Most of us spend an inordinate about of time thinking about our investment portfolios. And for good reason. Our life's work is tied up in those portfolios: our goals, our dreams, and, in short, our futures. For that reason we keep track of the Dow on regular basis and pay attention to how we allocate the investments in our portfolios. For example, we all know that equity investments (stocks), fixed-income investments (bonds) are a big part of most portfolios and that as we age, the allocation of our invested dollars should change over time. The older you get, the less risky your investments should be. In other words, as you age, your risk profile changes, and your allocation of assets should change as well. As a young man I was always told that subtracting your age from 100 was a good way to determine what percentage you should have invested in equities, with the balance allocated in bonds, cash and cash-like investments.
Wellness Portfolio Theory (I just made that up)
On the other hand, very few of us spend any time at all checking our wellness portfolio. Well, first of all, most of us don't even understand what's in that portfolio or how to allocate it. The most we hear on the subject comes from the ridiculous disclaimers on TV: "Exercise, eat right, and see your doctor regularly". OK, well, what kind of exercise? How much? What does "eat right" mean? And see my doctor regularly for what? I'm over 50 and I haven't had a physical in years. He's going to stick his finger in my butt, isn't he?
So let's start with the basics of your wellness portfolio. Just like your financial portfolio triumvirate of stocks, bonds, and cash, you have three basic wellness investment types: Health, Nutrition, and Fitness. The concept of "three" is everywhere in the health and fitness world and it's the key to understanding all of these concepts.
Health (Functions)
his may sound simple to most people, but over the past several years of relentless study, I have come to realize that "health" is really three separate components: System Health, Mental Health, and Functional Health. "Health" is the "fixed income" part of your portfolio and these three health concepts would be analogous to United States Treasury bonds, municipal bonds, and corporate bonds. They all have slightly different profiles, but all have a place in the portfolio segment know as "bonds". In the wellness portfolio, Systems Health would be what you would see reported in biometric data a test results: body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate, etc. Mental Health is your behavioral health, stress management, and cognitive capabilities. Finally, Functional Health is your ability to move, both to accommodate activities of activity, as well as to pursue your personal goals and participate in fitness and training. Mobility, flexibility, and stability are the three sub-components of functional health we will include in the future.
Nutrition (Fuel)
I do agree that "eat right" is important, but as we age, we can't get it all from food. In fact, this is the one thing I learned most from pursuing a nutrition certification: the frequency and timing of nutrition is age-specific in terms of maximizing performance. With that said, once again, we have three components: Macronutrients, micronutrients, and supplements. Notice I didn't say "diet", I said "nutrition". These three components make up "nutrition". "Diet" is food, and food may or may not (probably not) provide for all of your nutritional needs.
The three nutrition segments are analogous to large cap, small cap, and international equities. Macronutrients - Protein, Fat and Carbohydrates - are the blue chips, the large caps, the Dow. You have to invest in these to guarantee long term returns. Micronutrients - Vitamins and Minerals - are your small cap stocks, the Russell 2000. Finally, Supplements are your international stocks. Some have big returns but a lot of them make false promises of big returns, but are basically worthless. The nutrition portfolio is highly integrated, and this is something that we will discuss at length in the future.
Fitness
So why did I take so long to get to fitness? Isn't that what strength coaches and personal trainers what to talk about? Sure it is. Sets, reps, load, volume, intensity. yeah, baby! Just write me a friggin' program and get me "swole". The rest of this nerdy "wellness" stuff is for the tree-huggers.
Not so fast, my friend. Fitness has (wait for it...) three components. Now somebody will attack me in the comments about there being four, but that just doesn't fit my model, so I changed it. If you think about what is consider a "cash-like" investment you would get the same argument, so there you go. The three fitness components are Strength, Power, and Cardiac Conditioning. Strength is your ability to move a load (the weight) a fixed distance. For example, your strength in the deadlift is how much weight you move off the ground to lockout. That's it. Power is how fast you can move the load from the fixed position to the end position. A clean from the ground doesn't happen slowly, you have to move it quickly. Finally, and I'm sure most controversially, we have Cardiac Conditioning. This category has two sub-components: aerobic and anaerobic conditioning. To make it simple, for now, an aerobic activity uses a lot of oxygen (for example, running 10k) whereas some don't (kicking a heavy bag).
Hopefully, this construct will help you see "wellness" in a new and different way. Just like your financial portfolio, how you allocate your investments in the components of your personal wellness portfolio will change over time. Just like you should include more risk mitigation over time in your fitness portfolio, you will do the same in your wellness portfolio. Note I said "mitigate risk", not "eliminate risk" Your Health allows you to continue to participate in your chosen sporting and other he-man activities, your nutrition can give you the competitive advantage in both life and sport, and finally, your fitness level is what allows you to excel. Best of all, you can, should, and will make a contribution all of your wellness investment components each and every day, giving you measurements to manage, which is what executives do best.
So before we get all carried away and starting writing programs, diet plans, and the like, let's allocate our wellness investments properly and stay in this game for the long haul.
