A Health Audit For Every Man
If you are health conscious and active in online communities, its easy to be misled into thinking that everyone is proactive with their health.
Everyone is getting blood tests.
Everyone is working with AIs for their lab work.
Everyone is using data tracking devices.
Everyone is going to the gym.
Everyone follows coaches.
LOL.
This is the fish bowl phenomenon if you believe this. Your reality perception is warped by your life algorithm.
In reality, most men have no idea where they actually stand.
They go to the doctor once a year, maybe, get told their numbers are “fine,” and go back to whatever they were doing.
Meanwhile they’re 30 pounds overweight, can’t touch their toes, sleep like garbage, and haven’t seen the sun in a week.
80-90% of Americans are still metabolically unhealthy.
What follows is a self-audit. This is designed for regular men. Not athletes. Not bodybuilders. Regular guys who want an honest assessment of where they are and what to fix first.
I’ve trained hundreds of people. The patterns are always the same. The problems are always the same. And the solutions are far simpler than anyone thinks
Before we Begin
Preoder Ferta Creatine for your Wife
Creatine is beneficial for reproductive health as well as metabolic health
Check out Vanguard Labs—Order your own bloodwork
Vanguard has become the most affordable option for doing your own lab work, and they have every lab test and panel you could ever need. I suggest starting with the Male panel (for Men) or Total Female (for the Ladies)
1. The Mirror Test
Before anything else, take your shirt off and look in the mirror. Front, side, back if you can manage it.
There is no more honest test than this.
Can you see your abs, even faintly? Are your shoulders wider than your waist? Do you look like someone who could handle themselves physically?
The Adonis Index, the ratio between your shoulder circumference and your waist — should ideally follow the Golden Ratio of 1.618.
Your shoulders (measured around the medial deltoid and across the nipple line) should be roughly 1.618 times your waist measurement. In practical terms, that’s about a 20-inch difference between your shoulders and your waist.
This should be your body. If its not, you need to get there. Grab a tape measure. Write the numbers down. This is your starting point.
While you’re at it, measure your waist at the navel. For men, a waist circumference over 40 inches is a clinical marker for metabolic syndrome. But I’d argue anything over 36 inches means you have work to do, and anything over 34 inches means you’re not lean enough to be truly healthy.
Visceral fat, the fat packed around your organs, is a primary driver of systemic inflammation, insulin resistance, and hormonal dysfunction.
What do you need to do if you’re overly fat? LOSE WEIGHT
2. The Movement Test
Can you do 20 pushups with full range of motion? Can you do a single pullup? Can you sit on the floor cross-legged and stand back up without using your hands?
Can you jog a mile and not gas out?
These are baseline human capacities. If you can’t hit them, your body is telling you something important about the state of your musculature, your joints, and your nervous system.
Its telling you youre fragile and easy to kill
Your relative bodyweight strength should be impressive in comparison to regular, untrained people.
If it’s not, your training is ineffective. Period. Pushups, pullups, dips, squats, lunges, these things should be EASY FOR YOU.
These aren’t advanced movements. They’re the minimum standard for a functioning male body.
If you can’t do a pullup or run a mile, that’s priority number one and two. Not a new supplement stack. Not a peptide protocol.
You need fundamental strength training and cardio.
3. The Metabolic Audit
When you eat a highly processed, high-carb diet and don’t exercise, your insulin sensitivity declines.
Your body compensates by releasing more insulin to handle the blood sugar. But insulin in excess is inflammatory.
Systemic inflammation rises. Fluid retention happens, the look of being slightly bloated in the face, and your hunger hormones are dysregulated, and you’re storing fat around your organs at an accelerating rate.
The signs of insulin resistance are visible if you know what to look for: face bloat, abdominal obesity, skin tags (especially around the neck), intense carb cravings, afternoon energy crashes, and brain fog after meals.
The fix is not complicated.
Eat meat. Eat whole foods. Drink water.
That’s my philosophy on diet in 7 words.
A diet built around animal protein, vegetables, tubers, fruit, and healthy cooking fats will resolve most metabolic dysfunction within months.
Whole foods are more satiating, contain a broader spectrum of micronutrients, and make it nearly impossible to chronically overeat.
If your diet has been shite, then Get bloodwork done.
Vanguard Total Male Panel. Order it.
Or ask your doctor if you want to do that. Ask for a comprehensive metabolic panel, fasting insulin (not just fasting glucose, this is critical), hemoglobin A1C, a full lipid panel, total and free testosterone, thyroid panel (TSH, free T3, free T4), and vitamin D. Most doctors won’t run fasting insulin unless you ask.
It’s the earliest warning marker for metabolic dysfunction, years before fasting glucose starts climbing.
4. The Environment Audit
Your light environment controls every biological process in your body; sleep-wake cycles, cortisol secretion, growth hormone release, testosterone production, appetite, and cell division.
You cannot have a properly functioning hypothalamus without a healthy light environment. And the hypothalamus is the main link between your endocrine and nervous systems.
The audit is simple. How much direct sunlight are you getting daily?
If the answer is under 30 minutes, you have a problem that no supplement or training program will solve. How much artificial light are you exposed to after sunset? If you’re staring at screens until midnight, your circadian rhythm is wrecked, your melatonin production is suppressed, and your sleep quality is compromised regardless of how many hours you spend in bed.
Morning sunlight exposure within the first hour of waking. Limited artificial light after dark. These two practices alone can shift hormonal markers more than most men realize.
Make yteh
The Daily Minimum
Here’s the audit translated into action.
Hit these every day and you will be healthier than 90% of American men within six months
Walk 10,000 steps. Every day. Non-negotiable.
Lift weights 3-4 days a week.
Eat a whole foods diet built around animal protein.
Get 30 minutes of direct sunlight, ideally in the morning.
Sleep 7-8 hours in a dark room.
Get your bloodwork done and actually read the results.
This is not complicated. None of this is sexy. There’s nothing proprietary here Im sharing. I know youve likely read this many times over the past few years.
But it WORKS.
SO DO IT.
Do the audit. Write it down. Be honest where you actually stand.
Then get to work.
My health coaching team can help you if you need it.
Good stuff AJAC! Curious, would you say this baseline all applies for females too?
If your shoulder to waist ratio is anywhere near 1.618 without training, you might have unbelievable genetics.