I never intended to write this book. Turning fifty was a difficult milestone as I felt I had passed my prime. I was overweight and out of shape, and my work-life balance was a disaster. What worried me was that if I felt like this at fifty, how was I going to feel when I was in my 70s or 80s. This is my story: I never thought that getting fit or losing weight would be so damn confusing. After trying so many diets and fitness programs with no real result, I looked at the underlying principles that the fitness, diet, and meditation industries are built on. Lift heavy shit to get stronger, move to improve cardiovascular health, stretch to maintain flexibility, eat good food to fuel you for the day, and sit quietly with your mind, aka meditation. With this grassroots approach, I got success. It was simple, non-restrictive, and easy to incorporate into my life. In short, it worked, it took work, but it worked, which is why I wrote a "what I did" guide. If cutting through all the confusion and finding a simple approach that worked could help me, it could help others. This is the recipe for the soul and in my opinion a contented soul is the definition of happiness.