An Excellent Wknd [26.08]
Some thoughts on the boring basics
Hello, hi, 👋
Happy Saturday, my friends.
Big week here. A supercut episode dropped Monday alongside a related essay that’s been months in the making — both worth your time this weekend if you haven’t gotten to them yet. As always, links are below.
Let’s get into it.
YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT TO DO
Here’s the good news that gets buried under all the noise about the new “upside down” dietary guidelines and food labels: you don’t need to wait for better information to improve your health. You already have everything you need.
As our friend EC Synkowski says, you already know what to do. Eat whole foods in proper amounts more often than you don’t. The boring basics. Make simple choices consistently. That’s the entire game. The upside-down food pyramid, the healthy labels, the endless debates about saturated fat and added sugar — it’s all just noise. And you have full permission to shut it out.
Why?
Because once you understand the fundamentals, the marginal returns on consuming more nutrition information drop to nearly zero. What matters is execution, not optimization. Consistency, not perfection.
Think about the last time you felt confused about nutrition. Was it really a lack of knowledge, or were you overwhelmed by conflicting information and looking for the perfect answer before taking action? Most of us are waiting for clarity that will never come because the conversation is designed to be confusing. There’s too much money in keeping people uncertain and searching for the next solution.
Eat real food. Don’t eat too much. Move your body. Sleep enough. These truths don’t change whether the food pyramid is right-side up or upside-down. The clearer you get on that, the easier it becomes to ignore everything else.
Your kitchen, your choices, your environment — that’s what you can control. Start there. Stop waiting for the government or food companies or influencers to solve this for you. The solution is already in your hands.
🎧 What Modern Culture Gets Wrong About Fulfillment: Money, Comfort, & the Cost of Believing the Lies
Exploring three foundational conversations that together tell one story: what modern culture wants us to believe about living with our hearts on fire, and what actually works instead.
📚 The Two Lies Everyone Believes (& the Truth That Sets You Free)
The essay that ties it all together — what modern culture gets wrong about fulfillment, what those lies cost us, and the only path that actually works.
❤️🔥 The Daily Chase
Brief, focused essays delivered each weekday morning to Chase Club members.
#204: Why the Wolf Is Weak
#205: Your Warmup Is Training
#208: Training Has a Target
Two episodes coming your way next week.
Monday, Jamison and Ben talk with WWE Superstar Ivy Nile, an athlete who tours the world every week without missing a training session, and whose take on discipline, real fitness, and the difference between looking fit and being fit will challenge the way you think about both.
Then Thursday, I talk with philosopher and novelist Rebecca Goldstein, author of The Mattering Instinct. She’s spent 40 years exploring what she calls “mattering projects” — the existential drives that shape every human life — and the question she believes sits at the center of everything: do I matter? It’s a rich one.
Until then, keep on chasing.
🤙🏼 Patrick