In August 2015, my wife insisted I get a heart scan. I was 43. I played soccer every week, I looked fit, and my cholesterol reports had told me for years that all was well.The score came back 266. My arteries had more calcium than those of 98 out of 100 men my age. I had heart disease, and I had felt nothing at all.So I did what frightened people do. I cut out all sugar. I slashed my carbs. Within three months, my markers were far better. I joked to my wife that if living longer was the goal, I had achieved it, because those three months felt like three years.I knew I could not live like that for the rest of my life. So I asked a different question. What is the least I can give up and still get the result?
Eleven years as my own lab rat
I began testing my blood every three months. I wore every device I could find and worked closely with doctors and dietitians. I tested when I ate, how much protein I had, when I exercised, even when I showered.Some experiments were miserable. I once fasted for 72 hours. My data showed nothing a 24-hour fast had not already given me, and it hurt my muscle mass. Out it went.What survived would disappoint most influencers. No peptides. Mostly things our grandmothers told us. I even had to eat salad, which I had always thought was for cows.
The crêpe experiment
Then came my favourite test. I wore a glucose monitor for two weeks, which shows your blood sugar through the day, and tried about 39 meals.At one of my favourite restaurants, on a day with little exercise, I ate a big green salad with no dressing. Then a Nutella and berries crêpe. I waited for my blood sugar to shoot up.Two hours later, the line was still pretty flat. I felt I had unlocked a magic spell.The post meal walk surprised me just as much. After a plate of rice and dal, if I walked, my blood sugar stopped at about 113 or 114. On days I sat still, on purpose, for the experiment, it could reach 160, 170, even 180.I asked my sister to put on the continuous glucose monitor so she could see it for herself. Weeks after it came off, she told me I had permanently embedded it in her brain. Once you see that graph, you can’t unsee it.To be fair, I am one person, not a clinical trial. Your numbers may differ, especially if you have diabetes. Nutella is a processed food, and I don’t have it every day. And none of this replaces medicine: I also take a statin, as my doctors advised.But in my blood test this June, my numbers were much better than they were at the end of that three-month diet.I have written more than 80 blog posts about all this. People were wonderfully kind about them, but then very little changed. The most common reaction was some version of “What an amazing guy” or “wow, you are so disciplined” vs I had hoped for them saying “I can do this too.”
This led to the creation of the 28-Day Challenge
We start with 3 questions:What will you never give up? Mine are my Nutella crêpe, my Ghirardelli ice cream and soccer, though doctors have suggested I stop soccer after my injuries. Some of my friends won’t give up their glass of Scotch. You don’t have to justify yours to anyone; just have clarity on what yours are.What are you happy to give up? I never drank much, so alcohol was easy to reduce / stop.What are you willing to add? For me: salad, strength training and a walk after meals.That is the trade. It is not a sacrifice if YOU choose it.We then get started with four small habits, one a week, done together on WhatsApp. Each week we had a presentation on the science and practical habits from our team of expert dietitians. We provided a daily task that ramped up in scope so each of the four interventions slowly but surely became a habit. Community members posted photos of their meals, their walks, their protein combinations, etc.In October, we asked members in a poll what helped them most. Seeing their peers post their plates, share their struggles and their wins, and encouragement to each other, stole the show. And the results they shared with us reflected this.At the end of the 28 days, 94% said salad first was now part of their day, and 82% said the same of the walk after meals. In addition, 67% of the members said they felt more energy, 57% felt lighter with less bloating, and 42% said their clothes fit better. In just those 28 days, the average reduction in waist circumference was 2.2 cm, and average weight across was down about 1 kg. This is just the beginning.Eleven years of my data, and what moved people was someone else’s lunch. As a few members put it:“Knowing and actually practicing them every day are two very different things.”“Now, if I don’t walk after a meal, it feels like something is missing. If I don’t eat my salad before the meal, it feels incomplete.”“I feel more confident, energetic and enthusiastic throughout the day and I am in love with this improved version of myself.”“When I started the challenge, I must admit I was quite sceptical. The four habits seemed like simple common sense – things I already knew… But I couldn’t have been more wrong!… More than just reinforcing what I knew, you helped me understand how to actually put it into practice.”The next round starts Monday, November 16. It costs Rs 999 in India and $49 elsewhere. Join us here at http://try28.com. If you don’t, I have one request. Before you make your next health promise, decide this first: what is your Nutella crêpe?(Nickhil Jakatdar, PhD, is the CEO of GenePath Diagnostics and the co-founder and chairman of PreventiveHealth.ai, which runs the 28-Day Challenge. This is general education, not medical advice. Please talk to your doctor before changing your diet or medication.)
Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author’s own.