Here's to a healthy 2026!

I find these days between Christmas and New Year fascinating every year....

Even better version of yourself

The gym is filling up again with large groups of people. They want to get back into a healthy rhythm as soon as possible after the Christmas period with lots of eating, drinking and irregularity and a pleasant metabolism along with it. However, there is still one more bump to take, namely the turn of the year, and then we can start again with a clean slate of healthy behaviour and working towards an even better version of yourself. When counselling clients, I am always keen to ensure that diet, lifestyle and life changes start from a solid self-analysis and not a blind start like a headless chicken. So in these days, it's a great time to look back at your life over the past year and the diet and lifestyle that went with it. What went well, what could be better, which version of yourself do you want to be in the coming year and what is the minimum needed for that? The 4-week online Hormone Factor Kickstart can help you well with this and the Hormone Factor Blood Test Packages Male or Female can be included as an additional indicator and motivator.

My sporting goals met

I myself have also achieved many of my sporting goals this year. I have become a lot stronger, gained eight kilos in weight and gained a lot of muscle mass in my legs and gluteus maximus. I think it would be great to continue working really hard on this so that I can become a fit, strong and beautiful Abraham next summer. I have found out over the past year in the gym and at festivals that I am far from the only one who has actually gained extra motivation from the midlife period to shift up another gear instead of slumping.

Survival of the Fittest

I also take a closer look at my business in these days. I see opportunities, but frankly I am also a bit uncertain about the future of the Hormone Factor. The market is changing and there is also an unfair playing field in some areas. That the market is changing is nothing new, but this means you have to keep adapting the business to this. Survival of the Fittest is not about survival of the one or the one that can best adapt to changing circumstances for nothing. Again, there is an analogy with the hormonal homeostasis function, which helps the body survive in a changing inner and outer world.

Threats

These changes should not be too rapid and should stay within certain ranges to ensure balance. What I see as a danger is AI, or artificial intelligence, where Grok and ChatGPT have already reached the mainstream audience. My concern here is not that it will be a problem that the world is changing, but that it is happening at far too fast a rate. Can we anticipate this well enough and in time as individuals, society, economy and government? For myself and my business, this also means that a usp is going to fall away. For instance, I myself am quite good at taking in large amounts of complex information and then being able to reproduce it intelligibly and concisely into blogs, columns, books, webinars and courses. In terms of pure knowledge transfer, this is in all likelihood going to be taken over by AI. I suspect that, at best, I can 'use' myself for a few more years to feed these 'generated pre-trained transformers', after which I will have made myself redundant in this area.

Opportunities

In other areas, I do see opportunities. For instance, my training as a Trainer Hormone Factor is obviously not just about 'knowledge' of the hormonal system, but more about 'skill' in the coaching of clients towards better hormonal balance. I truly believe that people want to continue to be coached by people and that lectures of me are a lot more fun than those of a robot. Where time and space are freed up, opportunities actually arise. In 2026, for instance, I want to focus much more on food with our own brand 'Ralph and Jane' so that a nice product line will emerge. Fortunately, my USP in this is that I am the only book-writing health coach who is also a Food Technology Engineer. That circumstances are pushing me more in this direction will not be for nothing. Time to tackle this with both hands! I wish you much fun and success in evaluating and planning. Have a happy New Year and see you in 2026!