My 8 rules for "10-minute squeeze training"

🧠 Plus: The power of long runways, becoming a world-class sleeper and not giving your pain a voice.

Feb 26, 2023

Hey — It’s Dean.

Welcome to the 129th consecutive edition of the PWL newsletter.

It’s also day 1318 of my weight loss journey.

Here are some awesome things I uncovered this week to help you on your weight loss journey.

1/ The language of success.

“Either you win or you learn.”
~Jalen Hurts, Quarterback for The Philadelphia Eagles

*****

Takeaway → Never give your pain a voice. Only use language that will attract the success you seek.

2/ Create a super long runway.

Takeaway → Succeeding at weight loss requires us to walk a path where the finish line is unknown. Easy? Hell no! But millions suffer needlessly because they quit just before success was about to reveal itself to them.

3/ I’m 57 and I don’t train like everyone else.

In July of 2019 I did something pretty radical.

I threw out everything I thought I knew about diet and exercise and started from scratch to design something that would work for my physiology, psychology and philosophy.

One of the cool things I ended up designing for myself is something I call “10-Minute Squeeze Training.”

Here are my eight rules.

I don’t go to a gym — EVER. I must be able to train wherever my feet are.
I never change into workout clothes — I always train in the clothes I’m wearing that day.
I never do more than 10 minutes of training a day.
I don’t train all at once. I squeeze it into small available moments throughout my day.
I only do 4 things.
- 30 pull ups
- 75 push ups
- 30 core reps
- 30 lower body reps
I train every day. Today is 1318.
I never do more or less. My program is just right (The Goldilocks Principle) and is designed to work on my worst day.
I compound consistency by using time’s length to my advantage. By bundling days into weeks, then months and now years I have been able to achieve some pretty remarkable things.

Takeaway → The key to weight loss success is to stop following rules that were never designed for your DNA. Begin doing the work to design your own rules — something unique for your physiology, psychology and philosophy.

4/ My secret to behaviour change.

It’s called, “Building a case for or against.”

If I’m looking to improve something I begin doing research to build a compelling case for it. (I do the reverse with bad habits.)

At some point in the process, I eventually land on an idea so profound that it creates a powerful new mindset shift that almost “effortlessly” transforms my new behaviour over night.

For example, I have been able to take refined sugar out of my diet for the past 1318 days because I landed on the mindset that taking it out was the greatest productivity hack I could ever invest in, thus allowing me to do far less of everything else while still creating remarkable results.

*****

I’m presently looking to build a case for becoming a world class sleeper.

As part of my research I’m reading this book…

On page two I encountered this…

“The shorter you sleep the shorter your life-span.”

It’s phrases like these that help me build an iron-clad case for or against something.

Takeaway → The secret to behaviour change is to uncover a mindset that will drive the behaviour you seek. As stated above, if you give yourself and unending runway, you will eventually stumble upon something that will transform your life forever.

5/ Creating food rules.

This is a framework I have stolen from Michael Pollan.

One of Michael’s rules is…

Eat foods that come from plants.
Avoid foods that are made in plants.

It’s a powerful heuristic that is both catchy and easy to remember.

And you can use this as a framework to create more rules for yourself.

Here’s one I made for myself.

Eat mostly single ingredient foods.
Avoid those that have more than 5.

Of course there are always exceptions, but this is a general rule I follow. About 80% to 90% of the foods I eat are single ingredient.The others are generally 5 or less.

Takeaway → The people who achieve long lasting success in the weight loss space or any area of life, do so because they have a series of clearly articulated rules they follow religiously.