My August Fitness Challenge is over. Today, I’ll tell you how I did, but first, something else…
One of the biggest questions Americans have about early retirement is health insurance:
Health insurance is expensive!
My insurance is so great at work!
What if I get sick?
Early Retirement And Health
I have a friend who likes to drive massive vehicles. He states that driving a jacked-up, full-size pickup truck will save his life in an accident. I drove his truck once and it handled like the Love Boat.
For those too young to know what the hell the Love Boat is, this is what I mean:
The Love Boat does not handle well. Neither does my friend’s land-yacht of a truck.
When driving, I prefer to drive the smallest, most nimble car. I agree that my friend’s behemoth of a vehicle is safer in an accident. However, in a nimble vehicle, I’m less likely to get into one in the first place. And this is how I think about my health.
Pills Or Prevention?
There are a lot of pills for health maladies. Cholesterol, obesity, blood pressure, on and on. Often, we’re treating the symptom and not the cause. Obesity leads to hypertension which leads to a heart attack or a stroke. Instead of hypertension drugs, what if we paid more attention to our body?
Compound interest works the same way for your body as it does for your money. Debt often leads to more debt. Small health problems often lead to larger ones. On the good side, a little money will turn into a lot of money. Take care of your body and you’ll be less likely to develop a nasty condition.
And if I’m sounding preachy, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty of NOT treating my own body right. Before retirement, I rarely exercised and ate loads of crap. At one point, I weighed in at over 180 pounds; way too much girth for my narrow frame. My excess weight caused hypertension. Not good. But, I turned the ship (way too many shitty boat metaphors in this post) around after I quit formal work.
Without a job:
- I have time to exercise
- I have the willpower to eat healthily
- I’m not stressed
Some are worried about their health if they quit work.
I wonder what would have become of mine had I stayed at work.
The Worst-Case Scenario
However, you can’t diet and exercise your way out of everything. Some of us are fortunate to have a sound mind and body at 90 and then die quietly in our sleep. For others, not so much:
Backup Plans For Backup Plans
My plan is to always carry health insurance. Right now, I’m fortunate to have great coverage through Mindy’s job. If she were to quit, we’d get a high-deductible plan. If that didn’t work (chronic illness?), I’d consider moving to another part of the world where health care is more reasonable. My backup plans are made possible by FIRE:
FIRE is what allows me to have a high-deductible plan:
Yay, money!
…and move to another part of the world for health care.
Yay, no job!
How I Did With Weight Loss
On August 1, I weighed 161.6. During a summer of travel, I let myself go a bit. And by “I let myself go,” I mean this:
What Worked
At the end of August, I had dropped down to 151.8 for a loss of 9.8 pounds. Woot!:
- Intermittent fasting is the real deal. Not eating until noon is hard at first, but you get used to it. There is no magic here; you’re just strategically cutting out one meal per day.
- I’ve also been on a low-carb kick. Ketosis! I LOVE bread and sugar though, so this wasn’t easy. If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, this is what I’d stuff my face with:
What Didn’t Work
Exercise. I didn’t do much of it. Unplanned events consumed my time:
- On a whim, we bought another home (more on this very soon including a YouTube channel)
- We sold the NSX (more on this soon too)
I am retired, yet I have NO time. At least not right now.
Also fighting for precious minutes is finishing work on my current home so I can sell it. Yes, we bought another home and our current one still needs work:
Trust me, it will all make sense soon. I hope so. Ummmm, yeah. What could possibly go wrong?
The Main Thing I Learned
Exercise is important but takes time. Eating less takes no additional time:
Eating less > Exercise
Where do we go from here? I don’t know. Well, actually I kinda know.
The trick isn’t to go on some fad diet for a couple of months:
**looks in the mirror, thinks of keto, sighs, looks down with a frown**
The real goal is to develop habits and diet you can execute for the long-term. And by “long-term,” I mean lifelong. I feel confident I can keep up the intermittent fasting from here on out. Only 45 years to go if I make it to 90! But is it really 45? When I’m 80, I’ll probably throw in the towel and eat cherry pie, brownies, and beer for breakfast. So yeah, only 35 more years of tofu and broccoli.
Join the 10s who have signed up already!
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Congrats on losing 10 lbs!!!! That’s awesome.
Beckett @ Birchwood Pie recently posted…Weekly Eats: Double Digit Edition
Health is super important.. but I couldn’t help focus on the sale of the NSX! I’m sure it was fun while it lasted! Next up – yacht club?
Yacht club!? Hell no! Maybe a used Tesla in a couple of years. But for now, just another fancy house.
Thank you!
OMG! You sold the NSX?!? You willingly gave up your man toy?!? => “Boys and their toys” – Did the car not give you joy anymore?
Wow, just wow. Youtube channel? Did you video the car driving away with the new owner??
Congrats on losing the weight and remember that diet is like 85% responsible for losing weight vs 15% for exercise.
Man toy! Yep, bye-bye. It did not give me joy. Well, it did, but not enough to justify its expense and the mental bandwidth I had to devote to it.
YouTube channel will be me fixing up my house. It will probably be R rated because I injure myself frequently and spout colorful metaphors. Brace yourself!
1. The Love Boat was a Princess Cruise ship not a Carnival one as you pictured. The captains on princess cruises are really proud of the connection and many, if not all the boats have a fog horn that plays the love boat tune.
2. You are right, it is very hard to workout enough to overcome a poor diet. I am lucky that the job I have gives me up to 3 hours a week of paid leave to exercise. I don’t usually use most of the time because I just go on my lunch break when I am working from home and the gym I go to is super close. But it is nice to know I have those hours if I need them. No excuse to not exercise. Plus I like trying to lift heavy things.
3. Sad about the NSX, but at least you got to own your dream car for a while. Mine is the completely impractical Dodge Viper. I will own one of these at some point, but probably not as a forever car.
Whoah, looks like I need to take a cruise!
Paid leave to exercise? What fairy tale do you work at? 🙂
The NSX was fun, but ran its course. A Viper would be totally rad.
Yep, 47 here so I remember The Love Boat. I have an older sister that loved that show so I watched it a bit….
I like the idea of intermittent fasting, however I am already a pretty skinny dude so I can’t really afford to skip any meals. I do however try to go 12/13 hours between last meal of the day to breky the next morning.
I’ve been diagnosed with Chronic gastritis ( I know, sounds like a fart problem but it’s kind of just a fancy term for a type of acid reflux) so my real struggle is cutting down on beer and coffee which are both bad for this condition.
“…my real struggle is cutting down on beer”
Yes, the struggle is real!
i don’t know what i would do without routine. i do great at work when i hit the gym every day at 1 or 1:30 pm and lost a crap ton of weight last winter/spring. the past 2 weeks i was off work and away from home at smidlap-con and got very little done. it wasn’t too hot out and i was out in the wilderness near trails and exercise opportunities galore…and not the ones that feel like a chore but the kind that are fun like hiking in the woods. without the routine i didn’t do all that well.
i’m glad you lost the weight you wanted, dude. i do find myself gravitating to healthier foods as i age. and my resting heart rate is only 55 so i might not die any day soon. skipping breakfast is easy, isn’t it?
freddy smidlap recently posted…Smidlap Con 2019 Day 3
55! #Damn!
And now that I’m used to it, skipping meals is pretty easy.
Hi! I totally watched the Love Boat, which was followed by Fantasy Island. Those were some pretty exciting Saturday evenings in my youth. ?
I just finished 30 days of Whole30 eating and I lost 10.5 pounds. It’s amazing to realize how much added sugar is in food products, ready for us all to consume it. Now I will avoid it. On to the next 10! Great job on your progress! Look forward to seeing what you two do with that new house!
YES! LOVE BOAT AND FANTASY ISLAND! I remember the exact same thing: “Da plane boss, da plane!”
Thinking back, they were both idiotic shows. The plots were the exact same every week, just different people.
Yeah, sugar is friggin’ crazy! I had no idea until I started paying attention!
Preach!
And I have learned if you only eat the center bite out of each cinnamon roll, you can eat consume the best of the entire batch while only ingesting the volume of a single roll!
Financially Fit Mom recently posted…Would You Sleep Here?
Oh man, I’m sorry to hear about Mr. PIE. That’s terrible, but I hope he’ll get better.
IF worked pretty well for me too. I lost about 10 pounds and my weight is stable now.
Exercise is still very important. You need to put it into the routine somehow.
I canceled my gym membership so it’s harder to work out now. However, I’m more active around the neighborhood and I coach soccer. Just need a bit of strength training a few times per week.
I an salivating over the mention of a new home purchase! Can’t wait to hear about it.
Oh wow, you’re telling me! I’m SOOOOOO excited! YouTube channel coming to document this monstrosity of a live-in flip!
Wait wait… you sold the NSX and now you’re going to eat broccoli and tofu for 35 years? If I didn’t think you were joking I’d say you finally started reading my blog! 😉
Very curious to hear about the new home. My guess is that you didn’t need a bigger or better home, but you wanted another flipping adventure to make some $$. I’m sure you’ll tell us all soon.
Cheers for a funny and informative read Mr. 1500!
Haha, you’re a great writer and I’m a silent lurker.
“My guess is that you didn’t need a bigger or better home, but you wanted another flipping adventure to make some $$.”
You’re almost right. The primary reason I bought this home was for happiness, not money. Post soon…
There’s a few shows who’s intro theme songs I still remember. Love Boat is one.
Love, exciting and new.
Come aboard. We’re expecting you!
What does that even mean??? Expecting me?? That’s kind of weird.
Jeffersons (I did karaoke this once. Big hit!) and Three’s Company are some others.
I am also doing intermittent fasting.It’s not too hard just to skip breakfast and eat lunch. Not sure if this has happened to you but I noticed that I can’t eat as big of a portion now as I used to. For those starting out, if it get’s too unbearable to not have anything, you can have some nuts mid morning to get you through lunch.
Congratulations on losing weight! It is not easy because I am also on a weight loss spree for the past 3 months. It is so difficult, strenuous workouts and diet.