Fifth edition · Published 8 October 2026
The Energy Guidebook
Five essentials. Ninety days. Sustained health, strength and energy.
Most people who need this book feel fine. That is exactly the problem.
A little tiredness in the afternoons. An annual physical that comes back with a few numbers flagged in yellow. By the only standard most of us apply, that is fine. But only about one in eight American adults is metabolically healthy by a strict definition, and the distance between not sick and well is wide.
This book is about closing it. Five essentials, in the order that matters: nutrition, movement, sleep, recovery and connection. Each gets its own part of the book, with the number that matters, the instruction that follows from it, and the study behind it. Then it turns the five into ninety days of instructions, staged one change at a time, with a measurement at each end. No week in it says eat better or move more.
Order a copy
The fifth edition is published on 8 October 2026. The Kindle edition can be pre-ordered now. Print copies can be ordered from publication day.
Hardcover
$34.95
Printed on cream paper, in a binding that holds up to being opened again and again.
Available 8 October 2026
Paperback
$19.95
The same book. The edition to buy if you intend to write in it.
Available 8 October 2026
What is inside
- The ninety-day program. Staged, not simultaneous. Each phase names what you do, how much of it, and how you will know whether it happened. Baseline at the start, re-measurement at the end.
- Forty chapters, each ending with The Bottom Line. The argument compressed into what you would actually do. If you read nothing else in a chapter, read that box.
- Nutrition. Protein by the number, fats, carbohydrates and fiber, the microbiome, hydration, and when to eat.
- Movement. The fitness measure that outpredicts almost everything else, strength twice a week, a daily step floor, and the movement that happens outside the gym.
- Sleep. Why two weeks at six hours feels fine and performs like an all-nighter, and the free changes that fix it.
- Recovery. What the sauna evidence actually shows, including the randomized trial nobody quotes, and where the trackers fall short.
- Connection. Fifty percent higher odds of survival across 148 studies, and how to put it in the calendar.
- Supplements. The few that earn their place, and the many that do not.
- Special situations. Women and perimenopause, after fifty, men, and GLP-1 medications.
- Built to be used. Seven days of meal plans with the calories and protein counted, 27 recipes, worksheets, a tracker, a shopping list, and a page to hand your physician.
The ninety days
Most programs collapse in week three. Six changes start at once, the structure breaks, and there is no way to tell which part failed, so all of it goes. This one adds one thing at a time, and nothing is ever taken away.
Before day one
About ninety minutes. Baseline measurements, blood work, your protein number, one pass through the kitchen, and a journal that takes sixty seconds a day.
Weeks 1 and 2
Two changes. Thirty grams of protein at your first meal, and a step floor you refuse to end the day beneath.
Weeks 3 and 4
Your full protein target, every day.
Weeks 5 and 6
Resistance training. Two sessions, then three, full body, and deliberately light to begin with.
Weeks 7 and 8
Cardiorespiratory work. Three easy sessions a week, about a hundred minutes. No intervals yet, on purpose.
Weeks 9 to 12
Sleep, recovery and connection. Then refinement, and the same measurements you took before day one.
By week twelve you are doing all of it, and each piece has had two weeks on its own to become ordinary.
The companion pack
The last third of the book is the ninety-day plan, and it works better on paper than on a page you keep flipping back to. Six printable files, including the Energy Audit and the whole program on one page. No charge, and nothing is asked of you in return.
Start before your copy arrives
The five essentials and the week-by-week plan are free on one page, with a calculator that works out your protein number, lights-out time and daily step floor, and emails that walk you through each step on the day it starts.
Copies for a group
Boards, peer groups and leadership teams read this one together, and the ninety days work better when a room starts on the same day. Quantity pricing is $24 a copy for 50 to 199 and $20 a copy for 200 or more, signed and shipped to the venue.
Where the evidence sits
Every substantive claim in the book is cited: more than 500 citations drawn from more than 400 sources, numbered by Part, with each Part’s reference list at its end. The point is that you can check the author rather than take his word, and the author sells supplements, which is stated on page one.
The Energy Guidebook, fifth edition. Forty chapters. Hardcover, paperback and Kindle. First published 2004.