Monday 10-minute action Measure your smart BMI, biological age, stress and sick days

In my opinion, these four measures give the most value for the least effort. None of them are perfect, but together, the provide an impressively complete picture of your general health. Let’s take them one-by-one.

Smart BMI

Everyone knows that the body mass index (BMI) is an important health indicator. Smart BMI is almost the same thing, but it contains some important adjustments for age and gender. 

You can easily estimate your Smart BMI by feeding your weight, height, gender and age into this website. The healthy range lies between 30/70 and 39/70. If you want to be really cool, go for 34/70 🙂

Biological age

It’s certainly possible to be thin and unfit (poor cardiovascular health). This is where biological age comes in. Use this website to estimate your biological age using some easy waist and resting heart rate measurements. 

With good fitness habits, you can keep your metabolic age below 20 for much of your life. Doing so will greatly diminish your risk of heart disease, the #1 cause of death worldwide.

Stress and anxiety

It’s also possible to be thin, fit and highly stressed. The high incidence of mental health conditions in our modern society should be taken very seriously. Take these two quick tests for stress and anxiety to see where you stand.

You’re in a good place when you score “Little or No” stress or anxiety. “Mild” or “Moderate” indications of stress and/or anxiety can probably be overcome by intelligent changes to your environment and outlook. “Strong” indications may require professional council.   

Sick days

But even if we’re thin, fit and calm, excellent health is still not guaranteed. The last piece of the puzzle is simply to observe how often you get sick. Regular illness is not just an annoyance – it’s a clear call to action! 

The time since your last sick day is a great indicator of whether you’re giving your body and mind all it needs to be healthy (nutrients, movement, relaxation, stimulation, clean air and water, etc.). Never getting sick is 100% possible and is a great target to strive for. 

So, there you have it. Doing all these tests should take a mere 10 minutes of your valuable time. If you’re a data-nerd like me, tracking this info over time on pretty graphs is extremely interesting and motivating.

For all the normal people out there though, just checking where you stand once every quarter is enough. I highly recommend setting a recurring reminder in your calendar!

Then I’ll see you tomorrow when we’ll discuss just why health is so critically important.