#1 Start of the journey

Build habits that last

Author

Tom Tomaszewski
November 29, 2024

Mid 2023 I have set out to achieve the best physical form of my life and increase my healthspan.

I have followed a simple habit building framework. There were 3 rules:

  • Small but continuous changes for the better

  • Just 1.4% improvement every week leads to >100% improvement year over year

  • No more than two failed days (habit non-completion) in a row (duolingo streak freeze style).

  • Keeping >80% habit adherence over 30 day rolling period

My goals for healthspan:

  1. Total body fat <17%

  2. Metabolic age well below calendar age

  3. All blood markers in green zones

  4. Look good / feel good

The Daily Protocol:

  1. Calorie restricted, healthy diet - deficit ~200kcal/day (2000kcal total)

  2. Details ⤵️

    • Breakfast

      • Huel Black for breakfast - 400 kcal

      • Lunch

      • Huel pot for lunch - 400 kcal

      • Snack

      • Fruit - 180-200 kcal

      • Early dinner

      • Huel Black - 400 kcal

      • Supper

      • Varied highly nutritional food - ~600 kcal (ie. Every foods)

  3. 1.5g of proteins per kg of target body mass (~110g for me)

  4. Details ⤵️

    • Breakfast

      • Huel Black for breakfast - 40 g

      • Lunch

      • Huel meal for lunch - 20 g

      • Early dinner

      • Huel Black - 40 g

      • Supper

      • Varied highly nutritional food - ~20 g

  5. Activity and exercise

  6. Increase by 2% every week until >11 WHOOP strain avg then keep stable

  7. Supplements

  8. Creatine 5g

    • Magnesium (250mg)

    • Vitamine D

    • monacolin K (cholesterol management)

    • Vitamine B12

  9. No more than two consecutive failed days

Tech stack:

  • WHOOP

  • fitIQ

  • Huel

  • Milon Strength Circuit (similar to TechnoGym)

Performance metrics:

  1. Track long term healthspan proxy metrics

  2. HRV

    • RHR

  3. Track activity levels

  4. Avg Day strain

  5. Blood markers

Start date: 1st Aug 2023

End date: 1st Aug 2024

My overnight success over the last year:

Increased 90d average Strain to >13 from <8. On WHOOP’s logarithmic scale this means around 2.5x increase in effort.

Rolling Strain

Rolling RHR

Rolling HRV

Body comp stats as measured on Tanita MC-780

Date

Age

BType

Weight

PT

BMI

FatP

FatM

VFatL

MetaAge

FFM

09.08.2024

35

0

71.2

0

22

11.6

8.3

3

20

63

23.09.2023

34

0

80.8

0.2

24.9

19.7

15.9

6

33

64.9

If you feel inspired and would like to follow along, you can sub here for updates

What next:

I am continuing my routine, with avg strain >13 at the moment and keeping >10 strain streak for the last 3 months.

With my transformation, I wanted to get involved in the healthy habit forming movement. I have now joined Nick at fitIQ - Advanced Analytics for WHOOP, for datafreaks like us.

Stay tuned for:

  • Bloodmarks

  • 100 day 10+ strain update

  • 10 day Magnesium Bisglycinate for sleep update

  • other experiments

Any suggestions what should I test (protocols, supplements) for recovery and performance?

If you feel inspired and would like to follow along, here are some referral links to get started: