The Health Three: Your Non-Negotiable Foundation (Pareto Protocol)
Discover the 3 health habits that create 80% of your results. Learn what to eliminate and the 90-day protocol that reversed Stage 2 kidney disease.
Walk into any burned-out high-achiever’s bathroom and you’ll find it: the supplement graveyard.
Bottles of ashwagandha (used for two weeks, forgotten). NAC from that podcast episode (never opened). Lion’s mane for cognitive enhancement (expired). Alpha-lipoic acid because Tim Ferriss mentioned it (couldn’t remember why).
Each bottle represents the same lie: “If I just add this ONE more thing, I’ll finally have the health I want.”
I know this graveyard well. I built one. I spent thousands of dollars constructing a shrine to optimization while my actual physiology was collapsing.
And then Stage 2 chronic kidney disease at 42 taught me the truth: Health doesn’t come from addition. It comes from subtraction.
The conscious mind wants to believe that health is a math problem—that if we just stack enough protocols, track enough metrics, and ingest enough compounds, we can solve the equation of mortality. We build complex architectures of wellness, layering biohacks on top of shaky foundations, convincing ourselves that complexity equals progress.
It doesn’t.
If you are reading this, you are likely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of “health habits non-negotiable” advice flooding your feed. You have a checklist of 47 daily requirements, and you are failing at 44 of them.
This ends today.
The Pareto Protocol for health isn’t about doing more. It’s about identifying the 20% of inputs that drive 80% of your vitality—and ruthlessly eliminating the rest. It turns out, your body doesn’t need 47 interventions. It needs three.
The Supplement Graveyard: Why More Health Optimization Creates Less Health
The health optimization industrial complex is brilliant at one thing: selling you complexity.
Complexity is seductive. Complexity feels like work. If your health protocol is complicated—if it involves red light therapy, cold plunges, peptide injections, and a 12-step morning routine—you can tell yourself you’re “working on it.” You can hide in the activity. You can point to the effort as proof of your virtue.
But complexity allows for a dangerous form of blindness: You can be extremely busy optimizing your health while simultaneously dying.
I was the poster child for this delusion.
Let’s look at the forensics of my own health failure. I call this “Stage 2 at 42.”
Phase 1: The Optimization Delusion
By age 41, I was doing “everything right.” Or at least, everything the podcasts told me to do. I was intermittent fasting (16:8 protocol). I was taking a stack of supplements that would choke a horse. I was using my CPAP machine for sleep apnea. I was eating “better than others”—meaning I avoided fast food and judged people who didn’t.
I had a Fitbit. I had a smart scale. I had a meditation app.
And I felt terrible.
I was exhausted by 2:00 PM every day. My brain fog was so thick I felt like I was thinking through wet concrete. My libido was non-existent. But I kept telling myself, “I just need to optimize the fasting window,” or “I need to switch magnesium brands.”
I was optimizing bad patterns. I was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Phase 2: The Diagnosis Wake-Up
Then came the doctor’s appointment in August 2023. I remember the fluorescent hum of the office lights and the crinkle of the paper on the exam table. My doctor, a pragmatic man who didn’t care about my fasting window, walked in with a chart.
He didn’t look happy.
“Wolfe, let’s talk about your kidneys.”
The words hung in the air. Kidneys? I’m 42. Kidneys are for old people.
“Your eGFR is 68. Your UACR is 135. Your blood pressure is 145/95. You are firmly in Stage 2 chronic kidney disease.”
I started to argue. I started to list my protocols. I started to explain my supplement stack.
He cut me off. “Your kidneys don’t care about your supplements. They are filtering sludge under high pressure. You are damaging your organs every single day.”
Phase 3: The Ghost Realization
That drive home was the quietest of my life. The Ghost—my internal operating system designed to protect me—had used health complexity as a shield.
It was a sophisticated avoidance strategy.
If I was busy researching the optimal dosage of resveratrol, I didn’t have to face the fact that I was 30 pounds overweight. If I was obsessed with sleep tracking data, I didn’t have to admit I was drinking too much alcohol which ruined the sleep I was tracking.
The Ghost loves complexity because complexity allows you to perform “health” without making the hard decisions that actually create it.
💡 The Ghost’s Health Strategy:
Keep you busy with supplements, protocols, and tracking—so you never have to make the hard decisions that actually matter.
Before we continue: Want the exact Health Three protocols that reversed my kidney disease?
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The Terror of Simplicity: Why Your Ghost Loves Health Complexity
There is a reason we resist simplicity.
If health was actually simple—just sleep, eat, move—then I had no excuse for not having it.
Simplicity strips away the hiding places. If the protocol is just “get 8 hours of sleep,” and you don’t do it, you can’t blame the protocol. You have to blame your choices. You have to look at why you’re staying up until midnight scrolling doom-news. You have to look at the anxiety you’re medicating with blue light.
Dr. Gabor Maté’s decades of clinical work reveal what optimizers don’t want to hear: “The body keeps the score of what the mind suppresses.”
I realized I was using biohacking to suppress the reality of my life. I was terrified of simplicity because simplicity demanded integrity.
So, I made a decision that felt reckless at the time. I walked into my bathroom, looked at the supplement graveyard, and got a trash bag.
I threw away the ashwagandha. I threw away the expired lion’s mane. I canceled my subscriptions to three different health apps. I took off the smart watch that buzzed every time I received an email (spiking the cortisol I was trying to lower).
I stripped it down to the absolute floor. I decided to identify the 20% of actions that would save my kidneys, and delete the 80% that was just expensive noise.
How Many Health Habits Should You Actually Have?
The answer isn’t forty-seven. It’s three.
When you apply the Pareto Protocol to your biology, you find that three levers move the massive boulders of health. Everything else is just pebbles.
What Is the Pareto Protocol for Health?
The Pareto Protocol for health applies the 80/20 rule to identify the 20% of health activities that create 80% of your results. For most people, this means focusing on three foundational habits—sleep, nutrition, and movement—while eliminating the supplement stacks, biohacks, and optimization protocols that consume time without producing outcomes.
The Health Three: Your Future Self’s Non-Negotiable Foundation
Your body is an incredibly resilient biological machine that requires very specific inputs to function. It does not require peptide stacks. It requires consistency.
Peter Attia calls these the ‘four pillars of health’—and notably, biohacking isn’t one of them.
When I reverse-engineered my recovery, I found that three domains represented my health 20%.
What Are the Three Non-Negotiable Health Habits?
The Health Three are the foundational habits that create 80% of your health outcomes:
Sleep Consistency - Same bedtime and wake time (±30 minutes) every day, including weekends. Not sleep optimization—sleep consistency.
Whole Food Nutrition - Eat real food, minimize processed foods and carbs. No tracking required—just the basics done daily.
Daily Movement - 20-minute morning walk plus basic strength training 3x/week. Minimum effective dose, not maximum tolerable volume.
Sleep. Nutrition. Movement. That’s your health 20%.
Sleep: Your Body’s Restoration Cycle (Mess With This, Everything Fails)
Sleep is the force multiplier. If you get this wrong, no amount of kale or kettlebells will save you.
For years, I treated sleep as a negotiable commodity. I’d trade it for work, for Netflix, for “me time.” I’d sleep 5 hours on weekdays and “catch up” with 10 hours on weekends.
Matthew Walker’s research is unambiguous: it’s not just how much you sleep—it’s how consistently you sleep.
The body runs on circadian rhythms—internal clocks that regulate everything from hormone release to kidney filtration. When you shift your sleep time by three hours on the weekend, you are giving your body “social jetlag.” You are confusing your organ systems.
Research confirms it: irregular sleep patterns increase metabolic dysfunction risk by 27% regardless of total sleep time.
Andrew Huberman’s protocols confirm what the research shows: your body runs on consistency, not optimization.
So I stopped trying to “optimize” my sleep with supplements and expensive mattress coolers. I focused entirely on consistency.
The Protocol: Same bedtime (10:00 PM) and same wake time (6:00 AM), plus or minus 30 minutes. Every single day. 365 days a year.
No exceptions for weekends. No exceptions for parties.
This was the hardest change. The Ghost screamed. “You’re being boring!” “You’re missing out!” But my kidneys needed consistency, not excitement.
✅ The Sleep 20%:
• Same bedtime (±30 min) every night
• Same wake time (±30 min) every morning
• Yes, including weekends
• CPAP if prescribed (use it consistently)❌ The Sleep 80% (Eliminate):
• Sleep tracking obsession
• Sleep supplement stacks
• “Optimizing” sleep while ignoring schedule
Nutrition: Your Body’s Fuel Quality (Garbage In, Garbage Out)
If sleep is the foundation, nutrition is the fuel. And just like sleep, I had overcomplicated this to the point of paralysis.
I had tried keto, paleo, vegan, carnivore, and intermittent fasting. I tracked macros. I counted almonds.
But I was missing the point. I was arguing about the nuance of lecture notes while failing the class.
Michael Pollan reduced nutrition to seven words: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” That’s your nutrition 20%.
I stopped tracking. I stopped weighing my food. I adopted a simple heuristic: Is this real food?
Real food rots. Real food doesn’t have ingredients lists that look like chemistry experiments. Real food usually doesn’t come in a box with a cartoon character on it.
I focused on whole foods. I minimized processed carbohydrates (which act like rocket fuel for blood sugar and kidney stress). I ate the same basic meals most days to reduce decision fatigue.
The result? My blood sugar stabilized. My cravings vanished. And I didn’t need an app to tell me I was doing it right.
✅ The Nutrition 20%:
• Eat real food (things your grandmother would recognize)
• Minimize processed foods
• Minimize carbs
• Same basic meals most days (decision fatigue reduction)❌ The Nutrition 80% (Eliminate):
• Macro tracking
• Meal timing optimization
• Supplement stacks for nutrition “gaps”
• Perfectionism about every meal
Movement: Your Body’s Maintenance Protocol (Use It or Lose It)
This was the final piece of the puzzle. For years, my movement pattern was “all or nothing.” I would train for a marathon, get injured, and then do nothing for six months. I would join CrossFit, go 5 days a week, burn out, and quit.
This is the “weekend warrior” trap—high intensity, low consistency.
The research on minimum effective dose is clear: 20 minutes of daily movement outperforms sporadic high-intensity blasts.
I needed a protocol I could do on my worst day.
The Protocol:
The Morning Walk: 20 minutes, outside, every single morning. Rain or shine. No excuses. This sets the circadian rhythm and gets blood flowing.
Basic Strength: 3 times a week, 30 minutes. Push, pull, squat, hinge, carry. Basic movements.
That’s it. No periodization spreadsheets. No max-effort days. Just showing up.
20-minute walk every morning. Basic strength training 3x/week. That’s it.
✅ The Movement 20%:
• 20-minute morning walk (daily, non-negotiable)
• Basic strength training 3x/week
• That’s it❌ The Movement 80% (Eliminate):
• Complex periodization programs
• Extreme workout regimens
• Optimization of exercise timing
• Tracking every metric
The Health Three is one application of the Pareto Protocol. The complete framework—including the 3 Must-Dos methodology and the 90-day implementation protocol—is detailed in the Pareto Protocol series.
Want just the health protocols? Get the free Health Three Starter Kit. [Download Now]
Month 1: Install Sleep Consistency (The Foundation)
Do not attempt to change everything at once. That is your Ghost trying to sabotage you with ambition. We build this sequentially.
Week 1: The Audit
Identify your natural sleep window. When do you actually get tired? When do you need to be up? Be honest. If you are a night owl, don’t try to be a 5 AM club member yet. Just find the window.
Week 2: The Set Point
Set your bedtime and wake time. Set alarms for both. The “Go to Bed” alarm is more important than the wake-up alarm.
Week 3: The Troubleshoot
What is interfering? Alcohol? Caffeine after noon? Doom-scrolling? Eliminate the interference.
Week 4: The Lock-In
Execute the schedule for 7 days straight, including the weekend. No excuses.
BJ Fogg’s research at Stanford proves it: Start smaller than you think. Motivation is unreliable—environment design is not.
Month 2: Simplify Nutrition (Stack on Sleep)
Only once your sleep is consistent (80% adherence) do you add nutrition.
James Clear’s habit stacking method works here: Attach your nutrition changes to your existing routines.
Week 5: The Pantry Purge
If it’s not real food, get it out of the house. If it’s not there, you won’t eat it.
Week 6: The Template
Pick 3 breakfasts, 3 lunches, and 3 dinners you like that are real food. Rotate them. Stop trying to be a gourmet chef every night.
Week 7: The Elimination
Cut one major processed category (e.g., sugary drinks or bagged snacks). Just one.
Week 8: The Consistency
Eat your template meals for 80% of your meals.
Month 3: Add Daily Movement (Complete the Three)
Now we add the engine.
For ADHD brains, the research is clear: complexity kills compliance. Three habits beat thirty every time.
Week 9: The Tiny Walk
Walk for 10 minutes every morning. Just put on your shoes and go.
Week 10: The Expansion
Extend to 20 minutes.
Week 11: The Strength Add
Add one 30-minute strength session.
Week 12: The Full Protocol
Hit your 3x/week strength sessions.
Ready to Implement the Health Three?
Get the complete Health Three Starter Kit as downloadable PDFs:
✓ Sleep Consistency Checklist (the exact routine I use)
✓ Nutrition Simplification Template (no tracking required)
✓ Movement Minimum Effective Dose Protocol (20 min/day + 3x strength)
Join men simplifying their health.
The Health 80%: What Your Future Self Would Eliminate Today
You know what to do. Now let’s talk about what to stop doing. This is where you reclaim your time, money, and sanity.
I saved over $100 a month and reclaimed 8+ hours a week by deleting these categories.
The Supplement 80% (Eliminate):
Any supplement you “forget” to take for more than 3 days.
Anything you are taking “just in case.”
Anything that promises to “boost” something (testosterone, brain power, metabolism).
Keep: Vitamin D/Magnesium (if deficient), Creatine (maybe), and whatever your doctor specifically prescribed for a diagnosed condition.
The Protocol 80% (Eliminate):
Cold plunges (unless you genuinely love them—most people do them for the ‘gram).
Red light therapy that requires you to stand in front of a panel for 20 minutes.
Complex morning routines that take more than 15 minutes.
Fasting protocols that make you miserable or lead to binging.
The Device 80% (Eliminate):
Sleep trackers (if the data just makes you anxious).
Continuous Glucose Monitors (unless you are diabetic or actively experimenting for a limited time).
Smart watches that notify you of texts/emails.
The Mental 80% (Eliminate):
The guilt that you aren’t doing enough.
The belief that health requires suffering.
The need to talk about your “protocols” at parties.
$100/month saved. 8+ hours/week reclaimed.
Twelve Months Later: The Different Chart
So, what happened?
Twelve months after that doctor’s appointment, I went back. Same office. Same fluorescent lights. Same doctor.
Different chart.
We ran the labs again.
Blood Pressure: 145/95 → 118/75
eGFR: Stabilized and improving.
HbA1c: Dropped from pre-diabetic range to normal.
Weight: 20 pounds down (without “dieting,” just eating real food).
But the numbers on the page didn’t capture the real change.
My energy was a consistent 7/10 all day, instead of crashing to a 4/10 every afternoon. My brain fog had lifted. I felt capable. I felt sovereign.
My health improved dramatically by doing 80% less.
Your Health Sovereignty Awaits
Health is not a hobby. It is the substrate upon which your life is built.
When you treat it as a hobby—optimizing, tinkering, obsessing—you make it fragile. When you treat it as a foundation—solid, simple, non-negotiable—you make it anti-fragile.
Imagine waking up tomorrow. You didn’t need an app to tell you how you slept; you just feel rested because you went to bed on time. You eat a breakfast of eggs and avocado not because it fits your macros, but because it’s food. You go for a walk not to close a ring, but to feel the sun.
You are not optimizing. You are living.
Your body is waiting. Give it the 20% it actually needs.
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Medical Disclaimer: This post describes my personal health transformation and is not medical advice. The protocols described worked for me under physician supervision. Consult your healthcare provider before making significant changes to your health routine, especially if you have existing conditions.
About Wolfe Elher:
Wolfe Elher, M.A. Education, B.A Psychology, is a transformation architect specializing in sovereignty engineering for men. After receiving a Stage 2 chronic kidney disease diagnosis at 42, he reverse-engineered his health operating system using the Pareto Protocol—eliminating 80% of his health activities to focus on the 20% that actually matters. His kidney function has significantly improved. He writes at paradigmreset.com.
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