Chris Bumstead won his 6th Classic Physique Mr. Olympia title this weekend. “CBum” as better known in the online spaces has made several appearances on the Superset. It’s been a fun ride to watch him elevate from the up-and-coming contender, to the defender of the title, to the standard setter of what the sport's baseline looks like moving forward.

In honor of CBum’s retirement, I will leave you with a few of my favorite quotes of his to kickstart our week:

• “Focus on the basics. Focus on the absolute most basic principles of lifting and you will be very successful. Focus on form, execution, mind-muscle connection, contraction, everything like that just at the very best of its ability - you will be a lot stronger for it.”

• “Most people’s dreams are very external, like champions – they want to win a medal, they want a trophy, want a nice car and all that stuff. And you get it, and you have everything and you realize this isn’t what I wanted.”

• “I have accomplished so many of my dreams and realized that there’s still a void missing. The more money I get, the more titles I get, it’s not filling me up more. But then I discovered that over time it’s the effort, it’s the journey.”

Brain - A 5 Podcast Protocol for the Week

Have you ever spent entirely too much time scrolling through your Spotify (or other music platform) looking for a new podcast to listen to? Sometimes the same old shows become a little repetitive, and while we can still like / support the hosts or the page, sometimes we just need a quick change of scenery to re-spark our imagination and interest in what we are listening to.

I have had a few weeks of this over the last month, where it seems like my normal podcast rotation has just gotten a little stale on me. This is not at all a reflection on the podcasts themselves, it’s just again - too much of one thing can dilute its potency and our continued interest.

This week I will look to branch into some new podcast episodes of shows that I either have not listened to, or are not in my normal rotation at least. All of these came from strong recommendations sources, so maybe we can all hammer through these together and find a new show or two for our rotations:

1. Podcast: Your Undivided Attention

   1. Synopsis - “Ex-Googler Tristan Harris, whom you may recognize from the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, talks with Aza Raskin about the dangers of living your life online. As cofounders of the Center for Humane Technology, they delve into the ethics of Big Tech, unpack the potential pitfalls, and try to imagine ways to harness technology for the good of humanity.”

2. Podcast: Maintenance Phase

   1. Synopsis - “The worlds of wellness and weight loss are awash with questionable products and advice, so a podcast to debunk fads and junk science with reasoned argument and research is welcome. It’s more fun than it sounds, thanks to the entertaining hosts, and there’s even a fascinating episode on “snake oil” that recounts the history of health scams.”

3. Episode: Elon Musk, Neuralink, and The Future of Humanity (Lex Friedman Podcast)

   1. Fan or not of Elon’s, I have always been interested in his interviews. Listening to how he thinks about problems and ambitions his companies strive to address has helped challenge some of my own beliefs on how things can and should be done.

4. Podcast: The Mindset Mentor

   1. I have not listened to this one in a few years, but these episodes are typically short little 8 - 20 minute bites on one idea or area regarding our mindsets, goals, ambitions, etc.

5. Episode: Why Mike Posner Had to Give His Biggest Songs Away (Behind The Wall Podcast)

   1. I was never a huge Mike Posner fan, but I loosely know about his story, rapid rise to fame, dealings with addiction and depression, and full-circle comeback outside of music. I bet this will be an interesting listen.

Hope a couple of these catch your interest. A huge part of of this newsletter is to encourage everyone to listen to more, and to listen more often. We need good shows to do so, hopefully these stick!

Body - Observations From 4 Weeks of 16/8 Fasting

This past week was the fourth week where the primary focus of my “dieting” has been eating my food between 11 AM and 7 PM. This eating window fills the technical definition of a 16:8 Intermittent Fasting window, which is simply just a 24-hour structure where 8 hours (any consecutive window in the day) are spent eating, and 16 hours are spent “fasting.”

Most people have poor connotations around fasting - the first picture coming to mind likely either being Jesus in the desert or not eating any calories for the day because of an upcoming colonoscopy.

What I have found in a few phases of a 16:8 hour fast is much less dramatic, but pretty effective for tightening up the diet and calories consumed without majorly altering the types of food I eat. After 4 weeks, here are just a couple of thoughts in general:

• I don’t really struggle with eating the same meals every day, and I don’t have a major sweet tooth, so I don’t struggle with the temptations of a wide variety of foods. Where I do struggle is simply overeating the food I do have, or the cumulative effect of small snacking done in the hours before bed. Stopping eating at 7 PM cuts those from my options, saving me a few hundred calories a day, and it also leaves me full after every meal, as they are spaced out often by only a couple of hours. It’s simply hard to overeat if the food is on the healthier spectrum

• The first few days are always a little tough in the morning - you get hungry waiting for that first meal. But interestingly enough, that hunger fades pretty quickly. Our bodies and mind are creatures of routine. The time of day sends signals throughout based on what we have typically given it over the previous months and years. Once you change your cycle, the body adapts.

• My cravings for anything off diet really don’t seem to be there. I am always hungry for my first meal of the day, but once I get that meal in, I am at least partly full for most of the rest of the day, which makes it easier to stay on course with the following meals

• Your mind is pretty sharp when it has a little caffeine and isn’t working on processing that big breakfast while you are doing your first few tasks of the day. After the first few days, I have certainly felt shaper and more productive, specifically in the 8 - 11 AM window.

If you’ve struggled with specific food-type diets but have never tried something like this, I would recommend it. It’s not a “get ripped quick” option, but the structure gives you enough leeway to stay engaged, while also providing enough guard rails that it’s hard to not be successful with if you stick to the plan.

Book - Next Read: On the Edge by Nate Silver

We are about 50 pages from the end of “Good Energy” by Casey Means. I need not say anymore about that book until the final recap I will do in the coming weeks, but just to reiterate - it is worth the read. You might see them on an episode of a recent Joe Rogan podcast. Take my advice - read the book first. The facts in words paint a much more powerful picture than the interview in my opinion.

My next read has been on the shelf for a few weeks now, but I have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to get it in the mix. This title is “On the Edge” by Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight and a statistician who always makes compelling points and observations through the use of data.

This book’s sales pitch is a catchy one - “Take an all-access journey into the hidden world of power brokers and learn the habits of highly effective risk-takers.”

I hope to have a few good pulls and concepts from this one for next week’s letter, but here below is the inside cover excerpt that caught my eye, and maybe will do the same for you. Taking risks is at the center of every great achievement story, and I am fascinated to learn how the people who have a history of successful risk-taking do so themselves.

“Most of us don’t have traits commonly found in the River: high tolerance for risk, appreciation of uncertainty, affinity for numbers—paired with an instinctive distrust of conventional wisdom and a competitive drive so intense it can border on irrational. For those in the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it. People in the River have increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset—and the flaws in their thinking—is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today.

Taking us behind the scenes from casinos to venture capital firms, and from the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of power bro­kers and risk-takers.”