Health Mastery (If You Control Your Body You Control Your Life)
The Mastery letter #20
Read time: 5 minutes
Do less of this:
Porn
Alcohol
Vaping
Weed/drugs
Processed foods
Tiktok/social media
Binging video games
Staying up late and sleeping in
And more of this:
Sun
Sleep
Walking
Nutrition
Meditation
Lifting
Health keeps your mind and body in peak condition so that you can enjoy the fruits of life.
Endorphins are released during exercise, laughing and sex.
It is a natural pain reliever.
Serotonin is also released more often when you're exercising, eating well, and getting adequate sun.
They both make you feel amazing.
Everything else in life is useless if you wake up feeling groggy and terrible every morning due to a malnourished diet, low testosterone, low sun exposure and sedentary lifestyle.
You should go to bed tired because you gave the day everything you had, but still excited to work in the morning to create an impact on the world.
Your dopamine and testosterone should be aiding this process.
They both make effort feel good.
If you’re getting adequate sleep, eating whole foods and lifting weights, you should feel awesome due to high dopamine and testosterone levels.
Sun
Benefits:
Releases dopamine
Vitamin D which improves your mood
Sets up your circadian rhythm so that you get better sleep
More energy throughout the day
Clears acne and skin issues
Many more
Easiest way to go out during sunrise as you can knock out 2 birds with one stone on a morning walk for 10-15 minutes.
Walking
Walking is a great entry into exercise. Being outside just feels good. It is relaxing and opens your mind to creativity.
As mentioned above, it also gets you sunlight.
It helps you stay present in the moment. I’ve never been angry or irritable, gone on a walk, and not felt better. It works like magic.
Aim for 10k/steps per day as this is about 500 calories burned. Win win.
After 6 months of walking you can buy a weighted vest and start adding weight slowly to increase your cardiovascular health.
Get a mini treadmill walking pad so that you can get steps in while on meetings and watching tv.
Lastly, get a standing desk immediately. If you work from home or if you game often, this will come in handy.
Sitting is terrible for you.
Nutrition
You must fuel your body with the proper nutrients in order to maximize your energy, longevity, and productivity.
Thermodynamics is all that matters. You must burn more calories than you consume.
Plan and simple.
Download MyFitnessPal and track your meals for a week or week or so.
Most people hover around the same 4-5 meals in a week but don’t realize it.
Adjust those 4-5 meals a bit to meet your calorie and protein goals.
A few tips:
No processed foods
No seed oils
I l ike to eat 400 calories, workout around 11am, then eat another 400, then 1000-1200 for dinner at 5pm
High protein like meats, protein bars, shakes, etc. This will keep you full and satiated
Fasting, your body repairs cells while you aren’t eating
Fruits and vegetables
Coffee and sparkling water blunt hunger during fast
Sleep
You need 8 hours of sleep to:
Energy
Focus
Recovery
Build muscle
Live longer
Cementing memories and information
Get your sleep.
Couple hacks I use:
Alarm/phone in the bathroom
White noise
Eyemask
Mouth tape to avoid mouth breathing
No screens 1 hour before bed
No water 2 hours before bed
No eating 3 hours before bed
Prioritize your sleep.
Lifting
Warriors have always been strong.
The first habit you should ever make is lifting weights.
It teaches you consistency at an early age.
It teaches the benefits of delayed results. Being strong helps with almost every other domain in life.
An impressive physique is one of the most sought-after things that most don’t have.
You’ve got one vehicle to work with in this life, treat it well.
Start with:
1 push-up
1 split squat
1 pull up.
Then do 2.
After a few months go to a gym and start lifting weights.
Once you start using weights, these are the main exercises I recommend: Incline bench, Weighted chin up, Weighted dips, Overhead press, Bulgarian split squat, Romanian deadlift, Lateral raises, Bent fly's, DB incline curls and DB skull crushers.
Pick any program or routine.
It doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that you stick to the routine consistently.
It’s non-negotiable.
Meditation
You must train your mind to focus.
Every breath you pay attention to is training the mind to better focus on your goal tasks.
Every breath trains you to stay present and not get lost in your thoughts.
It will increase your:
Focus
Patience
and reduce your:
Anxiety
Stress
Anger
Sam Harris has a great app called “Waking Up” that has guided lessons and meditations that I like.
Start 1 minute a day and slowly build up to 10-15 min.
Bonus: Martial Arts
You should learn to fight.
Having big muscles means nothing in a fight.
It is all about technique.
Think about if you played a Grandmaster in chess, you would get decimated with ease.
Think about if you played even a 1000 ELO chess player, 99% of you would get destroyed.
There are levels to everything, fighting included.
Even if a guy has 6 months of BJJ training, he would destroy you in a 1on1 fight unless you are 100lbs heavier.
You need to protect your family. You need to be competent and trust your abilities to defend yourself.
More importantly, the character development that comes from training martial arts.
You will learn humility when you walk into a BJJ, Muay Thai or boxing gym.
Think about all the times you created a fantasy in your head where you got in a fight, stayed calm, dodged a punch and knocked a guy out with a haymaker and all the men feared your skills and women wanted you from then on.
You were wrong.
Very wrong.
You have absolutely no chance and no clue what you are doing.
You would panic, gas out in under 20 seconds, and get your ass kicked and get embarrassed in front of everyone.
You would be humiliated and humbled.
That is why you need training.
You will be a white belt and will learn how get beat down and still show up consistently.
You will become tough and patient.
You will learn discipline.
You will learn to embrace discomfort and how to be a beginner for a year.
It will be meditative because you are so present during sparring sessions.
You will be rewarded with the technical problem solving aspects of the art, as well as the endorphins released afterwards from intense exercise.
You will have a community.
A tribe of men that fight.
A tribe of men you can rely on and trust with your life.
Trust me on this.
When you’re ready for 1on1 health consulting, book a discovery call here https://calendly.com/thebrandoncraig/30min