The Investment Scientist

Have you heard of EMS (Electrical Muscle Stimulation) Training? I came to know about this type of training only after my family moved to Germany and I spent part of my time there. 

Essentially, you put on a special tight suit that sends electrical pulses through your body as you exercise. This is supposed to stimulate whole body muscle contractions including muscles that were not in use. 

In Germany, an EMS Training session usually lasts 20 minutes. This is probably the most efficient strength exercise I know. You don’t have to spend hours at the gym, exercising each and every muscle one at a time. You spend 20 minutes a week and your entire body gets an intense workout.

From my personal experience, it is indeed very effective. I spend my time between Germany and the United States and when I am in the US, I don’t have access to EMS Training in my neighborhood. Despite keeping active with an exercise routine of Yoga and Tabata, I can feel myself losing muscle strength while I am in the US. After a few rounds of EMS Training in Germany, however, I can feel myself regaining muscle strength.

Why Is It Important?

In the last three or four years since my family moved to Germany, I have slowly adopted some German health practices that might be considered unusual in America. One of these is regularly going to the Spa. 

A German spa usually consists of several (dry) Sauna rooms all set at different temperatures, at least one steam room, several ice water pools, and basins to wash your feet. A German spa is a great place to subject my body to a bit of stress.  I have reaped tremendous health benefits since what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.

Heat Stress

Spas in Germany usually have a Finnish sauna room. In these rooms the going temperature is usually 90 degrees celsius. Every so often an Aufgussmeister  (water pouring master) will bring a scented bucket of water and pour it on the red hot stones. The steam rises from the stones and the Aufgussmeister then does a dance to push the steam toward the patrons in the sauna room, all of them sweaty and naked. For a moment, the temperature in the room can reach 100 degrees celsius. My entire body was under heat stress. It’s said that sitting in such a sauna room for 15 minutes is like sprinting for 15 minutes straight.

Last year on a train trip in Germany, I got to know a retired German doctor and we became good friends. When I travel to Germany to see my children, sometimes he invites me to stay at his home. He lives in a very humble place, a one-bedroom apartment with a monthly rent of about $700. When I stay with him, I coachsurf in his living room since he does not have a guestroom. 

Out of professional interest, I asked him about his income during his working years and how he provided for his retirement security. As an internist, he made about $100k a year. He does not receive the German national social security income. Instead, his pension is currently provided by a doctor’s association he belongs to. This pension pays him about $60k a year. He has no real property to his name, other than an old beat-up VW. 

He lives in the Rhein River area near a train station. The two banks of the Rhein river are not only picturesque but also historical – dotted with old castles. Every morning he wakes up at 5 and takes a 30 minute train ride to hike his favorite mountain. He arrives back home around 9 am to have a breakfast of coffee and German brot (bread). I joined him once, and the hike was strenuous, lasting for a few hours. 

I must admit that I used to have a very weak immune system. Every year during flu season, I usually caught the flu twice. While others would get well within a week, my flu symptoms lasted for weeks. The worst part was the endless coughing, all day and night. Not only could I not get good sleep, I also coughed so much that my ribcage hurt. I couldn’t have imagined that I could cure all of that simply by taking cold showers.

I started doing that the year before the Pandemic. Throughout the subsequent two years, while Covid raged through the world, I had to travel frequently between Europe and America since my kids live in Germany. I saw my friends fall ill with Covid one by one, and then all my immediate family fell ill, not once but twice. All throughout that frightening time, I never got sick from Covid, or the cold, or the flu. I have to give the credit to cold showers.

Ten years ago, I was overweight, my blood lipid profile was quite messed up, with my triglyceride and cholesterol several times the normal level, I was pre-diabetic, my attention was short, my memory was failing, and I got hungry and dizzy easily. 

I tried everything I could think of to remedy the situation. I took medicines and played sports. I tried diets like juicing, vegetarianism, calorie restriction, and many others, all to no avail. Then an acquaintance shared with me that intermittent fasting (IM) had worked magic for her. I decided to give it a try. 

My initial attempt was rather tentative since I was really afraid of hunger. When I was hungry, I got so dizzy that I felt like I could pass out. When that happened, I needed something very sweet like ice cream to bring me back. 

The first change I made was simply to have breakfast one hour later than before. That way, the hunger I felt was totally bearable. Within a month, I had made so much progress that I could combine my breakfast and lunch together and just have brunch. That’s when I started two meals a day (TMAD). 

Last month, I wrote about how my father is 6 years older than my mom but he looks and moves like he is 30 years younger. This just shows how our calendar ages do not always reflect how old we actually are, or how fast we age. Luckily, there are services out there that can help us figure this out.

These tests are usually called biological age tests. They often involve taking a blood sample, a saliva sample or even just a cheek swab, and analyzing it to determine a person’s biological age. The method by which they determine this can fall into two camps as well, either the phenotypic method or the methylation method. One looks at your biomarkers which correspond to biological age, the other looks at your epigenetic information to determine how old your DNAs are. 

My dad turned 90 recently and he can still do this move: He can sit down on the floor with his legs crossed and can stand up again without using his hands to assist him. Try it yourself and see if you can do that. It turns out that this simple test predicts your longevity. People who can get up unassisted will live many years longer than people who can not. 

My mother is five years younger than my dad. In contrast to my dad, she can barely walk on a flat floor. Usually, she shuffles and she is so unstable that I am afraid a tiny coin on the floor could trip her up. 

Judging by the way they walk, my dad looks like he is 60, and my mom 90.