Ray's Take

Your program, is what you do.

Every single person has a program. It's what you do, every day.

You can't not have a program.
- You ate today - what you ate is part of your program
- You exercised (or not) today - what you did (or didn't do) is part of your program
- You slept last night - how you prepared to sleep, and how you slept is part of your program
- You talked to yourself today - how you communicated to yourself is part of your program
- You may or may not have taken medications/supplements today - what you took is part of your program

Life is more complicated than this, but your program essentially comes down to:
Program = What you eat + How you move + How you sleep + How you talk (to yourself) + What medications/supplements/drugs you take

Your goal

Have a sustainable program that makes progress toward your health objectives.

Stupid ideas

I'm not focused on my nutrition or exercise right now.
That's great. Your program is currently on autopilot. But you still do what you're doing, so you still are on a program. I'd argue that autopilot is the truest form of your program. It's the essential condition for long term adherence to your program.

I do things differently every day
That's great. Your program includes variance. My program follows similar principles every day, but by no means do I eat the exact same thing, in the exact same amounts, every single day (even though maybe you should).

I don't want a program
Too bad. You have one. You can ignore it. But you have one.

Design

How do you design your program?

It always starts with you. What is your program today?
(link to why cookie cutter programs never work)

With that starting point, assuming you want to improve in some area (heart disease prevention, reverse pre-diabetes, lose 10 lbs, get under 12% body fat, etc) you need to introduce updates to your program.

If you like them, you measure if those updates are moving you closer to your goal.

If they are, then you keep doing that new activity...forever.

In summary, you design your program by adding a new practice to your life, seeing if you like it (immediate), and seeing if it is working (weeks to months).

Note - I typically find that if you don't like something in the beginning, its probably unlikely to stick. Of course you can be "bad" at something IE starting a new sport or activity, or cooking, but you need to initially find some joy in doing it, or else its really unlikely to last long term.

Knowledge

What should I add?

You are the founder of your own health. You have to figure it out. You do this by deciding which new practices even have a chance of fitting into your life, and then you do them.

I've worked on 10 products that tried to get people to "change their behavior" in a way that they didn't really want to change and guess what.....they never fucking worked. We're not gonna make the same mistake here.

We're gonna give you knowledge coming from
- scientific research IE new randomized trial
- scientific fact IE 1g protein has 4 calories. 1g fat has 9 calories. 1g water has 0 calories.
- my personal experience IE "I cut out bread, rice, and pasta and lost 10 lbs"
- community experience IE "someone substituted every sandwich to the salad on doordash and lost 10 lbs"
I will give you my take on if I think its likely to work and if I would try it myself.

Then, you decide if you want to try it.

How many new things should I try?
As many as you want.

If you feel motivated to throw out all the shit food in your pantry, and start a completely clean nutrition program, my hat is off to you.

If you just want to order doordash, but in a healthier way for lunch, that works too.

Remember, this is your program, so its your timeline, and there is no deadline.

You'll always have a program.

Note - I've found people are who they are, and they're gonna do what they're gonna do. If you're not really motivated to change anything about your program right now. Don't. I'm not gonna try to convince you. Just wait until it's a better time (maybe its never).

That being said, the right time to start was yesterday, and you don't have to start huge. Just decide i'm going to eat more protein fiber and water. Then for lunch, have a salad with chicken breast/thigh. Boom done. Did you like it?

Action

How do I action new knowledge?

Two ways:
1 - just do it (default)
2 -get our app, and "check in" the knowledge you just acquired, and found just slightly interesting enough you might want to try it at some point. Then, just do it whenever you want.

Let me give you a couple examples for 2 above

Diagnostic test:
- I watch a vid showing the importance of getting apoB tested for cholesterol
- I think its valuable to my objective of preventing heart disease
- I check in "get apob test"
- Next time I go to the doctor, I tell him I want the apoB test in addition to regular cholesterol panel

Nutrition:
- I watch a vid explaining how amazing cauliflower is. It is 92% water. It has fiber. A whole pound has ~110 calories. I can eat as much cauliflower as I want.
- I think its valuable to my objective of preventing pre-diabetes and getting to 12% body fat.
- I check in "eat cauliflower"

- Next time I'm at trader joe's, I buy a cauliflower, cook it at home, and eat it

Not that complicated.

Why "check in" ?

Yea, i know its annoying to download another app. And yea you'll have to scroll away from youtube, IG, or tiktok to do it. But is it worth it? That's up to you. You're the boss.

I think that writing things down are good bc you can access what you thought before (yes you forget things) and there is some higher likelihood you'll actually try the new practice if you write it down (this isn't worth looking up scientific evidence on bc....who cares. It's fast, easy, and up to you. If it works for you, great. If not, don't).

What I do know, from helping 1000s of people lose weight, is that by far the most important factor to improving health, is feeling like you are doing a good job (yes this is surprising and yes have data on this). Practically speaking, this means if you are even thinking about your health, and thinking you are actioning practices that will help you reach your objectives, you are way more likely to reach your objective.

The way I recommend doing this, is checking in knowledge from what you learn, and what you did. Write down every exercise session with reps/sets for strength, beats per min and total time for cardio). Calorie counting over long term is too tedious, but you can certainly jot down notes on what you ate if it was different and you are testing something.

So if you made it here, check this in.