This post is part of my annual review process for 2024. This year, I’ve committing to writing a more comprehensive review, but to do so I’ve structured myself into particular areas that I think are important to cover.
To read more,
Health-wise, how did 2024 go? Well it went I suppose. No big gains, no big loses and I feel increasingly as I head towards the big-4-oh that keeping things slowly improving, without any major set backs is increasingly a big win unto-itself.
Weight
I’ve largely kept my weight under control. It slowly drifted down over the year through continuous monitoring, a couple of bouts of paranoia, one deal-breaking “oh hell nah”, a few cheat days or cheat weekends, and an all-inclusive vacation.
I didn’t get to sub-90 kilos for race day like I had hoped. But I kept the damage to under 95 kilo. Crucially, I’ve taken to actually getting a tape measure out a bit more and measuring my waistline. It’s been incredibly tricky for me to tell based upon clothing what my waistline is actually doing - as it’s tricky to know whether clothes are stretching and loosing fit over time or whether some of this skinny fit stuff seems to shrink every time to comes out of the wash.
I’ve kept up with a lot of my weight work and am typically getting two weight workouts per week. With that kind frequency I can never expect to get massive gains but it is sufficient to make a little progress each time and keep the worst of aging at bay. Heck! It means that I can still pick up my boys and throw them around. The little one at aged 3 now weighs some 17.5 kilo and I can still lift him up, throw him around and carry him for reasonable distances. I remember with the big guy, I’d already abandoned trying to pick him up at this age due to back pain. So I’m stronger as a dad than I was 5 years ago.
Weights
My clubs and maces have lied dormant for a while, I just sort of lost interest with them for a while. They don’t have the fun attached to them that they once did. Similarly, I haven’t much used the kettlebells through the second half of the year.
Towards the end of 2023, I had already - or was getting close to - max-ing out my 32 kg kettlebells in several exercises, which meant that I was really starting to have to do more endurance work with them. And doing 10 sets of 10 reps, or 20 straight minutes of lifts starts to become quite the chore, no matter what you try.
I did purchase a second adjustable kettlebell and started making my way through double kettlebell lifts. After all, a squat with 2x 16kg gets you to the same place as a single 32kg kettlebell. I got to a place where I was routinely training with double 24 kilo, for a total lift of 48k - which is still nothing in the power lifting world, but then most power lifters aren’t going to be doing sets of 10 to 15.
In the last few months, after Mike Israetel of Renaissance Periodization appeared on the Modern Wisdom podcast, I’ve switched my weight lifting to mostly dumbbell work in the building’s gym using a lot of Dr Mike’s science-backed body-building protocols. The short version of which is to
- select a weight you can do 10-15 reps of in the first round
- explode up
- pause for a second
- take 3 to 4 seconds down (eccentric)
- superset to a different muscle group, or do the same muscle in the opposite direction
- do the second set to failure, take a 5 second rest, do 2 or 3 more reps, repeat until the second set total matches the first
- repeat for 3 to 4 sets
Just recently, I’ve slightly adapted the protocol, so that rather than total rep matching in step 6, I just do as many reps as I can to failure. Then rest for 10 seconds. Then go to failure again, for a total of 4 approaches to failure per set, for 3 total sets. This means that in a normal hour long workout, the muscles get a crazy amount of time under tension with the 3-4 second eccentrics, but also 12 approaches to failure. This results is a lot of hypertrophy (aka muscle growth stimulus) in not a lot of time.
The net result of this new protocol, is that within only 2 or 3 months of poor adherence (because of life and sickness), I’ve got visible biceps and triceps for the first time in my life. I’m certainly not going to win any bodybuilding competitions any time soon - but I have had a bit of body dysmorphia and general unhappiness around the size of my arms for most of my life. In fact, the negative self talk has always been that my arms are the only skinny thing about me.
It’s funny, the difference is probably only a centimetre or so in the mirror, but that 10 seconds a day makes such a difference to overall happiness with my physique. In fact, this is the first year that I’ve been comfortable with taking my shirt off at the pool while on vacation - ever. It’s pretty clear that the wife doesn’t care - or even notice - anything about it, but it’s a nice little victory. It allows me to think that maybe I haven’t lost a huge amount of weight this year, because I’ve been busy putting on some muscle. You poor delusional, old fool!
Other bits and pieces
Otherwise, my health is generally in pretty good health. I’m still taking the occasional multi-vitamin to cover any deficiencies in my diet - especially with limited dietary options across winter.
Supplements
Vitamin D and psoriasis
I found out this year, that there’s no such thing as a Vitamin D overdose - and in fact when I consulted the literature, the body hoards the stuff. So it doesn’t matter if you take a daily recommended dose, or a large dose once a week or even a mega-dose once a month.
The local pharmacist however, did just happen to mention that for people with psoriasis, the recommended daily amount is dramatically below what is probably needed and recommended that I should be taking 3 to 5x the RDA. Now, I open the Vitamin D supplement pot, shake out a handful and neck them (with 100% RDA in the multi-vit too) and the psoriasis on my hands has massively improved - practically cleared up entirely.
Cod liver oil
To the supplements, I’ve also added some cod liver oil, after seeing some very convincing evidence that we should really be taking 2000 mg/day of omega fatty acids to maintain brain health and prevent the worst of brain aging as we get old. And the reality of it all is that there’s no way to get that kind of dietary amount without eating a big chunk of salmon every day. It makes a great deal of sense if you think that our ancestors seem to have evolved on the coastlines of eastern Africa. But it’s hard to do otherwise.
Particularly, in my supplements I looked out for
- actually derived from fish
- wild fish » farmer fish
- EPA and DHA (a lot of cheaper supplements won’t contain DHA)
