Measure What Moves The Needle, Define Your Enough Number, Balance Your Happiness Macros | FRLN 134
WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMIZING FOR?
You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
And you can’t measure what you never define.
Most people drift.
They drift with their health.
They drift with their money.
They drift with their happiness.
Not because they don’t care.
Because they never named the numbers that matter.
This week is about naming those numbers — and knowing which ones are actually worth optimizing.
Let’s dive in.
FIT — Measure What Moves The Needle
Seven weeks ago I weighed 177 pounds.
This week: 165.
Twelve pounds of fat, gone.
Not lost. Removed. On purpose.
You can’t improve what you don’t track.
This principle applies to nearly every area of life, but you can see it most dramatically in health and fitness.
Earlier this year, I was probably around 13% to 14% body fat. Right now, my scale has me floating around 8.5% to 9%. My short-term goal is to reach around 7%, then reassess how I look, feel, perform, sleep, and recover before deciding what comes next.
I step on the same body-composition scale I’ve used for more than 12 years.
Is a home scale perfectly accurate?
Of course not.
But when you use the same tool under similar conditions every day, the trend becomes useful. I’m not emotionally reacting to a single reading. I’m watching the direction over time.
I bring that same approach into the gym.
I track every set.
I track every rep.
I track the weight I move.
Right now, I’m strength training three to four times a week while playing as much pickleball as my body can handle — usually somewhere between 11 and 20 hours a week, depending on how hard I’m pushing in the gym, how hard I’m pushing on the court, and how well I’m recovering.
But the main lever behind this cut has not been more training.
It has been my nutrition.
Abs are made in the kitchen because you cannot consistently outwork the amount of food you eat. You can eat nutritious food and still consume more energy than your body needs.
Chicken and broccoli are healthy.
Too much chicken and broccoli is still too many calories for a fat-loss goal.
I didn’t completely overhaul my diet. I cut the small amounts of bullshit that had quietly crept into it:
• The small bag of chips with lunch.
• The non-alcoholic beer that added calories without adding much value.
• The “healthy” dessert I had been eating almost every night for more than six months.
That dessert was protein yogurt, cottage cheese, almond milk, and a very generous pour of granola.
None of those foods are bad.
But my "healthy dessert" was probably close to 1,000 calories.
So I stopped eating it.
That one decision likely made a bigger difference than adding another workout ever could.
My training stayed mostly the same. My pickleball stayed mostly the same. I removed the calories that weren’t serving my goal, kept my protein high, and continued pushing progressive overload in the gym.
The result?
My weight and body fat have come down while my strength has continued to improve.
That is exactly why I track every set and rep.
If I did 10 reps with 75 pounds last week, I know that this week I need to add a rep, increase the weight, or add another set.
Progressive overload means gradually asking your body to do more over time. Tracking lets you see whether you’re actually doing that or merely repeating the same comfortable workout every week.
I see so many people say they want to lose unwanted body fat, get stronger, or build muscle, but they don’t know:
• Their average body weight.
• Their waist measurement.
• Their body fat trend.
• How much protein they’re eating.
• How much food they’re actually consuming.
• What they lifted during their last workout.
• Whether their strength is improving.
Then eight weeks, 16 weeks, or six months pass, and they wonder why their body has barely changed.
Tracking is not about judging yourself.
Tracking is about removing the guesswork.
If you want to reliably change your body, identify the handful of metrics that matter most:
Track an outcome: body-weight trend, waist measurement, progress photos, or body fat trend.
Track the behaviors that drive it: food intake, protein, workouts, steps, and sleep.
Track performance: sets, reps, weight, and exercise quality.
Measure under consistent conditions.
Review the weekly trend instead of emotionally reacting to a single day.
And for the record, I am doing this cut while eating intuitively.
BUT — and this is a massive caveat — I earned that intuition by weighing and tracking every morsel of food I ate for 10 years.
I know what 30 grams of protein looks like.
I know what a reasonable portion of rice looks like.
I also know what a “small” pour of granola can turn into when I stop paying attention.
Most people who want to lose body fat efficiently will massively benefit from tracking their food for at least 3-5 months.
Weigh it. Enter it into an app like MyFitnessPal. If traditional tracking feels too tedious, experiment with an AI-assisted tool like MacroFactor or Cal AI and understand that the estimate will be less precise.
You probably don’t need to do this forever.
But you may need to do it long enough to stop guessing.
A manageable calorie deficit (200-500 calories less than your daily maintenance calories) combined with adequate protein and consistent strength training can produce steady fat loss while helping preserve muscle and performance.
Faster is not always better.
The goal is not to suffer your way to a temporary result.
The goal is to create a process you can sustain long enough to become the person who knows how to manage your body.
Tracking is not punishment.
It is feedback.
And feedback is how you turn intention into progress.
RICH — Define Enough (Before More Defines You)
Fitness asks:
What moves the needle?
Money asks a different question:
What is enough?
Most people have never defined it, so their default mode becomes more.
More income.
More investments.
More net worth.
More business.
More achievement.
This makes sense when you don’t have enough. When you’re struggling to pay rent, buried in debt, living paycheck to paycheck, or unable to absorb a financial emergency, money problems have a way of becoming life problems.
Money matters, and we shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t.
If you save and invest 20%, 30%, 50%, or more of your income long enough, you will eventually reach the point where your investments can support your lifestyle indefinitely.
That is financial independence.
But here is the trap:
You can reach enough on paper and still keep operating like you’re behind. You can win the money game and continue playing because you never decided what winning meant.
I’m living this question right now.
I was recently offered the opportunity to explore a sales role with an AI company led by a founder I worked with for 10 years and deeply respect. The opportunity is interesting. The industry is fascinating. The work could be exciting.
And there is a very real possibility that I could make a metric fuck ton of money.
The old version of me would have focused almost entirely on that final sentence.
How much can I make?
How quickly can I become the top performer?
How big can we build this?
Those questions helped me build wealth. They also came from an operating system that always assumed more money was the answer.
But I am financially independent now. I reached my original enough number. I do not need to make more money.
Of course, part of me still wants more. I like winning. I like building. I like working with talented people on interesting problems, and let's be real AF...
I love making money.
But over the last two years of early retirement, I’ve learned that somewhere between 5-15 hours of meaningful work per week is my sweet spot.
That gives me enough structure, creativity, contribution, and challenge without crowding out the life I built all that financial freedom to enjoy.
I get to write this newsletter, host my podcast, create content, and coach. I also get to strength train, play pickleball, spend time with my wife & friends, sleep, recover, think, and leave white space on my calendar.
Any new opportunity has to be measured against all of that.
The question is no longer:
Can this make me more money?
The question is:
Does this make my Fit Rich Life better?
That leads to a different set of questions:
• Does this opportunity fit the current season of my life?
• Can the role be shaped around my life, or will my life have to be shaped around the role?
• What will it cost in time, energy, travel, health, attention, and relationships?
• What am I saying no to if I say yes?
• Would I still want to do it if the compensation were cut in half? What if there was no compensation — would I even consider it?
• Is there a version I could trial without pretending the decision has to be permanent?
I don’t have my final answer yet, and I’m okay with that. I’m going to keep taking the next step, gathering information, and seeing whether there is a version of the opportunity that fits the life I want now.
Maybe I’ll say yes.
Maybe I’ll try it and love it.
Maybe I’ll try it and decide it costs too much.
Maybe I’ll walk away.
The freedom is not in automatically saying no to work. The freedom is having enough space to make a conscious choice.
This has shown me that “enough” is not a number you calculate once and never revisit. It is a practice.
My fitness is a practice. My writing, podcasting, and coaching are practices. My marriage is a practice of love. Living each day and week to the fullest is a practice.
Balancing my drive to accumulate more wealth with my desire to fully experience my life is a practice too.
The goal is not to kill ambition.
The goal is to make ambition answer to your life.
Once you have enough, growing the pile should no longer happen at any cost.
Your net worth should serve your net life.
Never the other way around.
Define enough before more defines you.
LIFE — Balance The Macros Of Happiness
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the macros of happiness.
In nutrition, the three macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates, and fat. You need all three, but the right amount and balance depends on the person, the goal, and the season.
Within those macros are micronutrients — the vitamins and minerals your body needs to function, recover, heal, and perform.
What if happiness works in a similar way?
This is not a scientific formula. It is a framework I’m experimenting with.
When I think about the three main macros of a happy life, these are the ones that come to mind:
Health and fitness
Resources — especially money, time, and freedom
Relationships
All three matter. You can be overfed in one macro and starving in another.
You can have millions of dollars and terrible health. You can have an incredible body and no meaningful relationships. You can have people you love deeply but be so financially overwhelmed that stress leaks into every corner of your life.
Too much of one macro cannot fully compensate for a severe deficiency in another.
If I had to put them in order for my own life, health and fitness would come first. When my health is strong, I have the energy to create, earn, play, love, and contribute. When my health suffers, everything else becomes harder.
Money can give me access to good living conditions, great food, coaching, supplements to enhance my fitness, recovery tools, and time.
Relationships can give me support, care, and a reason to keep going. But neither money nor love can make every health problem disappear.
That is why I treat my body like the foundation.
Relationships would be a very close second. The research on human connection keeps pointing in the same direction: people with strong, meaningful relationships tend to be healthier, happier, and more resilient.
You do not need 100 best friends. You need people you love and people who know the real you. You need someone to call, someone to laugh with, and someone to sit beside you when life gets brutally hard.
If you have your health and deep relationships, you can still have a beautiful life without enormous wealth.
But resources matter too.
Money creates safety, options, and time. It can remove unnecessary stress and give you the capacity to invest more deeply in your health, relationships, creativity, and contribution.
Financial stress can consume attention and place enormous pressure on a marriage, family, and nervous system. That is why mastering the money macro is not shallow or selfish.
It is life-giving.
For many people, a decade or more of intentional earning, saving, and investing can create a level of freedom that once felt impossible.
But financial independence does not complete the happiness plate.
It stocks the kitchen.
It gives you the time and resources to nourish the other parts of your life. That is what I’m trying to do now.
I spent years focused on building the resource macro:
Earn.
Save.
Invest.
Repeat.
Now the money gives me the space to go deeper into my health, deepen my marriage and friendships, play more pickleball, and build a body of work that helps other people live their best Fit Rich Life.
And within these three happiness macros are dozens of micronutrients:
Sleep. Purpose. Play. Intimacy. Community. Creativity. Contribution. Spirituality. Adventure. Rest. Time in nature. Growth.
The exact recipe will be different for everyone. It will even be different for you in different seasons of your life.
The mistake is assuming one ingredient can become the whole meal. More money will not fix every relationship. More fitness will not automatically create meaning. More connection will not erase every resource problem.
A great life is built by noticing what is undernourished and feeding it before the deficiency becomes a crisis.
ACTION — Measure One. Define One. Feed One.
Don’t try to overhaul your entire life this week.
Do these three things instead.
FIT — Measure one outcome and one behavior for the next 14 days.
Your outcome could be your weight trendline, waist measurement, or body fat trend.
Your behavior could be calories, protein, workouts, steps, or sleep.
Pick two numbers that reveal whether you are moving toward your goal. Track them without judgment.
RICH — Write your definition of enough.
Finish these three sentences:
I have enough money when…?
I am working enough when…?
I know an opportunity is worth saying yes to when…?
Do not write the answer you think sounds impressive.
Write the answer that supports the life you actually want.
LIFE — Audit your happiness macros.
Give each one a score from 1 to 10:
Health and fitness: ___
Resources: ___
Relationships: ___
Whichever macro has the lowest score gets fed first.
Schedule one action within the next 24 hours.
Book the workout.
Open the investment account.
Make the budget.
Call the friend.
Plan the date.
Ask for help.
The point is not to turn your entire life into a spreadsheet.
The point is to measure enough to see the truth.
To define enough so you stop blindly chasing more.
And to use that clarity to nourish a life that actually feels rich.
The right numbers tell you where you are.
Enough tells you when to stop.
Your happiness macros tell you where to invest your freedom.
Track the body.
Define enough money.
Feed the relationships.
Build a life where the numbers serve you.
Never the other way around.
To your health, wealth, and happiness,
— Justin David Carl