I usually create my health goals as a subset of my overall goals. This year, my health goals deserve this separate post. Health becomes more important when you are nearly 50 years old.
Last year, I accomplished my goal of losing 20 pounds and 3% body fat. I lost around thirteen through traditional diet and exercise and seven more in six weeks of semaglutide. That previous link covers how I was able to get it legally and cheaply.
I got diagnosed with ADHD, regrew some hair, did some extra deep dental cleanings, started some anti-aging creams, and got a full body analysis with DexaFit. You can read more about all that in my recent yearly review.
So, what’s on tap for 2025?
Physical Health
Weight and Body Fat
My December weight came in at 175 pounds, and my body fat was 22.5%. Getting to 164 pounds for my 5’8″ height would get my BMI in the healthy range. I don’t consider BMI a good health benchmark, but it gives me a convenient target. Given the success I’ve seen with the semaglutide so far, it seems like 164 pounds is possible. I’m taking a shot in the dark, though, because my body may build resistance, or I may lose access to semaglutide if the compounding pharmacy’s loophole disappears as expected.
As for body fat percentage, I’ll shoot for 19%. That feels aggressive, but the semaglutide continues to do its job. As we near the end of January, I’m down to 21.7% body fat.
Goal: Weight 164, Body Fat 19%
Diet and Exercse
There are two main components to getting there: diet and exercise. This goal goes hand-in-hand with the one above. However, I’m keeping it separate because it is based on my actions. The above are simply the results.
Even before semaglutide, I was much better at controlling my diet than exercising. This year, my diet goals will center around limiting ultra-processed foods. I’m starting to learn more about these, and perhaps I’ll write an article about them in a few months.
I used to be great at exercise, but I haven’t been able to get that momentum going again. That will be the main challenge for this year.
Like last year, I’ll grade each category (diet and exercise) on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the minimum and 5 being the highest effort. It’s possible to earn 10 points a week or 520 points a year. I got 266 points last year, and I’m hoping to get 300.
Blood Pressure
My family has a history of high blood pressure. The last couple of times that I went to the doctor, it’s read high on their digital device. When my doctor takes it the old-fashioned way, though, she says it is fine. I don’t know how much I trust that.
I have been testing my blood pressure at home since the new year, and I’ve had a high rating in two of the dozen times. I’m going to present her with a graph at my physical in a few days and see what she says with more data points.
Appointments
It’s important to get doctors appointments in. I have the afforementioned physical next week. In preparation, I got the blood work my doctor requested done. I gave it a look and it seems like I got great results. In particular, my cholesterol looks amazing. We’ll go over it in detail at the physical.
I should also get a colonoscopy done. I have been putting it off, but not for the reasons that everyone typically does. I simply don’t like the idea of losing a day and inconveniencing my wife to do the driving and picking me up. I don’t know how the kids are going to manage to get to their school and activities with my wife’s work schedule.
Body Analysis
Get another DexaFit scan done. Last February, I got a body composition test, VO2 Max test, and a Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) test.
The body composition test gives detail of body fat percentage, visceral fat, and bone density. My body fat and visceral fat scores were not good, but my bone density was great. Hopefully with the lost weight, I’ll do much better this year.
My VO2 Max test score was 32.2. It seems my peers are 39, so I have some work to do there. This is largely a cardio measurement, and I don’t think I’ve improved on that over the last year. Maybe just carrying less weight will be worth a couple of points.
My RMR rate was 2,036 calories/day. I think I want this number to be higher, as it may mean that I burn more calories at rest. I think I understood it last year.
Overall, my DexaFit results gave me a Body Score of a C+ and Biological Age of 49 years old. Hopefully, I can improve.
Other Tests
I read Get Rich Slick’s parallel medical ecosystem and I love it. The idea is that the medical system in the United States has failed us, and it’s time to take matters into our own hands.
I think he takes it a little far, but I can’t disagree. Trying to get my son diagnosed with ADHD took over a year. There was a waiting list to get appointments for testing. Then, the testing took place over a series of weeks. Finally, in the end, the insurance refused to pay because the testers didn’t do something they were supposed to at the beginning. The testers wouldn’t give us the results without getting paid (which is fair), and we couldn’t create a time machine to get the testers to submit the paperwork at the start of the process to check the box that insurance needed. My wife was able to report the insurance to some agency, and a few months later, we finally got the diagnosis.
I think about that process often. Whenever I deal with health care, something similar to that happens. It feels like I lose a couple thousand dollars worth of productivity every time I rely on insurance. At best, it’s a gamble. The last thing I need is to pay $629 for a Band-Aid.
There’s definitely a place for the regular healthcare system, but Get Rich Slick is looking to do things that aren’t typical. For example, he mentions Function Health that can do hundreds of tests for under $500. He also mentions DexaFit, as I did above. Each of these things gives me something to look into. It’s like putting together pieces of a puzzle. I’m excited to take this new journey, though I imagine it may be a bumpy road with some scammy bad actors.
I have already started looking into Function Health, and the Reddit threads seem interesting. They take a lot of blood, which may not work well for me. I donated blood once and passed out soon after. It may be that there are diminishing returns when you start measuring hundreds of markers. Something tells me that I’m better off focusing on the big things, such as the blood pressure above.
Longevity Hacking
I used ChatGPT to create a longevity expert. It gives me a lot of generic advice such as eating more protein from plants. However, I like that I can give it information about myself and have it update my longevity. Then I can ask it hypotheticals such as “How would it impact my longevity if I dropped another 10 pounds?”
I’m not saying that AI is perfect, especially in an area as imprecise as predicting longevity. However, I feel like it is giving me a recipe to live longer. I plan to use AI as a tool to help determine my biological age and reduce it.
I have a lot of articles and research that I “saved for another day” to review. Some of it is stuff based on Blue Zones, which the ChatGPT above covers quite well. The rest is more in the “Other Tests” category above. One of my tasks will be to review it all. For example, there’s a tech millionaire, Bryan Johnson, who does a billion things a day to try to remain young. I probably won’t do the vast majority of what he does, but I found it interesting to read about it. As I was about to publish this, I saw that he has a new Netflix show called Don’t Die. He seems to have taken Ray Kurzweil’s lifestyle that I mentioned briefly in 2008 and expanded on it.
Brain Health
Last year, one of my hobbies was learning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. I told a friend and she gibed, “Anyone can learn to do that. It’s a stupid human trick.”
She was mostly right. The algorithm can be learned by even very young kids. I wanted to learn to do it because:
- It is intrinsically cool to be able to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Only about 1 in 20 people can do it.
- The process of learning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube exercises my brain in a new way.
Duolingo’s topic came up at a financial conference last year. I mentioned that I have a 2000+ day streak of studying Japanese. A couple of people were learning Spanish, and they were very good – better than my Spanish, which is much better than my Japanese. I really can’t say much in Japanese because I do the bare minimum every day. Only one other person in the group seemed to understand why I bothered.
I explained that it helped me build a foundation. If we wanted to book a trip to Japan in a few months, I could ramp up my learning and get by. However, another reason is that it helps exercise my brain in entirely new ways. How many people pick up a new alphabet after the age of 40?
In addition to Duolingo, I do daily puzzle games from the New York Times. My main three are Wordle, Strands, and Connections. Connections requires the most brain power. That one is by far the best in my opinion.
Traditionally, I’m very left-brain focused. That’s the logical and analytical side. I’m looking to work my right brain a little more this year. That’s the creative side of the brain. To do that, I want to learn to play the ukulele. This has been a goal for a few years now. History isn’t looking good on this one. However, it wasn’t looking good for the Rubik’s Cube last year.
Another right brain activity is art. I’ve started to use my Kindle Scribe to draw. It’s very cool because you can zoom in and edit the picture and then zoom it back out. I know this technology is in all sorts of tablets with pen support, but the battery life, note-taking, and Kindle books make it a good fit for me. Here’s a picture of an Australian Cattle Dog (similar to my own) that I drew from following along with a YouTube video:
Considering that I have no artistic skill and it’s my first attempt in more than 30 years, I’m fairly proud of it.
Tip: You can save a $100 or more by buying the previous version. The hardware is a minimal upgrade, and this version can get the latest software with cool AI features. Also, look at the certified refurbished versions, as they can be a good deal too.
Final Thoughts
I feel like I’m not alone in this shift towards health. Several personal finance bloggers who I started around 2005-2010 seem to be taking their health very seriously these days. It seems natural to me that when your money situation mostly runs itself, the next step is health. I’ve been following, Carl from 1500 Days and his health updates.
It will be interesting to see if I can keep it up as the year goes on. I was able to improve a lot last year. Perhaps for the next monthly update, I can put most of these in a spreadsheet, track it, and share it in a way that makes sense.
