Since I’m convinced that biological age calculators do not work nor that a single number can guide behavior change, I am working on a scorecard of functional metrics to mark goals and progress / status on my efforts to remain forever in a state of health and fitness somewhat like my 35 year old self (I’m 62 now). Below is what I’ve come up with for a simple process that I hope is good enough (as in covers the important bases without getting lost in the weeds).
I’m interested in ideas for improvement. Missed categories, better metrics, etc. I intend for it to remain a manual, subjective process to avoid spending time on algorithms and automation that take my eye off the ball (and would be wrong anyway).
Functional tracking.pdf (67.3 KB)
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Nice work @约瑟夫_拉维尔. I like the functional approach. In spite of our best efforts, aging will account for decline in these functional dimensions. As a well known issue in measurement science, how will you anchor your response sets to guard against various applicable forms of calibration error, a significantly heightened risk when rating ourselves. Throughout, it appears that “age appropriate” is your single anchor from which you will make judgments of concordance. Other than one concern, this can work well in functional areas where such norms are well established and objective but can become quite subjective when not.
The concern is that a unidimensional norm based anchor can become self-referential when, as in this case, “age appropriate” ends up being adjusted for fitness level and other factors. One wonders, for example, if withing variance for some functions might be greater than between variance.
None of this is meant to suggest that this is not a useful tool – it seems very useful – only that it would not fare well on basic reliability and validity standards when employed in larger N settings. One suggestion might be to expand from a single anchor to multiple anchors and see how that works.
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@RobTuck Thanks. I’ll need to add some objective measures to use in my personal assessment against my standard (35 yo) and my progress. But I won’t resort to math to make my judgements. It is the thinking hard about status and progress that makes the effort meaningful (aside from a remote possibility of becoming 35 again). I’m not trying to measure myself against other people, and I am also not trying to assess actual biological age…merely remain clear on my current status against my ideal self (35 yo) and progress from here.
Any ideas for actual measures that aren’t obvious. How to be objective about skin aging or other “soft” categories?
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I had not thought about this until looking at what you did. My general strategy has been to monitor mostly physiological metrics (largely serum but not all) that subsume the greatest variance for dependent variables of interest (being alive, energy, health, ASCVD, etc.). I like your functional approach because it is derived from how we actually live. One thought that occurred to me it to separate or array functions according to their consequentiality; i.e., how much they impinge on your overall quality of life. Maybe not the best example, but I would take little notice about ongoing hair loss or color change whereas mental energy means a great deal to me, as does mental clarity. Yes, hair and skin change can be signals but on that view, they fall into the area I have focused as indirect proxy measures. On skin, as an example, I think the most defensible anchor is change from one’s lifelong normal state. Softness will change over time and with the use of skin care products whereas aging spots or actinic keratosis (100% of which my dermatologist says will turn into cancer if I life long enough) are a call to investigate.
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I understand the thought as a way to simplify. My thinking is to cover all the bases including those that don’t matter as much (like hair color or hair coverage) because they are signals of health or illness in some way. A canary in the coal mine.
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Yes, but then such things fall into the category of signals, hints, or indirect indicators where the relationship is often one correlation (if that) and not causal end points. CRP falls into the signal category as well, as you suggest hair color might for some. What distinguished the portion of your taxonomy that I enjoyed seeing was anchored to the lived life; e.g., being strong enough to climb a mountain, having balance to enjoy cycling, having the mental energy and clarity to solve life’s problems. No one lives a life for CRP, or relies on it to cycle or solve problems or enjoy the company of friends.
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Share what you come up with. It is sensible that the scorecard approach that is appropriate for each of us is driven by our personal judgment on what is “not old”. It’s just a means to an end. For me, I seek to have “good life” …and for me, that requires that I am youthful in many ways. And I don’t mind looking younger at the same time, if I can do so without needles or surgery.
Good Life stuff:
Mark time with adventure (powerful memories = time is slow)
Make the world a better place (doing what I can)
Honor my ancestors by passing on my genetic code and preparing my children to be healthy and happy
Living intentionally (eg, avoid wasting time on things like TV)
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Alpha
#8
Joseph,
You’ll remember I’ve discussed CrossFit before.
I don’t advocate for it, but I have found that the best of CrossFit thinking very much informs my own.
Some discussion at: https://www.crossfit.com/essentials/magic-the-methodology
THE CORE
CrossFit’s methodology is founded on the first precise, scientifically rigorous definition of fitness, and the program produces results that can be measured and replicated. Our methodology is a set of universal principles and definitions that can be applied in many different contexts and that make CrossFit accessible to both athlete and coach.
The stimulus — what CrossFit is: constantly varied functional movement executed at high intensity combined with eating meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no added sugar in quantities that support exercise but not body fat.
The adaptation —what CrossFit achieves: increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains. Pursuing this goal is pursuing fitness, and aiming to maintain your work capacity over your lifetime is pursuing health.
These elements are the basis of the CrossFit methodology, and we’ve precisely and comprehensively defined each element — from work capacity to fitness to health — in quantifiable terms.
These definitions did not exist before CrossFit. Our contribution to fitness is that we have defined fitness and health in a way that can be measured.
Not certain they can claim no one ever thought like this before CrossFit emerged (I grew up on Jack LaLanne), but they’ve done some interesting work that I think can inform our interest in useful metrics.
Not everything, but I think it could add to categories you’ve already identified.
Just some thoughts.
I go a bit quantitative about this stuff and that leads to reverie.
Part of me would like to see something like the Drake equation, but for healthspan rather than estimating the number of intelligent civilizations across the universe.
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@Alpha Yes. I haven’t stopped thinking about how to add CrossFit since you mentioned it. It does look very good. I think I could avoid the addictive aspects of it.
