How I’m Using AI to Help with Health and Fitness
My values are Forward Progress in Fitness, Family, Friendship, Fun, Fueling Others, and Freedom of Time, Location and Money.
Fitness comes first in that list – even ahead of family – for a reason: If I don’t take care of my health and fitness, I won’t be at my best for any of my other values. If my health is bad, nothing else in my life will be any good. So I put a lot of time and effort into my health and fitness.
For years I’ve been careful about what I eat and make sure I get plenty of exercise. A few years ago, I began intermittent fasting and adopted a “mostly keto” diet, and that had been working very well to keep me healthy and fit.
But I’m always looking to improve, so about a year ago, I thought I’d get some expert advice. And today, that means leveraging AI, which has access to all of the world’s experts and research in almost any subject. Here are some ways I used AI to improve my health and fitness, and how you can, too.
Personalized, multi-expert based nutrition guide
I had read about 35 top books by experts on nutrition on my Kindle and highlighted key sections. I exported and compiled them and uploaded them to ChatGPT, and had Chat analyze all of it, looking for the most agreed-upon concepts and advice. It then used that to create a single Comprehensive Nutrition Guide for Metabolic Health, Gut Health, and Longevity. You don’t have to read all those books to do the same: you can just tell ChatGPT your basic information and your health goals, and ask it to produce a nutrition guide based on the consensus science-backed advice from multiple experts.
Understanding the impact of individual foods
Because sharply limiting simple carbohydrates and glycemic load looked like the most important factor, I then had Chat give me all of the macros (grams of protein, fat, carbs, and fiber), grams of net carbs (grams of carbs minus grams of fiber), and glycemic load for a typical serving of about 100 different common foods. This alone was eye-opening, and while I had long ago eliminated most tropical fruits due to the high carb content, I had still been eating an apple a day (a habit since I was a kid) and having bananas a few times a week. So to see that a medium apple has 21 net carbs and a medium banana has 24 net carbs when I’m trying to stay under 30 net carbs for a day, was shocking and caused me to eliminate bananas entirely and make an apple a treat less than once a week. I also saw just how many carbs other foods had: for example, brown rice has 42 net carbs (better than white rice at 52), and “superfood” quinoa has 39 net carbs! Without this information, even when I thought I was making healthy choices, I wasn’t – I was still consuming far too many net carbs. I then went deeper, asking Chat to do the same thing for the most common 50 proteins, 50 vegetables, 50 fruits, etc. This combined list has helped me to make much healthier food choices every day.
My Net Nutrition Score for food, meals, and a full day’s food
Of course, there’s more to nutrition than just limiting net carbs: for example, you should be eating only whole, unprocessed foods, you need sufficient high quality protein and healthy fats (your macronutrients), and you need sufficient fresh vegetables, fiber, probiotics, and micro-nutrients. So I began working with Chat to create a Net Nutrition Score based on the common expert advice which include both the positive and negative impacts. After several rounds of refinement, we came up with a Net Nutrition Score (NNS) that can be applied to any individual food item, to a meal, and to my full day’s food. The NNS ranges from -10 to +10, and my goal is for every day to score an 8 or above. So each day, I input my previous day’s meals into ChatGPT and ask it to analyze my previous days’ food. It immediately does so, giving me calories, the macro breakdown, pros and cons, and of course a score of each meal and for the day as a whole, as well as giving me advice on how I could have improved the score by making changes or substitutions. This NNS is extremely helpful to me, and it has helped me take my nutrition to the next level. I am incredibly mindful of avoiding foods that will bring down my NNS and actively work to eat foods and meals that get a high score.
The ultimate snack or dessert
I love to ski, and when I ski with my friends, we used to bring Builders Bars, Clif Bars, or granola bars with us to eat for lunch so we could keep skiing while the slopes were empty. With my growing awareness of nutrition, I was shocked and dismayed when I looked at the ingredient list and macros for these “energy bars”. So I got ChatGPT to help me develop a recipe for a healthy replacement. It was intended to just be a replacement for ski trips, and that’s where we started making and eating them, but now, as I have perfected the recipe, it is so good, I eat it most days for an afternoon snack and also sometimes eat it as dessert. I call it Paul’s Keto Fudge because it looks, feels and tastes a lot like fudge, but it’s actually good for you! You remember my NNS? Well, my Keto Fudge gets a score of 9.25, which is just about the highest score I’ve found for anything I’ve eaten! The macros: 1 piece has 16.7g of protein, 6.2 grams of fiber, and 5.4 grams of net carbs, well within carb limits for a keto diet. (It’s great by itself but even better in a bowl with some plain Greek Yogurt and some blueberries). If you want the recipe, just email me (paul@behappiful.com) to ask for it and I’ll send it your way.
Personalized Fitness Plan
Next, I did something similar regarding exercise, movement, and stretching. I gave ChatGPT all of my pertinent body and medical information as well as my current activities and exercise, movement and stretching, and my fitness goals, and asked it to act as an expert personal trainer and give me a personalized fitness guide and plan and suggest changes to my current practices. Chat gave me excellent advice, including an overall weekly plan, a very specific strength plan, cardio plan, stretching plan, and more. It also advised me on the fitness benefits of non-exercise activities like sauna, meditation, and breathwork.
Supplements
I fed ChatGPT a list of the supplements I take, along with all my body and medical information, lab test reports, and of course my goals, and had it analyze each of them based on research studies, and then tell me whether I should continue, stop, or change my dosage and frequency, and which supplements I should add. Another home run result; I cut a few, changed my protocol on a few, and added a few, including 3 specifically to help me get longer and higher quality sleep, which have proven very effective.
Solving a cramping crisis
For many years, I used to periodically get painful calf cramps while sleeping and often when playing tennis. Years ago, a doctor friend of mine gave me some advice (take Natural Calm and a calcium supplement before bed) and that helped a bit, but I would still get them.
Last fall, I started experiencing massive cramping both during the day and at night. Foot cramps, calf cramps, shin cramps, thigh cramps, abdomen cramps, even arm cramps. It was very painful and made it impossible to get any exercise or to sleep more than about 15 minutes at a time, as the cramps were that frequent.
Naturally, I turned to AI to help me diagnose the cause and what to do about it. Through a lot of questions and answers, ChatGPT figured out that the underlying cause was that I had changed a supplement on the advice of my doctor, which had (unknown to me) substantially changed my electrolyte balance. That set the stage, and then I had triggered the crisis by running hills in some zero-drop shoes (the heel is lower than usual). Once triggered, my nerves were over-excited and thus caused cramping constantly. ChatGPT then guided me through how to fix my electrolyte balance, the need to temporarily add some more carbs back into my diet (including specifically what to eat and when), what stretching to start and stop, and what exercise I could do and not do, including a day by day plan. Each day, I would report back what I did and what cramping activity I had, and it would use that to give me guidance for the next day. Incredible diagnosis and advice and there is no way any single doctor or personal trainer could have had access to all the information or taken the time to help me solve this problem.
Takeaway
The benefits I’ve gotten from leveraging ChatGPT for health and fitness are incredible. If I had a scientific researcher, a nutritionist, a chef, and a personal trainer, I don’t think I could have gotten what I got by simply using ChatGPT.
You may not be quite as into health and fitness as I am, but everyone should care about it and take steps to improve. You might want to follow my examples above and get your own personalized health and fitness advice.
And remember, if you want my Keto Fudge recipe, just ask!
*Remember, AI, like humans, makes mistakes! Keep this in mind, especially when using it for health and fitness advice, and consult with your doctor if you are making any significant changes in this arena.
