The Energy Calendar

Print out your calendar for last week then get out your multi-color pen. In red circle the things you did that sucked the life blood out of you and left you drained. In green circle the things you did that left you excited and invigorated. What are the patterns? Think about how you can do one less red item next week and one more green item, its that simple. For bonus points, think about what life changes you need to make in the next 5 years to would get rid of all the red items on your calendar. It might be as major as quitting your job and starting your own company or it might be as simple as changing jobs in your company to one that is more/less people focused.

The Energy Contact List

You can also apply this to your contact list and sort out which people are worth dedicating time to and who needs to be avoided. Make a list of the people outside of work you spent time with in the last week. Again, with the red pen circle the ones who drained your energy and left you feeling like your time was wasted. With the green pen, circle the people who were supportive, gave you great ideas, and left you invigorated with energy. Next week, spend more time with the green people and less time with the red people.

This was a really tough one for me to do and it took me until I was 64 years old to figure out. I realized my life was 3/4 over and I sure as hell don’t want to waste what time I have left on people who suck my energy dry. Its worth coming up with a list of things that suck your energy to sort people. If you are a professional gamer on twitch making six figures then your list will be totally different than mine but here are things that will get people thrown off my island:

1. They are always talking about themselves or telling stories.

2. They are not interested nor supportive of my passions and my goals.

3. Talking endlessly about what they want but never, ever making a plan to achieve those goals.

4. They look at their phone more than once every 15min when they are with you.

5. Their principles are in stark contrast to their actions.

6. They are not direct and honest, telling half-truths to make themselves look better.

7. They are always complaining about the same thing but doing anything about it.

8. They blame others for their problems rather than accepting responsibility

9. They lack compassion and empathy.

10. They don’t try to make the world better in some way.

In the last year I cut three people out of my life who I had known a very long time but were toxic and sucked my energy dry. I cant tell you how much better I feel with that space freed up in my brain.

Lessons from the Blue Zones: The Vital Role of Community

About this time in my friend cutting frenzy, someone is going to say how important it is to have a big circle of friends and point to research done on the general population which is 75% extroverts. I am not an extrovert and what is healthy for an extrovert is not healthy for me. The blue zone’s finding on “The vital role of community” is not true for introverts like me. I just did a count and I have 10 people I consider good friends and of those, only one (my husband) do I see on a daily basis. Two I see on a weekly basis and the others might be once every month or two. This lack of contact might kill an extrovert but its optimal for my mental health. If you are an introvert don’t let the extrovert-controlled media convince you that you need to go friend-collecting to be happy and live longer.

BDHDDCJRCRW

Unlike most trainers on YouTube, it was never a business for me which is why I have outlived many of my peers. I was here long before they arrived and I will be here long after they depart. I started my fitness website and channel after I retired to give back to the sport that gave so much to me. In high school, I was the awkward one who hated PE class because I was a weak, uncoordinated, awkward introvert who was the last to be picked every time teams were chosen. My years of lifting gave me self confidence that helped me in every aspect of my life.

Humble Beginnings: Static website with AVI files users could download.

Technically its 20 year anniversary of uploading home workout videos to my website - My 20 year YouTube anniversary will come next year. In 2005 before I started YouTube I hosted my own fitness website and allowed people to download my how-to videos from there. It was a static website but rather than being hand coded HTML, it was generated with Microsoft Front Page - very advanced :)

My first website was called scoobysworkshop because Scooby is my name and the website was to showcase my workshop where I made furniture and was building an airplane - hence, scoobysworkshop.

Around 2005 I got disgusted that there was no good workout information on the internet. If you looked for bodybuilding workouts, all you would find is advertisements for Bowflex. No youtube videos, no home workout website, no workout plans, no nutritional info - nothing. Because fitness and bodybuilding had made such a positive difference in my own life and my own self confidence I wanted to help others find that same joy so I turned scoobysworkshop into a fitness website fitness.scoobysworkshop.com. Here is the chest workout page courtesy of waybackmachine.org:

I also had this home workout page with a chart showing complete workouts for beginning, intermediate, and advanced lifters:

Bandwidth charges killing me!

I then had a very short video clip showing how to perform it that you could click to download it and view it. The catch was that in 2005, for internet you had to pay for bandwidth. I figured that I was paying about 25 cents every time someone downloaded one of my videos but it was worth it because people really were appreciative.

I know this all looks and sounds archaic but lets do a 2005 reality check. Smart phones with screens did not exist. It was a flip phone with chicklet keys. There was no internet connection on phones. If you wanted GPS directions you had to carry a separate Garmin GPS unit. If you wanted to watch movies, you had to carry a DVD player. If you wanted music, you had to carry your iPod. If you wanted to take movies you had to carry a big camcorder with a magnetic tape cassette. And of course, for pictures you needed your canon sure shot camera.

My first videos were filmed on a digital camera that filmed short sequences of 640x480 video but without sound. What I had to do was add the sound after filming.

My first videos had no sound at all, here is my video that illustrates the proper form of the pushup:

So, as thrilled as I was that people found my website helpful, the bandwidth charges were getting expensive.

YouTube hosts videos FOR FREE!

About this time, I heard about this company YouTube that would host your videos FOR FREE! No hosting charges! I updated my workout website so that the links to the exercises videos no longer downloaded an AVI file but played a video on youtube. Pretty friggin cool.

I then started dubbing the videos to make them complete sources of information that would stand alone without needing my website. The first was called "Killer Home Chest Workout" which showed people how to do a great superset for chest at home with just a set of dumbbells - got 40M views. Then I did a similar video called "Killer Home Arm Workout" and it got 18M views.

It was many years and many millions of views before I heard about the "partner program" at YouTube that would let me choose my own thumbnails. Sounds stupid but early on, you could not choose a thumbnail, it was whatever frame was at the 50% point in the video and it drove me bonkers. Lots of other stuff in the partner program blah blah blah but all I cared about was the ability to upload my own thumbnail. About 4 months later, I got a really weird letter from YouTube that had a check in it for a really large amount. I literally thought it was either a mistake or one of those stupid promotions where if you cash the check you get signed up for some expensive vacation time share in Nepal so I didn’t cash it. Next month another check, pretty annoying. Third month, a bigger check yet. Finally I went to the website and read what the partner program was ... oh shit. They are literally giving me money - I just wanted a place to host my videos for free.

My most important video

If I had to choose the most important video I have filmed in the last 20 years, its definitely the one titled "Do to do your first pullup (then 8 more!)". It doesn’t have the most views but it has helped more people than any other video I have done. It showed people who could not do a single pullup how they could build up their strength using "Walk the planks" (negative reps) to the point where they could do 8 pullups. We would call this a progression video today and they are everywhere on youtube now but to my knowledge, this video was the first:

YouTube algorithm changes and doxing

Then something tectonic happened under the covers at YouTube which drastically changed what videos people saw. For the first years I was on youtube, those who subscribed to my channel got notified every time I released my weekly video so each new video got hundreds of thousands of views. Then YouTube implemented their recommendation algorithm. Rather than showing people the videos they had asked to see, YouTube would recommend alternative points of view. This was in response to some extremist channels gaining popularity. Anyway, overnight my views dropped to 1/100 what they were before. This algorithm changed happened about the time of the doxing so most people assumed that it was the doxing made me disappear when in fact it was the algorithm. I have uploaded at least one video every single week like clockwork since 2006.

Anyway, I never expected to get paid for my videos so it didn’t change anything when my popularity dropped to 1/100. People like sixpackshortcuts who were just in it for the money dropped out at that point but I kept on with my weekly videos. In many ways, I was relieved to be out of the spotlight. Once my popularity dropped, the comments on YouTube became more thoughtful and entertaining and I actually started to look forward to answering each and every comment when I woke up in the morning. Everything always works out for the best.

The future

One thing you will note is that these days, I only do a fitness and nutrition video when I have something new to say. I have no interest in re-doing my bicep curl videos just because those get the views. I am pretty passionate about teaching people about saving, investing and financial independence so you will notice a lot of videos on that subject now. Also, I inflict my flying videos on people just because I love the artistic nature of filming our amazingly beautiful country from the air.

Again, thanks to everyone who has been a part of this amazing 20 year fitness journey with me! I'm active on all these platforms if you want to find me elsewhere:

Instagram @scoobysworkshop

TikTok @scooby.1961

facebook.com/GetFitForFree

Why is SCOOBY going on tiktok?

TikTok is a place for teens, why on earth would a 65 year old man start an account on tiktok in 2025? Great question! There are a number of technical reasons that tiktok is better for me as a live streaming platform but the bigger issue is that on YouTube I cannot escape my past. I am like Jason Statham whose success is his acting curse - he has to play the exact same character in every movie he does because that is what people want to see. Same with me on YouTube, minus the famous part. I was the first fitness trainer on YouTube 20 years ago and people still expect me to do that and complain when I don’t. Unlike other trainers on YouTube whose full time job is running a channel, my only goal was to help people get in shape for free. Green checkmark, mission accomplished. I refuse to do dozens of “Get bigger biceps!” just because that’s what people want to see. The reason for starting up the tiktok channel is just to have FUN and be playful, not teach. I will still continue to do fitness, nutrition, and health videos on YouTube when I have something new to say but I will not bother repeating content found in my existing 1500 videos. On YouTube I will also continue my financial independence, investing, and life skills videos because I enjoy doing those. TikTok will be to do stupid fun things without people complaining or calling me juvenile. Ask my husband, I am an 8 year old in a 65 year old body. My sense of humor is that of a 8 year old. My kitchen “skills” are that of an 8 year old. My “fashion” sense is that of an 8 year old. My goal when putting together an outfit is to get my husband to roll his eyes and my fans on YouTube don’t want to see such juvenile content. For example, such as, The Iraq …

@swolegrandpaI’m not as gay as I think I am!

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Scooby live every week on TikTok

I want this to be on a regular weekly schedule to get a better sense of community and to have more fun. If you have a better suggestion for a broadcast time, please let me know. 90% of my fans are in the Americas and Europe so it must be a time that both continents find convenient. Again, I cannot start a live broadcast till I have 1000 followers so please follow me here: https://www.tiktok.com/@scooby.1961

Proposed live broadcast time is Tuesdays at 11:00am Pacific:

• 11:00am Pacific

• 12:00 Mountain

• 1:00pm Central

• 2:00pm Eastern

• 7:00pm Western European Time

• 8:00pm Central European Time

We all know that smoking, drinking, high stress, lack of sleep, and exposure to toxic chemicals makes people age quickly and now there is a test to quantify this aging, the epigenetic test. Compare your chronological age to your epigenetic cellular age and you can see into the fortunetellers crystal ball! If you are 40 and your epigenetic age is 60 then you have been given a final warning to clean up your act before its too late. If you are 40 and your epigenetic age is 25, then well done! Keep doing what you are doing because its well worth the sacrifices and effort!

To test or not to test?

We are faced all the time with the decision of whether to get a test or not. Should we get an ultrasound of our 17 year old Shih Tzu to see if he has liver cancer? Should we get a MRI of our lower back to see what is the cause of our lower spine pain? Should we get our engine oil tested to see anything is prematurely failing? Should we get an epigenetic test? There are two camps here and its tough for them to understand the others perspective.

Perspective 1: Only do the test if it will change your actions.

Showing my hand here, I am an engineer and I am 100% in this camp. I will never get a test unless the result will change my action plan. Lets look at the above examples from this person’s perspective:

• Get ultrasound of 17 year old dog to see if they have liver cancer. No, don’t test. If it was cancer, a 17 year old dog is too old to operate on anyway so why make our pet suffer thru an ultrasound?

• Get an MRI of your lower back to see what is causing lower back pain. Nope, don’t test. Lower back surgery has such a pathetically low success rate that I would never consider it anyway so why bother getting the MRI? Just go to physical therapy.

• Get engine oil tested to see if anything is prematurely failing. Yes! Do it! Finding a failing part before it fails can save thousands of dollars and perhaps save a life.

• Get an epigenetic test to see our cellular age. No, don’t do it. We already know all the things that are required for a healthy lifestyle and should be doing them regardless of what the test results are.

Perspective 2: Test now, I need to know!

Some people just need to know. They need this information to be mentally prepared for what is coming, even if they cannot do anything to prevent it.

Questions to ask before getting epigenetic testing

1. If you are already exercising, eating healthy minimally processed natural foods, minimizing stress, getting enough sleep, not smoking, and not drinking alcohol then how would affect you to know that your efforts have been “wasted” and that you are aging way faster than the calendar indicates you should be? Would you double down and try even harder? Would you just argue with the results and insist on getting another test that “proves” you are really young inside? Would you simply give up, stop the “health freak” stuff, and experiment with pot and psychedelics?

2. If you know what a healthy lifestyle requires but you are not doing it, how would affect you to know that you are aging way faster than the calendar indicates you should be? Would this be the wake up call you need to get off your duff and get healthy? Would it just depress you and make you try even less?

Do you miss drinking?

People ask if I miss drinking, hell yes! I stopped 8 months ago because the doctor noticed elevated liver enzymes and suggested I lower my alcohol consumption to 3 glasses of wine a week. Like with sugar, its much easier for me to totally stop than to limit consumption. My “trigger” for drinking was being in a really good happy mood which for me is pretty much all the time. Worst is sitting with my husband in the evening by our pool with the beautiful view, landscape lighting, and music.

How is alcohol related to epigenetic testing? The reason I don’t want to get an epigenetic test is that I am already doing everything I can to live a healthy lifestyle. My fear is that if the test came back and said that I was an 90 year old living in a 65year olds body, I would throw up my hands and start drinking again despite the fact my brain knows that is totally idiotic.

Know yourself

There is no right or wrong answer to whether you should get epigenetic testing or not. For me, its not a good idea but for you, it might be just what you need. One thing to take into account is the cost and accuracy. It is expensive, about $400 per test. Because the accuracy is suspect in my opinion, I would suggest testing 3-4 times from each of two different companies for a total of 6-8 tests to get a good average. $3,000 is a lot of money but if that is what it takes to get you to start living a healthy lifestyle, its probably the best investment you will ever make.

IMO, the only wrong use of an epigenetic test is to get it done so that you can brag about how young you are on social media :)

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A muscle pull yesterday (Sunday) made me think about this. I pulled my piraformis so bad that I literally could not walk without the aid of a walker. I was SO excited about the upcoming week. I was going to do three bike/hikes, train with my trainer at the gym, and go on a flying trip. I was VERY excited but now even getting to the toilet was a big challenge. When I pulled the muscle, my first thought was:

Then, without skipping a beat I went into my “glass half full mode”. I got injured, it sucks, get over it. How can I benefit from this situation? What could I do with my 20 hours of cardio and lifting time in the next week if I can’t even walk? I’m a true engineer in that I always have a plan and a backup plan. The plan was to hike, bike, lift, and fly. Backup plan is to read “The Kaiju Preservation Society” which is a Hugo nominated science fiction book and do an enhancement on custommealplanner.com. Going to bed Sunday night, I was excited! No matter how I feel when I wake up Monday morning, I win! If I can’t walk without the walker then I get to read a book I have been excited about. If by some miracle my muscle pull is not as bad as it usually is then I get to do the week of fitness I had planned. Win, win! I designed a plan where I literally could not lose.

Well, its Monday. Lifting weights and hiking would be a very bad idea BUT I’m fine for a bike ride!!! I won! I won! If I play my cards right I might be able to exercise AND read my book!

Forget the "all my food for the day" videos which are not helpful at all, I will show you exactly what you need to do to cut for summer while still gaining muscle. Im 65 and if I can do this, you can too!

The reason people get the mistaken notion that cutting burns off muscle is because the the roid-bros. They bulk while on a cycle and get huge and fat then they cut their calories drastically to get ripped. When they go off their steroid cycle they lose muscle. Then they do an idiotic starvation diet to lose all the fatand that burns off even more muscle. It’t not cutting that causes you to lose muscle, its ridiculous fast diets.

What about wegovy and ozempic?

For natural lifters who are beginners or intermediates, its relatively easy to gain muscle while you cut for summer - just four things you need to do:

1. Good nutrition with 1g progein per pound of bodyweight.

2. Sleep 7-8 hours a night, regardless of how little sleep you think you need.

3. Choose a good workout plan and workout really hard.

4. Lose the weight slowly!

As mentioned earlier, the main reason that people lose muscle while cutting is that they cut their calories too drastically. What is "losing the weight gradually"?

Gradual weight loss for the specified bodyweight:

• 260lbs 5.5lbs/mo

• 240lbs 5.2lbs/mo

• 200lbs 4.6lbs/mo

• 180lbs 4.3lbs/mo

• 160lbs 4.0lbs/mo

If you want to lose weight sooner than that you have two options, start your cut earlier or lose muscle.

So by this point, 75% of people have stopped reading because they just want to use Ozempic or do some idiotic fad diet. For the few of you left reading, let me show you how to come up with the perfect meal plan to help you cut while gaining muscle. Its easy, go to custommealplanner.com and set the caloric reduction to 20%! It’s that simple. Two big warnings:

1. No cheat days. A single cheat meal can be devastating to your weight loss program and a cheat day can undo a month of progress. If you want a successful cut with the monthly fat loss indicated then NO CHEAT MEALS.

2. When you select your activity level, do not include walking - I assume you walk a lot. Do not include weightlifting time, I assume you lift weights. Only include cardio time when you are huffing and puffing so heavily you cannot talk. If you do no cardio of this intensity then say “sedentary”. The main cause of people not being able to lose weight is that they over-credit their exercise and undercount their calories.

If you want to take your shirt off with confidence at those July 4th BBQs this summer, NOW is the time to start your cut. Today. The more time you have for your cut, the easier it is. Please, eat real food like custommealplanner suggests! Remember that weight loss products are expensive and ineffective - if they worked we would not have an obesity epidemic.

Optimal for you or optimal for your trainer? Doesnt it strike you as an astounding coincidence that the oft reported “1 hour is the optimal workout time” just happens to be 1/24 of a revolution of the earth??? How are our bodies so linked to the planetary rotation? They are not! One hour is a convienient time for personal trainers, not an optimal amount of time to workout. Optimal for health, strength gain, muscle mass gain, or for time effeciency?

Take a poll at the gym and ask people “How long is optimal to workout?” and everyone will emphatically know the “correct” answer and quote their favorite teenage SARMS broccoli head - and everyone will all give you a different answer. Keep an open mind about how long might be optimal to workout and consider experimenting if you are an advanced lifter who has hit a plateau. Try 45 minute workouts for 6 months then try 90 minute workouts for 6 months and see if either reboots your gains.

The optimal time to workout is very complicated because it depends on so many factors:

• type of workout -powerlifting, bodybuilding, or cardiovascular

• size of bodyparts being worked - big like quads or little like biceps

• experience level - beginner or advanced

• amount of sleep

• nutrition

• stress levels

• when your last workout was

Big muscles with big weights is very taxing on the body which is why powerlifting workouts are shorter and have fewer sets that bodybulding workouts. Workouts involving quads, chest, or lats tend to be very taxing. Workouts that hit the little guys like calves, arms, or shoulders are much less taxing.

Today I did a 80 minute weight workout. I did 55 minutes of lats followed by 25 minutes of biceps. Something that you develop after decades of lifting is the ability to tell when your body is done and after 55 minutes I could tell that my lats were done and I was pretty tired from moving that big weight. The thing is, nothing says that you cant do little stuff after that. I used supersets most of the workout so my workout volume was very high, maybe 30 sets in the 80 minutes. Doing biceps and abs doesnt tax the central nervous system so my body has no problem doing 25 minutes of those, and I am 65 years old.

WARNING: If you are a beginner or intermediate lifter then stick to a standard workout plan and do it unmodified. The temptation for new lifters is to fall into the “more is better” mindset and lots of sets which is counterproductive.

After Trump won the election by a landslide, I did a post 11/25/24 titled "How to get rich during Trump's next term". Well, things have changed quickly and I wanted to give you a heads up that I have reversed course on my stock market half of that prediction. In that post I said that I was very bullish on both real estate and the stock market. I expected the stock market to do very well because of the de-regulation and the corporate tax reductions I expected president elect Trump to quickly enact. The stock market likes stability and what I didnt take into account when I predicted a booming stock market was the chaos caused by tarrifs. Worse yet is the market uncertainty caused by DOGE dismantling important government agencies. Then we have the crypto contagion which I didnt even see coming.

Crypto contagion of Wall Street

I guess I was naive. When president elect Trump promised to be a crypto-friendly president I guess I had something else in mind. I assumed that EFTs of BTC were the end of it but now its sounding like the way has been paved for every memecoin to have an ETF too. Then there is the Hagerty stablecoin legislation which would cement the fate of Wall Street to the previously firewalled and very voliaotile crypto markets. Imagine what might have happened back during the Sam Bankman Fried FTX Crypto-Crash had there been all the Wall Street funds in BTC ETFs like there are today - the crash could have affected everyone rather than just the crypto-speculators. It looks like soon, Wall Street will be far more exposed to the crypto market gyrations.

My new investing position

First, remember that I am 65 years old and the older a person is, the less risk averse they are because I simply do not have the “time in the market” to recover from a dotcom crash, S&L crash, or depression era crash. Two weeks ago on 2/17/25 I sold off S&P500 funds to get the percent of my assets in the stock market down to 25%. Here is my current asset allocation as of 2/17/25:

The stock I sold went into very safe short term t-bills which are earning excellent interest rates. Should the stock market have a correction and become more attractive then I would put my cash back into the market.

Real Estate

My recommendation for real estate as an excellent investment still holds and I am very comfortable holding 41% of my net worth in real estate. In fact, I expect it to do even better now because tarrifs on Canadian lumber will cause the cost of home construction to rise significantly on top of inflation which also looks like it will be higher than anyone expected.

Precious Metals and Crypto

I have 12% of my net worth in what I call “Plan B” investments which is precious metals and crypto. Crypto is speculation and I am fully prepared for it to be worth zero but I want some just for diversification. I am still in “hold” with regard to BTC but should it get below 60k I would consider gambling some more money on it.

Time in the market > Timing the market

For decades this is exactly what I did and it served me very well. Just Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) by putting a fixed percent of my income into a S&P500 index fund and leaving it alone worked very well. I am worried its differernt now. Doge is firing federal employees indisciminently and opaquely. My concern is that they may have fired SEC employees responsible for monitoring compliance with the “guardrail” regulations put in place to prevent market meltdowns. If you look at the stock market crash of 1929 it is a sobering reminder that time in the market does not always beat timing the market.

After the stock market crash of 1929 it took 25 years to get above where it was in 1929 and many of us cant stay in the market that long.

Disclaimer: I was wrong and will be wrong again

Its only been 4 months since I predicted that the stock market would be an excellent investment and I have already done a 180. The truth is that the economy is in uncharted territory here. I based my predictions on watching the markets over 40 years but clearly the underlying rules have changed making it very difficult to use past experience to predict the future. In other words, I have no idea what I am talking about :)

Life is full of little choices that make huge differences over time. Lets take coffee. I drank instant coffee for 40 years because its what my grandparents who lived thru the depression did but most people go to Starbucks daily. A small decision in the scheme of life but one that over time, adds up to a very big difference.

This instant coffee is from Costco, it goes on sale for $10 and it makes 210 cups of coffee. 5 cents a cup but lets say I like it strong and round up to 10 cents a cup.

Starbucks on the other hand is about $3.00 for a brewed coffee, more for the fancy ones.

10 cents vs $3, so Starbucks costs 2.90 more a day or $87 a month. Yes, the Starbucks probably tastes a bit better but lets look at how much more you will pay for coffee over 40 years.

Below is an investment calculator, lets see how much $87/mo adds up to after 40 years when its invested at 8% in the stock market (8% average return last 50 years).

Let me ask you this, what would you rather have, a cup of Starbucks every day or a cup on instant daily plus 300k in 40 years?

Instant coffee or a Starbucks? A small decision with big consequences. Lets look at two other little decisions that really add up over time.

A million dollars or the latest iPhone and Netflix?

You can get a pay as you go cellphone for $40/mo but the average American spends $120/mo on their cellphone so they get the latest iPhone "free" every 3 years - that’s $80/mo more a month.

The average American spends $60/mo on streaming services when a HDTV antenna attached to their TV can give them entertainment for free.

Lets add up the savings of those three little monthly decisions: $87 coffee, $80 cellphone, $61 streaming = $228/mo

Those three little sacrifices will leave you with $801,484.12 in 40 years which is a great start for retirement or maybe after 10 years use it on a down payment for a house.

Its all the little decisions that are important in life!

People often think its the big decisions that are the most important when it comes to fitness or finance, but that’s not true, its the dozens of little decisions you make every day that are more important. A Big Mac from Mc Donalds or grill chicken at home? Pizza from UberEats for dinner or spaghetti made at home? Watch a movie or go for a 2hr walk with your best friend? Instant coffee or Starbucks? Do tutorials for Fusion 360 or go out drinking with your buddies? Its all these daily choices that add up and are far more important in the long run that whether you decided to become a fireman or a pilot.

Notes

The average stock market return over last 50 years is about 10% but it depends on how you calculate it. Here I have been very conservative and chosen a 8% return.

How much a cup of starbucks costs depends upon location and whether its simple brewed coffee or a specialty drink. Also, most people tip rather generously since the people working at Starbucks only make minimum wage. I based the price on a mid-sized brewed coffee which is $3. Note that marketing studies have shown that the average starbucks customers spends $6 per visit which is twice what I have assumed.

Inflation. Yes, one needs to take inflation into account when deciding how much $305,829 will be worth in 40 years. In the last century, inflation has averaged out to about 2%. That means our 8% return in the stock market is really only 6% and if we redo the $87/mo coffee savings calculation, that means that $2.90/day saved means 174k in todays dollars in your pocket in 40 years.

The average American spends $61/mo on streaming services.

The average American spends $112 and $157/mo on their cellphone plan

This is the investment calculator I used.

In the past I have done “new years resolutions” videos to get people to focus their goals in the coming year but I realize that its a big mistake to couple it with new years. There is so much negative baggage around the whole “new years resolution” thing. For most people, its not a positive experience but rather punishing themselves for all their mistakes. Looking forward to what you want to accomplish in 2025 should be joyous, exciting, and if they are good goals, a bit scary too. Goals are exciting, resolutions are punishment.

If you don’t have goals, others will make them for you

If you don’t know what you want to accomplish in 2025 then you mom, your friends, and your boss will gladly tell you what to do. You need to write down the important things you want to accomplish in 2025 so that they become as important as the needs of others. Don’t let the world walk all over you, your goals are as just as important as those of the people making demands of you. Please consider checking out the book “7 habits of highly effective people” to take your list of goals and turn it into a reality in 2025. You can also watch my time management playlist. You only have 16 hours of consciousness a day, make every one of them count.

My accomplishments in 2024

I have mentioned in a recent video that 2024 was a really rough year for me but I still did have some achievements:

• Got total shoulder replacement

• Flew Dotty around USA

• Helped get a relative into a good living situation

• Sold Priscilla, our RV

• Swapped rental property 600 miles away with a local property

• Re-wrote and made my new custom bodybuilding fitness meal planner available!

My goals for 2025

One thing to mention is that my goals will be significantly different than yours because of my age. When I was younger, more than half my goals had to do with career, saving money, and investing. Let me break down my goals by category because it helps me see if things are well balanced or not.

FITNESS

• Shoulder, continue 2x weekly rehab of my new shoulder.

• Regain my upper body mass (regain 5-10 lbs muscle). My upper body workouts the last decade have really been limited because of my shoulder and now that I have a new shoulder, I feel confident that I can regain some of the 10lbs upper body muscle I lose

• Sprint triathlon. With my new shoulder I can swim again and my knee seems to be in order so my goal is to do a sprint triathlon in 2025.

• Stay off alcohol. Its been 3 months since I have had any, its now a lifelong commitment.

• 9% bodyfat. Now that I can bike again and I am not getting empty calories from alcohol, cutting to 9% bodyfat and maintaining it is realistic.

CLEANUP AND ORGANIZE

• Sell two of my six bikes

• Clean out hangar of all but essential tools and supplies

• Clean out garage and closet using “sparks of joy”

• Build closet shelves to organize

FLYING SKILLS

• Get my biannual flight review

• Get checked out in T-6 Texan (Military trainer used in WW2)

• Fly around USA

MACHINE SHOP

• Finish 5 yr rubber replacement on Dotty

• Improve skills in 3D Printing and Fusion360

• Buy 1966 911s to restore

Custom Meal Planner

• Do two more feature enhancement releases

1. Those who you enjoy being around. You might choose a friend simply because you enjoy being around them. They might be funny or share common interests or hobbies.

2. Those who can help you. You might choose a friend because they can help you in your career, your fitness, or your life goals. Maybe they are really good at helping you indirectly by being supportive of your goals. They might just be very accomplished and helpful just because they provide a role model.

3. Those who need your help. You might choose a friend simply because they are having a rough time and need help, mentoring, or a role model.

4. Those who you can’t avoid. People like co-workers, classmates, or family that you are forced to be with regardless of how much you like or dislike them. These may or may not be friends, in fact, they might be very toxic.

The interesting thing is the progression. Kids always go with #1, those who you find fun to be around. As people get into high school they start choosing friends based on #2, those who can help them. The help might be as superficial as improving social status or it might be academic/career help. As one passes mid-life, many choose some friends who are in need of help or mentoring (#3).

Toxic “friends”

Lets start with toxic people, those are the easiest to kick off your island. If they are not fun to be around, are not supportive of your goals, or make you feel bad about yourself then its time to press their eject button. You can’t eject co-workers or family but you can hold them at arms length. Be civil and professional, but that’s it, you don’t need to waste your social time or pretend to be chummy with them.

Which friends do you vote off your island?

Really tough question and one that I am personally grappling with right now. I have lots of goals left in life and so the time I have to spend with friends is very limited. Which friends do I choose? Its easy to say, limit friends to #2, those who can help you, but if everyone did that then the world would be a pretty sucky place. I think back to our friend Helen who we helped every day for the 20 years before she died at age 99. Looking back on it, its she who helped us and I think we benefited more than she did. Its a good argument for choosing friends because you want to help them because sometimes, you might actually be the one benefiting the most.

Certainly friends in group #1 are really important too, those you just like being around. I have my flying friends, my fitness friends, and my neighbor friends. There is a lot of overlap too as people that I enjoy being around are often supportive too.

For me, I think I need a balance of friends in all the groups … except for the toxic group.

Why are you analyzing this?

Most people reading this are probably scratching their heads asking why I am taking something as simple as choosing friends and making it so complicated. I guess the answer is that I am an engineer and we engineers love analyzing shit. The second reason is that I might be a tad on the spectrum. The third reason is that its New Years and I am planning my goals and how to spend my time in 2025.

This whole introspective commentary is because I have a friend who I used to really enjoy spending time with but in the last decade they have become a train wreck. Every time after I spend time with them I need to take an hour and get all the pillow screams out of my system. The problem is that they make really bad decisions. To reduce the cognitive dissonance that would destroy their sanity, they come up with these stories to convince themselves that their horrible decisions were actually brilliant. Its like they are hoping that if they repeat the stories enough times, they will become the truth. They never leave allow any space for comment before rushing on to the next subject. After an hour with them, my head is spinning and only repeated pillow screams make me feel better.

I had hit the friend-eject button on them as 'toxic’ but now I am reminded that they really need help. I have a number of people I am mentoring thru my fitness channel and social media, but I have decided that I certainly have time to spend an hour with this person every once in awhile. They will never again be a category 1 (fun be around) or category 2 (helpful to my goals) friend ever again but thats fine. If they need someone to listen to their stories so that they can convince themselves its true and reduce their cognitive dissonance to maintain their sanity then I guess I can do that now and then. By the way, for those about to suggest strategies I could use to help them, they are in therapy and I’m not a therapist. I view my goal as helping to keep them sane until the therapist can get them back on track.

Which friends are you keeping on your island?

I’m an introvert who loves solo activities. I love taking 3 week bike rides alone. I love working alone on my homebuilt airplane in the shop for 8hrs a day. I’m very fortunate to have a scintillating husband who is also an excellent judge of character. He pulls me into social settings with quality people which is great because otherwise I might be a hermit. I’m also very fortunate that my introverted nature drew me to making videos because I have met some great fitness friends thru that - funny how things turn out. Please give some thought to who you will spend your time with in 2025.

A large contingent of Americans celebrate Luigi Mangione for murdering the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson with the justification that his policies of “Delay and Deny” have killed thousands or patients from lack of care - 100% true. The next CEO of UnitedHealthcare will “delay and deny” just like Brian Thompson did, why? The board would fire the CEO if he didn’t! UnitedHealthcare is a publicly traded corporation and their responsibility is to their stockholders, not their patients. If the CEO is not maximizing stockholder value then the board will fire him and install someone else. This is the reality of “for-profit” healthcare.

Its OUR fault!

Its our fault because many of us hold stock in UnitedHealthcare. We are the ones forcing them to “delay and deny” for our gains. Take a look at your 401k funds and I can almost guarantee that you hold UNH stock individually or thru an S&P500 Index fund. We are the ones profiting from “delay and deny”.

Its also our fault because every time some reform of the American health care system comes up, people always scream: “America’s for-profit healthcare system is the best in the world!”. We have had many opportunities to vote for reforming our system but massive spending by corporate America’s physicians lobby (AMA), hospital lobby (AHA), and insurance lobby convince American to keep the status quo. Proposals to move away from the for-profit healthcare system are often labeled “socialist” or “communist”. This is the system we voted for and we are stuck with.

Moving Forward

Because of the enormous clout of the lobby groups representing doctors, hospitals, and health insurance companies as well as the political hatred toward “Obamacare”, converting to a Canadian style or German style healthcare system is never going to happen so we need to focus on making our for-profit privatized healthcare system work better. We *can* make our for-profit healthcare system work again and become the envy of the world but its going to industry regulation to prevent companies like UnitedHealthcare from getting away with having 3x the denial rate of other insurance companies. It will be a big challenge for the incoming Trump Administration to achieve two opposing goals: Deregulation and fixing healthcare.

The Black Friday Hangover

You wake up excited about your new purchases but there is that nagging feeling about paying 21% interest on your credit card balance that you can’t afford to pay off.

Encouraging you to buy things you don’t need and cant afford and then charging you 21% interest how large corporations make you their lifelong servant.

Want vs need

We Americans are the world’s champions at rationalization and the constant advertisements that pummel us convince us of all the things we “need”. Lets look at what we need: food, water, and shelter. Everything else is a want, not a need.

The problem is that social media serves to reinforce this wanton consumption. If your phone breaks and you post to social media about your bum luck and how you “have to” buy a iPhone 16 pro, you will get all kinds of sympathy and support which reinforces your decision to buy one. The thing is, do you really “need” a $1600 iPhone 16 or would a $150 android work?

Test for “needing” a purchase

If you do not purchase this item:

• Will you or any family member get sick or die?

• Will you or any family member lose their job?

If the answer to either question is “yes” then you need to purchase this item, otherwise, its a want and not a need.

Can you delay the purchase?

OK, you have decided you need to make an expenditure but can it wait? If you could wait until black Friday to purchase it then you can probably wait longer. The biggest sale of all is paying cash, its a 21% off sale because you save credit card interest.

Can you find a cheaper solution?

Once you have established that the expenditure is something you need, is there a cheaper option? This is where Americans are master rationalizers. You are an uber driver and must have a smart phone for work. You want a $1600 iPhone 16 and have convinced yourself you NEED it but a Galaxy A15 for $169 would actually work fine.

You need to get work and have convinced yourself that you NEED to buy a Tesla CyberTruck for 100k. The thing is, you WANT a CyberTruck but a 2005 Toyota Corolla is all you need. In fact, maybe you do not need a car at all. You could bike or take the bus to work? Could you Uber or carpool to work? Do a spreadsheet and be honest with yourself. A car is very convenient but very expensive when you include car payments, insurance, license fees, gas, and maintenance. Biking and public transportation is slow and hard but cheap. Using your hourly wage, estimate the times savings of owning a car and do a spreadsheet and decide which is the best decision.

At the top of the article, I mentioned the three basic needs of food, water, and shelter. For food, all you need is beans, rice, and corn but what you want is a dinner at Le FancyPants Steak House which is the place to see and be seen. For shelter, all you need is a tent with firewood but what you want is to live in a 5000 square foot apartment in Chateau de PeePee where everyone who is anyone lives. Need vs want.

Curing Black Friday Remorse

This is going to hurt and hurt bad. Put your tail between your legs, pack up those purchases and return them. Even if there is a 20% restocking fee, pay it.

Coffee is good for you! (?)

Coffee has anti-oxidants! Coffee makes you less likely to develop Parkinsons! Coffee helps protect the liver. Coffee makes your risk of colon cancer decrease!

All this is wonderful BUT, if it keeps you from getting a good 8 hours sleep that negative health effect will outweigh all the good the coffee is doing. Also, if your coffee is a sweet pumpkin spiced machiato with 600 calories then the health problems caused by the obesity will outweigh all the good the coffee is doing. Even a splash of cream and a few spoons of sugar daily can add up to 5lbs of fat gain yearly.

Also, too much of a good thing is almost always bad as I discovered …

What I discovered about coffee consumption and blood pressure

I stumbled upon the relationship between coffee consumption and blood pressure by accident. Because I’m an engineer, I like data so two weeks before every yearly physical I chart my blood pressure. I would always take the readings mid morning after my breakfast and coffee but one day, I took it when I first got up. Hmmm, way lower. Fluke? Bad reading? Although I have only been charting for one week, the results are too startling to ignore:

The 7 day experiment was enough to point out something really obvious, I am consuming way too much coffee. With 9tsp of instant coffee a day, even if my blood pressure is only elevated temporarily, its just too high. The average of the four readings measured after drinking the coffee was 134/84. The average of the four readings taken before drinking coffee was 110/74.

The Harvard School of Medicine makes this claim:

I have found this statement to be untrue but perhaps their study did not include anyone drinking bathtubs full of coffee.

Sleep and coffee

If you have trouble getting to sleep, staying asleep, or in sleeping a full 8 hours the first thing you should do is stop all caffeine consumption, not even in the morning. The problem with caffeine is that it has a half life of 5 hours. What this means is that if you have four shots of espresso at 5pm before your workout that when you try to go to bed at 10pm, you still have two shots of expresso making your brain spin in circles. Going out to dinner, how many times have you heard this at desert time from your friend who is ordering coffee with desert?

That is probably true, the DO fall right to sleep because they are dead tired and their intense fatigue overpowers the caffeine. The trouble happens at 2am when they wake up to pee and cant get back to sleep. After having slept a few hours, the fatigue is no longer sufficient to overpower the caffeine remaining in their systems. They are simply fooling themselves that the pre-bedtime coffee has no effect on them.

If you cannot get 8 hours of good quality sleep, the first thing you should try is limiting your coffee consumption to morning only. If that does not work then try cutting it totally out.

Who needs to be concerned about excess coffee consumption?

High blood pressure is an important predictor of heart attacks and stoke. Its a good idea to get a home blood pressure setup from your local drugstore and charting the results for a week because its really hard for a doctor to tell what is going on with just one reading taken at the office, especially if you are drinking a lot of coffee that makes your blood pressure vary a lot.

Further experiments

Like any research, this little accidental experiment of mine gave some insight about coffee but it made me think of even more questions that need to be answered. Here are the questions I would love answers to:

1. Is the elevation in blood pressure proportional to coffee intake? Repeat the 7 day data collection for intake between 1 cup and 10 cups.

2. How long does blood pressure remain elevated after coffee consumption? What I really need is hourly readings for a week to know this.

3. Is something else in the coffee other than caffeine affecting the blood pressure? A great experiment would be to do a week of measurments with each of the following:

   1. regular coffee

   2. caffeine tablets containing same amount of caffeine as the coffee

   3. decaf coffee

   4. no caffeine consumption of any kind

In the next four years, ride on the coattails of the rich people who will profit from deregulation. Buy stock. Buy or hold real estate. BUT, make sure you execute your exit strategy before a deregulation fueled market crash happens.

Why take my investing advice?

You shouldn’t take my advice nor that of anyone else! I will be the first to point out that I do not have a business degree nor am I financial planner. I'm an engineer who never made a six figure salary but yet thru scrimping, saving, and investing was able to retire at age 40. Since retirement 23 years ago, my net worth has continued to increase at 6% a year even with my lifestyle.

Just listen to the trends I am pointing out, and think about what it means for YOUR investing strategy. I don’t care what you do, as long as you THINK about it and decide for yourself. Gather all the information you can and then decide for yourself what you think the future holds. The following is just my take on things and I would be very interested in hearing yours.

Why stocks are king the next four years

President elect Trump has made it very clear that DEREGULATION is going to be the theme of his next term which is why the stock market was exuberant when he got elected. Large corporations are hindered at every turn by federal regulation. The EPA makes them spend billions to keep them from polluting our air and water. The SEC prevents large corporations from merging and forming ultra-profitable monopolies. Banking regulations prevent risky high yield investments that endanger their financial stability. Many of these restrictive regulations are going to be eliminated which means that I see corporate profits soaring during President Trumps term and an extended bull market. This is precisely why I am going to be aggressively investing in the stock market. Since I already have a huge portion of my assets in the stock market, I am in no hurry to get into the bull market and will be doing dollar cost averaging over the next year after the current exuberance dies down a bit.

STOCK STOCK STOCKS! Ride on the coattails of the 1%.

The second part of my stock market strategy is an exit strategy. Deregulation has huge risks. In fact, the near collapse of the US economy triggered by Silicon Valley Bank failing was directly attributed to the 2018 EGRRCPA banking deregulation. Aggressive deregulation will probably cause a financial meltdown, the only question is when. My bet is that it will take at least 5 years so my plan is to sell off all my stock by Jan 1, 2029. I don’t care if I miss a few years of bull market, I want to leave the party before things get messy.

Also, make sure to put your assets into BANKS that are too large to fail and keep the balance under the FDIC insured amounts. Do NOT keep your money in internet banks like WISE because when these companies fail, your money is GONE.

Why Real Estate is a great investment during Trump’s second term

Let me explain why I am as bullish on real estate as I am with the stock market and also give some advice to people who are angry about their inability to buy their first home.

Things I believe will make real estate continue to be an amazing investment:

1. Federal reserve trend of lowering interest rates

2. A housing shortage that will take at least a decade to correct

3. Inflation caused by large federal deficits

4. Possible tax breaks to investors in real estate

5. Possible deregulation allowing corporations to snap up single family homes

A quick note for people who are angry about their inability to buy a house. It IS possible for young people to buy a home and the method I outline for buying your first home in "Poor to rich for disadvantaged teens" still works today. In fact, my nephew Michael did this exact thing this year and bought his first house at age 22 with no money down.

The other thing to note is that the secret to making house purchases affordable is to reverse the trend of monster houses. To make affordable housing we need to make SMALLER units in multi-story buildings but restrictive NIMBY zoning laws prevent this. Until we find a way of changing zoning laws, housing will never be affordable.

Although I am bullish on the housing market, I have no plans to buy any more real estate because I am retired and being a landlord is really a full time job if you do it well. I currently have three rental properties and will not be buying any more.

Lets again talk about the real estate exit strategy. As mentioned with the stock market, deregulation is a huge risk to our economy. A deregulation caused stock market crash would also cause a crash of real estate prices because of the massive number of foreclosures it would cause. My plan for real estate is also to sell all of my rental properties by Jan 1, 2029.

OK: So summary so far. STOCK MARKET - buy buy buy. REAL ESTATE - buy buy buy.

Get rich quick with Crypto!

• Bitcoin is going to break 100k this week!

• Bitcoin is skyrocketing!

• Bitcoin hit a record high today!!!!

• All my friends are getting rich by day trading crytpo!

I say this in every crypto video I have ever made. Putting money in crypto is gambling, not investing, so only put in money that you can afford to lose. The reason I bought crypto at the bottom on 12/12/22 was on the outside chance it actually becomes a currency. Just like last time, the masses are going to get FOMO with BTC hitting 100k and jump into the market then lose their shirts. Please don’t listen to people who claim to have a system for beating the market and getting rich. Their "system" to get rich is to make money from suckers who buy their newsletters, seminars, and programs.

Summary

In the next four years, ride on the coattails of the rich people who will profit from deregulation. Buy stock. Buy or hold real estate. BUT, make sure you execute your exit strategy before a deregulation fueled market crash happens.

The funny thing is how a boomer like me quantifies "skyrocket". For me, the 15% return I expect over the next four years IS an incredible rate of return because for most of my life, I have only gotten single digit returns. 15% return IS big. It will double my net worth in just four years. Its when people get greedy that they lose it all.

Apology

First, sorry for the complete absence of posts in the last year. 2024 has been a rough one but things have turned around and I plan on posting regularly. Most of my posts will be about fitness but some, like this one, are about personal finance.

NOTE: Please comment if you have suggestions about how to make this article better and more useful. I will incorporate your suggestions into this weeks video.

My world was turned upside down recently in regards to motivation and its forced me to face the fact that I was wrong all along. I listen to self-improvement podcasts and I recommend that others do as well. Learning does not end when you get your diploma, that’s when learning actually starts. As of Sept 2023, I would say that the best two podcasts are “Hidden Brain” for life and “Hard Fork” for your career.

Since I started making fitness videos in 2004, I have been preaching that if you set your goals properly you do not need motivation - something that I no longer believe. Proper goals I said were internally motivated rather than externally motivated. An example of an external goal that would virtually always fail is lifting weights because you want to be popular and get lots of dates. An example of an internal motivation that will always succeed is lifting weights because it helps you relieve stress and feel better. I still believe these things will work for some people but for many, it will not be enough.

Advancement in fitness knowledge can come from the unlikeliest of places as it did with me. I guess in retrospect its not so strange because as many advanced lifters know that much of lifting is as much a mental game as a physical one. A successful life is about how to use your brain to trick yourself into accomplishing the things you want to achieve.

I’m listening to a “Hidden Brain” podcast entitled “Outsmarting Yourself” which was basically about how humans have an amazing ability after making a decision to create a story in their head that proves they made the right decision, no matter how bad the decision actually was. Cognitive dissonance is fascinating. Then the podcast got into a study about inducing hypocrisy as a method of changing behavior, in other words, outsmarting yourself. There was a study done in the 1980s about how to get people to use condoms to protect themselves from STDs and AIDS. The problem they found was that billboards, posters, and commercials worked for a week or two but what they wanted was for people to permanently change their behavior. What they did was to get student volunteers to advocate for condom use but the study was not about the success of this outreach, it was about the volunteers themselves. What they found was that the rate of condom use of the volunteers even 6 months after their outreach ended was way higher than for any public service announcement program tried previously. Why? “Induced hypocrisy”. Its really icky to be preaching one thing but doing another, makes it difficult to sleep at night. Because these young adults were advocating that others use condoms, it would be really, really hypocritical if they didn’t use condoms themselves. It was at this point that I had an “Aha moment” about my personal fitness motivation.

Yes, using internal motivation rather than external motivation is still really important but its not enough. My fitness journey started in 1981 in the pre-internet era. Because the bodybuilding and nutrition information was so bad, it took me 20 years to reach my genetic max but during that 20 years, the slow gains kept me motivated. Its quite easy to stay motivated when you see gains in strength and mass, even if its slow. Coincidentally in 2001 when I hit my genetic max, I started advocating fitness with friends, family, and anyone who would listen. I started my website and started making videos. Without realizing it, I had entered a new phase of motivation. I struggled in helping others with their fitness motivation because I was not self aware enough to understand my own source of fitness motivation. I had stumbled upon the exact thing discussed in the podcast - “Induced hypocrisy”! Since I was preaching far and wide about the importance and benefits of doing daily cardio and consistent weight lifting, it would have been REALLY hypocritical had I not followed my own advice so it was really, really easy to stay motivated to eat clean, lift weights, and do daily cardio even though I had no hope of ever adding another ounce of muscle. I outsmarted myself for twenty years! How many people could lift 3-5x a week and do 7-15 hours of cardio every week since 1981? Not many! That is the power of induced hypocrisy!

There are a lot of studies how volunteering often helps the volunteer as much as the person receiving the help. I now realize that induced hypocrisy is part of the reason. When I started my YouTube channel I was already retired and didn’t need to make money. I started making videos in 2004 it was because I wanted to give back to the fitness community and help others. Only today in 2023 am I realizing that in giving, I got more benefit than my subscribers did because they helped me stay motivated.

Harness the power of induced hypocrisy to turbocharge your fitness!

Here are ways you can harness induced hypocrisy to boost your fitness motivation, here are some ideas:

1. Promote fitness on social media. Not everyone is going to get hundreds of thousands of followers, I was just in the right place at the right time but you still can use the same motivation method that I did because I suspect that the motivation promoting fitness publicly is independent of the numbers of followers. Find your fitness niche and post away promoting exercise, nutrition, or healthy lifestyles. Lead by example and become more motivated by doing so.

2. Mentor someone. Take someone who is not as far along in their fitness journey and take them under your wing. Once they start depending on you, you wont want to disappoint them.

3. Advocate for healthy food. Workplaces and schools are flooding with junk food, advocate for healthy choices. Once you have advocated for apples and carrots, you would look pretty silly eating cupcakes at break time.

Does this make sense? Sorry :( I know that as an engineer, writing is not always my strong suit. PLEASE COMMENT if you have suggestions about how to make this article better and more useful. I will incorporate your comments before I make my video.

1. A lifetime drug. There are a lot of reasons that people become so obese that their health is in danger including depression, anxiety, lack of nutritional knowledge, and a sedentary lifestyle. These drugs do nothing to address the root cause of the obesity which means that the drugs must be used until death or the weight will just balloon back. If someone was unable to successfully address the root cause of their obesity when their doctor warned them their life was in danger, there is little hope that they will be motivated to address them once they fit back into their wedding tux or wedding dress.

2. Cost. The cost of Ozempic and Wegovy is about $1000/mo and so far, insurance will not cover it for weight loss. Since in most cases these drugs will be required for the patients entire lifetime, this has serious financial implications. Identical 30 year old twins. One starts Wegovy at $1000/mo, the other takes that $1000/mo and invests in the stock market earning an average of 10% (historical S&P500 return). 40 years later at age 70, the Wegovy user has no savings while the stock market investing twin has 6.3 million dollars. If you are expecting insurance will start covering these drugs for weight loss, what do you think will happen to health insurance costs? If 1/4 of America starts using a drug costing $12,000 per year then everyones health insurance premium would go up by $3000 per year to cover this cost assuming that healthy people did not drop out of the health insurance system.

3. Health issues. Ozempic has been approved for diabetes since 2017 so we have six years of experience. Side effects: up to 10% will have hair loss, 44% will have nausea, 30% will have diarrhea, 24% will have vomiting, 24% will have constipation, 20% will have abdominal pain, 14% will have headaches, up to 10% will have dizziness, and 11% will have fatigue. My personal concern is about malnutrition. If someone is obese because their diet consists of BigMacs, M&Ms, and Frappachinos then taking Wegovy just takes away their appetite so they eat fewer BigMacs and M&Ms - it doesnt magically teach them to eat legumes, vegetables, and fruits.

Should you use Wegovy?

I know you want a yes/no answer here but I am not qualified to give it to you nor is anyone else on social media. Only your doctor who knows your medical history will be able to give you proper guidance in deciding if the health risks of your obesity are worth the cost and side-effects of the medication.

What is the best way to fight the obesity epidemic?

We all want someone else to pay for our health costs but thats not going to happen in our for-profit healthcare system. In an ideal world, how would we increase the health of our population for a minimum of money? We would address the root causes of the problem which is always the cheapest option! Not only is addressing the root cause cheaper but it also results in higher quality of life. If you take someone whose chronic depression is causing their obesity and give them Wegovy, you end up with a skinny depressed person - not that much of an improvement.

To address the root cause of the problem, we would provide health care and medications for people with depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. We would financially support afterschool sports for K-12 and adult sports leagues as well to promote active lifestyles. We would teach proper nutrition in K-12 and have cooking classes where people learned how to batch cook from raw ingredients. Yes, all these programs would be very expensive but they are far cheaper than Wegovy.

The sad thing is that only one of these is taught in school which is why we have so many unhealthy and unhappy people in America. The good news is that in one summer you could master all these seven skills and if you do, you will reap the dividends for the rest of your life. If you don’t, you will become one of those unhappy people who constantly post on social media about how much their life sucks.

1. Ability to read and write English. This is the one skill taught in schools but unfortunately, people still graduate without being able to write well enough to make it in modern society. I don’t care if you are an artist, an auto mechanic, or an engineer, if you cant write well you will be severely limited. Engineers and scientists write all the time and are judged by their written word but even artists need to write grant proposals and auto mechanics need to type up summaries of work done. Writing with poor grammar or misspelled words severely limits your pay and your career options. If your English isn’t great then take an in person or online class.

2. Know how to use spreadsheets. Many people don’t even know what a spreadsheet does or think its just something that only accountants use but spreadsheets are critically important for virtually every profession. For example, who is the least likely person to need a spreadsheet? A meathead bodybuilder! Even bodybuilders need spreadsheets to be successful. For strength training, you use a spreadsheet to program your lifts. For tracking lean body mass so you can tell if you are gaining muscle, you need a spreadsheet where you enter your three skinfold measurements and weight daily. One of the most important uses you will find for a spreadsheet is in helping you make financial decisions. For example, what will be the best financially over the next 10 years - renting a house or owning? You don’t have to google advice, YOU make a spreadsheet with assumptions about inflation, and housing appreciation that you are comfortable and the spreadsheet give you the answer. You can teach yourself how to do the basics of a spreadsheet with a YouTube tutorial in a an hour but remember that the learning actually happens when you do your own spreadsheet from scratch. It looks easy when you watch a tutorial but when you try and do your own you will find you don’t understand as well as you thought you did.

3. Be excellent at time management. Everyone has 24 hours in a day but yet there are some people who seem to get 10x more done than others, why is that? Time management! Also critical is knowing what you want to accomplish this year, this month, this week, and today. Knowing what you want to accomplish helps you decide where to allocate your time because you don’t have time to do everything. Go to your local public library and check out a time management book like “7 habits of highly effective people” by Covey and read it. After reading it, DO it! Write down your goals for the year! Now break those down into little chunks. Now make your goals for THIS week. When you are waiting for the spaghetti noodles to cook, rather than flipping thru Instagram, work on one of those little goals! If you want, you can watch my series on time management too.

4. Master money management. Does not matter if you want to be an astronaut or are happy mowing lawns for a living, you can lead a happy life if you know how to manage your money. In a materialistic society like America, the deck is stacked against you. Everything from your K-12 education to the thousands of advertisements you see each year all encourage you to consume more than you make. Problem is, this works for about one year but then your credit card is rung up to the limit and you are paying 21% interest for junk you didn’t need and could not afford. I highly recommend the website mistermustachemoney because its no-nonsense and he doesn’t try and shove expensive courses down your throat. The basics of money management are pretty simple, live under your means and save. You can also watch my playlist on financial independence or investing in real estate.

5. Learning to understand things from another persons perspective. This has become a lost skill as everything in America has become “us vs them” with everyone screaming and nobody listening. If you want to be successful in relationships, your career, and life you need to learn to LISTEN. Not only listen but to be able to put yourself mentally in the shoes of someone else to try and see things from their point of view. The reason this is so important is that if you can figure out what is important to them, it helps you come up with a solution that makes everyone happy. The “bible” on this subject is a book from 1936 titled “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. There is a reason that this 90 year old book has sold 30 million copies. Check it out from your local library and change your life!

6. Learn to batch cook healthy meals. To stay healthy, lean, and strong requires good nutrition and if you eat at restaurants and convenience food from grocery stores, you will lose on all counts. Restaurants need repeat customers so their goal is not health and fitness but rather to make the food so addictively yummy you will overeat and come back again. Good nutrition is not taught in schools and few parents understand it so they can’t teach their kids. You need to learn about good nutrition on your own and a great place to start is by cooking some of the meals in my quick healthy meals playlist. Few people today have time to cook three meals a day from scratch which is why the meals in the above playlist are either very fast to make or are batch cooking using a big pot meals or crockpot so that you can freeze individual meal sized portions. That way, when you are hungry you can simply pull the meal of your choice out of the freezer.

7. Understand and use critical thinking. Back in the 40s and 50s, critical thinking skills were only necessary for engineers and scientists. Back then, “news” meant watching Walter Cronkite on the evening news on CBS giving facts without any editorial. Today, we are inundated with propaganda masquerading as news designed to manipulate our emotions for profit. ChatGPT that happily makes stuff up that sounds realistic but is total fabrication. Websites post fake news. Fitness, politics, fashion, does not matter as they all use manipulation to make money. If you master critical thinking you will not fall prey to their tactics. The essence of critical thinking is to gather facts (not opinions) and make your own decision about what is true. Everyone is excellent at finding logic flaws in things they disagree with, the problem is that for critical thinking, you have to be 5x more critical of what you think is true than what you “know” is wrong. Critical thinking is asking questions, lots of them. Even with “facts” and research you need to examine the motives and reliability of those providing them. The biggest obstacle is that most people do not want to critically think because it is comforting to “know” you are right about everything and everyone else is wrong. Trouble is, this mindset makes you a pawn of politicians and large corporations. If you want to live a successful life, you to cut off your puppet strings and critically think for yourself.