Bonus email — Father’s Day is Sunday and your family is probably asking you right now what you want.
Here’s what to tell them. And not just because you’re impossible to shop for (you are). But because the right “gift” can quietly shift your health trajectory for the rest of the year. Most of this stuff isn’t glamorous to unwrap. That’s fine. Glamour is overrated when you’re trying to feel good at 45.
Step 1: Body — Ask for equipment, not gadgets.
A single kettlebell — 35 to 53 lbs depending on where you are — is the most versatile piece of home gym equipment there is. Swings, squats, presses, rows, carries. You can build a legit workout program around one bell. It costs less than a smartwatch and it’ll outlive everything else in your garage. The difference between a gym membership you don’t use and a kettlebell sitting next to your car is that the kettlebell stares at you every morning.
Step 2: Fuel — Ask for a subscription, not a product.
A quality protein powder subscription or a weekly meal prep delivery removes friction from the hardest part of eating well: consistency. Nobody’s going to get excited unwrapping a bag of whey isolate. But three months from now, when you’ve hit your protein target every day without thinking about it, you’ll be glad you asked for this instead of another grilling gadget that ends up in the junk drawer.
Step 3: Mind — Ask for time.
Tell your family you want one hour on Sunday morning. No agenda, no screens, no plan. A walk, a coffee, sitting on the porch doing absolutely nothing. If that sounds small, think about this: most dads haven’t had an unscheduled hour to themselves in months. Maybe longer. Time to do nothing is how the system recharges. And recovery is what keeps everything else running.
Other ideas worth dropping hints about:
A full blood panel at your doctor (usually $50–200 out of pocket), a fitness tracker like WHOOP or an Oura Ring, a quality sleep mask, or a subscription to a meditation app like Waking Up. All practical, all things you’d actually use, none of them ending up in a closet.
The takeaway:
The best Father’s Day gifts don’t sit in a drawer. They change how you feel on a random Tuesday in October.
Forward this to the wife, girlfriend, or kid who’s been panic-googling “gifts for dad” since yesterday. You’re welcome.
Rootin’ for ya,
Jason from Dad OS
P.S. — a little side project I have to tell you about
I've got two kids, and for years I made up their bedtime stories. You run out of material fast — there are only so many nights before every story is just a dragon who learns to share.
So I've been building something for them on the side: a bedtime story that writes itself. You tell it what your kid's into and what you'd like them to work on — courage, patience, not melting down when they lose at Uno — and it writes an original story every night built around that. In your inbox by bedtime. You just read it.
The part I actually care about: you pick a value, and their hero quietly works on it — a little braver each night, no lectures. It's called Goodnight Grow.
If it sounds like your thing, click the link below, enter your email and I'll tell you the second it's ready — the first 100 readers get early access: