OK seriously! This getting old crap is bringing me down! What now? What now you ask? Well, I’ll tell you “What now…”
For a 35 year old father of two, I think I do pretty good.
I exercise. Often hard!
I do handy things around the house.
I take vitamins.
I eat healthy.
My hair is still dark. From a distance.
And yet I still have this…this thing around my mid-section that won’t let go.
My weight has been a battle since I was a kid. I briefly beat it back in ’94 for about five years. That is, until I got married and we started having children. Somewhere along the way, cereal and stir fry for dinner was supplanted by Stouffer’s Lasagna, salmon with cheddar mashed potatoes, and thick steaks with grilled asparagus and corn fritters. Oh…no…those are three different dinners…not one big Shakespearean buffet!
Now granted, as I’ve admitted before, I suffer from a small case of body dysmorphic disorder, in which I think that I think that I look worse than I probably do. Or perhaps I’m fooling myself and I really DO look like I think I look and I’m using the “BDD” thing as an excuse to tell myself that I don’t really look as bad as I fear I do.
Truly, it boggles the mind.
After looking at those pictures of me in the river this weekend, I’m beginning to think the latter is true.
I also blame my work. Sitting on one’s hiney for eight a lot of hours a day doesn’t do much for the metabolism either, no matter how good you try to eat.
But here’s the rub: I AM getting older. At some point, I’m going to have to face the facts that no matter how hard I work, there’s a fine line between being healthy, and doing more than a body, at a given age, is capable of doing without breaking down. But when exactly is that? I mean, 35 is NOT old.
If 60 is the new 50, does that mean that 35 is the new 25? If so, I should look a helluva lot better than I do now!! And then if you sleep with a 25 year old, is it really like sleeping with a…nevermind.
Anyway, I’m just curious about others’ thoughts on this whole staying in shape as you get older thing. How do you measure your success (or failures) against your peers? Or do you?
Postulates & Pastimes 
I miss the days of being able to eat as many cookies as I wanted to, without suffering any kind of consequence. I think they went away at 25. I did notice this morning as I was walking from my car to the gym that my hips and knees ached. I never used to even be aware that my hips or knees could ache. As I hobbled into the gym, I thought, “This is it. This is what old feels like…when you notice any kind of feeling in your hips.” Now I’m just a little bit depressed. Thanks.
RE: You’re welcome. If it makes you feel any better (and it won’t), my mom’s husband is having his other hip replaced in two months. Thanks to what? Yep, too many steroid injections. I was supposed to have another round today, but I’m actually doing a bit better, so I’m putting it off.