When I Was young I made a crucial observation.

When I neglected my diet – my whole life went downhill.

• I couldn’t study because I lacked focus.

• I couldn’t pursue my creativity because I lacked energy & motivation.

• I couldn’t have flow inducing conversations because of the sheer amount of brain-fog.

Wherever I looked — my life became worse whenever my diet did.

I realized that – my diet would either multiply or divide my quality of life (we’ll talk more about this later).

I had to experience both sides (the good and the bad) to understand the impact diet really had.

If I wanted more out of life – I couldn’t ignore this.

The perspective that health exists in a vacuum is something most people buy into.

But as a result — their lives are controlled by it. 

As a result, they get stuck in a mediocre existence that they can’t escape from – because they don’t know what’s causing it.

Unless you’ve experienced both sides – you won’t realize how much of your life is controlled by it.

The fish in the bowl doesn’t realize he’s a prisoner until he sees the ocean.

So many seemingly unrelated problems solved themselves when I paid attention to my diet (they were all related).

Diet connects to so many things that it can be treated as the core of all self improvement.

If you want more out of life – understanding this isn’t optional.

The Connection Between Health and Life 

We need to go through some points before we get to the actionable parts of this letter. 

If you don’t have time (or just have a really short attention-span), you can skip to “the fastest cure to a mediocre life”. 

But I can promise that you won’t get the same value you would have, had you understood the depth and bigger picture of the concepts.

But now – let’s get into it.

Everything in life connects to health, because it’s all life is.

Health is the source of all your happiness and all your pain. All your problems and all their solutions.

Let me paint a picture of what I mean.

Most people define health as your physical well being – some may say that your mental health is included (which it is).

But this is extremely limited thinking. Health is much larger – because you are much larger.

You’re not only your body or your mind – you are a blend of the actions and experiences you live out.

In other words: Your relationships, finances and experiences are also “you”. And the quality of these are also part of your health.

Your finances are your financial health. Your relationships are your social health. 

Everything in life connects to health.

To make this more clear – we can divide health into 2 parts:

1. Your internal health, (physical, mental, spiritual).

1. Your external health, (financial, social, experiential)

The combination of these 2 is your “Universal Health”.

What’s important to understand is that your external health (wealth, relationships, experiences) stems from your internal health (body, mind, spirit).

Your external health IS the result of your internal health – it cannot exist without it.

Think of your life as a pond and the water as your internal health.

The things growing and living in the pond are the external parts of your health.

If the water in the pond becomes toxic, everything dies. 

If the water is pure – life in the pond thrives.

What’s even more interesting… 

A fresh, clean pond will attract life. Plants and animals will seek the pond out.

Your internal health is the source of your external health. 

It’s the hub that everything in life connects to.

If you want to improve your life – you need to improve your health.

Your health is the filter for your experiences

In quantum mechanics, you change the nature of an object by observing it (look up “the observer effect”).

If you observe light in a certain way – it behaves as a wave. 

Observe it in another – and it’s now a particle.

Light is both a wave and a particle at the same time – but by observing it – it turns into one or the other (this is where “Schrödinger's cat” comes from).

In exactly the same way — your health determines your experiences.

Let me give you an example.

When you’re puking up all the contents of your intestines – it’s hard to say that you enjoy the experience of life… 

To put it simply:

If you feel terrible – every experience becomes terrible.

Health is how you experience life. Everything that happens in your life is interpreted by it.

If your brain is completely destroyed from a lack of sleep and shitty food – you won’t enjoy even the greatest conversations.

If your whole body is in pain because you haven’t taken care of it — you won’t appreciate even the most beautiful sceneries.

Take a moment to think of your life as the light from our previous example (I promise it’ll make sense).

Any given moment has an infinite amount of interpretations.

Picture a sunrise.

A regular person would find it quite enjoyable while a vampire would probably disagree.

Your health is what’s responsible for this interpretation. 

If you feel great mentally and physically – you’ll interpret the event in a good way (even though “good” is relative)

By doing this — you MAKE the event good.

Before you interpret life — it’s just like the light from our previous example — it’s everything at once.

But by interpreting it in a certain way — reality becomes that way.

The thing is — your health influences this interpretation significantly.

Bodily pains & unwanted thoughts disturb your mind (and causes psychic entropy).

And so, your health determines how you will experience any given event.

In other words: 

Good health will cause you to experience life in an enjoyable way.

I’m not saying that every moment of your life will instantly become pleasurable if you have perfect health. Life is a song – it has high and low notes.

But a good health will allow you to experience life in the best way possible – which is – to its fullest.

And isn’t that what we’re all trying to do?

Your health is the filter for your experiences. 

A terrible health will create a terrible life.

A good health – will create a full life.

If you want to experience life to its fullest – Take care of your health.

Diet is leverage for your life

Now we’re getting to the good stuff.

Out of all of self development – mastering your diet is the most effective.

Why?

Because diet affects every single aspect of health.

If health is multidimensional – diet is inter-dimensional.

Your diet doesn’t directly influence your external health – but it affects EVERY part of your internal health.

Let’s go over some things a good diet will do:

1. It creates a clear mind 

A good diet removes inflammation, brain fog and makes your mind clear (References).

Your brain and gut are connected via something called “the gut brain axis”.

You also have neurons in the linings of your gut, your gut is like a second brain (think about the phrase “gut feeling”).

When you eat like crap – you create inflammation in your gut which is “carried” to your brain via “the vagus nerve”– this is what brain fog is (and it’s why you can’t focus).

1. It explodes motivation and energy 

Your diet is the source of your motivation and energy (References).

To simplify things (a lot): 

• Dopamine is motivation

• Adrenaline is energy

When we feel motivated – we have a lot of dopamine.

When we have a lot of energy – we have a lot of adrenaline.

Both dopamine and adrenaline are created from tyrosine – which is found in your diet (just search for “tyrosine rich foods”).

1. It makes you happy 

95 % of serotonin (the well-being chemical) is produced in the gut. (References).

If you eat with intention – you’ll literally become happier.

If you don’t – you’ll objectively become more depressed.

To summarize – a good diet will give you:

1. Mental clarity

2. Energy & motivation

3. Happiness

For a creative exercise – try connecting these 3 to any aspect of life.

Wouldn’t any one of them significantly improve any aspect of your life?

Would a clear mind not improve your work?

Would your happiness not result in better and more loving relationships?

When you master your diet – your efforts are multiplied. 

• 1 hour of work with a clear mind is worth 10 without.

• 1 conversation with a happy soul is worth 10 without.

I want you to think of diet as leverage for your life.

Simple definition of leverage: “The difference between what you put in and what you get out.”

Diet improves your internal health on every level, and because of that – everything you do in the real world becomes that much more effective.

The better your diet, the higher your leverage. The higher your leverage – the more you will get out of life.

Diet is leverage.

The fastest cure to a mediocre life 

The fastest cure to a mediocre life is picking one multidimensional and fundamental skill to master. 

Something that connects to all aspects of life.

Something that’s so fundamental —that by mastering it –  you level up all domains in life at the same time.

Do you see what I’m getting at?

Mastering your diet is a holistic skill. 

Holistic means: “all encompassing” (something that connects to everything else).

Mastering your diet is no easy task – it's the fundamental human motivator (that’s why people have such a hard time with it).

There’s a reason why fasting is a core practice in almost every religion. It’s overcoming your earthly desires for something greater than yourself.

But if you do master it – you’ll develop an irreplaceable skill set of:

• Discipline – to resist the temptations.

• Patience – to stick with it when the going gets tough.

• Big-picture-thinking – to see past the present moment.

These are the basic skills for any form of success. It’s the art of delaying gratification.

Master. Your. Diet.

Here’s everything we’ve talked about summed up in a graphic:

If you master your diet – you have leverage for your life.

With a good diet – your efforts are multiplied. Little effort will lead to big results.

You’ll almost accidentally improve your life if you pick up just one other good habit.

Example: Someone with a perfect diet will get as much done in 1 hour as someone with a crappy diet will get done in 3.

A good diet allows you to get away with less work – because the work is better.

Diet is leverage for your life.

And even if you want more out of life than to just “get away with your work” (and I’m guessing you do) – you should still master your diet.

There are a lot of people who are still widely successful with a crappy diet (and they’re seldom quiet about it).

But this is a case of “the exception proving the rule” (meaning if you have to point out an exception, it means there is a rule that the exception doesn’t apply to).

And it begs the question — how successful would these people be if they DID master their health and diet?

If your goal was to shoot an arrow as far as possible – you’d still use the best technique, the best bow and do it in the best weather conditions.

This is the function of mastering your diet.

It’s working with the universe instead of against it.

The fastest cure to a mediocre life — is mastering your diet as a multidimensional and fundamental skill — and letting it transfer over to every aspect of your life.

The nutrition amendments

We’ve gone over the importance of health, how it frames your reality, that diet is leverage for your life and the fastest cure to a mediocre life.

Now let’s go over what a good diet actually is before we wrap this up (and introduce a final concept I’ve been working on).

Mastering your diet is a painfully slow process — but this is how you speed it up.

First, you need a base of foods to build off of. A base of foods that is guaranteed to work for every single human being.

I want to introduce a concept called “the nutrition amendments”. It’s the foundation for building your diet. 

But before we get there – why are these foods good for you?

Let’s quickly end the world war on nutrition… 

Every take on nutrition is on a spectrum of trusting in nature to trusting in science.

The ancestral diet puts its trust in nature. 

Reasoning: Humans evolved eating certain foods, therefore – these are the only foods we should be eating.

Things like meat, fruit, dairy and honey are a staple of this diet – and literally nothing else.

This is the diet our species lived on for most of our history.

Given that evolution takes some time — humans would still be attuned to this diet.

The science based diet puts its trust in science (as you might have guessed).

Reasoning: Using the scientific method we can determine the perfect diet for every human on planet earth.

Here’s a quick overview of the spectrum:

But this spectrum is an illusion.

Everything in life that appears like opposites... are 1 and the same.

The front of a coin creates the back of the coin.

Death creates life.

When you zoom out -- the opposites connect.

The ancestral and science based diet seem like opposites -- but are 1 and the same.

Let me paint you a picture of what I mean.

The ancestral and science based diet will eventually link up — because they’re striving for the same goal.

The goal being: finding a diet that works optimally for every human being.

If we do some math (and a quick google search) — we see that humans have been eating cultivated plants for 6.5 % of our existence.

Evolution takes time. We would probably still be acclimated to the diet we survived on for 93.5% of our existence.

This is why the ancestral diet makes sense. But it has one problem.

We can’t know the exact diet of our ancestors — we can only make educated guesses.

This is why science and nature will link up (because that’s literally what science is, it’s discovering and mapping nature)

Though, putting all of our trust in science can sometimes lead to the wrong conclusions.

Because there is no way of knowing that we’ve arrived at a truth (but that’s touching on a philosophical problem). 

Here’s an example of what I mean:

3000 years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat.

400 years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe.

And 30 years ago, everybody knew eggs were bad for you.

So we have to use a little common sense.

But we can see this concept in motion. More research are linking up to the ancestral diet as time goes on.

Note: This is not medical advice. It’s meant as a seed of curiosity to help you reach your potential (i.e it’s well intended).

Understand this or you’re headed for trouble.

So what is the perfect diet?

To put it simply:

Starting with a base of universally healthy foods and building on it from there.

This way we can utilize both the ancestral and science based diet to create one that fits us perfectly.

The ancestral diet is the base – because it’s what our bodies evolved to function best on.

This is what the nutrition amendments are – it’s your base diet.

This is what you will be building on (it’s basically the ancestral diet). 

Note: There are exceptions. Some people are lactose intolerant or even allergic to red meat.

Lastly, it’s called “the nutrition amendments” and not “commandments” because you’re supposed to amend them.

Here they are:

The nutrition amendments:

In thy sustenance, thou shalt partake of the following nourishment:

• Protein from animal sources. (Grass fed beef, venison meat, wild caught fish, shellfish, eggs)

• Pesticide free fruit and berries

• Fat from animal and dairy sources (Butter, tallow, milk, yogurt)

• Vitamins and minerals (liver, organs, fruits and some vegetables)

• Carbohydrates (fruit, honey)

• Fermented foods (kefir, yogurt, cheese)

• A cup of green tea (optional)

Note: I won’t go in on the science of all these foods (that is a future letter) — because this letter is already too long. So think of this as a seed for your curiosity (to do your own research).

The diet workshop

After you’ve established your base diet – you’re ready to begin building on it.

You do this by using the scientific method (this is also how you improve any aspect of your life – life is a science experiment).

Here’s the framework:

1. Make a hypothesis (research)

Do research on something you think would benefit your diet (or something you would like to add — because it tastes good)

Experiment (apply)

Introduce the food to your diet and do so for a month.

Anything less – and you won’t see much difference.

Anything more – and you’re just slowing down your progress.

1. Iterate from your results (change)

Did it benefit your health?

Then iterate your diet and add the food to it.

Did it have a neutral effect on your health?

Do what you want (but realize that some effects are hard to see)

Did it worsen your health?

Get rid of it – now!

(This process is also known as “the scientific method”)

Note: This process is eternal. You’ll always be implementing something or taking something out. You’ll always be improving but never reaching perfection – that’s what’s fun about this. It’s also what’s fun about life. It’s a game that never ends.

Connecting the dots – the health equation

We have gone over how:

• Your entire life is health

• Your health is the filter for your experiences

• Diet is leverage for your life

• The fastest cure to a mediocre life

• The nutrition amendments

• The diet workshop

Now let’s wrap this up with the final concept.

The health equation:

Life = Quality of Experience * Health^Diet

As I mentioned in the beginning of this letter –  I realized that my health would either multiply or divide my quality of life.

This equation sums up everything we’ve talked about (it’s the reward for your patience).

Explanation:

The “quality of experience” is the things that happen in your life. Be it good or bad.

The quality of your experience is multiplied with health to the power of your diet. If you know your math – you can connect the dots yourself (but I’ll also do it for you).

When diet is negative (in other words, a non-optimal diet), health becomes a dividing factor for your life.

And when diet is positive (an optimal diet), health becomes a multiplying factor for your life.

To make this more clear, I drew it out:

Although this is a rough sketch – it gets the point across.

Your diet is leverage for your life.

No matter what happens in your life, your health can either make it worse – or better.

Your entire life stems from your internal health – including how you experience your life.

The fastest cure to a mediocre life is supercharging your internal health by mastering a multidimensional and fundamental skill.

And the most powerful lever for this is your diet. It’s the quickest and most effective self improvement habit.

It’s the fundamental self improvement habit because it builds the base that your life stands on – your internal health.

It is truly leverage for your life.

You’re now armed with a tool powerful enough to change your life (for better or worse).

Use it wisely, my friend.

That’s all for this one.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the Dalai Lama to sum this all up:

P.S

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One letter – every sunday.

-Simon