Health is the asset that touches every other one.

I used to train for how I looked. That stopped working the moment I noticed the gym fills up in January and empties in February — aesthetics aren't a strong enough engine to last decades. So I shifted the goal: train so the version of me at 70 can still pick up his grandkids, hike a long trail, and carry his own bags.

What that means in practice is less interesting than people think. Lift heavy two or three times a week. Walk every day, ideally a lot. Sprint occasionally. Sleep is non-negotiable. That's most of it.

Strength is the base layer

If I had to pick one signal for whether someone will age well, it would be strength — specifically, how much load they can move and how reliably they can do it for years. Muscle is metabolic insurance, joint protection, and confidence rolled into one. Cardio matters; it just isn't the floor.

Walking is underrated

The single highest-leverage habit I've added isn't a workout — it's walking. Long walks. Walking meetings. Walks after meals. Walks instead of doomscrolling. Most days I clear 10K steps without thinking about it, because I've structured my day so movement is the default state, not a scheduled event.

Sleep is the multiplier

Everything I just wrote falls apart without sleep. I treat sleep as the most important performance enhancer I have, and it's free. Cool room, dark, consistent schedule, no screens late, no alcohol close to bed. The trick isn't tricks — it's protecting the window.

The conversation around mental health usually centers on what's wrong. I'm more interested in the version where life is mostly good — and yet the mind still drifts, still loops, still gets quietly heavy. That's the territory most of us live in, and it doesn't get talked about honestly.

For me, the work is mostly upstream. Sleep, sunlight, movement, and time outdoors do more for my baseline than any technique I've tried. When those are dialed in, almost nothing else feels like a crisis. When they slip, everything does.

Stress as signal, not noise

Most stress isn't telling me to relax — it's telling me something specific. A relationship is off. A decision is overdue. A commitment is misaligned with what I actually want. I try to read the signal before reaching for the off switch.

Journaling, lightly

I journal, but not the way wellness culture means it. No gratitude lists, no morning pages, no app. Just a running document where I think on paper when something's stuck. Writing it down forces me to be specific, and specificity dissolves most of what feels overwhelming.

The people you eat with

The single biggest input to my mental health is who I spend time with. Strong, honest relationships are protective in a way nothing else is. I optimize for fewer, deeper, longer-running ones — and I show up in person whenever I can.

Food is the topic the wellness internet is most confidently wrong about. Every year a new villain (fat, carbs, seed oils, gluten, lectins) and a new hero (keto, paleo, carnivore, plant-based) — and most of it cancels out at the population level. So I've stopped chasing the optimum and settled on a small set of rules that are boring, durable, and almost certainly good enough.

Eat real food. Mostly plants and animals.

If it grew or it walked, it's in. If it has a label with twenty ingredients, I'm skeptical. The single highest-impact dietary change for most people isn't a diet — it's cutting industrial food. Everything else is rounding error.

Protein is the anchor

I build meals around protein, then add vegetables, then add fat. Carbs find their way in around training and travel. Aiming for ~1g per pound of bodyweight has been the simplest rule that quietly improved energy, body composition, and how full I feel.

Fasting, when it fits

I don't fast for metabolic magic. I fast because eating less often is easier than eating less. Skipping breakfast a few days a week buys me deep work hours without a blood sugar dip and removes a decision I don't want to make.

Cooking is a forcing function

The fastest way to eat better is to cook more. Not gourmet — just five or six meals you can make on autopilot. When I cook, I eat better, spend less, and end up with more time at the table with people I like. Restaurants are for occasions, not defaults.

Alcohol

I drink rarely and notice it more when I do. The sleep cost alone is worse than the upside. I don't moralize about it, but I've stopped pretending it's neutral.

What I actually eat

Eggs, meat, fish, yogurt, fruit, a lot of vegetables, olive oil, sourdough, dark chocolate, coffee, water. That's most days. Travel weeks are looser. The 80% I get right matters more than the 20% I don't.

The honest version of any health page is a list of things you used to believe. Here's mine.

Not a recommendation list — just what's currently in rotation. Most of it is boring on purpose.