Action items

• Add your weight to "My Program" on the app
• Add a selfie to "My Program" the app
• Schedule blood test to monitor cardiovascular and metabolic health
• Schedule DEXA scan to assess body fat and lean muscle

Ray's Take

Because of focus on career and family, most of my friends haven't gotten a good baseline picture of where their current health is. Furthermore, most doctors aren't even ordering the tests that give the most accurate assessment of risk for the most common (and devastating) diseases.

In any case, all of my friends want to make sure their health metrics are on point. They also usually want to lose a bit of body fat, and gain some muscle.

Let's assume this applies to you too.

The first thing we have to do is get baseline numbers for the most important metrics

• how you look
• cardiovascular disease risk
• metabolic disease risk

Remember, you improve what you measure. Thus, this is a really important step to getting started. Don't skip.

Weight

Let's start with something easy that you can do right away. Add your weight to your My Program stream.

Add your weight to your health program

For weight, you should pay attention to your weekly weight, which can be a once a week measurement, or an average of all weights throughout a one-week time period. I'd recommend weighing yourself at the same time in the same state (IE right when you wake up, after you go to the bathroom, on Sunday ).

An important note about weight is that if you want to lose weight, i've found slow and steady is best. There is no pressure to see the scale go down quickly. All we have to do is find a sustainable program that leads to 0.5-1lb per week of weight loss.

If you are happy with your weight, great. Just jot it down for record keeping purposes.

Appearance

More importantly, you should get a baseline of you look, right now (shirt on and off).

On app - add a mirror photo of how you look right now.

Add a selfie to your health program

Doing this makes appearance measurable. This is really important for checking progress, and motivation. I'd say photos are more important than weight, as weight fluctuates all the time due to hydration levels, salt, and more.

In addition, if you build muscle but lose fat, your weight won't change, but you will look a lot better.

I recommend taking one selfie per week at the same place, in the same angle.

Blood tests

Heart disease and metabolic disease are two of the biggest killers in our world today. The good news is:

• You can get a really good assessment of your risk for both through a simple blood draw.
• You can prevent these diseases, no matter your starting point.

For heart disease, the most important tests most people don't get are apoB and Lp(a). You should also get some standard cholesterol tests (triglycerides, HDL) and CRP to measure inflammation.

For metabolic health, you should get fasting insulin, liver enzymes, blood glucose, and hemoglobin A1C.

Schedule blood test - email us. We can order it for you.

These tests are relatively cheap, so I would just order and schedule an appointment at your local quest diagnostics center for a blood draw. However, you can ask your doctor for them too.

If you have recent blood tests, that works too. Just reference and add your numbers in the app with #assessment (or another hashtag of your choice).

You should get these tests once every 3-6 months if there are improvement areas. Once a year is fine if all numbers are in range.

DEXA scan

You should also get a DEXA scan which is quick, painless scan that tells you body fat %, lean muscle mass, bone density, and more. This is really motivating and helpful to measure progress.

Schedule DEXA scan - do this on your own. Providers vary by region.

I love DEXA, but don't get it more than 1x per year. I can basically predict my body fat by looking in the mirror. However, getting it every 3-6 months can be highly motivating. I encourage it for checking progress (which you can definitely attain in 3 months).

What I do

I get the assessments listed above. You can find my results here.

More of what I do for assessments, nutrition, exercise, and more here.

Additional resources

If you are curious about biomarkers and science, I recommend you read this article on apoB, which is a much better predictor of heart disease than LDL. You should also learn about Lp(a), which is a test less than 1% of people get, but is the #1 cause for early heart attack and stroke.

We're always adding more articles to the biomarkers/science section in resources. Let me know if there is anything you are curious about.

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