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.

Here's what's new this week:

•  ​Ep 8: Use these 7 high-performance habits to get in shape​ (Podcast)

This was scheduled for publishing during the holidays, but due to holiday travel and family time, I chose to delay it until this week.

Regardless, the same principles apply whether it's a holiday or a busy season.

These are the best habits you can use to get in shape without tracking a single calorie.

Use these to your advantage and start 2026 in your best health.

What's in store for today:

• Use this food to boost brain health without buying expensive supplements or powders.
• Never diet again using this method (no calorie tracking needed).
• My secret evening routine strategy that lets me 10x my results the next day.

We're mirrors for each other.

It's the easiest way to test your development.

See how many triggers you still have with your family, and you can see how far you've come internally.

I still have a lot to work on. This was clear when I belittled my brother last week.

It's interesting that you can meditate for years but still cling to childhood patterns.

I read something intriguing by Damo Mitchell, one of the world’s leading Qi Gong teachers.

He explores profound ideas in his book, "The Philosophical Art of Change".

He said that practices like meditation can hit a glass ceiling for many.

This often happens if we haven't released suppressed emotions, trauma, or blockages from our bodies.

He talked about how meditation can help us relax. It can make us feel like we're growing on our inner journeys.

But it also keeps us unaware of our unconscious thoughts.

I've noticed this at many Zen centers I've practiced in. Leaders there were often experienced meditators, but they still didn't see their own shadow.

You can see this globally. Personal development and spiritual gurus often preach one thing but do another in secret.

Or as Jung would say: 'Until you make the unconscious, conscious, you'll call it fate and leave it at that'.

My family shared their feedback with me. They feel that I often come across as patronizing and superior. One of them even said I seem 'on a high horse.'

I've been quite unconscious of my own shadow.

And there lies the opportunity.

I texted a close family member as soon as we got home after a day and a half of driving from NY to Greenville.

I told her I wanted to build a healthier, more constructive relationship going into this year.

I told her I took ownership of what I've said in the past and wanted to be at peace with her.

The next day, we spoke and had a long, candid conversation.

It took me years to do this because of my maturity.

So my health isn't just about eating or moving well.

My psychological and emotional health are part of the equation, too.

When you integrate your body, mind, and spirit, interesting things can happen.

Or as I'm starting to learn recently:

Your body and mind are a workshop.

When you clean your workshop and learn how to create a highly efficient body and mind, you can transform in incredible ways.

Most of us don't value our bodies and minds because they're free and given to us at birth.

Yet, the things in life that are free are usually the most priceless.

And the material things we value most are the easiest to replace.

2026 is the year I create the best workshop for myself.

Lesson: A trigger is an opportunity to resolve something within you.

Here's Your 1-3-1 Friday:

---

1.) Boost brain health with this food

One of the most powerful brain foods you can eat is wild blueberries.

Wild blueberries offer a range of benefits.

One of the world's leading experts on berries, Mary Ann Lila, Ph.D., and Director of the ​NC State Plants for Human Health​, shares:

In other words, if you eat wild blueberries consistently, you receive all the resilience and fortitude each berry brings.

Another fun fact about wild blueberries?

When faced with harsh winters or terrible fires, not only do these berries survive... but they thrive.

When you freeze or eat frozen wild blueberries, their resilience and benefits are amplified even more.

Wild blueberries also contain high ​levels of antioxidants​, which have been shown to slow the aging process by combating free radicals in the body.

Paired with the positive cognitive health effects and brain-boosting benefits, wild blueberries have been my diet's mainstay for years.

I buy my frozen pack of Wegmans wild blueberries each week (usually 2-3 bags), from which my wife makes a delicious morning smoothie.

Wild blueberries aren't a 'superfood' (a term coined to encourage buying more foods that don't have any actual health benefit for us).

They're more than that.

They're foods designed to maximize our health and a gift from this planet to us.

As for brain health, wild blueberries are a brain powerhouse.

One of the little-known benefits of eating them is that they can improve the speed of thought processing.

In a 6-month double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, participants experiencing cognitive issues as determined by scores on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were randomized to consume either wild blueberry (n = 44) or placebo (n = 42) powder daily for 6 months.

The results?

The group that ate blueberries improved their thought processing speed.

If you want to get smarter while eating one of the most powerful foods on the planet, add wild blueberries to your diet.

6 months from now, you'll be surprised at your health results.

2.) A diet-free method

I learn fast but sometimes slowly.

If there’s ONE lesson I’ve had to learn repeatedly, it’s my environment.

Yet there’s also a parallel to this law: if there’s healthy food around, you’ll also eat it.

When it comes to health and nutrition, getting stuck on calories, macros, and dieting is easy.

Yet most of us overlook our environment, which can permanently affect our health.

Remove foods that don’t serve you from your environment and replace them with healthier options.

It’s important that you don’t just remove all your junk food.

Add your favorite fruits, vegetables, and whole foods to fill gaps in the foods you love.

For example, when I decided that eating a Häagen-Dazs vegan chocolate truffle every weekend no longer served me, I realized it wasn’t the ice cream I was craving.

Your body craves the right glucose.

It was the glucose, the sugar, that my body craved from fruits.

I immediately reinvested my energy and money by buying fresh and frozen fruit.

Your body knows precisely what nutrients you need.

It’s our minds that get confused and think we need to have every junk food on the planet.

Our bodies know exactly what we need to eat (fruits, vegetables, whole foods) as we heal our bodies and focus on our health.

As our mind regains clarity, we can see what we are missing.

So here are three key steps to apply Beradi’s Law to your health:

1. Shape the path in your environment.
2. Choose healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole foods you enjoy.
3. Remove 1-2 junk foods weekly and assess how you feel about your healthier choices.

Absorb what’s useful. Discard what’s not.

Then add what’s uniquely yours.

As a side note, if you're like me and enjoy vegan pizza or Thai food, this doesn't mean you can't eat it again.

I certainly don't plan on doing this.

However, as I've worked toward certain health or fitness goals (whether it's been healing from a chronic autoimmune disease or getting down to 5% body fat), I've used food for its main purpose:

To be thy medicine.

Food is a drug.

When you use it solely for pleasure, you'll get in trouble after a few years.

When you use it for fuel and medicine, you'll find that junk food won't tempt you as much.

You can still enjoy your favorite foods.

Just remember the real purpose of food.

Dieting eventually fails for 95% of people.

For the rare 5% who win with dieting, it's not sustainable either.

You can't live in a permanent caloric deficit.

But you can learn to create an environment that supports your health without relying on willpower.

This will defeat any dieting method.

Let me know how it goes.

3.) My evening routine secret

For the past 10 years, I've tested out dozens of routines.

Most of them have come and gone.

I've found that the simpler I keep my habits, the more sustainable they are.

Part of habit formation is establishing a trigger to initiate the habit.

Most of us do this unconsciously with habits that don't help us.

For example, when you sit on the couch, you automatically reach for the remote and turn on the TV in the evening.

The trigger: seeing the remote.

The action: grabbing the remote and turning on the TV.

The result: you spend your evening watching TV and go to bed late.

There's no right or wrong here.

There are just habits that support your growth and those that destroy it.

If you feel bad about your habits, that's an internal signal to examine why you feel that way.

Habits in themselves just are.

We are the ones who project 'good and bad' onto them.

After years of testing and developing various evening routines, I've settled on my current routine.

It's simple... but highly effective if you want to see transformation in your life.

Here's my two-part evening routine:

#1 Spend a few minutes reading my life vision

What you focus on - expands.

When you focus on something emotionally, this expands even further.

Your mind is powerful and can shape your reality.

We are literally reality-creating beings.

Don't believe me?

Test this out for yourself.

Read your goals and vision every night for the next 90 days.

My first life vision draft back in 2017.

 

Allow yourself to see yourself already achieving your goals and living your best life.

The best athletes and CEOs do this every day.

Why wouldn't it work for you?

#2 Spend a few minutes in silence, coming back to my center

Time in silence is precious.

Silence is golden.

Observing your unconscious realm without creating time for silence and stillness is hard.

No one else will take ownership of your life, body, or mind.

No one else can do this for you.

According to developmental psychology, only 2% of humans ever fully develop into mature adults.

Our society is not designed to create healthy, mature people who are connected to their center.

It's the sad, unfortunate truth about this realm we live in.

It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility.

When you sit in silence, you can 'see through' what's beneath.

The waves of thoughts, feelings, and sensations are for us to explore.

When you do this consistently, you start to become a mental astronaut.

It can be scary.

I remember the first time I sat down in silent meditation.

It was the most challenging exercise I had ever done.

But it gets easier with practice.

This one practice has changed my life more than anything else.

Maybe it can do the same for you.

Try this two-part evening routine.

The results can be eye-opening.

1 Action Step

What's your #1 goal for this year? Write it down and focus on it every day.

One Quote To Finish Your Week Strong

Have you ever felt like you need a vacation after a vacation?

Family time is great.

But I'm glad to be home.

Probably hitting the mountains next weekend for a long hike.

What about you? Hope you're well, too.

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

Till next week,