Your first task on the longevity path is to regain the fundamental sense that YOU are in control of your body, behaviours and decisions — not the other way around. Without this, every next step is like building a house on an unstable foundation.
We are not starting with a revolution. We are not starting with a perfect diet, complex protocols or advanced training. Your first goal is small, daily wins that create the internal belief: “I can manage myself. I am moving forward. I’m starting to win.”
These small wins will shape your identity and give you a real sense of agency.
Physical activity: daily walk
If so far you haven’t trained at all (or trained like I once did — only short and intense sessions while spending the rest of the day sitting in front of a computer), a daily walk is the best possible start.
Rules
- Choose a duration that you can complete 100% of the time — even on a bad day or in terrible weather. (15 minutes? 20? 30? Pick the smallest number that is absolutely doable.)
- Set a fixed time.
- Set a reminder on your phone.
The key is not length but consistency. You are creating a ritual that tells your brain: “I’m a person who takes care of myself every day.”
Tip — if you have the option, consider a standing desk with a small walking treadmill underneath. It solves the problem of lack of time or bad weather.
Nutrition: regain control with a quasi-intermittent fast
First step: quasi-intermittent fast
We are not starting with complicated diets. First you need to teach your brain that you decide when you eat — because this is the biggest lever of internal control.
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting (IF) is a way of eating based on alternating periods of eating and total or partial fasting, without prescribing specific foods or calories. The most common forms are 16/8, 14/10, 24-hour fasts or “time-restricted eating” (TRE). The idea is not starvation but extending the time when the body is not digesting, which supports glucose stability, lowers insulin, improves metabolic flexibility, reduces inflammation and activates regenerative processes such as autophagy. It is not a diet but a schedule of eating that for many people improves energy, digestion, weight control and metabolic parameters.
A quasi-intermittent fast is a very gentle version of classic intermittent fasting.
If you usually eat between 8:00 and 20:00 — we leave that exactly as it is. But we add one rule:
Outside of these hours, you do not eat anything that contains calories.
Zero evening snacking. Zero morning snacking. Zero “small bites”.
It is snacking that most damages our sense of control — so we eliminate it first.
Second step: fixed meal times
Set:
- how many meals you eat,
- at what times,
- and stick to it without exception.
At this stage you can eat whatever you want, even if it’s far from ideal. What matters now is the ritual, not perfection.
Once you regain control over your eating rhythm, only then will we move to the next level.
Sleep: disconnect one hour before bedtime
Of all foundations, sleep is the one that gives the fastest, most tangible results — but also the one that is easiest to destroy.
The most harmful habit in this area?
Using screens before bed.
Blue light, dopamine-driving content, scrolling — all of this drastically worsens sleep quality, recovery and emotional balance.
Your first sleep challenge
No screens for 60 minutes before bedtime.
That means:
- put your phone in a drawer,
- move your laptop to another room,
- put away your tablet,
- turn off the TV.
Instead, you can:
- take a hot bath,
- read a book,
- listen to calm music,
- talk with someone close,
- plan the next day,
- do gentle stretching.
It’s not about what you do instead of screens — it’s about not being plugged into a stream of dopamine and stimuli.
How to use the habit loop to regain control
For these challenges to truly work, you must create a habit loop around them — the same one we discussed earlier:
Cue → Routine → Reward
These are the three elements that help the brain decide whether a behaviour is worth repeating.
How to apply the habit loop in practice
Walk
- Cue: fixed hour + phone reminder.
- Routine: 15–30 minutes of walking.
- Reward: favourite music / podcast + pleasure of movement + marking the habit in your tracker.
Quasi-intermittent fast (no snacking)
- Cue: last meal at a set time.
- Routine: no eating outside the eating window.
- Reward: sense of control + lightness after evenings without snacking.
Fixed meal times
- Cue: defined eating hours (e.g. 8:00, 13:00, 18:00).
- Routine: eating exactly at those times.
- Reward: mental “check-off” + no nutritional chaos.
No screens 60 minutes before bed
- Cue: alarm reminder: “offline time”.
- Routine: putting the phone away, turning off screens.
- Reward: deeper sense of relaxation and more restorative sleep.
Thanks to this loop, each of these behaviours stops being an effort and becomes an automatic ritual — a part of your identity.
Summary: regaining control is the first milestone
Your first wins are not about eating “perfectly”, training like an athlete or sleeping 8.5 hours to the minute.
They are about:
- for the first time in a long time feeling that you are in control,
- building the simplest possible habits,
- creating a sense of forward momentum,
- achieving your first real wins.
With this foundation, we will later move to more advanced steps. But everything begins here: with regaining control over daily life and proving to yourself that you can.
This is your first step on the Path in the Longevity Investment Strategy.