Weekly Plan: Health Check-Up in 7 Days

There's a part of health that isn't fixed by daily habits but by reviews: occasionally looking at what you haven't looked at in years. Your skin, your hearing, your vaccines, your numbers, the pain you've been carrying and normalized.

This plan asks for no physical effort and no dietary changes. It asks for seven short sessions to catch up on what's fallen behind. By the end of the week you'll have a real picture of where you stand and a short list of concrete things to do.

🎯 Plan rules

1. One review a day, none longer than twenty minutes.

2. Write down what you find, even if it's "all fine."

3. Anything needing an appointment gets booked the same day. Writing "book appointment" doesn't count.

4. None of this replaces professional judgment: it's for knowing what to ask.

Day 1 — Skin

In front of the mirror, in good light, check your moles with the ABCDE rule: Asymmetry, irregular Borders, uneven Color, growing Diameter, Evolution. Pay special attention to the "ugly duckling": the one that looks different from all the rest.

Check your back and scalp too, with help or with your phone.

Today's action: if you have sunscreen, put it next to your toothbrush. If you don't, add it to the shopping list. It's the number one intervention for skin, by a wide margin.

Day 2 — Hearing

Answer honestly: do you often ask people to repeat themselves? Do you turn the TV up louder than others? Do you struggle to follow conversation in a noisy restaurant? That last one is the earliest sign.

Open your phone's sound exposure meter and look at last week's average. It usually surprises people.

Today's action: apply the 60/60 rule — max 60% volume, max 60 consecutive minutes — and put a pair of earplugs on your keyring. The cells you damage don't grow back.

Day 3 — Vaccines

Find your vaccination record: many health systems already have it in their app or portal. If it isn't there, your primary care clinic can largely reconstruct it.

Go over what would apply given your age, any chronic conditions, and your travel plans.

Today's action: write the specific questions for your next appointment. If you have a trip within two months, book now: some schedules need several doses weeks apart.

Day 4 — Weight and waist

Weigh yourself under steady conditions — on waking, after the bathroom, before breakfast — and note the number. Don't interpret it today: a single reading says nothing.

Measure your waist with a tape at navel level. It reflects cardiometabolic risk better than weight or BMI.

Today's action: pick two indicators that aren't weight — repetitions in an exercise, how a garment fits, stairs without getting winded — and note them. If the number on the scale affects you too much, put it away and keep only these.

Day 5 — The pain you carry

Write down what regularly hurts, since when, and what you've stopped doing because of it. That last column is usually the most revealing.

If the pain has lasted more than three months, remember the essential point: intensity does not equal amount of damage, and prolonged rest makes almost all persistent pain worse.

Today's action: pick an activity you tolerate without triggering the pain and do it for ten minutes. The goal isn't for it not to hurt: it's to gradually widen what you can do.

Day 6 — The numbers

Find your last blood work. If it's more than two years old, or you can't find it, you already have today's action.

Check whether your blood pressure has been measured in the past year. If there's a monitor at home, take it sitting and at rest.

Today's action: book the pending check-up or blood test. And write down the three questions you want to ask: arriving with written questions completely changes how much you get out of an appointment.

Day 7 — The short plan

Go back over the six previous notes and answer three questions:

1. What needs an appointment? Book it today, not "next week."

2. What depends only on me? Pick one habit, not five: daily sunscreen, the 60/60 rule, ten minutes of movement.

3. What needs reviewing, and when? Put the date in the calendar, not in your memory.

After the week

Most of these reviews are annual, not daily. Put them in the calendar:

• Moles: twice a year in front of the mirror.
• Vaccination record: once a year, or before any trip.
• Blood work and blood pressure: as advised at your appointment.
• Waist: once a month, alongside weight.

What gets scheduled happens. What gets remembered doesn't.