I used to watch football for 4-6 hours on Saturday and realistically 12 hours on Sundays. I also watched every primetime game on Sunday Night, Monday Night, and Thursday Night.
Needless to say, I am a football junkie, and it has been that way forever.
I used to sleep with my football helmet next to me like a teddy bear (seriously).
I played from the second grade through university, and I even have a YouTube channel where I talk about my beloved Cleveland Browns (check out The Optimistic Fan Club sometime).
This year, my wife and I welcomed our second child, started this strength and fitness training business, and really started taking our scheduling and health more seriously.
This meant that something needed to be cut out in order to answer the call on the infinitely more important duties of my life.
Do I still watch football? You bet – I will never miss a Browns game. However, games that don’t matter to me are no longer going to keep me up late and crater my sleep quality.
From 2024 - 2026 I went from realistically watching around 26 hours of football per week to probably 9.
That’s still a lot of football, and I will enjoy those 9 hours, however, the game that I love will not be the reason why I’m low energy in the morning with my toddler, or why I’m sluggish in the gym or at work.
This was a necessary, and extremely reasonable sacrifice.
Fixing My Sleep
Cutting out a lot of the pointless football I watched was not difficult. However, learning to go to bed while not having headphones in or watching YouTube videos was extremely difficult for me.
If you can’t relate to this, I can’t really explain it to you, but breaking the habit of going to bed with headphones took me almost two years to conquer.
There were nights where I could do it, and other nights where I found myself waking up at 3am with one Airpod in, the other somewhere in the sheets, and YouTube auto playing a video I had no intention of ever clicking on.
Slowly but surely, I have become either a bedtime reader, or someone who gets into bed and immediately turns the lights out and sleeps.
It started with just leaving the AirPods downstairs, and now I don’t even think about it.
It might be the single best thing I ever sacrificed for my sleep though, and fixing that problem in conjunction with cutting out excessive football watching has afforded me more time, better recovery, and more energy for my busy days.
Most Things are Easy to Sacrifice
You do not have to flip your life upside down and become someone completely different to take care of your health.
The point I'm looking to make in this post is that there are things you do every day that you wouldn’t miss if they were taken from you.
They are simply habits that take up time and steal energy from you. They make you think you’re busier than you are, and if we can eliminate them you’ll have the time and energy you’ve been missing to address your health.
Let’s run through a list of some no brainer things you should consider giving up, or swapping out. These are things that add nothing to your life whatsoever, they’re just eating up time, ruining your sleep, and cramming your schedule.
Sleep Killers:
Staying up late for “me time” after everyone is in bed
Caffeine in the evening
Scrolling on your phone in bed
Going to bed with the TV on or with your phone playing music or videos
Unnecessary/habitual napping
Saying yes to social gatherings that don’t matter to you
Eating and Drinking
Habitual drinking (more than 2-3 drinks on the weekend)
Liquid calories (full sugar soda etc.)
Inconsistent dinner and sleep times
“Cheat days”
Claiming you “earned” shitty food
Scrolling to find a video to watch while you’re eating
Health KILLERS
Smoking (weed, vaping, and tobacco)
You Can Sacrifice the Things That Add Nothing First
The great news about you starting your new healthy lifestyle, is that in order to sleep better, lose fat, gain strength and have more energy, you don’t have to start with the things that you enjoy and are actually good for you.
Look, I can’t stand optimization culture, I think it is devoid of what makes life beautiful. I will never sit here and tell you to not go to a family function, to watch a movie with your family, to eat dessert at thanksgiving or your birthday, or to enjoy a beer at a baseball game.
You can make all of those things work. Those are not what are keeping you fat, sleepy and sick.
Your sleeping habits are. Your untracked “cheat days” are. Going to bed with headphones in is. Telling yourself you “earned” shitty food is.
I promise you that if you actually wrote down everything you did in a day and then had to come up with a reason for why you did them, you’d realize how much you’re living on autopilot. Furthermore, you’d come to accept how few of the things you do on a day to day basis actually matter to you.
Audit Your Day
For 3 days, I want you to write in a journal what you did that day and why you did it. Be honest with yourself, and be honest as to what brought you to make that decision.
For Example: I walked to the grocery store because we needed chicken breast, then I came home and sat on the couch and scrolled TikTok while also watching Netflix on the TV because I was tired from walking and didn’t want to do anything. Then I watched a food review video and ordered Jimmy Johns because a sandwich sounded a lot better and the guy in the video was eating a sandwich and it’s tastier than chicken breast.
Be brutally honest with what you did and why. If you don’t want to write it in a journal, say it in a voice note on your phone. Get the truth out to yourself and talk through your reasoning.
Again, I can’t stand optimization culture, and I’m not advocating for a new journaling routine that will eat up 10 minutes of your day everyday. This is 3 days to see where you’re at and why you’re doing what you’re doing.
At the end of three days, you should be able to identify where your blind spots are and where you’re operating on autopilot.
Now you can identify the junk, remove it, and also take note of what you did in your day that actually was enjoyable like that time watching a movie with your partner or going to the park with your kids. Even the 20 minutes you spent on your phone to decompress can be awesome.
We are identifying the habitual actions that clog up our schedule and convince us that we don’t have the time.
You Have the Time, You Just Have to Do What’s Necessary
It is my belief (and the belief of the scientific community) that you can get in great shape with daily walking, two-three 45-60 minute workout sessions per week, and a properly calculated and tracked diet.
You do not have to journal daily, wear blue light blocking glasses, workout every day, go on the carnivore or keto diet, or never enjoy a drink or a couple slices of pizza.
You may have convinced yourself that that is what is required, but I promise you it is not.
My wife is 3 months postpartum and has only been back in the gym for 1.5 months. She has established a consistent 3-day per week routine, is feeling strong, and doing small amounts of client work, and taking care of our two kids.
She is an inspiration to me because she has every excuse as to why she’s too busy or too tired, but she fits in those three hours a week, and we work together to ensure that the time she needs to get her training in is untouched.
Choose Your Sacrifice, Or Remain Unchanged
I implore you to make the change that you’ve talked about for years. Pick out those things that are contributing to the person who you don’t want to be anymore. Cut out those things that ruin your sleep, make you fatter, and make you feel unfulfilled.
Find the 180 minutes a week that will change your life for the better, I promise you, those minutes exist in between the scrolling and everything else that has become habitual.
If you don’t know where to start, please reach out to us at Arbre Strength. We help people just like you get stronger, lose fat, and add muscle so they can live life with more energy, joy and confidence.
You can apply for coaching today by clicking on this link and filling out this form. We can’t wait to talk!
