26:
Overrated and Underrated for Muscle Building

“I think the abilities of the average man could be doubled if it were demanded.”

—Will Durant

Wholly overrated for muscle building:

Getting a huge pump (“finisher sets!”)

Sweating buckets (“metcons!”)

Getting really sore (“negatives!”)

Burning lots of calories (“circuits!”)

Training until bone-tired (“10 x 10s!”)

And utterly underrated:

Getting really good at the basics

Getting stronger

Staying patient

The more “boring” a training program is (familiar exercises, simple progression, repetitive workouts, etc.), the more likely it’ll produce long-term results.

27:
A Few Reasons to Be Fit

“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.”

—Georg Hegel

Reason #951,856: The epiphany that you’re far more physically capable than you gave yourself credit for.

Reason #214,647: The chance to look in the mirror and think, “I did that. That’s awesome. I’m awesome.” And believe it.

Reason #19,788: The joy of taking off your clothes without even a whisper of embarrassment.

Reason #17,354: The opportunity to pay it forward and help others find their way to a better body and life.

Reason #3,021: The freedom to have high standards without being a hypocrite.

Reason #2,478: The feeling that your body accurately reflects the best parts of your being.

Reason #1,714: The realization that you don’t have to settle for a body you don’t like.

Reason #932: The soreness that reminds you to feel proud for not quitting.

Reason #107: The moment you can look back and say, “I’m glad I did” and not “I wish I had.”

Reason #1: Fitness isn’t everything, but everything is harder if you aren’t fit.

28:
The Truth About Food Tracking

“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is your success.”

—Henry David Thoreau

Flexible dieters be like:

“I love you, but I made exactly the amount of oatmeal that fits my macros right now.”

“But I just want—”

“Exactly the amount.”

You don’t have to live like this to get and stay fit, but if you haven’t done any food tracking yet, try it out for a week or two. It’ll help you understand your eating habits and find easy ways to better align your calories, macronutrients, micronutrients, meal timing, meal composition, and food choices to your goals and preferences.

For instance, you might spot an opportunity to replace a high-calorie or highly processed food or two with something “lighter.” Instead of fried chicken, baked or air fried. Instead of a frappuccino, a cappuccino or americano. Instead of a cookie, a protein bar. Instead of sugar-sweetened soda, a diet one.

Or you may realize that you need to trim your portions because you’re simply eating more calories than you should—a common mistake that even veteran fitness folk make. Or that you’re eating larger meals when you’re less hungry (mornings, maybe) and smaller ones when you’re famished (evenings), making it harder to stick to the plan. By doing the opposite, then, you could score an easy fitness win.

Think of a food log like a video reel of you doing key exercises—a handy tool for auditing your habits and finding improvements that’ll help you reach your fitness goals faster. Some people like to log and film more often than others, but everyone can benefit from the occasional check-ins.

29:
Exercise As Meditation

“Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.”

—James Allen

Exercise is my preferred form of meditation. To exorcize my demons, I exercise them.

30:
Early Birds Get the Gains Too

“The first step to win yourself is wake up early.”

—Sukant Ratnakar

If you want to train with some of the fittest, healthiest, and most consistent people in your gym, start going between 5 and 6 AM. Dabblers would rather lick a cane toad than wake up when the birds start yelling at them and go grab some iron.

“But is that the best time to lift weights?” you might wonder.

On the whole, most studies show that you’ll probably gain muscle and strength a little faster if you train in the afternoon or evening than if you train in the morning.

For example, a 24-week study conducted by scientists at the University of Jyväskylä found that men who lifted weights in the evening gained more muscle than men who did the same workouts in the morning. The researchers also found that the difference in muscle growth between the two groups only became apparent halfway through the study, indicating it may take up to three months or more for the benefits of evening training to become apparent.

This effect has been replicated in other studies as well, suggesting that training in the evenings is probably at least somewhat superior to training in the mornings. But that doesn’t mean you can’t effectively gain muscle and strength with early workouts.

While most research shows that people are usually weaker in the morning than in the evening, if you consistently train in the morning, this handicap disappears over time. Specifically, if you switch from training in the evening to training in the morning, you can expect your strength to dip about 5-to-10 percent at first, but it should return to normal after about a month or so.

What’s more, your personal preferences affect your workout performance and results. In a Samford University study, scientists found that college-aged, experienced weightlifters who preferred to train in the morning exhibited a bit more physical fatigue (measured by bar velocity on the bench press) in morning workouts than evening ones, but they were also more motivated to train and reported a lower perception of effort (the workouts felt easier).

So, while training later in the day appears to be physiologically advantageous, if that doesn’t work for you (or you simply don’t enjoy it as much as training earlier in the day), don’t agonize over it. When you work out is far less important than how and how often you work out.

Three reasons to do your squats and deadlifts:

1. They’re great exercises for building a stronger backbone. Literally and figuratively.

2. An hour of them > a year of planks.

3. They greatly reduce your risk of giving a shit about your haters.

31:
Do You Have a Personal Constitution?

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

—Howard Thurman

In his classic self-development book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey recommends that you develop a “personal constitution” based on your vision and values—a changeless sense of who you are and what you’re about that can guide your short- and long-term goals and decisions.

Here’s mine:

Exemplify orderliness. Show me how someone spends their time and money, and I’ll show you who they really are.

Take extreme ownership. Some of your problems may not be your fault, but they’re always your responsibility.

Always be willing to exert more effort. “In this age, which believes that there is a shortcut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.” —Henry Miller

Always be growing. You don’t attract what you want. You attract who you are.

Make it go right. “The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do.” —Albert E. Gray

Refuse to complain. “When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it. All else is madness.” —Eckhart Tolle

Think for yourself, even if it runs afoul of orthodoxies. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don’t associate with people who don’t share your key values. While there’s nobody in the world who will share your point of view on everything, there are people who will share your most important values and how you choose to live them out. Make sure you end up with those people.

Tell the truth and do what’s right even when it costs you something. “It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character.” —Marcus Aurelius

Give far more to people and society than you take. “That the person who lives on the labor of others, not giving himself in return to the best of his ability, is really a consumer of human life and therefore must be considered no better than a cannibal.” —Elbert Hubbard

32:
Simple Mental Health Hacks

“There are people who do not live their present life; it is as if they were preparing themselves, with all their zeal, to live some other life, but not this one.”

—Antiphon

If shrinks prescribed the following lifestyle changes as zealously as they prescribe drugs, there would be a lot fewer mental health problems.

Eating lots of nutritious food

Getting enough sleep

Quitting porn, alcohol, and recreational drugs

Reading good books

Exercising

Helping others without any expectations

Smiling more

Having difficult conversations

Deleting social media apps

Going outside

Giving compliments

Turning off notifications on your phone

Watching less TV

Eliminating “maybes” by making decisions

Embracing personal responsibility

And if all that sounds about as manageable as boiling the ocean, lower your sights to just one item to start—one that you can make one stride toward by the end of today. One nutritious meal, one chapter, one workout, one smile—you pick. And if you can do that, you can do it again tomorrow. And with one more tomorrow, you’ve got yourself a pattern—the embryo of a habit.

You can tackle your whole life this way—in manageable chunks.

33:
Don’t Let Them Convince You

“He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”

—Edmund Burke

Don’t let anyone convince you that exercise should be viewed as punishment and food as a reward for enduring it.

Or that weighing ingredients when baking to get the outcome you want is “smart cooking,” but weighing foods to get the outcome you want is “disordered eating.”

Or that drinking and eating excessive amounts of alcohol and junk food is just “enjoying your life.”

Or that you can’t eat really boring food and still live a really interesting life.

Or that you should exercise because you hate your body rather than because you love it.

Or that you need more “superfoods,” burpees, fasting, HIIT, or supplements instead of better nutrition, sleep, hydration, “work-walk balance,” and strength training.

Or that you should mostly exercise to get really sweaty rather than to get really strong.

Or that there are investments that’ll pay bigger dividends than the ones you can make into your health and fitness.

Or that there’s a type of exercise more “functional” than strength training.

Or that a pile of pills, powders, and potions can fix problems caused by your lifestyle.

34:
Is Exercise Useless for Weight Loss?

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

—T. S. Eliot

According to some, exercise is about as useful for losing weight as seawater is for quenching thirst. Although working out burns calories, they say, it also steps up appetite, making it difficult, if not impossible, to restrain yourself from overeating.

Science shows otherwise, however. While it’s true that exercise can temporarily increase hunger levels (as it should—otherwise humans would’ve died out long ago), studies show that regular exercise has a moderating effect on appetite and promotes a state of neutral energy balance (where calories eaten match calories burned and weight is maintained).

Furthermore, research shows that sedentary living has the opposite effect, short-circuiting our body’s machinery for controlling hunger according to actual energy requirements.

Another related myth is that the body offsets many or most of the calories burned during a workout by simply burning fewer throughout the rest of the day, especially when calories are restricted for fat loss.

This isn’t entirely incorrect. When dieting, our body does have sneaky ways to bring energy expenditure down and intake up—but studies show these effects aren’t significant enough to cancel out the extra calories burned through exercise.

Why, then, do so many habitual exercisers lose little if any weight? Usually, it’s because they don’t realize that exercise doesn’t drive fat loss. Diet does. So when meal planning is awry, even enormous amounts of exercise can produce no discernible improvements in body composition.

This is particularly true of endurance training (“cardio”), which is often people’s first choice for fat loss because it burns more calories than strength training. What cardio doesn’t do, however, is help you build and maintain muscle while you lose fat, which is crucial for achieving a lean and fit physique rather than a “skinny fat” one. Only strength training can do that.

So, where does this leave us? Except in the case of extreme athletics (10+ hours of vigorous physical activity per week), exercise alone of any kind is usually ineffective for weight loss; but if you eat and exercise properly (starting with the simple prescription I gave in chapter 2), you can lose fat rapidly while also adding lean muscle to all of the right places on your body.

35:
The Common Thread

“A healthy person has a thousand wishes, a sick person only one.”

—Agnes Karil-Schwester

Of all the positive traits embodied by the people who lose the most fat and gain the most muscle and strength, the factor most responsible for their success is this: they’re the ones who miss the fewest workouts and make the fewest dietary mistakes.

Not that they’re perfect—they’re just good enough most of the time. They live by the motto: “Enough and often and over the long run.”

This is the special sauce of the fitness elite. They show up. They stick to the fundamentals. They approach their fitness as nature approaches her work—atom by atom, little by little, never in a hurry. Because it’s astonishing what you can do if you just don’t stop.

And the key to continuing to show up? It’s not having a lot of time. Nor is it having the right mindset or motivations. It’s just establishing and keeping a routine—deciding what to do every day, when to do it, and then doing it exactly that way at exactly that time regardless of how we feel.

This orderly march is the cardinal hallmark of the professional. They’re not always the brightest, nor the most talented. They’re just always locked into forward gear. Even when the ride is bumpy. Even when the engine splutters and threatens to stall. Even when they lose their bearings. They just don’t stop.

Thinking that taking creatine or protein powder will make you “too big” is like thinking that eating bananas will make you “too simian.”

36:
Every Day vs. Every So Often

“If you can’t solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can’t solve: find it.”

—George Polya

It’s never the single pizza, pastry, or pint of ice cream that produces noticeable weight gain. It’s the consistent overconsumption of calories. Remember: what you do every day is far more important than what you do every so often.

For example, overeating can occur through too many oversized portions and too much snacking, but sometimes it’s insidious. Sometimes, it looks something like this:

Monday: (~1,800 calories)

Tuesday: (~1,800 calories)

Wednesday: (~1,800 calories)

Thursday: (~1,800 calories)

Friday: (~1,800 calories)

Saturday: (~4,000 calories)

Sunday: (~4,000 calories)

Average daily calorie intake Monday through Friday? 1,800. Average daily calorie intake Monday through Sunday? 2,400.

And so, if this person were burning ~2,300 calories per day throughout the week, they’d lose nearly a pound of fat by the weekend, but then, if they were burning ~2,000 calories per day on Saturday and Sunday, they’d gain it all back by the time they return to “dieting.”

Hence the many people struggling to lose weight “despite eating so little.” Often, they just have selective memory about how they eat. They quickly recall the 1,800-calorie Mondays and conveniently forget the 4,000-calorie Saturdays.

Remember: energy balance is simple, but it isn’t forgiving. Likewise, losing weight is straightforward, but it isn’t easy.

37:
The Best Motivation

“Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day.”

—Napoleon Bonaparte

Workout motivation is a tough nut to crack. I post a shirtless picture on Instagram, I get immediate feedback—some likes, some LOLs, some digital high-fives, a troll or two. It’s dopamine-on-demand. Poke the button and get the tickle.

Building a great body is nothing like that. It’s spitting into a bucket every day. And nobody cares until it’s almost full, including you. “TRUST ME, THIS HERE SPITOON IS GONNA SHINE ONE DAY!” *hawwwk* *ptoo* *plunk* “YOU JUST WAIT!”

Fitness is completely self-driven. Wanna know what it feels like? It feels like this: You bust your ass through a workout, look in the mirror, and whisper to yourself, “Was that any good?” Then you utter: “I have no idea.” “Oh, okay. Should I keep doing it?” “I really don’t know. Please stop talking to me.” “Okay.” “Okay.” You then try to use your quick-drying, anti-stink, strategically vented workout shirt to soak up your tears, but it’s water-resistant so it’s not even good for that.

How do you do it, then? How do you motivate yourself to drag your draggy body up to the barbell and muscle-feck it until a physique is born? How do you build the body you want, one sweat-brick at a time? Day after day, one month, one year, one decade if that’s what it takes?

Look, sometimes, training is hard—shaving with an ax hard, reading a Dickens novel hard, wrestling a porcupine in heat hard. But when you get right down to it, you either appreciate training and it motivates you—or not. You either have the spark or you don’t. You can only fan embers, not dirt.

So if you’re only looking for little tricks and tips, you need to think deeper about this thing you say you want to do. Training is a stormy love affair, a glittering slot machine, a flickering neon sign. You’re drawn to it, even when it sucks, like a raccoon to last week’s garbage.

And that’s what ultimately separates the Aspiring Not-Really-Fit People from the Really Fit People—the latter train even when the motivation carcass is being picked by crows. They hook up the defibrillator, crank up the dials, and make the damn corpse dance again. Looks dead, but isn’t.

Every day you train is a revival—a resurgence of ability and action that leads to more training. The best motivation to train, then, is training. So train when it’s hard. Train when it’s easy. Train when life doesn’t want you to. Train when you don’t want to. Train when people say not to. Just train.

You can love the process and then hate it. You can love some workouts and then hate others. You can thrill at how your body responds and then curse it. Keep going, however, and I can promise you this: As difficult as it is, you’ll learn to love having trained. There’s no other feeling like it.

So go, my friend, and train. Let that be your motivation. And then train again. And then train some more. Build a fire that feeds itself.

38:
Go For a Walk

“Walking is man’s best medicine.”

—Hippocrates

You don’t need to do cardio to lose weight. But you should still do cardio because it’s great for your health. And that doesn’t mean you have to do “cardio workouts,” by the way. Walking is indeed exercising, and it’s not a waste of time.

In fact, walking more is the absolute easiest way to speed up fat loss, incorporate active recovery into your lifestyle, and even reduce the risk of death.

According to scientists at Semnan University of Medical Sciences who analyzed the results of seven studies involving 28,141 participants, all-cause mortality (death from all causes) dropped by about 12 percent for every 1,000 steps people took every day.

When the researchers compared the people with the highest and lowest daily step counts, they found that walking 16,000 steps per day was associated with a 66 percent reduction in all-cause mortality compared to walking just 2,700 steps per day.

So, while the popular target of 10,000 steps per day is more of a marketing message than an evidence-based prescription, it does represent about 5 miles and 1.5 hours of strolling, which is enough to reduce the risk of disease and burn a significant number of calories (300-to-400 for most people).

Also, if you want more bounce for the ounce, take “nature walks” in a nearby park or trail whenever possible—research shows this can be particularly effective at alleviating depression, improving mental health, function, and well-being, and reducing feelings of fatigue and stress.

39:
You Are Not Your Body Composition

“The greatest disability is attitude. To change the way we behave, we have to change the way we think.”

—Unknown

You can want to lose fat and gain muscle without hating your body just as you can want to learn new information and skills without hating your mind.

On the other hand, just because you don’t want to get “jacked” or “ripped” doesn’t mean you’re lazy or living with low standards. Often, the lifestyle tradeoffs required to go from “fit” to “swole” simply aren’t worth it.

For example, here’s something that really lean people often don’t want to admit: They’d feel a lot better with a bit more body fat. They’d be less hungry, irritable, and fatigued, and they’d sleep better, have better workouts, and worry less.

They’d also realize that nobody cares about their body fat percentage nearly as much as they do, and the only people who say that being shredded feels better than eating pizza are people who have never been shredded.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this:

You don’t have to force yourself to choose between being a little too hungry and a little too fat. You can care less about your body measurements than your strength, health, and confidence.

You are not your body composition.

40:
This Is Like That

“Comparison is the death of joy.”

—Mark Twain

The greatest thing by far, according to Aristotle, is to be a master of metaphor.

cracks knuckles

dons toga

grabs stylus

Eating according to your blood type is like eating according to your sun sign.

And exercising according to your body type is like exercising according to your zodiac sign.

And trying to out-exercise an out-of-control diet is like trying to shovel sand against the tide.

And taking BCAAs in addition to eating plenty of protein is like watering your lawn … after a storm.

And sacrificing too much sleep to have more time for just about anything is like trying to cure dandruff with a guillotine.

And relying solely on caffeine for energy is like trying to borrow your way out of debt.

And avoiding plant foods because you don’t like them is like staring at the sun because you don’t like the shade.

And not lifting heavy weights for fear of getting “bulky” is like not wearing makeup for fear of looking like a clown.

And avoiding foods you like in the pursuit of “health” or “wellness” is like wearing a straitjacket in the pursuit of flexibility.

“But Mike,” you sneer, “those are similes, not metaphors.”

Okay, and? We get it, Shakespeare—things are like other things. The audacity. Here, have one more simile, dingus:

Viewing exercise mostly as a way to burn calories is like viewing marriage mostly as a way to get laid a lot.

Learn from the person who can train without pre-workout or headphones.

41:
The Best Way to Get Approval

“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

—J.D. Salinger

The best way to get approval is to not need it—to live up to your own standards of what’s right and admirable rather than those that please or impress others. “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,” Marcus Aurelius once said, “but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

Don’t be afraid to speak out against offenses, either. If something’s ugly, say so. If it’s trashy, unacceptable, excessive, unreasonable, degenerate, destructive, or demeaning, don’t let it pass. If we won’t shield worthy virtues and values from the slings and arrows of the deranged and depraved, who will?

42:
How Fast Can You Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle?

“Well-being is realized by small steps; but it is truly no small thing.”

—Zeno

Search “how fast should I lose weight” online, and you’ll get the same answer pretty much everywhere: One pound per week.

And while that’s a good rule of thumb for many people, if you have 25, 50, or 100+ pounds of fat to lose to reach a healthy body composition, that would require months or even years of dieting. I do not like this apple, Sam I Am.

Luckily, however, the more fat you have to lose, the faster you can lose it with few if any of the unwanted side effects associated with dieting. In fact, with the right diet and workout routine, some people can lose two, three, or more pounds of fat per week without sacrificing their muscle, scrambling their hormones, or scuttling their metabolism.

For instance, in a study conducted by West Virginia University scientists, untrained, obese people did three resistance training workouts per week and ate 800 calories per day for twelve weeks and lost 32 pounds of fat on average, while maintaining all of their muscle mass and increasing the speed of their metabolism.

I wouldn’t recommend that weight loss protocol, but it gives valuable context for the following targets. Assuming you want to get no leaner than 10-to-15 (men) or 20-to-25 (women) percent body fat (achieving lower levels eventually requires less than 1 pound of fat loss per week), here are practical guidelines:

43:
It Happens

“When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, ‘If this isn’t nice, what is?’”

—Kurt Vonnegut

Did you eat too much yesterday? Here’s a hall pass to eat and move normally today. You don’t have to atone by slashing your calories or carbs or grinding out an extra hour of cardio. You don’t have to exercise more to “earn your food.”

Did you lose a rep or two on an exercise compared to last week or month? That doesn’t mean anything is wrong or you’re about to plateau. Maybe it was a few days of extra stress, mediocre sleep, or inadequate nutrition. Or maybe it just wasn’t a day for prime performance.

Did life throw your fitness habit out of gear and you’re still sputtering? It happens to all of us—we move to new cities, start new jobs, get married, have kids, lose family members, and suchlike, and our routine swiftly unravels.

But we can always reassemble ourselves. We’ve done it before, so we can do it again.

44:
Don’t Get Your Tinsel In a Tangle

“Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.”

—Irvin D. Yalom

How to diet during the holidays, according to science:

Don’t.

Seriously though, people who eat and drink more than usual during the holidays gain weight. Womp womp womp. But! They also have fun. And can then lose the weight. Remember that.

So, for the sake of Santa’s sacred nipples, don’t count calories on Christmas. Feast. Drink. Hug your loved ones. Hakuna matata.

If you’re so inclined, however, you can enjoy plenty of cheer while also limiting the “damage” to no more than a couple of pounds of fat gained (that can be lost in a couple of weeks of proper dieting). Here are seven tips that’ll help:

Focus on things other than food. Visit friends and family, shop and wrap presents, go for walks, whatever makes memories that don’t center on food.

Create a calorie buffer before big dinners. Leave room for evening feasts by eating more or less nothing but protein throughout the day to stay full. And if that can’t sustain you, add in some fibrous fruits and vegetables like apples, oranges, carrots, or celery.

Limit snacking. It’s hard to eat far more calories than you burn on just a couple of meals per day, but fairly easy to do if you add in several rounds of snacking.

Keep your protein intake up. The satiating effects of protein help manage the temptation to overeat, even when you’re surrounded by treats.

Stay active. Even relatively small amounts of activity every day can increase calorie burning, reduce appetite, and boost insulin sensitivity. Staying active also keeps you in the habit of moving and exercising, which makes it easier to resume your normal routine once the holidays are over.

Don’t go to parties hungry. Just a serving or two of protein before you surround yourself with a smorgasbord of sweets and savories can be enough to moderate your desire to eat everything in sight.

Imbibe thoughtfully. Binge drinking rapidly accelerates fat storage, but if you limit yourself to a few servings of tipple per day, you can mostly sidestep this pitfall.

And lastly, once the fun (and fat gain) is over, create and follow a proper meal plan to dial in your diet for easy fat loss. This will take all the guesswork out of what, how much, and when you should eat—eliminating basically all food-related decisions—which in turn will reduce stress and improve compliance.

45:
Are You Voting the Way You Know You Should?

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

—Aristotle

Your daily actions will mostly determine the trajectory of your life. Just forty-five minutes of exercise every day can banish disease and dysfunction. Just thirty minutes of reading every day can turn you into an expert in just about anything. Just a few hours of deep work every day can produce a legacy.

As James Clear says in his bestselling book Atomic Habits: “Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” Are you voting the way you know you should?

You’re at a birthday party. There’s cake and pizza. You don’t know how many calories they have. If your body were a combustion engine, you wouldn’t fuel it with arbitrary amounts of cake and pizza. But your body isn’t a combustion engine, so you eat them anyway. The next day, you look and feel the same. The end.

46:
Is Running Bad for Gaining Muscle and Strength?

“The important thing is to not stop questioning.”

—Albert Einstein

Running isn’t “bad” for gaining muscle and strength per se, but in some cases, it can crimp your efforts to get bigger and stronger. There are three primary reasons for this:

High-volume running wears you out physically and mentally, making it harder to push yourself in your strength training. If you don’t believe me, go run an “easy eight” (miles) and try to squat heavy the next day.

Running can cause a fair amount of muscle damage and soreness that hinders performance in the gym. Your body has to work hard to recover from a challenging strength training program, and if you also run a lot, it won’t be able to keep up.

Research shows that endurance training can cause adaptations at a cellular level that are at odds with the adaptations produced by resistance training. This is known as the “interference effect,” which states that our body (and muscles in particular) can’t effectively adapt to both endurance and resistance training at the same time.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to minimize these downsides of running: Don’t do too much of it. Specifically, don’t do more than 2-to-3 hours of running per week, and for most of it, maintain a low-to-moderate pace (as fast as you can run while still being able to speak in full sentences).

You may also want to consider something other than running because lower-impact activities like cycling, rowing, and swimming don’t seem to negatively impact strength or muscle gain as much.

In summary, I’m not “anti-running,” but I’m “anti-lots-of-running-when-your-main-goal-is-to-gain-muscle-and-strength.”

47:
The Supreme Warrior Virtue

“Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.”

—Theodore Roosevelt

Someone once asked the Spartan king Leonidas to identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed.

He replied: “Contempt for death.”

Remember that whenever you’re having a hard time. Nothing defangs adversity like defiance.

48:
The Science of Productive Daydreaming

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

—Norman Vincent Peale

Imagine you’re given the choice of $50 now or $100 in two weeks. Which would you choose? Many people would take the $50 because “good now” is more enticing than “better later.”

This tendency to prefer a smaller, immediate reward over a larger, delayed one is known as hyperbolic discounting, and it underlies a host of self-destructive behaviors, including substance abuse, pathological gambling, risky sexual behavior, and an inability to stick with health-promoting habits.

One way to short-circuit this psychological quirk is something scientists call episodic future thinking, which involves imagining a specific, personal, and detailed future event linked to a personal goal. Productive daydreaming, essentially.

In a study conducted by scientists at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, researchers instructed 29 overweight or obese women who wanted to lose weight to use either an episodic future thinking (EFT) protocol or an episodic recent thinking (ERT) protocol.

The EFT protocol asked participants to think of five health goals they would like to complete and five exciting events that would occur in the next three weeks. Then, participants were told to vividly imagine (location, time, emotions, context, and so on) and describe how achieving their health goals will contribute to the experience of the events.

This process produced statements like the following:

In three weeks, I will go to the concert with my friend. We will sit near the back so we can chat more easily. I will be feeling strong and proud of myself after having achieved my goal of going to the gym three times per week. I will be feeling excited and happy to see the band play for the first time.

The ERT protocol was different. It asked participants to list and rate the importance of five things they did regularly, and then to vividly remember and describe five events that had happened in the past 24 hours.

All participants recorded themselves reading their statements, and on the following day, were taken to a food court full of tempting “diet-unfriendly” food. They played their recordings back to themselves, and then, without being given any nutritional guidance, were told to eat whatever they wanted.

The results showed that the “future thinking” group consumed significantly fewer calories than the “recent thinking” group and chose foods containing less fat and more protein. By contemplating the attainment of goals in the future, people made better decisions in the present.

We can use this strategy to help us achieve our goals, too, fitness and otherwise. For example, imagine you’ve just set a wedding date, and you want to look fit on the big day. Paint a mental picture of the following:

Where you’ll be on your wedding day

How happy you’ll be to see your closest friends and family

How pleased you’ll be with the event, including your attire, venue, decorations, wedding party, etc.

How confident and satisfied you’ll feel in front of everyone, and how comfortable you’ll feel having your picture taken because you stuck to your fitness plan and you know you look great.

Next, you’d write down all of the details in your mental movie, and once you feel you’ve put enough flesh on the bones, record yourself reading what you wrote aloud. Then, you can listen to the recording (and relive the dream) at least a few times per week (many people do it every day), and you’ll have an easier time sticking to your plan and making good on your goal.

49:
No Shame

“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

No matter how zany our reasons for staying fit may seem to others, if we can use those reasons to fire the fitness furnace, there’s no shame in exploiting them to the fullest.

That includes anything related to what you see in the mirror, by the way—don’t let anyone convince you that a commitment to your fitness is a flavor of narcissism rather than self-love.

So there’s no shame in admitting that at least 50 percent of the reason you work out is that you have a “complicated” relationship with carbs and sugar and don’t want to get fat.

Or that you literally can’t afford to gain weight because then you’d have to buy a new wardrobe.

Or that you want a good excuse to buy a new wardrobe.

Or that you want to refute people who have doubted you and put you down.

Or that you don’t want to be fatter than your friends.

Or that you want people to check you out now and then.

Or that you love checking yourself out, especially when you have a pump.

Or that you need the hours of sweaty solitude.

Or that you want to lose your gut so your dink looks bigger.

Or that your life just feels a little out of order when you’re not going to the gym.

50:
Is Strength Training Good for Weight Loss?

“You want to go where a question takes you, not where your training left you.”

—Sean Eddy

Strength training isn’t a popular prescription for weight loss, and rightfully so—it’s not an effective way to lose weight because it builds muscle, which, well, increases weight. What many people don’t know, however, is strength training is fantastic for losing fat (and keeping it off).

First, strength training burns more calories than you might think—about 250-to-500 calories per hour depending on how big you are and how intensely you train (the more you weigh, the more weight you lift, and the more reps you do, the more calories you burn).

Second, the muscle you gain with strength training does more than stroke your ego—it also stokes your metabolism, making it easier to lose fat and stay lean. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat, burning about six calories per pound per day (versus just two calories per pound of body fat per day), and it costs more energy to move a heavier (more muscular) body than a lighter one.

Third, when we train our muscles, they release cells into our blood called extracellular vesicles. When these cells leave our muscles, they carry with them strands of genetic material called miR-1 and find their way into nearby fat cells. When miR-1 is in muscle tissue, it hinders muscle growth, but when it’s in adipose tissue, it augments fat burning. So, when you strength train, you’re making your body better at both building muscle and burning fat.

All of this is why studies show the most effective exercise strategy for fat loss is a combination of cardio and strength training. And if you have to pick just one, choose the barbell over the treadmill.

If I die while lifting weights, add more weights, and then call 911.

51:
Your Fitness Is Yours

“Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.”

—St Francis of Assisi

Many people in your life won’t take your fitness seriously. “Why do you work out so much?” “Are you seriously dieting again?” “Can’t you just let yourself live a little?”

Bat away their blarney. You don’t need their approval to take your fitness as seriously as you need to. You shouldn’t be ashamed to make time for it or to defend that time like your life depends on it. Because in many ways, it does.

Without regular exercise—and strength training in particular—health and vitality inevitably decay. And your health and vitality aren’t just “parts of your life”—they literally are your life. By refusing to spend a few hours per week on your fitness, you’re basically saying, “I don’t care about my life.”

So, you’re allowed to look away from the ninnies and naysayers. You’re allowed to seize and occupy a swath of your life to eat and exercise the way you want to. Harrumph at anyone who says otherwise. They’re entitled to their life—not yours.

52:
Do You Even Keto Fast Bro?

“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.”

—Mark Twain

Her:

“I actually think intermittent fasting and keto are the solution to the obesity crisis.”

Me:

*shakes head at waiter bringing the engagement ring*

Look, intermittent fasting isn’t a quantum jump in nutrition. It’s just a method of meal planning that can work well for people who prefer it over a traditional eating pattern—people who aren’t hungry in the mornings or who enjoy eating larger meals, for instance—but not well for people who like breakfast or more frequent feedings or who want to optimize muscle growth. (Research shows that several servings of protein per day separated by a few hours each is better for muscle building than one-to-two.)

Plus, there are several downsides to intermittent fasting that are often left unsaid:

Studies show the more you have to change about how you’re eating—particularly how you like to eat—the more dietary compliance suffers, and the more compliance suffers, the worse the results are.

Many people don’t take well to drastically reducing their meal frequency—they experience uncomfortable levels of hunger, irritability, and “brain fog.”

Research shows that fasting can encourage overeating by increasing the reinforcing value of food, which refers to how hard you’ll work to get food. Put differently, the more you abstain from eating (by fasting), the more value you can place on being able to eat, and this can cause you to eat more than you would otherwise.

Studies show that fasting reduces the plasma levels of the amino acid tryptophan, which is required to produce the hormone serotonin (the “happy hormone”). As serotonin levels fall, many unwanted symptoms can arise, including depression, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, hyperactivity, digestive difficulties, and more. Cravings for carbohydrates are common when fasting, too, because they help the body produce serotonin.

If someone is susceptible to disordered eating, research shows that fasting diets can increase the risk of adopting dysfunctional eating habits.

And what of keto? Mostly a clunker because studies show that restricting carbs doesn’t produce faster fat loss so long as protein and calories are equated, it impairs anaerobic performance, and it likely offers no special health benefits compared to a balanced, nutritious diet (especially in physically active people with a healthy body composition).

In fact, if you practice keto the way many people do (“Did someone say bacon-wrapped barbecue sausage rolls with butter-and-cream-cheese dipping sauce?”), your saturated fat intake will mushroom along with your risk of cardiovascular disease.

That isn’t to say keto “can’t work,” however. Because it eliminates many foods that people tend to overeat, including highly processed ones, keto can produce weight loss (by greatly reducing caloric intake) and health improvements (by causing weight loss and enhancing the nutritional quality of the diet), especially when paired with regular exercise (which also improves health and supports weight loss).

So, fast and feast on fat (with a heavy bias for the unsaturated variety) if you want to. Or don’t. Either way, you still have to control your calories, eat enough protein and plants, move your body more rather than less, progressively overload your muscles, and get enough sleep. Most of your results will come from repeating those actions over and over for a long time. Everything else is window dressing.

53:
Tough Fitness Truths

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.”

—James Stockdale

Many people say the best diet and exercise programs are the ones you can stick to. This is true insofar as compliance is concerned—consistency is the watchword of winners—but it misses a crucial caveat: efficacy.

No matter how well you stick to a diet or exercise routine, if it’s fatally flawed and simply can’t work, you’re nowhere. The goldilocks zone, then, is the overlap between what you can stick with and what works.

That territory may be larger than you think—you have a lot of latitude in how you can eat and exercise to achieve your health and fitness goals—but there are boundaries.

For example …

Meat can make you fat. Grains can make you fat. Seed oils can make you fat. Sugar can make you fat. Nuts can make you fat. Cheese can make you fat. Fruit can make you fat. Starches can make you fat. Eggs can make you fat. The moral? Just about anything can make you fat if you eat too much of it.

You can look like a model of fitness and feel like a measure of death. Equating big muscles and little waists with picture-postcard health is like assuming someone’s “living their best life” because they’re smiley on social media.

You only need a small calorie surplus (5-to-10 percent) to maximize muscle growth, and you still have to watch your calories when lean bulking or you just get fat.

If you try to lose weight too quickly (see chapter 42), your chances of success (and satisfaction with the results) tumble. In this game, patience is more important than pain tolerance.

To lose weight and keep it off, you first have to lose the habits and attitudes that are keeping you overweight and then gain new ones that allow you to succeed with weight loss and maintenance.

Organic/vegan/gluten-free/etc. junk food is still junk food. Sorry, but not sorry.

Aside from maybe your closest family and friends, most people either don’t care whether you reach your fitness goals or would rather see you fail. So stop seeking validation.

The best way to lose weight if your blood is Type A? Calorie deficit. Type B? Calorie deficit. Type AB? The Snake Diet. Just kidding. It’s a calorie deficit.

It’s a lot easier to eat too much fat than it is to eat enough protein. By a long way.

There are no “weird tricks” for melting belly fat; “ancestral” herbs for packing on muscle; or “bulletproof” biohacks for supercharging your chakras with higher vibrations of the green tea infinity. There’s only the work.

54:
10 Top-Flight Training Tips

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”

—Lao Tzu

Behold! Not one, not two, but a camel-load of only the finest training tips this side of Damascus!

Don’t do behind-the-neck pulldowns. They’re more likely to irritate your shoulders, and they’re no more effective than front pulldowns.

If the regular barbell squat riles your back, try the front squat or safety bar squat (which you can jerry rig with a regular barbell and lifting straps—search “safety bar squat with straps”). These exercises are easier on the lower back.

If side raises bother your shoulders, you may be lifting your arms too high. Raise them until they’re parallel with the floor, but no farther. Also, if your torso is swinging around, the weights are probably too heavy. To minimize body English, lighten the load, and squeeze your glutes with each rep.

Train your calves with both bent- and straight-leg exercises. Straight-leg exercises (like the leg press calf raise) emphasize the larger and more visible gastrocnemius muscle, and bent-leg exercises (like the seated calf raise) emphasize the smaller and deeper soleus muscle.

If you tend to tip too far forward when you squat, try widening your stance. This can help you maintain a more upright posture.

Unilateral exercises (ones that train one limb or side of the body at a time) are particularly useful for improving sports performance—research shows they’re better than bilateral exercises (ones that train both limbs or sides of the body at a time) for improving jumping, agility, and speed. A few of my favorite unilateral exercises are the Bulgarian split squat, single-leg deadlift, one-arm dumbbell row, cable side lateral raise, and single-arm dumbbell bench press.

Although bench pressing with a slightly narrower grip emphasizes your triceps, bench pressing with an extra-wide grip probably isn’t better for training your pecs than a medium-width grip and places more strain on your shoulders.

A weightlifting belt can improve your performance on key exercises like the squat and deadlift, but it probably doesn’t reduce your risk of injury. Simply wearing a belt doesn’t automagically make you stronger, either—you have to “activate” it by tensing your core muscles as if you were about to get punched in the breadbasket and then pressing your abs out and against the belt. This increases the amount of pressure in the abdominal cavity, which helps stabilize the spine and create a mechanical advantage that can result in better performance.

Partial-range-of-motion exercises can help experienced weightlifters build strength where they’re weakest in corresponding full-range-of-motion exercises. For example, if you always struggle to lock out a difficult deadlift, try the rack pull. If the last few inches of a bench or overhead press are often a grind, work on the pin press. If you usually have to fight to get “out of the hole” in the squat, do the box or pause squat.

A few of my favorite underrated exercises: dumbbell step-up, chest-supported row, safety bar squat, good morning, trap bar deadlift, one-arm press (horizontal and vertical), Nordic hamstring curl, weighted carry, straight-arm cable pulldown, landmine press.

55:
Don’t Just Learn—Do

“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

—Carl Jung

We humans don’t learn well in the abstract—we must be exposed to many concrete examples and firsthand experiences, and that requires interacting with the actual contexts we want to operate in.

When learning, then, we must ensure we regularly spend time doing the thing we want to get better at, even if it requires creating a project or environment to practice and work in.

And so, if you want to get good at something, don’t just learn about it—do it, and consistently. Like every day for at least thirty or sixty minutes or more. For a long time. And if you can’t do that, don’t expect to get very far.

“I really regret going to bed and waking up early,” said nobody ever.

56:
Simple Health Hacks

“If you don’t make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.”

—Joyce Sunada

A simple health hack: Get outside in the sun every day and move around until you get at least a little sweaty. You might be surprised at how much this can help with your physical and mental well-being.

Also, try to get that sun on your skin soon after you wake up. This helps regulate your body’s circadian rhythm, which impacts various vital physiological processes like your sleep/wake cycle, eating habits, and digestion, and can improve mood and metabolic health.

Make time to meet face-to-face with people you like, too. Texts, DMs, and even video calls are a shabby substitute for real human interaction.

Yet another: Give yourself at least one day per week of no vigorous physical activity (no intense training, sports, etc.). This will improve your recovery more than just about anything else you could do.

One more: Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day as often as you can (including the weekends). This too helps normalize your body’s circadian rhythm so you can consistently get enough high-quality sleep, which is a prerequisite for high-quality living.

57:
Advice I’d Give My Younger Self

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”

—Vince Lombardi

On balance, the last ten years have been a bonanza. I had a couple of kids. I wrote a slew of bestselling books. I started a booming sports nutrition business (Legion). I bought a charming house and then a spectacular farm. I read a lot of great books and took a few unforgettable trips.

But there have been many challenges as well, mostly of my own making. I alienated loved ones. I mismanaged businesses. I lost friends. I lost money. I lost special opportunities to make meaningful memories.

And although I’d rather not have made those mistakes and many others like them, whenever a situation doesn’t turn out the way I hoped or expected, I know there’s always a lesson to learn, so I try to find it. Because while we can learn from success, sometimes it’s a lot easier to learn from failure.

Here’s a handful of those hard-won lessons, in no particular order:

Celebrate the milestones and victories, including the smaller ones. You and your team will appreciate it.

Doing something is usually better than doing nothing, but doing only what you should be doing is best.

Stop trying to help people who don’t want to be helped. They’ll just keep ignoring your advice, falling flat, and learning and changing nothing.

Be nicer. Being “right” isn’t enough.

Don’t allow people you dislike to make you into someone you dislike.

Give more consideration to your wife’s advice. She’s sharp.

Read more. And not merely to accumulate information but to become a different person with a different way of thinking.

Stop looking at porn. I know, I know. See chapter 111.

Talk important things over with people you trust. You don’t always know best.

Take a vacation already. You’ve earned it.

Sometimes the antidote to a dark day is a white pill. And no, I don’t mean Xanax but “being a fountain, not a drain,” as the saying goes. Finding a bright spot, a break in the clouds, a spiritual salve to like, love, and rub all over yourself.

Be more thankful. And express it.

Don’t take it personally if people don’t like you. Many of them don’t even like themselves.

Don’t mistake the relief of making a decision as a sign of making the right decision.

Stop associating with hypocrites, parasites, and liars. Don’t become emotionally entangled with them or let them bargain with you—just leave.

Don’t be generous to a fault. There’s a word for that: sucker.

View any attempts to make you feel hopeless and afraid as emotional assaults on your well-being. Protect your mind against these psychological pathogens as you would your body against physical ones.

Criticize less and coach more. The difference? The critic jumps on weaknesses and ignores strengths, and the coach acknowledges strengths and weaknesses while helping people realize their potential.

Ignore people who use their knowledge and intelligence to tear others down rather than build them up.

Have more fun. Have as much fun as you can because no amount of money or “success” satisfies like it.

58:
Does Cardio Burn Muscle?

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”

—Elbert Hubbard

Many a bodybuilder has said that cardio and muscle go together like laxatives and late-night liaisons, and they’re not entirely wrong.

At a cellular level, endurance and strength training send very different messages and produce very different adaptations, but saying that cardio kills your gains is like saying that credit cards ruin your finances.

True in some cases? Absolutely. Natural law? Absolutely not.

To enjoy the advantages of cardio (which include improved cardiovascular health, reduced risk of heart disease, cancer, and cognitive decline, more fat burning, and possibly even better strength training workouts) without the muscle-related disadvantages, observe the following evidence-based guidelines:

Do no more than three-to-five hours of cardio per week.

Do mostly low- and moderate-intensity cardio, and do no more than one hour of high-intensity interval training (HIIT—a type of exercise that alternates between short periods of high-intensity effort and low-intensity recovery) per week.

Limit your cardio workouts to no more than thirty-to-forty-five minutes per session.

Emphasize low-impact forms of cardio such as walking, cycling, rowing, rucking, swimming, and battle roping over high-impact forms like jogging, sprinting, various sports like football, basketball, and soccer, etc.

Do your cardio and weightlifting on separate days if possible, and if you have to do them on the same day, try to separate them by at least six hours, and do your cardio after weightlifting, not before.

59:
Some Days

“Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.”

—Jerry Rice

Some days, fitness isn’t training. It’s resting and relaxing and rejuvenating. Some days the work is internal, not external.

Don’t let this make you feel ashamed or frustrated. A healthy and sustainable routine isn’t a merry-go-round. It’s a seesaw. So give your fitness the time and patience it needs. Stop hurrying.

Don’t slow down so much that you stop moving and fall asleep, however. You can miss workouts, overindulge in “cheat meals,” and undersleep. Just don’t repeat these accidents. Don’t miss two workouts in a row. Don’t gorge two days in a row. Don’t stay up too late twice in a row. Because before you know it, you haven’t gone to the gym or eaten a vegetable in two months.

60:
A Calorie Calculator Caution

“Distrust and caution are the parents of security.”

—Benjamin Franklin

Even the best calorie calculators (like you’ll find at www.mikematthews.fitness/caloriecalculator) come with an asterisk:

They produce informed estimates that should be viewed as starting points, not pin-sharp and incontrovertible computations. (And in case you’re wondering—activity trackers are even worse. See chapter 167.)

There are a few reasons for this:

The majority of your total daily energy expenditure comes from your resting metabolic rate (RMR)—the number of calories your body burns at rest in 24 hours—and this number is different even among people with identical body compositions. Thus, calorie calculators assume an average RMR for any given body composition, but your RMR may be above or below this estimate.

The second-biggest component of total daily energy expenditure comes from your physical activity level, and while most of this is captured by inputting time and general intensity, actual numbers will vary based on types of activity, types of exercises, amounts of effort, and other factors that can’t be practically represented mathematically. And so again, calorie calculators work with averages that may or may not be accurate in your case.

Your physical activity level also includes non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), which refers to the many miscellaneous movements we engage in like standing, walking, fidgeting, and so forth. Research shows the amount of calories burned through NEAT can differ greatly among people, ranging from 100 calories to 800 calories per day or more, and there’s no pat way to determine where you are on that spectrum. Like most of us, you’re probably close to the average (probabilities working as they do), but if you’re not, a calorie calculator won’t account for this.

The final element of your total daily energy expenditure worth discussing here is the thermic effect of food (TEF), which is the number of calories you burn digesting food. Studies show this accounts for 5-to-15 percent of total daily energy expenditure in most people, and the two primary factors in TEF are macronutrients (protein costs more energy to digest than carbohydrate—about 20-to-30 percent and 5-to-10 percent, respectively—and carbohydrate costs more than fat, which requires almost no energy to digest and absorb) and food processing (unprocessed foods cost more energy to digest than highly processed ones). Calorie calculators don’t customize your results according to exactly how much protein, carbs, and unprocessed food you’re eating—they just assign middle-ground numbers that hopefully are right for you—and this can lead to an estimate of calorie expenditure that’s too high or low.

All that isn’t to say you shouldn’t use calorie calculators—they’re quite handy—only that you may need to adjust your calories up or down, usually in the range of 5-to-10 percent, based on how your body actually responds (if you’re losing or gaining weight too slowly, you may need to eat less or more and vice versa).

Curling in the squat rack when people are waiting to squat is like shitting in the urinal when people are waiting to pee.

61:
Go to the Gym

“Keep busy. It’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is.”

—Dale Carnegie

Sometimes the best way to take the sting out of a bad day is to do a good workout. So if it’s Monday, GO TO THE GYM. Tuesday? GO TO THE GYM . Oh, it’s Friday? Well, especially when it’s Friday, GO TO THE GYM.

Because remember: Every day is not a new day. Over time, our lives take shape like a sculpture, carved by our habits and routines, one strike of the chisel at a time. Thus, where we are is far less important than where we’re going.

Like to the gym. You are going, right?

62:
Underrated Core Exercises

“We who cut mere stones must always be envisioning cathedrals.”

—Quarry Worker’s Creed

The ab wheel roll out is a very underrated core exercise. Especially when you keep your lower back in a neutral position and your abs feeling tight and “tucked into” your torso and you don’t rush the reps.

Aim for a set of 15 reps on your knees to start. Once you can do at least a couple sets of 30 reps (with rest in between, of course), increase the difficulty by slowing the exercise down or remaining on your knees but lifting your feet off the ground.

A few other underappreciated ab exercises to consider:

Tuck-and-crunch. To start, work toward a set of 20 reps. Once you can do a couple of sets of 30 reps, increase the difficulty by bringing your knees toward your elbows when you crunch and straightening your legs as you lean back. When doing this harder variation, always keep your feet and shoulders a couple of inches off the ground.

Boat pose. Hold this position for as long as possible, aiming for 30 seconds to start. Once you’re able to hold for two minutes, switch to a more difficult exercise on this list.

Hanging leg raise. A set of 15 reps is the first milestone, and from there, work up to sets of 30 reps. Once you can do that for a couple of sets, increase the difficulty by slowing down your reps, and once that’s fairly easy, pinch a 5-pound dumbbell between your feet and increase the weight by 5 pounds when that’s no longer challenging.

Toes-to-bar. Aim for 10 reps per set to start, and work up to sets of 20 reps. Once you can do a couple of 20-rep sets, slow down your reps to make them more difficult.

Cable crunch. Use a weight that allows you to do at least 10 reps per set but not more than 20. Once you can do 20 reps with that weight, add 5-to-10 pounds (depending on the machine) and work up to 20 reps with that new weight. Keep increasing the weight and reps in this manner.

63:
Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy

“We don’t think ourselves into a new way of acting, we act ourselves into a new way of thinking.”

—Larry Bossidy

We live in a technological wonderland that even our recent ancestors couldn’t have imagined possible, yet anxiety, stress, dissatisfaction, and depression have been on eighty-year upswings and are at all-time highs among younger generations in particular.

Are unprecedented levels of ease, luxury, and economic prosperity contributing to this decline in our collective happiness and well-being?

Without a doubt. Research points in many directions, ranging from the perversion of values (the growing obsession with fame, money, and image, for example) to the delaying of marriage and childrearing to the all-too-familiar overuse of social media and other modern ills.

None of this is likely news to you. Most of us know that we should ignore the Joneses and spend more time fostering meaningful relationships and less time scrolling on our phones. (And most of us know that, according to a seventy-five-year study conducted by Harvard scientists—the longest study of its kind ever conducted—the biggest predictor of long-term happiness and fulfillment is the quality of our relationships. Or, as one of the researchers, George Valliant, put it, “Happiness is love. Full stop.”)

However, there’s another, simpler but significant change that we can immediately make that many people overlook. It’s gratitude. The more thankful we are for anything and everything, the better our lives become in just about every way. We feel less stressed and depressed, our risk of chronic disease drops, we’re less likely to overeat, and we sleep better, to name a few.

Gratitude is remarkably easy to do too. Stop reading for a moment, and reflect on the question, “What happened last week that I’m thankful for?” Find five things.

Done? Great, because this is all it takes to favorably alter your brain chemistry, even if you can’t find anything. Sometimes, just searching for something to be thankful for is enough to lift your mood. But there’s always something to acknowledge, even if it’s just having clean air to breathe, someone who loves us, or a comfortable bed to sleep in.

Furthermore, the more often we practice gratitude, the easier it becomes to find things to appreciate. As neuroscientists say, “neurons that fire together wire together,” and so the more we stimulate the neural pathways involved in feeling grateful, the more robust and efficient they become.

Want to see for yourself? Write down three things in your life today or yesterday that you’re grateful for, and why you’re grateful for them, and then do this again every morning for the next five days. Pay attention to how it impacts your mood, productivity, and outlook.

Want to go deeper? Research shows that writing a letter of gratitude to someone about something important to you (rather than something trivial) can significantly improve well-being and happiness even in people who are already relatively happy.

64:
Simple Life Hacks

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.”

—Oscar Wilde

A simple life hack: Treat your people right, or someone else will. Because the value of your character is the sum of your habits, and sooner or later, someone you care about will ask, “What’s yours worth?”

Here’s another silver bullet: Spend as little time as you can with people who are perpetual disappointments. A few things to remember about the dead-enders in your life:

Even if they’re capable of changing for the better, it’ll probably take ages.

Trying to facilitate that change is probably a waste of your time and energy.

Trying to make them into who you want them to be is definitely a waste of your time and energy.

Also: Stop associating with people who always try to convince you that your goals are too ambitious, difficult, complicated, unrealistic, etc. Especially when they say they’re just trying to help you. They aren’t.

And since we’re disposing of interpersonal deadwood, give the heave-ho to people who are prone to jealousy. They’re almost always more trouble than they’re worth—the proverbial crabs in the bucket.

Finally, disregard the opinions of anyone who tries to undermine your efforts at self-improvement by refusing to recognize that you’re no longer the “old you” who made them feel better about themselves.

65:
Lifting Yourself Up

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.”

—Bob Marley

Training to gain the strength to better deal with whatever’s weighing heavily on you isn’t the same as training to run away from it.

While you can’t curl or squat your problems away, you can use exercise to improve your ability to deal with difficulties and setbacks—to practice choosing the price of discipline over the pain of regret. And, by simply refusing to quit on your fitness goals, you can develop what Joe de Sena, the founder of Spartan Race, calls “obstacle immunity”—a critical mass of resilience and grit that makes you “immune” to the psychological friction caused by difficult challenges.

Or, as I like to say, you can lift weights to lift yourself up.

Brain: “You should sleep.”

Me: “Thanks for the reminder.”

Brain: “Oh you like reminders?”

66:
So You’ve Hit a Weight Loss Plateau

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

You step on the scale, look down, and your heart sinks. It’s that same infernal number again. You’ve stopped losing weight.

Before you have a conniption, however, know that weight loss isn’t a linear process. It’s normal to go several days without losing any weight and then “suddenly” lose a pound or two overnight, so there might be nothing wrong after all—you might just have to keep at it.

That said, if you’ve been weighing yourself every day and calculating your average weight every few days (a good idea) and these averages haven’t changed in a couple of weeks, the culprit is almost always an energy imbalance (eating too much or moving too little or both). Here are four common ways this goes awry:

Not planning or tracking food intake accurately. This is usually why weight loss stalls—people are simply eating more calories than they realize.

Not “cheating” (or “treating,” as I like to say) correctly. The occasional “treat meal” can help you better stick to your diet (and thus achieve your goals), but when done too often or recklessly, it can ruin progress.

Not exercising enough. The sweet spot for rapidly improving body composition is three-to-five one-hour strength training sessions and three-to-five, 20-to-30-minute, low-to-moderate-intensity cardio workouts per week.

Needing to reduce your calories. If you want to lose a significant amount of weight (more than five percent of your body weight), you’ll almost certainly have to reduce your calories over the course of your cut as your body responds with various measures to decrease energy expenditure. For example, I’ve started cuts around 2,700 calories per day and, a couple of months later, finished around 2,200.

A workable rule of thumb is in the absence of additional physical activity (that could offset the need to eat less by increasing calorie burning), plan to reduce your daily calorie intake by 100 calories for every 10 pounds lost (and if you’re lean and cutting to very lean, you’ll probably have to cut calories more aggressively than this toward the end of the diet).

Energy balance aside, sometimes fat loss can also be obscured by extra water retention, which can occur when sodium or carbohydrate intake or stress (and thus cortisol) levels rise markedly. This is a temporary condition, though, lasting for a couple of days or a week at most, and it resolves on its own (as your body normalizes again).

67:
You’re Getting Good

“Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble.”

—Henry Royce

You know you’re getting good at this fitness stuff when the disappointment of skipping a workout stings more than the struggle to motivate yourself to do one.

And when you notice that you’re making far fewer excuses about how you eat and exercise than you used to.

And when at least 50 percent of the reason you train is just the feeling you get when you finish a workout.

And when you’re no longer waking up on the weekends with a hangover.

And when you appreciate how much better your body is feeling and functioning just as much as how much better it’s looking.

And when you haven’t just lost your taste for McDonald’s, but it even starts to smell gross.

And when you no longer feel compelled to post selfies on social media to compensate for low self-esteem.

And when it’s harder to take a rest day than to do another workout.

And when you realize you don’t need supplements to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy.

And when you stop constantly comparing yourself to others and start focusing on getting just a little bit better every day.

68:
The Healthy Enough Diet

“The wise strive for their best. The foolish strive for perfection.”

—Mokokoma Mokhonoana

What’s the optimal human diet? I don’t know. Nobody does. Anyone who says otherwise is full of beans. What’s a healthy human diet? That’s easier to answer. Decades of scientific research has produced a winning formula:

Eat an appropriate number of calories to maintain a healthy body weight. If you’re overweight, eat less. If you’re underweight, eat more. If you’re neither of those things, eat the same amount.

Eat plenty of protein, ideally some with every meal. A good rule of thumb is 1 gram per pound of body weight per day, or if you’re overweight, 1 gram per centimeter in body height per day, but a bit less (or more) than this is fine, too. Try not to eat less than 0.5 grams per pound of body weight/centimeter in body height per day, however.

Eat a moderate amount of animal protein like seafood, pork, poultry, eggs, and red meat. But try to minimize your intake of highly processed meat products like deli meat, jerky, bacon, sausage, hot dogs, etc.

Eat the amount of carbs and fat that you prefer. If you’re very active, you’ll probably prefer more carbs, but don’t agonize over this. It doesn’t matter that much.

Eat mostly fresh plant foods like veggies, fruit, whole grains, legumes, and nuts and seeds and their oils. Three-to-five servings of veggies, two-to-three servings of fruit, and one serving of whole grains are good minimum daily targets.

So long as it doesn’t upset your stomach, eat at least a few servings of dairy per week, especially fermented dairy like kefir, cottage cheese, and yogurt.

Indulge lightly in whatever delights you while keeping your “junk food” intake at or under 20 percent of your total daily calories.

And that’s basically it. Don’t overnoodle it.

69:
You Won’t Always Enjoy It

“You can not make yourself feel something that you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.”

—Pearl S. Buck

Spoiler alert: You won’t enjoy every workout. Nobody does. But you’ll always enjoy having worked out.

Remember that when it feels like you’re sweating blood. Remember that some days, you rescue the workout. Other days, the workout rescues you.

70:
Is There a “Fat Burning” Zone for Cardio?

“Better be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of misfortune.”

—Plato

Cardio machines often show pretty graphs indicating where your heart rate should be for “fat burning” versus “cardiovascular training”—usually your age subtracted from 200 and multiplied by 0.6.

As the story goes, by maintaining this heart rate during cardio, you’ll maximize fat burning. There’s a kernel of truth here. You do burn both fat and carbs when you exercise, and the proportion varies with the intensity of exercise. A very low-intensity activity like walking taps mainly into fat stores, whereas high-intensity sprints pull much more heavily from carbohydrate reserves.

There’s more to consider, though:

Total calories burned while exercising. If you walk off 100 calories, 85 of which come from fat stores, that isn’t as effective for fat loss as running for the same amount of time and burning 400 calories with 200 coming from fat.

Total fat loss over time. The amount of fat you burn during workouts isn’t a vital factor in long-term fat loss—only a consistent calorie deficit is.

What kind of cardio is best for burning fat, then? The answer is twofold:

Whatever burns a lot of calories.

Whatever you can stick with.

For my part, I do several moderate-intensity sessions on an upright bike per week for a few reasons:

It burns a fair number of calories.

It puts minimal strain on my joints, muscles, and nervous system.

It may enhance lower-body muscle and strength gain.

I can make work and personal calls during this time (that I’ll be making anyway).

I can read on my phone (Kindle app) if I don’t have any calls to make (which I’ll do anyway).

Is there a more grim, infernal, hateful fitness device than the air bike?

71:
Life Periodization

“It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover.”

—Henri Poincaré

Push when you can push. Coast when you can’t. Rest when even that’s a pisser. Nobody can tell you where these boundaries are. You learn them on your own. You find your rhythm.

That’s good fitness advice, too.

72:
Beware the Cults of Scientism and Credentialism

“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”

—George Orwell

Many people imagine the scientific community as a monolithic battalion of unbiased and upright experts selflessly searching for new and better ways to understand and exploit reality for the betterment of all humankind. If only.

Scientific theories have usually evolved like this: problems with existing paradigms and contradictory evidence are ignored or rationalized away until eventually the defects become so numerous and obvious that the discipline is thrown into crisis and new explanations are then adopted as the accepted norms.

For instance, in 1912, Alfred Wegener proposed the now-accepted theory of continental drift that asserts the continents wander across the oceans. Initially, however, his idea was roundly rejected by professionals on the grounds that he was a meteorologist and not a geologist and that he couldn’t explain how such a drift occurred, only that it appeared to be the case. And so Wegener’s hypothesis languished for nearly forty years until a new scientific discipline, paleomagnetism, started producing data in support of it.

Ignaz Semmelweis’ story is similar. He was a nineteenth-century Hungarian doctor who, after much careful observation, was convinced that if doctors handling cadavers washed their hands before delivering babies, fewer mothers would die after giving birth. This prediction was vehemently rejected by the medical community at large for several reasons, including the academic deficiencies in Semmelweis’ explanations for why handwashing would improve mortality as well as the offensive implication that doctors were inadvertently killing their patients.

Semmelweis went crazy trying to prove his beliefs and was admitted to a mental institution against his will, where he was beaten, straight-jacketed, and abused. Two weeks later, he was dead at the age of forty-seven from a gangrenous wound on his right hand. It took twenty more years for medicos to realize they were wrong about antiseptics, following Louis Pasteur’s confirmation of germ theory.

Oxygen’s role in combustion was once a radical idea proposed by an 18th century French chemist named Antoine Lavoisier whose theory challenged the prevailing doctrine that combustion was a process whereby a substance called phlogiston was released into the air.

Lavoisier’s oxygen theory was met with widespread skepticism and criticism from the scientific community, and its detractors included prominent scientists like Georg Ernst Stahl, Jean-Paul Marat, Johann Joachim Becher, and Martin Heinrich Klaproth. Ultimately, it took a preponderance of evidence produced by several decades of persistent and meticulous experimentation for Lavoisier’s work to achieve general scientific acceptance and adoption.

In health and fitness, examples abound:

The perpetual daisy chain of offbeat diet trends (fasting, Atkins, paleo, keto, veganism, carnivore, etc.) that claim to represent the “scientifically optimal” way for humans to eat.

The numerous fad exercise programs that promise rapid results from “breakthrough” methods (CrossFit, high-intensity interval training, various strength training programs, etc.) or equipment (special machines, bands, bars, etc.).

The overemphasis of the importance and potential benefits of supplements, which are often negligible even in the case of popular products supposedly supported by scientific research (BCAAs, EAAs, hydration/electrolyte supplements, and many others).

The entire biohacking racket, which is the health equivalent of alchemy—the futile pursuit of boundless energy, elevated cognition, and eternal youth through extensive (and expensive) protocols of superfood smoothies; sleep, fitness, and glucose trackers; obscure herbs and drugs; EEG headbands; cold plunges; and suchlike.

The wholesale dismissal of alternative medicine as quackery, including unconventional interventions that lack solid scientific evidence but have considerable anecdotal support, like acupuncture, homeopathy, and meditation.

There are innumerable more examples like these, but the moral is this: Beware the cults of scientism (excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques) and credentialism (belief in or reliance on academic or other formal qualifications as the best measure of a person’s intelligence or ability to do a particular job).

Apostles of these ideologies insist that you swallow favored claims from the mouths of approved pundits no matter how dubious, and reject disfavored ones out of hand no matter how compelling. These aren’t smart people. These are midwits who can’t think for themselves and desperately rely on authorities to tell them what to believe, and in fact, place more value on believing what they’re told to believe rather than believing the truth. If you were to comment that cutting off your head is unhealthy, these people would demand peer-reviewed studies as proof.

So, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, you have every right to mistrust arguments from authority and demand that experts prove their contentions like everybody else, because too many accepted arguments have proved too agonizingly wrong.

You also have the power to formulate astute questions and come to sound conclusions through your faculties of observation and reasoning alone. You don’t have to reject your senses, deductions, and instincts until they’ve been blessed by a high priest of officialdom.

73:
Train First

“More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.”

—Marcus Tullius Cicero

Fitness advice should be viewed in the same way as suggestions about where to buy groceries or what type of shoes to wear. Even the best pointers include a healthy dose of opinion and preference, so don’t forget to weigh your own inclinations.

Also, don’t get so gripped by the cacophony of conflicting rules and methods that you spend more time reading, watching, and thinking than doing. Don’t allow the temptation of a Better Way to eat and exercise become the fiery, unblinking, paralyzing gaze of Sauron.

Look away. Push it out of your mind. Train first. Then reflect.

74:
Simple Muscle Building Hacks

“Worry about being better; bigger will take care of itself.”

—Gary Comer

A simple muscle building hack: You don’t need to do a dozen different exercises per workout, minimize between-set rest periods, or use “fancy” training techniques like reverse pyramid training, pre-exhaustion, drop sets, negatives, etc.

A few “straight sets” of a few foundational exercises taken close to muscular failure (the point where you can’t perform another rep) with a couple of minutes of rest in between each set is a simple recipe for a highly effective strength training session.

A few more pointers for you to mull:

A workout split (how you arrange your weekly workouts, usually by body part, body region, or movement pattern) doesn’t drive muscle growth. Your biceps don’t care if you do an “arms,” “pull,” or “upper-body” workout. Your muscles will grow when you do the right number of sets of the right exercises at the right level of intensity and frequency.

Training isn’t a hot dog eating contest. How much you do in the gym doesn’t matter nearly as much as how well you do it. One high-quality workout is worth a bunch of low-quality ones.

When you work out is far less important than how and how often you work out. So train at the times that work best for you.

Do workouts that you generally look forward to and enjoy. Don’t force yourself to follow a workout routine that you don’t like, no matter how “scientifically optimal” it might be. Stale training is like stale food. Edible but dreary. Find something that makes you fizz so you’ll a) keep showing up and b) keep working hard.

Speaking of working hard, if you’ve never peed or sharted even a little while squatting or deadlifting, you’re probably not training hard enough. No stain no gain, bro.

75:
You Love to See It

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

—Henry David Thoreau

I’ll never get sick of seeing women stop fearing weightlifting and start loving the feeling of getting strong.

Them:

“How do I eat whatever I want on the weekends without gaining weight?”

Me:

“The same way you buy whatever you want on the weekends without getting poorer.”

76:
More Simple Diet Hacks

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”

—Coco Chanel

Another simple diet hack: Go unfollow anyone who says that skipping breakfast is the secret to getting ripped and living forever. Oh, and intermittent fasting won’t boost your metabolism, either. In fact, in the short-term, research shows that fasting does the exact opposite—it reduces energy expenditure.

Also, bat away anyone who says that peanut butter is a great source of protein, fruit has too much sugar, and white rice is bad for you. And don’t let their credentials short-circuit your critical thinking. Just because someone has an advanced degree from a prestigious school doesn’t mean they can’t give quacky or even dangerous diet and exercise advice.

Finally, give the gate to anyone who says eating any individual food or macronutrient ruins or restores your health or body composition. These ninnies are just as confused as people who believe strippers are actually into them and—this happened—people who thought one-third-pound hamburgers contained less meat than quarter-pounders (maybe someone should try a fifth-pounder?).

77:
You Get to Decide

“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”

—Dale Carnegie

Don’t let others ding you for wanting to improve your body composition. You get to decide how you want to look and feel.

And you can have high standards while also being healthy and happy—you can control calories without copping an eating disorder, exercise every day without developing a dependency, and love your body without losing perspective.

“But can’t you just love your body as it is and skip the rest?” some ask. Maybe. But holding yourself to strong standards is a flavor of self-love because it signals optimism and trust. It’s you saying to yourself, “Goldarnit, I can freaking do this!” And few things say “I love my body” like being fit and strong.

What’s more, the preservation of top personal benchmarks also helps preserve worthy social and cultural ideals. In a depraved, diseased, and dysfunctional society, being healthy in body, mind, and spirit is a revolutionary act.

78:
The Diminishing Returns of Overreaching

“The indiscipline of overwork is the falsest of economies.”

—John Steinbeck

Like most things in life, you get as much from training as you put into it. Work hard, get hard. Goof off, stay soft.

Unlike many things, though, it’s fairly easy to reach the point of diminishing returns with exercise, and the penalties of routinely exceeding this threshold (overreaching) can be particularly punishing.

Energy levels, mood, and performance tumble, sleep suffers, and soreness soars, and then the twist of the knife—for all your trouble, you don’t even get marginally better results. Instead, you get progressively worse outcomes.

A good example of this is a study conducted by University of Sydney scientists on German Volume Training, which calls for 10 sets of 10 reps of each exercise—a recipe for serious overreaching for just about anyone. The researchers found that the subjects doing German Volume Training gained less muscle and strength than the subjects following a lower-volume routine of 5 sets of 10 reps per exercise.

Complicating the matter is the fact that training is just one type of stress that our body must recover from, and other sources of strain—work, finances, relationships, existential angst, etc.—also limit how much we can demand of our body in the gym.

So, how can you know when you’re doing too much overreaching and need to do some “overresting” instead? Here are a few reliable signs:

Your once-enjoyable workouts are now a bear. Your training weights have fallen, your stamina has declined, and your enthusiasm has wilted.

You often feel “tired and wired.” Despite being drained all day, you’re restless at night and sleep like a baby … on bath salts.

You have unusual aches and pains. And they slowly get worse. And multiply. Until damn near everything seems to hurt all of the time.

You’re training hard every day of the week. I’ve yet to meet someone who can do this without folding up, including even elite athletes on powerful cocktails of performance-enhancing drugs. No matter who you are, “no days off” eventually becomes “no can do.”

You’re experiencing more muscle soreness than usual and for longer than usual.

79:
We’ll See

“Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?”

—Marcus Aurelius

A farmer had a horse, and one day, it ran away.

His neighbors consoled him. “I’m so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.”

The man just said, “We’ll see.”

A few days later, his horse returned with twenty wild horses in tow, and the man and his son corralled them all.

His neighbors celebrated. “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!”

The man just said, “We’ll see.”

A few weeks later, a stallion kicked the man’s son, breaking one of his legs.

His neighbors reeled. “I’m so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.”

The man just said, “We’ll see.”

The following month, the state went to war and drafted legions of able-bodied young men to fight their enemies. Casualties mounted but didn’t include the man’s son, since the army had no use for a lame boy.

The neighbors couldn’t believe the family’s luck. “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!”

The man just said, “We’ll see.”

No matter how difficult things get, time will tell whether our circumstances are a curse or blessing. Will, as Marcus Aurelius once said, what stands in the way become the way?

We’ll see.

80:
The Worst Fitness Advice

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities but in the expert’s mind there are few.”

—Shunryū Suzuki

Just because someone lost a bunch of weight or built a bunch of muscle, it doesn’t mean they’re qualified to be a trainer or coach. Some of the worst fitness advice is peddled by some of the fittest people.

For example, many of these dummkopfs say that calorie counting is an unhealthy and obsessive behavior that makes you neurotic about food. In reality, they just couldn’t figure out how to count calories without becoming obsessive and neurotic about food.

Bad training takes abound as well and come in many flavors—complexity, extremity, eccentricity—you can fill in the rest. What “they” usually aren’t telling you, however, is that the business end of effective strength training is basically drudging through the same couple of dozen or so elementary exercises until you die.

And don’t even get me started on supplements. Many of the ingredients in these products either haven’t been scientifically proven to do what you’re paying for (collagen protein, MCT oil, apple cider anything, glutamine, CBD, hydration drinks) or have been proven outright ineffective (testosterone boosters, BCAAs, EAAs, garcinia cambogia, CLA, raspberry ketones).

So, choose your fitness counsel carefully. Just as making one very uncomfortable decision is often more constructive than one thousand cozy ones, listening to just one genuine expert is often more productive than culling ideas from one thousand hinky ones.

And how do you find genuine experts? A few tips:

Exercise extreme skepticism. Whenever you first encounter a health or fitness authority, assume they’re guilty until proven innocent. This goes against our nature, which is to give others the benefit of the doubt, but it’s an appropriate line of attack when faced with so many liars, cheaters, and swindlers.

Consider their bona fides. This includes professional qualifications, credentials, and achievements as well as their reputation (past and present), particularly among other established experts. A strong résumé suggests credibility.

Consider their claims. Do their assertions make logical sense? Do they promise miraculous results? Are they supported by robust forms of evidence (or is it mostly personal experience and other anecdotes?)? How do they compare to expert consensus? (Consensus doesn’t equal accuracy, of course, but statistically speaking, the more unorthodox a position is, the less likely it is to be true.)

Consider their incentives. Are they making money from their expertise? Are they making a lot of money from it? Maybe in ways that aren’t immediately obvious (like speaking engagements, consulting gigs, career advancement, etc.)? Because life’s really not more complicated than that—most people are mostly motivated by money.

Consider their track record. They may have succeeded with their own body (and maybe with their recommended methods, maybe not), but have they consistently produced positive results across a large and diverse range of individuals? How believable are their client success stories? Do you have any reason to doubt their veracity? And conversely, how many people have openly (online) reported failing with the expert’s methods? Why did they fail? How does the cumulative evidence of successes and failures compare both quantitatively and qualitatively?

The fact that you don’t want to go to the gym today is a sign that you need to make sure you go to the gym today.

81:
Complaining vs. Doing

“When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it. All else is madness.”

—Eckhart Tolle

There are two types of people in the world: Those who complain and those who do something about it. And the people complaining the most are always doing and succeeding the least and always have a wheelbarrow of deflections and rationalizations.

Why is this though? Do people win more because they complain less or vice versa? Research suggests causation rather than correlation because complaining produces three negative reactions that directly impair our decision making, performance, and progress.

First, complaining sours mood because often, “saying is experiencing,” and this, in turn, discourages effective action. Complaining can be contagious too, stirring the agita in those we complain to, who then feel compelled to not only complain as well, but possibly even one-up our complaints with more forceful grousing. If we then respond in kind, a negative feedback loop can develop.

Second, complaining produces feelings of purposelessness and blunts motivation—formidable emotional barriers to positive assessment, action, and change.

And third, complaining encourages us to perceive ourselves as victims of unavoidable and unchangeable circumstances. This mindset orients our thinking away from solutions and toward dead-end conclusions like “nothing can be done” and “nothing works.”

So, what should we do when we’re not getting the outcomes we want? Use these experiences to get better, not bitter. Instead of merely complaining, often repeatedly to whoever will listen, we should fasten our attention on figuring out why we’re floundering and what it’ll take to win.

This process begins with asking ourselves three questions:

“What did I do to contribute to this situation?”

“What could I have done differently to avoid it?”

“What can I do now to improve it?”

The crucial realization is this:

Nearly every problem has a solution, including those we’ve failed and will fail to solve. No matter how difficult or daunting a predicament is, there’s always a path forward. Whether we find and take it is on us.

82:
10 Tips for Keeping the Weight Off

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

—Abraham Lincoln

Did you know that research shows that, on average, people who diet regain more than half of the weight lost within two years of losing it? And that by five years, they’ve regained more than 80 percent?

This is partly because in some ways, losing weight is easier than keeping it off. If you can muster enough moxie, you can drop plenty of pounds, but preventing a relapse requires a different repertoire. Food restriction and avoidance and sheer willpower aren’t enough.

Instead, you need to focus on developing a healthy relationship with food because without that, “eating intuitively” will work about as well as “drinking intuitively” will for an alcoholic. Here are ten ways to get there faster:

Stick to a meal routine. By having consistent meal times and avoiding snacking, you’ll be less likely to accidentally overeat and will more or less eliminate food decisions—decisions that can drain your willpower and induce “decision fatigue” that prompts progressively poorer choices.

Go for “healthy” fats. Most of your dietary fat should come from relatively unprocessed foods like nuts, avocados, olive oil, etc., and not fast food or pre-packaged fare. This helps control calorie intake and can improve health outcomes.

Move more. The more you can goose your energy expenditure, the easier it is to stay lean, so walk more. Shoot for at least 30-to-90 minutes of walking per day, which will burn 100-to-600 calories.

If you’re going to snack, stick with nutritious foods. Keep erratic snacking to a minimum, but if the need arises or you want to have regular snacks in between larger meals, think fresh fruit and high-protein yogurt (Greek and skyr are my favorites) instead of potato chips and cookies.

Control your portions. Using smaller plates and utensils may help you get fuller on less food, as can drinking water with your meals.

Don’t be sedentary for long periods of time. Break up your sitting time by standing up and walking around, stretching, doing push-ups or chores, etc. An arbitrary-but-workable formula: After 60 minutes of sitting, go move for 5-to-10 minutes. This raises energy expenditure and helps mitigate the health risks associated with sitting too much.

Don’t drink calories. Caloric beverages are far tastier than they are filling, especially when compared to nutritious food. Eat your calories and drink water.

Eat mindfully. When eating, sit down and slow down. Eat gradually, focus on your food while chewing, not your smartphone, and tune into your body’s internal cues of fullness.

Eat your vegetables. Vegetables are good for more than just nutrition—they’re also filling foods that keep you satisfied for few calories. Aim for three-to-five servings of vegetables per day.

Get enough sleep. Sleep hygiene directly and indirectly impacts body composition in many ways, including your appetite. The more rested you generally are, the less hungry you’ll generally be. Seven-to-eight hours of high-quality sleep per night is the target.

83:
Never Say Die

“They’ve got us surrounded again, the poor bastards.”

—Creighton Abrams

Do you know why bulldogs were such ferocious opponents in nineteenth-century dog fighting? It’s not because they were the strongest or most agile or hostile of breeds. It was the extra fat and skin around their necks that made it harder to rip their throats out. Other dogs had to work overtime to kill them.

There’s a lesson there, and it’s not about body fat levels. When you’re indefatigable, when you can absorb a tremendous number of blows, when you can embrace and even rejoice in adversity, you’ll still strike out from time to time, but you’ll also bat a lot better than average.

Because in many competitions, you don’t have to be the best to win—you just have to be the hardest to destroy.

Don’t think you can’t do this. It’s literally in your DNA. Not so long ago, our forebears had to chase, fight, and kill just to survive. They expected hardship. They were willing to face the worst. They embraced the fact that the universe, in all its apparent tranquility, is a carefully balanced chaos of forces that we barely understand.

The time has come to act like we’ve descended from these hardy men and women. To redirect anxiety, stress, and fear toward positive outcomes. To push through the pain of life’s most important lessons. To never say die no matter how fiercely the shifting sands of fate roil.

84:
Are You Sure You’re Overtraining?

“If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”

—Mario Andretti

Are you overtraining or just not eating enough food to fully recover from your training? You’re probably not overtraining per se as research shows that true Overtraining Syndrome is remarkably difficult to develop—it takes far more than a few tough strength training and cardio workouts per week to back yourself into that corner.

Interestingly, however, the same research shows that if you don’t eat enough calories or carbohydrates for long enough, you can come down with a sub-clinical level of overtraining (overtraining-like symptoms), including excessive muscle soreness and fatigue, performance plateaus and downturns, mood disruptions, increased frequency of illness, sleep disruptions, and other signs of under recovery.

In the extreme, this condition is called Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), and it’s produced by a combination of high-frequency and high-intensity training (that burns thousands of calories per week), severe calorie restriction (in some documented cases, 1,000-calorie daily deficits), and low-carbohydrate intake (ranging from a ketogenic diet to 1-to-2 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day).

Although RED-S requires a severe and prolonged imbalance between stress and recovery, milder mismatches can manifest in similar ways. With us “lifestyle athletes,” there are two scenarios where this usually happens:

When we’ve been restricting our calories for fat loss for several months or longer, while following a high-frequency, high-volume strength training program (five+ days and six-to-seven+ hours per week) and high-frequency (and sometimes high-intensity) cardio routine (five+ days and several HIIT sessions per week).

When we’ve been maintaining a low body fat percentage (under 10 percent in men and 20 percent in women) for several months or longer while following particularly intense strength training and cardio routines. (This can cause overtraining effects because it forces you to generally err on the side of undereating [calorie deficit] rather than overeating [calorie surplus].)

So, if you’re going great guns in the gym and feeling ground down, assess your caloric and carbohydrate intake. If one or both are low (to get or stay lean, for instance), try eating more calories and carbs, reducing your training volume and/or intensity, or both, and see how your body responds.

85:
The Problem With Progress

“Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.”

—Thomas Edison

Once we’ve set our sights on a goal, what do we crave most? Progress, of course. We want to see positive change and forward movement, which, we hope, will inspire us to keep going. This can happen—scientists refer to the phenomenon of increasing motivation as we get closer to achieving a goal as the goal-gradient effect—but that’s not how it always goes.

Progress can cut both ways because the satisfaction it produces can breed complacency, a powerful catalyst for weakening willpower. Instead of reinvigorating us for another charge into the breach, progress can lull us into following one step forward with two back.

This paradox has been demonstrated in a number of studies. For example, research conducted by University of Chicago scientists found that when people were led to believe they were closing in on their weight loss goals, they were 32 percent more likely to choose a chocolate bar for a snack over an apple.

How can we guard against the slackening effects of success?

First, research shows that we can intensify our motivation to keep pursuing a goal after enjoying considerable success by staying focused on the work we still have to do rather than the work we’ve already done.

And second, when we do consider the progress we’ve made, instead of flattering ourselves for it, we can view our efforts as evidence of the importance of our goals and our commitment to them.

If Beck can go from being homeless in New York City to playing a few songs between bands at local clubs and coffeehouses in Los Angeles to creating one of Rolling Stone’s greatest songs of all time (“Loser”), you can follow a meal plan for a month.

86:
Your North Star

“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”

—Seneca

You can train any which way and get sweaty and sore, but to get stronger or fitter, you have to train in very specific ways. That doesn’t necessarily mean training harder, either. It means training better.

Here’s what that looks like: Doing a moderate amount of compound weightlifting with heavy-but-manageable loads, good form, and a full range of motion.

That’s the most efficient way to improve strength, body composition, and mobility.

That’s your north star.

87:
Easy, Fast, and Free

“You can have almost anything you want, but not everything. Maturity is the ability to sacrifice good alternatives for better ones.”

—Ray Dalio

If you want a hard life, always go in for the easy, fast, and free, and if you want an easy life, make a habit of pursuing the hard, slow, and costly.

Why? The most difficult ways to do things almost always turn out to be the easiest in the end because they’re the only ways that actually work.

So, try to imagine how far you could get if you started doing the hairy things now and pegged away for a few years. And then realize that you can probably get way further than that and possibly even further than you’d currently believe.

88:
It’s Not Fat Shaming

“You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.”

—Dag Hammarskjold

Obesity is one of the biggest existential threats to our individual and social health and well-being. It destroys vitality, magnifies mortality, strains psychology, erodes self-belief, and undermines self-definition.

That’s not “fat shaming”—that’s just the plain truth.

It’s also not fat shaming to tell people they can’t lose weight eating however, whatever, whenever they want.

Or that healthy living is mostly a matter of priorities, not genetics, time, or money.

Or that it’s unhealthy to regularly eat too much and move too little.

Or that ultimately our body composition reflects our lifestyle more than anything else.

Or that obesity imposes staggering costs on society in the form of healthcare expenses and reduced productivity.

Or that classical standards of beauty are mostly rooted in biology, not society.

Or that we usually gain weight simply because we get lazy or surrender self-control and eat and drink too much.

Or that obesity is an epidemic disease with decades of scientific research clearly proving that it significantly increases all-cause mortality.

Or that “purposeful and joyful movement” isn’t enough if it doesn’t help produce and maintain a healthy body composition.

Or that it’s easier to build self-esteem by achieving a healthy body composition than to underplay its importance.

89:
When You Don’t Want to Work Out

“You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.”

—Les Brown

Them:

“What should I do when I’m not motivated to work out?”

Me:

“What happens when your dog isn’t motivated to go for a walk?”

Them:

“It doesn’t matter—we go for a walk.”

Me:

“That’s good.”

Them:

“Touche.”

Look, sometimes, you don’t want to work out. But then you force yourself to do it anyway. And then you feel happy. The end.

90:
Diet On, Diet Off

“I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”

—John D. Rockefeller

Losing weight is a balancing act. On the one hand, the more weight you lose, the more excited you are to continue, but on the other hand, the more weight you lose (and the faster you lose it), the more you run the risk of muscle loss, hunger, irritability, metabolic slowdown, and other bothers.

One counterintuitive way to better thread this needle is to take periodic breaks from your diet. In a study conducted by University of Tasmania scientists, fifty-one men were divided into two groups: one that dieted every day for sixteen weeks, and another that dieted on a “two week on” (calorie deficit), “two week off” (maintenance calories) schedule until they also reached sixteen weeks of caloric restriction (taking a total of thirty-two weeks).

The researchers provided all of the meals to the subjects throughout the study, which ensured they were eating the right number of calories, and everyone also kept a food diary to be doubly sure of how much food they were eating.

By the end of their weight loss phases, participants in the continuous dieting group lost about 21 pounds on average, and their counterparts in the intermittent dieting group lost nearly 32 pounds.

Then, all participants returned to their normal eating patterns, and six months later, the researchers checked in with everyone to see how much weight they had regained. The scientists found that the continuous dieters had regained 13 pounds on average, reducing their total weight loss to just over 7 pounds, whereas the intermittent dieters had regained just under 8 pounds, pegging their net weight loss at about 24 pounds.

In the final analysis, the intermittent dieters (who took diet breaks) outperformed the continuous dieters (who didn’t) in all respects—they lost more weight and kept more of it off.

But there was a catch—it also took them twice as long to complete their weight loss phase and return to normal eating. And in the real world (where you’re not working with specialists who are keeping you accountable), doubling the duration of a diet can drastically decrease your chances of success.

That doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from diet breaks, however. In fact, they can be a gamechanger if you’ve struggled with sticking to a diet in the past, and especially if you’ve struggled to maintain weight loss over the long haul.

Here’s what works well for most people:

If your body composition goal requires no more than eight-or-so weeks of dieting, you probably don’t need any breaks. Just stick it out.

If your goal requires more than eight-to-twelve weeks of dieting, take a one-to-two week diet break (maintenance calories) every eight-to-ten weeks.

If you’re lean (25 percent body fat or less for women and 15 percent or less for men) and looking to get really lean, take a one-week diet break every six-to-eight weeks.

One weird trick for avoiding hangovers: don’t drink alcohol.

91:
Look At You

“If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.”

—Charles de Montesquieu

When was the last time you hugged yourself for how far you’ve come?

For doing all those workouts you didn’t want to do, eating all those vegetable slops you didn’t want to eat, and drinking all those near beers you didn’t want to drink?

For how much you’ve shown up, taken on, and learned, accomplished, and grown?

Well done. You should be proud.

Remember this when you’re faced with new challenges, and you’ll be less likely to overestimate their difficulty and underestimate your ability to prevail.

92:
The Best Supplements

“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”

—David Foster Wallace

The absolute best supplements THEY don’t want you to know about for …

Losing fat: strength training, walking, protein, sleep, hydration, consistency, patience, persistence

Building muscle: carbs, calories, progressive overload, getting strong, enjoying your workouts, deloading, training periodization, naps, realistic expectations

Boosting cognition: exercising, reading challenging books, nutritious food, rest, socializing, building your vocabulary, thinking outside your comfort zone, debating people who disagree with you

Something to always remember about supplements: You don’t need them to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy. Even the best ones (ahem … my sports nutrition company Legion is king, don’t @ me …) are supplemental by nature.

93:
Let Them

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.”

—Epictetus

Two surefire ways to be hated less are to say less and fail more. Because to some people, speaking up is a vice and succeeding is a sin. People you should pay no attention to.

So they oppose your perspective? Let them.

So they protest your purpose? Let them.

So they dispute your plan? Let them.

So they doubt your determination? Let them.

So they fuel your fears? Let them.

So they mock your missteps? Let them.

So they celebrate your setbacks? Let them.

So they spurn your progress? Let them.

So they snub your successes? Let them.

So they deny your destiny? Let them.

Let them see you take a stand anyway.

Let them see you pour it on.

Let them see you overcome the odds.

Let them see you gloom.

Let them see you hoot.

Let them see you glow.

Let them.

94:
More Simple Exercise Hacks

“If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.”

—Irvin Yalom

A few more simple exercise nuggets that I wish I had known at the beginning of my fitness journey:

The order in which you do exercises in a workout doesn’t appear to directly affect muscle growth, but it does impact strength (which can influence muscle building indirectly). Strength gains are greatest in the exercises done earliest in a session, so as a rule of thumb, start your workouts with the exercises you most want to get stronger at (usually compound movements).

Ten-to-15 high-effort sets per workout is far more effective, economical, and fun than 20+ medium-effort sets. This spotlights a common resistance training mistake: Way too many sub-maximal working sets (sets ending many reps from muscular failure) that essentially function as an extended warm-up and way too few “hard sets” (sets ending 1-to-3 reps shy of muscular failure) that actually produce gains.

When deadlifting, it can help to imagine you’re pushing the floor away from you rather than pulling the weights off the ground, and if you keep your nipples pointed at the wall in front of you, your back will stay flat.

If your reps per set are dropping significantly from one set to the next, you’re probably not resting long enough in between sets. To maximize performance, rest 2.5-to-3.5 minutes in between sets of compound exercises and 2-to-2.5 minutes in between sets of isolation exercises.

Most people don’t need to do a lot of leg exercises or volume to get great wheels. A squat movement plus a few accessory exercises like hamstring curls, Bulgarian split squats, leg press, lunges, etc. for a total of 10-to-12 sets per week usually fits the bill.

95:
Fun Fitness Goals

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

—Albert Einstein

Some fun fitness goals to work toward:

One set of 5-to-10 (women) or 10-to-20 (men) pullups.

One set of 5-to-10 (women) or 10-to-20 (men) pushups or 20 (women) or 40 (men) if you’re already strong.

One rep on the bench press with your body weight.

One rep on the squat with your body weight if you’re new to strength training or twice your weight if you’re already strong.

One rep on the deadlift with your body weight if you’re new to strength training or twice your weight if you’re already strong.

At least 10,000 steps per day for at least one month.

If you’re a guy who doesn’t re-rack his weights, you probably have low testosterone.

96:
It’s Not Fit Shaming

“Care about what other people think and you will always be the prisoner.”

—Lao Tzu

There’s a lot of talk about “fat shaming” nowadays and very little about “fit shaming,” which is experienced by many people wanting to improve their body composition and health. Both of these behaviors are unacceptable.

But it’s not fit shaming to tell people that abs aren’t a sign of success if they have to starve and suffer to keep them.

Or that they shouldn’t claim moral superiority over others because of how they eat.

Or that forcing themselves to choose the cauliflower pizza means it’s probably time to get a new diet.

Or that an obsession with weight loss can be just as unhealthy as excessive weight gain.

Or that fitness professionals who photoshop their pictures are part of the problem.

Or that sometimes people should put their time and energy into things other than fat loss.

Or that we should exercise to celebrate what we can do with our body, not to punish ourselves for eating brownies.

Or that a calorie deficit is supposed to be a weight loss intervention, not a lifestyle.

Or that food can be just fuel, but it can also be part of enjoying our family, religion, culture, and community.

Or that thinking we’ll finally love our body when we reach a specific body weight or composition is like thinking we’ll finally love our life when we make a certain amount of money.

97:
The Maintain Gains

“Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.”

—Irving Berlin

Forget weight loss competitions—I want to see weight maintenance competitions.

Because the longer you maintain a healthy body composition, the easier it gets to continue maintaining it.

So simply keeping what you’ve got is a form of progress.

98:
Targeted Fat Loss

“Consistency of effort over the long run is everything.”

—Angela Duckworth

How would you like workouts for flattening your stomach, slimming your thighs, and shrinking your muffin top?

I wish it were that simple. While research shows that training a muscle results in increased levels of blood flow and lipolysis (the breakdown of fat cells into usable energy) in the area, the changes are too small to matter.

Training muscles builds them up and burns calories, which can aid fat loss, but it doesn’t directly burn the fat on and around the muscles to any significant degree. This is why no amount of crunches can give you abs. For that, you merely need to reduce your body fat percentage to 10-to-15 percent if you’re a man or 20-to-25 percent if you’re a woman, because fat loss occurs in a whole-body fashion.

That is, when you maintain a calorie deficit, your body reduces fat stores all over, with certain areas shrinking faster than others. Most women notice that their arms, shoulders, and back are the first to get noticeably leaner when they diet, not their hips or thighs. And most men also find their arms, shoulders, and back responding quickly to a cutting phase but not their stomach.

This is partly a function of the amount of fat in these different regions—most people don’t store much fat in their upper torso and arms, so it doesn’t take much fat loss to produce visible changes—but there’s another factor in play as well.

To lose fat, two things must happen: 1) fat cells must release their fatty acids, and 2) those fatty acids must be burned (by other cells) for energy. The first step is accomplished by chemicals called catecholamines that travel through your blood and attach to receptors on fat cells, triggering the release of fatty acids; and the degree to which the second step occurs depends on moment-to-moment energy demands.

Owing to a physiological difference in catecholamine receptors, some fat cells are more resistant to mobilization (step one) than others. Hence the “stubborn fat” phenomenon—the areas of your body that take much longer to lean out than others. In women, it’s usually the hips, thighs, and butt, and in men, it’s usually the stomach and lower back.

Fortunately, the fat in such regions is merely stubborn, not immovable, and losing it doesn’t require any special interventions—it eventually yields to a calorie deficit like its more malleable brethren.

Hence, the “secret” to finally doing away with hard-to-lose fat will sound familiar: consistency and patience.

99:
The Great Vulnerability Hoax

“As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

These days, it’s trendy to muse about embracing “vulnerability” like it’s a cosmic cheat code for awakening your essence and owning your superpower. Really? That’s it? Openly wallowing in anxieties, insecurities, and failures is the gateway to the good life? Well, glory be!

Announcing we’re not perfect may feel uncomfortable, but so does exposing ourselves in front of JCPenney. Point being: while all positive growth involves discomfort, not all discomfort produces positive growth.

Those of us who aren’t monsters all have doubts and worries. We all know we all have doubts and worries. Admitting as much isn’t inspiring or noble, and it changes nothing. The soul of authentic vulnerability, then, is acting courageously. This can come in many flavors, including taking ownership of negative circumstances instead of blaming others, asking for advice instead of pretending we have it all figured out, and doing the right thing even when it costs us something.

Bogus vulnerability, on the other hand, seeks approval and sympathy. It elevates fragility and inability over confidence and excellence. It glorifies who we are over who we can be.

These two types of vulnerability can appear similar in practice, but they’re actually as different as oxygen and a picture of it. One sustains—and the other suffocates.

100:
Said The Diet Guru Who’s Full of Shit

“Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”

—Socrates

Ten ways diet gurus tell you they’re full of shit without telling you they’re full of shit:

“Peanut butter is a great source of protein.”

“A few ribeyes and sticks of butter per day is great for your heart.”

“You don’t need to eat fiber to optimize your health.”

“You should eat according to your DNA.”

“These supplements will fix your adrenal fatigue.”

“Let me tell you about my hormone reset diet.”

“You’re not losing weight because you’re not eating enough.”

“You probably need to cleanse your thyroid.”

“Drinking water with organic Baboon Lemon and Dragon’s Claw cayenne pepper will help you stay alkaline.”

“Conventional fruit and vegetables are loaded with chemicals that’ll kill you.”

Imagine if people cared as much about obesity as they used to care about Covid.

101:
A Simple Rule for Better Living

“We are always complaining that our days are few but acting as though there would be no end to them.”

—Seneca

Every day—blow high, blow low—complete at least one important (but not necessarily urgent) task that moves you closer to at least one important long-term goal. The task can be big or small, but it must matter and must be done before you sack out.

And for bonus points, be especially alert to the important things you don’t want to do because so many of the breakthroughs we’re seeking are waiting in the work we’re avoiding.

102:
The Case for Isolation Exercises

“Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it.”

—Les Brown

Many fitness experts put compound exercises on a pedestal, as all you need to fully develop every major muscle group in your body. Isolation exercises, they say, may be fun, but they’re superfluous if you do enough squatting, deadlifting, and bench and overhead pressing.

I disagree. While the lion’s share of your physique can come from compound exercises, by supplementing them with the right isolation exercises, you can gain even more muscle and strength.

Here’s why:

Isolation exercises allow you to continue training specific muscle groups when it’s no longer practical to do so with compound exercises. For instance, your chest and shoulders will be bushed after several sets of bench and dumbbell pressing, but your triceps will be up to a few sets of pushdowns. ⁣

Isolation exercises allow you to train a muscle group in different positions and through different ranges of motions, which likely improves muscle growth. For example, the pullup and barbell row train your biceps in a very different way than the hammer and preacher curl.

Doing the same three or four exercises every week for months on end gets boring, and boring workouts tend to be less productive than engaging ones. ⁣

Repeating the same exercises in the same way for long periods of time probably increases the risk of repetitive stress injuries, especially with heavier weights.

Isolation exercises are excellent for addressing muscle imbalances and weak points in your physique. For example, if one arm or leg is stronger than the other, you may not even realize it until you start doing the right isolation exercises (like the leg extension or curl or alternating dumbbell curl or single-arm overhead triceps extension).

103:
Fun Fitness Wins

“Happiness spreads. When we choose happiness, it actually makes it easier for other people to choose happiness.”

—Shawn Achor

Who else can vividly remember the satisfaction of the moment when you realized that your warm-up sets used to be your working sets?

And that workouts that used to wear you out aren’t even challenging anymore?

And that nobody cares what you do in the gym and how you look while you do it?

And that fat loss really only requires a calorie deficit?

And that you finally look like you lift?

And that someone asked for your help with something “because you’re strong”?

And that it’s time for a new wardrobe because none of your old clothes fit you anymore?

And that you don’t have to choose between looks and health and can just train for both?

And that investing time and effort into your health and body composition produces profits in every area of your life?

And that your lifestyle can keep you healthy and fit for the rest of your days?

104:
More Simple Health Hacks

“Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness.”

—Joseph Pilates

A few more simple health hacks:

When you’re sick or on the brink, skip your workout and take a nap instead. This alone can make the difference between a rapid recovery and prolonged illness.

Listen to classical music. Studies show that it can relax your mind and body, reduce feelings of stress, and improve cognition and sleep. For what it’s worth, my go-tos are Beethoven’s symphonies, Debussy’s piano solos, Bach’s sonatas and concertos, and for more modern work, anything by Ludovico Einaudi, Max Richter, or Jeremy Soule.

Go to bed earlier rather than later. Research shows this can reduce the risk of heart and metabolic disease, depression and other psychiatric disorders, cognitive decline, and obesity.

Stop eating after dinner. Studies show that night eating increases the risk of overeating, including binge eating and emotional eating.

Try to go to bed around the same time every night, including the weekends. Research suggests this can improve food choices and reduce hunger, cravings, and calorie intake.

105:
Tough Love and Gentle Compassion

“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”

—John Templeton

Chronic overconsumption of calories is the “cause-in-fact” of obesity, but genetic, environmental, educational, socioeconomic, and other factors prepare the ground for disordered eating. Often, resolving obesity requires addressing one or more of these “proximate causes.”

“Bullpucky!” you may be thinking. “No matter their circumstances, people choose to live the way they live. Nobody is being forced into drive-thrus. They go willingly. Nobody is being banned from exercise. They refuse willfully.”

You’re not wrong—ultimately only we can live our lives—but you’re also missing just how powerfully external circumstances can incline us toward behaviors, how quickly those behaviors can become habits, and how easily those habits can become shackles.

For example, a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that when someone gains weight, their friends, spouses, and siblings are more likely to gain weight as well. Specifically, when someone becomes obese, the likelihood of a friend doing the same rises by 57 percent, a spouse by 37 percent, and a sibling by 40 percent.

In same-sex friendships in particular, the social contagion effect (the phenomenon of people adopting behaviors and habits of those around them) is even stronger—people experienced a 71 percent increased risk of obesity if a same-sex friend became obese.

“I’ll give you that,” you may reply, “but it doesn’t change the fact that every day people are rising above and out of downright wretched conditions. It has been done, therefore it can be done.”

Quite. Julius Caesar once said that if fortune doesn’t go your way, sometimes you have to bend it to your will. But he was Julius Caesar. And even he lost the plot. So let’s temper our tough love for others with gentle compassion.

Two ways to look at life:

1. Nobody gives a shit. :(

2. NOBODY GIVES A SHIT! :D

106:
Weekend Weight Gain

“It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not.”

—James Gordon

Research shows that most people maintain a steady weight throughout the week and gain weight on the weekends.

They accomplish this by eating an extra 100-to-400 calories per day on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays (compared to weekdays) and by burning several hundred fewer calories on Sundays (the least-active day of the week).

Here are several ways to avoid this pattern:

Do fun activities (emphasis on activities) that you don’t have time for during the week, like biking, hiking, yoga, museum browsing, gardening, dancing, etc. And for bonus points, invite some friends (rather than meeting them for brunch)!

Don’t drink too much alcohol. And when you do drink, try to eat something first and choose lower-calorie drinks like wine, light beer, and hard liquor with calorie-free mixers.

Take some time to relax. Acute stress typically reduces appetite, but chronic stress does the opposite, which is why studies link the latter with weight gain and obesity. So instead of filling your weekends with more work and other obligations, block out some free time to read a book, watch a TV show, play some golf or pickleball, whatever recharges your batteries.

Skip breakfast … or eat it. Research shows that some people are less hungry throughout the day and tend to eat fewer total calories when they skip breakfast while others tend to generally feel fuller and eat less when they eat breakfast. Find which approach works best for you.

Eat moderately when eating out. To make this easier, before you go to a restaurant, you can a) eat a small, high-protein snack, b) review the menu online and decide what you’ll eat, c) personalize your meal if the stock options don’t work, d) skip the bread basket, e) share your food with others, especially dessert, and f) minimize or leave out the alcohol.

107:
The Best Antidote to Weakness

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

—Winston Churchill

It’s okay to be weak. It’s not okay to stay weak.

So if you want more self-security, get strong—the best antidote to weakness. Strong bodies breed strong minds that think strong thoughts.

Thoughts like whatever’s happening or hurting today will always seem like a much bigger deal than it will in the future. In fact, eventually, it’ll be completely forgotten.

And thoughts like rejection and shame can be a bummer, but they can also be a motivator. Sometimes, nothing quite warms the cockles like chewing up those rusty nails and spitting out molten shrapnel at naysayers and cynics.

And thoughts like choosing not to blame others or bemoan our circumstances when we fail, but to assume that we should’ve and could’ve done better—that there’s a lesson to be learned that’ll increase our chances of winning next time.

Because so often, the difference between habitual success and failure simply comes down to the attitude we adopt toward setbacks, disappointments, and black eyes. Fearing letdowns creates the conditions for more letdowns. Stewing over failures leads to more failures. But understanding and appreciating the lessons of losing transforms the adversity of stumbling blocks into the advantage of stepping stones.

Remember: if you’re growing, you’re likely failing, and if you’re not failing, you’re likely not growing.

108:
Does Protein Timing Matter?

“I believe that the greatest gift you can give your family and the world is a healthy you.”

—Joyce Meyer

For decades now, many bodybuilders have said that eating a serving of protein every few hours (four-to-six times per day) is vital for gaining and even retaining muscle. It’s not.

Research on the intermittent fasting style of dieting is an obvious counterpoint. For example, one study found that eating the entire day’s worth of protein in a four-hour window (followed by 20 hours of fasting) didn’t result in muscle loss. Other fasting studies have shown that people doing regular strength training workouts can gain plenty of muscle and strength by eating one-to-three servings of protein per day in six-to-eight-hour feeding windows.

By and large, the weight of the evidence is clear: Your muscle doesn’t wither if you miss a meal or two. Total daily protein intake is what matters most.

That said, there’s evidence that eating protein just one-to-three times per day isn’t optimal for building muscle.

For instance, in a study conducted by RMIT University researchers, four servings of 20 grams of protein per day with three hours in between each produced significantly higher muscle protein synthesis rates than two servings of 40 grams separated by six hours. Similar effects have been seen in athletes in a calorie deficit as well.

These findings aren’t surprising when you consider some of what we know about protein absorption and metabolism. Namely …

The body can process about 7 grams of protein per hour for muscle protein synthesis.

Thirty-ish grams of protein maximally stimulates muscle protein synthesis rates.

Muscle protein synthesis lasts for up to three hours.

Therefore, by eating a moderate amount of protein every few hours, you can keep protein synthesis rates elevated for most of your waking hours, and your body can use most of the amino acids provided for protein synthesis.

So, if you want to maximize muscle growth, especially if you’re an experienced weightlifter (whose body is less responsive to training and protein than it once was), pay attention to your protein timing.

109:
You Have to Chase It

“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.”

—Henry Ford

Them:

“How do I find the time to work out?”

Me:

“You look for it. Because your fitness will never chase you—you have to chase it. So if you want it, pursue it.”

110:
Said The Exercise Guru Who’s Full of Shit

“Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools because they have to say something.”

—Plato

Ten ways exercise gurus tell you they’re full of shit without telling you they’re full of shit:

“Ectomorphs, endomorphs, and mesomorphs should train very differently.”

“Cardio is great at burning muscle, not fat.”

“The deadlift is a horrible exercise for people who aren’t strength athletes.”

“Training more than two-to-three times per week will fry your nervous system.”

“You have to do a lot of core exercises to get a great core.”

“Eight-to-12 reps per set is far better for gaining muscle than four-to-six.”

“Some people just can’t grow with deadlifts, squats, bench and overhead presses, and chin-ups and pull-ups.”

“If you’re not doing high-intensity interval training, you’re not trying.”

“If you’re not training six or seven days per week, you’re also not trying.”

“Your workouts could use more supersets, drop sets, giant sets, and negatives.”

Doing an exercise right in front of the dumbbell rack is like stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to answer a text.

111:
The Worst Form of Stress

“The greatest views emerge from the toughest climbs.”

—Unknown

In the historical fiction novel The Virtues of War, Alexander the Great came upon a yogi.

“This man has conquered the world! What have you accomplished?” Alexander’s lieutenant asked the man.

“I have conquered the need to conquer the world,” he calmly replied.

That’s one philosophy. A fashionable one. Even an enchanting one. But another belief holds that the worst form of stress is an absence of stress, which breeds angst, emptiness, and despair. It also holds that comforts can distract and amuse but never inspire and improve. That the aim of life isn’t to avoid strain or worry but to stretch ourselves toward worthy ends—to have a life before death.

112:
Stop Watching Porn

“Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.”

—Kin Hubbard

A few reasons porn is for suckers and simps:

It can waste appalling amounts of time.

It can lead to behaviors that closely mirror addiction.

It serves as an artificial substitute for real human connection.

It reduces motivation to find a partner (who could improve your life in myriad ways).

It increases time preference by training your brain to seek small, short-term satisfactions rather than larger, long-term rewards.

It increases the likelihood of a romantic breakup.

It can blunt the pleasure felt during real-life sex and strengthen the desire for more extreme forms of porn.

It can produce unrealistic sexual expectations and reduce intimacy.

It can contribute to erectile dysfunction.

It can create an appetite for high-risk sexual behaviors.

And if you don’t agree with any of that, you have to at least concede that porn produces horribly misleading expectations about how quickly a plumber can get to your house.

113:
Three Reasons to Train Today

“Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.”

—John Wooden

Need a reason to train today? Just think of all the people—pols, moguls, experts, authorities, journos, and the rest—who want to see you fat, sick, weak, lazy, ignorant, depressed, and reliant on the crumbs they wipe from their plates.

Want another one? A workout is so much more than a time to strain and sweat. It’s an opportunity to forget our worries, unload our baggage, purge our frustrations, discipline our emotions, temper our mind, and transcend our limits.

One more? Sometimes, the best workouts are the ones you least want to do.

And if all that wasn’t enough to get the stumps stirring today, make a deal with yourself: You can’t skip a workout without showing up at the gym first. If you show up and still don’t want to train, you can go home.

And if you train at home, you have to do one working set of your first exercise before you can throw in the sponge.

Watch how many workouts get done this way.

114:
Leaning Into a Lean Bulk

“If you think lifting weights is dangerous, try being weak. Being weak is dangerous.”

—Bret Contreras

So, you’ve finally finished cutting, and you’re straining at the leash to start gaining some serious muscle and strength.

Can you just go straight into a slight calorie surplus, or will that lead to excessive fat gain? Should you slowly increase your calories over the course of weeks or even months (“reverse diet”) to allow your metabolism to “normalize,” or is that unnecessary? Or should you do something else altogether?

An odds-on approach for long-term success is to increase your calories to a maintenance level for at least a few weeks before increasing them into a surplus, but this isn’t for the reason most people think: to fix “metabolic damage” caused by dieting.

Fortunately, dieting doesn’t harm your metabolism. While your metabolism can sag while dieting, this is a normal and temporary response that quickly reverses once you start eating more food.

The real reason to include a transitional period of maintenance between cutting and lean bulking phases is because it will help ensure you don’t accidentally eat far more than you intend to (resulting in far more fat gain than you’d like).

After restricting your calories for some time and losing a significant amount of body fat, hunger and cravings can soar, especially if you’re very lean. And when you combine that with a sharp increase in food intake and permissiveness (“I’ll just have the whole bag—I’m bulking now.”), what begins as a tactical retreat can spiral into a crippling rout.

If you take the middle path, though, and go from cutting to maintenance for a few weeks before lean gaining, you can better tame your appetite and thus preserve your newly minted body composition, setting you up for a highly successful muscle building phase.

115:
Be Worthy

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true, the other is to refuse to accept what is true.”

—Soren Kierkegaard

If you want a fit, healthy, and strong body, be worthy of one. Practice application, moderation, and determination. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day.

Deserve what you want. Because eventually—if we live long enough—most of us will mostly get what we deserve.

At this point, I don’t want bigger muscles to look better. I just want more places to put carbs.

116:
Is 1,200 Calories Per Day Dangerous?

“Those obsessed with health are not healthy; the first requisite of good health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself.”

—Sydney J. Harris

Have you ever heard that you should never eat fewer than so many calories each day, like 1,200, 1,500 or 1,800? If you do eat less than this occulted number, legend goes, many misfortunes will befall you, including …

Metabolic damage

Extreme hunger

Malnutrition

Hormonal disruptions

Muscle loss

Mood disturbances

Menstrual irregularities

I often hear from people concerned because an evidence-based formula, or a calculator of mine, is telling them to eat what has been deemed by others as a “dangerously low” amount of food.

Fortunately, a true universal caloric minimum would probably be much lower than 1,800, 1,500, or even 1,200 because many people don’t burn as many calories as they think they do, and even when someone is indeed eating too little (as with starvation dieting), the purported consequences are often overblown.

For example, a 5’5”, 130-pound woman who exercises 1-to-3 hours per week burns about 1,700 calories per day, and if she wanted to lose about 1 pound of fat per week, she’d need to eat about 1,200 calories per day.

If we make her 5’10” and 160 pounds, though, her total daily energy expenditure rises to nearly 2,000 calories per day, and if we increase her exercise to 4-to-6 hours per week, it reaches 2,300 calories per day. Then, if we calculate her daily caloric target for 1 pound of fat loss per week, we get 1,800 calories—virtually lean bulking for her smaller and less active counterpart.

It works the same in men. A 5’7”, 160-pound guy exercising 1-to-3 hours per week burns about 2,100 calories per day, whereas a 6’3”, 200-pound man exercising 4-to-6 hours per week burns almost 3,000 per day.

So, saying that nobody should ever eat less than some arbitrary number of calories per day is like saying they should never drive slower than 55 miles per hour on the highway. What if they have engine trouble? What if there’s traffic? What if it’s raining pitchforks? Such advice is too simplistic.

Just how low should you go when cutting, though? There is a caloric threshold you shouldn’t cross, isn’t there? Yes, because if you restrict your calories too heavily, studies show you won’t wreck your metabolism, disintegrate your muscle, or otherwise derange your physiology, but negative side effects often associated with dieting like hunger, lethargy, and mood disruption can become more pronounced.

To avoid these and other related issues, when cutting, I recommend no fewer than 8-to-10 calories per pound of body weight per day regardless of activity level (and 10-to-12 per pound per day works well for most people who are doing at least a couple hours of exercise per week).

You know you have your calories right when you’re losing 0.5-to-1 percent of your body weight per week, because if you try to lose weight faster than this, you’re more likely to run into problems.

117:
If This Isn’t Nice …

“It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.”

—Arthur Schopenhauer

If we can’t find joy in small things—a stimulating conversation, an evening with the right person, a challenging workout—we’ll probably struggle to find it in “bigger” things too.

So, as Vonnegut said, when things are going sweetly and peacefully, pause a moment and say, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”

118:
The Mandatory Exercise Myth

“Self-care is not selfish. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”

—Eleanor Brown

No specific exercises are mandatory for gaining muscle and strength. All exercises have pros and cons, indications and contraindications, so if you can’t or don’t want to do one, there’s always another that’ll do the trick.

For example, the barbell deadlift is a first-rate exercise for training just about everything on the backside of your body, but if you can’t or don’t want to do it for whatever reason, you can do a deadlift variation like the trap-bar deadlift, Romanian deadlift, or rack pull, or other exercises altogether that train the same major muscle groups like the hamstring curl, hip thrust, Bulgarian split squat, hyperextension, and dumbbell row.

The same applies to the barbell back squat and bench press. Cracking good exercises … if you can do them properly without pain or other problems. If you can’t, however, many others can make the grade, including the barbell or dumbbell front squat, safety bar squat, goblet squat, leg press, dumbbell lunge, dumbbell bench press, dumbbell floor press, machine press, and feet-elevated push-up.

Here’s my point: just because you can’t or don’t do some of the most effective and efficient exercises for gaining muscle and strength doesn’t mean you can’t effectively and efficiently gain muscle and strength.

119:
Do You Believe?

“You don’t attract what you want. You attract what you are.”

—Wayne W. Dyer

Never underestimate the power of simply believing in yourself. Always look for reasons to bet on your hand, even when the odds look slim. As David Schwartz said in his book The Magic of Thinking Big:

The “Okay-I’ll-give-it-a-try-but-I-don’t-think-it-will-work” attitude produces failures. Disbelief is negative power. When the mind disbelieves or doubts, the mind attracts “reasons” to support the disbelief. Doubt, disbelief, the subconscious will to fail, the not really wanting to succeed, is responsible for most failures.

Schwartz’s observation relates to a phenomenon that scientists refer to as the nocebo effect, which is the production of negative outcomes or side effects by negative expectations, and which has been validated in numerous scientific experiments.

For example, in one study, forty participants with asthma, emphysema, or restrictive lung disease were given an inhaler that contained nebulized salt water. They were told it contained irritants or allergens, however, and after using it, nineteen of the people experienced restriction of their airways, twelve had full-blown asthma attacks, and one person who believed she might have inhaled pollen also developed hay fever.

Next, the participants were given another inhaler, also filled with nebulized salt water and told it contained medicine to relieve their symptoms, and it promptly did (thanks to the more commonly discussed placebo effect).

The moral? Don’t discount how much power your ideas of what “should” or “probably will” or “shouldn’t” or “probably won’t” happen in your life can have over what does happen. Instead, consciously work to harness this psychological mechanism by challenging and downgrading negative presumptions and generating and affirming positive and plausible alternatives.

120:
More Simple Life Hacks

“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”

—”Tyler Durden,” Fight Club

A few more simple life hacks:

Surround yourself with people who cheer you on when you deserve it. Who needs enemies when you have fair-weather and left-handed friends?

If something needs to get done and it takes less than five minutes, do it right away. Leaving these trivial tasks undone costs more energy and attention than you may realize.

Stop associating with people who are usually angry, sneaky, or afraid. So much of your emotional and psychological stress will just disappear.

Don’t make important decisions when you’re upset, depressed, fearful, etc. This is like pulling into a drive-through when you’re hungry. Instead, have some fun first because nothing supports sound thinking like joy and enthusiasm.

Snub people who are always finding ways to be offended by things that could be interpreted otherwise. They’re addicted to self-sabotage and want to scuttle your happiness, too.

Starting your day with an hour of scrolling on social media is like starting your workout with a pile of candy corn.

121:
Nobody Owes Us

“The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

—Mark Twain

Nobody owes us anything. Not their property, time, feelings, respect, thoughts, support, love, or anything else.

We must earn these gifts through service, kindness, and generosity, because ultimately, the best way to get what we want is to give others what they need.

122:
Dial 5-2 for Fat Loss

“Our bodies are our gardens; our wills are our gardeners.”

—William Shakespeare

A simple way to lose fat slowly and steadily is to eat as you normally do five days per week and then eat basically nothing but 150ish grams of protein and maybe a serving or two of fruit or vegetables two nonconsecutive days per week.

Just make sure you don’t accidentally eat more than usual in the five regular-calorie days to compensate for the two low-calorie days.

Technically, this approach is known as intermittent calorie restriction (ICR), and studies show that when the size of the weekly calorie deficit is matched, ICR can work just as well as a small daily deficit, or continuous calorie restriction (CCR), for losing weight. In some people, ICR can work even better because they find it easier to heavily restrict their food intake two days per week rather than moderately restrict it seven days per week, resulting in a larger average weekly calorie deficit (and thus fat loss).

Another variation of ICR with scientific support is a period, usually two or three weeks, of aggressive CCR (60-to-70 percent of total daily energy expenditure) followed by a period, usually the same, of maintenance calories (“diet breaks”—see chapter 89).

123:
A Training Periodization Plan

“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement.”

—Eric Hoffer

Here’s the only training periodization plan most people need: train hard when you’re feeling really good, ease up or rest when you’re exhausted or sick, and at least do enough to maintain your body composition when you’re busy or unmotivated.

So, it’s okay to train poorly today. Some days, it’s just about showing up and sweating. The excellence can come later. You have time. The sweat is good.

124:
Sick of Tracking Your Calories?

“That which you most need will be found where you least want to look.”

—Carl Jung

A few tips for weight loss and maintenance without tracking calories:

Eat a lot of lean protein (~1 gram per pound of body weight per day, or if you’re overweight, ~1 gram per centimeter in body height per day) and a lot of vegetables (four-to-six fist-sized servings per day). Find a few of these foods that you can eat every day, and you’ll find it much easier to improve and maintain your body composition.

Move every day, even if it’s just walking. This burns calories, of course, but research shows that regular exercise also reduces appetite, making it easier to effectively manage energy balance.

Switch to diet soda. The average American drinks about 40 gallons of soda per year. That’s over 57,000 calories, which is the approximate amount of energy in 16 pounds of fat—16 pounds of fat that Joe Six Pack could lose in a year by simply cutting out the sugar-sweetened soda.

Eat more nutritious carbs. Dietary fat isn’t very filling by itself, but when you add it to a meal containing protein and carbs, satiety increases. So if you’re eating a low-carb diet and are struggling with hunger and cravings, try swapping some fat for carbs and see if it helps. And by the same token, if you’re eating a low-fat diet and it’s tough sledding, you may benefit from more dietary fat in your meals.

Limit your use of added fats (oil, butter, etc.) and added sugar. Gastronomes gasp at this one, but unfortunately, the ingredients that add the most flavor to meals also add the most calories.

125:
Yes, You Can

“You should be humble enough to understand that if you can’t order your own life, you shouldn’t be trying to order anything more complicated than that.”

—Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

A simple prescription for flourishing:

Eat for health. “Life’s too short to care about calories and say no to pizza and beer,” said the person whose life will probably be short.

Exercise for energy. “I really didn’t want to work out today for no good reason at all and now really wished I hadn’t worked out,” said nobody ever.

Sleep for survival. “I want to see what I’m truly capable of,” said someone who started getting seven-to-eight hours of good sleep every night.

And remember: You can snarf a whole pint of ice cream and still be someone who eats well. You can do zero workouts while on vacation and still be someone who takes their training seriously. You can doggedly defend your “me time” and still be someone who fulfills their obligations. It’s not all or nothing.

Want bigger biceps? Do curls. Want bigger balls? Do squats and deadlifts.

126:
Should You Finish With “Finishers”?

“Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”

—Michael Jordan

Many weightlifting programs include what are often called “finisher sets”—final sets of a muscle group or workout that call for 20, 25, or even 30+ reps per set, often taken to muscular failure.

I generally don’t include finisher sets in my workouts for several reasons:

There’s no evidence that very high-rep sets are superior for muscle building than other rep ranges.

Very high-rep sets are less effective for getting stronger than heavier loads, and gaining strength is the best way to keep gaining muscle.

Finisher sets can add a lot of time to your workouts (a bunch of sets of 20-to-30 reps takes longer than sets of 2-to-12 reps).

They’re impractical with many important exercises like the squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, etc.

They heavily engage the cardiovascular system, which can make it hard to know whether you’re close to muscular failure or just running out of breath.

They’re extremely uncomfortable, which often results in sub-par effort (ending sets too soon) and reduced compliance (skipping sets or exercises).

You can also probably squeeze all of the anabolic juice out of the lighter-load fruit with 10-to-12 reps per set.

BUT …

If finisher sets baste your turkey, don’t let me stop you—pump away, partner. A couple of tips, though:

Do finisher sets later in your workouts, after your heavier training.

Do finisher sets with isolation exercises, not compound ones.

Limit finisher sets to no more than 20-to-30 percent of your total sets for a muscle group (if you’re doing 15 sets per week for your chest, for instance, don’t do more than 3-to-5 finisher sets).

127:
So You’re Happy With Your Body

“We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”

—Ronald Reagan

If you’re happy with your body, that’s fantastic, but don’t pick at people who are working to change theirs. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight, track food, or exercise every day.

And if you just can’t help it because you’re the type of person who preens themselves on their social media snark, whenever the urge to degrade another wells up inside you, do a set of push-ups or air squats instead. Right there, in your mom’s basement. Everyone wins.

128:
Said The Health Guru Who’s Full of Shit

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”

—André Malraux

Ten ways health gurus tell you they’re full of shit without telling you they’re full of shit:

“Saturated fat is the ultimate superfood.”

“You’re just one parasite cleanse away from your ideal weight.”

“The sun is a healing life force that can only give you vitamin D, not skin cancer.”

“There’s no good evidence for the relationship between LDL levels and cardiovascular disease.”

“Tanning your stinkstar will change your life.”

“You probably need to detox your liver.”

“Do you even sungaze, bro?”

“Why would you eat plants when they’re literally trying to kill you?”

“Don’t plan or track your diet or training—just listen to your body.”

“If you eat the right foods, you don’t need to brush your teeth and floss.”

129:
The Paradox of Self-Confidence

“The only true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.”

—Naval Ravikant

Them:

“Believe in yourself!”

Me:

“Believe in myself? The same person who got me into this mess?”

The paradox of self-confidence. Confidence is important, but if it’s not based on a realistic appraisal of who we are and what we can do, it’s counterproductive wishcasting at best and smug delusion at worst. There’s a big difference between growing and swelling.

The root of this problem isn’t with us, however, but the phrase and frame of “self-belief,” which implies feeling, opinion, and uncertainty. We don’t “believe” we had oatmeal for breakfast or got an A on a test—we know we did.

And how can we move from self-belief to self-knowledge?

We can’t merely think the right thoughts or say the right words. We must gather evidence by continually working at hard things we’re no good at until we are. And that takes courage—looking in the mirror, deciding what we really should be doing, and then doing it.

130:
The Best Exercises and Foods For Losing Fat

“The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of trick learned while mastering the art of living.”

—Viktor Frankl

The ten best exercises for beating belly fat:

Fork put-down

Portion step-down

Spoon toss

Dessert decline

Plate push-away

Soda skip

Mouth clamshell

Hunger hold

Pizza pass-over

Buffet bypass

Master these techniques, and you can master your body composition. Especially when you eat more of the eleven best foods for rapid fat loss:

Eat

What

You

Like

But

Control

Your

Calories

And

Be

Patient

Just a serving of each every day will blast away that stubborn fat by the handful.

Me:

“The only way to lose weight is a calorie deficit.”

Them:

“So you’re saying 2,000 calories of double-bacon-wrapped-deep-fried cheesecake rolls affects the body in exactly the same way as 2,000 calories of raw kale? YIKES.”

Me:

“You’re an imbecile.”

131:
Take Your Time

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

—Leonardo Da Vinci

Many more people fail in fitness from a lack of patience rather than a lack of effort. Because it takes years, not months, to get really strong, and it took more than 30 days to gain those 30 pounds of fat, so it’s also going to take more than 30 days to get rid of them.

That’s a bit of a ball-breaker, but there’s also this: If you expect the process to be hard and keep showing up anyway, it’ll probably feel easy. Expect it to be easy, though, and it’ll probably feel hard. “The mind drives the mass,” as Virgil said.

132:
How Fast Can You Lose Fat and Not Muscle?

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There’s a limit to how much fat your body can burn every day before it starts breaking down muscle tissue for energy, and as the goal is always to lose fat and not muscle, it’s wise to operate within that boundary.

Specifically, research suggests that in most people, the maximum amount of energy that can be obtained from body fat is around 30 calories per pound of body fat per day. As energy demands exceed this threshold, muscle loss is more likely to occur.

Let’s use this formula to estimate how quickly we can lose fat before we start losing muscle. Here’s how:

Determine your approximate body fat percentage.

Multiply your body weight (in pounds) by your body fat percentage to determine your approximate total fat mass.

Multiply your total fat mass by 30 to determine your maximum daily calorie deficit.

For example, I’m 200 pounds and around 10 percent body fat, therefore, to get leaner, I’d want to eat no less than about 600 fewer calories than I burn every day (~20 pounds of body fat x 30), which would produce just over a pound or so of fat loss per week.

But if I were, say, 20 percent body fat, I could theoretically double the size of my calorie deficit (and rate of fat loss) without sacrificing muscle (at least until I had lost a significant amount of fat, which would necessitate a lower ceiling for my calorie deficit).

133:
The Rules Don’t Rule You

“What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.”

—Madeleine Albright

You can randomly change up your workouts just because it’s more fun. You can go for walks instead of runs just because it’s nicer. You can skip squats and deadlifts just because you prefer other exercises.

You can stick with a restrictive form of “clean eating” over flexible dieting just because it requires less thought. You can follow a mediocre meal plan rather than a great one just because it works better for you. You can even eat like an asshole now and then just because you enjoy it.

Learn the “rules,” but don’t be afraid to break them when it feels right. They won’t mind. They’ll take you back when you need them again.

134:
The Power of Double Progression

“Either don’t attempt it, or carry it through to the end.”

—Ovid

Double progression is one of the simplest and most effective methods of regulating the intensity of your strength training workouts and achieving progressive overload. In fact, if you’re like most people, it’s the only method you’ll need to get the body you want.

With it, you work in a certain rep range (6-to-8, for example), and once you hit the top of that rep range for a certain number of sets (one, two, or three, usually), you increase the weight (normally by 5 or 10 pounds).

Then, if you can at least hit the bottom of your rep range with the new, heavier weight, you work with it until you reach the progression rep and set targets again, increase the weight again, and so forth.

In other words, you strive to first increase reps and then “cash in” that progress to increase weight. Hence, “double progression.”

For example, let’s say you’re following my Bigger Leaner Stronger program for men and are bench pressing in the 4-to-6-rep range for three sets. On your first set, you get 6 reps with 135 pounds, and as the program calls for one “top-rep set” to progress, it’s time to increase the weight.

You add 10 pounds to the bar (145 pounds), rest a few minutes, and get 4 reps on your next two sets of the exercise in that workout. Because you’re still within your target rep range (4-to-6 reps) with 145 pounds, you’d keep working with it until you get 6 reps for one set, and then you’d increase the weight to 155 pounds.

(And if you couldn’t get at least 4 reps with the new, heavier weight, you’d remove 5 pounds from the bar and work with that weight until you get 6 reps for one set, and then increase the weight back to 145 pounds.)

Here’s how this could look over the course of four weeks:

You could then continue in the same way with this and every other exercise you do until you’ve gained most if not all of your genetic potential for muscle and strength—no other progression tools or techniques are usually needed (and I explain when they are and why in my book for advanced weightlifters, Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger).

135:
The Case Against Ambition

“Happiness does not come from a job. It comes from knowing what you truly value and behaving in a way that’s consistent with those beliefs.”

—Mike Rowe

Many people think achieving goals mostly brings pleasure and not achieving goals mostly brings pain. Not quite. There can be plenty of pain involved in achieving goals and plenty of pleasure in not achieving goals.

Think about it. The cost of ambition is a snootful of stress, setback, and sorrow, and the payoff is fleeting. For a moment, we’re victorious. And then, we were victorious. Contentment has costs, too, but isn’t there happiness to be found in the desires we reject? And success in the failures we avoid? And peace of mind in the struggles we sidestep?

Before trying to achieve a difficult goal, then, make sure you’ve considered the many pleasant things you could do with your time instead. And don’t begin until you can firmly say, “I could do those many other things, but I choose to give them up and do this.”

Do I want to squat today? No. Is that a reason not to squat today? No.

136:
Believed vs. Checked Facts

“Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that, I learn from him.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Consider for a moment how many things you know because of secondhand instruction rather than firsthand verification. The truth is, many or even most of our assumptions about, well, just about everything, are believed facts, not checked ones. How do you know that the Earth is round, that water freezes at 32 degrees fahrenheit, and that the sky is blue because of light scattering?

There’s nothing wrong with this, of course—we only have time to check so many facts. “The art of life,” Justice Holmes once said, “consists in making correct decisions on insufficient evidence.”

However, serious problems arise when we can’t distinguish between believed and checked facts. When too many believed facts are misfiled as checked ones, when we refuse to revise them no matter what we see or experience, and worse, when we filter our experiences to preserve our cognitive status quo through mechanisms like confirmation bias, disconfirmation bias, the backfire effect, and others, we can lose our ability to successfully navigate reality.

Take climate change, for example. Many alarmists and skeptics alike cite “things they’ve heard” from experts (or worse, from non-experts) but haven’t personally reviewed any of the research or data or studied any of the counterarguments to their conclusions, much less the most compelling ones. Believed facts, not checked ones.

There are various reasons we’re all prone to this thinking trap, but the desire to avoid uncertainty is likely a big one. “Yes” and “no” provide security and comfort whereas “maybe” and “probably” are slippery and treacherous. But they’re also a more accurate reflection of reality.

This cast of mind can be uncomfortable because it often entails accepting that we don’t know nearly as much as we’d like to think. But it also invites opportunity. There’s a word for the process of rethinking assumptions and reworking opinions: learning.

137:
Your Weight Isn’t Your Worth

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

—Anonymous

Weighing yourself isn’t unhealthy, but remember you’re merely measuring your body, not your being. Your worth isn’t determined by your weight.

And so I’ll never get sick of seeing people caring less about how much they weigh and more about how strong they are, how confident they feel, and how much they enjoy their training.

They come for the frosting but stay for the cake.

138:
Will Fasted Cardio Help You Lose Fat Faster?

“A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.”

—Charles Issawi

In the 90s, bodybuilder and author Bill Phillips recommended exercising before breakfast as a way to burn fat more efficiently. He claimed that working out on an empty stomach forces your body to burn its fat stores for energy instead of food.

Since then, the language has changed—now this is referred to as “fasted cardio”—but the technique has been touted by many as a simple way to turbocharge your fat loss. Is this true? Not quite. As it turns out, fasted cardio can enhance fat burning, but not fat loss. And how does that work?

Fasted cardio is any endurance exercise done while in a “fasted” state, which is a physiological condition where your body has finished processing the food you last ate and the amount of the hormone insulin in your blood is at a low, baseline level.

How long it takes for insulin levels to bottom out depends on the size and composition of your last meal. Larger meals that include a mix of protein, carbs, fat, and fiber digest slowly—normally over the course of five or more hours—and keep insulin levels elevated for quite some time. Smaller, simpler meals, however, like a piece of fruit or scoop of whey protein, digest quickly and only elevate insulin levels for a couple of hours.

Exercising when insulin levels are low impacts fat burning because insulin does more than just shuttle nutrients into cells—it also impairs the breakdown of fatty acids. That is, the more insulin you have in your blood, the less body fat you’ll break down for energy.

Thus, when we eat food, our body shuts down its body-fat-burning mechanisms and uses the energy provided by the meal instead. This makes sense physiologically. Why would our body burn its precious fat stores when there’s a surplus of energy readily available via the food we just ate?

However, as our body processes and absorbs the food we ate and insulin levels decline, we must start burning body fat for energy until we eat again. Because of this, a workout done while in a fasted state does burn more fat than one done in a “fed” state, but here’s the kicker: studies show that our body compensates for this effect by burning less fat throughout the rest of the day (resulting in about the same amount of total fat burned over a 24-hour period).

Put differently, just because you’re burning a lot of fat in your workouts (as fuel) doesn’t mean you’re consistently losing body fat (getting leaner).

So, if you enjoy exercising on an empty stomach before breakfast, there’s no reason not to continue doing so. Just remember to eat some protein within an hour or so of finishing your workouts to prevent the spike in muscle breakdown rates that’ll occur. But if you’d rather work out later, after eating food, there’s no reason not to do it that way, either.

139:
Progress Isn’t One-Dimensional

“Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.”

—Mark Twain

“I’m not making any progress!”

Are you sure? You may not feel or look any fitter than you were a few months ago, but has your form improved on key exercises? Do your joints feel better? Are you having more fun in your workouts?

Those are wins too. Progress isn’t one-dimensional.

Sometimes, progress is dragging your draggy body into the gym when you’d rather tie Hunter Biden’s shoes in a dark alley. And other times, progress is dragging your droopy body to the couch to rest when you’re hornier for a workout than a triple-peckered billy goat.

Sometimes, progress is saying no to something you’d normally say yes to, like the office donuts or pizza, the extra serving of chips or ice cream, or the second soda or glass of wine. Other times, it’s saying yes without feeling guilty or upset.

And sometimes, progress is even quitting a diet or workout program that isn’t working for you so you can try something else. Stick with what you can, but sometimes, it makes more sense to start over, even if you eventually find your way back to where you began. This isn’t said enough.

140:
Are Seed and Vegetable Oils Unhealthy?

“Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh

Over the past century, refined oils from vegetables, nuts, and seeds like soy, canola, and peanuts have become a larger and larger part of the Western diet. During the same period, we’ve also seen an explosion in diseases like cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

Is there a connection here? Yes, but it’s not what many “ancestral eaters” would have you believe. Namely, the bulk of the scientific evidence shows that in most cases, refined oils aren’t unhealthy per se, but a diet rich in them can lead to health problems.

For example, refined oils are replete with omega-6 fatty acids, and this is sometimes fingered as the primary source of the problems. For most of history, humans consumed roughly equal amounts of omega-6 fatty acids and another type known as an omega-3 fatty acid. Since the advent of refined oils, however, that ratio is now as high as 20:1 in favor of omega-6, and some experts believe this imbalance plays havoc with our health.

The current weight of the scientific evidence doesn’t support this theory, though, with several systematic reviews finding no link between the ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 consumption and increased systemic inflammation (a powerful driver of disease).

That said, although the omega-6 fatty acids provided by a diet brimming with refined oils appear to be benign, the foods themselves aren’t when overeaten—crackers, cookies, chips, baked goods, granola bars, fried foods, salad dressing, mayonnaise, and others.

Therefore, in almost all cases, a “high refined oil diet” is actually just a “junk food diet”—also known as the Standard American Diet (a fitting acronym if ever there was one)—that starves the body of nutrition and promotes weight gain.

On the other hand, a “low refined oil diet” is actually just a “healthy diet” composed mostly of relatively unprocessed and nutritious foods that nourish the body and support weight maintenance.

Ultimately, then, so long as you eat a balanced and wholesome diet, you don’t need to go out of your way to avoid seed and vegetable oils.

One notable exception, however, are partially hydrogenated oils (also referred to as mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids), which you should generally forgo. These are oils that have been processed to stay solid at room temperature and that contain a form of fat known as trans fat that can increase the risk of multiple chronic diseases, including heart disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes.

Thankfully, however, partially hydrogenated oils are usually found in foods that are easy to skip (or keep to a minimum), including:

Commercial baked goods, such as cakes, cookies, and pies

Shortening

Microwave popcorn

Frozen pizza

Refrigerated dough, such as biscuits and rolls

Fried foods, including french fries, doughnuts, and fried chicken

Nondairy coffee creamer

Stick margarine

Cutting out coffee is a great way to slash your caffeine intake—and your will to live.

141:
Compassion > Shame

“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”

—Martin Luther King Jr.

Shame is a spur that can get you off the mark, but it can’t take you across the line. You can’t flog yourself into fitness anymore than you can drain a pool with a soda straw. Self-compassion is the key.

So you’re dreading today’s workout. This is nothing special. Everyone gets a case of the jim-jams now and then: parents, trainers, students, influencers, athletes, CEOs, you name it. Train anyway. Solve it by dissolving it.

So you haven’t lost as much fat or gained as much muscle as you’d hoped for. It’s rare that a diet phase or training block will match the purity of the process that you envision when you begin. But an imperfectly executed program is always better than one that was never done at all.

So it’s 7 p.m. and you want to change everything about yourself. Welcome to the party. We’re all mad here. But remember: Sometimes, you aren’t the problem. Sometimes, the problem is the problem.

142:
The Three-to-Five Formula for Strength

“If you are going to doubt something, doubt your limits.”

—Don Ward

If you want to get really strong, the “3-to-5” approach works well:

3-to-5 reps per set (with 80-to-90 percent of one-rep max)

3-to-5 sets per exercise

3-to-5 minutes of rest in between sets

3-to-5 exercises per workout

3-to-5 workouts per week

A few more brain droppings for would-be strongmen and women:

Before and after every set, tell yourself that it will be and was light and easy. Think strong, lift strong.

If you’re not a competitive strength athlete, don’t squat or deadlift to failure. The risks far outweigh the rewards.

For an easy strength boost in any exercise, grip the barbell, dumbbell, or machine handles as hard as you can, clench your jaw muscles, and push your tongue into the roof of your mouth.

Having a spotter on the bench press can increase the number of reps you can perform and make you feel more confident in your ability to successfully complete each set.

Don’t bother about how many calories you burn in a strength training workout. Energy expenditure has no connection to the effectiveness of the training, and in some ways, optimal programming burns fewer calories, not more (longer between-set rest periods, for example).

143:
Winning = Priorities Priority

“Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb.”

—Austin Kleon

Your daily actions mostly determine the trajectory of your life. Just 45 minutes of daily exercise can banish disease. Just 30 minutes of daily reading can turn you into an expert. Just a few hours of daily deep work can create a legacy.

Success, then, isn’t the result of a single choice—it’s the result of a long and winding chain of choices that can only be forged, link by link, through routine.

This means that establishing a routine is far more important than having a lot of time, because with the right structure, small stretches of time can produce outsized achievements, but without discipline, vast expanses generate nothing but aimless mishmash.

And the root of a winning routine isn’t priorities but priority. Singular. One thing that, if done every day, will add up to make everything else easier or even unnecessary. Because too often “priorities” turn into exhaustive lists that scatter rather than gather our efforts.

What’s more, the essential actions of successful routines are usually what others plan to do later or never—the hard things, the uncomfortable things, the complicated things, the unexciting things, and the exhausting things.

It’s the difference between waking up every day and asking “what should I do?” instead of “what shall I do?” It’s the difference between trying to do the right things rather than trying to just do things right. You don’t have to like doing these things, either—most successful people don’t. You just have to muster the willpower and energy to do them anyway.

144:
How Much Change Is Enough?

“You know you’ve achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away.”

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

If you’re primarily trying to gain muscle or strength and you’re making major changes to your workouts every couple of weeks (different exercises, splits, rest times, etc.), you’re doing it wrong.

A little of the right variability is productive, but more than that is obstructive. It often takes a couple of weeks to groove in your form on a new exercise, and during this time, your ability to skillfully handle heavy loads and maximally stimulate your muscles is limited.

It’s also true, however, that doing the exact same workouts (same exercises, weights, reps, etc.) for long periods of time will lead to a slump, because it neglects the primary mechanical method of muscle building mentioned in several other chapters: progressive overload.

This term refers to increasing the amount of tension your muscles produce over time, and while there are several ways to accomplish this, the most effective one is to progressively increase the amount of resistance your muscles have to work against. In other words, in the long run, the best way to keep gaining muscle is to keep gaining strength.

That said, it’s wise to occasionally change up your exercises to keep your training interesting, avoid overuse injuries, and train your muscles in different ways. Here’s how to do it:

With compound exercises, stick with the same movements for at least 6-to-8 weeks before making a change, and ideally, 12-to-16 weeks. These exercises are the most difficult to settle into and progress on, so they should be changed infrequently.

With isolation exercises, stick with the same movements for at least 4-to-6 weeks before making a change, and ideally, 8-to-12 weeks. These exercises are easier to acclimate to, but they also tend to plateau faster than compound exercises, making more frequent substitutions productive.

Some people think a regimented routine like this sounds less enjoyable than a more variable one, but that’s only until they see how effective it is. By not making too many changes, you can get attuned to your workouts, hone your technique, and assess your progress, and that’s a recipe for remarkable results (which is a lot more fun than mere variation for its own sake).

145:
Is It This or That?

“Avoidance is the best short-term strategy to escape conflict, but the best long-term strategy to ensure suffering.”

—Brendon Burchard

Is your metabolism too slow, or do you just eat and drink too much, particularly on the weekends?

Did you get fooled into following a fad diet, or did you just want to believe foolish ideas?

Is your knee refusing to knee or are you just unwilling to stop doing things that continually aggravate it?

Do you hate counting calories, or do you just hate that every frakkin calorie that goes into your mouth “counts”?

Are you unable to lose weight, or are you just unable to accept that you can’t simply “do some cardio” to get leaner?

Sometimes, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble by accepting that there just isn’t an easier way to get what we want. Sometimes, we just have to struggle. Sometimes, it just takes what it takes.

An hour of strength training is better than a week of whatever you’re doing right now. Unless you’re doing strength training.

146:
What Really Makes People Fat?

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

—Marcel Proust

Quacks be like:

“Grains make you fat. Fruit makes you fat. Eating too little makes you fat. Vegetables make you fat. Sugar makes you fat.”

So to get lean:

No grains, fruit, vegetables, or sugar, and lots of butter, red meat, and calories. Seems legit.

Look, eating GMO food doesn’t make people fat. Eating too much OMG food makes people fat.

Eating fructose doesn’t make people fat. Eating too much fructose (and thus calories) makes people fat.

Stress doesn’t make people fat. Eating too much food when stressed makes people fat.

Bad gut bacteria don’t make people fat. Feeding gut bacteria too much food makes people fat.

Eating from large plates and bowls doesn’t make people fat. Eating too much from large plates and bowls makes people fat.

Hormones don’t make people fat. Eating too much food when hormones are pumping up appetite makes people fat.

Eating at the wrong times of the day doesn’t make people fat. Spending too much time in the day eating makes people fat.

Genetics don’t make people fat. Eating too much food with genes that encourage overeating makes people fat.

Slow metabolisms don’t make people fat. Eating more food than their metabolism burns makes people fat.

Drinking alcohol doesn’t make people fat. Drinking and eating too many calories makes people fat.

And if you disagree with this chapter because you believe people aren’t responsible for how much food they put in their mouths due to their DNA, upbringing, socioeconomic circumstances, etc., you necessarily must also believe they’re not responsible for anything else they do—an untenable position, to put it delicately.

147:
You’re Allowed to Enjoy Your Fitness

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

The best evidence-based fitness practitioners care more about your ability to follow and enjoy a diet and exercise program that works than your ability to follow one of their favorite schemes for eating and training.

So don’t cut yourself up because you don’t want to measure your food or agonize over your macros. The amount of energy and joy you have to sacrifice to go from 80 percent dietary compliance to 100 percent isn’t worth it. “Good enough most of the time” is good enough for most of us.

And don’t force yourself to do specific types of exercise that you don’t like for the sake of weight loss. That’s what a calorie deficit is for. Do the types of exercise that you enjoy. Allowing yourself to have some fun with your fitness makes the whole process so much easier.

And don’t let anyone make you feel ashamed of your commitment to your health and fitness. It isn’t just something you do—it’s part and parcel of who you are. You’re allowed to train with your back to the world.

148:
The Ancestral Eater

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn.”

—Benjamin Franklin

Is eating like our ancient ancestors the key to unlocking maximum health, happiness, and vitality?

On the credit side of the ledger, the “ancestral eating” movement encourages eating a lot of nutritious foods like meat, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, and it discourages the consumption of highly processed fare and harmful and potentially harmful chemicals.

A hop on the good foot. But then there’s the bad thing.

All formulas of “evolutionary eating” involve purportedly-principled-but-actually-arbitrary restrictions that make your diet more cumbersome and less enjoyable (“only eat fruits and vegetables that are in season,” “don’t eat grains, legumes, or dairy,” “never eat vegetable oil,” etc.).

In other words, while the lists of what you’re supposed to eat are mostly reasonable, there’s little scientific evidence to support the exclusion of what you’re not supposed to eat.

For example, dairy products are a good source of calcium, protein, vitamin D, potassium, magnesium, zinc, and several other vitamins, and research shows that dairy can improve bone health, muscle mass, strength, and weight management. Whole grains have been shown to reduce inflammation in the body and decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer, and even reduce mortality. Non-soy legumes decrease total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels and are a good source of protein, carbohydrate, and fiber. Vegetable oil isn’t unhealthy per se (the details matter—see chapter 139).

Moreover, all of the popular “caveman diets’’ don’t even represent what early humans actually ate (and even if they did, that alone isn’t a sound rationale for adopting them). Specifically, ancestral advocates often claim that our primitive predecessors were primarily hunter-gatherers, with an emphasis on hunting, but a plethora of research says otherwise.

For instance …

A study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology reported that the diet of our early human ancestors, dating from about 2 million years ago, consisted almost exclusively of leaves, fruit, wood, and bark—similar to chimpanzees today.

A study conducted by the University of Calgary found that the diet of ancient Africans (going back as far as 105,000 years) may have been based on the cereal grass sorghum.

Research conducted by the Center for Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology shows that the European Neanderthals ate starchy grains, nearly 44,000 years ago.

Scientists from the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Early History also found that grains were regularly eaten by our Paleolithic ancestors. Their findings suggest that processing vegetables and starches, and possibly even grinding them into flour, goes back as far as 30,000 years in Europe.

Researchers at Oxford University identified tuber in the enamel of a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus tooth, suggesting that even pre-humans may have eaten potato-like vegetables.

For more insight, we can also look to present-day hunter-gatherer tribes whose customs and lifestyles have remained unchanged for centuries.

The most extensively studied tribe is the Hadza tribe from central Tanzania. Since they reside in the tropical forest, their diet mainly consists of tubers, berries, meat, baobab (a type of fruit), and honey (with this being the most important).

The Maasai tribe is another relevant example, and studies show that their diet is still based around milk and blood from cows and soups derived from herbs and also contains berries and other wild fruits and honey.

Yet another hole in the “prehistoric preeminence paradigm” is that early humans probably weren’t as healthy as many people think.

In research conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology, scientists studying ancient human genomes found that hereditary disease risks were similar for ancient and modern-day humans. There was also evidence that ancient pastoralists (farmers whose diet mainly comprised vegetables and dairy) may have had healthier genomes than hunter-gatherers and that genomes from the recent past are likely healthier than genomes from the distant past.

For instance, the overall genomic health of the Altai Neanderthal (an early human from a region of Siberia) is worse than 97 percent of present-day humans, and Ötzi, the “Tyrolean Iceman,” had a genetic predisposition for gastrointestinal and cardiovascular disease.

To summarize, then, atavistic eating gets a lot right for the wrong reasons (pseudoscience and pseudohistory) and a lot wrong for the wrong reasons (greed and self-aggrandizement).

149:
The Workouts That Matter the Most

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”

—Babe Ruth

So many things can start to change the moment you decide to become the type of person who keeps the promises you make to yourself. Like going to the gym when you’d rather go to dinner with Jeffrey Dahmer.

In this way, the workouts you do when you really don’t want to do them are the ones that matter the most. If you can do one of those workouts, you can do another. And if you can do another, you can do more. And if you can do more, one day, you’re going to look back and think, “Wow, all of those little improvements really did add up.”

150:
When You Can’t Get Into the Gym

“A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.”

—Oscar Wilde

Can’t get into the gym for a bit? Fortunately, it’s far easier to maintain your health and fitness than you may think—just a few hours of huffing and hoofing per week is enough.

Here are some PRs you can work toward basically anywhere that’ll hold you over until you can get back to the iron:

Daily steps. Can you average at least 8,000-to-10,000 steps per day? Refer back to chapter 38 for why this can help more than you may think.

Push-ups and pull-ups. Strapping males can do at least 30-to-40 push-ups and 15-to-20 pull-ups per set, and female strong’uns can do about half those amounts. Remember, too, that you can begin with a regression (an easier variation of an exercise) like the negative pull-up or knee push-up if needed.

Sprints. Can you reach the “10 X 1” standard? Here’s how it works: ten 1-minute sprints at 90 percent of max effort followed by 1 minute of active recovery for a total of 20 minutes of exercise. Too easy for you? Your next challenge: The “4 X 4” standard: four 4-minute sprints at 90 percent of max effort followed by 3 minutes of active recovery for a total of 28 minutes of exercise. Also, bike, row, or swim for no impact or run up a grassy hill for lower impact.

Handstand push-ups. You’re strong if you can do at least 10 (men)/5 (women) reps per set; likely the strongest person in your social circle if you can do 20-to-30/10-to-15 reps; and likely the strongest person in your gym if you can do 40/20+ reps. Start with a regression like the incline pike push-up, pike push-up, or decline pike push-up, if necessary.

Pistol squats. One set of 10 (men)/5 (women) reps (each leg) is respectable, 11-to-20/6-to-10 reps is strong, and 30+/15+ is tops. If you can’t do at least one rep, use a regression like the Bulgarian split squat, shrimp squat, or assisted pistol squat to get there.

Mile time. Beginners can run a mile in about 10 minutes and well-trained runners in about 6-to-7 minutes. How do you measure up? Want a simple program for improving? Go to www.mikematthews.fitness/running.

Rope jumps. The first milestone is one set of 100 basic jumps, and then, as you increase the duration of your sessions (to further improve your fitness), you can also learn to incorporate other techniques like the boxer skip, crossover, and double under.

Plank time. Average college-aged athletes can hold a plank for about two minutes. Can you do better?

Flexibility. Can you achieve excellent results on the sit-and-reach and Apley scratch tests? Can you get to a front or side split (or both)?

Rucking. When walking is pleasant but not challenging, throw something heavy in a backpack, and wear it when you go for walks. Start with just 5 percent of your body weight and work your way up to 20 percent. If you can ruck with 20 percent for at least an hour, you’re in fine fettle.

If you’re worried about what people think about you, you probably need to work on your deadlift.

151:
A Warm Welcome

“Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have.”

—Jim Rohn

When beginners show up in your gym, try to make them feel welcome. You had to start somewhere, too—remember the uncertainty, insecurity, and worry?—and by giving even a little encouragement, you can be the reason someone doesn’t quit.

152:
Can You Really Do Your Own Research?

“The first thing which gods bestow on one they would annihilate is pride.”

—Theognis

There’s a popular meme in the evidence-based fitness and medicine spaces that goes like this:

If you’re “searching for things on the Internet” or “watching YouTube videos” or “reading articles,” you’re not “doing your own research” but merely “consuming content”—an activity that’s about as enlightening as fondling yourself while arguing with Chinese bots on TikTok.

This sentiment plays well with the peanut gallery because, as Aldous Huxley noted, the opportunity to maltreat others with good conscience, to misbehave as a form of “righteous indignation,” is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats. So there’s much hooting and honking about the benighted searchers of things on the Internet, watchers of YouTube videos, and readers of articles.

This begs a question, then: what is “research”? Dumb dumb dummies will say something like “research is skillfully reviewing every study you can find on the matter and then determining the balance of the evidence blah blah blah.”

Basically, unless you’re a trained scientist with more time on your hands than an unvaxxed Aussie in a Covid camp (remember that?), you’re simply incapable of doing research and coming to good conclusions—only “consuming content” and continuing to be clueless. Sorry, sweetie.

In reality, reviewing scientific studies is one method of research, and ironically, if we take this offending line of thinking to its logical extreme, scientists reading scientific research they didn’t conduct themselves is dubious, because what if flaws in design, execution, or analysis produced false findings? What if data was dredged or altered? What if null findings on the topic were never published? Many times, there’s no way to know whether someone else’s research is genuine and accurate, so scrupulous study of scientific research can lead even the most endowed experts astray.

Now, you could say that despite its shortcomings, skilled scientific scrutiny is more likely to produce better outcomes than other haphazard methods of research, but then you’d only be making my next point for me, which begins with a proper definition of “research.”

The Oxford Dictionary says it’s “the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.” Webster’s says it’s “studious inquiry or examination” (with “studious” meaning “marked by or suggesting purposefulness or diligence”) and even “the collecting of information about a particular subject.”

Right away, we’ve learned that ferreting around on the Internet to find things to watch, read, and listen to is in fact “doing research.” The crux is how you go about watching, reading, and listening, however. Are you doing good research?

That requires more than just scientific literacy (which anyone can learn—start with my book Fitness Science Explained). You also have to understand the grammar of logic and rhetoric. You have to seek and consider the strongest counterpoints to your preferred theories and beliefs. It helps to be conversant in assorted mental models, philosophical razors, and cognitive forcing strategies.

There are many ways, then, for science-minded folk and laypeople alike to do horrendously bad research—selection, confirmation, disconfirmation, conformity, and availability biases as well as selective skepticism, faulty generalizations, the list yammers on. To suggest, however, that only formally educated specialists are capable of “doing good research” is like suggesting that only porn stars are capable of a good tumble.

So, if we were to recast this meme to make it more truthful, it would declare that many people aren’t good at doing research and could benefit from some metacognitive refinement, but where’s the fun in that? No righteous indignation. No psychological luxury. No moral treat.

153:
A Pretty Good Day

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

—Bob Dylan

A pretty good day in ten steps:

Get out of bed by 7 a.m.

Drink some water, go outside and see some sun, and eat some protein by 9 a.m.

Get at least an important task or two done by 10 a.m.

Eat a big salad by 1 p.m.

Get at least another important task or two done by 3 p.m.

Do a strength training workout by 5 p.m. (or not if it’s a rest day)

Eat dinner with someone you like by 7 p.m.

Walk at least 8,000 steps by 8 p.m.

Do something fun by 10 p.m.

Do something relaxing, and go to bed by 11 p.m.

154:
The Lean Vacation

“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time.”

—Isaac Asimov

The easiest way to stay lean while enjoying your vacation:

Eat freely to the point of satisfaction once or twice per day, and otherwise, alternate between protein shakes, extra-filling fruit like apples and oranges, and low-calorie and high-protein snacks like Greek yogurt or skyr, low-fat cottage cheese, turkey jerky, etc. And don’t interpret this as merely another form of “dieting.” Vacation is for fun, not fat loss, so let yourself enjoy it.

Include regular physical activity in your itinerary. Formal workouts are fine, but so are leisurely walks, hikes, bike rides, etc.

155:
Skip the Social Sizzle

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”

—Jim Rohn

Honest fitness influencers be like:

“Here’s my simple-but-effective workout that just about anyone can win with.”

If dishonest fitness influencers told the truth:

“Here’s some razzle-dazzle that gets likes, and after I’m done recording, I’ll do the simple-but-effective stuff that just about anyone can win with.”

The moral? Social media algorithms select for whatever is splashy, surprising, and strange, and the more you let this dictate how you eat and exercise, the more you’ll lose your way in your fitness journey.

So ignore the showy sandwich boards that people wear online to seduce scrollers into stopping and staying awhile. Skip the sizzle. Stick with the steak.

If your diet doesn’t allow you to have chips or cereal, it’s time for a new diet.

156:
This Is Your Brain on Carbs

“The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists of leading him from error to truth.”

—Thomas Aquinas

Proponents of low-carb dieting will often claim that one of the many reasons to eat less carbohydrates is better brain health and function and thus more mental clarity, faster thinking, and sharper memory.

The physiological mechanisms supposedly responsible for these benefits revolve around the effects of the hormone insulin, which is released in plenty when a substantial amount of carbohydrate is eaten to help shuttle nutrients into cells (protein does this as well, mind you—a fact conveniently ignored by many low-carbers, but I digress).

By restricting your carbs, the story goes, you’ll avoid insulin spikes that cause blood sugar levels to soar and then slump into a state known as reactive hypoglycemia, which makes you feel sluggish and fuzzy-headed.

This theory is mostly bunk, however, because unless you’re diabetic or overweight and sedentary (the bulk of people who feel better on a low-carb diet), you should rarely if ever experience reactive hypoglycemia unless you just had a pasta eating contest with a Burmese python. Instead, your body will be highly sensitive to insulin (a good thing) and able to efficiently process a large amount of carbohydrate.

What’s more, whenever we’re talking about the advantages or disadvantages of eating carbs, we have to remember that not all carbs are equal.

If you eat piles of highly processed foods laden with sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup, you may experience swings in energy and alertness, but if most of your carbs are from fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and the like, you’ll probably experience the opposite—high and stable levels of physical energy and mental acuity.

157:
To Strive or Savor?

“Life has many good things. The problem is that most of these good things can be gotten only by sacrificing other good things.”

—Thomas Sowell

Life is a game of tradeoffs between purpose, intensity, and achievement and latitude, relaxation, and enjoyment.

Neither path is inherently better than the other, but you have to choose one. You can either strive or savor, and you can always change your course, but you can’t pursue both simultaneously.

For example, if you want to have a vibrant and fulfilling career and marriage, you won’t have much time or energy left to give to your health and social life. If you want to be a model parent with exceptional fitness, it’ll be hard if not impossible to excel in your work and friendships. And if you want to divide your efforts equally among these four elements, you can achieve “balance” at the expense of peak experiences and self-actualization.

So, which compromises will you embrace and why? Until you can answer those questions with clarity and certainty, you’ll always be painfully aware of what’s “missing” from your life without the consolation of what’s not.

158:
Five of My Favorite HIIT Workouts

“Excellence is born of preparation, dedication, focus, and tenacity; compromise on any of these and you become average.”

—John Chatterton

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) isn’t mandatory for fat loss and isn’t the metabolic marvel many claim it to be. For instance, research shows that when matched for time, most HIIT protocols don’t burn more calories or fat than moderate-intensity cardio (and more specifically, than steady exercise at about 80 percent of maximum heart rate).

HIIT does have two advantages, however:

Studies show that a routine of HIIT and moderate-intensity cardio improves endurance more than moderate-intensity cardio alone.

Some people have more fun doing both low- or moderate-intensity cardio and HIIT rather than just the former.

HIIT is simple to do, too. In essence, you alternate between periods of (almost) all-out intensity and low-intensity recovery. During your high-intensity bouts (hard intervals), you’re pushing yourself almost to the limit, and during your low-intensity periods (active recovery intervals), you’re slowing down to catch your breath in preparation for the next sprint.

To get the full benefits of HIIT, though, you need to structure your workouts properly. Here are five of my favorite protocols from the least to the most difficult:

The Timmons Method. Do a 20-second sprint at about 90 percent of your max effort followed by 2 minutes of active recovery. Repeat 4 times for a total of 9 minutes and 20 seconds of exercise. This is a good introduction to HIIT, since it provides short sprints and long rest intervals.

The 4 x 30 Method. Do a 30-second sprint at about 90 percent of your max effort followed by 1 minute of active recovery. Repeat 4 times for a total of 6 minutes of exercise. If this feels too short for you, turn it into a 6 x 30 with 2 minutes of active recovery after each sprint for a total of 15 minutes of exercise.

The 4 x 4 Method. Do a 4-minute sprint at about 90 percent of your max effort followed by 3 minutes of active recovery. Repeat 4 times for a total of 28 minutes of exercise. This workout is great for boosting your aerobic endurance and burns more calories than most other protocols (due to the longer intervals).

The Pyramid Method. Do a 30-second sprint followed by 60 seconds of active recovery; a 60-second sprint followed by 2 minutes of active recovery; a 90-second sprint followed by 3 minutes of active recovery; a 60-second sprint followed by 2 minutes of active recovery; and a 30-second sprint followed by 60-seconds of active recovery. There’s nothing inherently special about this protocol, but it’s a fun way to inject a bit of variety into your cardio routine.

The 10 x 1 Method. Do a 1-minute sprint at about 90 percent of your max effort followed by 1 minute of active recovery. Repeat 10 times for a total of 20 minutes of exercise. This workout accumulates a lot of high-intensity time (burning a lot of calories) without dragging out the length of the intervals (significantly more difficult).

159:
You Are What You Focus On

“Our past may explain why we’re suffering but we must not use it as an excuse to stay in bondage.”

—Joyce Meyer

Decades of psychological research have demonstrated that we construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to, not what is. Who we are, what we think, feel, do, and love is the sum of what we focus on.

Want to see for yourself? For the next several minutes, look around and ask yourself a few questions, paying attention to how it impacts your mood: What’s right about this environment? What am I okay with? What can I enjoy, admire, and even celebrate? It doesn’t take much of this before your heart begins to warm.

Bask in the good vibes you’ve created for a minute, and then, let’s turn them off by doing the opposite. This time, look around and find what’s wrong with your current environment, what bothers you, and what should be improved (and if you want to spoil the fun even faster, consider who’s likely to blame for all of it). Notice how quickly the glow fades?

Objectively speaking, nothing has changed between these exercises. You’re still occupying the same space and surveying the same environment, which still contains things that are both wonderful and woeful. How you feel about these realities, though, is determined by your frame of mind.

Choose to see the good, and you’ll feel good; choose to see the bad, and you’ll feel bad.

160:
Resting Is Investing

“Rest but never quit. Even the sun has a sinking spell each evening. But it always rises the next morning. At sunrise, every soul is born again.”

—Muhammed Ali

Too many fitness fanatics are willing to try just about anything to enhance recovery except the most important thing: adequate rest. So don’t view deloads, rest days, and relaxation as a waste of time or sign of laziness. They’re an investment in your health and recovery, and a source of energy and well-being.

How much you rest isn’t all that matters, either—how well you can renew yourself is important too. The more rapidly and deeply you can calm your mind and body, the more restored you can feel in less time.

What you do to relax is a big part of this. According to a study of over 18,000 people from 134 countries, the most restful activities are as follows:

Reading

Exercising

Being in a natural environment

Being alone

Taking a nap

Listening to music

Socializing with friends and family

Doing nothing in particular

Conspicuously absent from the list are many people’s go-tos of television, which may have limited restorative power in moderation, but can also produce feelings of guilt and inadequacy; and social media, which for many causes feelings of isolation, unhappiness, and jealousy.

If you want to get just as good at relaxing as you are at working, experiment with different activities and routines and record how restored you feel after each to hone in on what works best for you.

One way you can do this is with a simple Likert scale whereby you rate your feelings on a scale from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). Specifically, after 30-to-60 minutes of an activity or series of activities, assess your level of agreement with the following statements:

I feel more energetic and ready to take on other activities.

My body feels comfortable and relaxed and free from tension and symptoms of stress (like headaches or digestive issues).

I feel less anxious and calmer.

My mind feels clearer, and I have less mental and emotional fatigue.

I can sleep better.

Then, add up your ratings for each statement for the total score for the activity or activities, and next, try and score other activities and routines, comparing totals until you find a setup that works particularly well for you.

If your doctor can’t do at least a few pullups, it’s time to get a new doctor.

161:
Win Your Spurs

“One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.”

—Immanuel Kant

So many things can start to change for the better the moment you accept that you and only you are responsible for your success and happiness.

When something important goes sideways, then, ask yourself a few questions:

“What part of this did I help create?”

“What could I have done differently to achieve a better outcome?”

“What can I learn to do better next time?”

Gritty, grim, grotesque even, but also gutty. Wade into it. Work it out. Win your spurs.

162:
Does Energy Flux Matter?

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”

—Pablo Picasso

Julia, Jill, and Jane have the same body composition and want to lose fat. Julia isn’t very active, burns about 1,500 calories per day, and will eat about 1,200 calories per day. Jill is fairly active, burns about 1,800 calories per day, and will eat about 1,500 calories per day. Jane is very active, burns about 2,000 calories per day, and will eat about 1,700 calories per day.

Despite each of the women aiming to eat 300 fewer calories than they burn every day, who do you think will likely lose the most fat? And then who will most likely maintain her new body composition afterward?

If your gut says Jane, you’re correct, but do you know why?

The answer has to do with something scientists call energy flux, which refers to the amount of energy moving through our metabolic system (the relationship between energy intake, expenditure, and storage).

Put simply, in a state of low energy flux, energy intake and expenditure are low and storage of excess energy is high, and in a state of high energy flux, energy intake and expenditure are high and storage of excess energy is low.

In our example above, Jane’s calorie deficit is the same as Julia’s and Jill’s, but her higher energy flux will give her several distinct metabolic advantages that aid in fat loss, including better appetite control, insulin sensitivity, and a greater thermic effect of food (the amount of calories you burn digesting food).

Energy flux works the same in you and me, and thus, the more physically active we are, the easier it is to get and stay fit. Here’s how it works for most people:

To maintain a basic level of fitness (looks and performance), do 1-to-3 hours of strength training per week and 1-to-2 hours of walking per day.

To maintain an intermediate level of fitness, do 2-to-4 hours of strength training and 1-to-2 hours of moderate-intensity endurance exercise per week.

To maintain an elite level of fitness, do 4-to-6 hours of strength training and 2-to-3 hours of moderate-intensity endurance exercise per week.

163:
So You Say

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

—Helen Keller

You can say you “don’t have time” to exercise, but if you have an hour to puddle around on social media or Netflix, you also have the time to do a home workout or even just go for a walk, which, we recall, burns a couple hundred calories per hour, is easy on the body, minimally impacts muscle building, and preferentially burns body fat. (GO FOR MORE WALKS!)

You can say you wish you could be the person you believed you could be when you bought all that produce, but if you can track the food you eat every day for a week, you can learn a lot about your eating habits and find easy ways to better align your diet to your goals and preferences.

You can say you’re looking for that game-changing supplement, but if you aren’t getting enough sleep or eating enough nutritious food, then the perfect supplement for you is a flugelhorn to the face.

The moral? First, we get excited to start. Then, we get stuck and want to quit. Then, we keep bashing away. Then, we make it a habit. Then, we win.

164:
Is It Actually Hunger?

“We cry to God almighty, how can we escape this agony? Fool. Don’t you have hands? Or could it be God forgot to give you a pair?”

—Epictetus

Are you hungry, or are you just tired? Or bored? Or stressed? Or emotional? It’s important to know the difference. And how can you tell the difference?

An easy way to know if you’re actually hungry or just in the mood to eat is to imagine a bowl of boiled beans or potatoes were in front of you. Would you eat them? If you would, it’s probably physical hunger. If you wouldn’t, it’s probably psychological or emotional desire.

And when it’s the latter, here are a few ways to squash the urge to nosh:

Go for a walk.

Drink some water (maybe you’re just thirsty).

Drink some tea or coffee (maybe you just want something tasty).

Do a breathing exercise (like box breathing).

Listen to a podcast (mine is called Muscle for Life).

Call a friend.

Clean your home (great for getting in steps too!).

Read, watch, or listen to something interesting.

Do a sudoku, crossword, wordle, etc.

Chew some gum.

Write in your journal.

Brush your teeth (especially if it’s after dinner).

Do a hobby.

Take a nap (which, by the way, is as effective as it’s impractical for improving workout performance).

Declutter or organize a space in your home.

165:
I Want You to Be a Pessimist (About Pessimism)

“A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.”

—James Crook

The pessimism industry has grown exponentially in modern times. It found its stride in the early 1800s, after Thomas Robert Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population. In it, he claimed that humankind was doomed because, sometime in the next one-hundred years, the population would inevitably outrun food supply. Subsequently, many “Malthusians” welcomed famines and epidemics as mechanisms for the population to “correct itself.”

To this day, Malthus’s mindset is the foundation and inspiration for many of the contemporary purveyors of pessimism.

For instance, Paul Ehrlich, Stanford professor and author of The Population Bomb, predicted in 1968 that hundreds of millions would die of starvation in the 1970s and that life expectancy would plummet in the 1980s. Neither things happened. The infamous Club of Rome report, published in 1972, said we’d run out of raw materials by the 1990s. Wrong. In 1989, a UN official declared that entire nations could be underwater by the year 2000 if the global warming trend—which, we’re told by experts, is primarily caused by the existence of too many people doing too many things—wasn’t reversed; similarly, in 2006, Al Gore prophesied a twenty-foot surge in sea levels in the near future; and in 2008, the Western media apparatus was blazoning forecasts of an ice-free Arctic by 2013. None of these prognostications came to pass.

The same pattern can be observed in just about every area of human activity in just about every period of history.

In 1881, doomers at The New York Times decried telegraphy as dangerous, citing research from a “prominent academic journal” that claimed that wrapping the earth in telegraphic wire could disrupt our planet’s axis and in turn “upset the whole time table of the solar system, and bring about a series of frightful collisions.” Somehow, the cosmos scraped through.

In the 1950s, a geologist named M. King Hubbert developed an influential theory that global oil production would soon peak and then decline, leading to economic instability, social unrest, and even war. Instead, oil production boomed in the decades that followed, contributing to explosive growth in global prosperity. Fittingly, portentous “peak oil” prognoses have continued to persist, simply with new timelines.

In the 1970s and 1980s, scientists observed bacteria developing a resistance to antibiotics, and some authorities were convinced that this trend would continue inexorably until routine surgeries became perilous and infections like pneumonia, tuberculosis, and sepsis untreatable. Again, however, the optimists prevailed—new drugs and alternative therapies were developed, medical procedures were improved, and public health strategies were upgraded.

In his 2007 memoir, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that interest rates would soon soar to disastrously high levels. One year later, however, the Fed Funds rate fell to near zero and remained at historically low levels for over a decade.

Even as far back as 250 B.C., the Roman poet Plautus satirized the technophobic hand-wringing of his time by lamenting the proliferation of sundials:

The gods confound the man who first found

out how to distinguish hours! Confound him too

Who in this place set up a sundial

To cut and hack my days so wretchedly

Into small portions! When I was a boy,

My belly was my sundial: one more sure, Truer, and more exact than any of them.

This dial told me when it was time

To go to dinner, when I had anything to eat;

But nowadays, why even when I have, I can’t fall-to unless the sun gives leave.

The town’s so full of these confounded dials,

The greatest part of its inhabitants,

Shrunk up with hunger, creep along the streets.

To be sure, none of this is to say humanity isn’t faced with serious problems or that seriously bad things can’t or don’t happen—only that extreme worst-case scenarios are almost always extremely unlikely to occur. Even the proverbial collapse of the Roman Empire took hundreds of years longer than many pundits expected, and then, it didn’t shatter so much as splinter. The eastern offcut, the Byzantine Empire, endured, and at times, thrived, for another 1,000 years.

Further, if someone chooses to believe the scaremongers (and it is a choice and belief—see chapter 135) yet doesn’t take any constructive action as a result, what are they accomplishing, exactly? If a tidal wave is in fact sweeping toward someone’s town, what good is them knowing if they can’t be bothered to even get off the couch?

Maybe, then, we should weary of all the catastrophizing and stop taking the bait. Maybe it’s time to turn off the news, stop the doom scrolling, and shun the Current Thing. Maybe it’s time to get aggressively pessimistic about pessimism.

It’s ironic to watch overmuscled people who abuse anabolic steroids to get bigger biceps lecture fat people about the dangers of obesity.

166:
The Best Rep Ranges

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”

—Aristotle

You can gain muscle doing anywhere from ~4-to-20 reps per set, so the “best” rep ranges for you are largely the ones you enjoy the most. And if you’re like most people, you’ll probably do best with 4-to-12 reps per set (with each set taken close to muscular failure).

More specifically, if you’re relatively new to strength training (one year or less of proper training), do this:

Men: Do your compound exercises (which train multiple major muscle groups, like the squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press) in the 4-to-6 rep range and your isolation exercises (which train one major muscle group, like the biceps curl, side raise, leg extension, and pec fly) in the 6-to-8 or 8-to-10 rep range. (See my Bigger Leaner Stronger program for more.)

Women: Do your compound exercises in the 4-to-8 rep range and your isolation exercises in the 8-to-10 rep range. (See my Thinner Leaner Stronger program for more.)

And if you’re an experienced trainee (two years or more of proper training), whether male or female, do ~80 percent of your sets in the 4-to-10 rep range and ~10 percent slightly above that (10-to-12 or 12-to-15) and ~10 percent slightly below that (2-to-3). (See my Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger program.)

167:
No, You Don’t

“The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame.”

—Salman Rushdie

You don’t have to always be cutting or lean bulking. Sometimes, it’s more fun to just see what happens when you stop tracking calories and macros and try new things in your training.

You also don’t have to work out every day. You can if you want to, but there’s no holy writ that commands it, and that extra hour or two every week won’t make much of a difference. But! You do have to move every day, whether it’s sports, dancing, yoga, swimming, gardening, walking around the neighborhood, housecleaning … hell … tai chi—pick your pleasure.

You don’t have to get shredded, either, but if you want to anyway, know this: Once you’ve been diced, anything else will feel too fat. You’ve been warned … but still will insist on finding out for yourself.

You don’t have to stop eating sugar, but if you eat way less of it, fruit and even vegetables will get way more delicious.

And you don’t have to neglect your self-care to show you’re tough, committed, or successful. That’s like texting while driving to show how good you are at it.

168:
The Catch with High-Tech Tracking

“He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.”

—Thomas Carlyle

One of the main draws of activity trackers is the claim that they can accurately measure the calories you burn throughout the day—and during exercise in particular.

How true is this? Scientists at the University of Quebec in Montreal investigated by testing the accuracy of three popular wearables: the Apple Watch 6, the Polar Vantage V, and the Fitbit Sense.

The researchers had thirty men and thirty women sit, walk, run, lift weights, and cycle while wearing each of these devices along with a special medical device known to accurately measure heart rate and energy expenditure.

The result? Aside from the Apple Watch’s heart rate tracking (fairly good), the data was all over the place—sometimes majorly wrong, sometimes minorly wrong, sometimes too high, sometimes too low, etc.

In other words, the data from the devices were not only inaccurate but were also inconsistent and unreliable, making a nonsense of it all. If the data were at least consistently inaccurate, it could be useful, but without any discernible regularity, it’s about as handy as a crocheted condom.

A much better method for managing your energy balance is as follows:

Use an evidence-based mathematical formula for establishing your approximate total daily energy expenditure (like you can find at www.mikematthews.fitness/tdee).

Determine your daily calorie target based on that calculation.

Adjust your calorie intake up or down as needed based on how your body responds.

169:
One Day

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’”

—George Bernard Shaw

One day, I’m going to open a gym with an alarm that blares when someone doesn’t re-rack their weights.

And when someone doesn’t wipe their sweat off of the equipment.

And when someone does a dumbbell exercise right in front of the rack.

And in my gym, trumpets will sound when someone finally squats, deadlifts, or benches their body weight for reps.

And when someone lets another work in with them.

And when someone finishes their first workout of the year.

One day, I’m going to open a gym and blazon this on the wall:

You may not know it yet, but strength training is the miracle pill you’ve been desperately seeking for a better body and life.

Free Bonus Material (Workouts, Meal Plans, and More!)

Thank you for reading Stronger Than Yesterday. I hope you’ve found it insightful, inspiring, and practical, and I hope it helps you reach your goals (fitness and otherwise) faster.

I want to make sure you receive as much value from this book as possible, so I’ve put together free resources to help you, including:

3 bonus chapters that answer three common questions: “Am I too fat to bulk?”, “How long should I cut?”, and “How much weight can I gain in one day of overeating?”

20 flexible dieting meal plans for losing fat and gaining muscle

An entire year’s worth of my Bigger Leaner Stronger (men) and Thinner Leaner Stronger (women) strength training workouts neatly laid out and provided in several formats, including PDF, Excel, and Google Sheets

Form demonstration videos of my favorite strength training exercises

Product recommendations for workout equipment, gear, and gadgets

To get instant access to those free bonuses (plus a few additional surprise gifts), go here now:

➥ www.mikematthews.fitness/strongerbonus

Would You Do Me a Favor?

I have a small favor to ask.

Would you mind taking a minute to write a blurb on Amazon about this book? I check all my reviews and love to get honest feedback because that’s the real pay for my work—knowing that I’m helping people.

To leave me a review …

Go to www.mikematthews.fitness/strongerreview, and leave your rating and review.

Or go to Amazon in your web browser (or open the app), search for “Stronger Than Yesterday,” click on the book, scroll down and click on the “Write a customer review” button, and leave your rating and review.

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to reading your review.

Also by Michael Matthews

Bigger Leaner Stronger

If you’re a man under 40 and you’re trying to gain your first 25 pounds of muscle or get to 10-to-15 percent body fat, Bigger Leaner Stronger will give you the blueprint.

The Year One Challenge for Men

If you want a workout journal with an entire year’s worth of Bigger Leaner Stronger training, The Year One Challenge for Men is the ticket.

Thinner Leaner Stronger

If you’re a woman under 40 and you’re trying to gain your first 15 pounds of muscle and/or lose your first 15-to-25 pounds of fat, Thinner Leaner Stronger will show you how.

The Year One Challenge for Women

If you want a workout journal with an entire year’s worth of Thinner Leaner Stronger training, you want The Year One Challenge for Women.

Muscle for Life

If you’re a man or woman over the age of 40 and new to strength training and flexible dieting, Muscle for Life is the book and program for you.

The Shredded Chef

If you want to eat delicious, home-cooked, “fitness friendly” meals without spending excessive time in the kitchen or struggling with expensive and hard-to-prepare recipes, The Shredded Chef will become your new favorite cookbook.

The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation

If you want to learn evidence-based insights on how top performers shift their negative thinking and behaviors into peak performance and lasting success, read The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation.

Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger

If you’re an advanced weightlifter trying to reach your genetic potential for muscle and strength, put Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger at the top of your TBR pile.

The Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger Challenge

If you want a workout journal with an entire year’s worth of Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger training, get a copy of The Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger Challenge.

Fitness Science Explained

If you want to know how to read, understand, and apply scientific research to optimize your health, fitness, and happiness, Fitness Science Explained is the shortcut.

Additional Resources

If you enjoyed this book and are interested in more of my evidence-based teachings on losing fat, building muscle, and getting healthy, you’ll also enjoy at least some of the hundreds of free articles I’ve published over at my sports nutrition company Legion’s blog (www.legion.fitness/blog) as well as at least a few of the 1,500+ episodes I’ve recorded for my Muscle for Life podcast (www.mfl.show).

References

1
Stop Trying to Have Great Workouts

According to research conducted by Stanford University scientists: Gardner CD, Trepanowski JF, Del Gobbo LC, et al. Effect of Low-Fat vs Low-Carbohydrate Diet on 12-Month Weight Loss in Overweight Adults and the Association With Genotype Pattern or Insulin Secretion: The DIETFITS Randomized Clinical Trial [published correction appears in JAMA. 2018 Apr 3;319(13):1386] [published correction appears in JAMA. 2018 Apr 24;319(16):1728]. JAMA. 2018;319(7):667-679.

2
The Imperatives of Healthy & Sustainable Fat Loss

produces the most fat loss: Brellenthin AG, Lee DC, Bennie JA, et al. Resistance exercise, alone and in combination with aerobic exercise, and obesity in Dallas, Texas, US: A prospective cohort study. PLoS Med. 2021;18(6):e1003687.; Ho SS, Dhaliwal SS, Hills AP, et al. The effect of 12 weeks of aerobic, resistance or combination exercise training on cardiovascular risk factors in the overweight and obese in a randomized trial. BMC Public Health. 2012;12:704.

4
Simple Diet Hacks

can help with weight loss: Laviada-Molina H, Molina-Segui F, Pérez-Gaxiola G, et al. Effects of nonnutritive sweeteners on body weight and BMI in diverse clinical contexts: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Obes Rev. 2020;21(7):e13020.

6
Is Deadlifting Worth the Risk?

it’s also a nonentity for us recreational weightlifters: Barnes MJ, Miller A, Reeve D, et al. Acute Neuromuscular and Endocrine Responses to Two Different Compound Exercises: Squat vs. Deadlift. J Strength Cond Res. 2019;33(9):2381-2387.

10
The Body Recomp

a study conducted by scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital: Demling RH, DeSanti L. Effect of a hypocaloric diet, increased protein intake and resistance training on lean mass gains and fat mass loss in overweight police officers. Ann Nutr Metab. 2000;44(1):21-29.

12
Should the Future Be Meatless?

a strong indicator of the quality of the source of protein: Yang Y, Churchward-Venne TA, Burd NA, et al. Myofibrillar protein synthesis following ingestion of soy protein isolate at rest and after resistance exercise in elderly men. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2012;9(1):57.; Phillips SM. Nutrient-rich meat proteins in offsetting age-related muscle loss. Meat Sci. 2012;92(3):174-178.; Gorissen SH, Horstman AM, Franssen R, et al. Ingestion of Wheat Protein Increases In Vivo Muscle Protein Synthesis Rates in Healthy Older Men in a Randomized Trial. J Nutr. 2016;146(9):1651-1659.

constitutive components of muscle that must be obtained from food: van Vliet S, Burd NA, van Loon LJ. The Skeletal Muscle Anabolic Response to Plant- versus Animal-Based Protein Consumption. J Nutr. 2015;145(9):1981-1991.

the participants who ate the whey protein: Brennan JL, Keerati-U-Rai M, Yin H, et al. Differential Responses of Blood Essential Amino Acid Levels Following Ingestion of High-Quality Plant-Based Protein Blends Compared to Whey Protein-A Double-Blind Randomized, Cross-Over, Clinical Trial. Nutrients. 2019 Dec 6;11(12):2987.

from whole foods that naturally contain them: Hunt JR, Gallagher SK, Johnson LK, et al. High- versus low-meat diets: effects on zinc absorption, iron status, and calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, nitrogen, phosphorus, and zinc balance in postmenopausal women. Am J Clin Nutr. 1995;62(3):621-632.; Bjelakovic G, Nikolova D, Gluud LL, et al. Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy participants and patients with various diseases. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012;2012(3):CD007176.; van Poppel G, Goldbohm RA. Epidemiologic evidence for beta-carotene and cancer prevention. Am J Clin Nutr. 1995;62(6 Suppl):1393S-1402S.; Lichtenstein AH, Russell RM. Essential nutrients: food or supplements? Where should the emphasis be?. JAMA. 2005;294(3):351-358.; Jacobs DR Jr, Tapsell LC. Food, not nutrients, is the fundamental unit in nutrition. Nutr Rev. 2007;65(10):439-450.

the most potential in the United States and Brazil: Poore J, Nemecek T. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers [published correction appears in Science. 2019 Feb 22;363(6429):]. Science. 2018;360(6392):987-992.; Cusack DF, Kazanski CE, Hedgpeth A, et al. Reducing climate impacts of beef production: A synthesis of life cycle assessments across management systems and global regions. Glob Chang Biol. 2021;27(9):1721-1736.

a 2019 study in Agricultural Systems: White RR, Hall MB. Nutritional and greenhouse gas impacts of removing animals from US agriculture. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017;114(48):E10301-E10308.; Alan Rotz C, Asem-Hiablie S, Place S, et al. Environmental footprints of beef cattle production in the United States. Agricultural Systems. 2019;169:1-13

(especially when considered on the basis of carbon-per-calorie): Tom MS, Fischbeck PS, Hendrickson CT. Energy use, blue water footprint, and greenhouse gas emissions for current food consumption patterns and dietary recommendations in the US. Environ Syst Decis. 2015;36:92-103.

eliminate the need for additional beef-related agricultural expansion and associated deforestation: Waite R, Searchinger T, Ranganathan J. 6 Pressing Questions About Beef and Climate Change, Answered. World Resources Institute website. Published March 7, 2022. Accessed January 2, 2024. https://www.wri.org/insights/6-pressing-questions-about-beef-and-climate-change-answered.

14
Simple Exercise Hacks

before doing another round of 3 sets of squats to failure: Gantois P, Lima-Júnior D, Fortes LS, et al. Mental Fatigue From Smartphone Use Reduces Volume-Load in Resistance Training: A Randomized, Single-Blinded Cross-Over Study. Percept Mot Skills. 2021;128(4):1640-1659.

impair athletic performance: Queiros VS, Dantas M, Fortes LS, et al. Mental Fatigue Reduces Training Volume in Resistance Exercise: A Cross-Over and Randomized Study. Percept Mot Skills. 2021;128(1):409-423.; Gantois P, Caputo Ferreira ME, Lima-Junior D, et al. Effects of mental fatigue on passing decision-making performance in professional soccer athletes. Eur J Sport Sci. 2020;20(4):534-543.; Fortes LS, Lima-Júnior D, Gantois P, et al. Smartphone Use Among High Level Swimmers Is Associated With Mental Fatigue and Slower 100- and 200- but Not 50-Meter Freestyle Racing. Percept Mot Skills. 2021;128(1):390-408.; Pageaux B, Lepers R. The effects of mental fatigue on sport-related performance. Prog Brain Res. 2018;240:291-315.; Fortes LS, De Lima-Junior D, Fiorese L, et al. The effect of smartphones and playing video games on decision-making in soccer players: A crossover and randomised study. J Sports Sci. 2020;38(5):552-558.; De Sousa Fortes L, De Lima-Junior D, Nascimento-Junior JRA, et al. Effect of exposure time to smartphone apps on passing decision-making in male soccer athletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. 2019;44:35-41.

15
The Most Common Fitness Regret

you’re at the top of the pile: Althoff T, Sosič R, Hicks JL, et al. Large-scale physical activity data reveal worldwide activity inequality. Nature. 2017;547(7663):336-339.

a habit of the top 22 percent?: Lee SH, Moore LV, Park S, et al. Adults Meeting Fruit and Vegetable Intake Recommendations - United States, 2019. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2022;71(1):1-9.; United States Department of Agriculture. What We Eat in America, NHANES 2017-2018. Accessed January 2, 2024. https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400530/pdf/FPED/tables_1-4_FPED_1718.pdf.; Lee SH, Moore LV, Park S, et al. Adults Meeting Fruit and Vegetable Intake Recommendations - United States, 2019. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2022;71(1):1-9.

18
Do You Gain Muscle Faster When You’re Leaner?

it’s mostly muscle: Dugdale AE, Payne PR. Pattern of lean and fat deposition in adults. Nature. 1977;266(5600):349-351.; Payne PR, Dugdale AE. A model for the prediction of energy balance and body weight. Ann Hum Biol. 1977;4(6):525-535.; Payne PR, Dugdale AE. Mechanisms for the control of body-weight. Lancet. 1977;1(8011):583-586.; Forbes GB. Lean body mass-body fat interrelationships in humans. Nutr Rev. 1987;45(8):225-231.

evidence of a relationship between body composition and the composition of weight gain: Hall KD. Body fat and fat-free mass inter-relationships: Forbes’s theory revisited. Br J Nutr. 2007;97(6):1059-1063.

23
If They Can Do It …

when they see others doing the same: Suher J, Raghunathan R, Hoyer WD. Eating Healthy or Feeling Empty? How the “Healthy = Less Filling” Intuition Influences Satiety. JACR. 2016;1(1):26-40.; Stück D, Hallgrímsson HT, Ver Steeg G. The Spread of Physical Activity Through Social Networks. WWW ‘17: Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on World Wide Web. 2017:519–528.; Christakis NA, Fowler JH. The collective dynamics of smoking in a large social network. N Engl J Med. 2008;358(21):2249-2258.; Lau-Barraco C, Braitman AL, Leonard KE, et al. Drinking buddies and their prospective influence on alcohol outcomes: alcohol expectancies as a mediator. Psychol Addict Behav. 2012;26(4):747-758.; Fowler JH, Christakis NA. Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study. BMJ. 2008;337:a2338.

24
Maybe They’re Born With It … Or Maybe It’s … Something Else

trained three times per week: Bhasin S, Storer TW, Berman N, et al. The effects of supraphysiologic doses of testosterone on muscle size and strength in normal men. N Engl J Med. 1996;335(1):1-7.

30
Early Birds Get the Gains Too

the benefits of evening training to become apparent: Küüsmaa M, Schumann M, Sedliak M, et al. Effects of morning versus evening combined strength and endurance training on physical performance, muscle hypertrophy, and serum hormone concentrations. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2016;41(12):1285-1294.

gain muscle and strength with early workouts: Küüsmaa-Schildt M, Eklund D, Avela J, et al. Neuromuscular Adaptations to Combined Strength and Endurance Training: Order and Time-of-Day. Int J Sports Med. 2017;38(9):707-716.; Sedliak M, Finni T, Cheng S, et al. Effect of time-of-day-specific strength training on muscular hypertrophy in men. J Strength Cond Res. 2009;23(9):2451-2457.; Guette M, Gondin J, Martin A. Time-of-day effect on the torque and neuromuscular properties of dominant and non-dominant quadriceps femoris. Chronobiol Int. 2005;22(3):541-558.

return to normal after about a month or so: Sedliak M, Zeman M, Buzgó G, et al. Morphological, molecular and hormonal adaptations to early morning versus afternoon resistance training. Chronobiol Int. 2018;35(4):450-464.; Jancoková L, Alabed H, Waterhouse J, et al. Chronobiology from theory to sports practice. Towarzystwo Slowaków w Polsce; 2013.

(the workouts felt easier): Blazer HJ, Jordan CL, Pederson JA, et al. Effects of Time-of-Day Training Preference on Resistance-Exercise Performance. Res Q Exerc Sport. 2021;92(3):492-499.

32
Simple Mental Health Hacks

Eating lots of nutritious food: Grajek M, Krupa-Kotara K, Białek-Dratwa A, et al. Nutrition and mental health: A review of current knowledge about the impact of diet on mental health. Front Nutr. 2022;9:943998.

Getting enough sleep: Scott AJ, Webb TL, Martyn-St James M, et al. Improving sleep quality leads to better mental health: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Sleep Med Rev. 2021;60:101556.

Quitting porn, alcohol, and recreational drugs: Privara M, Bob P. Pornography Consumption and Cognitive-Affective Distress. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2023;211(8):641-646.; Puddephatt JA, Irizar P, Jones A, et al. Associations of common mental disorder with alcohol use in the adult general population: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Addiction. 2022;117(6):1543-1572.; Kim YJ, Qian L, Aslam MS. The impact of substance use disorder on the mental health among COVID-19 patients: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicine (Baltimore). 2020;99(46):e23203.

Reading good books: Monroy-Fraustro D, Maldonado-Castellanos I, Aboites-Molina M, et al. Bibliotherapy as a Non-pharmaceutical Intervention to Enhance Mental Health in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review and Bioethical Meta-Analysis. Front Public Health. 2021;9:629872.

Exercising: Rebar AL, Stanton R, Geard D, et al. A meta-meta-analysis of the effect of physical activity on depression and anxiety in non-clinical adult populations. Health Psychol Rev. 2015;9(3):366-378.; Mahindru A, Patil P, Agrawal V. Role of Physical Activity on Mental Health and Well-Being: A Review. Cureus. 2023;15(1):e33475.

Helping others without any expectations: Post SG. Altuism, happiness, and health: it’s good to be good. Int J Behav Med. 2005;12(2):66-77.

Smiling more: Marmolejo-Ramos F, Murata A, Sasaki K, et al. Your Face and Moves Seem Happier When I Smile. Exp Psychol. 2020;67(1):14-22.

Having difficult conversations: Askari M, Noah S, Hassan S, et al. Comparison of the Effects of Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills Training on Mental Health. International Journal of Psychological Studies. 2013;5(1):1-91

Deleting social media apps: Beyari H. The Relationship between Social Media and the Increase in Mental Health Problems. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023;20(3):2383.; Brown L, Kuss DJ. Fear of Missing Out, Mental Wellbeing, and Social Connectedness: A Seven-Day Social Media Abstinence Trial. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(12):4566.

Going outside: Jimenez MP, DeVille NV, Elliott EG, et al. Associations between Nature Exposure and Health: A Review of the Evidence. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18(9):4790.

Giving compliments: Boothby EJ, Bohns VK. Why a Simple Act of Kindness Is Not as Simple as It Seems: Underestimating the Positive Impact of Our Compliments on Others. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2021;47(5):826-840.

Turning off notifications on your phone: Ohly S, Bastin L. Effects of task interruptions caused by notifications from communication applications on strain and performance. J Occup Health. 2023;65(1):e12408.; Elhai JD, Rozgonjuk D, Alghraibeh AM, et al. Disrupted Daily Activities From Interruptive Smartphone Notifications: Relations With Depression and Anxiety Severity and the Mediating Role of Boredom Proneness. Social Science Computer Review. 2021;39(1):20-37.

Watching less TV: Alimoradi Z, Jafari E, Potenza MN, et al. Binge-Watching and Mental Health Problems: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19(15):9707.; Raza SH, Yousaf M, Sohail F, et al. Investigating Binge-Watching Adverse Mental Health Outcomes During Covid-19 Pandemic: Moderating Role of Screen Time for Web Series Using Online Streaming. Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2021;14:1615-1629.

Eliminating “maybes” by making decisions: Ferrari JR, Dovidio JF. Behavioral information search by indecisives. Personality and Individual Differences. 2001;30(7):1113-1123. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(00)00094-5.

Embracing personal responsibility: Arslan G, Wong P. Measuring Personal and Social Responsibility: An Existential Positive Psychology Approach. Journal of Happiness and Health. 2022;2(1):1-11.

34
Is Exercise Useless for Weight Loss?

(where calories eaten match calories burned and weight is maintained): Stensel D. Exercise, appetite and appetite-regulating hormones: implications for food intake and weight control. Ann Nutr Metab. 2010;57 Suppl 2:36-42.

according to actual energy requirements: Granados K, Stephens BR, Malin SK, et al. Appetite regulation in response to sitting and energy imbalance. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2012;37(2):323-333.; Stephens BR, Granados K, Zderic TW, et al.. Effects of 1 day of inactivity on insulin action in healthy men and women: interaction with energy intake. Metabolism. 2011;60(7):941-949.

extra calories burned through exercise: Pontzer H, Durazo-Arvizu R, Dugas LR, et al. Constrained Total Energy Expenditure and Metabolic Adaptation to Physical Activity in Adult Humans. Curr Biol. 2016;26(3):410-417.

38
Go For a Walk

dropped by about 12 percent for every 1,000 steps people took every day: Jayedi A, Gohari A, Shab-Bidar S. Daily Step Count and All-Cause Mortality: A Dose-Response Meta-analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies. Sports Med. 2022;52(1):89-99.

burn a significant number of calories (300-to-400 for most people): Tudor-Locke C, Craig CL, Brown WJ, et al. How many steps/day are enough? For adults. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2011;8:79.

reducing feelings of fatigue and stress: Marselle RM, Irvine KN, Warber SL. Examining Group Walks in Nature and Multiple Aspects of Well-Being: A Large-Scale Study. Ecopsychology. 2014;6(3):134-147.; Kaplan S. The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 1995;15(3):169-182.; imenez MP, DeVille NV, Elliott EG, et al. Associations between Nature Exposure and Health: A Review of the Evidence. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18(9):4790.; Ewert A, Chang Y. Levels of Nature and Stress Response. Behav Sci (Basel). 2018;8(5):49.

42
How Fast Can You Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle?

increasing the speed of their metabolism: Bryner RW, Ullrich IH, Sauers J, et al. Effects of resistance vs. aerobic training combined with an 800 calorie liquid diet on lean body mass and resting metabolic rate. J Am Coll Nutr. 1999;18(2):115-121.

48
The Science of Productive Daydreaming

an episodic recent thinking (ERT) protocol: O’Neill J, Daniel TO, Epstein LH. Episodic future thinking reduces eating in a food court. Eat Behav. 2016;20:9-13.

50
Is Strength Training Good for Weight Loss?

the more calories you burn: Reis VM, Garrido ND, Vianna J, et al. Energy cost of isolated resistance exercises across low- to high-intensities. PLoS One. 2017;12(7):e0181311.

to move a heavier (more muscular) body than a lighter one: Willoughby D, Hewlings S, Kalman D. Body Composition Changes in Weight Loss: Strategies and Supplementation for Maintaining Lean Body Mass, a Brief Review. Nutrients. 2018;10(12):1876.

making your body better at both building muscle and burning fat: Rome S, Forterre A, Mizgier ML, et al. Skeletal Muscle-Released Extracellular Vesicles: State of the Art. Front Physiol. 2019;10:929.; Vechetti IJ Jr, Peck BD, Wen Y, et al. Mechanical overload-induced muscle-derived extracellular vesicles promote adipose tissue lipolysis. FASEB J. 2021;35(6):e21644.; Chen JF, Mandel EM, Thomson JM, et al. The role of microRNA-1 and microRNA-133 in skeletal muscle proliferation and differentiation. Nat Genet. 2006;38(2):228-233.

choose the barbell over the treadmill: Ho SS, Dhaliwal SS, Hills AP, et al. The effect of 12 weeks of aerobic, resistance or combination exercise training on cardiovascular risk factors in the overweight and obese in a randomized trial. BMC Public Health. 2012;12:704.; Brellenthin AG, Lee DC, Bennie JA, et al. Resistance exercise, alone and in combination with aerobic exercise, and obesity in Dallas, Texas, US: A prospective cohort study. PLoS Med. 2021;18(6):e1003687.

52
Do You Even Keto Fast Bro?

is better for muscle building than one-to-two: Iraki J, Fitschen P, Espinar S, et al. Nutrition Recommendations for Bodybuilders in the Off-Season: A Narrative Review. Sports (Basel). 2019;7(7):154.

the more compliance suffers, the worse the results are: Gibson AA, Sainsbury A. Strategies to Improve Adherence to Dietary Weight Loss Interventions in Research and Real-World Settings. Behav Sci (Basel). 2017;7(3):44.

this can cause you to eat more than you would otherwise: Epstein LH, Truesdale R, Wojcik A, et al. Effects of deprivation on hedonics and reinforcing value of food. Physiol Behav. 2003;78(2):221-227.

they help the body produce serotonin: Cowen PJ, Clifford EM, Walsh AE, et al. Moderate dieting causes 5-HT2C receptor supersensitivity. Psychol Med. 1996;26(6):1155-1159.

increase the risk of adopting dysfunctional eating habits: Stice E, Davis K, Miller NP, et al. Fasting increases risk for onset of binge eating and bulimic pathology: a 5-year prospective study. J Abnorm Psychol. 2008;117(4):941-946.

(especially in physically active people with a healthy body composition): Kysel P, Haluzíková D, Doležalová RP, et al. The Influence of Cyclical Ketogenic Reduction Diet vs. Nutritionally Balanced Reduction Diet on Body Composition, Strength, and Endurance Performance in Healthy Young Males: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Nutrients. 2020;12(9):2832.;Gardner CD, Trepanowski JF, Del Gobbo LC, et al. Effect of Low-Fat vs Low-Carbohydrate Diet on 12-Month Weight Loss in Overweight Adults and the Association With Genotype Pattern or Insulin Secretion: The DIETFITS Randomized Clinical Trial [published correction appears in JAMA. 2018 Apr 3;319(13):1386] [published correction appears in JAMA. 2018 Apr 24;319(16):1728]. JAMA. 2018;319(7):667-679.; McSwiney FT, Doyle L, Plews DJ, et al. Impact Of Ketogenic Diet On Athletes: Current Insights. Open Access J Sports Med. 2019;10:171-183.; Johnston CS, Tjonn SL, Swan PD, et al. Ketogenic low-carbohydrate diets have no metabolic advantage over nonketogenic low-carbohydrate diets. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006;83(5):1055-1061.; Joo M, Moon S, Lee YS, et al. Effects of very low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets on lipid profiles in normal-weight (body mass index < 25 kg/m2) adults: a meta-analysis. Nutr Rev. 2023;81(11):1393-1401.

54
10 Top-Flight Training Tips

they’re no more effective than front pulldowns: Sperandei S, Barros MA, Silveira-Júnior PC, et al. Electromyographic analysis of three different types of lat pull-down. J Strength Cond Res. 2009;23(7):2033-2038.

This can help you maintain a more upright posture: Comfort P, Kasim P. Optimizing Squat Technique. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 2007;29(6):10-13.

research shows they’re better than bilateral exercises: Liao KF, Nassis GP, Bishop C, et al. Effects of unilateral vs. bilateral resistance training interventions on measures of strength, jump, linear and change of direction speed: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Biol Sport. 2022;39(3):485-497.

places more strain on your shoulders: Saeterbakken AH, Stien N, Pedersen H, et al. The Effect of Grip Width on Muscle Strength and Electromyographic Activity in Bench Press among Novice- and Resistance-Trained Men. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18(12):6444.

they’re weakest in corresponding full-range-of-motion exercises: Gillingham B, DeBeliso M. The Efficacy of Partial Range of Motion Deadlift Training: A Pilot Study. International Journal of Sport Science. 2022;12(1):14-22.

56
Simple Health Hacks

can improve mood and metabolic health: Figueiro MG, Steverson B, Heerwagen J, et al. The impact of daytime light exposures on sleep and mood in office workers. Sleep Health. 2017;3(3):204-215.; Mead MN. Benefits of sunlight: a bright spot for human health [published correction appears in Environ Health Perspect. 2008 May;116(5):A197]. Environ Health Perspect. 2008;116(4):A160-A167.; Farhud D, Aryan Z. Circadian Rhythm, Lifestyle and Health: A Narrative Review. Iran J Public Health. 2018;47(8):1068-1076.

which is a prerequisite for high-quality living: Hayes JF, Balantekin KN, Altman M, et al. Sleep Patterns and Quality Are Associated with Severity of Obesity and Weight-Related Behaviors in Adolescents with Overweight and Obesity. Child Obes. 2018;14(1):11-17.; Patel SR, Hayes AL, Blackwell T, et al. The association between sleep patterns and obesity in older adults. Int J Obes (Lond). 2014;38(9):1159-1164.

58
Does Cardio Burn Muscle?

observe the following evidence-based guidelines: Schumann M, Rønnestad BR. Concurrent Aerobic and Strength Training: Scientific Basics and Practical Applications. Sprinter International Publishing; 2019.

60
A Calorie Calculator Caution

a calorie calculator won’t account for this: Ravussin E, Lillioja S, Anderson TE, et al. Determinants of 24-hour energy expenditure in man. Methods and results using a respiratory chamber. J Clin Invest. 1986;78(6):1568-1578.

(unprocessed foods cost more energy to digest than highly processed ones): Westerterp KR. Diet induced thermogenesis. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2004;1(1):5.

63
Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy

overuse of social media and other modern ills: Twenge JM, Campbell WK, Freeman EC. Generational differences in young adults’ life goals, concern for others, and civic orientation, 1966-2009. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2012;102(5):1045-1062.; Shakya HB, Christakis NA. Association of Facebook Use With Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study. Am J Epidemiol. 2017;185(3):203-211.

“Happiness is love. Full stop.: Harvard Medical School. Study of Adult Development. Harvard Second Generation Study website. Accessed 9 January, 2024. https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/grantandglueckstudy.

improve wellbeing and happiness even in people who are already relatively happy: Toepfer SM, Cichy K, Peters P. Letters of Gratitude: Further Evidence for Author Benefits. Journal of Happiness Studies. 2012;13;187-201.

76
More Simple Diet Hacks

reduces energy expenditure: Ağagündüz D, Acar-Tek N, Bozkurt O. Effect of Intermittent Fasting (18/6) on Energy Expenditure, Nutritional Status, and Body Composition in Healthy Adults. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021;2021:7809611.

78
The Diminishing Returns of Overreaching

a recipe for serious overreaching for just about anyone: Amirthalingam T, Mavros Y, Wilson GC, et al. Effects of a Modified German Volume Training Program on Muscular Hypertrophy and Strength. J Strength Cond Res. 2017;31(11):3109-3119.

81
Complaining vs. Doing

this, in turn, discourages effective action: Wojciszke B, Baryla W, Szymkow A, et al. Saying is experiencing: Affective consequences of complaining and affirmation Saying is Experiencing: Affective Consequences of Complaining and Affirmation. Polish Psychological Bulletin. 2009;40:74-84.

a negative feedback loop can develop: Kowalski RM. Complaints and complaining: functions, antecedents, and consequences. Psychol Bull. 1996;119(2):179-196.

formidable emotional barriers to positive assessment, action, and change: Aubé C, Rousseau, V. Yes, we complain … so what? Journal of Managerial Psychology. 2016;31(7): 1137-1151.

“nothing can be done” and “nothing works.”: Lehmann-Willenbrock N, Kauffeld S. The downside of communication: Complaining circles in group discussions. In: Schuman S, ed. The handbook for working with difficult groups: How they are difficult, why they are difficult, what you can do. Jossey-Bass/Wiley; 2010:33-54.

82
10 Tips for Keeping the Weight Off

regain more than half of the weight lost within two years of losing it: Hall KD, Kahan S. Maintenance of lost weight and long-term management of obesity. Med Clin North Am. 2018;102(1):183-197. doi:10.1016/j.mcna.2017.08.012.

the less hungry you’ll generally be: Liu S, Wang X, Zheng Q, et al. Sleep Deprivation and Central Appetite Regulation. Nutrients. 2022;14(24):5196.. Greer SM, Goldstein AN, Walker MP. The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain. Nat Commun. 2013;4:2259.

84
Are You Sure You’re Overtraining?

to back yourself into that corner: Stellingwerff T, Heikura IA, Meeusen R, et al. Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S): Shared Pathways, Symptoms and Complexities. Sports Med. 2021;51(11):2251-2280.; Grandou C, Wallace L, Impellizzeri FM, et al. Overtraining in Resistance Exercise: An Exploratory Systematic Review and Methodological Appraisal of the Literature. Sports Med. 2020;50(4):815-828.

85
The Problem With Progress

choose a chocolate bar for a snack over an apple: Fishbach A, Dhar R. Goals as Excuses or Guides: The Liberating Effect of Perceived Goal Progress on Choice. Journal of Consumer Research. 2005;32:370-377.

the work we still have to do rather than the work we’ve already done: Fishbach A, Dhar R, Zhang Y. Subgoals as substitutes or complements: The role of goal accessibility. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2006;91(2):232-242.

90
Diet On, Diet Off

(taking a total of thirty-two weeks): Byrne NM, Sainsbury A, King NA, et al. Intermittent energy restriction improves weight loss efficiency in obese men: the MATADOR study. Int J Obes (Lond). 2018;42(2):129-138.

94
More Simple Exercise Hacks

(which can influence muscle building indirectly): Nunes JP, Grgic J, Cunha PM, et al. What influence does resistance exercise order have on muscular strength gains and muscle hypertrophy? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Sport Sci. 2021;21(2):149-157.

98
Targeted Fat Loss

the changes are too small to matter: Stallknecht B, Dela F, Helge JW. Are blood flow and lipolysis in subcutaneous adipose tissue influenced by contractions in adjacent muscles in humans?. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2007;292(2):E394-E399.

104
More Simple Health Hacks

improve cognition and sleep: Darki C, Riley J, Dadabhoy DP, et al. The Effect of Classical Music on Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, and Mood. Cureus. 2022;14(7):e27348.; Jenkins JS. The Mozart effect. J R Soc Med. 2001;94(4):170-172; Jensen KL. The effects of selected classical music on self-disclosure. J Music Ther. 2001;38(1):2-27; Chafin S, Roy M, Gerin W, et al. Music can facilitate blood pressure recovery from stress. Br J Health Psychol. 2004;9(3):393-403.; Siedliecki SL, Good M. Effect of music on power, pain, depression and disability. J Adv Nurs. 2006;54(5):553-562.; Hanser SB, Thompson LW. Effects of a music therapy strategy on depressed older adults. J Gerontol. 1994;49(6):P265-9; Scheufele PM. Effects of Progressive Relaxation and Classical Music on Measurements of Attention, Relaxation, and Stress Responses. J Behav Med. 2000;23(2):207-228.

psychiatric disorders, cognitive decline, and obesity: Chaput JP, Dutil C, Featherstone R, et al. Sleep timing, sleep consistency, and health in adults: a systematic review. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2020;45(10 (Suppl. 2)):S232-S247.; Knutson KL, von Schantz M. Associations between chronotype, morbidity and mortality in the UK Biobank cohort. Chronobiol Int. 2018;35(8):1045-1053.; Teixeira GP, Guimarães KC, Soares AGNS, et al. Role of chronotype in dietary intake, meal timing, and obesity: a systematic review. Nutr Rev. 2022;81(1):75-90.; Zou H, Zhou H, Yan R, et al. Chronotype, circadian rhythm, and psychiatric disorders: Recent evidence and potential mechanisms. Front Neurosci. 2022;16:811771.

including binge eating and emotional eating: Kinsey AW, Ormsbee MJ. The health impact of nighttime eating: old and new perspectives. Nutrients. 2015;7(4):2648-2662.; Kaur J, Dang AB, Gan J, et al. Night Eating Syndrome in Patients With Obesity and Binge Eating Disorder: A Systematic Review. Front Psychol. 2022;12:766827.

reduce hunger, cravings, and calorie intake: Rusu A, Ciobanu DM, Inceu G, et al. Variability in Sleep Timing and Dietary Intake: A Scoping Review of the Literature. Nutrients. 2022;14(24):5248.

105
Tough Love and Gentle Compassion

siblings are more likely to gain weight as well: Christakis NA, Fowler JH. The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years. N Engl J Med. 2007;357(4):370-379.

106
Weekend Weight Gain

gain weight on the weekends: Racette SB, Weiss EP, Schechtman KB, et al. Influence of weekend lifestyle patterns on body weight. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2008;16(8):1826-1830.

studies link the latter with weight gain and obesity: Chao AM, Jastreboff AM, White MA, et al. Stress, cortisol, and other appetite-related hormones: Prospective prediction of 6-month changes in food cravings and weight. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2017;25(4):713-720.

Find which approach works best for you: Varady KA, Cienfuegos S, Ezpeleta M, et al. Cardiometabolic Benefits of Intermittent Fasting. Annu Rev Nutr. 2021;41:333-361.; Welton S, Minty R, O’Driscoll T, et al. Intermittent fasting and weight loss: Systematic review. Can Fam Physician. 2020;66(2):117-125.; Elsworth RL, Monge A, Perry R, et al. The Effect of Intermittent Fasting on Appetite: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2023;15(11):2604.

108
Does Protein Timing Matter?

didn’t result in muscle loss: Tinsley GM, Forsse JS, Butler NK, et al. Time-restricted feeding in young men performing resistance training: A randomized controlled trial. Eur J Sport Sci. 2017;17(2):200-207.

eating one-to-three servings of protein per day in six-to-eight-hour feeding windows: Soeters MR, Lammers NM, Dubbelhuis PF, et al. Intermittent fasting does not affect whole-body glucose, lipid, or protein metabolism. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009;90(5):1244-1251.

Similar effects have been seen in athletes in a calorie deficit as well: Areta JL, Burke LM, Ross ML, et al. Timing and distribution of protein ingestion during prolonged recovery from resistance exercise alters myofibrillar protein synthesis. J Physiol. 2013;591(9):2319-2331.; Phillips SM, Van Loon LJ. Dietary protein for athletes: from requirements to optimum adaptation. J Sports Sci. 2011;29 Suppl 1:S29-S38.

process about 7 grams of protein per hour for muscle protein synthesis: Bilsborough S, Mann N. A review of issues of dietary protein intake in humans. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2006;16(2):129-152.

stimulates muscle protein synthesis rates: Atherton PJ, Etheridge T, Watt PW, et al. Muscle full effect after oral protein: time-dependent concordance and discordance between human muscle protein synthesis and mTORC1 signaling. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010;92(5):1080-1088.

lasts for up to three hours: Noton L, Wilson G. Optimal protein intake to maximize muscle protein synthesis Examinations of optimal meal protein intake and frequency for athletes. Agro Food Industry Hi-Tech. 2009;20(2):54-57.

112
Stop Watching Porn

It can lead to behaviors that closely mirror addiction: Love T, Laier C, Brand M, et al. Neuroscience of Internet Pornography Addiction: A Review and Update. Behav Sci (Basel). 2015;5(3):388-433.

rather than larger, long-term rewards: Negash S, Sheppard NV, Lambert NM, et al. Trading Later Rewards for Current Pleasure: Pornography Consumption and Delay Discounting. J Sex Res. 2016;53(6):689-700.

It increases the likelihood of a romantic breakup: Perry SL, Davis JT. Are Pornography Users More Likely to Experience a Romantic Breakup? Evidence from Longitudinal Data. Sexuality & Culture. 2017;21(4):1157-1176.

desire for more extreme forms of porn: Dwulit AD, Rzymski P. Prevalence, Patterns and Self-Perceived Effects of Pornography Consumption in Polish University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(10):1861.

It can contribute to erectile dysfunction: Jacobs T, Geysemans B, Van Hal G, et al. Associations Between Online Pornography Consumption and Sexual Dysfunction in Young Men: Multivariate Analysis Based on an International Web-Based Survey. JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2021;7(10):e32542.

It can create an appetite for high-risk sexual behaviors: Wright P, Randall A. Internet pornography exposure and risky sexual behavior among adult males in the United States. Computers in Human Behavior. 2012;28(4):1410-1416.

116
Is 1,200 Calories Per Day Dangerous?

mood disruption can become more pronounced: Müller MJ, Enderle J, Pourhassan M, et al. Metabolic adaptation to caloric restriction and subsequent refeeding: the Minnesota Starvation Experiment revisited. Am J Clin Nutr. 2015;102(4):807-819.

119
Do You Believe?

an inhaler that contained nebulized salt water: Luparello T, Lyons HA, Bleecker ER, et al. Influences of suggestion on airway reactivity in asthmatic subjects. Psychosom Med. 1968;30(6):819-825.

122
Dial 5-2 for Fat Loss

continuous calorie restriction (CCR), for losing weight: Seimon RV, Roekenes JA, Zibellini J, et al. Do intermittent diets provide physiological benefits over continuous diets for weight loss? A systematic review of clinical trials. Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2015;418 Pt 2:153-172.

followed by a period, usually the same, of maintenance calories: Byrne NM, Sainsbury A, King NA, et al. Intermittent energy restriction improves weight loss efficiency in obese men: the MATADOR study. Int J Obes (Lond). 2018;42(2):129-138.

124
Sick of Tracking Your Calories?

making it easier to effectively manage energy balance: Dorling J, Broom DR, Burns SF, et al. Acute and Chronic Effects of Exercise on Appetite, Energy Intake, and Appetite-Related Hormones: The Modulating Effect of Adiposity, Sex, and Habitual Physical Activity. Nutrients. 2018;10(9):1140.

132
How Fast Can You Lose Fat and Not Muscle?

is around 30 calories per pound of body fat per day: Alpert SS. A limit on the energy transfer rate from the human fat store in hypophagia. J Theor Biol. 2005;233(1):1-13.

138
Will Fasted Cardio Help You Lose Fat Faster?

the less body fat you’ll break down for energy: Choi SM, Tucker DF, Gross DN, et al. Insulin regulates adipocyte lipolysis via an Akt-independent signaling pathway. Mol Cell Biol. 2010;30(21):5009-5020.

(resulting in about the same amount of total fat burned over a 24-hour period): Vieira AF, Costa RR, Macedo RC, et al. Effects of aerobic exercise performed in fasted v. fed state on fat and carbohydrate metabolism in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Nutr. 2016;116(7):1153-1164.; Aird TP, Davies RW, Carson BP. Effects of fasted vs fed-state exercise on performance and post-exercise metabolism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2018;28(5):1476-1493.; Paoli A, Marcolin G, Zonin F, et al. Exercising fasting or fed to enhance fat loss? Influence of food intake on respiratory ratio and excess postexercise oxygen consumption after a bout of endurance training. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2011;21(1):48-54.; Schoenfeld BJ, Aragon AA, Wilborn CD, et al. Body composition changes associated with fasted versus non-fasted aerobic exercise. JISSN. 2014;11(54).

140
Are Seed and Vegetable Oils Unhealthy?

another type known as an omega-3 fatty acid: Simopoulos AP. An Increase in the Omega-6/Omega-3 Fatty Acid Ratio Increases the Risk for Obesity. Nutrients. 2016;8(3):128.

increased systemic inflammation (a powerful driver of disease): Johnson GH, Fritsche K. Effect of dietary linoleic acid on markers of inflammation in healthy persons: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2012;112(7):1029-1041.e10415.; Harris WS. The omega-6/omega-3 ratio and cardiovascular disease risk: uses and abuses. Curr Atheroscler Rep. 2006;8(6):453-459.; Su H, Liu R, Chang M, et al. Dietary linoleic acid intake and blood inflammatory markers: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Food Funct. 2017;8(9):3091-3103.; Pahwa R, Goyal A, Jialal I. Chronic Inflammation. StatPearls website. Updated August 7, 2023. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493173/.

including heart disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes: Ascherio A, Willett WC. Health effects of trans fatty acids. Am J Clin Nutr. 1997;66(4 Suppl):1006S-1010S.

142
The Three-to-Five Formula for Strength

Think strong, lift strong: Slimani M, Taylor L, Baker JS, et al. Effects of mental training on muscular force, hormonal and physiological changes in kickboxers. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2017;57(7-8):1069-1079.

push your tongue into the roof of your mouth: Ebben WP, Petushek EJ, Fauth ML, et al. EMG analysis of concurrent activation potentiation. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2010;42(3):556-562.

feel more confident in your ability to successfully complete each set: Sheridan A, Marchant DC, Williams EL, et al. Presence of Spotters Improves Bench Press Performance: A Deception Study. J Strength Cond Res. 2019;33(7):1755-1761.

148
The Ancestral Eater

improve bone health, muscle mass, strength, and weight management: Heaney RP. Dairy and bone health. J Am Coll Nutr. 2009;28 Suppl 1:82S-90S.; Josse AR, Tang JE, Tarnopolsky MA, et al. Body composition and strength changes in women with milk and resistance exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2010;42(6):1122-1130.; Van Loan M. The role of dairy foods and dietary calcium in weight management. J Am Coll Nutr. 2009;28 Suppl 1:120S-9S.

and even reduce mortality: Masters RC, Liese AD, Haffner SM, Wagenknecht LE, Hanley AJ. Whole and refined grain intakes are related to inflammatory protein concentrations in human plasma. J Nutr. 2010;140(3):587-594.; Katcher HI, Legro RS, Kunselman AR, et al. The effects of a whole grain-enriched hypocaloric diet on cardiovascular disease risk factors in men and women with metabolic syndrome. Am J Clin Nutr. 2008;87(1):79-90.; de Munter JS, Hu FB, Spiegelman D, et al. Whole grain, bran, and germ intake and risk of type 2 diabetes: a prospective cohort study and systematic review. PLoS Med. 2007;4(8):e261.; Jacobs DR Jr, Marquart L, Slavin J, et al. Whole-grain intake and cancer: an expanded review and meta-analysis. Nutr Cancer. 1998;30(2):85-96.; Jacobs DR Jr, Andersen LF, Blomhoff R. Whole-grain consumption is associated with a reduced risk of noncardiovascular, noncancer death attributed to inflammatory diseases in the Iowa Women’s Health Study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007;85(6):1606-1614.

Vegetable oil isn’t unhealthy per se: Bazzano LA, Thompson AM, Tees MT, et al. Non-soy legume consumption lowers cholesterol levels: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2011;21(2):94-103.

similar to chimpanzees today: Henry AG, Ungar PS, Passey BH, et al. The diet of Australopithecus sediba. Nature. 2012;487(7405):90-93.

may have been based on the cereal grass sorghum: Mercader J. Mozambican grass seed consumption during the Middle Stone Age. Science. 2009;326(5960):1680-1683.

ate starchy grains, nearly 44,000 years ago: Henry AG, Brooks AS, Piperno DR. Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and II, Belgium). Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011;108(2):486-491.

goes back as far as 30,000 years in Europe: Revedin A, Aranguren B, Becattini R, et al. Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010;107(44):18815-18819.

may have eaten potato-like vegetables: Hardy K, Brand-Miller J, Brown KD, et al. THE IMPORTANCE OF DIETARY CARBOHYDRATE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION. Q Rev Biol. 2015;90(3):251-268.

and honey (with this being the most important): Challa HJ, Bandlamudi M, Uppaluri KR. Paleolithic Diet. StatPearls website. Updated July 4, 2023. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482457/.; Marlowe FW, Berbesque JC. Tubers as fallback foods and their impact on Hadza hunter-gatherers. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2009;140(4):751-758.

contains berries and other wild fruits and honey: Kimondo J, Miaron J, Mutai P, et al. Ethnobotanical survey of food and medicinal plants of the Ilkisonko Maasai community in Kenya. J Ethnopharmacol. 2015;175:463-469.

were similar for ancient and modern-day humans: Berens AJ, Cooper TL, Lachance J. The Genomic Health of Ancient Hominins. Hum Biol. 2017;89(1):7-19.

are likely healthier than genomes from the distant past: Knipper C, Reinhold S, Gresky J, et al. Diet and subsistence in Bronze Age pastoral communities from the southern Russian steppes and the North Caucasus. PLoS One. 2020;15(10):e0239861.

152
Can You Really Do Your Own Research?

can lead even the most endowed experts astray: Vallabh Minikel E. John Ioannidis: the state of research on research. CureFFI website. Published March 17, 2016. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.cureffi.org/2016/03/17/john-ioannidis-the-state-of-research-on-research/.

158
Five of My Favorite HIIT Workouts

(and more specifically, than steady exercise at about 80 percent of maximum heart rate): Tucker WJ, Angadi SS, Gaesser GA. Excess Postexercise Oxygen Consumption After High-Intensity and Sprint Interval Exercise, and Continuous Steady-State Exercise. J Strength Cond Res. 2016;30(11):3090-3097.

improves endurance more than moderate-intensity cardio alone.: Stöggl T, Sperlich B. Polarized training has greater impact on key endurance variables than threshold, high intensity, or high volume training. Front Physiol. 2014;5:33.

160
Resting Is Investing

the most restful activities are as follows: Hammond C, Lewis G. The Rest Test: Preliminary Findings from a Large-Scale International Survey on Rest. In: Callard F, Staines K, Wilkes J, eds. The Restless Compendium: Interdisciplinary Investigations of Rest and Its Opposites. Palgrave Macmillan; 2016: Chapter 8.

causes feelings of isolation, unhappiness, and jealousy: Robinson JP, Martin S. What do happy people do? Social Indicators Research. 2008;89:565-571.; Reinecke L, Hartmann T, Eden, A. The guilty couch potato: The role of ego depletion in reducing recovery through media use. Journal of Communication. 2014;64(4):569-589; Kaspersky Lab. Kaspersky Lab Study Shows How Social Media Threatens Real-life Communication. Kaspersky website. Published January 19, 2017. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://usa.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2017_kaspersky-lab-study-shows-how-social-media-threatens-real-life-communication.

162
Does Energy Flux Matter?

(the amount of calories you burn digesting food): Melby CL, Paris HL, Sayer RD, et al. Increasing Energy Flux to Maintain Diet-Induced Weight Loss. Nutrients. 2019;11(10):2533.

165
I Want You to Be a Pessimist (About Pessimism)

bring about a series of frightful collisions: Telegraphic Cataclysm, A.” The New York Times. 1881; February 19. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1881/02/19/archives/a-telegraphic-cataclysm.html

168
The Catch with High-Tech Tracking

the Apple Watch 6, the Polar Vantage V, and the Fitbit Sense: Hajj-Boutros G, Landry-Duval MA, Comtois AS, et al. Wrist-worn devices for the measurement of heart rate and energy expenditure: A validation study for the Apple Watch 6, Polar Vantage V and Fitbit Sense. Eur J Sport Sci. 2023;23(2):165-177.