I Lifted 713 Tonnes Last Year: My 2025 Exercise Report

【What I've been up to】

Hi, Reader.

How was your week?

Sorry this newsletter is a day late —

it was a busy weekend:

- building my website with a web planner in Tainan

- going to a social mixer

- a family birthday dinner

Busy and tiring, but fulfilling.

Yesterday, Monday, I went with my mom to Nantou

for an outdoor shoot with her smartphone photography class.

Getting to wander around and see things with my mom

felt really nice.

But with all the traveling, leaving early and getting back late,

I didn't want to move a muscle when I got home last night.

So this newsletter is late.

(So many excuses 😂)

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Last week a reader wrote to me

that my newsletter is “plain but powerful,”

and hoped I'd share it on Instagram and Facebook

so they could pass it on to friends.

I don't plan to post it on Instagram or Facebook for now —

because I'm too lazy 😂

But past issues are available on the web,

so if you'd like to read old newsletters,

head to the newsletter page.

Now, on to this issue's topic.

I've shared my intermittent fasting and my digital detox before.

Today I want to share my 2025 exercise report.

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【My 2025 exercise report】

- Of the year's 365 days, I trained on 261,

which means I exercised on more than 70% of days.

- My longest unbroken streak was 29 days,

and I averaged 5 days of training a week.

- Total weight:

over the year I lifted a cumulative 713 tonnes —

the weight of 323 Xiaomi SU7 cars.

- Total training time: 374.2 hours —

enough to fly to the moon and back 6.2 times.

Looking at the data, I was amazed:

374 hours of exercise in a year!

713 tonnes lifted!

Peter Drucker is often quoted as saying:

“If you can't measure it,

you can't manage it.”

That's why tracking matters:

without records you can't measure;

without measuring, you can't manage or evaluate.

My main exercise now:

- 20 minutes of yoga every day

- strength training three or four times a week, an hour each

- sometimes a 10–30 minute walk after dinner

I won't explain the benefits of exercise —

most people know them; they just can't keep it up.

So how did I do it?

The answer is visual tracking.

I use the Xunji app with an Apple Watch

to bring all my exercise together in one app.

When I open it, I can see at a glance:

- what exercise I did, and when

- when I slacked off

like this:

Atomic Habits tells a story:

Jerry Seinfeld

is a famous Hollywood comedian.

A young comedian once asked him:

“How do you keep writing good jokes?”

Seinfeld's answer was simple.

He hung a big wall calendar for the whole year.

Every day he wrote — good or bad —

he drew a big red X over that day.

Day one, one X.

Day two, two Xs.

By day three, a line starts to appear.

After a while,

the calendar fills with red chains.

And his only goal each day was:

“Don't break the chain.”

Why does this work?

The key is visual tracking.

Recording the behavior right on the calendar does three things:

First, it turns abstract effort into concrete, visible evidence —

turning feelings into facts.

You no longer just feel you're working hard;

you can see clearly which days you did it and which you didn't.

Second, it moves the measure of success from results back to behavior.

You no longer ask:

“How effective was today?”

You ask just one question:

“Did I log it today?”

Third, it creates psychological resistance.

Once the calendar has seven Xs in a row,

skipping a day

feels like a waste;

you don't want to break it.

My exercise log

does exactly what Jerry Seinfeld did.

That's the real point of Atomic Habits:

“Success doesn't come from getting it right once, but from not giving up over a long time.”

Every decision you make is a vote for who you are.

I exercise because I'm someone who values health.

The 12 Week Year also says:

results are lagging indicators;

each act of execution is a leading indicator.

Looking back at my 2025 data,

I didn't do anything especially impressive.

No extreme training.

I just did my workout plan every day

and logged it.

Exercise is now part of my life —

a habit that doesn't drain my willpower.

If you want to build an exercise habit too,

I recommend this method.

P.S. Xunji is a one-time purchase app,

available on both Apple and Google.

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Finally, I'd like your opinion.

My web planner asked me

whether I teach “time management, health and energy management,”

because she'd like to learn from me.

You probably know the principles already,

but what's missing is someone to do it with you.

What I have in mind is a four-week online coaching course:

one livestream a week,

sharing how I practice time, health and energy management,

checking in on everyone's progress, and answering questions.

Over four weeks we'd work together

to build habits and design a way of life you enjoy.

Would a course like this interest you?

Or what kind of course would you like me to run?

Reply within a week,

and when the course launches

I'll send you a discount code.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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This week's episode

#61 | Success isn't only effort — luck and risk matter: The Psychology of Money #3

Bill Gates, Lakeside School and the friend who died young. How much of investing results is luck, why not to copy outliers, and why holding the whole market lets luck slowly come to your side.

Read the full show notes in English › (the episode is in Mandarin Chinese)

🍎Apple Podcasts
🎧Spotify
🎦YouTube

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That's it for this issue of the FIRE Life Weekly.
If you have any questions about the show or the newsletter,
just write to me at doug@firetw.com.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Have a lovely day,
and see you next time.

Doug