It is Friday morning here in Australia, I have my coffee, and Patty and Cedric are already in the chat. I do not celebrate birthdays. I turn 59 tomorrow, and rather than let it slide past I wanted to use this session to tell you what I am about to start over the next few months.
What follows is fairly unguarded. I walk back through how I got here, from a prostate cancer diagnosis at 50 to two heart related conditions at 56, then I put my own weight chart up on screen and name the one thing I have to fix before Christmas. This is the decode, align and thrive framework applied to me, in public, with the uncomfortable number left in.
Core discussion points
How I got here: Prostate cancer at 50. Then at 56, when I thought I was clear of it, I was diagnosed with coronary artery disease and cerebral small vessel disease, with my plaque levels sitting in the extreme 99th percentile. The prognosis at the time was two or three years. During that diagnosis I was encouraged to write a book, so I did. Decode Your Diagnosis came out of that period, along with the framework I have been running on ever since.
Not longevity, vitality: I want to be clear about what I am not chasing. Living to 100 or 120 is an abstraction to me, and I know plenty of people my age are aiming for exactly that. What I want is a vital life, a healthy life, and I want it while sitting at the 99th percentile of a chronic condition rather than pretending I am not.
The one number I have to fix: Most of my results have improved, but my weight has been climbing since May and it peaked at 87.1 kilos in August. What concerns me is not the waistline, it is the visceral fat around my organs, which matters a great deal when you already have severe heart disease. My specialist wants me at 77.5 kilos. I have been there, and I could not hold it. I am a stocky sort of a guy and I looked gaunt. The number I am going after is 82, the weight that stops my clinicians from reading me the riot act and that I can actually sustain.
Why wild foods, and why a trial: After I interviewed Vic Cherikoff on Sessions from the Edge, Australia's leading wild foods scientist agreed to sponsor a trial. Here is the ladder as I now understand it. Processed food sits at the bottom. Organic is a genuine step up, but organic is still grown in modern conditions, and around 80% of the world's soils are depleted. Wild foods are gathered rather than farmed, drawing on 65,000 years of seasonal knowledge from the oldest continuous culture on the planet. I am calling this a weight management trial, not a weight loss trial, because crashing down to a number and bouncing straight back is not what I need, and it is not what anyone with a chronic illness needs either. GLP-1 injections and the commercial programs are off the table for me for the same reason.
How I am running it: Nothing goes in unchecked. My naturopath, who has been with me since day one of the heart disease diagnosis, is reviewing every product for conflicts with what I already take, including the magnesium glycinate, nattokinase and ubiquinol in my daily box. Sophie Goodin, a nutritional scientist and one of our Fire Starters, will look at how these blends compare with the diet I am already on. I will publish my blood results and my blood sugar readings as the trial runs. There are 105 days to Christmas, and we are counting down.Titan takeaways and actionable affirmation
Titan takeaways and actionable affirmation
"It's not about longevity at this stage. I'm interested in having a vital life, having a healthy life, and that's despite being somebody at the 99th percentile of a chronic condition."
Pick the number your body can actually hold: A target you cannot sustain is not a goal, it is a setback waiting to happen. My specialist wants 77.5 kilos. My body works at 82. Knowing that difference is what makes the plan survivable.
Manage, do not crash: There is a reason I will not call this a weight loss trial. When you are managing a chronic illness the method matters as much as the result, and the quick commercial route is rarely built with you in mind.
Check for conflicts before you add anything: Every new product goes past my naturopath first, against the full stack I already take. Adding something good on top of something else good is not automatically safe.
Fama’s sidebar
The navigator’s insight
Paul's chart did not turn in a single month. It drifted, reading by reading, while everything on the surface looked fine and he looked slimmer than he had in years. Drift is the quietest form of risk, because nothing about it ever feels like an event. The value in tracking is not the number itself, it is seeing the direction early enough that the correction is still small. Fama Concordia is built for exactly that kind of steady watching, running calculations across your daily parameters so a trend surfaces while you can still act on it. She is a companion for reading the signals, not a replacement for your GP, naturopath or specialist.
Deep knowledge question: If the mirror can tell you that you are in the best shape of your life while the fat around your organs climbs toward a threshold, what are you actually measuring when you decide you are well?
Reflection prompt: What is drifting in your own health right now that you have chosen not to look at closely? Name it this week, and pick one measurement you could start taking.
What’s next in the Alignment Campus
The Alignment Campus is in free beta at formulaforlife.ai. Inside is Fama Concordia, where you can talk through your own trends at any hour, and a closed community of peers managing chronic illness. The wild food research behind Vic Cherikoff's blends, and my first set of trial numbers, will follow in the Reader's Key newsletter for paid subscribers.
Discuss the episode with Fama, and pick one number to start watching this week.
Formula For Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
