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

What's in store for today:

• Step by step guide to building your first 10 pounds of vegan muscle even with a busy schedule.
• If you're doing this one hour before bedtime, avoid doing this moving forward.
• My favorite food for fat-loss (backed by peer reviewed studies).

Just got back from Colorado.

Trips can throw off your fitness quickly.

But when you have the right systems in place, it's much easier to stay on track.

Instead of waiting until the last minute to get my workouts in, I did them earlier.

I reorganized my schedule.

When we landed, I shopped for meal prep immediately (while still enjoying 2-3 meals out with my family).

Preparation is 50% of success in fitness.

It's easy to blame others (or feel guilty) when you don't take ownership of your life.

Systems are what I've built my fitness success upon.

It's what you can model yours after.

Walking in Carbondale, CO with my son in my arms reminded me of the shortness of life.

Every day he gets a little bigger.

Every day, I get a little older.

In a blink of an eye, he'll be walking, talking, and traveling the world on his own.

Parenting is something I've reflected more upon the past 12 months than any other topic.

How I'm showing up.

My unconscious behaviors.

My strengths.

My shadow.

My conclusion so far?

The most effective parenting style is self-parenting.

Until you heal and integrate each part of yourself, you're destined to repeat the same cycle of trauma on your children.

This is a fitness newsletter.

But parenting and fitness are deeply connected.

The more you grow and develop yourself, the easier it is to take ownership of each area of your life.

Instead of looking for external motivation or validation, look within.

Examine yourself.

Winter is the time for solitiude and reflection (according to Chinese philosophy).

I feel like I rambled more than usual in today's opener.

But life is short.

I wanted to share this with you.

So I did.

Lesson: The more you take ownership of your life, the easier it is to take consistent action.

Here's Your 1-3-1 Friday:

#1 Build your first 10 pounds of vegan muscle

Building muscle isn't a secret.

But application matters more than just knowledge.

Here's my 3-step strength framework to building muscle in less time.

1. Eat more (caloric surplus)

You build muscle by eating more.

While I write and share a lot about weight-loss and dropping body fat, building muscle and strength happens in reverse (once you’ve passed your initial body recomposition phase).

In fact, nearly 65% of new students who work with us inside VFR, come in under-eating for years on end.

This is a huge disservice to your physique and towards building a toned, strong body.

Also, another quick note:

If you’re above 25% body fat as a woman or 20% body fat as a man, focus on dropping body fat and weight loss FIRST before going into a serious muscle building phase.

BuiltLean has a great chart to visualize this.

This will prevent you from gaining unwanted pounds and keeping higher levels of body fat.

With that said, here’s how to build new muscle:

• Increase your daily caloric intake by an extra 200-300 calories per day while consistently lifting weights 3-4x a week.
• You’ll also want to use the 4:1 ratio when building muscle (you can use this in reverse for weight-loss too).

The 4:1 ratio is for every 4 months of eating higher calories, you’ll want to use your 5th month for eating at maintenance calories or slightly lower to prevent adding too much body fat.

Typically, for every 1 pound of lean muscle you build, you’ll also put on 1 pound of body fat.

However, don’t stress about this.

You can drop 12 pounds of body fat in 12 weeks.

Building 12 pounds of muscle can take 2-3 years.

Keep that in mind.

2. Increase your workouts and intensity

Want to build more muscle?

Increase your training frequency.

If you’re working out 2 days a week, increase that to 3 days.

If you’re lifting 3 days a week, go to 4 days.

Muscle growth is stimulated by several factors, but two of the most important factors are how HARD you workout and how MUCH work you do (aka how many sets and reps you complete).

Researchers have found that performing 10-20 sets per muscle group is the sweet spot for optimal muscle growth, and they have also identified 8-12 reps as the optimal rep range for muscle development.

Does that mean you need to do 10 sets of squats in one workout?

Absolutely not.

What I’ve found helpful working with 100’s of high achievers each year is to spread their training volume evenly throughout the week.

An example would be 3 sets of squats on Day 1, 3 sets on Day 2, and final 3-4 sets on Day 3.

The second part of the puzzle is making sure you’re lifting with enough intensity.

70-90% of your max intensity is a great standard to have when working out.

That means you’ll leave 2-3 reps left in your tank each time you do your working sets.

Remember, your body and muscles NEED a reason to change.

Training intensity and volume are the two main reasons you give your body to build lean muscle.

3. Get more quality sleep

The average adult isn’t sleeping enough.

If you want to sabotage your muscle-building efforts, avoid undersleeping.

More than anything else, we tend to sacrifice our sleep for more time awake.

Yet, this throws a wrench in your muscular development and toning process.

Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep every night.

There’s an interesting study that was done on the effects of sleep deprivation which tested subjects on muscle gain and recovery.

The first group of subjects slept only 5.5 hours of sleep after training, while the second group slept 8.5 hours of sleep afterwards.

“What researchers discovered was that the individuals who slept only 5.5 hours had 60% less muscle mass at the end of the study, while those who slept 8.5 hours had 40% more muscle mass.”

Sleep is where the muscle building process happens.

It’s also where our body recovers and does the deep work of healing from each training session.

Proper recovery is essential for any high powering athlete.

Why wouldn’t it be the same for busy vegans who want to get lean and strong?

Timeblock your sleep on your calendar as a non-negotiable.

Aim for a minimum of 7-9 hours per night.

Get your z’s in.

#2 Avoid doing this 1 hour before bedtime

Blue light is everywhere.

The effects of blue light are damaging.

According to a systematic review on the influence of blue light on sleep and performance, blue light can negatively impact your:

• Cognitive performance, alertness, and reaction time.
• Decision-making and recoverytime.
• Blue light also has negative effects such as the decrease in sleep quality and sleep duration, which worsen physical and cognitive performance and recovery.
• Blue light can slow or stop your body’s release of melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep.

Basically, blue light disrupts health and recovery.

Which is a no-no if you care about high performance and great health.

Here’s a few blue light sources to be aware of:

• Televisions
• Smartphones
• Tablets
• Gaming systems
• Fluorescent light bulbs
• LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs
• Computer monitors

Blue light is everywhere.

But it doesn’t need to impact your sleep.

I protect my health using blue light glasses.

Here’s what blue light glasses can do for you:

• Blue light glasses can help reduce eye strain and discomfort, which can be caused by prolonged use of screens and devices.
• Eye strain is a common cause of headaches, so reducing it with blue light glasses can help reduce headaches.
• Wearing blue light glasses before bed can help you fall asleep faster and sleep better throughout the night.
• Blue light glasses can help you feel refreshed after working at a computer for long periods of time.
• Blue light glasses can protect your eyes from the harmful effects of blue light, which can lead to vision problems over time.
• The best blue light blocking glasses also have an anti-glare coating to further prevent digital eye strain.

 ​Here’s the brand​​ I use if you want to check them out (no affiliation although I love them).

Setup your health for repeatable success.

It starts the night before.

#3 My favorite food for fat-loss

Apples are a fat-loss ally.

They fill you up.

They cleanse your colon.

They're jam-packed with micronutrition, vitamins, and minerals.

When's the last time you ate 3-4 apples and STILL felt hungry?

I doubt it ever happened.

Here's a few more reasons why why apples are your fat-loss friend:

• They're low in calories.
• They're hard to overeat.
• They may have anti-obesity properties (research still being done).
• They're high in vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals (all good things).
• They're portable, easy to travel, and make great snacks either by themselves or paired with other foods.

I use apples as part of my daily routine.

Apples in the morning.

Apples in the afternoon.

Red apples, in particular, have phytochemicals that are even more beneficial for us.

I like to buy my apples either organic or make sure I wash them thoroughly if conventional.

The skin from apples also helps cleanse our colons and grab any gunk that gets stuck in there too.

Unfortunately, because of apple's thin skins, pesticides can seep in more easily.

Thicker skinned fruits and vegetables make this harder (bananas and oranges skins protect them more).

That's why I prefer to get mine organic.

Apples have protected my health for decades.

They'll continue to do so moving forward.

They also make a great snack and fat-loss food.

Plus, you can use them in many of your favorite meals, like protein oatmeal bowls or fruit smoothies.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

An apple a day keeps the pounds away.

To your apple game.

1 Action Step

Choose one health habit you want to install in your life before 2025. Stick to it for the next 3 weeks. Start 2025 today by building momentum now.

One Quote To Finish Your Week Strong

2.5 weeks until the new year.

I don't set new year's resolutions anymore.

But every year I reset my next year's goal based off of my 10 year life vision.

If you're setting goals for next year, my hat is off to you.

Feel free to share what you're working on below.

Catch ya later,