12. Make Health Your First Priority

In today’s fast-paced modern society, many people keep extending their working hours in pursuit of career success, overexerting their physical resources. This phenomenon usually starts to appear around the age of thirty, when the body begins to develop problems around that age.

I used to have absolutely nothing to do with health supplements; now I check every day to see whether they’re on sale

In your 20s, the body’s self-healing ability is strong, and as long as your functions are relatively healthy, staying up late, drinking alcohol, eating sweets, fried foods, and so on won’t place too much burden on your body.

Around age 28, I started noticing that staying up late had a huge impact on me; it would almost leave me with no energy the next day. Long-term irregular living habits eventually show up as all kinds of abnormal health indicators. The office-based work style also reduces many people’s opportunities to burn calories.

When you immerse yourself in endless work, it’s easy to overlook your most valuable asset—your health.

Long hours of sitting at work gradually make our bodies stiff, and a sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of various chronic diseases. Irregular routines also disrupt our biological clock, affecting metabolism and the functioning of the immune system.

For many people, this is how it goes: before they even turn thirty, their bodies are already developing all kinds of problems. I know that for people in their twenties, this may sound very far away, but anything you gain at the expense of your health is simply not worth it.

Recently, I’ve been observing some famous successful people, and you can see that their bodies are usually quite lean and fit—for example, Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, or Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. You’ll probably immediately notice those powerful biceps.

Another topic that is discussed less often is mental health. Stress in the modern workplace often comes from multiple sources: challenging tasks, complex interpersonal relationships, office politics, and so on.

I once heard a friend talk about working at a large company, where many people took leave to receive therapy, or almost everyone was seeing a counselor, and after taking leave they never came back.

I completely understand what it’s like to be so busy with work that you have no time for leisure or exercise, and all you want to do is lie flat. But if you realize your health is sending warning signs and still don’t change, you are just overdrawing from your future health.

If that’s the path you want to take, of course that’s fine, but I think it’s worth thinking about a little more.

In the early days of my career, I also lived an utterly irregular life: going to bed late and waking up late, staying up all night playing games, or coding all day. Over time, I developed lower back and shoulder pain. When I first came to Japan, I drank a lot and often drank alcohol; before long, my body fat started to increase, and since I was exercising far less than before, I found myself getting tired very easily at work.

My Attempts

Let me share some of my own attempts. To put it simply, there’s really nothing complicated about it—it’s basically living like a high school student.

• No alcohol: I don’t like that dizzy, slightly tipsy feeling, so in recent years I’ve tried as much as possible not to drink
• No sugary drinks: I’ll have them occasionally if I want, but most of the time I replace them with coffee or tea
• Eat more protein: eat more white meat (chicken breast, chicken thigh) and less red meat
• Maintain good sleep quality
• Don’t stay up late
• Keep up with weight training and cardio

Hiring a personal trainer directly and spending money to force yourself into a regular exercise habit is also a good method.

If you want a more systematic suggestion, you can watch this video. It talks about the importance of VO2 Max and muscle mass, and the interview subject is Peter Attia, the author of Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity.

You can also read Ho Li-an’s book To Slow Aging, You Need Heavy Weight Training, as well as the article he wrote in 2017, “A Clear and Urgent Crisis”; perhaps they can give you some different ideas.

By now, you should be able to see that weight training is not just about having a better physique. Muscle mass and cardiopulmonary fitness are key factors that affect the quality of life in old age.

The benefits of exercise are many. In addition, weight training can very effectively help build muscle. More muscle naturally leads to a better-looking body, and it also helps burn calories, creating a body that is less prone to gaining weight.

According to the author, many aspects of aging are actually related to muscle loss. Muscle loss leads to a decline in metabolism, fat continues to accumulate, and various chronic diseases follow.

Many people think their exercise routine is beneficial to their health, but in reality there are serious problems with it.

The aging process causes loss of muscle and bone mass, so the goal of training should first and foremost be to “increase muscle mass” and “increase bone density,” so that human physical performance can be improved further.

Of course, as long as you start exercising, that’s a good thing. Starting with cardio is completely fine too, but I still really want to recommend the benefits of weight training to everyone.

After More Than a Year of Weight Training

Here I’d like to share the results I’ve achieved after putting weight training into practice. I’ve always had a naturally slim build, and although I’m still far from the level of high-intensity training, I’d say I was very serious about weight training last year.

I still feel the gap between social media and reality. Even though I’ve grown, honestly, if I didn’t tell people, most of them probably wouldn’t be able to tell I’ve been working out. Once I’m dressed, there’s even less difference—muscle is really hard to build😭.

Health is an important indicator that supports your career and life. Let’s encourage each other.

Wow, it turns out my younger self was not only skinny but also gave off a bit of a geeky vibe.