Treat Your Body Like A House You'll Live In For Seventy Years
You Know What Blows My Mind?
How short-term we are by default.
It makes sense. For most of human history, survival meant getting through the next hour. Find food. Avoid predators. Take shelter. Repeat.
That wiring hasn’t changed much. Even now—when we’ve got grocery stores, thermostats, and DoorDash—our brains still chase comfort:
What’s the tastiest thing I can eat right now?
How can I move the least today?
What’s the easiest option, even if it makes things harder later?
Most people live like that. On autopilot. Comfort now. Consequences later. Weight gain. Low energy. Chronic pain.
Not overnight. But slowly, year after year.
That’s what makes it so dangerous: We have brains built to survive the next 30 minutes—not the next 30 years.
The Shift: Treat Your Body Like a House You Have to Live in for the Next 70 Years
It’s a common saying—but it hit me again recently while reading The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom. Great book. I highly recommend checking it out.
Want to wreck the house? I’ll show you how.
Want to build it strong, clean, and comfortable? Just do the opposite.
1. Build on a Flimsy Foundation (Skip Strength Training)
If your house sits on a weak foundation, everything above it suffers. Cracks show up. Walls shift. The structure can’t handle stress.
Your body’s the same. Without a strong base of muscle, you're more likely to deal with pain, injuries, and breakdowns as you age.
Best Practice: Strength train 3–5 times a week. Focus on compound lifts—like squats, deadlifts, rows, and presses. Use good form. Challenge yourself. Over time, this becomes the structural frame that keeps your body strong and resilient for decades.
2. Use Cheap Materials (Eat Mostly Junk Food)
Build a house with cheap wood, flimsy drywall, and brittle pipes, and it might look fine—for a while. But under pressure, it crumbles.
Same goes for your body! If you're constantly running on ultra-processed foods, sugary drinks, and low-quality calories, the cracks will show.
Best Practice: Prioritize real food. Build meals around lean proteins, fiber-rich carbs, healthy fats, and colorful veggies. Every bite is a building block. Use the good stuff.
3. Skip the Smoke Alarms (Ignore Checkups and Bloodwork)
A silent problem—like a gas leak—can wreck a house before anyone knows it's there. That’s why we install alarms.
Your body needs the same early warning system.
Best Practice: Get bloodwork at least once a year. Stay on top of physicals. Catching things early—like high blood pressure, nutrient deficiencies, or hormone issues—can save you years of trouble down the line.
4. Never Open Your Windows (Skip Cardio)
A house with no airflow gets stale, stuffy, and toxic. Your body’s the same.
Movement—especially cardio—is like cracking the windows and letting fresh air in. It keeps everything flowing.
Best Practice: Get in 2–4 cardio sessions per week. Mix steady-state work (like walking, cycling, or jogging) with shorter, intense bursts (intervals, circuits, etc.). It keeps your heart strong and your system fresh.
5. Pour Acid Down Your Pipes (Drink Too Much Alcohol)
If you dumped acid down your plumbing, you’d corrode the whole system.
Too much alcohol does the same—damaging your organs, wrecking your recovery, and messing with your hormones, sleep, and mood.
Best Practice: Keep alcohol minimal. A drink or two on occasion? Fine. But daily drinking or weekend binges add up fast. If you wouldn’t pour something corrosive into your house, don’t do it to your body.
6. Don’t Redo the Roof (Ignore Your Skin)
Your roof protects everything underneath. Neglect it, and you get leaks, mold, rot—full-on structural damage.
Your skin works the same way. Ignore it, and you risk premature aging, lasting damage, or worse.
Best Practice: Wear sunscreen daily—especially if you're outside often. Check your skin monthly. See a dermatologist once a year. Prevention is a lot easier than repair.
7. Don’t Water the Lawn (Stay Dehydrated)
A lawn without water turns brown, brittle, and dead. Your body’s no different.
Dehydration slows digestion, zaps your energy, and fogs your brain.
Best Practice: Drink at least half your body weight in ounces of water daily (e.g., 80–100 oz for most active adults). Start your day with a big glass. Keep a bottle nearby. Hydration is one of the cheapest, highest-impact upgrades you can make.
8. Keep the Lights On 24/7 (Don’t Prioritize Sleep)
Imagine leaving your lights on all day, every day—burning out bulbs, driving up your energy bill, and never giving anything a chance to reset.
That’s what happens when you chronically undersleep. Your body stays “on,” stressed, and overworked.
Best Practice: Aim for 7–9 hours of quality sleep each night. Set a consistent bedtime, cut screens an hour before, and keep your room cool and dark. Recovery is where real progress happens—don’t skip it.
9. Ignore the Thermostat (Let Stress Run Wild)
A house with no temperature control gets uncomfortable fast—too hot, too cold, unpredictable.
Chronic stress is the same. Left unchecked, it throws everything off: your mood, your hormones, your health.
Best Practice: Build small, daily habits to manage stress. Take short walks. Breathe deeply. Journal. Sit in silence for five minutes. Just like a thermostat, the more you regulate, the better your system runs.
10. Never Declutter (Ignore Your Mental Health)
Even the best-built house turns unlivable if it’s buried in junk.
Your mind works the same way. Neglect your mental health, and the clutter piles up—fast.
Best Practice: Create space for mental clarity. Talk to someone. Meditate. Read. Unplug. Don’t let the mess build up where you live every day—inside your own head.
I Hate It
I see too many patients every day dealing with the long-term effects of decades of neglect.
Stiff joints. Chronic pain. A cabinet full of medications for things that were once preventable.
Even worse? Some of my closest friends and family are heading down the same path. People I love. People I want to walk with, laugh with, talk with—40 years from now. But they keep putting off the work their “body house” needs. And it breaks my heart.
Because they still have time to renovate. They’re just choosing not to.
The truth is: it’s never too late to start. Starting now is hard - but the longer they wait, the harder it gets to rebuild.
Ready to Get Your House in Order?
If you're ready to stop patching holes and start building something strong, I can help.
Why me?
I’ve helped hundreds of people renovate their body house—from the inside out.
I help people build foundations that last, using time-tested methods and no fluff.
I care deeply about your long-term future, not just how you look next month.
You can spend the next 12–24 months rebuilding your body the right way…and enjoy it for the next 40+ years.
So here’s the question:
Do you want to live in a broken-down shack that falls apart with every storm?
Or a strong, comfortable home you love living in?
Your call.
When you're ready—I’m here to help.
Best,
John
P.S. Quick update on Barry—the man on a mission to train every day in June. The scale did drop. He’s already down 3 pounds since last week, and with a little AI help, he made this poster to celebrate. If (when) he finishes the streak, it’s going up in his garage gym for life. 💪🔥
3 Steps You Can Take
Apply for coaching - If you’re ready to start, you can fill out a coaching application here (it takes 90 seconds or less). Best case, you change your life. Worst case, I’ll help you draw up a road map to get closer to your goals.
Sign up for my newsletter - If you’d like to hear more, sign up for my mailing list here.
Keep learning - You can check out my other articles here. Nobody asked me to, but I’ve spent a ton of time researching everything from artificial sweeteners to saturated fat to testosterone and more, so you don’t have to.
