Everything School Forgot

On Sleep, Diet, and Exercise

healthsleepdietexercise

Sleep. Eat clean. Exercise. If I had to put an order to their importance that would be it, despite exercise being my favorite.

Disclaimer:
I'm not a medical professional, dietician, or certified personal trainer. So none of this is medical advice. I'm just a guy who reads a lot, is constantly trying to improve myself and my life, and wants to leave a record of those learnings for his kids.

Summary:

Sleep 6 to 10 hours per night depending on your personal needs. Your bedtime and the amount of sleep should remain consistent - go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.

Eat clean. Avoid processed food.

Exercise 4-6 days per week. 20-60 minutes of moderate-intensity* exercise per session. Almost any exercise is better than nothing. Consistency and proper form are the two most important things.

*NOTE: Above I say to aim for moderate-intensity exercise. If you have not exercised for an extended period of time then you should start off slow. It is important to avoid injury. Beginning with low-intensity exercise allows your body time to adapt to exercise.

Benefits:

The benefits of proper sleep, clean eating, and consistent exercise are innumerable. Regardless, I'll list some of the best ones. Sleeping well, eating well, and exercising can help you to:

The benefits of sleep, eating well, and exercise overlap, intertwine, and build on each other. Improved sleep and eating clean help exercise performance. Eating clean and exercise helps with better sleep, which then improves exercise performance. See what I mean?

Lacking in any of the three categories can lead to serious health problems.

If we aren’t trying to be elite athletes...
We don’t need to train like elite athletes.
We don’t need to be the strongest.
We don’t need to be the fastest.
We don’t need to optimize every variable.

What we do need:
Stay healthy.
Avoid injury.
Enjoy life.

How can we do it?
Sleep.
Eat clean.
Follow a sustainable fitness plan.
Be consistent in the above.

It does not take as much time and effort to reap near optimal health and fitness results as many people think. You do not need to spend time optimizing every variable. More than anything else, optimal health requires consistency.

Most fitness gurus and influencers today sell athleticism and extremes, not health. You don't need to be the fastest, strongest, or sexiest to be healthy. You don't need to optimize every variable of your life to be healthy.

It's easy to get stuck in trying to squeeze out every ounce of physical performance. If your goal is to be a pro athlete, optimizing makes sense. It's overkill if you're simply aiming to be healthy.

The point of putting in the effort for consistent, quality sleep, healthy eating habits, and exercise is that you put in a smaller amount of hard work and effort than is required when dealing with majorly difficult issues associated with chronic illnesses and pain.

If you're having trouble sticking to a good routine. Check out what I've written on [[habit-forming|habit forming]] where talk about how breaking things down into tiny steps and adding more over time can result in big changes.

Sleep.

What is proper sleep hygiene?

Proper sleep hygiene is consistent, uninterrupted, high-quality sleep of an appropriate length.

What is consistent sleep?

Sleep consistency has two main components: time of day and length of (preferably uninterrupted) sleep. That means going to bed and waking up at the same time each day. Doing this will help in feeling refreshed as well as adding to the quality of your sleep. Yes, even on the weekends. Yes, people may very well think your commitment to consistent sleep is weird. So what?

What is uninterrupted sleep?

Uninterrupted sleep is sleeping without waking for an extended period of time. Everyone wakes up during a night of sleep. Whether it is to use the bathroom, adjust the blankets, or roll over. It is perfectly normal. It becomes an issue when you are unable to fall back to sleep in less than a few minutes. Or when you find yourself waking up more than a few times a night. This also ties in with sleep efficiency, which is the ratio of time sleep vs time spent laying in bed trying to sleep. You want to be at 85% or higher.

Of course, there will be times when it is not possible to avoid interruptions. But try to keep those times to a minimum and make uninterrupted, consistent sleep your norm.

The vast majority of people need between 6-10 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. That doesn't mean if you are a 10-hour per night person that 6 hours is enough for you. Each person is different. The key is learning what amount of sleep makes you feel best and sleeping uninterrupted for that length of time each night.

What is quality sleep?

Quality sleep is measure by whether you enter the appropriate sleep cycles for the amount of time that is expected for each cycle. Consistent, uninterrupted, and efficient sleep contribute heavily to sleep quality as they help ensure your body enters the necessary sleep cycles for the desired length of time.

Why is proper sleep hygiene important?

At a minimum, a lack of quality sleep will undermine your efforts in diet and exercise.

A lack of sleep can lead to numerous short-term and long-term effects.

Possible short-term effects:

Possible long-term effects:

How to implement proper sleep hygiene?

Start with improving your sleep quality. Once you work on that, you will be able to better gauge what length of sleep your body needs.

How to improve sleep quality?

Here are some things you can do to help improve sleep quality:

Prep your sleep area

Develop a good pre-sleep routine
You don't have to do all these things, but incorporating some may help you fall asleep faster and sleep better through the night.

Day-time activities to help you sleep

*Most drugs, including some sleep medications, have a negative impact on the quality of your sleep. Even if they help you fall asleep, the overall quality of sleep will not be as high.

https://gmb.io/sleep/

https://hubermanlab.com/toolkit-for-sleep/

How to determine your ideal amount of sleep?

The best way to determine your ideal amount of nightly sleep is to avoid setting an alarm for a couple of weeks. If you can do this, record when you laid down for sleep and what time you woke up. Use those times to determine your length of sleep. Then calculate how many hours you slept on average over the course of the two weeks. Now, decide what time you need to wake up in the morning. Use your average length of required sleep and your desired wake up time to determine when you should go to bed each night.

You can also add 15-30 minutes of buffer time to your average if you'd like. This will give you a better chance of waking up naturally, before your alarm rips you from sleep.

Option 2: If you can't avoid setting an alarm then experiment with different lengths of sleep. I suggest starting with a longer period of time such as 9-10 hours. To some, this amount may sound excessive, and to others it may sound like a dream or even an impossibility. This will be an experiment for only a couple weeks to find your ideal sleep length. Find a way to commit to the time and experiment. For many people, allowing 9-10 hours for sleep will have you naturally waking up in the morning before your alarm does off. Record when you laid down in bed and when you woke up for the day. Do this for two weeks. Calculate the average amount of sleep you needed to wake up naturally. From now on use this amount of sleep to determine what time you set your alarm for.

As mentioned above, feel free to add 15-30 minutes of buffer time to help ensure you wake up naturally.

Additional material on how to improve sleep

Dr. Andrew Huberman podcast with Dr. Matthew Walker

Last word on sleep

I understand this may seem excessive. I don't expect anyone to do it all. Not everyone needs it all. It's about being honest with yourself about your needs and finding what works for you.

Eat Clean.

What is clean eating?

Clean eating means eating whole, unprocessed foods. Ideally it means doing so as a lifestyle choice and not as a short-term, quick fix diet.

Not eating processed food.

Honestly, that's pretty much all there is to it. But I'll expand upon it anyway.

Yo-yo dieting and crash diets are not what I mean by eating well. Everyone loves losing weight fast. However, many people go back to unhealthy eating habits after a crash diet. This leaves you very likely to gain back the weight. Not to mention being at risk for any number of health problems. It's about a shift in mentality and not seeing diets as something you "have to do for a little while" to lose weight, but rather eating well to feel better all the time. Yes, it can be hard, but it gets easier with time.

It's a lifestyle choice more than it is a diet. And it's a guideline more than it is a hard and fast rule.

NOTE: When I say unprocessed foods, I mean food with little to no processing. Some people argue that all foods are "processed" to some extent. Sure. Most are. But there's a major difference between bananas being picked from a tree and transported or beef being cut from the cow and ground up than what goes into a McDonald's chicken nugget.

Organic vs clean/whole foods

There can be potential advantages to choosing the organic version of a food. "Organic foods have specific standards on how the food is produced, handled, processed, and marketed. Farming organically is a production process that avoids or mainly excludes using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Labeling a food as organic is describing the food based on the process in which it was made and not the product itself." https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/campuses/Palmerston North/Documents/Recreation/Organics.pdf

Whole foods are foods with little to no processing. Good examples of whole foods are fruits and vegetables. Whole foods may be organic or not. And food that is labeled organic may not be whole foods. Food that are organic but highly processed are most likely not the healthiest option. If the choice is between something that is organic but processed (e.g. an organic oreo) or a not organic whole food (e.g. non-organic banana), I would choose the non-organic whole food as the healthiest option.

Some people say "sugar is sugar", and claim that eating a banana is just as bad as eating an Oreo. However, an Oreo is pretty much all sugar and fat with little to no other nutritional value - otherwise known as empty calories. Whereas bananas and other fruits and vegetables provide numerous other nutritional benefits such as fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

Why is a clean eating lifestyle important?

Clean eating can make it easier to maintain a healthy weight.

Whole, unprocessed foods don't have added sugar and aren't fried in fatty oils. Sugar (carbs) and oil (fats) are not inherently bad for you. They are in pretty much everything we eat whether natural or unnatural. But processed foods tend to be unnaturally jam-packed with them. It's this overabundance of macronutrients and therefore calories that contributes to why eating processed foods makes it so easy to consume too many calories. Excess calories combined with suspect ingredients and the fact that processed foods are often literally engineered to make you want to eat more all create the perfect storm for an unhealthy diet.

Clean eating helps us eat calories packed with vitamins and nutrients.

It is much easier to avoid eating "empty" calories when eating whole, unprocessed foods as plenty of processed food options provide little to no nutritional value other than the calories themselves. These nutrient dense foods help us to stay healthy in a number of ways. They help keep our vital organs, including our brain and heart operating as best they can.

Clean eating helps us stay generally healthy.

Clean eating can help reduce inflammation, fatigue, and a number of other chronic health issues and may even help alleviate some chronic illnesses.

There is scientific evidence to support a food-based approach to many health issues. I have heard of diseases going into remission with eating better. Keep in mind, some people still need medical intervention no matter how clean and smart they eat.

If you struggle to lose weight or consistently find yourself feeling sick, nauseous, run-down, tired, dizzy, etc, you should seek out help from professionals. You may have a slight allergy to a food, which may only show up in you as lethargy and not a violent reaction. You could consider finding a doctor who specializes in diet-based medicine.

Can clean eating help me lose weight?

Absolutely. It's possible to overeat when eating clean. Like any food choice, you can consume too many calories when eating clean. However, in general, it is more difficult to consume excess calories when eating clean than when eating processed foods because processed foods are often jammed with added sugars and fats. For example, snacking on strawberries instead of Oreos will likely lead to consuming fewer calories.

This means by simply switching to clean eating many people will be consuming less calories each day, which is the core concept behind trying to lose weight. Add exercise on top of that, and you've found a great recipe for becoming healthier.

How do I develop a clean eating lifestyle?

Shop at the edges of the grocery store. The middle is generally all processed food. It's also important to understand that organic does not mean whole, unprocessed food. As I explained above.

If this sounds overwhelming, I understand. But it doesn't have to be. Break it down into steps. Choosing to eat clean doesn't have to happen overnight. It can be done one meal at a a time. Or even part of a meal to start. If it's easier start by just eating one whole food with your Monday dinner each week this month. Then next month, make it Monday and Wednesday dinner. If you assume that you eat 21 meals per week. Then in 21 weeks, or a little over 5 months, you'll be eating whole foods with every meal. Either at that point or somewhere in the middle, you can make an entire meal of whole, unprocessed foods, and go through a similar "one step at a time" approach. And again, you don't have to be fanatical about it. If 80-90% of your meals are "clean", you're doing pretty good... As long as the rest aren't full half gallons of ice cream :)

Eating well is simpler than many make it sound. People tend to push fad diets. People tend to be fanatical about their lifestyle diets (think "the carnivore diet"). I'm not saying fad diets don't work. I'm not saying lifestyle diets don't work. I'm saying it is possible to avoid being a zealot while maintaining healthy eating habits by following a few simple guidelines.

The common denominator between different diet fanatics is to avoid processed foods. Eating whole, unprocessed foods is your guideline to lifelong healthy eating habits. I think vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, etc. are all fine as long as they have little to no processing.

Why unprocessed, whole foods?

One reason, it is harder to overconsume calories when eating whole, unprocessed foods. By this I mean, snacking on strawberries instead of Oreos will likely lead to consuming fewer calories.

Want aother reason why the guideline of unprocessed, whole foods is great? The simplicity. It's pretty simple compared to the rules of some diets. I'm not saying it's easy to stick to, but simple and easy are two different things. The FDA requires nutrition labels, but they can be tricky to read. Sugar comes in many forms these days. A quick Google search will yield a massive list. There are also many kinds of oils out there. Some are perfectly healthy when eaten in moderation. Others, not so much. Moral of the story: it's much simple to stick with whole foods than to find healthy processed foods.

While added sugars and oils make processed foods tasty. They add a ton of extra calories. Not only can your body is negatively affected by added sugars and oils. Your brain, your gut biome, and sleep may be as well.

But fruits and vegetables contain sugar… So is it okay to consume them? There are people who argue it is not. For the diets of most people, I disagree. It's okay to consume fruits and vegetables. Here's a quote from a Harvard Health article on the topic:

"Natural and added sugars are metabolized the same way in our bodies. But for most people, consuming natural sugars in foods such as fruit is not linked to negative health effects, since the amount of sugar tends to be modest and is “packaged” with fiber and other healthful nutrients. On the other hand, our bodies do not need, or benefit from, eating added sugar."

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/are-certain-types-of-sugars-healthier-than-others-2019052916699

Keep in mind that added sugars, even if natural, are still not ideal. Eating 20 spoonfuls of honey is too much sugar.

Here's a couple more articles on processed and added sugars:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/the-sweet-danger-of-sugar#:~:text=%22The%20effects%20of%20added%20sugar,Hu.
https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/features/how-sugar-affects-your-body

Also, alcohol is sugar. There are studies showing that moderate alcohol consumption may provide health benefits. There are also studies that show negative effects ranging from sleep problems to causal links of some cancers. The equivalent of one shot, one glass of one, or one bottle of beer a day may be okay, but more than that is probably not. And no, you can't average it out. By that I mean, binging on the weekends and not drinking during the week is not helping your case for being healthy.

I'm still doing more research on oils. It's a topic that is, as far as I know, hotly debated. It's hard to recommend one oil to use because different oils have different smoke points and work better for different types of cooking. However, the general consensus seems to be that vegetable oil is not a good choice. There's a lot of debate around seed oils and whether they should be part of a healthy diet. Olive oil (especially extra virgin, which is the least processed) seems to be generally considered the healthiest.

Earlier, I alluded to not having to worry about your macronutrient splits if you're eating a whole food diet. For most people, I do believe this is true. Is low-carb fine? Is low-fat fine? Yes. They are. Especially if they work for you and help you to eat well. The key is to avoid diets so strict that you decide to give up healthy eating and go back to eating junk.

Exercise.

Sustainable fitness is what most people should be chasing. It doesn't sound sexy like "6 pack abs in 6 weeks" does, but it's also achievable and not a blatant clickbait lie.

The 3 most important things to remember when exercising are:

  1. Proper form.
  2. Take it slow.
  3. Be consistent.

Proper form is the most important because it helps prevent setbacks due to injury. Form is SUPER IMPORTANT whether it's heavy lifting or consistently running a decent amount you will end up with injuries if your form is bad.

Be patient. Taking your time to learn proper form and not worrying about ramping up workout intensity quickly will help prevent injuries, which means progress will be steady and consistent. This will lead to the results you are looking for in a way that won’t ruin your body.

What’s the best exercise plan? The one you will stick with, period. Making the habit stick is a lot more important than what exercises you’re doing. To this point, if you ever find yourself without any time to exercise or about to go to bed and you skipped exercise that day, do some push-ups or a plank. This will help reinforce the habit.

I have trouble sticking with it? What should I do?

If you are not exercising at all right now, it's likely because you see it as this annoying, difficult, time-consuming thing. "Well I have to change, I have to drive to the gym, I don't know what I'm doing so it's embarrassing, other people look at me…" so on and so forth.

To get over a lot of those issues start with one minute a day. Every week add another minute. In six months you'll be doing 30 minutes a day.

The idea is simple. It's based on compounding and removing all barriers. If you can't spare a minute out of your day to do a plank or push-ups or march in place, you're either lying to yourself or you're the busiest person on earth. For just one minute of exercise, you won't work up a big sweat, so you don't have to shower after, you don't need special shoes or clothing, you don't need to go to the gym. All the excuses go out the window.

The most important thing is to build the habit. Try to do your one minute per day at the same time each day. Maybe right when you wake up or right before lunch. As the sessions increase in length, keeping the exercise at the same time every day will help to ensure you don't miss it one day because you didn't have time. You'll be used to saving that time block for it.

If you think there's no way this could work. Then just try it. What do you have to lose? One minute a day? Trust me, you likely lose a lot more than that on other useless things throughout the day.

Before Selecting an Exercise Plan

Before starting an exercise routine do a self-assessment. Do you have any current ailments? Do you have a bum-knee? Do you have a bad back? Do you have excessively tight hips? For almost all of these things, I would recommend first consulting your primary care physician and asking if they recommend you start a beginner yoga or body flow class or something like GMB’s Elements: A Foundation for Physical Autonomy (no, I’m not getting paid to put that there. I am actually taking the class as of January 2021).

They may recommend physical therapy instead of or alongside one of the things I mentioned. If so, do it. Some people don’t want to pay the money, which I understand. It can be expensive. But don’t we spend more on things that are not nearly as important as our health? Like the over-priced phone you’re likely reading this on? Taking care of your health is worth the money.

My Exercise Recommendations

First and foremost, find a plan that you will enjoy and stick with.

I personally aim for 4-6 days a week of moderate or high-intensity exercise for 20-60 minutes per session. If you haven't worked out recently, start with 1 or 2 days per week and add in a day every other week until you reach your desired frequency. This way, you won't overdo it.

From what I've found through my reading and research, 2-3 days of cardio, 2-3 days of (preferably heavy) weight training, and 1 day of yoga or body flow is a great balance.

Always warm-up for at least 3-5 minutes before working out. Find a warm-up routine that works for you. I tend to do jump rope or jumping jacks, push-ups, and air squats.

Lifts to focus on are the squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead/military press, pull-ups and/or bent-over rows, dips, and some kind of heavy carry (farmer carries or suitcase carries). Again, form is so important. All of these lifts are incredibly effective at building strength and muscle. They can also be incredibly effective at destroying your body if you do them with incorrect form. Seek help from others. Whether you hire a professional coach or ask people from a community of experienced lifters such as https://www.reddit.com/r/StartingStrength/

You may not ever need accessory or isolation exercises. At the very least, you shouldn't think about them until you are proficient in the above lifts. Incorporate a de-load/rest week every 4-6 weeks assuming you are diligent with your training, otherwise you probably won't need one unless your body is feeling run down. Don't push too hard too fast. Focus on form and proper muscle contraction not on how much weight is on the bar. Both cardio and strength gains should be a marathon, not a sprint.

For running, don't increase total mileage per week by more than 10% at a time. Roughly every 4-6 weeks give yourself a rest by dropping the weekly mileage by ~25-30%. The next week you can bump up again by 10% on the mileage you were running prior to your rest week. Some runners also take about a month off from running every year. Some take the entire month off, some drop running frequency and mileage by 50+%, and/or switch to other forms of cardio at a reduced intensity.

Weight machines, HIIT training, circuit training, kettlebell workouts, and other forms of exercise aside from running are all more than acceptable. Find what works for you. I simply aim to give an easy and effective exercise framework. In whatever exercises you choose, if there is form to consider then learn proper form before increasing intensity. Increase workout difficulty at a conservative rate. It's not about being fit in a week, it's about being fit for life. It's about sustainable fitness.

A good place to start with training

Weight training program: 5x5 / Starting Strength (there's a book)

Running: Run slow. So slow that you can have a conversation without gasping for air. For most people, that's probably between 10-13 min/mile. You don't need to run hard to build cardio endurance. Slowly build up distance.

If you haven't been exercising consistently then for the first couple of months, you may want to choose one style of exercise (cardio, HIIT, weight training, etc.) and aim to exercise every other day for a couple of months before doing back to back days. This will give your body time to properly recover and adjust to exercising while helping to avoid injury.

A lot of people will argue with running while doing the Starting Strength program because it is not designed to be done in accordance with any other exercise on the off days if I recall correctly. However, as I have said before, the goal is not to be the fastest or strongest. It is to stay in great shape. Fitness should be a marathon, not a sprint. So take your time. Rest when you’re feeling run down. Progress slower than you know you can and slower than the program recommends. You’ll be surprised at the results you’ll achieve even with slow but steady progress.

Further reading on doing cardio and weight training in the same training cycle:

https://legionathletics.com/concurrent-training/

Other good weight training programs for beginners:

https://legionathletics.com/strength-training-plan/

I'm not affiliated with Legion Athletics in any way. I simply think they have a lot of great material.

Running slow is important, but how slow? If you know your max heart rate or have a personal best 6k or marathon time, there’s a helpful chart here: https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/training/beginners/a26514237/running-pacing-easy-miles/

I didn’t know any of those things even years into my running, which makes “slow” even more subjective than it is from the charts in the link above. “Slow” should be a “conversational pace”, which means you’re running slow enough that you could carry on a conversation without gasping for air. This may feel uselessly slow to you, but it is not. Here’s a great article on easy running. It’s geared toward beginners, but anyone who isn’t currently doing 80% of their runs as easy runs should read it: https://www.verywellfit.com/how-fast-should-i-run-2911126

Why do I only talk about weight training and running in my recommendations?

I’ve personally only really used weight training, running, and HIIT in my training. Most of the reading I’ve done has been around weight training and running. So those are the two I tend to focus on and recommend most. I also think they are easy to get into and provide great results.

Remember: It doesn’t matter what I recommend. The best exercise plan is the one you enjoy and will stick with.

Flexibility and Mobility

Stretching is incredibly important. I always neglected it, thinking that it didn't apply to me even though I always had extremely limited ranges of motion in almost every joint.

Now, I feel it's invaluable, and I feel much better and much less tight than when I was younger. Stretching is easy to overlook. It can be boring. But you don't have to stretch in silence. You don't have to stretch for an hour. Also, adding 15-30 minutes of easy yoga on your day off might be good for you, too.

A good way to start the habit is to pick one good stretch per area (i.e. ankles/calves, hips, hamstrings, glutes, arms, shoulders, back, etc) per day. If that still sounds overwhelming. Then start with one stretch per day. Personally, I recommend starting with a hip stretch, even something as simple as yoga’s “Child’s Pose”. Pick any stretch and make it a daily habit. After doing a single stretch a day for a few weeks, make it two stretches per day. And continue until you have a good routine of multiple stretches daily.

Check out the following links for some ideas:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/92bhaj/we_over_at_rflexibility_created_a_new_fullbody/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVPyAU4l-sw

Rest and Recovery

As I mentioned earlier, taking time off to deload or do light recovery work is a necessity for longevity and avoiding injury.

If your body is feeling tired and you've been struggling through your workouts lately. Feel free to skip a workout or two or even take a full week off.

Here's a personal example I ran into: When training for a Spartan Ultra, at the peak I was running 40-50 miles per week and strength training twice a week. I built up to this from a sloppy routine in six months. Eventually, I found myself unable to deadlift my normal working set weight for even 3 reps. So what did I do? I lightened the weight and did higher reps. DO NOT do what I did.

Not until months later when reading more about overtraining and deloading did it click for me: I was overtrained. My body was tired. What I needed was a break; not more reps at a lower weight.

A good way to help recovery along and prevent joints from breaking down is to incorporate light and easy movement into your days. Whether that’s dancing around your living room with your spouse, friends, or children, doing yoga, body flow, or tai chi, or just taking some time to “shake it out”. Providing external movement for those tight and stiff internal joints helps to keep them healthy.

Interconnectedness in the body

The best way to see long-term sustained results is to listen to your body. Too many people try to be a hero and work through the pain. If you're a pro-athlete maybe you have to, it may be part of the job, but you are probably not a pro athlete. Either way, pushing through the pain means risking further and even permanent injury, more recovery and rehab, spending more time on the sidelines, and losing more of your progress than if you listened to your body. Many people don't realize that pushing through an injury on one body part can lead to issues in other parts of the body. An injured ankle if not treated can lead to knee pain, hip pain, back pain, and more. If you're injured, it's best to take some time off to heal.

Sometimes, even working out, but avoiding putting direct stress on an injured body part is not helpful. Have you ever noticed sometimes when you're really straining, you squeeze almost all your muscles despite only directly working a few? This can be problematic when injured. So if you are going to work out healthy parts of your body when some are injured, try to be very conscious of which muscles you should not be using.

The body is very interconnected. It is essentially a complex ecosystem, and if anyone part is not functioning correctly, it can have compounding downstream effects.

Everything I wrote about above is important in avoiding a slew of health problems, building muscle, losing weight, and doing it in a sustainable fashion. If you're lacking in one of the three main categories (sleep, diet, and exercise) the other two will suffer, especially if it is over an extended period of time. Some people, especially young people, reading this may think they are an exception to the rule because currently, they might be able to get away with eating and drinking whatever they want, sleeping crazy hours, and ignoring their body's warning signs. However, it is not going to be sustainable in the long term. It is going to prevent them from seeing even better results in both the short and long term. I know we are not going for optimal results here, but we are trying to avoid suboptimal health, which requires sleep, eating well, exercise, and listening to your body.

For the optimizers

If you insist on optimizing every variable, then at least avoid wasting time and money by focusing on the most important ones first. And to do that, you don't need fancy hardware or supplements to start. That means good sleep, exercising, and eating well. If you are not doing those three you should not be paying a lot of money for supplements or other things to optimize your health.