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I will admit, I was born with fairly good genes... I was never overweight growing up and I was moderately athletic. Not a bad starting position.
But then, as I got older, a few things started happening. Nothing was immediate, this all happened slowly over time, but after several years it became quite noticeable.
First, my energy levels started to decline. Not the kind of energy that prevented me from working (which is primarily in front of a computer or in various meetings / conference calls), but the energy to do things after work.
When I got home, I just wanted to sit down and veg out. I rarely had energy to go to the gym or do much other than talk or watch some TV. The mornings were just as bad, I struggled to get out of bed and often snoozed for 30-60 minutes before finally getting myself up.
Second, I started gaining weight. Not a whole lot, but I probably added 15-20% to my weight over a period of years and I definitely got pretty "soft" around the edges. I was not obese (yet), but I was definitely not as fit as I wanted to be.
This started to become a downward spiral as my lack of energy led to a more sedentary lifestyle which led to more cravings for foods and alcohol.
Wake up, repeat.
Then after we had our child, the lack of sleep just amplified the entire cycle and added a whole new layer of stress to the situation.
The bottom line, I just didn't feel like myself.
I thought... is this normal when you get older? Despite being (supposedly) healthy, I am still tired all the time, so what's wrong with me?
Well, it turned out that pretty much everything I knew about health and fitness was wrong.
Let's start with my diet:
I always thought that fat was bad and eating a low fat diet was healthy... turns out, that's mostly wrong. You need a healthy dose of “good" fats and you want to limit carbs, especially sugar which is the real enemy. Maybe that's common knowledge, but it definitely was not for me.
Here was my typical “healthy” breakfast:
- Skim milk (low fat) latte
- Glass of orange juice
- Bowl of cereal with a banana
How much sugar do you think that "healthy" breakfast contains? Depending on the size of the bowl of cereal, up to 100 GRAMS of sugar! Not to mention the glycemic load and digestive strain caused by all the milk.
Do you know what the International Health Organization's recommends as a daily dose of sugar? 25 grams! Damn, I just had 4x that amount eating what I thought was a healthy breakfast.
I was setting myself up for failure right from the start. And it didn't stop there... my “healthy" turkey sandwich for lunch, guess what... the bread was loaded with refined carbs. I would often have a small bag of chips and a cookie to go with it... a small but consequential mistake.
Dinner was often centered around rice or pasta, neither of which I thought were unhealthy. Then of course I would have a small helping of ice cream or maybe a cookie for dessert.
Sure, I had a few indulgences but I actually thought I was eating fairly healthy, but in reality I was slowly pushing all my key hormones to dangerous levels which was having a major impact on my energy, which reinforced bad habits of eating and drinking.
Now let’s take a look at fitness…
Through my mid-to-late 20s I was fairly active, often playing basketball a few times a week and going to the gym fairly regularly. Then adult life set in… I started working long hours, traveling a good bit and had more responsibilities, so my exercise regimen slipped over time.
Since I no longer had regular access (or time) to go to a gym or play basketball, I started jogging - sounds healthy, right?
I would typically jog 2-4 miles maybe 2-3 times a week, so I got in about 30 minutes of solid exercise each time, or about 60-90 minutes a week.
First of all, 60-90 minutes a week is only 0.6% to 0.9% of my time, so I was spending less than 1% of my time exercising. This is just not enough.
But more importantly, I was telling myself that I was doing good by jogging which gave me the excuse to indulge even more… sure, you can have that ice cream for dessert because you jogged today, or yes go ahead and treat yourself to lunch because you jogged this morning.
How many calories do you burn running 3 miles in 30 minutes? About 300. How many calories are in a pound? About 3,500… so if I wanted to lose a pound, it would take me about 12 sessions, or at my rate, it would take me about 4-6 weeks, just to lose 1 pound!
However, that doesn’t take into consideration the amount of EXTRA calories I was eating as a result of treating myself, or the unconscious extra calories I was eating because my body just craved more food following the exercise.
While I thought I was being healthy by jogging, I was actually gradually getting less healthy overall because of my diet.
So here I am, thinking I am eating healthy and staying fit by jogging, yet I’m gradually gaining weight and have lower and lower energy. Something has got to give!
The first thing I did was start reading and educating myself on health and fitness… this is where I learned that what I thought I knew was basically all wrong and then I started making changes and tracking the progress.
I am a fairly logical person and I like the idea of experimentation, so I approached every change as a “test" with measurements to determine if what I was doing actually worked.
The end result, about 2 years after I completely revamped my diet and fitness habits, and as I approach my 40th birthday, I can confidently say that I am in the best shape of my life and I cannot remember when my energy levels have been higher.
I did this all naturally, safely and through a number of small changes over time to ensure that I could take the experiments that worked and turn them into sustainable habits and daily practices.
Here is a condensed version of my progression along with some tips that I learned along the way.
Tip #1 - start with minor changes to your diet and build from there.
Diet Change #1 - I completely re-thought the concept of breakfast.
After learning the negative effects of the sugar I was consuming in my previous “healthy” breakfast and reading a lot of material on the importance of breakfast, I concluded that:
- Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day - this is a myth
- Skipping breakfast altogether is really hard
So I replaced breakfast with a protein shake - I got this idea from Tim Ferriss’ book The Four Hour Body, which is a great read if you are starting out on health and fitness education.
For convenience, I started with the pre-packaged Muscle Milk shakes which is part of my general recommendation to make your initial changes as easy as possible. There’s not much easier than going to the fridge and popping a pre-prepared protein shake… I actually saved a lot of time in the morning.
At this stage, I made no other changes to my diet for about a month.
The result: I lost about 10 pounds in the first month by doing nothing else.
Next up, I looked at all the sugar I was consuming across my diet and concluded that I was consuming too much.
Diet Change #2 - I eliminated all sugar from my drinks.
You will be shocked when you look at how much sugar is in so-called healthy drinks. That Naked Juice Green Machine - 56g per bottle! That Pure Leaf Iced Team Lemon - 41g per bottle! Also pay close attention to pre-packaged protein shakes.
I vowed to only consume the following drinks:
- Water - bonus if spring or well water
- Coffee - black, no sugar added
- Unsweet tea - bonus if brewed myself vs. bought pre-packed)
- Wine - must be dry wines and bonus if organic or natural
The result: when combined with change #1, which I changed to mixing protein powder with water, was another 5 pounds lost at the end of the second month for a total of 15 pounds in 2 months.
Diet Change #3 - I significantly cut back on refined carbohydrates.
As I mentioned earlier, carbs and especially sugar are the real enemy. I won’t go into all the science behind why, but there is plenty of literature out there on the subject. The basic point to know is that carbs trigger an insulin response which in turn sets off a chain of negative hormonal events in your body.
Cutting down on carbs was actually quite easy because I was consuming so much of them.
Tip #2 - you don’t need to go to extremes and jump right to the perfect solution.
When I started cutting out carbs, I didn’t go right into a full ketogenic diet (that’s not likely to be sustainable) but I just started cutting down to get into the habit of thinking twice before consuming carbs… I would ask myself, do I really need to eat this? Over time, I started experimenting with keto diets and more extreme programs, but I built up to it over time.
Here are some of the easy carbs that I cut out:
- Bread - I didn’t stop eating bread altogether, but I set reasonable limits
- Pasta - I was probably eating pasta 3 times per week, I started by cutting back to once per week
- Pizza - I love it, but found that after I started paying attention, I actually felt like shit after eating a lot of pizza so I started saving it for special occasions
- Pastries - since these are usually loaded with sugar, I mostly cut them out completely
The result: another 5 pounds for a total of 20 pounds lost in the first 3-4 months of making changes.
Diet Change #4 - I started eating more “good” fats.
Your brain is about 60% fat and it needs a consistent source of healthy fats to function properly. Ever get brain fog and can’t remember what you’re trying to say or lose focus? Chances are you need more good fats in your diet.
I won’t get into all the debate over the amount of fat and details, but there are some universal good fats that you want to incorporate as a regular part of your diet, and this is really easy.
Here are a couple great sources of good fats to add to your diet:
- Olive oil - not to cook with, but to use as dressing (I especially like to drizzle it over veggies and chicken)
- Avocados - possibly my favorite food these days
- Nuts - my new go-to snack is mixed nuts… almonds, cashews, walnuts
The result: I have noticeably less brain fog and overall enhanced cognitive function. Not kidding, I feel smarter these days.
Beyond those 4 changes, I made many others and have tweaked things along the way. With just diet changes alone I ended up dropping over 20 pounds and 9% body fat, gained better mental clarity and significantly increased my energy levels. It was extremely noticeable… it was the first thing people said who had not seen me in awhile.
But I wasn’t done… next up was to conquer fitness.
Fitness Change #1 - I stopped jogging as my primary source of exercise.
Make no mistake, all else equal jogging is good for you. The problem for me was twofold - I didn’t really enjoy jogging as compared to other forms of exercise and it wasn’t really doing anything for me in terms of physical fitness beyond the basic cardio benefit.
Tip #3 - when it comes to cardio fitness, pick something that you really enjoy doing.
When I gave myself permission to stop jogging, it was actually like a weight lifted off my shoulders as I now didn’t feel the guilt of having to go jogging multiple times per week and I am sure that internal conflict created some unnecessary stress.
Instead, I told myself that for cardio fitness I would experiment with different forms of exercise with the basic goal of getting my heart rate elevated for periods of time, and it didn’t matter if that came from biking, hiking, playing basketball, tennis or any other sport, or just walking for more extended periods.
I started by getting a Fitbit (this was pre-Apple watch and Fitbit was all the rage) and I created a fun game for myself trying to achieve step goals and actually enjoyed it.
I have since picked up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu which is an amazing physical and mental workout that I thoroughly enjoy. I would never have had the energy (or guts) to start that had I not made my diet changes.
The result: I didn’t have a good pre-change baseline, but I guarantee that my overall physical activity levels have improved significantly. I also had less stress from dropping the jogging routine.
Fitness Change #2 - I started doing short duration high-intensity resistance training.
With jogging out of the routine, I wanted to add some resistance training but in a way that would also elevate my heart rate to the levels I would reach when jogging. I also wanted something that could be done in 20 minutes because I didn’t have the time to commit hours to my workouts.
I started with a short warm-up of about 5 minutes, either on the treadmill, stationary bike or rowing machine (whatever I had access to, but just something to break an initial sweat). Then I would rotate between 5-7 different exercises (usually body weight exercises or dumbbells) with little to no rest between sets.
For example, I would do a set of push ups, then go right into a set of air squats or dumbbell lunges, then pull ups, then plank and finish with bicep curls. The entire routine would take about 7 minutes, and after I would lay down on the floor/map for about 3-4 minutes to give my nervous system a chance to reset, then repeat.
That’s it, 5 minutes of warm up plus 20 minutes of actual workout and I’m done. Twice a week, that’s it. The key is intensity - when I finished the routine, I would almost feel like throwing up. Maybe that doesn’t sound appealing, but it was a price I was willing to pay for not having to go to the gym for hours at a time.
The result: I had noticeable gains in strength and physical appearance… I could actually see my abs for the first time in a long time.
Fitness Change #3 - I started lifting heavy free weights.
Back in high school and through most of college and my mid-20s, I lifted weights. Not always regularly, but I did hit the gym a few times each week. As I got older, I thought that wasn’t the best type of exercise so if I did happen to go to a gym (which was rare) I typically used the machines and did lower weights with higher repetitions.
There is a lot of science to the hormonal and fat-burning benefits of lifting heavy weights, especially through compound movements like the dead lift, squat and bench press.
This was not easy… stepping back into the gym and trying to do big weight dead lifts is not a great place to start, so I worked into these big lifts over a period of months by using dumbbells. Not ready to do a straight bar dead lift - just put a dumbbell on its end on the floor and pick it up using the dead lift form.
The result: I gained 10 pounds of lean muscle while maintaining my 9% body fat over a period of 6 months and my strength has improved dramatically.
*Tip #4 - when lifting heavy weights or doing any intense resistance training, rest is as important as the workout itself. *
I used to think that I needed to lift every day or 5 times per week to get results when in reality, less is more. The key is finding out the minimum level of effort for the maximum result.
Tip #5 - it is important to set goals and create a system for tracking your progress.
To keep things easy, I created a simple notebook in Evernote (which works great as it syncs across my devices and I always have my phone on me) to track my personal bests across various fitness categories. The dopamine release that you get from achieving a new personal best and recording it is fuel for the next workout.
While all these changes across diet and fitness may sound daunting when taken in totality, it was actually quite easy to layer them in one by one over time.
Yes, I still do get some cravings for junk food, especially when it’s offered for free, but the temptation is much lower and my willpower is much higher because I am much more conscious of how I feel afterwards, and I would much rather sustain high energy and performance than getting a temporary sugar rush.
As these changes have become part of my daily routine, I am constantly tweaking and continue experimenting to see what works best, and that activity alone has been energizing. I honestly cannot imagine where I would be had I not made these changes and my only regret is that I did not make them sooner.
If you can only take away one thought from this article, it would be to really question what you know about health and fitness and if you’re not getting the physical and mental results you want, start with small, simple changes and you’ll be surprised by the effects.