⏱️ Read time: 7 min

If you didn't read last weeks email...

I talked about how my "pretty good" weekend cost me 3,800 calories.

👉🏻 Read the full article here.

Here's a few high-level take-aways for those C students in the class that missed it:

• Alcohol isn't the bomb. It's the fuse.
• Tracking 5 perfect days a week is still a C- grade.
• A "pretty good" untracked weekend can quietly cost you 3,800+ calories.
• Tracking the ugly days is worth 10x more than tracking the perfect ones.

I had a few responses from people that loved the insight but wanted more.

They wanted to know:

🤔 Would I do it again?
🧠 How did I feel about the weekend?
🥂 And was it all worth it to celebrate my wife?

So, in today's email I'm answering all three.

Next week...

I'll walk you through exactly how I think about alcohol now, untracked meals, and the myth of being "on" or "off" with your nutrition.

Let's dive in 🚀

🤔 Question 1: Would I do it again?

No. If I could replay that weekend, I'd handle it differently.

And that's not me being hard on myself. That's literally the goal I drive home with my clients every single week.

Progress not perfection. 📈

Every trip you take, the aim is to get a little bit better than the last one. Some trips you might take a step back, this was one of mine.

But if each one improves even slightly, the compounding effect over a few months or even years is massive.

I tell clients: think of it as practice.

The reason you're not good at traveling and keeping your nutrition dialed in is because you haven't done it before. Or enough.

In other words, you haven't practiced. In gym bro speak, you haven't gotten the reps in.

And when you treat travel as practice, two things happen...

First, the pressure drops. All the stress, anxiety and need to be perfect goes out the window. After all, it's just practice.

Right, Allen Iverson?

Second, every trip becomes a learning opportunity instead of a pass/fail test, which means you can't actually lose.

You either win or you learn.

So what did I learn?

That I violated two of my own rules in a single night. Shame shame, I know your name...

Rule #1: The 2-Drink Max.

No more than two drinks in a sitting.

Not a random number I pulled out of thin air.

It's a rule built from years of experiments where I had that third or fourth drink and regretted it every single time.

The first two drinks are mostly upside, with minimal downside. The 3rd or 4th drinks are mostly downside with minimal upside.

The night doesn't get better.

But my sleep gets worse, my resting heart rate climbs, my recovery tanks, and the next day's workout either suffers or doesn't happen at all.

That Friday I had 4 cocktails...

And Saturday's workout became Saturday's afternoon nap.

(Next week, I'll talk about when I might violate this rule.)

Rule #2: Eat like a king or drink like a fish. Don't do both.

This one's straight out of my book, 7 Secrets For Chiseled Abs.

If you're going to indulge on food, keep the drinks on lock. If you're going for cocktails, the food better be dialed in.

Do both and it gets away from you fast.

Four cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, AND Benihana is how a single day hits 4,411 calories without any one choice feeling crazy in the moment.

🧠 Question 2: How did I feel about it?

Not great, but not terrible either.

I didn't ruminate. I didn't beat myself up. And I didn't lie awake replaying it. I didn't call myself an idiot or a loser or tell myself I have no discipline.

Not because I'm a fan of toxic positivity, but because I've learned that beating myself up simply doesn't work.

It doesn't change my future behavior in a constructive way.

It just makes me feel like garbage in the present, and feeling like garbage is usually what triggers the next round of overeating or drinking.

I have a wife, a journal, and a therapist for processing feelings. My inner monologue doesn't need to speak like David Goggins.

In fact, almost nobody's inner monologue should be like that... except for... well, David Goggins.

I can't change the past.

The only things I control are my attitude and my actions moving forward.

So, extract the lesson, file it away, and pull it up next time the server asks me if I'd like a 3rd drink.

"Remember Torrey Pines? Remember how Saturday felt?"

That's the voice I want in my head which is more like a coach, not a critic.

🥂 Question 3: Was it worth it to celebrate my wife?

Here's the uncomfortable answer: no.

And the reason is simple...

My wife didn't have a better time because I had 4 cocktails. I out-drank the honoree at her own honorary weekend.

The extra drinks didn't make me more fun, didn't make her feel more celebrated, and didn't add a single thing to the trip that a Heineken Zero couldn't have.

(For the record, I'm a jovial ball of fun either way. 😜)

Most people think their eating and drinking affects everyone else's experience.

It doesn't.

Get over yourself.
Set your ego aside.
You're just not that important.

And the best proof I have is a business dinner I attended with Anya at Al Biernat's, a steakhouse in Dallas, where she was hosting a few clients.

The waiter, showing proper Southern hospitality, started with the ladies. Anya ordered first: a mocktail.

Next up was an executive who runs real estate for a Fortune 500 company. And her response stopped me in my tracks:

Think about that...

A powerful, accomplished female executive was about to order alcohol she didn't even want, purely because she assumed everyone else expected it.

Meanwhile my wife just ordered what she wanted. No explanation, no apology.

(I'm sure living with me has nothing to do with her confidence in such situations. 😉 I'm still a kid at heart that needs to earn his stars. ⭐️)

​

My client Donny lost 13 pounds, dropped 3% body fat, and got abs in his 50s.

One strategy: nonalcoholic beer during the week and booze only on weekends. Click above to watch his story.

And the table followed. I went with a Heineken Zero.

One guy got a glass of wine, and guess what? Nobody cared about that either. Enjoy the wine, my dude.

One of my clients, Richard, figured this out too.

He saves his drinks for date nights and special moments with his wife, business dinners with strangers don't make the cut.

And when he orders the healthier option or asks for modifications, people don't get weird about it. They get curious.

"Are you on some fitness program? How's it going? Tell me more."

What he feared would be a point of contention became a point of connection.

👉🏻 The Takeaway

Nobody cares what you order.

They're too busy worrying about what you'll think of what THEY order.

So, order what you'll feel proud about tomorrow, not what you think the table expects.

The table's approval lasts about 4 seconds...

How you feel about yourself when you step on the scale, hit the gym, or look at yourself in the mirror the next morning is what sticks with you.

Worst case, nobody notices. Best case, you give someone else permission to do the same thing, just like Anya did.

Next week I'll dive into...

• Why I don't do "cheat meals."
• The marriage analogy that killed my on/off switch mentality for good.
• And exactly how I think about alcohol now (including my rules and when I break them on purpose).