First Hand

What I've lived and what I went and checked. One email a day, Monday to Friday.

JUAN MANUEL FERRERA

19.08.2026

What my blood work says

Today it’s the body’s turn. And I start with mine, which is the only one I can talk about with paperwork in hand.

Fatty liver. High blood sugar. Grade one obesity. Sixty-five years old, one metre sixty-five and 83 kilos.

I put it in writing because I’m sick of people handing out advice about life from a flattering photograph.

And there’s a direct relation between that and everything else I do, which is why I’m telling you here: with your sugar high you can’t study. It isn’t a metaphor. You eat badly at midday and by five in the afternoon you can’t hold a difficult paragraph.

Forty-five years looking after the soul and neglecting the vehicle that carries it. In the tradition I come from that counts as a mistake, not a virtue. The body isn’t the enemy: it’s the instrument, and an instrument out of tune doesn’t play.

I’m on a low glycaemic index diet and calisthenics. Twelve weeks. I’m on week four.

I’m not going to sell you a method. I’m going to tell you what I do and what happens to me, with the numbers in front of you.

If you’re in something similar, that makes two of us.

All the cards