An interesting thing happened sometime during the past few decades - I grew older.
No, not like in calendar years older, but in "body years" older. They call it "Biological Years." Or, Epigenetics - The difference between Chronological and biological age.
And now that I'm approaching 81 years old, I find myself wondering "What Happened!!!" Followed closely by cursing the shape I let myself get into.
Not only am I fat (down to 288 pounds from 300 pounds at Christmas due to my attempt at the Keto diet) but I'm not healthy. I'll keep working on it because I know the diet works. What's Not working is me...
Yes, I've literally lost the ability to 'work' - to do physical work that requires some effort and sweat and increased pulse rate for my recently repaired heart surgery.
But my muscles have become flab and don't always do what I want them to do. Not only that, but they complain about the least amount of effort as if I'm killing my muscles by even trying to use them.
I hate it! And I decided to do something about it.
The first thing was to lose some weight, and I'm working on it. I The 12 pounds I've already lost made a huge difference in how I feel both physically and mentally. I opted for the Keto diet in order to eat better and to lose weight. That's a good start. But I also needed to exercise. So I brought my Total Gym down from the attic and cleaned the years of dust off and oiled the wheels and pullies, and set it up in the garage so it will be a visual reminder that I need to use it.
It wasn't easy, but I was determined to get it going and keep it going. I started slow and easy because I really I really didn't want to do more than my heart could take. "KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID" was my motto until I was sure I could do it at all. It was a good decision.
Each time I used the Total Gym, I added just a few more repetitions to my workout. The workout itself was just some leg-pushes up an incline, assisted by my pulling my weight up at the same time. That gave my legs and arms and shoulders just enough to do that I started feeling 'the burn' everyone talks about when exercising. That told me I was already starting to grow younger in body age, no matter that the calendar kept ticking. I even started feeling younger, and I had more energy, and I felt good.
While I was at it, I also got out the 5-pound and 10-pound dumbells.
But I was still struggling with two issues: my glaucoma was so bad at times that all I wanted to do was sleep to numb the pain and worry that I was losing my sight. I haven't felt comfortable driving in well over a year so we stayed just home. So I had no excuse for not keeping at it.
I'm now happy to report that I've tripled my workout efforts on the Total Gym, and due to a stroke of luck, my Sweetie found a Free NordicTrack treadmill just a couple of miles from our house. In less than an hour, I had it in our garage cleaning it up from what appeared to be garage dust from obvious lack of use. The guy said it worked but I didn't want to turn it on until I checked out the drive belt and walking belt, nuts and bolts, and give it a thorough cleaning.
I also went online and read the User Manual to make sure I knew how to operate it. And sure enough, there was a 'caution' message to "Not start it up in a very cold area" and to "make sure the incline was in the flat position after prolonged storage." So I waited until the next day. And sure enough, everything worked, but there was some slack in the walking belt which I quickly took care of. I'm waiting on a bottle of treadmill walking belt lubricant to arrive from Amazon before I start walking on it.
I can't wait to get started on the treadmill.
So now that I know how to eat properly, and I'm set up with two important exercise devices, and I'm feeling pretty good, I think I'm ready to start growing younger.
