Looking lean is not the same as being in the best place for long-term health.
Body composition has been one of the clearest examples of how performance goals and health goals do not always point in exactly the same direction.
At the end of 2025, I reached a very low body fat level: 7% on a DEXA scan and 3% on an InBody H30. That was mainly the result of strict 16:8 fasting, a high training load, a lot of running, and weight training. While that may look impressive at first glance, it also came with trade-offs.
In my case, being that lean led to hormonal strain and reduced robustness, especially in the form of low testosterone and the kinds of issues that can come with it: nervousness, lower stress tolerance, reduced resilience, worse recovery, lower drive, and a general sense that the system was under strain. It made clear that extreme leanness is not automatically a sign of optimal health.
That changed my perspective. For both longevity and performance, I believe muscle mass matters deeply — for metabolic health, resilience, healthy aging, and physical capacity later in life.
So I made a conscious shift: eat more, regain body fat, and build more muscle. As you can see below, that transition shows up clearly in my body composition data.