I was in the 9th grade the first time a doctor measured my BMI (body mass index).

She asked me how old I was, had me step on a scale, and scribbled some numbers on a clipboard. I had no clue what she was doing, but I was nervous.

At the end of my exam, she told me I was clinically underweight.

For a 15-year-old girl entering high school, that meant you were socially skinny!

I didn’t understand this at the time, but BMI was an attempt to measure the amount of muscle, fat, and bone in my body.

Based on the % of mass from muscle, fat, and bone, you can be in one of 5 categories:

• Underweight
• Normal
• Overweight
• Obese
• Morbidly Obese

If I asked, “what are your physical fitness goals?”

You’d probably be able to tell in exact lbs or kg of where you want to be and how you plan to get there. It doesn’t matter where you currently are on this chart, everyone’s goal is simple: less fat, more muscle, and stronger bones.

But my question to you is… how fat is your brain?

What if there was a way to measure your BRAIN MASS INDEX?

Instead of bones, it would be your beliefs.

Instead of muscle, it would be knowledge.

Instead of fat, it would be information.

The internet has changed the way we think by making data available at our fingertips.

But just because you go to a buffet, doesn’t mean you should eat EVERYTHING.

When we consume food, our body goes to work to eliminate waste and extract nutrients such as proteins, fats, carbs, vitamins, minerals, and water for energy, cell growth, and cell repair.

However, when our body consumes more calories than needed, it turns excess carbs and fat into triglycerides and is stored as fat cells in your muscles until you need the energy.

Our brain works the EXACT same way when we consume information every single day.

The brain on average processes 60,000 thoughts per day.

How many of those thoughts are bringing you nutritional value?

Imagine if all information presented to you had a nutritional facts label that broke down the percentage of facts, opinion, bullshit, relevant data, and quality information?

Would you consume information differently?

Food turns to fuel when separated from waste and processed into energy to make your body stronger.

Information works the exact same way. Information is just information until your mind separates the waste and processes it into knowledge to feed your mind to be stronger and smarter.

It’s not until the information is relevant, actionable, or valuable to your current goals for it to turn into knowledge and become nutritious for your brain.

• Relevant – Is this what you’re looking for?
• Actionable – Can you do anything with this information right now?
• Valuable – Will this information be relevant or actionable in the near future?

If I measured your Brain Mass Index, would you be:

• Underweight
• Normal
• Overweight
• Obese
• Or morbidly obese?

No matter where you currently are, the goals are the same:

Body Mass Index: More Muscle. Less Fat. Stronger Bones
Brain Mass Index: More Knowledge. Less Information. Stronger Beliefs

Beliefs

Your bone density and beliefs both are too subtle to notice when it’s weak, but is capable of causing serious both physical and mental fractures.

Mental fractures are the internal conflicts that happen when there is a large incongruence from your outside reality and your inside perspective.  

The more polarized your beliefs, the denser they are. 

How dense are your beliefs?

We all have that one friend who’s beliefs are SO dense, you tone down what you say to not hurt their feelings.

I was in Toronto with a friend for New Years and I wasn’t properly dressed for that level of winter.

So my friend asked me “would you like to borrow a winter coat?”

I said, “if you have an extra one, that would be great.”

She dug through her closet and said, “I only have jackets with fur on them, sorry”.

I was so puzzled because I thought, the more fur the warmer the jacket!

I replied, “Why can’t I wear the fur one?”

She said, “Well aren’t you vegetarian?”

I quickly replied “I’m not eating the jacket. I’ll be fine!”

It was super thoughtful of her to consider my lifestyle choice but if I didn’t wear that fur, then I’d be just as dead as the fox. Given he was already dead, it made the most sense.

I’m joking a bit but not really. I decided to exclude meat from my diet, but why should everyone around me have to adapt to a lifestyle that I decided for myself?

How healthy are your conscious and subconscious beliefs?

A healthy belief has no right or wrong. It is built on a hope for change supported by facts.

Here’s an example:

Unhealthy Belief – Eating meat is bad and everyone should stop eating meat.

Healthy Belief – Eating meat is scientifically proven to negatively affect the body. Due to the ignorant demand for meat, animals are being massively produced and forced to live a stressful life from birth to death. If we collectively bring more awareness to how our diet decisions affect the world, people can live longer and experience more of life.

It’s the same belief, but less polarized. The moment you set an expectation for others to do something, you guaranteed your disappointment. Your beliefs are truly the foundation for everything you do. It is our responsibility to communicate them effectively so that it’s well received.

How can you check the health of your beliefs?

If it’s built on hope for change and supported by facts, you will get one of two reactions:

1. They understand your hope and agree with your facts and buy into your belief
2. They understand your hope and agree with your facts and respect your belief

If it’s absolute in terms, built from your ego or insecurity, then it’s likely they’ll be like…

Knowledge

If you did a brain scan on all the data you’ve consumed, what % would be knowledge and what % would be information?

These terms can be loosely used in different ways, so let me define what is considered “knowledge”:

• How much of what you know is applicable?
• How much of what you know is monetizable?
• How much of what you know is specialized?
• How much of what you know is intellectual property?
• How much of what you know is proprietary?

These traits are what turns raw information into valuable knowledge.

Just like fat in foods, there’s no way to completely avoid all fat. You have to consume information for you to get knowledge. But there’s a big difference in eating a skinless chicken breast versus pork belly.

Information

In a world where information is being force fed to us through sponsored social media posts, blinking banners, and pop-up ads with invisible exit buttons, it’s impossible to avoid information.

The best thing we can do is to commit to a low information diet.

Here’s what it looks like:

1. When you’re consuming information, imagine what the nutritional facts label would look like.
2. Make a conscious decision to consume it or not.
3. If you do consume it, what is the cut off point? Set an informational calorie count for you to follow.

Example: if you struggle with getting distracted on social media, set a rule that you can only binge on social media an hour a day, or before you go to bed, or only while you eat, or even only while in the restroom. Whatever works for you, set limits and follow them.

4. Be aware of when you cross the line of excessiveness.

Example: I’m a sucker for Oreo vanilla thins. I know every nutritional fact but I would still eat half a pack at a time. I’m fully aware that it’s excessive but I make up for it later at the gym.

If you’re serious about having a healthy Brain Mass Index, you could even go on attention fast or ketogenic brain diet.

Here’s what it looks like:

1. Make your distractions completely inaccessible

When I first experimented with a plant-based diet, I overcompensated by eating a ton of snacks. I had this constant urge of not eating enough that I couldn’t get rid of.

My solution was to buy no snacks and have an empty pantry. It was so rough in the beginning. I’d check the snack drawer 100 times a day hoping something would magically pop up. My body eventually adapted and I built the tolerance to say no to snacks even if in front of me…unless they’re oreo vanilla thins.

So whatever habit you’re trying to rid of, make it sooooooo inconvenient that the pain of getting it is stronger than the pleasure of receiving it.

2. Create a reward and punishment system for yourself

You have to be 100% real with yourself. Only you can create the perfect system.

So let’s say your goal is to stop eating Oreos. What if you created a rule that for every 10 Oreos you ate, you had to do 50 burpees?

If your reaction is “pshhhh, easy!”, then you need to increase the pain it until it’s questionable.

The benefit of having a painful punishment is that if you accept the conditions, you’ll enjoy it guilt-free!

How much control do you have over your brain?

Ask your brain that and it’ll be like 100% duhhhh!

Even when you’re consumed by distractions and bad habits, you’re not aware of it because your brain justifies it.

It’s not until you see the lack of results when you say “where the hell did all my time go?”

My two older brothers used to pretend to play video games with me by giving me an unplugged controller so I would be entertained growing up. It was so mean, but it worked.

That’s exactly what is happening when your brain convinces you that before you sit down and put in real work, you have to do the dishes, do laundry, dust the mirror, update your IG, and organize your photos from 2007 first.

You think you’re in control, but the results say otherwise.

I don’t recommend trying the attention fast or ketogenic brain diet for anyone who isn’t dead serious about building their willpower.

It’s painful, lonely, you’ll discover powers you didn’t know existed, but also weaknesses that make you feel pathetic.

There’s a book written by Cal Newport called Deep Work that broke it down for me.

Here are the four rules he recommends to override your brain:

Work Deeply

Schedule a defined time range to work on a single task in that period and do nothing else NO MATTER WHAT.

No phones. No unrelated tabs. No notifications. No snacks. No bathroom breaks (JK).

Start with a range you’re certain you can sit through and a task that can be accomplished in that time frame.

For example – If I allocate an hour, my goal would NOT be to organize all the photos I’ve ever taken in my life into google photos. There’s no way I’d be able to do that in an hour. But what I can do in an hour is export and upload all photos located on Photobucket into google photos.

I also find it useful to keep a physical or electronic pad to jot down things that come to my mind during deep work. I found this super helpful because I don’t have to force myself to remember it later, and also I don’t stray from my current task.

When I first started doing deep work, it would only be for 50 minutes with a 10-minute break at the end. Today, my deep work can go up to 3 hours with a 30-minute break at the end.

It SUCKS in the beginning because you realize how weak your willpower is. But now, I look forward to my deep work hours because I know if I do that properly, then it’ll be a productive day!

Embrace Boredom

There is an entire entertainment industry with full-time employees who are dedicated to breaking your focus and getting your attention.

If you’ve ever gone to the club at 11 pm and notice that everyone is on their phone. Y doe?

It’s because people are addicted to the stimulation so much that they don’t know how to deal with idle time.

Isn’t it funny that when you’re idle and need stimulation, you’re bored?

But when you’re idle and need no stimulation, you’re present? Interesting…

The next time you catch yourself eating alone or hanging out during a break. Put away your phone and be present. Enjoy the view, people watch, listen to your breathing, or just think!

Quit Social Media

Calm down, it’s not for eternity. This is to help you identify what is muscle and what is fat.

The idea of quitting social media was equivalent to someone telling me “no more friends!’.

I was scared! I tried this for a few months and here’s what I found out…

Social media can be very distracting, but if used with intent, it can be managed.

I wasn’t willing to cut off social media entirely because the lifeline of some relationships is tagging each other on memes. So instead, I cut off SnapChat and disabled all push notifications for those apps.

I also went through a timeline clean up. My newsfeed was filled with people I didn’t care about posting things that had no nutritional value. Don’t voluntarily consume pollution.

Quit social media for a period of time. I guarantee you’ll learn something about yourself.

Drain the Shallows

Schedule your distractions. 

Imagine during your deep work you can’t stop thinking about snacking on some Doritos Spicy Nachos chip in your cabinet.

It’s a tough battle because you want to work but you also want those chips.

It’s internally painful because one has to lose. Why not have it all?

Instead, what if you schedule a snack break in your day? When that thought creeps into your mind again, you’ll say “30 min more of deep work until my snack break, let’s get it!”.

This is a way to clear your head of conflicting thoughts and queue them instead.

Conclusion

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” – Herbert Simon

This quote made me realize the true value of my mind real estate.

If having more specialized knowledge means making more money, then why pollute your mind?

I believe if we can physically see our lack of willpower in our brain the same way we can see the lack of willpower in our physical fitness, we’d take it more seriously.

If you want to see how physically out of shape you are, try running a mile in 8 minutes.

If you want to see how mentally out of shape you are, try meditating for 8 minutes.

Being obese has little to do with being too busy or having lack of self-control. It’s years and years of neglect.

It’s easy to neglect, you just do nothing. But no one has ever succeeded in anything in life because of neglect.

I hope not to inspire you to quit social media, but rather to look into the mental mirror to see just how fat is your brain.

If you love what you see just the way you are, then I love you too.

If you don’t like what you see, make a decision today to get serious about building your mental muscles.

Whatever you decide to do with your BMI results, do it with intent.

The next time you see an obese brain, just ask them… do you even lift bro?