Tuesday 19 March 2024

End of Week 5 of '90 day transformation challenge'

My 'progress' so far:

         Body Recomposition       Averages (per day)

Week#    Wt (kg)    Body Fat %    cals    g prot    % carbs    % fat    steps/day

1        -3.4       -1.1%         1,348     85      35%        39%      11,118

2        -1.0       -0.4%         1,378     92      39%        31%      12.126

3        -2.3       -0.8%         1,528    121      27%        26%      12,358

4        -0.1       -0.5%         2,223    122      41%        30%       6,459

3        +1.1       +2.2%         2,457    117      51%        29%       1,107

Last week didn't go as planned. My BPV (benign positional vertigo) got worse, to the extent that I would get dizzy just walking around the house. So I decided against going to the gym every time I was 'scheduled' to go last week. It did seem quite a bit better yesterday and today, so I *might* go to the gym tonight for some light weight training (before all my progress from the first few weeks is undone). I still probably won't do any treadmill work at the gym, but am trying to ramp up my daily step count again this week, after almost doing noth9g last week.

I had an ultrasound of my liver due to the elevated liver enzymes in my blood test results. Turns out I have one gall bladder stone (not causing any problems) but also have a slightly enlarged liver and 'moderate' fatty liver disease. As I don't drink alcohol it will be due to 40 years of being overweight and too sedentary. No medical drug treatment, but the recommended response is to 'lose weight and exercise more'.

Fatty liver disease decreases life expectancy in males by about 4.4 years, so I really need to get serious about reducing my BMI and getting regular exercise every week, and daily walking.

Enough said. Back to the diet plan and lots of walking right now!

ps. I checked with 'doctor google' and "a reduction in body mass index (BMI) of 5% is associated with a 25% relative reduction in liver fat as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)" So getting my BMI down from 38 to 34 (about a 10% decrease) during the 'transformation challenge' (if I reach my goal of 105 kg by mid-May) might help cut my liver fat by up to 50%. Of course getting down to my ideal BMI of about 24 by the end of this year will have even greater health benefits (hopefully),

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Monday 11 March 2024

End of Week 4 of '90 day transformation challenge'

My progress so far:

         Body Recomposition       Averages (per day)

Week#    Wt (kg)    Body Fat %    cals    g prot    % carbs    % fat    steps/day

1        -3.4       -1.1%         1,348     85      35%        39%      11,118

2        -1.0       -0.4%         1,378     92      39%        31%      12.126

3        -2.3       -0.8%         1,528    121      27%        26%      12,358

4        -0.1       -0.5%         2,223    122      41%        30%       6,459

Last week was a bit of a set back. After doing an intense workout session at the gym on the Sunday night, getting quite fatigued and sweating profusely during the 2.5 hr session, I had trouble sleeping and woke up around 5am. I felt quite unsteady walking to the bathroom and had a 'syncope' episode and collapsed. Fortunately I didn't hit my head on the bathtube or any sharp corners, but did bang my head a bit on the tiled floor. I had a bit of a headache the next day, and a sore neck for a couple of days. DW made an online booking to see a local GP the next day, and he did a quite check-up as I had been experiencing some vertigo at random times for the past couple of years.

He thinks the fainting was unrelated to the ongoing vertigo, and was probably just caused by dehydration and fatigue. He did order a full panel of blood tests, which all came back normal (including cholesterol and blood sugars), but my liver panel results were slightly above the normal range. So I'll have to get an ultrasound scan of my liver next week to check there is no issue with my liver. The vertigo is most likely just due to BPPV due to particles in the inner ear - most likely to RH ear as I had some damage due to an ear infection while on a scuba diving trip in my 30s, and have some hearing loss in that ear. If that is the cause simply doing the Epley maneuver might help address the issue.

Anyhow, as I wasn't feeling 100% last week I had a couple of 'refeed' days, got some extra sleep, and only had one light session at the gym during the week. I plan on getting back to my normal diet and walking routine this week, but will probably take things a bit easier during my gym sessions from now on.

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Sunday 10 March 2024

Accumulated Annual and Long Service Leave valuation - should I start 'cashing out' some unused leave?

As I have mentioned once or twice previously in monthly NW estimates, another 'asset' I have that I don't bother to include in my monthly NW estimates is my accumulated unused annual and long service leave entitlements. Any accrued amounts when I eventually resign/retire will be paid out using the current salary rate. I currently have balances of 1,076 hrs Annual Leave and 518 hrs of Long Service Leave. At my current hourly rate this is equivalent to roughly $91,572. One factor I was recently reminded about is that while annual leave and long service leave used during the normal course of employment are subject to the SGL (superannuation guarantee levy) which is currently 11.00% of salary, and will rise to 11.50% of salary from July 1 2024, and then the 'final' rate of 12.0% from 1 July 2025, any accumulated unused leave that is "paid out" upon resignation/retirement is NOT subject to SGL.

So, while I was initially planning to continue to just use public holidays and some portion (usually about two weeks) of my annual leave entitlement each year until retirement, and then retire at the start of a new FY (to minimize income tax on the final lump sum payment) and have all my unused leave "paid out", it might be better to instead take 3 months of long service leave at some point while still working, so I receive the additional 11-12% SGL. I will probably have to wait until I have a change of roles at work, as I currently do tasks that are required every week, and for whom no-one else has been trained to do in my absence. Apparently some of these tasks will be eliminated via automated processes during the next twelve months, at which time I may be assigned more of a project role involving Lean Six Sigma process improvement tasks. Which will probably allow more flexibility to take periods of annual of long service leave between 'projects'?

My company also has a policy to allow up to two weeks of accrued annual leave to be 'cashed out' each year, subject to approval by manager and HR. Due to my taxable income being significantly reduced due to negative gearing with my investment rental property, any 'cashed out leave' from 1 Jul 2024 (under the revamped 'stage 3' tax cuts) will be taxed at 30%, which would likely be the applicable tax rate if I instead accumulated more unused annual leave. While my pay rate is likely to increase roughly in line with CPI from now on, using the extra after tax payment to add to my mortgage offset account will effectively earn significantly more than the inflation rate. I also think that 'cashed out' annual leave will also be treated as normal salary and therefore benefit from receiving SGL contributions, adding another 11.5% or 12.0% in net financial benefit by 'cashing out' rather than being paid out upon retirement.

So it is probably a better financial decision to not accumulate any additional unused annual leave, but instead 'cash out' two weeks of annual leave each year, to maintain the current level of accumulated leave entitlement, and receive the extra SGL contributions into my superannuation savings.

I'll lodge an initial request to 'cash out' two weeks of annual leave, and if it is approved, confirm that there is a commensurate amount of extra SGL contributed into my company superannuation account that month.

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Friday 8 March 2024

Investment Bond Performance Update - FEB 2024

My latest quarterly contribution into my investment bond has been processed per the recently changed asset allocation. The overall allocation is still different from my new settings, as I only instructed the new fund allocations to apply to new contributions and to the annual 'rebalance' (that should happen at the end of May. The performance since I started the investment bond in Jan 2021 had not been looking too impressive, but that was due to the overall market being fairly flat from Jan '22 to mid '23. But the recent market strength has improved the average ROI considerably -- it is now sitting at 7.41%pa, apparently after fees and taxes. The investments within the IB are taxed at a nominal rate of 30%, but due to franking credits and some 'tax effective' accounting magic (apparently IB can deduct capital losses against income, which probably relates to the fact that IB do not get the 50% CG discount that normally applies to 'long term' CG). The reporting from the IB isn't too impressive (just an 'additional investment statement' when a new deposit is processed, and an 'annual statement' at the end of each financial year. You can check the current balance and asset allocation online, but it doesn't show charts or performance data. So I've entered all the individual fund transactions into a free 'sharesight' account, and that lets me see the overall progress, portfolio value chart (monthly data points), and more detailed daily price charts for each individual fund that the IB portfolio holds.

It shouldn't be too much trouble keeping sharesight updated - there will only be four purchase transactions to enter when each quarterly deposit is processed, plus some transactions when each annual rebalance is performed.

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