Building wealth has become second nature to me. It's what happens when you write more than 1,300 personal finance articles over seven years. Not only does writing help you get smart about the topics you write about, many of the articles themselves are moneymakers thanks to the internet!
Of course, everything may go to hell once the next financial crisis hits. But hopefully, all the articles that talk about cash management, not being too proud to work side hustles, and following a recommended net worth allocation will help you feel less pain when the hammer falls.
One key to growing my wealth is through meticulous tracking of all my financial accounts. I used to write everything out in a spreadsheet each month. This practice helped me zero in on underperforming accounts so I could do something about them. Nowadays, I've got my accounts aggregated online so everything is automated.
Here's what happens with me every week
1) Personal Capital e-mails a performance report. They compare my various investments (You Index) to the S&P 500, a US Bond index, and a foreign stock index. If I'm tracking within +/- 2% of the S&P 500, I'm content. I don't even bother logging in to check out my net worth allocation in such a scenario. All I really want to do is grow my net worth by 2-3X the risk-free rate of return each year (3.5% – 6%). I only do a thorough net worth analysis when I'm underperforming or losing money.
According to my latest weekly update, my overall investments are up about 6.16% in 2016. The outperformance over the S&P 500 is largely due to a large holding in bonds, which have outperform stocks. My five investment portfolios are up between 3% – 6.5%. But if I'm to take a look at my net worth growth, the figure is higher due to strong appreciation in SF real estate and good cash flow from my business.
2) In the same weekly e-mail, I view my current month-to-date spending versus the prior month's spending to see if everything is normal. The basic tenet of always spending less than you earn is always pertinent. Based on an October spending report, I've spent about $30,000 this month, which is $53,212 less than what I spent during the same time in September. High five for being so frugal! Or, what the hell was I spending $80,000+ on in September?! I don't see no Range Rover in my garage. Oh yeah, I added to some existing stock and bond ETF positions given both markets sold off.
Each month, I try and invest $5,000 – $20,000 on average in various investments. I invested more in September because my dollar cost averaging system propels me to press when there is more volatility. Now, I'm back to my normal monthly investing cadence and will wait for new opportunities to arise. The biggest opportunity I see is waiting for SF real estate to correct by ~10% and buy another single family home at the end of 2017/early 2018 before the IPO lockup periods expire for the 10,000+ Uber and Airbnb employees.
3) After spending three minutes reviewing my weekly report, I just go about living my life without worrying about my finances. I know that worst case, I'll find out in one week if something is wrong e.g. hacked credit card, bad investment, etc. Now think about what could happen if you only go for a full health checkup every two years. It's possible the day after your checkup, you contract some type of cancer. If left untreated for two years, you might be dead!
The goal of automated financial tracking is for everybody to spend more time living life than worrying about money. If you have a good financial structure in place, all you need is time to grow your wealth.
Regular Health Monitoring Is Crucial
Although I'm relatively good at making money, I'm bad at staying lean. The benefits of regular health monitoring are equally as beneficial to health and fitness as regular financial monitoring is to wealth. Yet, for some reason, I never bothered to track my fitness and caloric intake until this year!
Like so many of you, every year I have a goal of losing 5 pounds. Yet every year, I fail by staying the same weight at roughly 165 pounds at 5'10”. I've been this weight for 16 years now. This year, I'm on track to gain 5 pounds. What the hell is going on? I still play tennis three times a week and I even started lifting weights twice a month to build some strength and definition.
My weight gain all started in the summer of 2015 when my sister and nephew came to visit. I treated them to bubble milk tea drinks every other day for a week. I thought they each had about 150 – 200 calories MAX given a can of illicit Coke has 140 calories.
I was wrong! A typical bubble milk tea drink with lots of extra goodies has a whopping 1,000 calories! In other words, I was drinking 7X more calories than I thought. Of course I gained weight a couple months later with my newfound addiction. Stubbornly, I didn't know why until the summer of 2016 when I finally downloaded a fitness app called MyFitnessPal. Until then, I just chalked up my weight gain to old age.
For those of us with a penchant for gaining weight, I strongly believe it's because we have NO IDEA exactly how many calories we are eating. Our health IQ is so low, by the time we figure things out we're much heavier!
Take this 9 question quiz and see how you do. Answers are at the bottom so don't cheat. You must get 5 or more right to pass.
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Loading ... Loading ... Loading ... Loading ...So how did you do? Everybody should have gotten at least two questions right if you guessed on all questions. My thesis is that only folks who scored 5 or more questions right are in excellent shape. Full disclosure: I only got four right.
Answers: Watermelon 678 calories, Baklava 334, Caesar Salad with dressing 1,441, Starbucks Peppermint Mocha 410, Four Korean Fried Dumplings 572, Big Mac 550, Ruth's Chris ribeye 1,152, One piece hamachi nigiri 51, Recommended caloric intake of 5'10” man trying to lose 1 lb/week 1,560.
But wait! I hear the cacophony of complaints about how my test is unfair! What the hell is baklava? I've never eaten no hamachi nigiri before, only Big Macs! The answers all seem so similar! Wah. Welcome to my world.
When I was taking the SAT for college entrance, I was constantly thinking to myself, who the hell wrote these questions and answers? Surely not an Asian guy who grew up in Zambia, The Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan before coming to America for high school. After doing some research, sure enough, the SAT was created by a Carl Brigham, a professor of Psychology at Princeton University in 1926.
Here's an interesting quote from the Wikipedia page:
“In his 1930 paper “Intelligence Tests of Immigrant Groups,” Brigham recanted his 1923 analysis of the results of the Army Mental Tests. Due to having used prejudicial test administration and analytical techniques in his original research, he acknowledged that his conclusions were “without foundation” and stated, “that study with its entire hypothetical superstructure of racial differences collapses completely.”
Man, if the SAT was created by someone with my background I'd surely kill it! Hamachi nigiri and Korean fried dumplings for all!
Track Everything Often
If I can't lose 5 pounds, I'm damn sure not going to gain 5 pounds this year. Running around the tennis court with dumbbells tied around my legs isn't going to help performance. Further, I don't want to die early from heart disease before my kids grow up to be contributing members of society.
One of the greatest paradox I see today is the existence of unhealthy looking rich people. If you are rich, one of your main goals is to try and live as long as possible because life is so darn good! All you can eat caviar (85 calories for 100g) baby! Don't artificially truncate your lottery winnings by dying young.
Most of us here are rich or will become rich one day. Therefore, it's only logical that we continuously track our finances and our health. Setting financial and fitness goals in an app that keeps you honest will help you succeed. Or, you can simply hang out with professional athletes. Whichever way is easier.
Readers, anybody out there who is rich and overweight? Do you track your finances religiously yet don't track how much you eat and exercise? Why do you think there's this disconnect? If you're poor, wouldn't it be even more important to be fit since it doesn't seem great to be poor and unhealthy?
Great post! I love that you incorporate fitness and health with financial well being. It really is all connected. For many people the hardest part about getting both their finances and fitness back on track is simply awareness. It is much easier to stick your head in the sand and pretend like the problems don’t exist. But when you are forced to actually track your spending, and track your calorie intake, you are forced to evaluate your decisions and make adjustments when necessary.
Also, I want to thank you for giving me inspiration to get my own health and wellness site back up and running. Before reading your articles and going through your site, I was posting intermittently with no real schedule. There would be a few months at a time that I wouldn’t post at all. However now I am much more dedicated to my site, in part because of the articles you post. So thank you :)
I can provide some valuable advice in the eating/calories/weight department. Don’t pay any attention to calories. Yes, you read that right. Instead, ONLY LOOK AT THE INGREDIENTS, not even the “nutritional information”. The ingredient list should be as short as possible and should not include anything that you cannot pronounce.
All you need to do is cut out sugar, grains, pasta, and processed food. Focus on eating whole foods – meaning fish, chicken, red meat with only seasonings (NO SUGAR), raw vegetables, minimal fruit. Don’t go out to eat because its near impossible to eat healthy at any restaurant due to them adding sugar to just about everything.
When it comes to drinks, drink water because it has zero calories – oh and it’s free. If you drink soda/pop, you’re nailing your own coffin.
Most simply – sugar, grains, and anything on the nutritional label you cannot pronounce is bad.
Hey Sam
Great article but one issue that NEVER EVER addressed is age. As you age your caloric needs drop by a 100 calories per decade. I did well all the way up to my late 40s than I started gaining weight. Now in my 50’s I’m doing something I’ve never done before, counting calories and dieting. I know have a late breakfast and skip lunch. Mcdonalds happy meal rather than a menu (450 vs 1100 calories or so).
Finally excercise while good for you, makes very little difference on weight, remember the fat dancers on AGT?
And speaking of food, came acroos this. https://www.eatthis.com/mcdonalds-menu-items-ranked
Man oh man no wonder Americans are so fat, we don’t have half those menu items here, if they did I’d probably be another 20 pounds heaver LOL
It is so easy for things to get out of control, if you don’t keep track of everything such as your health or money! Your quiz was very eye-opening! I really enjoyed this article, thanks for sharing!
After reading this post, I double checked my food expense for last month and it was more than double last month. Bubble milk tea is so good. I bought the tapioca pearls to make at home. There goes the calories.
One of my favorite things about marathon training was how it forced me to eat better and drink less. I knew I would feel absolutely awful on a 15-20 mile run if I did not have the right fuel in me. The hard part about eating well for me right now is that I don’t have a car and the grocery store is a long walk. I do it, but some weeks I don’t make it in time to get the fresh fruit and veggies that make me feel great.
Indeed. Having a PURPOSE to stay fit is huge. For me, it is staying in good enough shape to win tennis matches in USTA.
Hi Sam,
Recently started reading your website and I love your thoughtful blog as it’s even relevant for people like me in Hong Kong. Random minor question, why don’t you date your articles? I find it very interesting how your thinking progress over time but it’s hard to gauge the difference when there are no dates.
Regards,
Curtis
Hi Curtis, welcome to my site. My format has always been like this and I just haven’t changed it. I try and keep all articles evergreen and up to date. You can check out the first comment to see when each post was first published.
Every week I spend time updating pertinent posts to keep them fresh.
What do you do in HK?
Thx
I see, that’s a lot of work to keep your articles evergreen! Great job maintaining the site. I rarely read personal finance blogs but yours is awesome.
I’m an investment banker in a leading international bulge bracket firm. I’m an Asian American who grew up in the states and have been working in HK / China for around 10 years or so. Not exactly your typical target audience!
One notable difference here in HK is the cost of living is quite high, probably even higher than Cali / NYC! Most people spend much of their life trying to save for a mortgage, and there are property cooling measures here so housing requires a large downpayment. Much harder to reach FI on the other side of the world…
Regards,
Curtis
Hi Curtis,
I attended the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens boondoggle for 10 years! What a blast. Brought clients out, learned more about the Asian markets, and developed lifelong relationships. Working/investing in the Asian markets from 1999 – 2012 was a blast.
Hong Kong real estate is crazy. I put together a fun presentation for clients after touring some SHKP and Cheung Kong properties back in 2005. Should have bought all we could! San Francisco is so much cheaper than Manhattan and HK. In fact, I believe SF is the cheapest international cities in the world with the most upside. Where else does everybody make $100,000+ out of college due to the tech/internet boom? Tech/Internet compared to median home prices here is very favorable.
Enjoy HK!
Related:
Should I Work On Wall Street? The Pros And Cons Of working In Fnance
Overcoming The “One More Year Syndrome” To Do Something New – Hard to leave those bonuses!
Yea, HK Rugby Sevens is a lot of fun! I can’t say the caliber of rugby playing is all that great all the time but the atmosphere and drinking are fantastic!
If only I bought all the real estate I could in Cali and US a decade ago. I’ve missed out during the financial crisis. I used to work at Lehman and mistakenly passed on the real estate market during the financial crisis as I thought the sky was falling! Now I know better (hopefully)!
I was an engineer in college so sometimes I wonder if I made the right move going to finance instead of start-ups in silicon valley! Yes, I agree San Francisco is a great place to invest real estate given the housing price / income ratio is still good. HK is through the roof and is the least affordable city where average flats price 19x gross annual median income.
You really hit the spot on the “Overcoming the One More Year Syndrome”. It’s not exactly fun working in a structurally declining industry and you’re right in “What’s the use of having money if you can’t spend it?”. For me, it’s not the financial aspect as I do have enough for many years financially but need the push to start afresh! I’m in my early-mid thirties and time is of the essence, you and I basically only have around ~12,000 more days (35 years) of productive working time left (assuming it’s hard to work productively past 70) and it’s only right to do what you love! I’m glad you find your purpose and I need to find mine!
Anyways, San Fran is a great place to live. I worked there for an internship many years ago and I absolutely loved it!
Ah, it looks like you are at the age when I left (34.5). The structural decline of the business and being the antagonist for main street and the government wasn’t any fun anymore. It is so much more fun working in a business that is growing.
You will regret more of the things you don’t do than the things you try!
Yes, agree! Most ppl die with regrets on what they didn’t do than what they did.
Dude, gain some muscle mass. You’ll look better, and it’s actually easier to stay lean when you have more muscle. You need to lift more than 2 times a month.
I recommend you do the “Starting Strength” program for about three months, and then do Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program. Don’t worry about getting overly muscular—that never happens by accident unless you take roids.
Also, forget about the calories in/calories out mindset. It’s literally true but completely unhelpful for helping normal people lose weight. Saying it’s all about burning more calories than you intake is like someone asking how they cAn be elected President and responding “get more votes than everyone else.” Definitely true, and definitely useless advice.
Check out Gary Tubes “Why We get Fat,” as a good introduction to how nutrition and body composition really works.
Sounds good to me. How about 1-2 times a week lifting weights + 3X 1-1.5 hour cardio a week? I’m feeling leaner and healthier after publishing this post and leaving it up in the top spot for 4 days. I like the idea of more muscles that will automatically burn more calories.
What’s your story?
I’m 5’11” and in my 30s. A couple years ago I weighed only 155 lbs. Now I weigh 190 lbs. When I weighed 155, people were often asking me if I was sick, if everything was alright, etc. Now that I weigh 190 (about 12 – 14% body fat) I look and feel much better. I receive more female attention, and have had more than one woman exclaim “you’re so muscular” while feeling my arms (no lie).
I lift 4 days a week and don’t restrict my diet (if I really cared to, I could get down to 8% – 10% body fat, but I don’t like frantically tracking my diet like an anorexic teenager). I’m not super jacked like a bodybuilder or men’s health cover model, just in pretty good shape. It’s attainable and I highly recommend it. I did Starting Strength and ate like a horse, and gained 35 lbs. in about 3 months. I was a little chubby at that point, but it was pretty easy to shed the excess fat, and I’ve probably put on another 5 – 7 lbs of additional muscle since then.
My recommendation is just to do the Starting Strength program, and no cardio. Let tennis be your “cardio.” Once Starting Strength is done (about 3 months), see where you’re at and go from there. The medical community seems to think that being an emaciated stick figure is the epitome of health. But many of us know otherwise. Good luck!
For me, the difference between tracking calories and tracking money, is that while tracking money is effortless through Personal Capital or Mint, I have no desire to actually see what I’m spending! It hurts too much, so I just willfully ignore it :D.
Tracking calories on the other hand requires effort. I have to measure my food, take out the scale, take out my phone, punch it in. Like someone else said, it would be a lot easier if the app did that for me!
In regards to losing weight, like everyone else said, if you cut out sugar and refined carbs, you’ll drop a few pounds almost effortlessly. You’ll also build muscle a heck of a lot easier, if you eat enough protein.
I want to add that it’s not just weight and calories that deserve tracking. I got my first high blood pressure reading this year, and I’m only 32! My cholesterol was borderline too. The rising number on the scale had bugged me, but I’m young so I figured who really cares. The health stats shocked me into motivation to work on my diet and exercise routine. I plan to watch them much more carefully and make sure they fall back to normal at my next checkup. I don’t want to wait until I’m WAY off track to take action.
Hi Sam,
One tip my brother gave me to help lose weight/avoid eating late night snacks: “just brush your teeth instead”. It’ll give you a minty feeling and you won’t feel like eating/dirtying up your clean teeth.
Great article. I agree that it’s really important to track where our money goes each month. Lately I’ve been guilty of eating out way too much. I’ll have to get back into brown bagging lunches for work and preparing more meals at home. I haven’t had tons of money to invest in the markets lately because I’ve been pouring money into fixing up my latest rental property. Hopefully, I’ll be able to have the rentals cash flowing nicely by the new year.
Sam, it seems you are a 10th degree black belt in saving and investing but a green belt in fitness! For this I have to admire my father, I am not even close to his level of discipline when it comes to both those areas. He is Turing 70 this year and has invested probably about 50% of his take home pay since he came out of the military at 30. In addition, ever since he was in the service, he has woken up at 6am every single day to do sit-ups, push-ups and run 3 miles (the running turned into walking as he aged) he keeps a simple (if boring) diet and still works as an attorney 7 days a week. He was complaining to me the other day how he was being forced to take his social security now!
We can all improve, if you have the discipline to master your finances, you definitely can master diet and exercise.
Come on, maybe a blue belt. :) After all, I’m a 5.0 rated top 1% USTA player!
How would you rate yourself? I probably would never stay at my weight if I didn’t have a PURPOSE for fitness. I need to stay as light as possible to move as quick as possible on the court to help my team and win.
Another awesome post and also great timing. I’m not a high-calorie guy nor do I spend a lot on junk food or fast food. However, lately I have been out of character. I have been choosing candy and fast food over a nice home cooked meal. I basically spend an extra $20 a week that could have been used on something such as gas. I know that might sound cheap to some but unlike most I believe every dollar counts. To me it is more about finances than health, but I noticed that the more I eat unhealthy the less I work out and have a desire to work out.
It’s sure hard to enjoy a fast food meal now that they have to post calories on the menu. I used to go to In-N-Out and order a Double-Double, with fries and a chocolate shake. Now I look at the menu at it shows me the burger is 670 calories, the fries are 395 calories, and the chocolate shake is 590 calories. That’s 1,655 calories! Not like I should be surprised that fast food isn’t exactly healthy. The nutrition info on menus has certainly caused me to reconsider my order.
Thinking along these lines, what if stores had to start placing financial warnings on every purchase you make (i.e. this $250 purchase will cost you $10,000 in retirement)? It seems unfeasible at first, but with everyone buying off Amazon nowadays, it wouldn’t be too difficult from a technology perspective to implement a simple plug-in. Retailers will take exception to this idea, but it would make a lot of people think twice, just like me at In-N-Out.
It’s a great idea that Amazon wouldn’t want implemented b/c it would reduce sales volume.
But yeah, on the In N Out calories, 1,655 would be all I could eat for the entire day to have the hope of losing 1 pound. I never order a shake anymore, and old seldom order fries. If I do, I split it with someone. Splitting food is one of my best habits to save money and control portions. It’s also fun.
Sam,
As a lifelong health/ fitness fanatic whose wife works as an NP in Bariatric medicine, let me perhaps help put your mind at ease. You mentioned you’ve been lifting weights – it’s likely that your weight gain is from muscle. If you’ve never lifted before and have always been skinny or skinny fat, your body will respond very well to strength training and have sometimes startling effects on the scale.
I would caution you against watching the scale too closely or even falling into tracking BMI. Keep an eye on your measurements – waist, arms, chest, etc. And most importantly track your vitals.
If you still fit into the same pants as you have a few years ago, your resting heart rate is in the normal range, your blood pressure is in check, and your annual blood work comes back all within normal parameters, consider yourself healthy.
At 160-165lbs and as active as you are, I’d bet you’re doing quite well (save any genetic predispositions – sometimes we don’t know why someone who is otherwise the picture of health suffers from a chronic illness).
Hmmm, OK< will track my vitals, which I never track. My parents have this cool portable blood pressure/heart rate machine I might buy. I have lifted weights all my life, and look relatively buff. But I don't lift frequently anymore. I doubt I've gained muscle weight. It's bubble milk tea baby! :)
I have always regretted it any time I have stopped tracking all spending. The same goes for tracking nutrition. Myfitnesspal has helped me lose pregnancy weight and keep it off.
I started going to the gym during the lunch hour – noticed a difference immediately.
Also, just reducing the sugar in my coffee from 2 packs to 1 has been a huge change over the last year. Next step it to drink it with no sugar, followed by removing coffee all together.
A good physique starts in the kitchen, not in the gym – watch your intake.
A pack of sugar has 23 calories. In 365 days that would still be only 8,395 calories per year. Unless that change has some kind of cascade effect, your general awareness is likely much more effective than a single packet of sugar, daily or otherwise.
Indeed. A-hah moments are great. I was at the optometrist yesterday for an annual eye check up and told her my right eye has been bothering me. She looked under the eyelids on both sides and said my glands were more swollen than my left eye lids and asked whether I had some recent allergies. Why in fact I did, a severe attack several days ago! I always wondered what was up w/ the occasional discomfort on my right eye and contacts. Thought it was bad contacts, but knowing the answer now makes me feel better and allows me to take action and not get paranoid something is wrong.
I think the moral of the story is to not drink bubble milk tea drink. I don’t think I’ve even had bubble milk tea, so I’m good on that front.
But aside from that I am getting fatter. I just recently started a hardcore paleo style thing. I hope to be able to stay on it longer than usual. But I just like food a lot. Maybe the solution is to just accept ourselves, rather than track and obsess over body metrics.
Just a stream of consciousness thought for today.
Great post Sam. Been a reader and subscriber for years. My wife is a health coach and the tracking of consumption (and the awareness it creates) via myfitnesspal is one of the pillars of her program. Hope you find it helps you avoid the extra 5 pounds.
This article really hit home for me as my financial and physical health are my #2 and #1 priorities respectively.
Regarding Personal Capital, I love their app and have been a paid client for almost two years now, I really like their investment strategy and the easy access to a Financial Advisor if I want to bounce ideas off somebody. For my spending reports I’ve classified all my investments as Security Purchases so they won’t show up on my spending report. I get more value tracking actual “consumer” spending to help me plan when I can declare my FI (aiming for my 40th birthday)!
As for my physical health, after a decade plus of hip pain, I finally had them checked out and discovered I have little to no cartilage from years of pitching (baseball). I’ve always been a big guy, even when playing collegiate baseball, but I finally decided I needed to drop some weight and reduce the stress on my body so one day I’ll be able to play ball with my boys. This year I’ve dropped over 40 lbs and have another 10 to go. It’s amazing how important your health is as it starts to deteriorate. I would give up all of my accumulated wealth today to have healthy hips and shoulders again! With everything I’ve done with my finances, I know I could do it again, but you only have one body to last a lifetime.
Thanks for all your posts. You’ve helped me map a plan for living a rich and fulfilling life.
Congrats on dropping 40lbs! Awesome! I hear you on the cartilage thing…. I’m afraid to check out my left knee, which has a torn meniscus b/c I feel it moving around all the time now probably due to a lack of cartilage. Come on knee replacement technology, make it better than Gattaca’s version!
Thanks for reading, sharing, and coming along on the journey Alex!
I’m so tragically OCD about tracking both my workouts and my finances. I’ve been using Quicken to track all my spending and saving since I started working in 1998. I’ve tracked every workout for the last ~7 years.
If I was as good at saving/investing or working out as I am at tracking them I’d be rich and ripped.
Love this post. I totally agree about the SAT. The Raven’s Progressive Matrices are an attempt to level the playing field across language and culture to assess intelligence. This test is used by large corporations before promoting or hiring people at certain levels. Check it out on the internet – its pretty interesting. Lots of patterns and squiggly lines.
I do think it is absurd that there are very wealthy overweight people. It just shows poor decision making in my opinion. I meticulously track my daily and weekly miles for running and my workouts. I have found it very beneficial as I get older and find it harder and harder to stay in good shape.
Also – the secret seems to be cutting out sugar. Developed countries are addicted to it and have diabetes, obesity, cancer, and many other issues to a much higher degree than other cultures. Using Stevia and other natural products has become the general rule in our family and we’re much happier for it! Its starting to become more mainstream with products such as a new Coca Cola branded soda using Stevia as sweetener.
Thanks for highlighting the SAT bit! You are the first one. It’s funny how everybody from all walks of life have to conform to the SAT to get into college in America. Everybody who created the earlier versions of the SAT all looked the same and came from the same background. This is why more and more I’m thinking spending a fortune on higher education is BS.
I had an extremely high metabolism in college and could not gain weight staying way underweight. I got used to eating too much and after spending my days working in a cubicle gained a steady 5 lbs per year. I wasnt really that active and like sedentary activities like playing video games. By my late 30s I added 100 lbs total crossing the obesity line for my height.
A couple years ago I started tracking calories in myfitnesspal and was surprised at how much I was eating. I brought it down a bit and leveled off my weight, but it is still a battle.
I get obsessed with new topics and for the past decade its been finance. That obsession has helped my manage my money and hit my NW goals. I am now trying to develop a love and obsession with fitness in the same way where I obsessively track my metrics the way I do with money.
Interest Roberts. Curious, would you rather be your defined Underweight or crossing the obesity line if you had to choose one for the rest of your life?
I’d rather be underweight, as I’m unaware about the diseases that are caused from being NATURALLY underweight. Are you aware?
I have also had a very metabolism so far. I’m almost 40, and weigh 135 at 5’9. I’ve gone between 125 and 142 over the last 20 years. I eat a lot, and although I eat plenty of healthy food I also pig out on junk food in large quantities. One thing I do skip in large amounts is sugar. I don’t work out at all although I did in the past. Regardless of how I eat and exercise, my metabolism and active life (walk everywhere and have 2 little kids) seems to keep me skinny. In the past it had been challenging to put on weight by overloading on protein and working out with weights. These days I count my blessings!
Definitely underweight. High bp, apnea, and related issues creep up on you once you are 30-40 lbs overweight.
Ideally I would be back at the top end of my ideal weight. Not too skinny, but not too fat.