Five essentials. Ninety days.
The five habits from The Energy Guidebook that do most of the work for energy, strength and sleep, and a week-by-week plan to build them one at a time. If you heard the talk, everything from it is here.
Your first fifteen minutes
Do these today, before you change anything. They give you a starting point you can measure against on day ninety.
Score three numbers, one to ten
Your energy at four in the afternoon. How rested you feel when you wake. How strong you feel carrying, climbing and getting up. Write each on the tracker, with the number you want in ninety days next to it.
Measure your waist
At the navel, relaxed, first thing in the morning. Write it down. It is the simplest number here, and one of the first to move.
Book a blood draw
Ask for apoB, HbA1c, fasting insulin and hs-CRP. Take the doctor sheet with you: apoB is usually not on the standard panel, so ask for it by name.
Pick your wake time
One time, seven days a week, that you can keep even in a hard week. Set the alarm now.
Sign up for the check-ins
A short email as each new step starts, so you always know what to do that week without rereading anything.
The five essentials
Each one passed the four-question test further down this page. You add them one at a time, in the order the plan below sets out. Once a habit is in, it stays.
Protein at every meal
About 0.85 grams a day for every pound you weigh: roughly 150 grams at 175 pounds. If you are carrying substantial extra fat, use a realistic target weight instead of your current one. Start with 30 grams at your first meal. To reach the full number, most people need 40 to 60 grams at each of three meals, or 30 to 45 at each of four. A palm-sized portion of meat, fish or chicken is about 25 to 30 grams; a cup of Greek yogurt or cottage cheese is about 20 to 25. If you have kidney disease, set your number with your physician. The protein cheat sheet lists the grams in everyday foods, with meals that get you there.
First meal: weeks 1 and 2. Full number: weeks 3 and 4Strength 2 or 3 times a week
Full body, two sessions a week to start and three from week six, on days that are not back to back. Five movements cover it: a squat or leg press, a hinge such as a deadlift or hip bridge, a push, a pull, and a loaded carry. Two to three sets of each, stopping with two or three good repetitions left. When the last set feels easy, add a little weight. Strength matters for everyone over fifty, women and men alike. The five movements guide shows each one at home and at the gym, with a log.
Starts week 5Same wake time every day
The same time every day, weekends included. Let bedtime follow from it: count back seven and a half to eight hours. Get outside in daylight within an hour of waking, and have your last caffeine by 2 p.m., or at least eight hours before bed.
Starts week 1Five minutes of slow breathing
Five minutes a day of slow breathing: breathe in through the nose, add a second short breath on top, then breathe out slowly through the mouth until your lungs feel empty. Repeat. Once a day, every day.
Starts week 9Time with people, on the calendar
One recurring commitment with people you care about: a standing walk, a regular dinner, a training partner or a group that meets on a fixed date. Weekly if you can; monthly still counts. Put it on the calendar as a repeating event and protect it like a meeting. Connection has the strongest evidence of the five.
Starts week 10Week by week
One change at a time, in this order. Each step is small on purpose, because small changes are the ones that last. A daily walk runs underneath all of it. When a week goes badly, do not start over: pick up the next day where you left off.
Weeks one and two: three small anchors
Wake at your chosen time every day. Walk every day, and set a step floor you refuse to end the day beneath: 7,000 steps, or 6,000 if you are over sixty. If that is well above what you do now, add about 1,500 a week to your current average until you get there. Eat 30 grams of protein or more at your first meal. Nothing else yet.
Weeks three and four: the full protein number
Hit your daily target every day. Write down the grams for two full days, once, to see where you stand. Most people find they eat less protein than they assumed. The protein cheat sheet shows how to close the gap.
Weeks five and six: start strength training
Two full-body sessions in week five and three from week six, light at first while you learn the movements. Some soreness is normal. Sharp pain is not: stop that movement and get it checked. Start with the five movements guide.
Weeks seven and eight: add easy cardio
Three sessions a week, about 100 minutes in total, at a pace where you can still talk in full sentences: an uphill walk, a bike, a rower or a swim. Keep the three strength sessions going. At the halfway point, score your three numbers again.
Week nine: recovery
Protect the sleep window your wake time sets: lights dim for the last three hours, screens away in the last hour, the bedroom cool and dark. Add five minutes of slow breathing every day.
Weeks ten and eleven: people
Put one recurring commitment with people you care about on the calendar, weekly if you can, and keep it.
Week twelve: measure
Repeat your day-one measurements: waist, weight average, photographs and your three scores. The blood work waits: re-test at six months if something was flagged, otherwise at twelve.
Day ninety: compare and choose
Put your numbers next to day one. Pick the essential you kept least often and make it the focus of your next ninety days. Keep everything else as it is.
General information about habits, not medical advice. Talk to your physician before changing exercise, diet or medication.
Your numbers in thirty seconds
Enter a few details and get your own targets: grams of protein a day and per meal, a lights-out time, a daily step floor, and the whole ninety days with your numbers filled in, ready to print. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
Five numbers worth knowing
Four come from one blood draw and the fifth from a tape measure. Test at the start. Re-test the waist in week twelve, and the blood work at six months if something was flagged, otherwise at twelve, at the same lab if you can. Ask for apoB by name, because it is usually not on the standard panel.
apoB
Under 90. Under 70 if you are at higher risk.
HbA1c
Under 5.5.
Fasting insulin
The low end of your lab’s range. Labs are not standardized, so track it in one lab over time.
hs-CRP
Under 1.0. A cold or a hard workout in the days before the test can raise it, so retest if it is high.
Waist at the navel
Under half your height.
These are benchmarks to discuss with your physician, not a diagnosis.
Four questions for any health claim
Run these on the next thing you read, hear or are sold. Four yeses make something essential. Anything less makes it optional at best.
Magnitude
Is the effect large enough to matter? If the evidence is observational, is it large enough that other explanations cannot account for it?
Non-substitutability
If you skip it, can anything else do the job? If yes, it may be useful, but it is not essential.
Modifiability
Can you actually change it? Family history matters a great deal, and you cannot change it.
Universality
Does it apply to nearly everyone, or only to a group who already know who they are?
When life gets in the way
The plan assumes an ordinary week. Most weeks are not. Here is how to keep going when yours is not.
I travel a lot
Keep your wake time within an hour of your home time, in local time, and get outside in daylight early. Carry protein you can pack: jerky, shelf-stable shakes, bars with 20 grams or more. At breakfast, order eggs or Greek yogurt. A hotel room covers strength: split squats, hip bridges, push-ups against the desk, a row with a loaded backpack, and a suitcase carry down the hallway. Walk wherever you would otherwise take a car.
I work nights or rotating shifts
Anchor to the time you get up after your main sleep and hold it as steady as your schedule allows. Make the room fully dark and quiet, and wear sunglasses on the way home after a night shift. Get bright light when your day starts. Your first meal after waking is your breakfast, so the 30 grams go there. The caffeine rule becomes none in the last eight hours before you sleep.
I missed a week, or three
Do not go back to week one. Pick up the next day where you left off. If you missed more than two weeks of strength training, do one lighter session and build back from there. A missed week does not undo what you built.
I do not eat meat
Your number stays the same. With dairy: eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese. Without: tofu, tempeh, edamame, lentils and seitan. Plant foods carry less protein for the calories, so a scoop of pea or soy protein makes the number much easier to hit. The protein cheat sheet has a plant table.
My knees, back or shoulders hurt
Start with the easiest version of each movement in the five movements guide: sit-to-stand from a chair instead of a squat, a hip bridge instead of a deadlift, push-ups against a wall, a band row. Work in the range that does not hurt. A mild ache that is gone by the next day is normal. Sharp pain, or pain that is worse the next day, means stop that movement and get it checked. A physical therapist can set you up with versions that suit your joints.
My doctor will not order apoB
Take the doctor sheet and ask again; it explains why the test matters. If the answer is still no, in most states you can order apoB yourself through Quest or Labcorp OnDemand, with a blood draw at one of their labs and results online. Then take the result to your physician.
I already do some of this
Good. Take the day-one measurements anyway, so you have something to compare against. Keep what you already do, and spend your ninety days on the essentials you do least often.
The Energy Guidebook
Everything on this page comes from the fifth edition of The Energy Guidebook: the five essentials, the evidence behind each one, and the full ninety-day plan with worksheets, meal plans and recipes.
If you have the book, the companion pack is yours: the Energy Audit, the whole program on one page, the worksheets, a shopping list, and the sheet to take to your doctor.
A short email at every step
Seven short emails over the ninety days. Each one arrives as a new step starts and tells you what to do that week, what most people notice by then, and what to do if something has slipped. The first brings the tracker, the pocket card and the doctor sheet.
From Gerry Morton, gerry@gerrymorton.com. You will also get my monthly letter. Unsubscribe from either with one click.