We Haven't Hunted for Breakfast Yet

"Have You Eaten?"

Every Chinese New Year, I walk into my family's place and the first thing I hear is: "Wah, you so skinny. You not eating well ah?"

That's true. I haven't been eating well — by their definition.

But I'm building shit. I'm running faster than last year. I'm in the gym every day, getting stronger. I'm shipping products and closing deals and pushing harder than I ever have.

Yet the only thing they notice is that I'm getting thinner.

Nobody asks "What are you building?" Nobody asks "What difficulties did you overcome?" Nobody asks "Are you growing?"

The question is always: "Have you eaten?"

The question your family asks you reveals what they optimise for. And my family — like most families in Singapore, like most families in Asia — optimises for food.

Two things I always tell myself: I will never get diabetes. I will not be an old fat man with a belly who can't exercise.

My dad has diabetes. His entire family line does. He's been living on medication for as long as I can remember, under the belief that this is not within his control.

My friend Colin's dad was a national basketball athlete. Now he's overweight. Even elite athletes aren't immune.

If you don't solve this, it solves you.

The Sin Nobody Talks About

Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. But nobody treats it like one.

Lust, greed, wrath — those get called out. Gluttony gets a free pass. In Singapore, gluttony isn't a sin. It's a national identity. We build hawker centres like temples and worship at them three times a day.

"The sins of the father are visited upon the children." — Exodus 20:5

My dad's eating habits weren't something he chose. They were passed down by his mother. Lots of carbs. Lots of noodles. Bak chor mee. Wanton mee. Fried oyster omelettes. A large variety of food at every single meal. That was normal. That was love.

And those are the things I fucking love to eat. Those are the foods my dad brought me to every weekend when I was a kid. Even now, those are my default favourites at breakfast.

But when I looked deeper into our ancestry — into where his mother came from — I realised it's not just him. An entire land and city of people eat like this. The same carbs, the same noodles, the same portions. It's not my own choice. It's not me choosing what I eat. It's the default passed down through generations.

I never knew he was eating badly growing up. I thought that was the norm.

It was.

And that's the problem — when your default is bad, you don't know it's bad until you see what the other side looks like.

Now when I eat, it's usually six eggs if I really have to eat something in the morning. That's the new default I'm building.

The Belly of the Whale

Jordan Peterson talks about the oldest story in mythology: the son must rescue his father from the belly of the whale. It's from Pinocchio — literally rescuing Geppetto from inside the beast. But it's about something deeper: every generation inherits the failures of the one before, and it's the son's job to fix what the father couldn't.

"You must rescue your father from the belly of the whale." — Jordan Peterson

I didn't know this concept when I was seventeen. But I was already living it.

My dad always talked about how his health was bad, how he had diabetes. "If one day I have a heart attack and nobody takes care of the family, how are you all going to take care of yourselves?" He said this to us kids. Not once. Regularly.

So I thought: I need to go out and get a job. I need to be able to take care of my siblings.

My dad had always wanted to open his own restaurant. He loved food more than anything. The seventeen-year-old me thought: I'll become a chef. That'll make him proud. That's practical. That's fast.

The son trying to rescue the father. Even at seventeen.

But here's what I didn't understand then: the whale that swallowed my father wasn't poverty or illness or bad luck.

It was gluttony.

The Chef Paradox

Being a chef trained me to make food better. Crispier. More flavourful. More indulgent. I know how to create really good flavour and I get critical and analytical every time I eat — always thinking about how to make it better.

I love soups and sauces. I love making things a little unhealthier because that's what makes them taste good. A little more oil. A little more crunch. A little more salt.

I didn't eat often, but I wasn't healthy. I ate whatever I wanted, using the excuse that I needed to taste and know.

The skill that makes me good at cooking is the same skill that feeds gluttony. It's like being an alcoholic who's also a sommelier. The thing that makes you exceptional is the thing that destroys you.

I cook for others now, and I think that's an act of love. But I also know that love expressed through food — without anything deeper — is shallow love.

The Bad Defaults

In my family, food is how you express love. You buy the best food for your loved ones. Every milestone — birthdays, celebrations, reunions — is tagged with food. Having food together is "bonding."

But nobody speaks deeply during meals. It's all talking about the food. "This one nice." "That stall better." "Next time we try the new place."

Food creates the illusion of closeness. I think my family is close. But am I under that illusion, or have I seen through it? I don't know.

The awakening came at Network School. The food there is clean. Healthy by default. Bryan Johnson-level meals — lots of clean protein, minimal carbs. I paid for that environment specifically because the default matters more than willpower.

And it works. At NS, I eat till 40 or 60 percent full. I function. I build. I'm fine.

Then every week when I go back to Singapore, I eat whatever my dad has. And I love it. Slowly less and less. But it's still nice to eat and be full.

Outside NS, I eat till 150 percent full. Every meal. First thing I do when I leave campus is hit Heytea and Shake Shack.

It's not about mindset or nutrition or discipline. It's about the default. What do you fall back to regardless of your mood? That's the thing that determines your health.

I Can Think. I Can Wait. I Can Fast.

I did a forty-hour fast once at Network School. Maybe a little more.

My productivity was crazy low. I couldn't do any work. All I did was hang out and play ping pong the entire afternoon and evening. Since we didn't have to eat, we had so much free time — it's insane how much time we normally spend on eating.

And the amount of time I spent just THINKING about food when I was hungry — that was the real shock. My brain was consumed by it. I was sluggish. I couldn't focus on anything else.

But then I read this:

"I can think, I can wait, I can fast."

"If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. Siddhartha can wait calmly. He is not impatient, he is not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it." — Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Tim Ferriss shared this passage. Naval Ravikant reinforced it with him on their walks. The three skills Siddhartha offers a merchant who asks what he has: I can think. I can wait. I can fast.

Ferriss breaks it down: "I can think" means good decision-making. "I can wait" means playing the long game. "I can fast" means resilience — training yourself to have a high pain tolerance.

After that fast, something shifted. I became mentally stronger knowing that whatever noise and hunger I feel in daily life is something I can hold on to. Because I've done more than that. I've sat with it for forty hours and survived.

The hunger didn't make me productive. But surviving it made me unafraid.

Not Hungry — Just Not Full

Andrew Tate eats once a day. Coffee all day. Dinner only.

"I do it because I want to operate under a degree of irritability and high energy and hunger."

I respect that. But I'll be honest: I don't feel more driven when I'm hungry.

What I've noticed is simpler than that. When I'm not full, I can get work done. When I am full, I start scrolling. I want to go back to bed. I need to "rest a little" before I can think again.

When I eat breakfast, I want to go back to sleep. Every time.

It's not about not eating. It's about not being too full.

But when I eat, I usually can't maintain myself. That's the struggle. I don't eat a moderate amount and stop. I eat till I'm stuffed.

My body fat is around 20 percent. It was 25. I want to get it under 15. I exercise every day. I'm fitter and stronger than most people my age and size. Yet the guys I'm more athletic than sit at 12 to 15 percent body fat.

The difference isn't training. It's eating.

The Glutton in the Mirror

Let me be clear: I'm not writing this from the other side. I am a glutton. Still. I love eating. When the food is good, I struggle to stop. I eat till I'm stuffed and then I feel terrible about it. This happens regularly.

My body fat is around 20 percent. I want to get it under 15. I'm not there yet.

So when I write about my dad — I'm writing about myself too.

My dad thinks about food every day, every moment. What to eat. What to cook. Where to eat next. What to bring me to try. I wish he would ask me how to build something. I wish he cared about what I'm shipping, what I'm learning, what I'm struggling with.

Instead it's: "Let's go eat at that new place."

And I see that same pull in myself. That same default.

But here's what I've learned: it's not about not eating. It's not about restriction or discipline or starving yourself into productivity. It's about having something bigger.

When you have a deeper sense of purpose — something you're building that matters more to you than the next meal — food stops being what you think about by default. It's not willpower. It's displacement. You don't fight the hunger. You just stop noticing it because you're consumed by something else.

But when the purpose fades, even for a day, the food comes right back. I know this because it happens to me.

I'm at the point where I don't even want to buy food because choosing food means thinking about food. I want to limit that to the absolute minimum. Let my wife cook. Let my dad find the place — he's going to do that anyway. All I do is work, and they handle food by default.

I know I'll still be rebellious. I'll still sneak out and buy something. But it shouldn't happen three times a day, every day.

Breaking the Chain

This isn't a trait I want my kid to have. I want my kid to have control over their own hunger. To know the difference between need and want. To not be afraid of an empty stomach.

And that starts with me. Which I struggle with every day.

But I think about the question my family would ask my kid one day: "Have you eaten?"

And I think about the question I want to ask instead: "What are you building?"

If my kid ever asks me, "Dad, why don't you eat breakfast?"

I'll tell them: "Because we haven't hunted for breakfast yet."

We are not that weak. Skipping a meal will not stifle your growth. Hunger is not an emergency.

It's a signal that you haven't earned it yet.