One Year of Consistency

I’m starting a one-year fitness and health experiment.

Not because I found a “new me,” not because I’m trying to win anything, and definitely not because I think working yourself into the ground is heroic.

I’m doing it because I work in a high-stress environment (founder/CEO life has a way of loading the calendar), and I want to see what happens when I treat my body well for a full calendar year — through every season, through travel, through deadlines, through the inevitable bad days.

The goal is consistency. The outcome is whatever consistency produces.

A visible six-pack would be a fun, binary signal if it happens. But the real thing I’m chasing is the mental side: lighter stress, clearer decisions, more patience, and a nervous system that feels less “on” all the time.

This is meant to be fun and interesting. If it helps someone else navigating a demanding life, even better.

The rules (simple, firm, realistic)

A long experiment only works if the rules reduce decision fatigue instead of adding to it. Mine are:

• No alcohol for one year. Zero. No “special occasions.”
• Train 6× per week.
  The workout can scale down during travel, illness, or crisis — but it doesn’t disappear.
• Diet is strict by default, flexible by context.
  Especially when traveling or when I’m a guest at a dinner. The point is conscious flexibility, not “oops.”

That’s it. Small number of rules, high signal.

Training plan

The weekly structure is straightforward:

• 4× / week weight training
  “Arnold’s Golden Six” style: big, fundamental movements, repeated often enough to progress.
• 2× / week HIIT
  90 minutes per session.

I’m not trying to optimize the last 2%. I’m trying to show up consistently and see how my body and mind respond over time.

Diet plan

I’m using a slow-carb approach (Tim Ferriss / 4-Hour Body style) as the baseline.

Key points:

• 2g per 1kg of body weight protein per day
• Foods I already like and can repeat without getting bored:
  cabbage, pickled cabbage, olive oil, vinegar, meat, fish, beans, hummus

Supplements (keeping it boring and basic):

• creatine / creatine monohydrate
• fish oil
• multivitamin

No drama, no novelty for novelty’s sake.

What I’ll measure (and what I won’t)

I’m recording body composition data every Thursday.

I won’t publish numbers in this first post because nothing has changed yet — and I want this project to stay grounded and honest, not performative.

Going forward, weekly updates will include:

• body data (recorded every Thursday)
• a short note on training consistency (did I do the work?)
• reflections on how I feel physically and mentally
• whatever I learned that week (practical tips, mistakes, patterns)

I also plan to share:

• small calculations (what changes add up to over a year)
• tools / interactive experiments I build along the way
  (because documenting is more fun when it produces artifacts)

Why a one-year framework?

“One year” is a great container:

• It’s long enough to be meaningful.
• It’s short enough to be mentally easy (“not forever”).
• You get to live through every season with the same rules.
• Binary changes (like alcohol = 0) become measurable in a way that’s hard to argue with.

Also: a year is long enough that motivation will come and go — and I’ll get to see what remains when novelty fades.

That’s the real experiment.

What I expect (and what I don’t)

I expect:

• noticeable physical changes if I keep showing up
• mental clarity to become easier to access
• stress to still exist, but to feel lighter to carry

I don’t expect:

• perfect weeks
• linear progress
• the absence of crises

The interesting part will be experiencing normal difficulty from a slightly upgraded perspective — and seeing what kind of wisdom shows up when I stop negotiating with myself every day.

If you’re reading this

If you’re in a demanding job, building a company, raising a family, or carrying a heavy calendar: I’m not here to preach.

This is simply one person running a clear experiment and sharing the results in public.

If you want to follow along, copy the parts that work and ignore the rest. And if you have practical tips for staying consistent while traveling or under pressure, I’m genuinely interested.

See you next Thursday with the first real data point.