Falafels, VO₂ Max, and Claude Code: My 2025 in Review

Personal

No major life changes unlike last year. Just very happy times. I expect these will be the years I miss the most later in life, I'm trying my best to appreciate them.

Having young children remains very annoying yet incredibly rewarding. My eldest is progressing well in school when not injuring himself, and he enjoys "asking the robot" (ChatGPT voice) things. Like me when I was younger, he has a clear preference for non-fiction books but unlike me he is not shy in telling everyone about them. He has three atlases, and brought another one home from the library one week. They're the same maps mate. It feels like the younger one developed so quickly out of baby talk :( and is already onto memes (Six-seevvven anyone?). Time for her to get reading!

We did take on a large construction project at home, a new garden room to be a gym. More below.

Personal Development

Me last year:

"Just over a year ago, I began learning generative AI and started this blog to document my exploration of its potential and share insights. I use ChatGPT daily, and Perplexity more than Google. Despite hype in some areas, I've never been more convinced it's the wave of the future, fundamentally reshaping our lives."

I dropped using the excellent Perplexity simply because ChatGPT & Claude now have internet search & Google caught up. I use their AI overviews and tools a lot, though less than before chatbots. I shop a lot with ChatGPT & Claude. I was apparently in the top 1% of ChatGPT users, with over 6k messages (~20 per day). It is a lot considering I do not use it for work and that I switched my main model in December. I'm even more convinced of AI changing everything for everyone faster than we are ready for. Again, despite hype in some areas. The Claude Code course I finished in December was easily the most useful development step I took.

2025 Goals Review

• 1 blog post per month (excluding book reviews). I posted 14, similar output to last year's 12 - if I include the book reviews (4). Blog views are up an impressive sounding 122%. It's a struggle to find the time to do more & learn new tools. The tools are more important.
• Build a portfolio website. A semi major project via LLMs was completed in Lovable in minutes.
• Use other tools more extensively, especially to build micro apps (Claude, DeepSeek, maybe Cursor or Replit). I now prefer Claude - Opus is my go to model. But Claude Code is changing how I view work on computers. I have not felt like this since the rise of LLMs - I'm openly telling people it will change their life. I used Lovable, Bolt and V0 extensively and piloted several of these at work too.
• Build out my Google Console and daily data work. I added scripts, buttons, and rolling charts to my data logging - can do more!
• Use these skills in my day job. Yes, as mentioned I helped pilot Lovable for Product prototyping and used it in real initiatives. I also leveraged & promoted our new access to Claude models at work, I use them daily and I estimate they have helped increase productivity/quality in my work by around 10%. Easier access & better context engineering (via Claude Code) could easily double this.

2026 Goals

• [Redacted] - (don't worry I'm not in the Epstein files)
• Transform my day to day with Claude Code
• Champion Claude Code & AI tools at work
• Build a self-hosted personal website for my blog + other items
• 1 blog post per month - blog style book reviews are fine
• Try out personal quarterly goals with medium term, clear goals & actions.

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Health

I track through Fitbit, Google Health & a daily form that feeds into a daily tracker spreadsheet. I am more focused than ever before in this space. Two books, Outlive by Peter Attia, and Super Agers by Eric Topol have slanted my goals towards longevity - so intense challenges with injury risk like my Murph attempt are out, well-rounded consistent exercises are back in. I have a world record to break after all.

Workouts

On December 15th, I reached a decade of exercising every workday (excluding holidays & weekends). Gold Star for consistency. There's always a way if you refuse to accept any excuses. This was despite two injuries that I made worse by not resting properly in aid of this 10 year goal.

I sprained my shoulder joint, too much use in too short a time, resulting in major pain and a huge drop off in resistance training. It has still not healed after 8 months though it is better. I also gave myself some tendinopathy because of a subtle change in how I sit on an old chair where the cushion wore away. This impacted my lower body for months, but healed quickly once I found the cause.

I recorded 575 workouts (up from 351 last year - note many days have more than one as I cycle my children to school - I don't count it twice if I cycle twice in a single day). My injuries meant I was on the bike far more than previous years.

Key takeaways:

• Zero missed days - Gold medal for consistency (Just under 60 days with walking as the only exercise)
• Much more cardio - 327, including a most unexpected running renaissance!
• Not enough movement. A slight increase on last year's 36 with 40 sessions, almost all early in the year pre-injury
• Huge drop off in resistance training (~50%) because of the injury, I miss it so much

2025 Goals Review:

• Double the number of Yoga/Pilates sessions. Missed
• Half the days with no workout. Done
• Add more "peak" workouts; I am rarely pushing my cardio at present. Done

2026 Goals:

• Shoulder recovery
• More movement sessions > 75
• Peak sessions > 60 (without hills I struggle to reach peak intensity cycling or running)

Meditation

I recorded 121 meditation sessions this year. More than doubling last year's count but not a daily habit. I just don't do it on weekends and holidays. I found I did it more on workdays when I do it even if I have fewer than 10 minutes, setting a timer for whatever minutes I do have helps.

2025 Goal: Start daily practice again. Failed

2026 Goal: More than 121 sessions

Heart Health, VO2Max & Steps

Annual resting heart rate of 55 with a dip from spring into summer where it touched 53 in July. Rose again in winter but not as much as last year. Maybe due to cardio work, maybe just the temperature. In general sub 60 is an excellent score. Average Google heart points dropped very slightly to 2,203 a month.

I averaged 53 mins a day in moderate or above zones (level 2+) with a cardio load of 51 over the year and an estimated VO2 max of 54 - also a great score. One of the reasons a blood test showing high LDL cholesterol surprised me so much.

My average of 6,734 steps a day (2,457,819 per year) is down by 10%.

My distance travelled (walking, running, cycling) was just over 2000 kilometers, 5.53km a day or from Liverpool to northern Montenegro. I still walk lots on weekends but hardly at all during the week.

This burns through an average of 2,784 calories per day - just over a million a year.

Heart Rate Variability averaged 56ms - trending upwards all year before a significant drop in December. Maybe virus related. As last year, my HRV crashes on nights when I drink alcohol.

2026 Goals:

• Maintain VO2 Max score
• Improve HRV

Alcohol

2025 Goals Review:

• Drink on a maximum of 10 occasions. Massive fail.
• Drink more no/low-alcohol drinks. Success - I replaced a few alcoholic drinks with non-alcohol ones on many occasions - a path forwards.
• Avoid staying out past midnight. Success. Even when drinking I usually made it home early. 7 times after midnight.

I drank on 25 occasions, exactly the same as last year. 10 times having fewer than 3 drinks, 15 times more than that. Again, exactly the same as last year. Around 125 drinks for the year.

The longest break was 66 days from the 9th Jan to March 16th (3 short of last year's longest), with another 61 day streak September to November following a boozy trip to Munich.

More importantly, whose fault is this failure? In order:

1. The French. Be it generous in-laws and their Ricard, or generous bosses sending me to party in Miami I was unable to refuse such hospitality.
2. Liverpool FC. They chose this year to win the league in front of fans, in front of me, for the first time in decades.
3. My family & friends. Like several of my friends I turned 40, so there were parties, and trips to Wales and Oktoberfest in Munich.

OK, maybe I can shoulder a little blame too. On reflection I had little chance of hitting my goal. The terrible effects on my heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep length, sleep quality, and quickness to anger the next day are all clear. There's a blindingly obvious solution.

Guess what days I drank on

2026 Goals:

• Drink on no more than 15 occasions.
• Grow a spine and say "no" more often.

Sleep

I averaged 7:05 hours sleep a night. Subjective sleep score (out of 5) fell slightly from 3.3 to 3.25. My Fitbit sleep score was up to 81 (from 78) improving in the second half of the year - as did my proportions of deep sleep and REM sleep at the expense of light sleep. A good sign I think.

Average get out of bed time was ten minutes later than last year at 6:41, average bed-time at 10.39, twenty-two minutes earlier.

Coffee

I still love coffee.

• 728 coffees - up from 727.5 in 2024. Unreal consistency.
• 1.99 per day on average - of course the same as last year.
• 7:46 AM average time for my first one (from 8:08).
• No missed days.

Food

I write down roughly what I have for each meal.

• Falafel, Huel, and Pancakes dominate once again.
• 55 'power' pancakes down from 77 - mashed banana, an egg, cocoa, whizzed oats + toppings - the kids' favorite breakfast.
• 46 homemade curries again, gold star for consistency.
• 5 Indian takeaways, still the most popular delivery but down 50%.
• 48 days that I had no olive oil or olives, down from 67. I drink a shot or add it over my lunch most days. Not sure it is helping my heart numbers.

2025 Goals Review:

• Smash the 700-barrier for falafels. Failed. Just 596. For the second year running I am the second largest purchaser of falafels in the north west. Who's buying more than me?
• Reduce the number of Huels I consume. Done - 159 down from 226. Better but I still need to diversify.

2026 Goals:

• 600+ falafels.
• See if diet choices can lower LDL cholesterol (plant sterol drinks)

Intermittent Fasting

Average fast time of 15h30m during the week, 15h8m if we include the weekends.

2025 Goal: Do it on the weekends too. Partial success - I breakfast early with the kids but now aim to eat dinner early too.

2026: push towards 16hrs

Phone Time

My intensive phone use carries on. A new addiction to twitter isn't helping, but brings much pleasure (see awards below). I do learn a tremendous amount through that screen. I miss out on real life though.

• Average: 5h34m per day. (2024 - 5h44m)
• High: 9h07m. (2024 - 9h27m)
• Low: 2h38m. (2024 - 1h36m)

2025 Goals Review:

• Reduce average phone time. Successful - hey, 10 mins is 10 mins.
• Reduce time at weekends/holidays by 30%. Fail. 6h23, up from 5h56.

2026 Goals:

• Reduce average phone time below 5 hours.
• Reduce time at weekends/holidays below 5h30
• Less phone time around people

Showers

Showers up to 148 from 136. 71% of them with cold water at the end. No baths.

NSFW

Do I have even more interesting data than last year? Yes.

Will my wife let me share it? Like last year, "No".

But I think I can report a happy 16% increase. Based on my readings of global studies (it's for science people!), the results look fantastic - especially for our new 40+ age range.

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Wealth

Another good year overall.

• My paper net worth again increased by an impressive sounding 26%
• Estimated house price grew slightly - remortgaged on better rate
• I was promoted at work, main financial benefit is increased RSU targets that don't show in current figures and then vest over years
• My daughter qualified for more free childcare hours
• We began construction of the Garden room (home gym), a major drain on finances that is clearly apparent in the data - spent savings and took out 0% debt.

Housing dominates my assets and liabilities still. Good general trends. It'd be a nice plan if the world remains stable for the next 16 years or so. Ah. Oh. Yeah. All of that.

Without housing, illiquid pensions dominate my wealth. The great % gains on some funds, and S&P 500 beating 13.9% on my ISA are nice but hardly life changing. You can see the extra debt more clearly at this range.

Once again the general market boom lifted almost all my investments. There were very large gains for the semi-conductor (60%), defence (60%+), and battery tech (80%+) funds in my portfolio. Though they are only minority positions. Some of that is trading on good news, some on bad. Pivoting out of the US to Europe early in the year worked well, until the end of the year.

Steady growth over the year, you can see Trump's tariffs early on. The huge jump up is when I switched providers.

My slightly more aggressive self invested pension performed better, almost 17% up.

2025 Goals Review:

• Follow the plan: broad, cheap equity investments with smaller tech-focused bets. Partial pass.
• Simplify portfolio. I consolidated providers, and at first funds, only to later start picking more again. Fail, but it's fun.
• Increase cash/MMF buffer. Pass. Cash savings in high interest accounts provide immediate cover, MMF funds were spent on the construction project.

2026 Goals:

• Invest more
• Invest more in conviction bets - Google was a great buy, as was Scottish Mortgage a few years back. Their SpaceX holding was the main reason I bought in. Rumors of an IPO at (deserved) record levels.
• Finish Garden room

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Reading

Another weak year in comparison to before, but I must accept a new baseline. I read 18 books at just over 7000 pages. Most reviewed on Goodreads, rest to follow with several on the blog.

At 3.9* it is by far my lowest average score over the year. I am becoming less generous with my scores, 129 of the 332 rated books (39%) have 5* but I think re-reads would knock many down. Old and cynical. Who would have thought it?

Reading at bedtime is a great habit that I am back into - I need to remember to keep to fiction - it is not the time for non-fiction. And I could look to do more audiobooks over podcasts that have taken an increasing share of my audio time.

5 books:*

• The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
• There is no Anti Memetics Division by qntm - see awards section below

2025 Goals Review:

• Read 25 books. Failed. 18 books.
• Read at bedtime on 250+ nights. Failed. But 220 is a huge increase on last year's 138 - maybe the reason for better sleep.
• Review each book within two weeks of finishing it. Fail. I still owe several.

2026 Goals:

• Read 20 books.
• Read at bedtime on 250+ nights.
• Review each book within a month of finishing it.

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Movies & TV Shows

It was once again an unremarkable year. The only exceptional shows I watched were Season 2 of Wolf Hall – wonderfully acted and actually complementary to the first-rate but confusing book(s) and the brutal Mormon western American Primeval.

TV:

• Season 2 of Wolf Hall: 10*
• American Primeval 10*
• 1883 9* More brutal western action, a much better spin off from Yellowstone
• Pilbrius 8* added as it is such an original idea, the first episode is remarkable, some of the others not quite as much. Not sure what it wants to be.

Movies:

• Frankenstein 9* A good new version of the classic.
• Mickey 17 8* Very inventive, funny.

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Podcasts

I don't think I have any new finds - but would again recommend all three from last year for AI - My big finds were all AI related: Dwarkesh, the AI renditions of the essential but extremely long "Don't Worry About the Vase" newsletters from Zvi, and Hannah Fry's Deepmind from the Google gang. See here for others.

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Travel

We had a wonderful family trip to Brittany in the summer, the seaside is fantastic. Goats cheese crepes everyday for me! We also took shorter trips to Disneyland, a few camping trips, and a long weekend in Anglesey.

2025 Goals Review:

• More family time away, somewhere new hopefully. Done, France, but in different seasons :)
• I've never been to Munich, and the CL final is there this year… just saying, @LFC! Partially done, it was not for the CL final but it was a highlight!

2026 Goals:

• New adventures in new places. Japan is the dream but it may not be this year

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2025 Awards

LLM of the Year - Opus 4.5 now has the mandate of Heaven - the first time I've shifted from an OpenAI model. I've been an OpenAI subscriber for years…but after a £1.49 Gemini promotion I'm paying for three AI subscriptions and I need Opus and Claude Code right now…

Website of the year - Twitter, I avoided it for way over a decade but there's simply no place as good for the cutting edge of anything, especially AI. It's also very funny. Substack a notable second.

Product of the year - Claude Code. Obviously. Wow.

Book of the year - There is no Anti-Memetics Division by qntm. Insane creativity, visceral horror. Read it.

TV of the year - American Primeval. Just edges 1883. Very Western centric. I am becoming old.

Film of the year - Frankenstein - a good version, but a weak year of movies that I watched, I watch so few now.

Person of the Year - Bryan Johnson. Multi-millionaire weirdo with a heart of gold. Doing what I do but with way more intensity, capital, and publicity. Capped a year where he soft launched his movement into a cult with a livestreamed magic mushroom trip (for science!) DJ'd by Grimes with the likes of Marc Benioff amongst the guests. Lovely girlfriend announcement - one of the good guys! Don't die!

Day of the Year - Liverpool vs Tottenham. The day Liverpool won the league in front of fans for the first time in 35 years. Wild celebrations unlike anything seen at Anfield before and a magic moment. Probably won't happen again this year...

Travel - Munich. For Oktoberfest in the glorious sunshine with great friends.