To Protect My Future, I’m… Going to the Gym

Dead men tell no tales. Nor do they spend their gold.

I want to spend my gold.

Thus, I do not want to be a dead man—prematurely—with no tales to tell.

I will let you know up front here that this dispatch promises to be a bit different than usual. But it’s still focused on protecting your future—just from a slightly different perspective.

My wife and I recently signed up at a local gym. My goal is A) access to a hot-tub, since that’s where I like to relax and I’ve not had access to one in a long time, and B) I gotta lose my root-beer belly.

As part of all of that, I had my first session with a trainer. I wanted him to show me the ropes with all the high-tech workout equipment this gym sports. Seriously, it’s crazy what gym equipment is like these days.

Thing is, I have a tear in my rotator cuff, a remnant of way too many injuries over the years as a much-too-aggressive goalkeeper for a variety of men’s and co-ed soccer teams, and too much shortstopping on high-level men’s softball teams in some highly competitive leagues in California and New York. (My Wall Street Journal team in Manhattan made it onto a CNN highlight reel one slow news day when we beat the team from High Times, the marijuana magazine, that had a well-known and loooong unbeaten streak.)

But forgive me the glorious memories, for I digress…

I didn’t want to go into the gym and just start doing various gym-rat exercises for fear I’d exacerbate the injury. So, the trainer…

He ran me through a battery of high-tech tests that determine your biological age based on all kinds of factors. Good news: As a 59-year-old, I have the strength of a 34-year-old.

Bad news: As a 59-year-old, I have the flexibility of a 71-year-old, which is not terribly surprising because after my last soccer injury—a back injury that left me unable to breathe and walk at the same time for about a week—my wife at the time forced me to quit. I mean, she had a point. She was director of an orthopedic specialty hospital and over the years I had visited nearly every one of her specialists for back, neck, shoulder, hands, feet, and leg injuries.

Ever since then, I’ve not been very active other than walking. And even that has been hampered by a few bouts of COVID that have left me without the same oxygen capacity as I once had.

Anywho… those high-tech gizmos at the gym told me that my biological age is 56.

I want better.

More importantly, my blood pressure was 129 over 74, which the trainer told me is bordering on high blood pressure (Uncle Google confirmed as much when I returned home to check).

So as I approach my 60th birthday in January, I’m suddenly considering my health relative to my wealth.

Here I am, stacking gold and bitcoin and Swiss francs, among other investments… I’ve spent these last many decades working and scrimping and saving a seven-figure nest egg, and I don’t want to give up the ghost before I’ve had time to enjoy the fruits of savings.

Thus, I am now spending a few hundred dollars a month to have the gym and the trainer.

My goal is simple: Lower my biological age, improve my flexibility so that it’s lower than my real age (aiming for the 40s), definitely lower my blood pressure (and my cholesterol, which has always been on the higher side), and lose this root-beer belly.

I share all of this with you because, well, I have to announce it publicly so that I feel an extra bit of compulsion to hit the gym and work on a better me. You get to go along for the ride—sorry.

But like I said, this is a dispatch about protecting your future.

Money is one thing, and it’s an important thing relative to affording the lifestyle you want in retirement. But if you fail to make it to retirement because you tapped out early… or you make it to retirement only to face illnesses and ailments that leave you unable to enjoy whatever it is you wanted your retirement to be…

I’m hoping to avoid that because I want to spend my gold.

I don’t know how yet, but that’s not really the point.

I want to arrive at that stage of life healthy and relatively wealthy. Then, my wife and I can decide what our retirement will look like.

So, over the next three months, I’ll keep you updated on my progress.

And, hey, if you know you could lose a few pounds, lower your blood pressure, and/or improve your biological age, then join in for the fun.

We’ll both be able to spend our gold in retirement one day.

Send your updates to my mailbag – mailbag@globalintelligenceletter.com – and we’ll share in the pain together!