Be strong and courageous…
- Joshua 1 6 and again in Joshua 1 9
Reflecting
New toy arriving Monday; thoughts and prayers to my FedEx guy.
It weighs 172 lbs. which is a big dumbbell but the really tricky thing about it is the fat ~2.4” handle. Thomas Inch was a British strongman famous in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. I love classic strongman challenges so will try adding lifting this to my inventory of parlor tricks. Thanks, Steve Slater!
Training
Today was running, biking, and kettlebell farmer’s carry with my youngest kid in the first warm and sunny day of spring. Heavenly.
A “no sweat” exercise that I like to do at my desk: 30 seconds on/30 seconds off for 10 minutes of shadowboxing with an 18 lbs. rotator. Starts easy; gets hard. The key is to go as fast as possible at eye level and not let your shoulders lilt by the end.
Fueling
I try to mostly avoid snacking, but when I need to pack a snack, one of my favorites is smoked wild king salmon jerky (you can get $25 / >45% off with this).
The best way to fuel up is to harvest your own protein. I get a lot of my gear at Sportsman’s Warehouse; they’re doing a free raffle for a world class elk hunt in Utah. >$25k of prizes and it takes just a sec to sign up.
Supplementing
Reboot Wellness is the most convenient source for hormone replacement and weight loss prescriptions. Hormone therapy is for almost everyone. Weight loss drugs are more mixed. They’re better than obesity, but create a real challenge in terms of blocking hunger for adequate protein. Who should consider HRT? Men with sub-4 digit total testosterone. Who should consider weight loss drugs? Anyone with a BMI over 30 who has tried and failed to fix it with behavior alone.
Measuring
Thank you to each of the eight Substacks recommending Vale Tudo. I will take each as a compliment, disregarding all rampant nepotism and cronyism: The Amateur Investor (my son), Fit To Teach (my coach), Run Fart(h)er (my running buddy), The Chancery Daily, Sustainable Solutions, Mike's Home Exercise, Meditações de João Victor, William Auten Stories and Newsletter, and The Man on the Move.
Recovering
Grapplers have to clean up a lot. Whatever else I’ve done that day which usually is some combo of running and lifting, there’s no way around showing before and after rolling. To stay away from harsh chemicals, I rely on Stone & Spear natural tallow soap. Feels good, smells good, and doesn’t dry out my skin even with repeated use.
Closing
I use AI for helping interpret every dataset that I need to understand from SEC filings to blood panels. I fully expected it to expedite busy work. But I’ve been astonished at how well it does high end as well as low end tasks. It not only can aggregate and organize data, but can make astute logical inferences and even strategic suggestions. It feels more human than the advice I get from my doctors in terms of understanding my own health. My primary care provider wants to be an intermediary and wants to have mystery meetings where he can call me in and reveal his findings. It is an anxiety producing waste of time, especially the time ruminating beforehand.
Large language models can get the same data, tell me I’m fine and don’t need to worry but perhaps should drink a bit more water. Shockingly, they make amazing connections between various aspects of my stats, but also offered a few digs at how I tested – correctly surmising that I needed to get some tests done but had worked out and given blood right before, throwing off some of the findings. It was objectively better than other analysis I’d been given but also subjectively more intuitive on what I needed to hear – smarter and also more human.
You seem like a good candidate for a performance and longevity focused concierge doctor. Have you thought about trying it? Doesn't tend to be cheap, but you get what you pay for.
Thanks for the post. What LLM did you use?