It Took a Bad Week

I remember the week when I started getting serious about my health. All it took was an hour with my father and giving a speech a few days earlier.

It's curious how, sometimes, the motivation to make the wildest changes in your life comes from just a few minutes here or there. Maybe that's like most things I guess.

Anyway, it's been 12 months since I've been on my new path and I wanted to share the results. I know this is a bit different topic for me, but it may be the most valuable thing you'll get from this newsletter. So...here it is.

Any questions? Just shoot me a note. I'm an open book on this topic.
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JP

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I Got Serious about My Health. Here's What Changed.

In January of 2025, I drove to see my mom and dad in Sandusky, Ohio.

My dad has Alzheimer’s disease. Some days are better than others. On this particular day, it was not good. He kept asking the same question repeatedly. He was frustrated, confused, and stuck in a loop he could not get out of.

I had seen this before of course. But for some reason, this time it hit me harder.

Maybe it was because, a few days earlier, I had a moment on stage that scared me more than I wanted to admit. I was in the middle of a speech. I never have trouble remembering where I am or what comes next. But this time, for two or three seconds, my mind went completely blank.

Nothing.

I found my place again and kept going, but afterward I was scared to death. I remember thinking, Oh my God, am I starting to lose it?

There had been other little moments here and there. Times when I felt more forgetful than I should. But that one got my attention. Then seeing my dad on a bad day brought all of it into focus.

A few days later, my wife and I went to Key West. Not a day went by on that trip when I did not think about my dad, that speech, and the path I might be on if I kept drifting. I kept asking myself the same question:

What can I do now, while I still have time, not just to live longer, but to live longer and healthier?

I wanted to stay sharp. Stay strong. Stay present. I wanted more good years with my wife, my kids, my friends, and hopefully more time to do what Scott Galloway talks about so well, adding more than you take, creating a little surplus value in the world while you are here.

That was the moment I got serious.

The Research Rabbit Hole

I started reading and listening to everything I could about brain health, longevity, and cognitive decline. Three books especially shaped the way I thought about all this: The End of Alzheimer’s by Dale Bredesen, Outlive by Peter Attia, and Super Agers by Eric Topol.

Those books did not give me a perfect blueprint. They did give me a direction.

And I should say this clearly before I go any further. This article is my personal experience, based on the research I did and the changes I chose to make. Everyone is different. Everyone has their own body, their own issues, their own history, and their own needs. Do your own research. Talk to the right professionals. Figure out what makes sense for you.

I am not writing this as a doctor. I am writing this as a guy who got scared, made some changes, and twelve months later feels a whole lot better.

What I Changed

It is important to say that I was not starting from zero. I already ran four times a week. I usually do two half marathons a year. So from the outside, I probably looked reasonably healthy.

But there were plenty of things I was not doing well. I loved to snack at night. I loved sugary foods. I was doing no resistance training at all. I was not being nearly intentional enough about processed foods, and I was probably more casual than I should have been about what all of that was doing over time.

So over the last twelve months, here is what changed.

1. I added resistance training

I started doing resistance training four times a week. No gym. No complicated system. I have dumbbells, a place to do pull-ups and dips, and enough room to put in the work.

Most days I do a general workout focused on two or three parts of the body for somewhere between twenty and forty minutes. If I am traveling or on vacation, I still try to do something, even if it is just push-ups or bodyweight work.

2. I kept running

Running was already part of my routine, and I kept it there. I run between 12 and 17 miles a week, and one of those runs is almost always a hill run. As I get closer to May and November, when I do my half marathons, the mileage goes up.

3. I cut out sugar

Of everything I changed, this may have made the biggest difference.

I do not mean I became a health monk. If my wife and I are on a vacation and we share a dessert one night, fine. If somebody says, “Try a bite of this,” I am not going to make a scene.

But in my normal day-to-day life, I cut out sugar almost entirely. I also mostly got rid of pasta and a lot of the obvious hidden-sugar foods. Burgers without buns. Less bread. Less of the stuff that quietly adds up and becomes normal because everyone around you is doing it.

4. I started taking creatine

I started with five grams a day and now I take ten grams a day. Most people hear creatine and think muscles, lifting, workouts. I do think it helps there.

But the reason I started taking it was brain health. The more I dug into the research, the more interested I became in its possible role in thinking, focus, and long-term cognitive support.

5. I cut back on processed foods

I am not perfect here either. Protein bars and shakes are processed. I eat and drink those. I still do some processed meats. I am sure there are areas I could improve.

But I stay away from most of the things I used to eat without thinking. Cereal, chips, soda for the most part, fast food, frozen meals, instant soups. The easy stuff. The convenient stuff. The stuff we all know is not helping.

6. I stuck with intermittent fasting

I have been doing intermittent fasting for the entire year. At one point I got really strict. I was eating lunch around noon and stopped eating by 6:00 p.m., then fasting until noon the next day. That was too restrictive for me. It made social life harder. It made going out with my wife and friends harder. And there were definitely times when I was just plain hungry.

Eventually I settled into a noon-to-8:00 p.m. eating window, and that works really well for me.

The first couple of weeks were rough. I would wake up and by 9:30 or 10:00, I was genuinely hungry. But after a few weeks, maybe a month, my body adjusted. Now it feels normal. In fact, the only time it feels strange is when I go outside that window.

That was an important lesson for me. I did not need the most extreme version. I needed the version I could actually live with. And if we are going out with friends to have a few drinks after 8 p.m., I absolutely say yes to that.

7. I got social media off my phone

This one is newer. Over the last couple of months, I deleted all social media apps off my phone. I still check Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn on my desktop. I still want to know what is going on in the world. I feel like I need “some” of this knowledge to be competent on the This Old Marketing podcast.

But there is no doomscrolling on my phone anymore. No TikTok. No endless wandering. No grabbing the phone for no reason and ending up ten minutes deep into nonsense.

I really do think this has helped my focus. I feel less anxious, less distracted, and less mentally cluttered.

There is a downside. Sometimes I get together with friends and have no idea what they are talking about. I miss a meme. I miss some random internet moment. That part is real.

But overall, the positives far outweigh the negatives. If something actually matters, somebody will tell me.

What Happened After 12 Months

The first thing that happened was the easiest ten pounds I have ever lost.

With intermittent fasting, no sugar, and more intentional eating, the weight came off quickly. I started around 180 pounds. I dropped ten pounds almost immediately. Over the next few months, when I was stricter with the fasting window and nearly perfect with what I ate, I got down to about 155.

That was probably too far for me to stay comfortably. Now I am in what feels like a more sustainable range, usually around 162. I still have the occasional Diet Coke. I still might have a scoop of vanilla ice cream with everyone else once in a while. If popcorn is involved, I will eat all of it. But the core habits have stayed in place.

More important, I feel healthier now than I have in a long time.

I feel stronger. A lot stronger. Working out four days a week does incredible things, especially when you have ignored it for too long. I went from struggling to do dips at all to being able to do 30 or 40 dips and more than 50 push-ups in a setting. Those are things I simply could not do before.

It has also made me a better runner. I set a personal record in the half marathon without really changing my running routine. That surprised me. I kept the running mostly the same, but the other habits made me better at the thing I was already doing.

That was a lesson in itself. Sometimes the improvement you want shows up because of the habits you were not paying attention to.

I also feel more focused. I feel like I am writing better. I have a lot less brain fog. My friends tell me my memory is quicker when we are doing trivia or talking about random things. Maybe some of that is in my head. Maybe it isn’t. But it feels real to me.

Most important of all, I feel like I am back in control. I don’t feel like dementia is part of my future anymore, where it used to be just a matter of time.

I want to be careful here because I do not want to overstate anything. I do not know what is fully preventable and what is not. I do not know exactly what causes one person to develop Alzheimer’s and another not to. I do not know what my future holds.

But I do know this. For the first time in a long time, I do not feel like I am sleepwalking toward the same outcome.

What Helped More Than I Expected

One thing that made a huge difference was having a supportive partner.

My wife got on the same intermittent fasting schedule with me, and that helped more than I can explain. I really do believe that if you are trying to make meaningful health changes, having a supportive partner matters. At least in my case, it absolutely did.

When one person is trying to make changes and the other is saying, “Let’s go get ice cream,” it gets complicated fast.

Support matters.

Another thing that helped was letting go of perfection. I still go out with my friends and have drinks. I still eat some processed foods. I still rely on protein bars more than I probably should. I still have areas where I can improve, and I am sure I will keep tinkering as I learn more.

But I also learned that if your health plan is so strict that it makes everyone around you miserable, it’s not going to last.

I needed a system that worked in real life. Not in a lab. Not in a book. Not in some fantasy version of myself. In real life.

What This Was Really About

I did not change my habits to live forever. I changed them because I want more good years with the people I love.

That is really the whole point.

This was never about abs or optimization or becoming some biohacking robot. It was about agency. It was about trying to stay sharp enough, strong enough, and healthy enough to keep showing up for the people and work that matter most to me.

We are all surrounded by processed food, convenience food, stress, distraction, and a culture that makes it very easy to drift. It is easy to tell yourself you will get serious later. It is easy to think being “pretty healthy” is enough. It is easy to put this stuff off until something scares you.

That is what I did. Until I didn’t.

A year later, I am glad I made the change. Not because I think I have everything figured out, but because I finally feel like I have some things figured out.

And at almost 53, that feels pretty good.

P.S.: A reminder that I'm giving away my book, Burn the Playbook, for free. Please share it with a friend. If you don't want to fit in, this could be your (or their) roadmap.

This Old Marketing Podcast

In this week's This Old Marketing, Joe and Robert change things up and talk about the behaviors they've both changed when it comes to their health.

Until next Friday, keep building something that matters.

JP (Joe Pulizzi)

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