This is the ONE thing you must never lose…
The Hyperfocused Entrepreneur
October 31, 2023
Read time: 8 minutes
CLICK HERE to learn the most powerful skill in the world.
One year ago I stepped on the scale and almost cried.
I wanted the number to be wrong, but…
I’d been avoiding eye contact with the guy in the mirror for too long…
And there was no more hiding from the truth.
It was time for a change.
Here’s what we did to lose 30 pounds in 3 months:
But first, a disclaimer:
Health is relative and highly personal.
I’m sharing my journey not as an example to be emulated, but as a data point you might use on yours.
This is just what worked for me so take it with a grain of salt.
Alright, let’s get to it.
Part One: Bringing Your Monster Into The Light
I’ve been a high level athlete most of my life.
I ran cross country and track in college, fought MMA in my early 20s, and spent most of my 20s traveling the world as a professional rock climber.
This is worth mentioning because this has skewed my perspective of what I consider a normal level of fitness.
And truthfully, now on the cusp of 40, I find myself struggling against the memories of my youth.
I struggle to go for a run when it seems like just yesterday I was warming up at a pace that my current-self couldn’t even manage on a downhill with a strong wind at my back.
I struggle to go to the crag when all the young bucks are climbing circles around me on routes I once climbed in flip-flops.
My ego clings so hard to the identity of who I was that it stops me from living to the fullest as who I am now.
And so I started to slip…
It didn’t seem like much at first.
Just a few missed gym days and a couple extra ice cream sandwiches…
But slowly, the number on the scale started creeping higher and higher every time I stepped onto it…
So…
I just stopped stepping onto it.
Then there was the problem of the guy in the mirror.
A guy I wish I could say I didn’t recognize…
But the truth was I knew him all-too-well.
Looking at him was a reminder that I wasn’t living in alignment with who I wanted to be…
So I stopped looking.
Problem is:
Monsters in the dark are the hardest to defeat.
Storytellers know this, which is why they wait so long to show you the monster in the movie.
They know reality always pales in comparison to the horror you conjure up in your own imagination.
Remember this:
Monsters in the light are never as scary as the ones in the dark.
Also, they’re easier to fight.
So step one in my journey was to bring my monster into the light so I could get a good hard look at him.
Once I actually knew what I was up against, it was time to assemble my Fellowship of the Ring.
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Part Two: Assembling Your Team
At the beginning of this letter I said:
“Here’s what WE did to lose 30 pounds in 3-months…”
It was my weight to lose, but it was a team-effort.
Frodo had to carry the ring to Mordor, but he never would’ve gotten there without Sam and the rest of his squad.
My team consisted of two people: Phil (my trainer) and Jamie (my partner).
Phil had it easy.
I paid him a bunch of money to plan out my workouts and nutrition.
Here’s the funny thing about Phil’s role on my team:
His value to me actually had nothing to do with the workouts or nutrition plans…
It was all about external accountability.
See, I actually know quite a lot about physical training…
(for a time, I actually coached Olympic athletes)
But knowing what to do… and actually self-motivating yourself to do it…are completely different things.
I needed a way to hold myself accountable… and if there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s this:
I’m cheap.
I hate spending money.
Especially spending money on something I already know how to do (ie: get swole).
So paying Phil was an easy way of exploiting the pain/reward centers of my brain to actually get into the gym and stick to my eating plan.
This might not work for you, but it was incredibly effective for me.
I didn’t miss a single workout or a single meal in those first 120 days.
Okay, but the true hero in this story is Sam…. errr…
I mean, Jamie.
Jamie is the one that actually kept me alive and got my ass to Mount Doom.
She carried the mental and physical load of our meal prep (which was immense), but even more valuable to me was her unwavering support.
If you want a happy life, here’s the single best hack I can recommend:
Find your Jamie.
You can’t have mine, she’s taken. So good luck.
But you 100% absolutely need to assemble a team to help support and hold you accountable.
Once you’ve done that… you can move onto the tactics of change.
Part Three: The Path Back to You
This is the part most of you probably came for…
What did you actually do to lose the weight?
And I’m sorry it took so long to get here, but truthfully, the first two sections are the most important parts.
Identifying that there IS a problem to be solved is step one.
Step two is finding the people to help you solve that problem.
By the time you get to step three… well…
Here’s the interesting thing…
You probably already know what to do.
You just aren’t doing it.
Solving for the WHY you aren’t doing it… is everything.
So please, start there.
Confucius said it best:
“The healthy man wants 1,000 things. A sick man only wants one.”
It’s so easy to take for granted the miracle that is your body.
It’s a marvel of evolutionary engineering that most of us don’t spend much time thinking about when things are going well.
But, as soon as something goes wrong, and we’re laid up with the sniffles or we snap a tendon playing Pickleball, well, suddenly our broken body is ALL we can care about.
NOW we’re willing to do whatever it takes to get back to normal… we’ll try experimental procedures and we pray to gods we don’t even believe in if we think there’s even a sliver of a chance it might help.
But here’s the sad truth..
Your idea of what it means to feel normal right now is probably wildly skewed.
At least, it was for me.
See, I just took for granted that I should be sore and achy every morning when I wake up…
That I needed that cup of coffee to jump start the system and clear the brain fog…
Of course I’m a little sluggish in the afternoon after eating lunch…
And that it’s only natural for my energy levels to dip in the evening.
Truth is, my body was in a constant state of distress… but since I was so used to that distress, I never questioned it and therefore never thought to fix it.
Okay, so if you want to reset the baseline of that beautiful body of yours, there’s three things you’ve got to get dialed in:
I call these your 3 Levers of Energy:
- Nutrition
- Sleep
- Exercise
Here’s a few thoughts on each:
Nutrition
Okay, so I am a human garbage disposal.
And I never really thought this was a problem because I’ve been an athlete my entire life and had the metabolism of a god.
But the most profound effects of nutrition (especially if you’ve got ADHD like me), are completely invisible.
This was proven to me when Phil had me cut three things out of my diet:
- Gluten
- Sugar
- Alcohol
Within two weeks, I shit you not, I felt like Bradley Cooper in Limitless.
I could see music and taste sound.
My mind was clear, focused, and razor sharp for the first time in… in maybe ever.
It was like stepping out of a perpetual Brain Fog.
Turns out, there’s a lot of research that suggests gluten, in particular, amplifies many of the symptoms of ADHD.
I’m not going to pretend getting your nutrition dialed in is easy, but it’s 100% worth it.
Here’s 3 easy steps to get started:
Stop drinking alcohol.
Period. It’s poison. You don’t need it. Cut it out.
Reduce sugar intake.
Again, easier said than done, because sugar is everywhere, but at minimum cut out the blatantly overprocessed and overly-sugary treats.
Cut out inflammatory foods.
I think Inflammation is going to become the new health buzzword over the next decade as people come to realize just how impactful this is on their health.
Some examples of foods known to cause inflammation are red meats, dairy, refined grains, sweetened drinks, and fried food.
Cut these out of your diet and I think you’ll notice a pretty stark improvement.
Alright, the second lever of energy is:
Sleep
If you’re feeling tired, overwhelmed, easily stressed, distracted, unfocused and scattered, then you probably need to get your sleep sorted out.
Here’s the truth:
Most of us are chronically sleep deprived.
Which is a massive problem, because research shows sleep deprivation is linked to a slew of chronic health problems such as heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity, and depression.
This is really serious stuff, guys. So don’t take it lightly.
Here’s three things that have helped me dial in my sleep:
- Go to bed at the same time every night
- Make sure your bedroom is nice and crispy (humans sleep better in the cold)
- And make sure your bedroom is dark… like dark-dark. For this, I wear a sleeping mask.
As I was working to clean up my diet, I noted something kind of surprising:
Junk food was less tempting on the days when I got a great night’s sleep.
In hindsight, this makes sense.
If you’ve ever had a terrible night’s sleep, you were probably irritable the next day and short of patience. Often when we feel this way, we look to self-soothe with cheap dopamine (aka: junk food).
Also, I later learned that poor sleep causes our metabolism to slow down.. So ya know, if you want to lose weight…one of the absolute easiest ways is to just focus on getting a good night’s sleep.
Which leads us to our third lever of energy, and the HARDEST way to lose weight:
Exercise
The human body seems to defy physics in a few interesting ways.
One such way is in how expending energy acts as a catalyst for creating MORE energy.
Have you ever noticed how energized and amazing you feel after a good workout?
Well, we could chalk that up to endorphins, but the truth is there’s a lot going on inside your body after a hard workout…
Things that generate better mental clarity, more energy, and feelings of happiness.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I hit my peak weight… feelings of mental clarity, energy, and happiness were in short supply.
No, I was mentally foggy, lethargic, and a sad little Eeyore.
Which is why regardless of where you are on your fitness journey, you HAVE to prioritize exercising at least 30 minutes every single day.
Now, there are thousands of workout plans out there, but there’s no need to overcomplicate this.
Your only goal at this point is to Lift Heavy Stuff and Get Out of Breath.
Do those two things everyday for 6 months and your body is going to be dramatically improved.
And I promise if you stack THAT atop the foundation you’ve already established by bringing your monster into the dark and assembling your team, you will have everything you need to transform not only your body, but your life.
Until next week, my friends…
Stay Hyperfocused,
AV
From YouTube This Week:
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Want to go even deeper?
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