jstanlick Refuses to Grow Old

[jstanlick]

The last challenge ended on my 45th birthday. So, let's face the facts, unless I live to be close to 100, I'm sitting squarely at the start of the second half of my life. Heck, I have high school classmates posting pictures on the Book of Faces of their grandchildren. I am what I would've called when I was 10, old. At work, my teammates often refer to me as the old guy. But, I don't feel old. In fact, I don't feel a whole lot different from 10 - 15 years ago. What I have noticed over the last few challenges is that I'm not as strong as I used to be, I need to eat better, and my flexibility is gradually getting worse. Other than the eating better part, the other two are often attributed to aging. Yet, I have control over them. I have done a poor job prioritizing strength workouts and up until now, my idea of improving flexibility was trying to fit more stuff in my schedule. It's time to do some prioritizing. So, let's get started, shall we?

 

I'll flesh these out a little more shortly, but wanted to get them written down generally.

1. Get Stronger - Resistance training of some form 3x/week
2. Get Flexible - Mobility work 1-2x/week
3. Eat better - Breakfast and lunch is totally mine to control, so I will
4. Odds and Ends - Make a doctor appointment, schedule regular massages, plan more time with the family, etc.

 

I'll make these more measurable in the next day or so, but for now, that's my April/May plan.

[Taffter]

Nice goals! Also 45 is not old. It just isn't.

 

 

[RedStone]

On 4/21/2017 at 9:16 AM, jstanlick said:

But, I don't feel old. In fact, I don't feel a whole lot different from 10 - 15 years ago. What I have noticed over the last few challenges is that I'm not as strong as I used to be, I need to eat better, and my flexibility is gradually getting worse. Other than the eating better part, the other two are often attributed to aging. Yet, I have control over them. I have done a poor job prioritizing strength workouts and up until now, my idea of improving flexibility was trying to fit more stuff in my schedule. It's time to do some prioritizing.

 

Well that about sums me up LOL Here for a similar jam man, being... not... old.... and feeling... not... old....<.<

Good luck with the things!

 

[Sloth the Enduring]

 

In my day when we stalked someone we didn't do any of this namby-pamby checking their thread, we hid in their bushes and we liked it. 

[jstanlick]

17 hours ago, Taffythecat said:

Nice goals! Also 45 is not old. It just isn't.

 

 

I don't think it's old, but the cosmos keeps telling me I'm not as young as I used to be. More on that in a minute...

 

17 hours ago, RedStone said:

 

Well that about sums me up LOL Here for a similar jam man, being... not... old.... and feeling... not... old....<.<

Good luck with the things!

 

Thanks! Let's continue the not feeling old, the rest of it, we have very little control over.

 

15 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

 

In my day when we stalked someone we didn't do any of this namby-pamby checking their thread, we hid in their bushes and we liked it. 

LOL! I forgot about these SNL skits. I haven't seen them in a...not short amount of time.

 

Now then, the most humorous -- or depressing depending on how you look at it, I was laughing anyway -- thing was that a few hours after posting my challenge, my wife walks in the door with the mail and the following conversation ensued:

 

Wife: "What kind of crazy list did your name end up on?"

Me: "Why? What is someone trying to sell me now?"

Wife: "You have here an invitation to a grand opening luncheon of the newly opened Senior Assisted Living Center on the north side of Milwaukee."

Me: "What?!? You're kidding."

Wife: "Nope, here it is." Hands me the envelope.

Me: "Wow, apparently I'm 85 instead of 45."

Wife: Smiling a shit eating grin. "I'm kind of jealous. I'm 5 months older than you are and I didn't get an invite."

 

Oh, and I live west of the city. I mean, maybe if they were on the east side, down on the lakefront I'd go check them out. But, north side? I'll wait until I'm actually old first.

[ForestGoddess]

I too have a hard time with the concept that I am considered old. I am just about your age but I swear mentally I feel like I am 20 or so!  I refuse to be "old"!

[jstanlick]

I was thinking about my challenge while walking the dog and then going for a run yesterday. It gave me lots of free time to think and I've come up with a points system to measure all of this. It looks like this:

 

1. Every resistance workout nets 3 points.
2. Every mobility workout nets 4 points.
3. Every mile run (completed miles in the given run) nets 1 point.
4. Every compliant meal nets .5 points.
5. Bonus of 2 points for every doctor appointment, massage, fun family thing completed.
6. Point goal target of 30 points/week or 120/challenge.

As an example of how this works, this is how yesterday went:

• Ran a new route yesterday. GPS read 3.95 miles. Really? Hmmph! 3 points.
• Since I made supper last night on the grill, I kept everything compliant to go with a compliant lunch and breakfast. 1.5 points.
• I don't think I can count harping on my son to get his homework done, fixing downspouts on the house, or prepping the floor around the fireplace for the new stone as "fun family things." Also, since my upcoming massage on Thursday was scheduled prior to this challenge. So, 0 points on that front.

That gives me a total of 4.5 points for the challenge. I debated subtracting .5 point for every non-compliant snack type thing eaten. For example, if I were to eat a bunch of something before going to bed. But, I think for now, I'll stick with this and see how it works. If it works well, maybe I'll work on complicating things for the next challenge.

[jstanlick]

13 minutes ago, ForestGoddess said:

I too have a hard time with the concept that I am considered old. I am just about your age but I swear mentally I feel like I am 20 or so!  I refuse to be "old"!

Right there with you! Working for a software company doesn't help. On pure numbers alone, there are a grand total of 3 people older than me in the development department. In fact, there's only 2 people on the senior exec team older than me. But, at the company sponsored 5K in June, I bet I beat about 3/4 of them like last year

 

Refusing to be old is just fine!

 

[maegs]

12 hours ago, jstanlick said:

Ran a new route yesterday. GPS read 3.95 miles. Really? Hmmph! 3 points.

Time to go run in circles in the driveway for .05 miles!   

[Mr_Willes]

I don't feel old, but i certainly don't feel young anymore... Can i join this???

[Salinger]

I will be following along great goals. 

[jstanlick]

16 hours ago, maegs said:

Time to go run in circles in the driveway for .05 miles!   

Well, one thing I'm going to do is change the audible alerts on my running app from being time based to distance based. Either that or change the time trigger to every minute instead of every 5 minutes.

 

5 hours ago, mr_willes said:

I don't feel old, but i certainly don't feel young anymore... Can i join this???

Sure, why not? I am not going to feel old as long as I can still stand on my own!

 

4 hours ago, Salinger said:

I will be following along great goals. 

Thanks! Glad you're here!

 

So, lessee what happened yesterday...

 

Children's schedules and the family room remodel left me with no time to lift. BOO! So, there are no exercise points from yesterday. And, I was robbed of a 1/2 point at lunch by a well meaning co-worker who bought everyone on the team large Chocolate Fudge Oreo frozen custard shakes on his way back to the office as a surprise for lunch. Since each one of those is more than $5, I didn't want to appear rude and say no. Unfortunately, that sucker had to have at least 1000 calories in it. So, I took most of my lunch back home with me and re-used it for today. I would've brought it all home but I was eating it when he plopped the shake down on my desk. So, only 1 point for breakfast and dinner.

 

On a side note from dinner, I think the recipe I found for a Cucumber, Tomato, Avocado salad might just be my new go-to salad. It's suuuuuper easy. Chop 2 avocados, 1/2 medium sized onion (red onion adds a nice color), 1 cucumber, 4 Roma tomatoes (or a pint or so of grape tomatoes), and handful of chopped cilantro or dill (your preference). Throw it all in a bowl and add enough EVOO to coat everything, about 2 TBSP of lemon juice, salt and black pepper to taste. Done, and oh so tasty.

 

I worked on cutting base molding, dinner, helping the boys with their homework and kitchen cleaning to allow my wife to take my daughter dress shopping for 8th grade graduation festivities. Our school goes a wee bit overboard for an 8th grade graduation if you ask me, but that just makes me sound like a cranky, old curmudgeon and I don't want that label  Regardless, those items also interfered with the "fun with family" opportunities for extra points. Meaning, yesterday was worth 1 point, bringing my total to 5.5 points on the week. On the plus side, I've already earned 5 points so far today. Let's see if I can make that number bigger still.

 

[Mr_Willes]

15 hours ago, jstanlick said:

Sure, why not? I am not going to feel old as long as I can still stand on my own!

 

This just reminded me of this fantastic GIF

 

 

That salad sounds like a winner, stolen that, to try it out!

[ForestGoddess]

18 hours ago, jstanlick said:

 

 

On a side note from dinner, I think the recipe I found for a Cucumber, Tomato, Avocado salad might just be my new go-to salad. It's suuuuuper easy. Chop 2 avocados, 1/2 medium sized onion (red onion adds a nice color), 1 cucumber, 4 Roma tomatoes (or a pint or so of grape tomatoes), and handful of chopped cilantro or dill (your preference). Throw it all in a bowl and add enough EVOO to coat everything, about 2 TBSP of lemon juice, salt and black pepper to taste. Done, and oh so tasty.

 

 

This is really good even without the EVOO (save on the fat calories). I used to make it that way a few years ago but I used Basil instead of cilantro or dill. I might have to make this again soon...thanks for the reminder  

 

Ranger on...

[Sloth the Enduring]

I just received a large-print ad for a hearing evaluation and a coupon for my first hearing aid. I'd be offended, but I spent too much time seeing music in my youth and I suspect I need one now.

[Xena]

I like the point system!

 

Wow, that oreo shake story cracked me up. There was no way to win on that one. And it's funny...sometimes we are so careful to ration out the calories and then BAM! 1000-calorie-randomness.

[jstanlick]

On 4/26/2017 at 6:26 AM, mr_willes said:

That salad sounds like a winner, stolen that, to try it out!

I'm a big fan of stuff that tastes good and I make quickly. The problem is, those two criteria often don't fit with the 3rd criteria of something that's good for me too. This salad hit all 3 for me.

 

On 4/26/2017 at 9:21 AM, ForestGoddess said:

This is really good even without the EVOO (save on the fat calories). I used to make it that way a few years ago but I used Basil instead of cilantro or dill. I might have to make this again soon...thanks for the reminder

I can see that. I might give that a try as I don't always have EVOO readily available (ie. I forgot to get some at the store and am too lazy to make a special trip for it).

 

On 4/26/2017 at 1:03 PM, Sloth the Enduring said:

I just received a large-print ad for a hearing evaluation and a coupon for my first hearing aid. I'd be offended, but I spent too much time seeing music in my youth and I suspect I need one now.

I like that it's a large print ad. Apparently when you're hearing goes your sight is already bad? The multiple chances I gave AC/DC to destroy my hearing (the concert at the indoor venue was particularly harsh...and awesome at the same time), has pretty much thrown me in the same boat I think.

 

17 hours ago, Xena said:

I like the point system!

 

Wow, that oreo shake story cracked me up. There was no way to win on that one. And it's funny...sometimes we are so careful to ration out the calories and then BAM! 1000-calorie-randomness.

I figured I need a way to measure stuff. But, I think my math was off. I had originally come up with 16 points for exercise stuffs per week. 30 was a nice round number leaving 14 points to come up with or 2x7. two meals a day is perfect! But, then I decided to give them 1/2 point. Making it hard for me to reach the 30 point target. So, the lesson here is not to perform simple arithmetic will performing other tasks as it makes the simple...something other than simple apparently.

 

The shake was right out of the blue. My almonds, orange and Greek yogurt went back in the fridge. Still didn't make up for the shake, but I figured there was no good reason to compound the problem.

[jstanlick]

So, let's see I was at 5.5 points at last update. On...

 

Tuesday we had the first work running club lunchtime run. Apparently, folks decided it was finally warm enough to run outside. Here I was being hard on myself for letting stuff slip over the winter and I had started going outside a month or so ago. But, it was fun to get the band back together and sneak in 4 miles during lunch. Also managed 1.5 points for 3 compliant meals. Giving me 5.5 points for Tuesday.

 

Wednesday I managed 2 compliant meals for 1 point and a mobility workout for an additional 4 points. So, does anyone else's joints sound like they're going through a meat grinder when you're doing them? I felt really good when I was done, but the joints didn't sound good during the workout that's for sure. So, another 5 points for Wednesday. Bringing me to 16 on Day 4.

 

So far today I've managed 2 compliant meals and I donated blood. So, I currently sit at 3 points for the day. I have a massage and a meeting at my church tonight. I mean, who schedules a meeting at the same time as my Milwaukee Bucks fight to keep their season going in a Game 6 in the playoffs and during the NFL Draft? Obviously not a sports fan.

[maegs]

On 4/27/2017 at 3:06 PM, jstanlick said:

So, does anyone else's joints sound like they're going through a meat grinder when you're doing them? I felt really good when I was done, but the joints didn't sound good during the workout that's for sure. 

Yep! Apparently cracking/popping is fine, and should work out as you're moving around, but grinding (also grinding feeling) is the bad one

[jstanlick]

15 hours ago, maegs said:

Yep! Apparently cracking/popping is fine, and should work out as you're moving around, but grinding (also grinding feeling) is the bad one

Good to know! I will need to pay closer attention to those sounds/feelings, especially the left shoulder. Ya know, the one they opened up and put back together after I shredding it oh so many years ago.

 

Week 1 update:

Thursday I finished up the day with 7 points. I got 2 more from scheduling another massage in a few weeks and for volunteering. This time though, my wife and I are volunteering to do it together instead of each going are separate volunteering ways. So, we'll get to spend time together doing good deeds for others. +2 points.

 

Friday This day was a bit of a blur. It was a +4 point day with diet and my first resistance workout of the challenge. I definitely proved my need for more resistance work as the split squats kicked my ass. They made it much harder to go up and down the stairs. Especially with what I did on...

 

Saturday  I got 3 points on Saturday. I'm tempted to give myself another 3 points for resistance training since I spent the day carrying a new water heater into my dad's basement, hauling the old one out and removing other large heavy things from his house that he doesn't want anymore. But, I'm gonna give myself +2 points for doing stuff for family and +1 point on the diet.

 

Sunday More housework (as in fixing the house), a 3.2 mile run, 3 compliant meals and the Cub Scout Blue & Gold dinner where my son got his trophy from the Pinewood Derby. That gives me a 6.5 point day yesterday, but that's technically the start of Week 2.

 

So, here's the totals thus far:

Week 1: 30 points gained vs a goal of 30 points. Winning!!

Week 2: 6.5/30

Challenge: 36.5/120

 

From a points standpoint, I couldn't be more on target. From the makeup of the points, I'd like to replace some of the points from running with resistance training. But, I'm still pretty happy with where I am at the moment. Even the scale agrees with me. It read 2 pounds less yesterday than the week prior. Hopefully, that comes along while sticking to my process here.

[Salinger]

You are smashing it!!

[jstanlick]

On 5/1/2017 at 0:54 PM, Salinger said:

You are smashing it!!

Well, maybe I was. This week I feel like I'm just fighting/biting/clawing to keep up, which has been why I've had a lack of updates. In fact, I started this update 3 hours ago. Sigh.

 

Yep, its been one of those weeks. Here's a recap:

Monday I worked on the Family Room to get everything ready for the carpeting coming on Wednesday. I ate well, but did not exercise or much else. +1.5 points.

Tuesday I chaperoned my son's K5 class with their trip to the museum. I'm not sure how kindergarten teachers or daycare workers do it. The kids were very well behaved that wasn't the problem at all. I didn't need to redirect any behavior all day. But the sheer amount of energy in 16 5-6 year olds is tiring to try to contain and redirect. I got home and wanted to take a nap! I ate well for the second day in a row. +3.5 points.

Wednesday Back to work, and making up for everything I didn't do the day before. It was a brutal day with lots of poor eating. I did manage a resistance workout after putting all the furniture back since the new carpeting was installed. +3 points

Thursday Busy day, but the most productive of the week. Got a lot of stuff done at work, including a 4.1 mile run with co-workers. They're all training for a Ragnar run, I was just enjoying the weather. I was getting tight later in the day, so I decided it was a good time for a mobility workout. Amazing how much better I felt after that. Lunch and dinner were on point. +9 points

 

The race is still continuing with lots of family stuff tonight and tomorrow. I should be able to sit down sometime on Sunday and catch my breath.

 

So, here's the totals thus far:

Week 1: 30 points gained vs a goal of 30 points.

Week 2: 23.5/30

Challenge: 53.5/120

[Salinger]

Every week or day cant be amazing. I still think you are doing well! Sometimes life just gets in the way. Keep pushing forward, plenty of points to win in the coming weeks!

[Mr_Willes]

On 5-5-2017 at 7:52 PM, Salinger said:

Every week or day cant be amazing. I still think you are doing well! Sometimes life just gets in the way. Keep pushing forward, plenty of points to win in the coming weeks!

Amen!

 

Take the points where you can get them, life of a dad involves setbacks of external origins, we just have to live with that.

[jstanlick]

May 5th?!?! My last post was 8 days ago? Wow. What a blur the last week has been. Alright, let's see what we've got for updates.

 

Last Friday Froze my ass off timing the mile runners at my daughters track meet. Unfortunately, I was not running with them. +1 point

Last Saturday Worked the flash gun for the track meet in the morning. Spent the rest of the day giving my daughter tips before her 4x400m relay. They finished 4th, No exercise at all for me. +3.5 for time with my kid and eating right. Giving me 28 points on the week.

Sunday I got out for a run. 4.31 miles (according to my phone's GPS anyway). My knee bothered me a little on Friday after Thursday's run. So, I ran slow at first. It felt pretty good so I decided to pick up the pace, but I just couldn't seem to go faster. Oh well. The knee was fine when I was done. So, it was all good even if it was slow. Good eating +5 points.

Monday Mobility workout, played hide and seek with the boys and didn't eat so well. +6 points

Tuesday Lunch run with co-workers. 3.2 miles, good eating. +4 points

Wednesday Working...all day. Crappy eating, no exercising. It was a bad day all around. 0 points

Thursday My son had surgery in the morning. He did really well and is now without his enlarged adenoids. Went to work in the afternoon and put a server back together that crashed and had all of our products down. Went home and sat with my son reading him stories until he fell asleep. +3 points

Friday Resistance workouts and 1 good meal. +4 points.