Last month I completed 20 years of being a gym-rat and I thought of rambling about it. Here it goes:
Just for reference here is a before and current picture. In the left picture I must be 16 years old with 85kgs(187lbs) and in the right picture I am 55.5 kgs(122lbs) taken on 15th Sept 2024 - straight out of bed with no pump. I am a short guy at 164cm (~5’5”).
When I had just started out, someone told me that this is pointless. Because once I stop working out I will regain all the lost fat. I never forgot that comment, I still remember the exact location of this conversation today and the person who said that to me. To me it was a challenge - I wanted to prove him wrong and in a way I have. At the same time I told myself this is a lifestyle change and there is no going back!
Today I am 41 and I am in the best shape of my life. That said, I know the reality of life, at some point I will look worse and I have to accept that. I also know that I cannot lift the same weights I used to 15 years ago, and it will only get worse. The worst part is that I have been diagnosed with a bone condition that has already prevented me from doing my favourite exercises (dead-lifts and squats), but that hasn’t stopped me. At some point I will lose more muscles than I would like, and I will have more fat than I would like - that is just aging. My goal is to delay it as much as possible and yet be ready to adapt to a new body and new workouts as I transition! Eventually I have to die but nothing would make me happier if I could workout even on the last day of my life :).
About 4 years ago, I realized that I was having chronic back pain - when it pained it stayed for about a week and later everything was normal - but that one week was excruciating pain. I ignored it and once I accidentally mentioned it to my doctor who recommended some tests. I kept delaying those tests too until I finally did. I found I had an extremely rare condition called polyostotic fibrous dysplasia and it was all over my pelvis with several holes in the bones. I had to undergo bone biopsy (which was quite painful) to rule out it wasn’t malignant. Thankfully it isn’t (at least so far because there is very slight chance it could turn malignant anytime) - but I have to live with this problem now because I have several restrictions - no running, no lifting heaving weights, certainly no dead-lifts or squats. I had to go back to the drawing board and figure out all new exercises - new weight training routines, new cardio exercises and most importantly I had to pick something that I can do for the rest of my life. In fact, this was a turning point, because up until then I used to hover around 65 kg (143lbs) and with some modification to my eating and working out habits a few months later I was at 55 kg (122lbs) and stayed around that since then :)
I am a foodie and although I am partial towards Mediterranean food I can pretty much eat anything. You must remember the food in restaurant is garbage - but the good news is that you can cook almost exactly the same food at home with fraction of the calories. One thing I was always good at was reading the labels on food packages and knowing the amount of macros and micros in them. That with the plethora of online recipes made it really easy to cut down calories and cook restaurant style food at home. One day I cooked some chicken and shared with a friend and when his wife asked him how it was, he admitted that it tasted better than her recipe - which has a ton of oil in it.
There’s always going to be someone that looks better than me. Even some of the best looking people suffer from body dysmorphia. Do not focus on others, this is a competition between Me and Me!
Like most people my age, the motivation to start working out was to look like Arnold. Of course part of me knew that is probably never happening, nonetheless I kept telling myself maybe some day it will. Couple of years later I realized I had hit plateau and I wanted to understand where I can go from here. I could hire a personal trainer or become a personal trainer myself - I decided to do the latter. I invested about $500 in the coaching program and got certified. I never really used my certification to earn a living but I used it on myself :). Best $500 ever spent!
At the age of 25 I toyed with the idea of taking steroids. It was quite easily accessible where I lived and I knew it would help me to get leaner and bigger. I even joined some forums on bodybuilding.com to know more about it. Most of the knowledge was just BS - nobody knew exactly what is safe and what is not. The risk of taking them and having to live with them for the rest of my life was a scary thought, enough to tell myself that I will delay this until I am 40+. And now that I am 40+ I don't think I would ever use them, but I just say to myself let's delay until I am 60+ :-).
Life happens, commitments increase, friend circle changes, professional circumstances change, covid happens - but your health is all you have. When life got busier I moved my gym time from 4:30 am in the morning, I had to talk to my wife about it because it turned out to be a big deal for her that we couldn't watch our evening shows together. She was understanding, we have adapted and we are happier and going strong :).
I hurt my back yesterday just moving some groceries around - which means I can't walk properly or do anything in the gym for at least 5 days. Today is Day 2 and it will be the worst day of pain. From Day 3 it generally gets better until Day 6 when I can go back to the gym :). I feel quite frustrated with this situation, but generally I use this extra time to read a book or write my thoughts. I know as I get older the frequency of these injuries may increase, and it is quite a scary thought. But I have to stay positive and take one day at a time. Until my body gives up completely I will be infesting the gym at 4:30am - 5 to 6 days a week, and I hope to write something like this 20 years later!
This document was scribbled in Xed in markdown and converted to html using pandoc. Please do not use anything on this page without my permission - muffin.man @ mailbox.org