Transformation photo of Juriaan Karsten after running a full year and completing a marathon.

2024: A Year That Awoke Me to Forces I Was Not Aware Of

This year has been transformative—a journey of self-discovery, growth, and realizing my potential. Looking back, 2024 feels like the year I started to awaken to the forces within me, propelling me toward a better version of myself.

Here’s my year in review. 


Running: A Catalyst for Change

In August 2023, I laced up my running shoes for the first time, setting the ambitious goal of completing a marathon by April 2024. This inspiration came from Nick Bare, the original Hybrid Athlete, whose vlogs I watched religiously during the first half of 2024.

Since then, running has become my cornerstone habit, anchoring profound changes in my life.

Key Achievements in Running in 2024

  • I completed My First Marathon. This milestone wasn’t just about running 42.195 kilometers—it required forming countless habits, fostering discipline, and embracing the grind. I had never set a goal this large and daunting in my life.
    • Habit Stacking Effects that training for a marathon gave me:
      • I quit smoking cigarettes.
        • This is huge in its own right after 15+ years of smoking a pack of Marlboros a day, but in the year I had, this was just a line item, which is crazy to think about.
      • I lost a whole bunch of weight.
      • I improved my diet, cutting out 95% of junk food.
      • I reduced alcohol consumption and social outings that spiraled into bad habits by 90%, taking it down to one bender a quarter.
      • I improved my time management and long-term thinking skills.
      • I became more stress-resilient and better at handling anxiety.
      • I’m setting a better example as a father.
      • I’m learning to push through pain, shifting from self-indulgence to mental toughness.
        • The average slump in mood affects me way less. I do not care so much anymore when the day is bad, when I feel bad, when things are bad because, for some reason, it’s never as bad as still having to do 10k of running for 1.5 hours while your legs feel like they’re falling off.
  • Half Marathons: I ran two, with a personal best of 1:57.
  • Ultra 100k Ahead in 2025: I signed up for my first 100k ultra marathon in Snowdonia, Wales, in May 2025. This event has become my new cornerstone for the coming year, inspiring me to keep renewing my positive habits and not let them slip.
  • Without my coach, I would be nothing: 50% of my success (for me) with running comes from doing the runs and being disciplined, but I can also tell you that one thing made the other 50%, and that was that I got a running coach from my first month of running. That has helped me not make any of the mistakes beginner runners make. It has helped me to stay consistent and not over-train or focus on the wrong things.

Physical Transformation

The running and lifting in the gym throughout 2024 had a tremendous effect on my body appearance and composition:

  • I lost 10kg and dropped below 90kg of total body weight for the first time in 15 years.
  • My body composition improvements from two DEXA scans:
    • Body fat decreased from 31% to 27%.
    • Visceral fat decreased from 89 cm² to 69 cm².
    • I gained nearly 1kg of lean muscle in my upper body.
      • Interestingly, I lost 1 kilo of muscle mass in my lower body. Since I’m training my lower body primarily for endurance, not speed or strength, my leg muscles are becoming more efficient with less muscle.
  • Blood work results confirmed I’m within healthy ranges, though testosterone is on the lower end.

Creative Endeavors: Back on YouTube

After a hiatus, I returned to YouTube and created 60 videos this year. While these vlogs were low-effort and experimental, they represented my commitment to showing up and staying consistent. The grind taught me valuable lessons about discipline and content creation.


Writing fall off

This year, my creative output was limited mainly to my YouTube videos. It was a year of exploring new activities and disciplines, so some of my older passions, like writing, had to take a back seat. While I’m proud of the latest endurance skills and habits I developed, I deeply missed the joy of writing.

Looking ahead to 2025, I hope to strike a better balance. I want to continue running and pursuing fitness, but I also aim to dedicate more time to writing and rediscovering my creative voice.


What I Read in 2024

My favorite book of the year was Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I had never laughed so hard at some parts of a book before. It perfectly blended dark humor, absurdity, and deep reflection. I discovered this gem through Cole Schafer’s newsletter, which remains one of the best hidden, non-mainstream newsletters out there. His recommendation for this book struck a chord with me, so I had to pick it up. I’m happy I did.


Diet: A Sustainable Shift

2024 marked a complete overhaul of my eating habits, which was forced by the cornerstone habit of running:

  • Fruits & Vegetables:
    • I now eat fruits with breakfast and lunch 75% of the time. It’s typically blueberries and strawberries at breakfast; at midday, it’s usually a banana or a kiwi. But sometimes, on days like today, I eat both a kiwi before lunch, and then I snack on a banana between lunch and dinner.
    • As a new rule of thumb, I eat vegetables at dinner first to control portion sizing. 30% of my plate is now filled with vegetables, leaving less room for carbs and protein. These large amounts of vegetables also fill me up quicker, so I’m less hungry during the meal, preventing me from overeating and going for seconds.
  • Eliminated Binge Eating:
    • I no longer crave Friday night takeout binges, as they hindered my long runs. In the past, I could literally eat 5,000 calories of New York Pizza and fried chicken in one sitting while guzzling down two bottles of Coke and binging eight hours of Netflix on a Friday night with ease. But all that is no more since the impact of such meals is just too great on my long runs on Saturdays and Sundays. I simply can’t do it anymore.
  • Occasional Cravings: While the urge for junk food lingers, it’s manageable. But I know that I still sometimes treat myself to feast, but that happens mainly once a month nowadays.

Vices Conquered

This year, I overcame several long-standing bad habits:

  • I quit smoking after 15 years of a pack a day. At the time of writing this, I have quit smoking for more than 11 months.
  • I conquered my weekly binge eating.
  • And finally I’m getting a grip on my phone addiction, especially YouTube scrolling. It’s still the toughest vice I’m battling, but I am getting the right tools in place to manage my cravings for the phone.

Forced to Become Good With My Time

This year has been about juggling multiple priorities, each demanding my focus and effort. My life is filled with several main projects:

  • Being a dad: Balancing the joys and challenges of parenting while setting a positive example for my kids.
  • Being a husband: Strengthening my relationship and growing as a partner.
  • Being an employee: For the first time in my life, I’ve held a “real” job for the past three years, adding consistency and structure to my life. Before that I was building my own companies for 10 years.
  • Being a runner: Dedicating time to training and improving, with running becoming a cornerstone habit.
  • Being a writer/creative: Though it took a backseat this year, creativity is still a part of who I am.
  • Betting and investing: Pursuing my interest in calculated risks and long-term financial growth.

I’m genuinely proud of my bucket being so full while managing to keep all these balls in the air—and doing it well. It has forced me to excel at time management and focus on what truly matters, making every moment count.


Financial Wins

  • For the third year in a row, my sales job in cyber security allowed me to earn a good six-figure salary, which has increased significantly every year. 
  • I sold an Amsterdam-based rental property purchased in 2016, generating a profit of €275k. After selling, I felt fortunate. I’ve always believed that luck comes in pairs, so I decided to act on that momentum.
    • Currently, I have 500k Euro liquid on the sidelines spread over five different online bank accounts, which are laying there dormant for when the big opportunity comes by so that I can pounce. That pouncing will for sure be laid out here.
  • So, I made a $12k bet on Polymarket with a high conviction that Trump would win the US election, and I doubled my money overnight. The winnings funded the purchase of my dream watch: a $12k Rolex Submariner No Date Ref 124060, which I did not buy from an official AD.

Strengthening My Marriage

After nearly 12 years together, my wife and I are entering a new chapter. Our kids are growing older and more challenging, pushing us to adapt as parents and partners. We’ve been working with a relationship therapist, which has been transformative:

  • We improved communication and teamwork.
  • Learning to make agreements, share responsibilities, and create space for each other.
  • An external guide has made all the difference, providing structure, accountability, and new perspectives. We now both recommend it to many others. Having kids makes it so much harder to be there for each other. Having someone from the outside consistently shine a light on that is just so powerful.

Themes I should carry with me into 2025

2024 was a year of transformation and self-discovery, teaching me some powerful lessons I should put in my saddle bag and carry with me into the future.

2024 taught me that…

  1. Big Goals Drive Big Changes: Setting cornerstone events like my marathon inspired a ripple effect of discipline, resilience, and better habits in every part of my life.
  2. Discomfort Fuels Growth: Embracing pain and discomfort, whether physical or emotional, made me more resilient and mentally tough.
  3. Calculated Risks Pay Off: Betting on high-conviction opportunities reminded me how much I enjoy taking calculated risks. Whether it’s in investing or decision-making, trusting my instincts and acting decisively has led to meaningful rewards.
  4. Professional Support is Transformative: Guidance from experts like my running coach and relationship therapist proved invaluable. Their support helped me stay consistent, accountable, and on track, showing the power of not going it alone.

Looking Ahead: 2025

With the Snowdonia 100k ultra marathon on the horizon, I’m ready to embrace the big lessons of 2024 and channel them into even greater challenges. This year taught me the value of setting ambitious goals, trusting calculated risks, and seeking professional guidance to unlock new levels of growth. My focus remains on maintaining consistency, building mental toughness, and continuing to improve as a father, husband, and creative.

Here’s to another year of discovery, resilience, and meaningful progress!

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