The Machine's Breaking Down (Get Off My Lawn)

[Thrillho]

So, I've been coming here for almost ten years. In that time, I've done more than a dozen challenges with the Monks, a few with the Adventurers, one or two with the Warriors, an Assassin run or two, a Ranger run or two... but always coming back to the Monks, due to my interest in MMA, boxing, kickboxing, and all sorts of combat sports.

 

And after ten years, I'm in pretty much the worst shape of my life, and the least parts of me that I never even considered have started breaking down. In no particular order:

• My beard is more white than black now
• The old hairline has been thinning slightly for a couple years, but it's now starting to retreat
• Ear and nose hair jokes are no longer funny, but a sobering assessment of documented reality
• Dry skin has stopped being periodic and easily treated and is now just my life
• I can GAIN weight faster than ever before
• My joints below the waist don't start properly working until I've already been at work for an hour
• My carpal tunnel wrist brace doesn't seem to be working anymore
• My left elbow just kinda hurts all the time
• What the hell seems to be growing next to most of my fingernails? 
• I can't handle spicy food and hot sauce the way I used to, which is perhaps the saddest of all

 

I've been eating my problems lately, and there's a few of them. I stopped going to MMA last summer because I just wanted to have SOME time during the week where I had some time to myself.  I stopped going to the gym around the same time because my gym partner (my son) absolutely would not wake up in time to go, and if he didn't go I didn't have motivation. I stopped going jogging, because my dog becomes EXTREMELY upset if I accelerate to anything faster than a walk (she's a husky / German shepherd, but has some deranged urge to try and herd me if it looks like I'm escaping).  I set up my weights at home in the garage when it was OK to park the van outside, and all of my weights immediately became covered in home renovation equipment and power tools (thanks, sweetie). I set up my punching bag in the basement once it became too cold to keep it in the garage, but the only time I can use it my daughter is asleep about ten feet away, and it wakes her up. 

 

I know this is basically a laundry list of lame BS excuses. I'm owning that. 

 

But I just turned 37, and it seems like I've aged more in the last six months than I have in the six years previous.  Or more.  Without any goals, I don't have any motivation to keep on top of my exercise or diets, and it can't just be the goal of "Weigh X by Y date".  My previous goals were all major events.  Amateur boxing events, kickboxing events, the Tiger Balm Internationals, road run events, things like that.  I missed every road run this year, and I haven't felt remotely capable to actually fight again (and that was BEFORE I stopped training).  My first few fights gave me an inflated sense of my abilities, and my last four kind of drove home that I'm clearly not at the level I would like to imagine. 

 

I think the final straw this week was my wife's friends all posting "before and after" collages of their significant others, mostly on Facebook, chronicling their weight loss and fitness and how hot they are now.  My wife posted two identical and unflattering pictures of me as MY "before and after". 

 

An apparently random but related aside: my son has made the decision this week that he wants to try out for football at his school in April.  Now, my son is... not sporty.  He has (or at least had) a really good excuse for this: idiopathic ANA-neg rheumatoid juvenile arthritis. His legs have never really 'worked right'.  He is also a 15 year old who is six feet tall and a solid one-ninety. He is not a runner, he's barely even a sprinter, but he's big and he WANTS to do sports, there's just so few that play to his strengths... but football has some great spots for him, and the football coach and some students have told him that he can pack on a lot of muscle between now and April. Therefore, I'm setting up the weights again, SOMEWHERE, so he can try and build muscle at home, since he acknowledges that there's no way he can wake up in time to go to the gym in the mornings.  He barely makes it to the bus in the morning to go to school. He needs sleep... but when he's awake, I want to support him in this. 

 

So, there's a lot of stuff happening around me right now. 

 

This isn't the right time for me to start to let my health slide. This is around the time where it starts being irreversible. I've managed to avoid any major health problems throughout my life, and my family history is replete with men living to their 80's and 90's. Then again, they were all police, soldiers and farmers, and tended to actually take care of themselves. I sit for ten hours a day for work, then try to sit at home so I can write, and occasionally walk/drag my dog through the snow. I wake up early every morning because there's stuff that needs to be done, but available downtime tends to go towards writing, or more recently, just doodling around on my Minecraft server. 

 

If I'm going to be honest with myself, I want to be healthy FOR ME, but I want to look good purely to change how other people see me. My wife laughs anytime I say anything about fighting again, or doing anything interestingly physical. My daughters poke my stomach and laugh and run away. The rest of my MMA gym keeps winning buckets of medals at every west coast competition they go to, but they ask when I'll be back just because they need a heavyweight they can train 'against' for practice (IE, they want a punching bag that moves around).  The people in my office make far more food-related jokes and comments to me than they do with anyone else. 

 

I've made the commitment (and PRE-PAID) to return to my MMA gym in January. My wife says that she wants to go to the gym at the university, where she has a free membership, but she'll only go if I go with her, so in January we'll be starting that too.  She wants to go a few times in December while it's still not very busy, since in December admission is just one can of food for me, and she's still free, so she can try everything out. 

 

Food is still going to be the biggest problem, and I am currently checking out intermittent fasting which is something that I think will allow me to eat the things that I CRAVE, but not in enough quantities to pose problems. 

 

I am going to figure out some smaller goals, and lay out some benchmarks to help me get there.  Small things.  A pull-up.  A hand-stand.  Small, physical things. 

 

I just wanted to get this all down here, so I can come back and read all about my failures, and remember why I'm doing this. 

[Kishi]

Well. Better get it then. Your goals aren't doing you any favors or getting any closer.

[Pavowski]

Damn, dude. Your post basically sums up everything I'm feeling the last 6 months. I just hit this site again for the first time in a while because I've basically had enough of being a schlub of late.

 

You're not alone, man. 37 is no picnic. Let's get to work.

[Arcelas the n00b]

Are you still alive?

[Thrillho]

On 12/27/2017 at 7:54 AM, arcelas said:

Are you still alive?

 

[Hypotheticalfox]

I don’t have a lot to add other than I’m back for many of the same reasons (feeling old(er)/less motivated recently etc, wanting to do better). Also, what I reall wanted to say was you have a fantastic name.

[Thrillho]

So... 

 

• Physiotherapy for bursitis and deteriorated VMO.  That's progress!
• My testosterone is 'significantly below normal range'. Knowing that is progress!
• Only 41% of my sleep is considered 'restful' according to testing. Figuring that out is progress!

 

... and, that all explains a hell of a lot. 

[Xena]

You might know this already. I think poor sleep (such as with sleep apnea) can lead to low T measurements. Might be worth asking your doctor about if you haven't already.

Sounds like good knowledge all around. Great work!