Good morning! It’s National Have a Coke Day. I can’t remember the last time I had a Coke that wasn’t Coke Zero… But if there’s any day of the year to let loose and do it, maybe today’s that day! We’ll see. 🤪

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🏃‍♂️💨 Stop trying to sprint a marathon

We’ve all been there. Something lit a fire under you, got you motivated to make a change. Maybe it was a health scare. Maybe it was just seeing someone hot in a movie and thinking, “Alright. It’s my time. I wanna look like them.”

It could be anything, but I bet we’ve all had at least a moment or two when motivation struck like a Thor-sent bolt from the heavens and you felt like nothing could stop you.

Until a couple weeks (days, even?) later, something did.

So many of us rely on motivation to make a change. And honestly, the sooner you learn that feeling highly motivated is more the exception than the rule, the better off you’ll be. 

Remembering your “why” can often re-motivate you. Ask anyone who’s put in incredible effort to achieve anything great, and they’ll probably tell you that they didn’t feel “motivated” for a huge portion of that time. And they put in the work anyway. Because they knew it would take consistency rather than just intensity to make their dreams reality. 

A burst of intensity for a time can certainly be helpful. It can be a kickstart or a boost or a foundation-builder. Eventually, however, it wears off. We need rest, we need hobbies, we need down time, and we need variance.

So often, we’re willing to sprint. But we make the mistake of thinking sprinting will get us marathon-level results.

You can’t sprint the distance of a marathon. I mean, you could, but with all the rest and recovery you’d need along the way, it would almost assuredly take longer than just jogging the whole thing.

How to go hard—the right way

Our culture has ingrained in us over the past few decades that if you want to [insert fitness or body composition-related goal here] quickly, you’ve got to hit it HARD. Hours of endless cardio and salads for every meal. 

And yet we know that doesn’t work. No one can stay consistent on that for long. But it’s appealing! It’s sexy! 

This is why 30-day bootcamps and two-week “cleanses” still have such appeal. The marketing works. And of course we want results fast. But our bodies—inside and out—don’t change very quickly. 

As with personal development and goals, we often overestimate what we can do in a day or week but underestimate what we can do in a year.

Our bodies can change tremendously! But that change is slow and gradual. When it’s not, that’s usually when other problems arise, like losing muscle mass, tanking your metabolism and hormones, ruining your mental state, etc.

Most people aren’t chomping at the bit to sign up for a “Slow and Steady Five-Year Gradual Body Transformation.” Motivation struck! We gotta act now! “I can go harder than that! I’ll do whatever it takes to get the results I want ASAP!”

How long does that last? Not very.

It’s also tough in the realm of health because when that motivation does strike, we want to capitalize on it by doing something, by taking action. We’re ready and willing to work, work, work for the results we want! 

In reality, at least for a lot of people for whom losing body fat is the goal, you can’t really just work it off. Not quickly, anyway. The majority of that progress is going to come from eating less, not moving more.

• Don’t get me wrong. This is Move to Improve, after all, and I’m always going to be a proponent of movement.

• That said, suddenly and drastically increasing your cardiovascular exercise without any dietary change or real plan for sustainability is unlikely to yield the results you want.

And trust me, I’ve been there! You might be motivated to work your butt off, but there are bigger levers you can pull (i.e. cleaning up your diet) that don’t really feel like hard physical work. Yet it is a major mental and environmental lift to change the way you eat. 

So what’s a Move to Improver to do when inspiration strikes and they’re ready to work hard but want to ensure long-term results?

Here are three tips:

1. In your diet, focus on adding the “good” rather than removing the “bad”

2. In your exercise, focus on building muscle rather than endless cardio to burn a few hundred calories you’ll easily eat back anyway

3. Focus on consistency, not just intensity 

Regarding diet: Sure, maybe cut back on some of the calorie-dense, nutrient-sparse foods you love to indulge on. But if you want to do something, in a positive, action-oriented approach, focus on adding in what will nourish you! 

• Set an ambitious daily protein goal (1.6g/kg+)

• Eat 3–5+ servings of fruits/veggies per day

• Prioritize whole foods over ultra-processed ones

• Consume omega-3 fatty acid-rich foods

• Eat the rainbow

Regarding exercise: I’ll rarely tell someone not to do cardio. The evidence is glaringly clear that the higher our cardiovascular fitness, the lower our mortality risk. That said, cardio should not be your only tool for weight management; it’s probably not even the best one.

If you want to really work hard and push yourself, invest that energy in strength and hypertrophy training! Building muscle and strength is going to do wonders for your health, metabolism, and overall body composition. It’s a long, slow process that pays dividends for even longer. Well worth the investment.

Regarding consistency: Project your mind a number of months—years, even—into the future, and envision you having reached your goal. If it’s far away, but not too far, you can suddenly relax any sense of urgency. Look, you’ve got all this time! Which actually means it’ll require less work and intensity every day. It’s incremental changes stacked over many, many consistent days that will ultimately get you to this goal.

When the motivation hits, which it certainly will, capitalize on it! Instead of going all in and burning out in no time, invest your energy in sustainability and changes that will last.

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Think back to the last time you felt motivated to make a health-related or physical change. Did you take action? If so, what? How long did it last and how effective was it?

Level 2: If you’re ready to take action, don’t take off in an all-out sprint without a plan. Think about where you want to be and what realistic steps you can take to get there over a reasonable timeframe.

Level 3: Let’s get this marathon, baby. Make your dietary and exercise changes consistent enough to become habits. Once you take on an identity of “I am the kind of person who ____,” you’ll be unstoppable.

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Age well: On super-agers, their bigger brains, and better memory. By Dr. Strange.

• Age well again: Equinox launches $40,000 'Optimize' membership in partnership with Function Health.

  • Note: I am a member of Function Health! I actually will be finishing my third round of tests shortly after this goes out. For just $499 a year, you get access to twice annual testing of dozens on dozens of biomarkers, many of which your doctor might never order. Considering every recent medical bill I’ve gotten, 500 bucks a year is not bad at all. If you’d like to skip the 200,000+ person waitlist, reply to this email for one of my five referral links! First come, first served!

Maybe I won’t drink a Coke today. Or maybe I will since I just had my Function Health tests. Sshhh, they’ll never know. 😉 

As always, share with a friend who could benefit from reading!

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).