November

What’s on my mind lately:

• I mentioned DFA alpha1 in a previous email, Fatmaxxer is the app I’m using to measure it (what a name, right?). Essentially DFA a1 can tell you when you pass Ventilatory Threshold 1 and start to burn carbs instead of fat. In another email I’ll explain why it’s interesting to be able to monitor this in real time. In the meantime, this article and this article go into lots of background on these topics and why I’m interested.

• My Oura Gen 3 arrived, seems not to have any issues the Gen 2 gave me (they determined I had a faulty Gen 2 unit). Daytime HR is nice to have, it works like a smartwatch and does periodic measurements. It does not seem to solve the problem of pretty much any exercise being classified as “high intensity”, even when I am low in Zone 2. Nevertheless, happy to have my sleep tracker of choice working reliably. Use this link to get a discount of $50 on your own ring and 6 months free membership (only good for first 3 purchasers).

• Sucralose is probably the most common of the “non-nutritive sweeteners” (NNS), which is a catch all for the class of sweeteners that don’t have any calories. Other common ones are aspartame, stevia, and monk fruit. I recently dug into a bit more of the science on these as I am again testing with a CGM and my BG levels were higher than I expected or am happy with. Turns out I’ve been consuming a protein drink with sucralose and it’s really not good for you at all - it’s been shown to reduce insulin sensitivity, which is a really bad thing. T2 diabetes is at least partly a result of your pancreas being overworked from producing too much insulin, and being insulin insensitive makes this more likely. All that to say - avoid sucralose, and look out for it in products you consider “healthy”. Here’s another link with some info.

• Budgeting - I try to structure my thinking and decisions as much as possible so I can minimize decision making. Here is my framework for spending.

  • All spending outside normal monthly / recurring bills goes on a shopping list. Every item gets ranked on a 1-5 scale. 1 means it’s essential or tied to health/wealth preservation. 5 is frivolous fun spending. Here are some examples:

    • 1 - hiring an attorney to complete legal documents (will, power of attorney, etc.)

    • 2 - replacing my laptop, which is starting to show its age; my regular InsideTracker blood panels

    • 3 - my annual ski trip with my sons

    • 4 - new running shoes, new bike tires to replace worn out gear

    • 5 - ultra-light carbon parts for my bike

  • Besides priority, the second key parameter is tracking low long an item stays on the list. When I add something to the list, I enter the date in a column to “start the clock”. MS Excel will calculate how many days it’s been since the entry date.

  • Weighted cost - multiply the actual dollar cost of the item by the priority rating, and then divide it by how many quarters it has been on the list.

  • Only buy the item when the weighted cost is below $500. The goal here is to avoid impulse buys and leave room for important purchases. Notice that once an item has been on the list a long time, its weighted cost goes down - it’s no longer an impulse buy. For example, I’ve been wanting a mountain bike for a long time. Assuming it stays on the list, that new MTB weighted cost will eventually drop below $500 (it’s a category 5, on the list for 8 quarters, so the actual cost of $5000 has a weighted cost today of $3,125). One key to this process is to purge the list, which I do regularly. It’s amazing how many things you think you need or want that you can happily live without when you go back six months later and see them on the list. Of course there are always exceptions and adjustments but this framework has been really useful for me.

• I’ve been doing a lot of diversifying within crypto lately. Zwift got me thinking more about the metaverse and what it means, and I kept pulling the thread from there and found a new class of crypto projects to focus on. I’ll share more on this in December.

• Another thing on my mind lately. Nothing to see here, just do what the government tells you to do.

Fall in the Santa Cruz mountains. Not a bad place to ride a bike.