The Health Tests Every Father Needs Yearly to Live Longer and Stay Present
I Became a Dad in 2022. Then my wife delivered our daughter in 2024. And now we are having our third child this month (december 2025).
Fatherhood changes you.
Before I trained to look good, to feel strong, capable, confident, and of course be healthy.
Now there is another, deeper motivation
“I need to live a long time to be present for my children”.
Every man who is a father understands this. Your family depends on you, you are the stabilizing force and provider of safety, comfort, and structure for their whole world.
This is ever present on my mind.
Ive learned that most fathers don’t neglect their health because they don’t care.
They neglect it because they’re busy providing, leading, and pushing forward. You take care of everyone but yourself.
The problem is that biology doesn’t care how responsible you are.
Heart disease, metabolic dysfunction, hormone decline, and cognitive slowdown start silent and incremental. They build quietly in the background, and you dont notice until one day when your energy is gone, or you get sick and dont recover the same, or you have an ego check moment where you realize your slow, fattened, out of shape.
Or maybe a friend dies young, or a relative. A widowmaker heart attack, a bad case of pneumonia, terrible anxiety from work and family stress and blood pressure skyrockets…
This is Preventable. Health is never Static. Health is dynamic
Your daily habits are either health promoting and keep you strong, or pathogenic and putting down a path to disease and weakness.
If your goal is is like mine: to live a long time, stay capable, and be present for your family, then you need to take full responsibility on your metabolic health.
The right kind of tests put you in control of your health
These are the most important health tests fathers should prioritize yearly to protect longevity, performance, and presence.
I recommend getting lab testing done through FUNCTION.
They have fantastic dashboard for your health data, they explain all the numbers, and you can order a wide array of specialty tests beyond their main yearly panel
1. Comprehensive Bloodwork
Most annual physicals barely scratch the surface. And most men dont get them in the first place. The level of testing you have done depends on your PCP. This is not to beat up on doctors, but most men I talk to are dissastisfied with the level of care they get.
A father-focused blood panel should include all the following:
Fasting glucose
Fasting insulin
HbA1c
Full lipid panel with ApoB
Liver enzymes (AST, ALT, GGT)
Kidney markers (creatinine, eGFR)
Inflammatory marker (hs-CRP)
Thyroid panel (TSH, free T3, free T4)
Fasting insulin
HbA1c
Fasting glucose
Triglyceride-to-HDL ratio
hs-CRP
GGT
Ferritin (too high or too low both matter)
Why this matters:
Bloodwork is your early warning system and feedback that your lifestyle is working or not working.
It tells you if you’re drifting toward diabetes, fatty liver, cardiovascular disease, or chronic inflammation years before symptoms appear.
Insulin resistance underpins heart disease, dementia, obesity, and accelerated aging.
Most men are insulin resistant 10–15 years before diabetes is diagnosed. By the time blood sugar is “high,” damage is already underway.
No one suddenly become unhealthy overnight. They slowly normalize feeling tired, foggy, and inflamed, until that becomes their baseline.
2. Hormone Panel (Especially Testosterone)
Hormone panels you often have to request and are not automatically included in bloodwork.
A proper yearly hormone panel includes:
Total testosterone
Free testosterone
SHBG
Estradiol (sensitive assay)
DHEA-S
Cortisol (or morning cortisol)
Why this matters:
Hormones govern far more than sex drive. Low or declining testosterone impacts energy, mood, fat gain, muscle loss, bone density, cardiovascular risk, and cognitive sharpness.
Fathers with hormone dysfunction often become irritable, exhausted, disengaged, and less resilient to stress—without realizing biology is driving the change.
You cannot out-discipline broken physiology.
3. Advanced Cardiovascular Risk Testing (Beyond Cholesterol)
Heart disease remains the #1 cause of death in men.
Standard cholesterol testing misses critical risk factors. Fathers should know:
ApoB (particle number matters more than LDL alone)
Lp(a) (genetic risk most men never test)
Blood pressure trends over time
If you’re over 40, or younger with risk factors, add imaging:
Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) scan (baseline)
CLEERLY scan if you have a family history of heart disease or early heart attacks
Why this matters:
You can be lean, active, and still build arterial plaque silently.
The CLEERLY test goes beyond calcium scores by using AI-driven coronary CT angiography to assess soft plaque, stenosis, and total arterial health, long before actual symptoms occur.
This is how fathers avoid “surprise” cardiac events.
4. DEXA Scan: Body Composition, Not Guesswork
The scale lies. Mirrors lie. Even “how your clothes fit” lies.
A yearly DEXA scan gives you objective data on:
Body fat percentage
Lean muscle mass
Bone density
Fat distribution (including visceral fat)
Why this matters:
Weight alone is useful, but your actual body composition gives the best insight.
Lots of men are “fat jacked” and delude themselves into thinking theyve got lots of muscle and are only 20lbs away from being ripped.
In reality their bodyfat is 24% and they need to lose 40lbs to actually be lean.
Fathers often lose muscle while gaining fat without realizing it, especially under stress or with poor sleep. DEXA keeps you honest and allows you to intervene early.
Muscle mass and bone density are two of the strongest predictors of longevity and independence later in life.
5. Sleep & Breathing Assessment (Massively Underrated)
This one is Optional. I recommend these IF you snore.
Sleep apnea and sleep fragmentation are epidemic among fathers and men will think its not a big deal and ignore it. Meanwhile your sleep is wrecked and your aging twice as fast.
If you snore, wake unrefreshed, or feel tired despite enough hours in bed, consider:
Home sleep study
Oxygen saturation tracking
Resting heart rate and HRV trends
Why this matters:
Its sleep for gods sake. Do we really need another explanation on why sleep is important.
Poor sleep crushes testosterone, worsens insulin resistance, raises blood pressure, and accelerates cardiovascular disease.
You can eat clean and train hard, but broken sleep will undo it all.
Responsibility=Longevity
Yearly testing gives you leverage and enables correction early instead of crisis management later. Take it from me; Ive been in the fitness industry my whole life, and Ive seen many men get their ego checked when they get comprehensive labs done.
Being healthy as you age doesnt require perfect action, but it does require being proactive.
Don’t wait for symptoms. Dont wait for a disaster. Dont wait for someone you care about to go through a health crisis and THEN you decided to get serious.
Longevity is not luck. Its built on systems, data, and knowing what you are doing is working.
Do You Want to Lose 20+ lbs Fat and Reclaim Health in 2026?
The 2026 Accelerated Fat Loss Challenges begins the 1st week of January
Right now you can sign up for the super early bird price of only $98 until December 25th