Health is Wealth

Principle #1 from my 2024 Manifesto - Health is Wealth

There is no higher form of self respect than taking care of your health and fitness and following through on what you say you are going to do.

The Juice (TLDR)

• The best exercise is the one you will show up for every day. Find what works for you. Consistency is better than intensity.

• For me that’s training full body 5-6 times per week, 30-60 minutes per session & doing 1-2 cardio sessions per week. Find yours, follow it, no excuses.

• Track what you eat. You can use free tools like My Fitness Pal but you need to be conscious of what you are consuming. Calculate your BMR. Learn basic macros/nutrients

• Nutrition doesn’t need to be complicated. If you want to lose weight, be in a calorie deficit. If you want to gain weight, be in a calorie surplus.

• Consume enough protein. Aim for 1g per pound of body weight daily. Rest can be made up of fats/carbs. Find what your body responds best to. Eat more fresh meat/veg. Eat less processed foods.. simple.

• Try to get some sunlight daily. Get 7+ hours of good quality sleep.

I believe the ultimate lifehack is taking care of your health and everything else will follow. It is the ultimate form of self respect. Feel better, look better, do better. Got it?

Now, there is levels to this game. There is keeping yourself healthy enough to avoid getting sick and getting your steps in. Then there is having a plan to get in and stay in great shape. One that will physically and mentally test you, but will become the foundation for everything else you do in your life.

When I see someone in great shape, I automatically know they at least have some admirable qualities.. no, this doesn’t mean all people in good shape are good people, nor does it mean everyone in good shape is healthy either - but as a general rule you can immediately respect they show some level of;

• Discipline

• Mental toughness

• They are consistent & know how to follow some kind of plan

• & more than likely have a good self respect (this is the ultimate benefit)

Now why should you listen to me? You shouldn’t.. I’m just building out and documenting practices I personally follow and have found work for me. You need to find what works for you. Maybe this helps…

Prior to running BYS I was a personal trainer for 3-4 years. Prior to that I worked in sports nutrition (maybe only for 6 months.. I wasn’t great at having a boss). But my personal interests have always heavily been influenced by health and fitness and is where I have tried, tested and studied for a good part of a decade.

I have done it the unhealthy way - I tried steroids in my early 20’s as an ego fueled 20 something year old - I was lucky I never did any irreversible damage to my endocrine system.

Last year when my life seemed to be spiraling I was hardly training and eating poorly. I was in possibly the worst shape of my life, contributing to an unhealthy inner dialogue.

In August last year I needed somewhere to channel my energy - and I knew if I got back to feeling good, it had to start with my health and fitness as it was always such a core part of my identity.

Control the controllable. Focus on stacking mini wins day after day by just following a simple plan.

Most people have the mindset of - once I get my head right, then I’ll start training. When in reality the most effective way is to go the opposite of that approach. Focus on your physiology - command your body to move, get the endorphins, get the satisfaction that if all else goes to shit in your day.. at least you have done something positive for yourself. You stack a few of these days or weeks together and you have completely changed your headspace.

One of my favorite parts of the book Atomic Habits is where Clear writes about just showing up and doing the action. Get to the gym, even if its for 15 minutes, you have shown up. If you do that enough you end up thinking… well fuck, I’m here I may as well do a bit more. After doing this long enough your identity goes from being someone who rarely exercises, to a gym-goer. Someone that exercises regularly, and there is no stronger power in us as humans than the act to stay congruent with our self identity & who we believe we are.

Now… I’m not saying you need to go Bryan Johnson and spend $2m per year biohacking every party of your daily routine. But 80/20 the things that will fit into your lifestyle.

The best workout for you is the one that you will show up to do every day. Consistency over intensity… If you can do both, even better.

Before I get stuck into the specifics, I want to rehash the manifesto quote - ‘To succeed you must plan. To improve you must measure.’

To make a plan, you must first know your baseline. I have a big interest in personalised health & preventative medicine and this is all about firstly understanding how to read the scorecard, secondly how to influence positive changes to see progress.

Before you can know your outputs, I recommend you get insight on your inputs. Let’s call this your personal dashboard.

Primary

1. Calculating your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) 
   There are many free BMR calculators on the internet. This will give your base daily energy expenditure (in calories) based on your age, gender, height, weight & activity level.

2. Tracking your daily activity levels 
   It’s best to do this accurately so I recommend if you don’t have a wearable like an Apple Watch/Garmin/Fitbit/Whoop… invest in one. If you can afford a night out on a weekend, you can afford to get yourself a wearable. I’m pretty sure Whoop cost around $30/month. If you can’t manage that you probably don’t have your priorities straight because your health should be number 1,2 & 3.

3. Monitoring your food/calorie intake via something like My Fitness Pal You don’t have to do this forever, but it will be an eye opener if you have never done it before as to how many extra calories certain foods have. Do it for a month, hopefully it becomes habit. I do it daily unless I’m traveling. You need to know what you are consuming. Whatever your fitness goal - the basic formula you must know with your nutrition is Calories In (food) vs Calories Out (Activity).

4. Getting your bloodwork done This will give you insight to exactly where your hormone/thyroid/vitamin levels are sitting to plan accordingly. This starts to become even more important as you get older. If you are mid thirties or older this is a must. To do this properly you need to find a consultant or specialist. There are a number of clinics starting to pop up focused on health & longevity. Your GP will not test you for all of the key biomarkers you will want to look at. There are some online self serve places you can select which blood tests you like. One of them I have used is iMedical (Aus only).
   Note: Don’t read this and let this be a blocker to getting started. Just a recommendation.

5. Knowing your sleep pattern/score if you track it If you have a wearable sleep tracker, this will give you all of the info you need. If not you’ll typically have an awareness of how many hours you sleep and how frequently you wake up/quality of sleep.

Secondary - I’m not going to talk much about these as I’m yet to do them, but am planning on trying them both this year. I’ll update and give feedback as I do.

1. Doing a DNA/Methylation test - this will tell you if you are predispositioned to any potential risk of disease and give you insights as to which foods you should eat/avoid to get the best individual results. Everyone should do a DNA/Methylation test once in their lives (and that is probably as many times as you will need to do it to because then you will have that data).

2. Use a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) - You may have seen people wear a little plastic circle on their tricep? This is the device diabetics use to track blood glucose/insulin levels.
   (Dr David Sinclair does some great talks about the best predictor of your long term longevity is your blood sugar levels and what to measure.)

I’m going to break this up into 3 parts of how I look at optimising my health.

1. Training

2. Nutrition

3. Lifestyle

Training

I like to track every single workout with my apple watch. This will give me my active calories which also sync with My Fitness Pal so I know my targets for the day. It’s also a great way to gamify your training. At time of writing this I’m on day 47 straight of getting a perfect score (30+ minute workout, 800+ calorie move goal, 8 hours stand goal).

The hardest part is getting initial momentum, that is why you need to make it as easy as possible to show up and do the workout.

My current training schedule is training 7 days per week. I have only been doing this for the last couple of months, but it’s the best decision I have made. Why? Because when you commit to training every day you remove the head noise of negotiating with yourself what you should train today and if it should be a rest day or not because you’re tired. It becomes a habit and just part of your daily routine like making your bed or doing your teeth.

My rules are simple. Train every single day, if I miss a day for any reason (travel, sickness etc) don’t beat myself up, just get back on the horse tomorrow. Never miss two days in a row.

I train full body 5-6 times per week, hitting every single muscle group, every day. I vary my rep ranges - mostly hypertrophy training (8-12 reps, 3-5 sets) and will often choose a body part for that day to go super heavy on and do more of a strength piece (5-7 sets of 5 reps as heavy as I can).
My sessions never take longer than 30-60 minutes. If you don’t fuck around on your phone or talk to people you’ll be surprised how much you can get done in that time..

On weekends I’ll often do accessory work and focus on a specific body part I want to develop/strengthen on one day then do a cardio or hiit training. Either some kind of circuit or punch out 20km on the exercise bike.

It’s repetitive, but it works.

One of the major keys to training, is finding what works for you. You want to plan the workouts into your schedule so they are convenient. If I had to drive 30-40 minutes to a gym to train.. I know I would skip some days.

Monday - Friday I walk 700m down the road every lunch time to an Anytime Fitness near my office. Weekends and some week day sessions I train in my own gym we have set up in our office/warehouse (I’m aware this is a luxury not everyone has but I have built this to fit my lifestyle as it’s a priority for me).

Find what you enjoy - running, weights, crossfit, pilates, pickleball (you burn a surprising amount of calories running around a court chasing a stupid little ball). Try to get in both some form of strength work - you want to build muscle & is great for bone density. The later in your life you leave it to begin strength training, the harder it will be and the more injuries you’re likely to occur so start now. Then something for cardiovascular fitness. Get your heart rate up for extended periods of time. Great for your heart health.

If you haven’t done much lifting in your life, invest in a personal trainer for a month of two just to get correct technique to avoid unnecessary injuries.

Nutrition

Most people or trainers over complicate nutrition and often get overwhelmed when it comes to understanding what to eat/avoid eating.

The basic principles to help you move closer to your goals can be summed up in the following:

• If you’re trying to lose weight, consume less calories than you burn

• If you’re trying to gain weight, eat more calories than you burn

• As a basic guide try to eat 1g of protein per pound of body weight each day (this will keep your muscles anabolic, simply meaning you have enough protein to fuel growth and prevent your body using muscle as energy)

• The rest can be made up of fats & carbohydrates

• Avoid most processed foods - some processed foods are still great eg. whey protein powder - but most include some form of fillers and or preservatives

• If you read an ingredients panel and you don’t understand half of the ingredients.. probably avoid eating it

• Most of your diet should be fresh meat, fruit, veg & from natural sources - If you do this you will get enough fibre in your diet which plays a critical role in gut health & digestion.

• Track what you eat in an app like My Fitness Pal. Spend a month weighing your foods and portion sizes and entering them. If this sounds like too much hard work for you.. if you can’t be bother to spend 10 minutes per day extra (literally the max it will take), then stay fat but don’t complain

• Avoid processed sugars as much as possible - once you get over the initial cravings you won’t even miss it from your diet

• Avoid excess alcohol. I enjoy a cocktail or a glass of wine when I go out but I never have more than 2-3 drinks in a single sitting, and that will only be 1-2 times per fortnight

• Lookout for sauces/toppings - this is where a lot of the hidden calories are

I simply do not diet. I just eat well, always.

Over the past 4-5 months my diet has been very similar, yet I still track every day that I’m not traveling.

Breakfast: 3 egg omelette with fetta, chicken & spinach

Lunch: Smoothie - 80g oats, 80g blueberries, 2 scoops WPI, 5g creatine (I have this post workout as I train at lunch)

Dinner: Steak & roasted veg or Salmon with roasted veg & rice

Snacks: Almonds, fruit, rice cakes with cottage cheese & ham, chobani with blue berries & honey, couple of squares of dark chocolate if I have a craving for something sweet

I don’t go outside of that much because
a) I enjoy it
b) It’s getting me the results

One of the biggest things you need to do if you are making some lifestyle changes are to manage your expectations around results.

You don’t like the current shape you are in? It’s probably been a gradual process of bad habits creeping in over a decade. Don’t expect to be in the best shape of your life in a 6-8 week block after a taking 5-10 years to get out of shape.

One of my favorite quotes is:

Everyone wants to be a happy, healthy, loved & wealthy. The difference is the people that focus on the daily activities and not the outcome, are normally the ones that achieve it.

Calculate your BMR (google a free online BMR calculator). Track your calories/macros. Do the work, daily.

Anything you are unsure of.. there are these two websites that typically have the answers to everything. One is called Google, the other Youtube. Use them.

Lifestyle

Two major functions to how I look at lifestyle. One is the decisions I make around my life & routine so that it makes it as easy as possible to follow my training & nutrition goals. These are things like having a good sleep routine, choosing when to train and when to do groceries etc.

Secondly is how I incorporate other activities to benefit my health. These are things like consciously getting daily sunlight, sauna, cold exposure & basic movement.

There is no bigger hack than prioritizing sleep and having a healthy sleep routine. Not only is our willpower at its weakest when we are tired which then contributes to making poor choices or avoiding the ‘harder’ choices like getting your ass to gym or making the extra effort to get something healthy rather then hit the drive thru on the way home.. But a good nights sleep is also vital for your recovery.

I had someone recently message me telling me about this new ‘longevity supplement’ that in the next line told me they are ‘hustling’ and sleeping 3-5 hours a night on average. No supplement will ever do the job that adequate sleep will do for your body’s recovery.

Set yourself a sleep routine. Get 7-8+ hours sleep every night. Go to bed and wake up around the same time, every day.. yes even on weekends.

Things like alcohol, screen time & even eating a really big meal just before bed all affect your bodies ability to get a restful nights sleep that it needs. Build healthy sleep habits, there is no greater life hack.

A lot of my other choices I make around lifestyle are around the convenience for me to follow healthy habits. Finding the best time to train & where to train with my schedule. Eating the same foods most days/weeks based on my work/lifestyle schedule so I don’t skip or miss things.

Things get thrown when I travel but you can still make healthy choices & ensure you get in daily activity rather than just writing it off.

Outside of that I ensure I get direct sunlight daily. Does wonders for energy levels & my mood. I have also bought a sauna that I do daily & ice bath that I do weekly (I don’t have a cold plunge so its more the inconvenience of having to buy 10x bags of ice right now which is why it’s not done daily. Again, this is a priority so I will probably buy one soon).

I’m not Huberman so I’m not going to tell you all of the benefits.. look up his episodes if you want to understand the science behind it. I just know I feel way better when I incorporate them into my daily routine, especially training 7 days per week.

Health is wealth. Fit is rich. It cannot be bought. You have to put in the daily work. No excuses. There is also nothing that feels as good as being healthy & proud of how you look and the energy levels that come along with that.
Energy is currency.

These are things that work for me. Find what works for you.

Be great! ✌️ 

JT

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