Middle Age
I didn’t find my journey to the gym until around age forty. I did the dutiful thing, and had my annual physical check up with my doctor, who did the usual things, poked all the usual places, and took a bit of blood. We went through some basics, and then he said we would follow up after the blood tests came back. He was checking cholesterol, testosterone, and all the other elements in my blood that doctors monitor
It was that follow up, and that moment while sitting on the examination table, that I had my Moment.
“We should start talking about maintenance medications,” he said, looking at me square in the eyes.
“What do you mean?” I inquired, already feeling defensive as I had a steep aversion to medications in general.
My entire childhood had been spent watching family members popping pills to manage all kinds of things, from cholesterol levels to blood pressure to Type II diabetes, and watching them, day in and day out, popping these pills never sat well with me. I knew I didn’t want to be like them. I knew I wanted to do better.
So, when he answered my question, and it was those specific kinds of medications that he suggested, I went internal. I listened, but it was as though the room started screaming at me. This was *not* going to be my pathway forward.
“Hold up, Doc,” I replied, when he stopped speaking. “This is all related to my weight isn’t it.”
Tactfully, he replied, “Your weight is a factor, yes.”
“Can you give me six months to fix it before prescribing meds?” I asked (pleaded, really).
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He looked at me, set his jaw tight, and said, “You’ve got six months, and then I’m writing the prescriptions.”
That was the deadline I needed.
Since then, I’ve managed to pull my weight down out of the rafters, and have found a deep love of all things physical fitness. I love challenging my body to perform strength-required maneuvers, or pushing my cardiovascular system with lengthy, challenging activities such as hiking or even a long walk around the area I live. I find myself sorting and sifting through all of life’s challenges while putting my body through a task or situation that requires moving a heavy thing (free weight, or my own body weight) from point A to point B.
While I did managed to keep myself off those life-maintaining medications for now, I find myself these days, sitting squarely at the middle of my 46th journey around the sun, and feeling my age settle in.
I work as a coach and trainer at a local health club who’s client base is, generally, older individuals who are nearing, at, or beyond the retirement age. There’s a lot of injury restoration, preventative training, and overall effort to recapture a bit of youthful vitality among those I work with. They’re all feeling their age as well, and are hoping that I can provide them with the means to stave off the effects of time.
This is having an effect on me as well. I’m seeing a potential version of myself in them, if I don’t keep after myself better. Launching my life into this new world of coaching and training, and taking myself out of the “standard American workforce” by starting my own virtual coaching platform, and all the rest, has meant putting my own health goals on a backburner. If I were in my twenties or thirties, perhaps, I wouldn’t be considering the effects of such a time imbalance, but now, in my middle-life, putting the needs of others (my clients, and my bills) first, can have a lasting effect, should I keep shoving my own needs aside.
If I want to stay strong and healthy, I need to be more conscientious about how I spend my time. I need to take the examples of my older clients, and use this as a reminder that time stops for nobody, and everyday, I need to make choices that support my own goals for the time I have here on Earth.
I have another doctor appointment soon, another physical and blood test. I know in the last six months or so, since taking this massive leap into full-time business ownership, and cobbling together the funds I need month to month, I’ve put my own diet and exercise routine to the side. There’s a distinct chance that my doctor is going to look at me with a set jaw and double-down on his earlier thoughts surrounding medications.
I still don’t think I’m ready for them, and I know I still have the gumption I need to get my body back into fighting form.
But I also know I have to stop messing around with Time, and spent it more wisely.
