The first thing I would do for anyone who’s trying to lose body fat, for instance, would be to remove foods from the house that he or she would consume during lapses of self-control.
Now, it’s literally #1 (health). What does this mean? If I sleep poorly and have an early morning meeting, I’ll cancel the meeting last-minute if needed and catch up on sleep. If I’ve missed a workout and have a con-call coming up in 30 minutes? Same. Late-night birthday party with a close friend? Not unless I can sleep in the next morning.
Ours is a culture where we wear our ability to get by on very little sleep as a kind of badge of honor that symbolizes work ethic, or toughness, or some other virtue—but really, it’s a total profound failure of priorities and of self-respect.
In practice, strictly making health #1 has real social and business ramifications. That’s a price I’ve realized I must be fine paying, or I could lose weeks or months to sickness or fatigue.
I would emphasize that by improving your physical machine, which includes the brain, you improve all of your performance, and the transfer is incredible to business.
Even if you are predisposed to being overweight, you’re not predestined to be fat.
As long as you are keeping your blood-sugars in check, and your insulin levels in check, I think that the demonization of fat – including saturated fat – is completely unwarranted.
Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing that person who’s struggling to lose weight who thinks that they need to run 20 miles a week. They have no desire to do it, their knees hurt, they hate it, and they’re not losing weight. And I’d like to say, ‘Well, I’ve got great news for you. You don’t ever need to run another step a day in your life, because there’s no value in that.’ “There is value in exercise, though, and I think that the most important type of exercise, especially in terms of bang for your buck, is going to be really high-intensity, heavy strength training. Strength training aids everything from glucose disposal and metabolic health to mitochondrial density and orthopedic stability. That last one might not mean much when you’re a 30-something young buck, but when you’re in your 70s, that’s the difference between a broken hip and a walk in the park.
Hot baths can also significantly increase GH (growth hormones) over baseline, and both sauna and hot baths have been shown to cause a massive release in prolactin, which plays a role in wound healing.
I now take ~20-minute saune sessions post-workout or post-stretching at least four times per week, typically at roughly 160 to 170F. If nothing else, it seems to dramatically decrease DOMS (delayed-onset muscle soreness).
Making health #1 50% of the time doesn’t work. It’s absolute — all or nothing. If it’s #1 50% of the time, you’ll compromise precisely when it’s most important.
AcroYoga is something that I’m currently really delving into. It’s a combination of, in effect, yoga, acrobatics, and Cirque Du Soleil-type performances.
On seeking ways to sleep better: That’s how I started reading fiction again. It really was to consume something that would actually push me away from problem solving and more into kind of fantasy dream mode. I was like alright, I’m not really a fiction reader but to fix my insomnia I’ll do it.
