Not that forty. I turned that a little over three years ago. It's the forty pounds I've lost over the last few months! This is much more exciting than turning forty. Turning forty dawns the realization that you're truly an "adult" adult. By my estimation, this decade of life is the current peak of having to be responsible for stuff. For a lot of us, you need to finish up getting your kids out the door and on with their own lives. You also start turning an eye to your folks. The career is in full swing and you're starting to give the 401K and getting the mortgage paid off some more serious looks. You start knowing more people in your age group who are battling illness, or having life catch up with them in other ways. At times everything hurts and you just want to take a sabbatical from it all, but the majority of us can't.
As harshly real as life looks, it's really made this getting in shape journey more important and maybe even feel like a little more of an accomplishment. Life since early July has been a whirlwind, largely filled with kids-related activities, but also the lull in the Covid pandemic has allowed a little bit of normalcy. The busy-ness of work has ramped up.
While July was busy, August has been nuts. After a year hiatus, I'm back on the field coaching football. This last week in particular has been emotionally draining seeing my daughter go through her first set of fastpitch "club" tryouts. School-year readiness is starting to happen. Admittedly, I'm starting to crave some of the routine that school brings.
So really, getting healthy has meant I have more energy, and even optimism, to keep hustling. I'm noticing things that are nagging when I'm "big Joe", e.g. back pain, low energy, etc. aren't there. Even in coaching I'm finding myself actually running around amongst the 8th graders as I try to show them how to partake in this eleven on eleven chess match. My stress levels are lower (save for the softball moments in the previous paragraph) and my resting heartrate has been super low (in the upper 50s).
Still, I'm far from perfection in working the Noom app, but working it daily and being conscientious about what I'm eating and how much activity I'm getting keeps me heading in the right direction. Things I'm continuing to do well with are:
- Daily weigh-ins
- Work week meal planning. I've even found a solution for those pesky dinners alone at home:
- Getting my 10k steps. This is a breeze with the coaching. Particularly with being able to walk/jog to the park.
- Getting to the gym. Although coaching has made this a little tricky this week, but it's not like I'm trading the gym time for Oreos....mmmm Oreos *drool.
Continuing areas for improvement:
- Weekends. Although I've been finding myself more conscious, there's just less structure.
- Social/family events or hanging places where there's food sitting out. #grazer
- Finding moments to get centered, clear my head, meditate, etc.
- Caffeine and alcohol intake. The former is morning ritual, the latter ties to the social bullet above.
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