Sunday mornings are my favorite. I get up before my wife and three kids, move through my routine, and get a head start on the day before church. This past Sunday, a song came up on my playlist called "The Story I'll Tell" by Naomi Raine. It stops me every time. It's the last song we played for my dad before we buried him.
He passed last year, on my birthday, at 68, after years of fighting a stack of health complications. I've thought a lot about whether more of those years could have been saved if he'd looked under the hood sooner. That question is a big reason this newsletter exists. I don't want you to lose time you didn't have to lose.
So here's my story. The one I'm still here to tell.
I've been in the fitness industry since I was 18. I'm 36 now, I own a gym here in Atlanta, and I love this work more than the day I started. I'm the health and fitness guy in every room, the one always talking training, nutrition, and bloodwork. And a few years ago, I found out plaque was quietly building in my own arteries. Every standard lab said I was fine. This is the story I almost didn't get to tell.
🔧 My labs said "normal." My gut said something's off.
In my late 20s and early 30s, I started having anxiety and panic attacks. Bad ones. I landed in the hospital more than once, genuinely feeling like I was going to die. During that season I kept feeling like something was wrong with my heart. The doctors attributed it to the panic attacks, and honestly, for a while, so did I.
But even after I was told that, something in me said to look deeper.
So I became my own health advocate. Around 30, before any of my kids were born, I came across Dr. Peter Attia, first through his podcast and later his book Outlive. As I learned more about heart health, I made a decision. I was going to get a CAC test, a coronary artery calcium scan. Here's the thing about that test: you usually pay out of pocket, and most men don't get one until their 40s or later, or until something's already wrong. The doctors told me I'd score a zero.
I scored a 9.
Not a huge number, but at my age it wasn't supposed to be there at all. That number sent me down the road I now call looking under the hood. The bloodwork, the deeper markers, the real story behind the surface. It's why this newsletter carries that name.
When my doctor saw my cholesterol, the answer was quick: here's a statin. I said not yet. Not because I was against medication, but because I wanted answers before solutions. I requested a CCTA, the scan where they run dye through your arteries. It confirmed hard plaque already forming in my right coronary artery.
The doctors were surprised. So was I. I looked healthy and fit on the outside. Underneath the hood, my body was telling a different story.
So I went looking for physicians who believed in getting ahead of problems instead of chasing them. I found a concierge doctor and a preventive cardiologist here in Atlanta, and for the first time I felt like my team was playing offense with me instead of waiting on defense. Together we found the real answer: familial hypercholesterolemia, a genetic condition. My body overproduces the particles that build plaque, no matter how clean I eat or how hard I train. Today I'm on medication we chose together, we monitor my ApoB, Lp(a), and LDL closely, and I hold up my end with a metabolically healthy lifestyle.
Here's the part I want you to hear. One reason I trusted the work of men like Dr. Peter Attia and Joel Jamieson is that they had lived this themselves. Attia was a marathon swimmer training three to four hours a day when he found out he was pre-diabetic. Fit on the outside, trouble under the hood. Jamieson, one of the best conditioning coaches alive, went in for a heart scan expecting a clean bill of health and walked out with a blockage, a scan he had to ask for himself. Their stories made me feel like I wasn't alone. That's what got me to act. And this newsletter exists so my story can do the same for you.
Here's why I'm telling you this in issue #1.
"Normal" is a population average, and the average American man is overweight, inflamed, and declining. Normal means surviving. Optimal means thriving. My labs were read as normal-ish while plaque was forming. If I had accepted "you're fine, it's just anxiety," you might be reading a very different story, or no story at all.
You could be the fittest guy in the room and still be carrying something genetic underneath that's quietly shortening your life. You don't know until you look.
And imagine if I had waited until 45 or 50, the age most men get their first real look under the hood. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in America and in the world. Left alone, this could have quietly stolen years from my life. It could have made me one more man on the wrong side of that 5.8-year gap, one more story that ended early. That's how the statistic happens. Not all at once, but slowly, over decades of not looking.
When this journey started, I had no kids. Today I have three, ages 4, 2, and 5 months. Three more reasons I'm glad I looked when I did.
So here's the sequence I'd walk any man through, the same one I wish someone had handed me at 28, maybe even earlier.
First, get a real baseline. Annual bloodwork that goes beyond the standard panel, ApoB and Lp(a) especially. Lp(a) is largely genetic, and most men only ever need to test it once to know their risk.
Then, if the numbers or your gut raise a flag, push for the next layer. Ask about a CAC scan. It's affordable, it's fast, and it turns "probably fine" into an actual number.
Then find a doctor who believes in prevention. They exist. If yours says "let's wait until something's wrong," that's not your guy. You're the CEO of your health, and you're allowed to hire accordingly.
And through all of it, trust the signal. If something feels off, it's worth investigating, even when the first answer you get is "you're fine."
The exact bloodwork checklist I hand my clients, every marker, why it matters, and the optimal ranges, is free right here.
QUICK HITS
Bloodwork: Ask for ApoB at your next draw, not just LDL. It counts the actual number of plaque-building particles, a clearer read on risk than standard cholesterol alone.
Training: Your heart is a muscle with its own training plan. One weekly session of 4x4 intervals (4 min hard, 3 min easy) is the highest-return cardio investment for men over 35. More on this next week.
Fatherhood: My panic-attack season taught me this. Your kids don't need a perfect dad, they need a present one. Handling what's under your hood is part of being present for the next 40 years.
Stress: Unexplained symptoms deserve two investigations, not one. What's happening in your body, and what's happening in your life. Sometimes it's anxiety. Sometimes it's your arteries. Sometimes it's both. Check both.
🧱 ON THE WALL
When you walk into Transform Athlete, the first thing you see painted on the wall is a line from a guy I admire named Craig Groeschel:
"The decisions you make today will determine the stories you tell tomorrow."
I put those words up because they inspired me. I didn't know I was hanging my own autobiography. A decision in my early 30s, paying for a scan I was told I didn't need, is the reason I get to tell this story instead of becoming a statistic in the 5.8-year gap. This is now my story, and I get to tell it to you. What will your story be?
I hung those words for me. But if I'm honest, I write them for my dad too, and for you. Be proactive, not reactive. Look under the hood, go to the doctor before something's wrong, and get help before it's too late. It might just buy you a little more time here. That's the story I want you to get to tell.
1️⃣ THIS WEEK'S 1%
One action: book your bloodwork. Call your doctor or use a direct-to-consumer lab, and make sure ApoB and Lp(a) are on the order. If it's been over a year since your last full panel, or if you've never tested those two markers, this is your week. Trial the proactive life for 30 days, starting with one blood draw.
Then hit reply and tell me one thing: when was your last full panel? I read every response.
Your body is worth stewarding. Let's do the simple things really well.
— Coach Joshua Founder, Transform Athlete
P.S. Go become 1% better.
Educational content, not medical advice. My story is my protocol, built with my physicians. Partner with yours, ideally one who believes in proactive care.