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Welcome to 1-3-1 Fridays, my weekly newsletter, where I reveal evidence-based strategies to get lean, strong, and create optimal health.

You'll receive:

• 1 reflection from me
• 3 ideas you can use
• 1 question for you

Let's dive in.

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What's new this week:

• ​Ep 33: Why your macros keep failing you after 40 (and the fix)​​ (Podcast)
• ​She finally dropped 30 pounds when she upgraded this system​ (YouTube)
• ​How to break through weight loss plateaus​ (Guide)

Check out our brand-new macro calculator if you haven't had a chance here.

At the end of August, we're running our next small private 30-day fitness challenge.

I'm calling it the 'Health Reset'.

30 days. $27. 10 spots. Application only.

If you want to drop 4-6 pounds or build your next 2-3 lbs of muscle in less than 30 days, even as a high-achieving parent, this is for you.

Less is more when you're doing the right things.

It's a great opportunity to reset your health without wasting time on fluff.

Enrollment isn't open yet for the challenge, but we'll offer early enrollment with extra bonuses and a full health stack to give you the best ROI in minimal time.

Message me with any questions or thoughts in the meantime.

In other news, if you'd like to make sure your 1-3-1 letters don't get tossed into promotions (or worse, spam), you can avoid this with the quick guide here.

The main takeaway from the guide above is to do 2 things:

• Move email from 'promotions' to 'primary' inbox
• Create a simple filter to teach Gmail that letters aren't spam (unless you think they are, in which case the reader is always right).

I'm slowly recovering from my mistake in early June to not switch my domain to our new email address, so I appreciate you taking a sec to do this too.

Thanks. :)

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ONE REFLECTION FROM ME

I'm dropping body fat.

To be more specific, I'm dropping some extra pounds.

Not too much since I've been at a healthy body fat percentage for multiple years.

But I wanted to get a bit leaner as we go to a family wedding in Poland next month, along with some water time outside.

I haven't actively sought to drop weight since 2021 for several reasons:

• I vowed to heal my skin before ever competing again in bodybuilding
• I haven't had a deep motivation (or reason) to need to drop weight

The past 6 months have taught me a lot more about my health.

My skin is healing, and the virus that causes psoriasis is dying faster each day.

I'll be honest:

Part of why I didn't care so much about how 'lean' I was for the past few years was because I had terrible patches across the side of my belly.

I didn't see/know/feel how I could heal (if it was even possible...), so getting leaner was at the bottom of my priority list.

Health is still at the top of my list (will be for the rest of my life).

I've finally nailed down a sustainable system for healing, and results were looking good enough for me to take off my shirt again.

So my physique motivation has been rekindled.

I'm sharing this with you for 2 reasons:

• There's a chance you might relate to part of my story in some way
• To empower you to take ownership of your health in some way

Being a living guinea pig for the past few years and running nearly every health & fitness protocol on myself has taught me the importance of patience.

Sometimes less is more... when you're focused on the right things.

And sometimes you need to do the right things in the right order, too.

So I'm getting lean again.

That's cool.

But I'm also healing and reclaiming my health.

Even cooler.

Fitness no longer comes first in my book.

It's what I add on after my health base.

The coolest when you nail both of them together.

I spent years using the metaphorical equivalent of duct tape on my health and cement for my fitness.

I've finally learned to use cement for both.

You can do the same, too.

It's always possible.

Lesson: Health & fitness are both synergistic...but health comes first.

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3 IDEAS FOR YOU

I.

Somewhere along the way, fitness became overwhelming.

It doesn’t need to be that way.

Simplicity has always been the most effective way to see sustainable results.

But making something simple requires hacking away at the unessentials.

The human mind is constantly hijacked by the Trickster archetype.

This makes it easy for us to believe that for something to ‘work,’ it needs to be hard.

Fitness isn’t easy. Neither is nutrition. At least not in the beginning.

When you start something new, the beginning is always the hardest.

But with the right standards and systems, health should get easier over time.

Again, simplicity is the key to sustainability.

Keep it so simple you could do it on your hardest, most overwhelming day.

Simple beats complex.

II.

The purpose of fitness tracking is straightforward:

To track your rate of progress inside your health & fitness.

Different tools accomplish different results.

Some tools are better than others.

But before you start focusing on which tool is the best to track your fitness progress, let’s start with what and why:

• Why do you want to track your progress?
• What do you want to specifically track?

The clearer you are about those questions, the faster and easier it becomes to choose the right tool.

Clarify your goals.

III.

A common pitfall many people fall into is believing that their metabolism is broken. It’s not.

While a small group of the population struggles with metabolic disorders, most of us don’t fall into this group when we experience weight loss plateaus.

Don’t use a calorie reduction if:

1) You haven't stuck to your diet consistently. You need to reach your caloric goal (within 85-90%) for at least 6 days. This means staying within 100 calories of that goal.

*The reason is based on observational studies, which have made it clear that humans are terrible at estimating how much they really eat and how much they move.

2) If your stress, sleep, and steps have been chronically off the mark, especially if you’ve been overstressed or sleeping poorly.

There’s a coaching adage that’s common in the health world that goes something like this:

So, as humans, we’re not the best at observing ourselves until we’ve developed a higher sense of self-awareness with tracking, data, and experience.

Study yourself.

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ONE QUESTION FOR YOU

What's one thing you need to STOP doing in your health?

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Client Spotlight

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1 QUOTE FROM OTHERS

I.

"We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about."

- Joseph Campbell

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Argentina lost.

Thankfully, I'm American.

Had to change my nationality 4x in the World Cup from Ecuadorian -> American -> Colombian -> Argentinian.

Guess it's simpler just being a human.

As promised, your 1-3-1 Friday in less than 5 minutes.

Until next week,

P.S. Nothing interesting this week. Just trying to stay cool.