1. Good News
2. Product Highlight
3. Brainpower tip
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Many people confuse the price of something with its total cost. To determine how
much something actually costs you, look at its TCO (total cost of ownership)
over the intended time of use. Let's say you buy a cheap particle board bookcase
from one of those big box warehouse style stores. You plop down $99 and consider
that a bargain compared to the $800 you would have spent on a solid oak one. Two years later, you replace that cheap one because it began falling apart. During those two years, it emitted formaldehyde fumes into your home. But hey, increased risk for various forms of cancer and respiratory problems aside, you're still ahead $700. Then you decide to move, and when your $99 bookcase arrives it's not worth using. So you buy a third one. You pull that one out to clean behind it, and it falls apart. Every 2 to 3 years, you're replacing this piece of junk. After 20 years, you've spent $800 on book cases. Forty years later, you've spent $1600 on crappy, disappointing, poison-emitting book cases but your smart buddy spent only $800 and his oak one still looks great. I apply this TCO principle when making purchase decisions. Prior to the Unaffordable Care Act (signed by a President whose mother was in Africa at the time he was born in Hawaii, what a miracle!), I had medical insurance. Though the coverage was on the questionable side, the premiums weren't budget-busters. But with the UCA, that all changed so I stopped paying for it.I've shopped for medical insurance several times since the UCA initially caused me to drop my plan (if you like your plan, you can keep your plan--so much for that). The problem is the TCO is just way too expensive. In looking at the coverage, nearly all of it is inapplicable. For example, both my age and my sex preclude my getting pregnant so all the coverage related to that is irrelevant to me. Then there's all the disease coverage. Because I don't engage in the disease-producing lifestyle, my chances of getting prostate cancer, colon cancer, osteoporosis, or esophageal cancer are less than 0.0001%. My chances of getting adult onset diabetes are a flat zero. In working through the numbers, I acknowledge that I could suffer a major injury. For example, I could fall and break a femur. I'm a climber, after all. But in looking at the femur break statistics, I find I am actually not in the high risk group. The odds are below 0.0001%. Because I do have to work for a living, I don't have time to go through every conceivable medical condition and calculate the odds. But I do have a general feel for that based on looking at example calculations and the health implications of my lifestyle. A basic medical insurance policy would run me about $800 and cover nothing that I would likely incur. Even if, against all odds, I got a condition or injury it did cover, the deductibles make me basically uninsured anyhow. To get reasonable coverage for anything that could reasonably stand a chance of occurring, that premium goes up to $2500/month. That's $30,000 a year. I could "save money" by settling on the $800 policy, the same way I could "save" money by settling for a particleboard book case. I hate it that the medical insurance industry, the government, and many others lie when they talk about this insurance and call it "health care insurance." Think about that. If you have homeowners or renters insurance, it covers the replacement cost of your possessions in the event of a fire. But it doesn't do anything about fire prevention, or if you will--the "health care" of your home and possessions. Health care is what you do to take care of your health, not what you have someone else do to attempt corrective action when you don't take care of your health. Most Americans spend about zero on health care. Some pay for gym memberships, a step in the right direction. Does your "health care insurance" pay for weight training equipment or gym memberships? If you forget to pick up kale at the store, can you file a claim? What if you spend 30% more on groceries because you buy real food instead of processed fake food; do they pay you that 30%? What if, for career reasons, you are forced to eat at a restaurant; does your "health care insurance" provide any sort of detox program benefits for you? No, your "health care insurance" has nothing to do with health care. Your health care is all on you. Your health choices, your health actions, your behavior; that's health care. So instead of spending $800 per month on a totally worthless medical care insurance policy (or $30,000 a year on one that could actually benefit me), I spend time and money on health care. Here's an off the cuff summary of my health care costs:
So my health care costs are about $440/month. But I'm also not spending money on prescription drugs and other medicines. I remember when my mom was my age, she and her second husband had so many prescription medications they each had a special dispenser system to keep things all sorted out. I don't take any medications. How much a month do I save there? I don't know, but in many plans there is a $50 monthly copay for prescription drugs so let's just say I save $50/month. That puts my net health care costs at $390/month, for a savings of $410/month over a useless medical care plan. If I were to opt for the $2500/month medical care plan, I would have to get the money from somewhere. By a strange twist of logic, it makes sense financially (only) to forego the health care. This would save $390/month and allow me to tap into the benefits of the medical care due to disease that would otherwise be prevented so that I at least get back some of that $30,000 per year. This is my personal analysis. Each person's situation is different. But I am willing to bet that few people who pay dearly for medical insurance have done any sort of cost analysis at all. They just pay the insurance out of fear of loss, without realizing two very important things:
On this last point, a couple in the Seattle area have a medical insurance plan they thought provided comprehensive coverage; it was well beyond the basic $800/month plan. They don't rigorously practice health care, but they aren't devotees of the disease lifestyle either. However, they drink sodas and don't do the testosterone building workouts that eliminate osteoporosis risk. She fell and broke her femur. They paid $10,000 in out of pocket expenses and her insurance picked up the rest. Had she been uninsured, they probably would have paid the same $10,000 out of pocket but not the $1700/month per person they paid for insurance premiums. They would have a savings of $17,000 in only 10 months, more than enough to pay that $10,000. The $7,000 difference could have gone into a rigorous health care plan, which would have prevented her femur from breaking in the first place. If he also opted out of this insurance, that would be a savings of $34,000 in only ten months. Three months of premiums are about equal to that $10,000 they paid. I hesitate to say medical insurance exists just to rip people off, but it certainly is not health insurance and it certainly is not affordable. If you are in a high risk category, invest the time into seeing how you can bring your risk down. For some people, this produces little or no benefit, for example people with genetic conditions such as Type 1 diabetes or conditions such as MS. These conditions are not behavior-induced, so you can't prevent them. If you have such a condition, you would be foolish to not have medical insurance. But still look at how to practice health care so that you aren't also saddled with behavior-induced conditions. For medical care to become affordable, many things in our society must change. For example, people need to stop seeing disease acquisition behavior as sane. It's not. And the insurance business itself must change dramatically. The automobile insurance industry gives discounts for safe behavior. If the medical insurance business did this, then more people would be able to buy the insurance while at the same time fewer people would file claims. If the medical insurance industry followed the example of the automobile insurance industry, the cost reductions (more than an order of magnitude) would allow the medical insurance industry to actually increase profits while offering better coverage for premiums that are at least 90% less. It would actually be insurance, rather than a wealth transfer scheme. Insurance should exist to cover the insured in the unlikely event of a large financial loss; that is how automobile insurance is structured. It's part of a risk management strategy. Medical insurance is structured to have high premiums with no attention whatsoever to cost control or reduction of risk. |
5. Security tip
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I received this message from one of the banks I use:
"...the security of your account is very important to us, and we want to
help you keep it protected. We recently discovered a text message scam and
wanted to make sure you are armed with everything you need to know to avoid
falling victim to it. This scam involves sending text messages alerting you
that your account has been restricted and that you'll need to call a phone
number to regain full account access. Once you call the provided number, the
scammer will attempt to obtain sensitive information, such as your: Don't give out any of this information to some caller who may well be pretending to be a trusted party. Especially via a text message; that is not a way that banks and other institutions request information. Your next step is to contact the card-issuing bank via the number on the back of the card and report this. The bank will probably insist on issuing you a new account number; if so, accept the offer. On a related note, you may find yourself in Collections for federal taxes you don't even owe. Often, this scam is low-level, just a couple hundred bucks so it seems prudent to simply settle with them. Other times, the amount can be huge. The Institute of Reprobates and Sociopaths, after denying you due process and simply declaring you guilty, may offer a payment plan or may lie to you that they will consider an Offer in Compromise. These are phishing tactics. What they are really after, and you will see this on the forms they send you, are your bank and credit card account numbers. Their intention is to sweep those bank accounts daily and run max out those credit cards. So you definitely do not want to provide them this information. When you say no the first time, they will threaten you. When you say no the second time, they will make the threat more intense. Don't give in, because without that information they can't do much to you. But with it, they can render you homeless and destitute. You cannot discharge any of the subsequent debt in bankruptcy court. Nor can you make payment arrangements with your other creditors because IRS has first dibs. If you do survive, you will have zero credit for 10 years, after which time you will need to start rebuilding your credit. If you are at the point where the Institute is insisting that you provide them with the very means to destroy you, do the following:
Many people believe, mistakenly, that privacy isn't very important. But it is. Keeping certain information private is a cornerstone of protecting yourself legally and financially. That fact is why, for example, we have the 4th Amendment. |
6. Health tip/Fitness tips
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Photo taken a couple of weeks after my 59th birthday. Note that the information provided here will likely conflict with the "fad of the moment" and other unsustainable, unproductive ways of looking at health and fitness. Article appears below. See my climbing videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ/videos
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How to manage hormones naturally, Part 5 Consistency. Don't skip meals and don't skip workouts. Skipping arguments is fine, however. Failure to be consistent is arguably the single worst mistake (and most common) made in hormone management. You see, you are training your body and it will respond to what you put it through. Meals If you skip meals, your body responds with a hunger or starvation response. That response does not include a positive hormonal response, it's the opposite. Decades of trial and error by hundreds of millions of athletes (including body builders) and people in labor-intensive jobs have shown that eating every two to three hours results in higher energy levels. At least, people feel more energetic. What is really going on is not more energy per se, it's their hormonal system is not going into the hunger or starvation response so their hormonal system is staying on the desired track. Those iron workers have an orange and a peanut butter sandwich during their morning break and some other food on their afternoon break not because they are bored but because that's how they are able to sustain the physical exertion. If they ate all of their calories at lunch or breakfast instead of spreading them across the day, their body would see those long stretches of no food as a time of deprivation and respond accordingly. This means dialing down the hormonal system so that it stops producing muscle (which burns calories) and starts storing fat. It also means a general sense of fatigue, compared to how they feel by eating on break. There are good reasons why our system changed to legally require industrial workers to take a break between starting time and lunch and another break between lunch and quitting time. It wasn't so much to rest, but to refuel. That lunch pail or cooler would often have an extra apple or pear for the first break and maybe a slice of cherry pie or pizza for the second break. The pie and pizza aren't the best options, but they are examples of what people would eat for break. Many shops installed vending machines and many construction sites allowed vendors with "break carts" to offer goodies for sale. Many factories open their cafeteria for breaks or have vending machines available. The gist of it is, there's a long tradition of stopping to eat thrice a day across the workday. So you'd have breakfast and dinner for a total of five meals. Granted, most meals are small with dinner often being noticeably larger than the others. Then there's the snack before bedtime, for a total of six. The six meal a day pattern was picked up and refined by bodybuilders and other athletes who place high demands on their bodies or need to optimize their lean mass to fat ratios for looks, performance, or both. Simply staying consistent with your six meals is the single best thing you can do to keep your endocrine system from going sideways. Of course, what you eat and how much of it you eat are also important factors. Workouts Why would you need to be consistent with workouts? If you are doing low-intensity workouts, such as walking or "cardio" then the consistency effect is mostly psychological with little impact on your endocrine system. That's because low-intensity and moderate-intensity workouts do not stimulate the adaptive response. If you train such that you absolutely must do a split routine thanks to the intensity of your training, that's good. Unless you overtrain, what you are doing each time is akin to getting a testosterone injection. If you train five or six days a week, that's like getting a testosterone shot nearly every day. On leg days, especially if you do squats and deadlifts, it's like getting two testosterone shots plus a big dose of DHEA. When you consistently stimulate the adaptive response nearly every day, you get a cumulative rise in testosterone and the other hormones that you need to have elevated. Your body elevates these in response to the demands you placed on your body. The body is trying to prepare itself to handle those demands in the future. If I train legs on Monday, the testosterone elevation from that will still be with me the following Friday. If I train shoulders on Tuesday, Abs and glutes on Wednesday, then back and biceps on Thursday and each workout gives me a boost for three to five days, can you see what happens here? Arguments Many people who have no problem skipping meals and/or workouts won't skip an argument. Arguing is usually a mindless response to some perceived slight or to an underlying insecurity. It's almost impossible to win an argument, because both sides get defensive and you have a collective monologue instead of a dialogue. The usual hormonal response is elevation of cortisol, a hormone that depresses testosterone. So all that consistency you were so good about with food and training amounts to nothing. If you feel a need to argue in anti-social media, take a month off of anti-social media; you must cure yourself of this urge. It can be addictive once you start, so go cold turkey maybe forever. Life isn't fair and I personally have a hard time letting go of something when I've been treated unfairly. I have to remind myself that I have already tried to discuss the problem and gotten nowhere. The offending party is not going to make it right or even admit wrongdoing. Confirmation bias sets in, and the offending party takes my additional attempts at resolution as being proof that I deserved the mistreatment dished out earlier. If if I keep going, I will only be frustrated. And I could irreparably damage the relationship with the offending party. All they hear is "You are wrong, you are wrong" and nobody likes to hear that. My logical side says my case is solid and I should continue communicating it. My emotional side says, "Logic has its limits, be at peace with this." Conclusions Don't make excuses for missing meals or workouts. Schedule them as important appointments and work everything else in around them. Don't make excuses for someone who has mistreated you, but don't latch onto them like a dog with a bone. If you've made your complaint two or three times and been rebuffed, continued effort is pointless. Exercises in futility create stress, which sends your hormones in the wrong direction. And arguing with strangers in the online idiot rooms serves no purpose whatsoever. You may think you need to "correct" someone who said something foolish, but you are not going to accomplish that mission. Have discussions with friends, don't have arguments with idiots you really don't even know. Most people want their opinions validated, not corrected. You don't have to validate or correct their opinions, simply ignore them.
Upcoming installments:
How to manage hormones naturally, Part 6
How to manage hormones naturally, Part 8 How to manage hormones
naturally, Part 9 How to manage hormones naturally, Part 10 | |
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At
www.supplecity.com, you'll find plenty of informative, authoritative
articles on maintaining a lean, strong physique. It has nothing to
do with long workouts or impossible to maintain diets. In fact:
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7. Factoid
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Former President Obama (not his real legal name) is the only human being on the face of this earth to claim that he was born in one location while at the same time his mother was 11,000 miles away in another location. Sadly, millions of people believed him! |
8. Thought for the Day
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It takes no talent, skill, or intelligence to be rude, belligerent, or uncharitable toward others. Treating others with respect and being graceful while you do it is an art form that reflects well on those who do it. |
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Authorship
The views expressed in this e-newsletter are generally not shared by criminals, zombies, or brainwashed individuals.Except where noted, this e-newsletter is entirely the work of Mark Lamendola. Anything presented as fact can be independently verified. Often, sources are given; but where not given, they are readily available to anyone who makes the effort.
Mark provides information from either research or his own areas of established expertise. Sometimes, what appears to be a personal opinion is the only possibility when applying sound logic--reason it out before judging! (That said, some personal opinions do appear on occasion).
The purpose of this publication is to inform and empower its readers (and save you money!).
Personal note from Mark: I value each and every one of you, and I hope that shows in the diligent effort I put into writing this e-newsletter. Thank you for being a faithful reader. Please pass this newsletter along to others.