Green Pill 010: April Goalset | Dopamine Again | Perfectionism vs. Starting

"If You’re Not Taking Care Of Your Sleep, Exercise And Nutrition, You’re Not Giving Yourself A Fighting Chance Against Depression And Anxiety."

Author

Alex Shinkarovsky
April 01, 2023

Happy Saturday, fitfam,

This week's resources to improve your life, and get you where you want to be.

  1. Green Pill Story: a client

  2. Weekly Quick Recs: (Meme, April Goalsetting, Dopamine again..)

  3. Deep Dive:   Tracking

P.S. my assistant accidentally removed 100 of my IG followers. Check if you were one of them @alexlovescardio.

Green Pill Stories - my client

So, one of my clients for lifestyle adjustment and overall health changes just completed his first full month with me.

I am really proud of him.

He has:

- weekly 5x workouts

- 1x a week stretching sessions

- Eating refrigerated, probiotic pickles 1x day

[eating 4 servings of fermented foods per day recently studied: “…four types of immune cells showed less activation in the fermented-food group. The levels of 19 inflammatory proteins measured in blood samples also decreased.” and subjective mood wildly increased among study participants, vs. placebo or other groups.

- Intermittent fasting for 16 hours, 90% of days

- NOT BINGING ON SNACKS, ever

- Doing all vitamins daily

- Keeping track of daily habits, workouts and sleep on his WHOOP wearable

I had a really stressful week with job search; but at least i didn’t binge on the bag of cookies

anonymous

Highlights of the Week

Meme of the Week:

Health Hacks I’m Testing: Waking up early

My best time to wakeup is after a REM cycle (not during a dream) and around 6-6:30 a.m. I rarely do so, just always want to press snooze. I really hate forcing myself to get up.

April goals: 

  • Track hours spent on deliberate learning [undistracted]

  • Track hours on deliberate selling [building business]

  • Track morning wakeups/work session (6:30am, work by 7:15am)

  • Try 1 experiment to improve HRV, a proxy for stress (what is HRV?)

  • Continue tracking everything you’ll see below in Deep Dive

Keep your goals S.M.A.R.T:

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timebound

What I’m Listening To:  

You know me, it’s Huberman, again. And Fred again..

Leverage Dopamine to Overcome Procrastination & Optimize Effort

open.spotify.com/episode/1olAVb6VJe5us6yZvgy3FG?si=efd5d8c0c35d423b

Stuck on IG? One.sec app cut my use from 45min→15min day. (no affiliate)

What I’m Reading: A Music-Based Digital Therapeutic

MedRhythms is a digital therapeutic which uses rhythm & music to improve outcomes for patients with stroke, MS, Parkinson’s and neurologic disorders.

Quote(s) I’m Loving:

❝

"If you’re not taking care of your sleep, exercise and nutrition, you’re not giving yourself a fighting chance against depression and anxiety.

Alex Shinkarovsky (yes I quoted myself)

Sponsored by…me!

It all started when I asked a new personal training client whether she wanted to me to "run her life". 3 months later, we trained 3x a week, but she also texted me daily, we went to Whole Foods together, I tracked all her sleep, made her "eat this/not that" take out menus, and she lost 35 lbs, went to therapy and started feeling confident.

Deep Dive - Tracking Yourself

So, by now you know I am big on tracking your metrics.

We barely remember what we ate yesterday, let alone whether we exercised, saw morning sunlight, used our phone before bed, etc.

See below for my March results - even a health coach isn’t always “on it”

I was pretty sick for a week. Shoot for the moon, land in the stars - happy with the month tbh. Lots of things unreflected here like MUCH LESS screen time, MUCH MORE family and friend time, more reading, etc.

A lot of you who follow me are type-A, high-achieving or perfectionists.

Such an approach is not needed here.

I am actually barely using my wearable device, Cardiomood, to track myself, but instead using a simple spreadsheet (copy mine) on daily habits.

My goal is to create a simple health transformation system which is affordable for working-class people and measurable. Stay tuned.

P.S. Just referring you to these resources - no commission or anything like that.

Thanks for reading. Your feedback really helps! This takes me an hour to put together.

You may find out more about my lifestyle adjustment & coaching services at my site, or read a Case Study here.