Two hundred Saturdays ago, I sat down to write the first issue of this newsletter and had no idea what I was doing.

No audience. No plan. I did have two years of rebuilding my own body after three surgeons told me I needed a knee replacement and I said no, plus a nine-month-old idea called Argent Alpha.

So I took my own advice: be willing to be a beginner, and commit to the process. The process was writing, every week, to men in the same spot I'd been in. Men over 50. Men who felt themselves fading, knew that giving in was the wrong call, and had no picture of the way forward or how to define "best."

I was a little further down the road than most. That's a great place to lead from.

Two hundred weeks later, look at what these men have built. They've rebuilt their health. They've built a brotherhood. And they're pulling the people around them up with them — their wives, their kids, their friends, the men beside them in Argent Alpha.

A guy we call Greek texted me his Function Health results this week: his biological age is 13.8 years younger than his calendar age.

That puts a smile on my face every time. I'm happy for Greek, and it pushes me to raise my own bar. Men send me numbers like that all the time now, or post them in Argent Alpha, and the men in the community pull for every one of them. Dozens of us are down to 15% body fat and below, with many more closing in on it. Men off statins, off blood pressure pills, sleeping better than they have in years. Six live events where men fly in from across the country for physical challenges, tactical training, an hour of forced silence, skill development, great conversations, and a brotherhood you can't build through a screen. This community is the reason a bestselling book exists, and I'm writing the second one now.

What started as an experiment I ran on myself in 2021 became a few guys sweating in my garage in early 2022.

Today it's men across the country, and now around the world, deciding to become CEO of their health.

For 200 Saturdays, I've done the talking, leading you from the front of the formation. Underneath every one of those issues sat the same question: what separates the man who changes from the man who stays exactly where he is?

For this 200th issue, I asked the men to answer it themselves: where they started, what changed, and what they'd tell a man like you who's still deciding. The rest of this issue is theirs.

Today I step aside.

Before any of these men were sending me their numbers, they were sitting where you are. Reading a newsletter like this one on a Saturday morning. Nodding along. Telling themselves a story about why things were fine.

I've heard more of these than I can count. Different words, same two stories underneath.

The first is the noble excuse: I'm not as bad as the other guys my age.

It feels reasonable. It's also a race to the bottom. When a man measures himself against men who are fading, the finish line is fading. He can win that comparison every year and still lose.

The second story is shorter. Tomorrow.

Then something forces the issue.

Brandon caught his warning shot in time. Sometimes it comes too late. And plenty of men get the warning, ignore it, and keep running out the clock, comfortable, measuring against men who are fading a little faster, until one morning the reflection belongs to somebody they don't recognize.

Every man in this issue told himself one of these stories. What changed is what they did next.

Every one of these men has a story. What makes them impossible to argue with is the number attached to each one.

A man can talk himself into or out of almost anything. He can't argue with an InBody scan. Without measurement, we drift. With it, we find out exactly where we stand, and whether we're moving.

When I built the survey these men filled out, I opened with a prompt they'd all recognize: if you were a stock, would your broker be buying, holding, or selling? Before Argent Alpha, and today.

TJ put it this way.

Then he showed his work. Body fat from 29.5% to 19.9%. Triglycerides from 119 to 67. Testosterone from 351 to 523, no TRT. And TJ isn't even a year in. He's in the red zone now, closing on 15%, and his story is still being written.

None of these men are done. They're milestone driven. Reach one mark and they set the next: double-digit pull-ups, a longer ruck under a heavier pack, a misogi. There's always another mark.

John B. walked into his first InBody at 246.8 pounds and eighteen months later had dropped over 50 pounds of body fat. Dan S. went from 35.4% body fat to 18.5%. Jay H., from 31% to 13%. John B. and Dan S. are both still climbing toward 15%, and both have stood up inside Argent Alpha and told the other men they'll get there.

That declaration matters more than it looks. Dr. Gail Matthews' research maps it in three moves. Write it down, and you've got a 42% chance of hitting it. Share it with someone, and you climb to 65%. Report it regularly to a group, and it jumps to 95%. Most men stop at write it down, or maybe share it with their wife over dinner. That's the 65% ceiling, and it's where good intentions stall. What we call the 95% Success Formula is that third move: John B. and Dan S. don't just track toward 15%, they report it, regularly, to men who will ask about it. That's why they'll get there.

Ask the men who report every week and they'll tell you the same thing.

Brian L. joined at 69, a year from retirement, at 200 pounds and 21% body fat. Today he's 176 pounds, 10% body fat, six pounds of muscle heavier than the day he walked in. Now he's chasing double-digit pull-ups. At 70.

Marc R. measures it differently.

And Brandon, the man whose physical came back pre-diabetic? He went from 235 pounds to 188. Earlier this year he finished the Norwegian Foot March, 30 kilometers with 32 pounds on his back, and won his age division. He's got two more endurance events on the calendar before December along with Argent Alpha LIVE VII.

These men don't have some genetic edge you're missing. They measured where they stood, did the work, and measured again. The number is just the receipt, and for every one of them, it's still climbing.

What actually changed happened somewhere an InBody can't scan.

The numbers are real. They're also the smallest part of what happened.

Every man who filled out that survey got the same question about what shifted in how he sees himself, underneath the workouts and the food. Almost none of them led with body fat. They led with who they became.

Brian B. put it as clean as anyone:

Identity comes first. A man decides who he is, and the body follows the decision. Change identity before habits, and the habits stop being a fight. John Ma. lived the same shift, and he could name the exact label he walked away from.

None of it happened alone. That's the second thing every man named, and most of them named it first.

That loneliness is the part no one warns you about. A man builds a career, raises kids, and wakes up at 58 with a full calendar and nobody who knows how he's really doing. Argent Alpha fills that gap with men who expect something of him.

Two of these men, with no idea the other had done it, reached for the same phrase to describe the fix. John Ma. and Brian B. both called the community the secret sauce.

It runs deeper than support.

John B. has been through more programs than he can count. He put this one in a category by itself.

Remember Brian L., 70, chasing double-digit pull-ups? Who he became on the way there:

That's who you'd become. A man who took his life back and brought his people with him.

He'd tell you himself. So would the rest of them.

The last question on the survey asked each man for one sentence to the guy who reads this every Saturday morning and still hasn't joined. They didn't write those sentences for me. They wrote them for you.

That last line names the trap most men live in: the gap between knowing better and doing better. You already know more than enough to start.

You've heard from them now. Men who were sitting exactly where you are, reading, nodding, telling themselves the story.

Every one of them is the answer to the question I opened with: what separates the man who changes from the man who stays exactly where he is. They decided who they were becoming. They measured where they stood, said their targets out loud, and reported back every week. And not one of them did it alone.

Twenty men told you their stories. More than 300 have walked through our doors since we started. That door is open to you.

You already have the information. You've had it for a while, 200 Saturdays of it for the men who've been here that long. What you've been missing is the decision, and a group of men who won't let you drift.

Most of these men didn't fully see this when they started. A man who changes doesn't change alone. He pulls his wife, his kids, his friends up with him. The man you'd become on the other side of this decision is worth more to the people who depend on you than any number on a scan. That's the real return.

The men in this issue gather in person next at LIVE VII, October 2 through 4, at Camp Foley in Minnesota — three days of physical challenge, tactical training, stillness, and brotherhood. Our first six events all scored world-class on NPS, the same tier as Tesla, Apple, Costco, and USAA. Some of the guys you just read will be there. The way in is the same door they walked through: our free community.

Reinvention beats retirement. Let's make the second half the best half.

There's still time. Imagine where you could be by Christmas: leaner, stronger, clear-headed, sleeping through the night. The man you already know you're capable of being. These twenty men were sitting exactly where you are now. The only difference is they decided.
Start your comeback today. Join our community.

👉 Join the free community.

October 2–4, 2026. Camp Foley on Whitefish Lake in Pine River, Minnesota. Three days of physical challenge, tactical training, stillness, and brotherhood with men who decided to stop fading.

Put the date on your calendar right now. Then join Argent Alpha and start the work. You don't need more time to get ready. You need to make the decision and bet on yourself. Do that today, and by October you'll walk into Camp Foley as a man already in motion.

SISU. Grit. Show up harder to kill than you are today.