The importance of investing in your health despite rising costs and economic challenges. A compelling patient story and practical advice, The critical need for preventative care, regular check-ups, and smart lifestyle adjustments to avoid costly medical emergencies. Advocates for proactive measures such as purchasing quality food in bulk, utilizing home water filtration systems, and maintaining consistent exercise routines. The significance of community, proper supplementation, and continuous health monitoring to ensure long-term well-being and financial savings.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:48 – Twice as expensive for the food in 2025

02:31 – What I did and build a gym in your house

03:29 – The gym is 200 bucks a month

04:57 – Want to learn how to cut costs and increase your healt

06:23 – Requires you to talk to people and have friends

07:20 – Get high quality meat

09:09 – A piece of my house to build a gym?

11:23 – Hormones and start taking your supplements

12:34 – The gym with you three times a week

13:59 – The health care is how do I increase my health?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] So the content in question is kind of sort of this. And so I’m going to kind of, today’s questions from questions that, but I want to tell you a little story. I’ve got a patient who’s been coming in for a while for the past probably six months. He’s been having, you know, he’s been kind of going back and forth on whether or not he might do the executive physical and get all the testing with us and things like that. Decided it was a little too expensive. And so he didn’t want to do it because the cost, he had a heart attack two days ago. I understand that everything’s getting more expensive because it is, in fact, to make that, you know, not to be Super Debbie Downer, but, I’ve read reports that they expect food prices between 2023 and 2024 for Christmas to double. So it’s gonna be twice as expensive for the food in 2025 presents than it was in 2023 presents. I know that sounds like a lot, but I think a lot of us can look at what’s already going on and realize that that’s more or less what’s going to be there. Out of all the things that we start cutting back on, you know, downgrading our cars, staggering our vacations. I would really urge you not to downgrade your health stuff. As everything gets more expensive, E.R. visits, doctors offices, things like that are substantially more expensive. Fixing yourself is always waiting till something breaks. And then fixing it is always much more expensive and doing the maintenance along the way.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:26] So if you guys are looking for places to go, knock out, one of the big things I tell you to do is, you know, give us some buddies and you get a freezer and buy a cow, right? You know, get grass fed, grass fed beef. It’s a lot to spend it once, but it’s a lot cheaper over time and to me, a lot more healthy for your family. Get good clean water filters. Quit buying some too much bottled water. Get either a whole house filtration system. Get an insane filtration system, something like that. Start filling those things up so you can have good, clean drinking water. That can be really important. Get this augmentation you guys need. One of the things that we always do, and it’s always find me. People come and go do a detox and get on maintenance. You know, the detox is for the first month is substantially more expensive than the next three months of maintenance. They’ll do 2 or 3 months of maintenance. Feel good. And I’ll quit doing stuff. And I’ll see him six months later and not start all over. So get on a program. Get going. You might need to downgrade your gym membership, and that’s fine. You know, sustain 3 or $400 a month in a really fancy gym. He spent 30 or 40 or less fancy gym. But continue to work out or do what I did and build a gym in your house, converted by one car garage into a gym. And it was by far the greatest investment myself I’ve ever met.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:40] I call it my sanctuary because, I enter text, you know, at 4 a.m., you know, 10 p.m. before I go to bed, y’all, I’ve contacted with work with patients and send emails and stuff like that, but between 1245 and 230, I’m out of the world. Like, I don’t answer phones unless you’re literally on fire. I won’t answer my phone or reply to you, text flies or anything like that because that’s my time to workout. And left has been by far the greatest investment ever made. Things like that. Making sure that you do things for stress. By the way, working out is the number one thing for stress. Whether that’s I’m going to walk around the neighborhood, I’m going to go to the gym and left. I’m going to, you know, do whatever workout at the house. And I do my video, I do or whatever it is, right? Go to my five five class, whatever it is you’re going to do, maintain your exercise pace. Like figure out, like, hey, the gym is 200 bucks a month. And that’s, you know, it’s nice. It’s close. It’s it’s my schedule. You keep that $200, cancel Netflix if you’ve got to keep that gym membership. You know, if you’re hurting now, go see your chiro. Now. Don’t wait till things get really bad. I see people all the time who are like, you know what? My back was kind of stiff and sore, and it was.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:50] It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible for like three months. And then I just picked up a case of water, Costco and burned bullet disc out. And now it’s five grand because you got to get injections. You have to do, you know, 30 treatments of decompression for a couple grand, you know, so it could just come and get adjusted 2 or 3 times for, you know, 200 bucks. And so now it’s 25 grand. So the maintenance stuff you guys really need to check on. And again, I know I hit this a lot, but if you haven’t had a calcium CT, if you haven’t had an echocardiogram, if you haven’t had a sleep study, if you haven’t had your hormones for get those done. Hormones are another thing when you’re looking at things to skimp on with your health care, do not cut back on your hormone stuff. I don’t care who you’re working with. Maybe find a cheaper guy or a better guy or whatever. For hormones, stay on your hormones. Testosterone is the healing hormone. You want to talk about being healthy and cutting down on medical costs. Testosterone is the number one way to cut down on medical costs because it helps your entire body heal. You know, if you get if you’ve set your testosterone, you stay in the gym and you stay with your supplementation, your health care costs will be radically lower than everybody else’s. So that’s one I was saying. If you guys start making food at home, you really want to learn how to cut costs and increase your health. Quit eating out just straight up. Just like I’m not going to go eat out anymore. I’m going to meal prep at home.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:05] I’ll cook 2 or 3 days worth of stuff and I’ll take it out, you know? And that’s fantastic. I teach people how to do that every single day. Like, the way I do it is I’m like, give me your ten favorite foods and I’ll show you how to have, you know, six or 7 or 10 favorite foods as part of your diet. And you can make them at home. And what ends up having to, I don’t know how to make just enough for one meal and like, don’t make enough for 3 or 4 meals and then eat them throughout the next 3 or 4 days. So, you know, it’s something that, you know, the bodybuilding community, like all the guys are in the back. Shape. We all food prep like that’s ever. I not ever seen one of the vast majority of this food prep. I food prep like crazy. Like the stuff that even that one. I’m kind of like, I’ll make all my chips at once. I’ll make a big batch of lemon curd, and I’ll just take a little bit as we go. I’ll make a big thing, you know, big to serve. I’ve smoked two turkeys at once. Cut them all up, put them in different containers. So, you know, even with the eating once every two days, I’m still food prepping. So, you know, it’s a fantastic way to do it because you spend, you know, maybe half a day Sunday doing everything in half a day Wednesday. And that’s your entire that’s all you’ve done for the week. And you’ve cooked everything. Everything’s done. You only to plan for two days. It’s a fantastic thing to do. And then if you start getting buying in bulk, even easier now, again, this requires community and requires you to talk to people and have friends, which is highly beneficial if you do any of the work on longevity.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:29] Community is a giant piece of this. But if you start going to the gym, if you guys jump on some of the Facebook groups like get on the Wellness Insights, Facebook group that I’ve got, where that’s the one we’re going to start using for everybody to, you know, come on and share recipes and stuff like that. I’m going to encourage everybody who’s, you know, you know, find the guys in your area, you’re in Frisco, if you’re in Austin, if you’re in Chicago, like find the group that’s there, buy a cow, give it up, and you don’t have to divvy it up yourself. You just call the guy like, hey, I got five guys who want a cow, would you? You know, how much is it? Okay, 2500 bucks square. That’s $500, man. You know, and then you guys figure out what you guys want. If you have one group that you know, wants, you know, really wants the brisket or really wants this or that, great. There’s gonna be tons of hamburger and and the, the stew made this fantastic chili meat. Great. You can use it for a bunch of different things, but you get high quality meat that you know where it came from. You know, it’s clean and, you know, it’s ended up being cheaper per pound than going anywhere else. Keep that in mind. We’re going to have people make sure they can figure out how to find raw milk. We figured out how to feed, we find chickens and their eggs and stuff like that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:37] That’s clean. Yeah. So there’s a lot of things like that we’re going to do. If you guys start investing right now in your health care, you’ll get all the stuff the other testing done now before it gets more expensive. You know that, you know, because some of these things are going to happen and this happens all the time is that we’ll do a test. And, you know, statistically it’s about one out of ten, one of 15 people has a major issue they need to deal with. And getting a major issue dealt with now is a lot cheaper than waiting till it becomes a heart attack, or becomes a stroke, or becomes cancer or becomes a big issue. So you guys, if you’re if you’re looking at your future grocery bills and you’re watching them go up, if you’re worried about what’s going to happen in the next six months. You know the way. The upsides and downsides that I see is that inflation is going to keep going up for at least the next 18 months, 24 months, regardless of who wins the election. The thing I’m worried about is if they’re going to drop interest rates to try to boost the economy for the election. And it will, like houses will sell things that can explode if they drop them back down to, you know, if they cut the interest rates by a point or two points. The problem with that is it’s going to make inflation substantially worse just because that’s where the money moves. So if they make money cheaper all of a sudden, like people are going to die back in, when you start things back up, inflation can get worse.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:52] So this this whole issue of, you know, not having money to do some stuff could theoretically get worse. So right now is the best time to start figuring out, am I as healthy as I could be? What am I going to do for my stress? Do I need to, you know, remodel a piece of my house to build a gym? You know, do I need to restructure my entire life, make sure my health is there? This is the time to start doing that. But you guys, if you’re if there’s anything that you’ve been putting off, you don’t know. As as we start to see more damage from the Covid in the Covid vaccine over the next 18 months or two years as well, that’s just gonna make the lines, the doctors offices longer. The one thing I can guarantee you is that health care costs are going to go up a lot. And the reason I say that is because, I’m in the field, I’m talking to the guys, you know, doctors and nurses are getting burnt out, and they’re leaving the profession as the doctors and nurses leave. There’s the amount of patients are going up. And so as the people who can cover them comes down and the amount of people that need them come up, costs go up. Supply and demand. That’s just how it’s going to happen. And so health care costs are going to go up substantially between now and the next five years. The need is going to go up substantially between now and the next five years.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:06] You know. Get in now. Figure out what’s wrong with you now. Get it fixed now so that you can weather the storm later like that. That’s the best option I’ve got for you guys. Again, not just with me, with everybody else. If you’ve got physical therapy that you’ve been putting off. Go get it. If you have a surgery you’ve been putting off. Go get it. If you need the surgery, like, I just don’t like it. Just go. Just go get it. God. And then get the Pete done afterwards. You know, get that stuff done now because, you know, things are getting crazier, more expensive as we go along. Just as an FYI, and my buddy who, like I said, since they’re splitting that, you know, 4 to 5 grand here, he just went 30 or 40 grand at the E.R., and that’s just that’s just where it’s at. So, you know, if you guys are looking for ways of, you know, long term decreasing your expenditures, get healthy now and then just stay healthy. The getting healthy. Here’s the deal. The getting healthy takes more time. It takes more energy. It takes more annoyance. It’s a pain in the ass to get fit in your schedule. But if you can get that done, maintaining it’s easier. I tell every one of my patients, and so if you guys become patients, your patients, you’ve heard this. I always tell people, if you can figure out a way to get to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, you can figure out a way to start taking your hormones and start taking your supplements. If you get and you can figure out a way to start tweaking your diet.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:28] If you can do those things and you can get those a stick for a month, you have you have radically changed your life for the rest of time. Because if you don’t, if you go to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, it’s really, really easy to go 4 or 5. It’s really, really easy to go, hey, you go to the gym for 45 minutes. Can I get you to give me an hour? An hour and ten minutes? An hour in 20 minutes? Absolutely. Because you’ve already figured it out. You’re gonna be there. Now, extending that time is a lot easier. If you’re like, hey, I’m taking five supplements, but I could take seven, right? You know, whatever it is. So now all of a sudden, adding a little bit to an existing habit is really easy. Creating a new habit. Really hard. So a lot of times I get people and I’m like, look, this first month’s can be a giant pain in the ass. I’ll help you with your schedule. I’ll have you do this like you do that. But here’s the thing. You’ve really, really, really got to figure out a way to get things moving. Now, here’s the other thing. And I realized this year, well, I’m trying to save money. Get a trainer. Here’s the thing. If you if you’re creating habits, having something you have to show up for that you’re paying that you have to show up for helps you create that habit because you’re paying salary to be at the gym with you three times a week, you’re most likely going to go to the gym three times a week. Now you’ve established that habit. The other thing is, is that you go back to habits.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:12:42] A good trainer is going to focus on your form. They’re not they’re going to hammer you on. You’re not moving right. Move like this. Focusing on your form decreases injuries in the long run. So if you can really get taught form and function, it’s going to help you tremendously all the way through the rest of your exercise career. So form and function is great trainer. So fantastic at that. The trainers are also going to help give you little tips little tricks on different things. Now they’re probably gonna use calories because a lot of these guys are still in the calories model, which is for most of you, it’s a lot better than the standard American diet reading that. So at least that will help. But they’re also gonna talk about sleep or water. They’re talking to you about hormones or you talked about supplementation how important it all is. So those guys are really health care providers. So make sure you go and you get this health care. It’s people who who maintain or increase your health. Those are not medical doctors. Medical doctors manage your sickness. Hey, doc. I’m sick. Take this pill. It’ll either make your sickness less irritating or it’ll make it go away. I have strep, here’s an antibiotic, you know. Yes, it kills a strep in your gut, but at least you’re not going to strep throat anymore. A regular is a better option that you. Yeah. If you go in, you’re like, hey, I have this issue. It’ll be like, here’s how we manage that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:13:54] Now again, things like diabetes. And there’s a lot of things that I would do differently. But that’s that’s the sick care model. The health care is how do I increase my health? I’m fat. I’m I’m out of energy. I don’t like I don’t like the quality of my life. I don’t I’m not sleeping great. I’m just blah all the time. That’s health care. Like those are the things that make a quality of life. Higher health care makes your quality of life higher. Sick care is I have an emergency I need dealt with right now because I let my health deteriorate to the point where I get set. That’s really different. So if you’re worried about your health care, see a health care provider. Some guy like me, a good trainer, something like that. Your medical doctors there. When you’ve let things get so bad that things have gone sideways. So keep that in mind. Trainer. Share this video with everybody you know because they need to hear it. If you guys have other questions, this are questions that Chalmers welcome. Next week we’re in a new bunch of stuff on. I’ve been everybody’s been asking about supplementation. So like that I take I’ll go through it with you guys, but it’s a lot like it’s a ton of stuff. And we’ll post all the things I’m taking and why I’m here for 42 hours long. But, if you guys have any questions, questions at Chalmers wellness.com or drop them in the comments. Thanks for your time.

As always if you have any questions, please send them to [email protected]

Check out Chalmers Pillarsofwellness.com for Wellness updates! And ask me any questions you have at [email protected]. I answer all of them and look forward to hearing from you.

The Chalmers Wellness Stubstack just launched. Comment, Like, and Interact with other people on their wellness journey. Communities can make a difference.     DrChalmers.substack.com

Dr. Matt Chalmers

Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only. Before taking any action based on this information you should first consult with your physician or health care provider. This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions regarding a medical condition, your health, or wellness.