Health Scare & Using ChatGPT to Dial In My Health

At the end of December, for the first time in my life, I was scared about my health.

Lifting weights at least 3x a week and making decent food choices (while still enjoying food) has always been important to me, and I thought this would be enough to help me cruise through life at 40+ years old.

It was not.

I had a bad sinus infection in December, but it was the kind that I thought I could just power through. And I did, but then a week later, it came back at half power, and for days, I just felt OFF.

Lightheaded and more tired than usual (considering we have 6 year old twins), I finally got myself to the local strip-mall urgent care, and my blood pressure was alarmingly high. Not enough to go to the hospital, but it was a wake call for me:

My body is changing, and it’s time to make some changes.

I finally found a good primary care physician that was accepting new patients (hard to find these days!), and while my blood pressure was still reading high, my doctor believed I could bring it down through some simple lifestyle changes, including adding cardio to my workouts and reducing processed foods.

After receiving my bloodwork results, I inputed the results into ChatGPT along with my current diet and goals, and I asked:

Give me a full breakdown of my bloodwork along with simple diet tweaks that wouldn’t take a lot of time to prepare.

ChatGPT is so amazing for this! It was so thorough on everything and gave incredible suggestions for diet and exercise.

What I landed on was:

• Adding at least two days of cardio (30 minutes of jogging, in addition to my weight training)

• Eliminating potato chips (easiest diet tweak to make) and focusing on whole foods

Based on ChatGPT’s suggestions, I replaced my normal breakfast of whole milk yogurt with blueberries and granola to avocado toast or two scrambled eggs to help with slightly elevated cholesterol (ChatGPT said my good cholesterol was high enough to balance out the bad.)

Instead of chips with a sandwich for lunch, I replaced it with an apple (solid satisfying crunch replacement). This was easier than I thought it would be, except for a couple of weak moments at a Mexican Restaurant.

I cut out all soft drinks, even though I rarely drink them, so that was easy as well.

Once I got into a healthier groove, I found myself making better food decisions overall because of the progress I was feeling.

I found myself mentally calculating calorie deficits. Taking chips out of my diet would eliminate about 1000 calories per week… cardio was shaving off 500 calories a week. It’s not that simple in terms of weight loss, but it definitely adds up!

At first, it was hard getting my body adjusted to running for my cardio. But after some new running shoes and increasing my run/walk ratio gradually, I was feeling progress and eventually landed on the “runner’s high” that I now crave.

After a few weeks, I started feeling noticeably better, and during that time, I started reading Atomic Habits, and I realized I was doing exactly what the book was outlining: small easy changes that add up to some big changes with consistency.

3 Month Checkup Progress Report

I had my 3 month checkup, and the results kind of blew my mind.

I lost 10 pounds (didn’t know I had 10 pounds to lose)

And I dropped my blood pressure by 20 points!

My doctor said medication wasn’t needed and to keep doing what I’m doing until the next check up in 6 months.

I’ve always believed that as a music producer and engineer that sits for most of the work day, it’s important to have a weight training routine that helps stretch the body out and develop muscles that combat poor posture.

And a great chair. (Shoutout Herman Miller!)

The unexpected benefit from a morning workout for both weight training and cardio days is that it really sets me up for creative success throughout the day. At 9am, I’m creatively juiced up and ready to get to work. More workout days has definitely helped my studio work.

If you’re interested in making these changes too, here are the details of my workout that I feel like can really help producers and engineers:

All Body Workout (40 minutes)

3x per week

Choose 1 exercise for each muscle group, 3 sets, 8-12 reps

Chest: bench press (bench or machine), dumbbell press, or chest flys

Back: lat pull down or rows

Shoulders: dumbbell press or dumbbell/cable flys

Triceps: rope pull downs

Biceps: dumbell curls or isolation curls

Legs: Extensions, Curls and Calf raises

Abs: 2 sets of crunches while focusing on your core and stretch of extension

Cardio 30 minutes: treadmill for soft impact. 2 minutes fast walking / x minutes jogging (increase this number over time)