You'd be healthier than 99% of people
Read time: 4 minutes
I was taking a shameless mirror selfie on Saturday, when Bella decided to do her best impression of a Meerkat by jumping up on her back legs 😂
Talking of best impressions, if you want to do your best impression of a super healthy person, then you'll want to keep reading.
Let's not waste any time any get stuck into this week's newsletter...
There's a supplement for everything. A protocol for everything. A gadget, a hack, a biohacker on a podcast telling you about the twelve things you need to do before 7 am to optimise your mitochondria.
It's exhausting. And for most people, it's completely unnecessary.
Because the truth is, the fundamentals haven't changed. They're not exciting. Nobody's getting rich selling them. But they work, and they've always worked.
So here's the deal. Forget the noise for a minute.
If you did nothing else, if you ignored every trend, every supplement, every clever protocol, and just nailed these seven things, you'd be healthier than the vast majority of people walking around today.
This is the floor. Master it before you worry about anything else.
1. Lift weights
If I could get you to do one thing, it would be this.
Muscle is the closest thing we have to an anti-ageing drug. It protects you from falls and frailty as you get older. It keeps your metabolism working. It supports your joints, your bones, and your independence in later life.
And here's the uncomfortable part. From your 30s onward, you lose muscle every year unless you actively fight to keep it. Nobody drifts into strength. You build it, on purpose, by picking up heavy things a few times a week.
You don't need to become a bodybuilder. You just need to get strong and stay strong.
2. Prioritise protein
Protein is the raw material your body uses to build and repair almost everything: muscle, bone, skin, hormones, and immune cells.
Most people don't eat enough of it. And the older you get, the more you need, not less, because your body becomes less efficient at using it.
Get a good source of protein into every meal. It'll help you hold onto muscle, keep you fuller for longer, and make almost every other health goal easier to reach.
If you take one dietary habit from this list, make it this one.
3. Eat mostly whole foods
Forget the complicated diet rules for a second.
The simplest nutrition advice that has ever existed still holds: eat mostly foods that come from the ground, a tree, or an animal. Foods that don't need a label because they are the ingredient.
The more of your diet that comes from whole, minimally processed food, the better off you'll be. It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to be the person turning down birthday cake. Aim for most of your meals, most of the time, to be real food.
Quality over quantity. It matters more than any macro split.
4. Sleep 7 to 9 hours
This is the foundation everything else sits on.
You cannot out-train, out-eat, or out-supplement bad sleep. When you're underslept, your hunger increases, your recovery tanks, your mood drops, and your body tips toward inflammation.
Yet sleep is the first thing most people sacrifice. They treat it as the thing to cut when life gets busy.
Protect it like it's the most important part of your health routine. Because it might be.
5. Get outside every day
We were not designed to live indoors under artificial light.
Getting natural light, especially in the morning, sets your body clock. It tells your brain when to be alert and when to wind down, which improves your energy in the day and your sleep at night. It supports your vitamin D, your mood, and your mental health.
It costs nothing. It takes minutes. And almost nobody does enough of it.
Get out for a walk in the morning light. Your whole system will thank you.
6. Eat your fibre
This is the most forgotten nutrient in modern nutrition.
Everyone talks about protein. Almost nobody talks about fibre. And yet fibre feeds your gut bacteria, steadies your blood sugar, keeps you full, and is linked again and again to living a longer, healthier life.
Most people get nowhere near enough. The fix is simple: more vegetables, fruit, legumes, and whole grains. The colourful stuff. The plants.
Protein builds you. Fibre protects you. You need both, ideally 25-35g per day.
7. Drink mostly water, and go easy on alcohol
This is the easiest win most people ignore.
Make water your default drink. Not soda, not juice, not a fourth coffee. Water.
And be honest with yourself about alcohol. I'm not here to tell you to never drink. But alcohol touches everything on this list; it wrecks your sleep, slows your recovery, drives inflammation, and works against your body composition.
You don't have to quit. But if you're serious about your health, drinking less is one of the highest-leverage changes you can make.
Seven things.
None of them are new.
None of them are exciting.
None of them will trend on social media.
But if you got these right, consistently, for years, you'd be doing more for your health and longevity than any supplement stack or wearable ever could.
Everything else in the health world is built on top of these. They're not the ceiling. They're the floor.
Get the floor right first.
The rest is just noise until you do.
Right, I'm off to go destroy myself in the gym. It's currently 30 degrees, and the gym has pathetic air conditioning 🫠
Have a great week!
Catch you next time.
Mark ✌️
