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 one personal health insight, three actionable tips, and one concrete action step. Let's dive in.

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Here's what's new this week:

• ​Ep 6: The ultimate vegan muscle building blueprint​​ (Podcast)

Have you ever written down a New Year's goal only to wonder where your progress went a few months later?

This January 5th, this can stop.

In the new year, we're launching the 2nd iteration of our HPV Challenge.

Except, we're making some fun upgrades, including:

• Bonus 10 challenge days
• Private challenge group thread
• Challenge leaderboard and challenge tracking dashboard
• Weekly bonus small group fitness class (hosted by myself)
• 1:1 initial caloric adjustment and custom macros done for you (brand-new)

All of this for less than $3 a day over 40 days.

It's the best offer to give you the best chance of dropping your next 6-10 pounds or building your next 2-4 pounds of muscle.

After 8 years of coaching, there's one thing that keeps me going in this coaching game:

Helping others transform, as I have many times before.

It's why I love what I do.

It's also why I believe a mind committed to health will consistently achieve its goals.

If that's you, I'd love to invite you to join us.

As a bonus and since I want to vet out any tire kickers from this special challenge program, if you enroll within next 72 hours, you can use discount 'CHALLENGE' for extra 19% off.

Extra discount ends on Dec 21st at midnight.

After that, it'll go back up.

25 spots. Doors will close on January 3rd.

If you're serious and an action-taker, this is for you.

Let's make 2026 your best health - ever.

Try it here

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What's in store for today:

• The five pillars of health and how you can reach the top 1% of humans who are living their best health daily.
• Behavioral standards that are non-negotiable for lifelong health and strength.
• Diet adjustments and how to keep seeing progress when you hit the inevitable plateau.

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The end of the year is near.

Unlike mainstream thought, goal-setting shouldn't wait till the last minute.

It should happen much earlier.

December is my annual goal-setting month.

It's where I review my life vision (7 years ahead) and my annual goals for next year.

I'll do a review of my current year, what I learned, my mistakes, successes, and lessons learned.

Then I'll start planning out my next year based of my current life vision (or ours since it's combined with my wife's).

I'll break this down into quarterly goals, projects, monthly aims, and then weekly goals and daily actions.

Every successful leader on this planet agrees on this one thought:

You become what you think about.

Goals are what give your mind a mental GPS.

Or more specifically, it trains your subconscious to focus on what you really want.

If you walked down your main street and asked 100 people about their life goals, not one would clearly answer you right away.

Most people sleepwalk through most of life.

They lived chained by their past programming, limiting beliefs, and low self-image.

It's not their fault.

Most likely, this was their unwanted inheritance from their parents and family members.

I know because this was me for years.

Until I sat down one evening in 2017 on a cold December night and wrote out exactly what I wanted.

It hasn't been a perfect ride since then.

But I certainly wouldn't be a fraction of who I am today if I didn't sit down that night and write out what I wanted.

You can do the same.

A deep burning desire is the starting place of achievement.

If you want a healthy, strong, confident body and mind, then this is your sign.

If it's meant to be, it's up to me.

It's time to write down your goals. Add emotion and feeling to them. Write them in the present tense. And read them daily.

I'm recording one of our next podcast episodes, where I'll walk you through my annual goal-setting process step by step.

That'll be released soon. In the meantime, take action.

(btw: the goal I wrote that December night in 2017 was clear - find my soulmate and life partner. My future wife Anna appeared a few short months later)

Lesson: Most people think other people are more capable than they are. But we all have the same potential.

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Here's Your 1-3-1 Friday:

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1.) 5 pillars of health

Consistency is what creates progress, not perfection.

If you’re anything like me, perfectionism has shown up for you in the past.

It’s also what will keep you stuck for years.

However, there’s a better path to sustainable, permanent results.

Call this the Middle Way or middle path (echoing Buddhist thought).

A synergistic health roadmap (for life).

In this path, your health and fitness are balanced. You live at ease in your body, healthy, confident, and strong.

You’re a positive role model of health for your kids, family, and community, leading others by example.

You inspire others who want to get healthier and stronger. Your consistency lifts up those around you.

This has always been possible for you. If you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand.

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

You could spend a lifetime exploring health, fitness, and wellness. I certainly have the past decade.

It’s what got me started on this journey of lifting 15 years ago and coaching 8 years ago.

Curiosity, desire, and a willingness to apply yourself each day.

Here's the five pillars of health:

• Health: your inner and external terrain. Includes emotional and physical health.
• Exercise: the science of training and moving your body.
• Psychology: the roadmap of your psyche and how to navigate the ego complex.
• Nutrition: evidence-based plant-based nutrition. How to eat, when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat.
• Environment: the surroundings, social life, and family that deeply influence you on a subconscious level. How to design a life that works for you, not against you.

These are the five pillars of health.

Combining these five areas can create something powerful at their intersection:

Self-mastery.

That’s what the entire journey comes down to. Your journey might begin with losing a few pounds or gaining muscle. But true health comes from mastering yourself.

That’s why they say health is the first wealth.

Let your health become your guiding force for the rest of your life.

So once you start going down the rabbit hole of health, the inevitable question arises from this:

Keep learning. Keep exploring. Stay curious and hungry to learn.

That's the key to living as a self-mastered human.

Only 2% of humans reach full adult maturity, according to developmental psychology.

So few of us ever take full ownership of our health and life.

There's so few examples to learn from and model from.

This can be you.

2.) Behavioral fitness standards

Your body and mind are a lab.

Your exercise and nutrition protocols are the experiment.

Like any good experiment, you’ll want to control all variables and only test for one new variable at a time.

That’s why changing your workouts or calories every week is a quick recipe for scientific disaster.

Sure, you’ll see changes, but you’ll have no idea which ONE variable led to the specific changes you’re seeing.

The more advanced you become with your fitness, the more you’ll need to respect the laws of physics.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed - it can only be transferred.

While you don’t need to track calories (or workouts) forever, there is a time and place for it.

Unless you want to get very lean or build a lot of muscle, tracking can become less useful over time.

This is why standards will need to be your default system.

Once you graduate from data-driven tracking, the next step is to move to standard-driven living.

Standards here would include:

• Eating wfpb (whole food plant-based) and plant protein 80-90% of week
• Lifting 3-4x a week using weight to 80-90% intensity
• Drinking a minimum ½ your bodyweight in ounces of water daily
• Walking 7-9k steps daily
• Sleeping 7-9 hours of quality sleep daily
• Sitting in silence for 5 minutes daily
• Grounding and walking outside in sunshine 10 minutes daily
• Eating 5+ servings of fruits and veg daily

You can add more standards, but these provide a strong foundation to start from.

The data-driven behavioral tracking links directly to the standard driving living system.

As you become more attuned to your internal regulation systems, your external regulation tools become less necessary.

The goal of tracking graduation is to create lasting identity changes that go beyond habits and lifestyle.

True change happens when you shift your identity, not just your habits or lifestyle.

However, identity transformation does take longer (2-3 years).

At the beginning of any journey, you start with habit formation (4-6 months).

Then you graduate to lifestyle integration (12-18 months).

Then you conclude with identity transformation (2-3 years).

A further level could be embodiment—being a positive role model for others (3+ years). But that’s beyond today’s letter.

The first three levels are where most people should focus their efforts.

Install standards. Change your identity. Track your progress.

Become a data-driven plant-fueled nerd.

3.) Diet adjustments to break plateaus

The longer you’re in a deficit/surplus, the less effective it becomes.

The reason is metabolic adaptation.

This is why every diet (without adjustments and foresight) will ultimately fail.

If you ignore your body’s amazing ability to adapt, it will remind you who’s in charge.

(By the way, your body isn’t your boss - your mind should be leading the way.)

Metabolic adaptation means your body gets used to your exercise and diet routines. This adjustment can take time, but it will ultimately stall your results.

Ever try to lose weight and see results slow down? You’re still exercising, training hard, and eating right. But then, your results slow down, and you hit a plateau.

The same happens for muscle building. You keep training and eating more, yet your weight gain is slowing.

Here’s where we need to be careful.

The timing of your diet changes is as important as knowing when to make them.

Insight + foresight + experience - metabolic adaptation = fitness success

Metabolic adaptation happens the second you start a new protocol.

Here’s when to make diet adjustments:

1. Your weight has not changed for over 2 weeks. Make sure your training, nutrition, steps, sleep, and stress levels are reasonable.
2. You're beyond the first three weeks of your fitness journey. Changes, especially in water weight, can cause scale readings to fluctuate.

Most people adjust without carefully considering the first point.

If you’re not consistently in a caloric deficit (and have real data to prove it), changing your calories won’t make sense.

It’ll just further your confusion and frustration.

Vegan Body Diet Adjustments Flow Chart (my latest project).

 

So, take your time to go through the decision tree above.

Identify where your potential bottleneck might be.

And then go from there.

Here's how to adjust your diet based on your goals, as shown at the bottom of the decision tree:

Fat-loss: Decrease by 250 k/cal and assess your rate of progress after 2+ weeks

Muscle building: Increase by 150 k/cal and assess your rate of progress after 2+ weeks

*For sports performance, calories likely won’t change unless you’re losing weight.

If that’s the case, increase your calorie intake slightly. Check the muscle-building tips above for guidance.

Be a scientist with your health, and plateaus will evaporate quickly.

Be random with your health, and plateaus will keep coming back.

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1 Action Step

Do an end-of-year fitness review: How did you grow this year? And what do you need to do to improve next year?

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One Quote To Finish Your Week Strong

Headed up to New York today.

Family time begins tomorrow afternoon.

Somehow, a 12.5-hour drive has become more enjoyable.

Helps when you have great riding buddies.

As promised, get leaner on plants in under 5 minutes.

Till next week,

Whenever you're ready, there's 3 ways I can help you:

1. Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram and let's be friends.
2. ​Join our free Facebook Group. Get free trainings on how to get lean and strong with plants.
3. Want to drop body fat and build lean muscle in a fraction of the time with ease? Apply for Accelerator 1:1 coaching.