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Let’s say you need $1000 to retire in 30 years and live the way you want.

Scenario 1: You have $1000 in the bank. All you have to do is never have an emergency or unplanned expense and that $1000 will be there when you need it.

Scenario 2: You have $1500 in the bank, but are losing $5 a month. 

Scenario 3: You have $750 in the bank and sporadically gain and lose $1000, but generally average $750.

See the flaw in each of these? 

Scenario 1 doesn’t work because unplanned expenses are inevitable. You need a buffer. 

Scenario 2 doesn’t work because you end up bankrupt in 25 years. You can’t be on a trajectory that leads to ruin.

Scenario 3 doesn’t work even though you may sometimes appear to on track. You have to be consistent.

Ok, this isn’t about money and retirement. It’s about health and fitness. These 3 scenarios describe many people’s flawed approach to health and longevity.

Maintaining what you consider to be an acceptable level of fitness is ok, but if you break your hip at 70, you are going to lose muscle in the recovery. You need a surplus. If you want to be able to walk then, you have to be able to run now.

Age is a tax on health, do nothing and you are on a path to being decrepit. We will all ultimately die, but your quality of life during older age depends upon pushing back against the age tax. 

A lot of people get scared about health, hop on some bandwagon, then give up. The roller-coaster pattern will not work long term. You have to find something that becomes part of your life and who you are.

The habits you design today decide if you are playing catch with your grandkids or telling them stories from your wheelchair between wheezes. This is the epitome I had last year. Most of my friends are 25-35, a prime time to either invest in fitness or start losing the battle. What’s it going to be? A third of your life hangs in the balance!

This isn’t a philosophical question. This is a real issue you address now or pay for down the road. You need to be serious. Not the lame “abstract threat to the society or the environment” serious, I mean, the drop everything “your best friend is talking about suicide” serious.

So how do you get serious? This question could yield books worth of answers, but here’s generally what I’m talking about:

Eat better. Not 5% better. Not the same crap with the word “organic” on the label. Like 250% better. Say vegetables comprise 5% of your caloric intake today: get that to 50+%. 

Stop eating worse. Adopt Micheal Pollen’s rules of what is food. Redefine gluttony, think of an unsweetened latte as a nice treat, put cupcakes in the same category as crystal meth. If you are at risk of diabetes, there is probably a similar health threat between the two. 

Spend time. Like an hour a day for exercise and maybe an extra hour for sleep. Hard, but you feel better, sleep better, be more alert during the day.

Spend money. Gym A costs $150/year. Gym B costs $2,000/year. You should definitely choose Gym B if that’s the one you’ll actually go to. Don’t be a chump and throw away money on scams, but do your research and be prepared to spend thousands of dollars if that’s what it takes.

Research, evaluate, change. Try not be imbalanced, for example focusing on endurance running to the exclusion of upper body strength or vice versa. Get your numbers checked every few years to make sure cholesterol or blood pressure isn’t creeping up on you. Look around you, who’s doing what? What’s working?

Thanks for reading, feel free to email/message me and tell me about how I take things way too seriously and need to chill out. :) I can also dish out suggestions … while I’m hardly an expert in health/fitness, I’ve done a lot of research for myself and can regurgitate pretty well.

Doctor’s visit

Background: I have golf elbow, acquired through Crossfit. It’s a tenacious case of tendinitis, I rested it for 3 months and it still didn’t go away. The gym recommended a chiropractor … but I have HMO-style coverage through Kaiser so I’m trying that first.

First visit was with a general practitioner. I’ve liked him in the past, [warning: gruesome] last time I saw him he carved a cyst out of my head under the $30 co-pay and wrote a prescription for Vicodin just in case it hurt later. That’s service! But I was afraid that he’d take a paranoid path, like, “3 months didn’t work, so rest for a year”.

But I was wrong! Quiet the opposite, he saw lack of exercise as the greater health threat (and said so much, at length), encouraged me to keep it up, and gave me a referral to a physical therapist. As a “just in case” he also put in a referral to an orthopedist, but warned me to stay away if I could … I think his quote was, “the only thing an orthopedist can do is stick needle in you”, followed by an cautionary anecdote about how those shots can increase the likelihood of tendons snapping.

They also gave me a band that goes just above the elbow. Tried it at crossfit today, went fine, but wasn’t a particularly aggravating workout. Felt good, but too soon for a verdict.

In sum, the experience left me more positive about Kaiser’s HMO care and western medicine, which is saying something because I am one paranoid dude. My primary care physician had the big picture in mind and his course of treatment aligned well with my goals.

Saccharin!!!

When it comes time to buy toothpaste I usually buy the best value tube that has ADA approval. Yesterday I skipped that step and just bought the cheap one, Crest with whitening and mouthwash flavor.

Mistake! Artificial sugar makes it taste like I’m brushing with cheap cupcake frosting.

Aside from the specific lesson (don’t buy toothpaste with saccharin) this reinforces my general habit of relying on endorsements for anything where I don’t have a significantly evolved consumer perspective.

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