FRLN38: How Processed Foods Are Like Street Drugs, Working Less, Making More & Slowing Down To Grow Richer
Fit Rich Life
Newsletter #38
Weekly Tips, Tools & Strategies to Alchemize your Fitness, Money & Life
Newsletter Archive
"The maximum success is reached when you are never busy."
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Essayist & Mathematical Statistician
Greetings Fit Rich Fam!
I'm back to a regular release of the Fit Rich Life Podcast & have gone to full video production on Spotify.
Without further ado, let's proactively build your Fit Rich Life.
This is your weekly dose of actionable tips, tools & strategies to take your Fitness, Money, and Life to the Next Level.
FITNESS: Reduce your processed food intake to get fitter, feel fuller & feel better.
I’ll tell you right off the bat that I still consume processed food even though I’m a bonafide health-nut & online fitness coach who works with people on their nutrition.
Most processed food tastes incredible and is highly addictive because food companies hire geniuses and spend millions of dollars to make it light your pleasure centers on fire.
Just like street drug dealers take processed coca leaves (aka cocaine) & mix in all sorts of other cheap shit to make more money by having more product to sell (by diluting it), food companies do the same thing. They take pure food substances and mix it up with all sorts of other cheap shit to make even more money off you and me.
Additionally, processed food is convenient AF.
It takes little-to-no preparation and humans naturally crave convenience, which makes it even more addicting because when faced with taking 5-30 minutes to prepare whole foods into a delicious meal vs zero minutes to open a wrapper or the minuscule effort to place something in the microwave, most humans by default will take the easier route.
In moderation, processed foods can make our lives easier, more enjoyable, and we can still maintain vibrant health.
My rule of thumb is that 10-20% of our caloric intake can be from processed foods while 80-90% of our diet should consist of whole foods (the more plants, the better).
This way we can enjoy the wonders of man-made food in moderation and still get most (if not all) of the health, wellbeing & longevity benefits of a whole food plant-based diet.
The health & fitness problems arise when processed foods take a front seat in our daily nutrition.
This will lead us to overconsume calories due to the hyper-palatable & addictive nature of this processed food-like stuff.
Even if you can manage to not over-consume calories if processed foods make up a majority of your diet you will be left feeling hungry all the time, which is not a fun way to live.
It takes a lot of willpower to resist hunger and that's willpower you could channel into more fruitful endeavors.
Plus, just like recreational drugs will make you feel like shit, having too much processed food will leave you feeling like shit after the initial high and will greatly detract from your emotional & physical wellbeing.
For the record: processed food includes things like protein bars & other so-called healthy snacks like protein chips, protein cookies, etc.
While protein bars & the other protein snack variants are a convenient way to get in extra protein, they should NOT make up a significant portion of your overall caloric intake OR be your main source of protein intake.
Furthermore, if you start your day with something like a protein bar or protein cookie you will likely be craving processed food all day long as you've kick-started the addiction & short-circuited your body's ability to feel satiated.
My strategy is to save my protein bar for the end of the day as a "treat" for a day of exercise and work well done.
You don't have to be all or nothing when it comes to whole foods and processed foods.
Instead, take the middle bath and shoot for 80/20 whole foods to processed foods and witness as your fitness, wellbeing & satiation go to the next level.
MONEY: Work less, make more.
How?
Digital leverage & passive income.
Let’s talk about digital leverage first as it’s a newer concept than passive income.
You can build digital leverage by creating and selling a digital product like an online course or ebook while simultaneously building up a personal brand on social media.
Once you have a digital product this can be sold 24/7 even while you sleep and are on vacation.
Your personal brand will do a lot of the heavy lifting of sales for you.
BTW - If you are on any social media with a profile you have a personal brand whether you know it or not. Even if you rarely, if ever, post.
With the right intention your personal brand will sell your digital product 24/7 and through social media, you can reach 100s of thousands and even millions of people who will buy your product.
Just like any passive income source, it takes a f*ck ton of work upfront to build up both a digital (or physical) product and a good personal brand, but the time will pass anyways so you may as well start now even though it will likely take years to build up this digital leverage.
I've been building my personal brand online for many years at this point and I'm in the process of building an online course.
I currently make money online from my podcast & coaching business, but the goal for me is to uncouple myself from having to exchange my time for money via an e-course that teaches all the principles, tools, techniques, and strategies to master one's fitness, money & life.
This digital leverage strategy will uncouple me from having to produce more podcasts or having to work with more 1-1 clients to make more money while also empowering me to help way more people.
It will likely be another year or so before my course is ready, but I am proactively building both my personal brand and a digital product that will empower me to make more and work less utilizing digital leverage.
Another way to make more and work less is by building up passive income sources like a Stock Investment Portfolio and a Real Estate Portfolio.
I've already built up a massive stock portfolio that pays me a f*ck ton of money with zero work at this point and I've begun the journey of building up real estate holdings that will eventually be fairly passive.
Again, I want to reiterate that I had to put a ton of upfront effort into building my passive income portfolio over many years by working a 9-5 and religiously investing my money every week, but now I'm at the point where just my investment portfolio alone can support my lifestyle for the rest of my life without any additional money needing to be made.
The freedom, wonder & joy I feel from knowing that I never "have to" work to make money to support my lifestyle is truly magical. It has empowered me to proactively live my dream life as I "get to" do only things that I actually want to do.
Even though I am technically financially independent I still enjoy working & contributing to mankind so I continue to do work that brings me joy.
One of the things I desire most at this point in life is to have a bigger positive impact on the lives of others.
Hence the pursuit of building my personal brand to reach more people & creating a digital product to serve more people.
Plus, I like to have multiple redundant financial freedom security measures in place as this gives me peace of mind.
Peace of mind empowers me to sleep well at night and paired with my financial independence I get to play life full out.
I'm not scared of losing my 9-5 job.
I'm not scared if my podcast or coaching business fails.
I'm not scared of unforeseen events that could short-circuit my income because, in addition to a massive money-making machine investment portfolio, I also have a ton of cash diversified across multiple financial institutions & socked away in offline caches.
You never know when the next Black Swan event (like the coronavirus pandemic) will happen or what form it will come in so you may as well prepare for it because it will happen again in our lifetime and probably more than just once.
This is your friendly reminder that if you haven't started consciously building up passive income sources & digital leverage now is the time to get started if you want to be truly financially free one day.
While you do that, diversify both your income & reserves so nothing can knock you out of the game of life.
LIFE: Slow down to enrich your life.
When I was younger life couldn’t go fast enough.
I was so focused on getting to the next thing or achieving the next thing that I hardly appreciated anything.
At this point, I love to go slow.
Slow mornings filled with deep reflection.
Slow workout warmups where I tune into my body.
Slow workouts where I focus on being deeply present inside my body as I slowly increase the resistance.
Slow reps.
Slow cooldowns in the Pacific Ocean after my slow workout.
Slow warm up in the sun.
Slow conversations with my wife.
Slow meals.
Slow walks.
Long slow hangouts with my friends.
Slowly growing my solo entrepreneurial endeavors.
The slower I go, the more jacked I get mentally, physically, financially, emotionally & spiritually.
The slower I go the RICHER I FEEL.
The truth is I’ve never grown faster now that I’m slowing down in all aspects of life.
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I am sending you all lots of Energy & plenty of Dragon Magic!
Your Fitness, Money & Life Coach,
Justin David Carl
P.S. Below is my latest podcast on YouTube where I go even deeper into how to fix your knee pain, how to make a ton of money, and how to utilize the right environments and role models to build your own inspiring Fit Rich Life.
Episode 65 is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy your podcast entertainment.
Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:
1. I run a custom-tailored 1-1 & group mastermind coaching program that will empower you to achieve your dream body, master your money & live your best life. Yup, it's a proven Fitness, Money and Life Coaching Program unlike anything else out there. You can book a free consultation with me here or just drop me a note on Instagram to find a time to connect.
2. If you work in an office introduce me to whoever handles your office snacks, catering & employee experience to take your work wellbeing to the next level. I'm a founding member of Garten, a tech-empowered employee experience & wellbeing platform that top companies utilize to power their most important asset (their people). Email me at >>justin@garten.co<< to set up a meeting.