Invest In Your Health

 

1/3/2025



            Fit Tip: Invest in your Health        .     

When we hear the word “invest” we think of retirement accounts. This kind of investing is important and responsible, but you will find very little value in your prosperous financial investments if your health is poor. If you are sick, nothing else seems to matter. You may even be healthy by your doctors standards, but not as able to move or do things as you hoped you would be at your age. Invest in your health and fitness. You can invest in your health without spending a dime; perhaps you just build some habits that involve getting in some movement every day. Maybe you invest in your health by buying a gym membership (and actually using it) or buying some equipment for your own home gym. I often compare the price of gym equipment or memberships to what I might pay for doctor visits or medications. Strength training specifically is the 401k of investing in your health. Think about how practical strength training really is in terms of living a full life. You want to keep the ability to move well, and strength training does exactly that. You want strong bones so they don’t break when you fall, and strength training strengthens the bones as well as the muscles. You want to be able to lift your suitcase over your head when you finally get to travel more, to pick up your kids and grandkids, to play pickleball without becoming a statistic (over 17,000 pickleball injuries were reported in 2022). I will cut my strength training tangent short in order to say: it probably doesn’t take as much as you think. You don’t need an hour a day; even 30 minutes twice a week can change the trajectory of your health. Consistency is more important than frequency. Now that I have crammed 3 fit tips into one, let's move on. 



            Books I Read in 2024          . 

I read 22 books in 2024 and here are some of my favorites and some key takeaways:

Die with Zero by Bill Perkins: I will admit I am a bit of a Dave Ramsey fan, but I always like to get more than one professional opinion on a topic, which is why I tried out this book. The author makes the argument to consider your mortality when spending and saving your money, but also in investing in your health: “earlier investments in health would actually yield greater lifetime fulfillment”. 

Stronger by David Vaux contained no surprises and had no revealed secrets to me, but could serve as a convincing argument to one who might be middle-aged and hesitant to strength train. The author of this book was also a firm believer in building muscle as an investment in long term health as evidenced from some of these quotes: 

“Strength is the magic bullet for a full, enjoyable and independent life right up to our last day on this planet.” 

“A decade-long observational study found those with the lowest muscle mass and strength levels had around double the mortality risk compared to the control group.”

“The best prescription for staying young is to make an early investment in your strength and fitness, taking little steps every day to delay the signs of ageing for as long as possible.”

“Something as simple as the ability to perform an own body weight squat is one of the main predictors of whether we will need care in later life.”

“...preserving our muscle and strength also preserves our immune system.”

“... it is ironic that the physical strength required for a happy and healthy retirement often plays second fiddle to financial stability.” This last quote I found long after typing the earlier fit tip, haha.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt was a lot of pages to say what many of us could have assumed at this point: smart phones are not very good for us. Reading this book ought to convince one to get off their phone more often, but also to set boundaries around media use for kids both at home and at school. This book contains lots of studies that show kids (and adults) can basically erase social interaction as it used to exist if allowed to be on a phone at all times. 

An honorable mention is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer which taught me to read some fiction every once in a while, and that classics are classics for a reason. 



            .Challenge for the Week: Protein Goal .

Make a protein goal and hit it most of the days in the following week. A good goal is to get .7-1 gram per pound of ideal bodyweight. A simpler goal is just aiming for 40 grams per meal. If you have never tried this, it may be surprising to you how hard it is to get adequate protein. 


Enjoy this skit about a specific fitness goal: doing a pullup

Last Comic Standing Tommy Ryman


Win the weekend!


Brad


Durable Dad Training

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