Tag Archives: healthspan

Healthy Living Goals Reflection for 2024

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It started January 1st, 2019. I was almost 30 pounds overweight and I decided that I’d had enough of working out, getting busy and lazy and not working out, and yo-yo-ing between these two states… while progressively getting further out of shape.

In my 1 year video reflection, back in late December 2019, I was able to share that I’d basically lost the 30 pounds and was back on track for staying healthy. Now, years later, I’ve put back on about 12 pounds, but a completely healthy 12 pounds. I’ve added almost an inch to my biceps, I have great definition on my (still skinny) legs, and my shoulders/traps are probably where I see my biggest gains.

Here are my key stats this year:

Workouts – defined as a minimum of 20 minutes cardio and some weights (unless it’s a Coquitlam Crunch day when I don’t usually go weights).

Meditation – At least 10 minutes, usually 15 or 20 minutes guided meditation on the Balance App.

Daily-Ink – Daily writing on this blog.

Writing/Creating – Intended to be for writing beyond my blog regularly but mostly just tracking conversations with my uncle.

Workouts: 326 days or 89%

Meditation: 313 days or 85%

Daily-Ink: 366 days or 100%

Writing/Creating: 53 days or 14.5%

Reflections:

Workouts: I’m actually setting a goal to work out less in 2025. I’ve made some good gains and think they can be better if I gave myself more rest. This is especially true for my legs. I think working out cardio 10-12+ days in a row is limiting my leg recovery time needed to see them grow a bit more. Lack of rest might be why my legs are a lot stronger but still skinny. For upper body, many of my workouts are just a single muscle focus, and so I usually get enough rest between hard sets for specific muscle groups.

Meditation: These could have been qualitatively better this year. It’s not an issue of volume but definitely one fit quality. In 2024 I found that writing was taking me a bit longer in the morning, and so a lot of times I ended up doing a walking meditation on the treadmill to make up the time. That said I’m not convinced that those meditations were necessarily moving me towards my meditation goals as much as dedicated time would.

Daily-Ink: I’ll keep my blog going another year. And while I’ve basically maintained daily writing for 5 and a half years, I still want to track it.

Writing/Creativity: The largest area for growth is in being creative. I’m going to do a couple things to improve this. First, I won’t be counting conversations with my uncle, even when we are recording them. What I will count is video editing of the videos he and I record, as well as writing not related to by blog. A goal related to this is less social media time… Reducing distractions and focusing on creativity. My writing/creativity goal will be a minimum of two days per week, 104 days a year, or basically doubling last year’s total while not counting the vast majority of days I would have tracked last year. I won’t meet my uncle less often, I just won’t be counting these Zoom visits as part of my creativity goal.

Ultimately I want to see two outcomes this year that will result from my tracking above:

  1. Gain 7-8 pounds of muscle. This is a big jump for me. In my 30’s and 40’s I had a hard time maintaining a weight of about 153 pounds. If I worked out consistently for several months I’d get my weight to 155 but struggled to put good weight on beyond that. When I stopped working out I’d drop a few pounds and sit closer to 150. By December 2018, at age 51, I’d (unintentionally and without awareness) let myself go and weighed just under 185 pounds, with all of that extra weight being unhealthy. After year one of my healthy living goals (reflection shared again here) I was back down to around 155. Now I fluctuate around 167-169 pounds and would like to bring that to 175 pounds. Basically, it took me about 5 years to gain 12 pounds of muscle and I want to add 8 more this year. Increased protein and more dedicated weight training will get me there if I maintain my positive habits and get a bit more rest between (harder/smarter) workouts.
  2. More creativity. I think 2 days a week of doing something creative is realistic and attainable. Reducing social media distractions will be key. I’m going to automate my blog going into social media, and add time limits to all socials for Monday to Friday as a starting point. I’ll see how that works and re-evaluate my success after a month.

Finally, one more goal unrelated to my tracking will be a reading goal. Watching that December 2018 reflection video again I was shocked that I listened to 26 books that year. I think this year’s count was 6, with 3 partial reads to finish, although I did listen to a lot more podcasts. I want to improve my book count. I think this will also help with my creativity.

One final reflection: Overall I’m pretty damn proud of my 2024 stats above. Yes I have some ambitious goals ahead of me, and I’m always pushing to improve… but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I’ve been on a 6 year journey from an overweight and unhealthy 51 year old to a 57 year old who hasn’t been this healthy and strong since I was an athlete in my 20’s.

My ultimate goal is a great healthspan to go with my lifespan. I want to be able to do things in 20 years that most 77 year olds can’t imagine doing. I want to be hiking, traveling, and living a vibrant, healthy life well into my senior years. I think I’m on the right path.

The slow road

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In the last 8-10 months I’ve seen some really positive results with my overall fitness. If I think about what I’m doing differently to see these results, there isn’t a lot that’s new. Rather it has been tiny shifts that I’ve made after years of building positive habits.

The journey started in January 2019. If I want to think about the positive results I’ve been seeing lately it stems from that long ago. People tend to want to see really fast results, and then one of two things happen: Either the unrealistic goals go unrealized (it’s probably unlikely you’ll drop 25 pounds in 2 months). Or the target is hit the first time then when the results are not repeated, it becomes disappointing, (you hit the 25 pound target but in another 2 months you only drop 5 more pounds and get discouraged).

Build good habits and consistent results are a natural byproduct. Then small tweaks really make a positive difference. I added 10 minutes to my cardio routine, and started doing the Norwegian Protocol once a week. This has improved my cardio (which I can see in my effort output increasing when I do the protocol). I also added a weighted vest to my incline walks on the treadmill, which I’m sure has helped improve my cardiovascular stamina.

I have also focused more on pushing myself to fatigue when I do weights, because I am trying to be more efficient in the morning since I have 10 less minutes to workout because of my added cardio. So, I’m not adding gym time, I’m just being more effective. Doing cardio, stretching, and training one muscle group really hard still only takes about 45-50 minutes, but that time is focused.

I couldn’t do this with a 2 month goal. If I was worried about instant results, if I had unrealistic ambitions when I started this journey more than 5 years ago, I probably wouldn’t still be doing what I’m doing. Now I’m not saying having goals and targets isn’t good. I know weight or muscle size targets can be fantastic motivators. What I am saying is that being willing to develop good habits shifts those goals to more long term ambitions.

I want to be as healthy as I am now in 20 years. To do that I need to keep improving, knowing full well that my body will not be able to sustain itself in the same way in 2 decades… into my late 70’s. So I’ll keep the small, positive changes going, with a focus on being consistent, and injury free.

Increasing my healthspan, not just my lifespan is my goal. And while improvements will be slow, the slow road is far more likely to get me to the results I desire, rather than creating big targets that are hard to accomplish and then taking psychological hits when I don’t hit my goals. I think too often we seek changes in our bodies that are either too great or too hard to sustain. A long term goal of a positive healthspan keeps me going at a pace and effort that I know I can maintain for a very long time.

Lift heavy things

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Inspired by Peter Attia’s book Outlive, I purchased a weighted vest. My buddy Dave and I have been doing the Coquitlam Crunch, weekly during the school year, for a few years now… and today we did it with 16 pound weighted vests.

I did a couple incline treadmill walks with the vest on before trying it on this average 10% grade over two and a half kilometres long walk. But I have to admit that for the 457 stairs section I was huffing and puffing at the end. Still, our time to the top was only about 20 seconds slower than last week’s walk, so overall it was an excellent workout that was well within our capabilities.

According to Dr. Peter Attia, the best things we can do increase our healthspan (not just lifespan) is to:

  • Increase our Max VO2
  • Increase our muscle mass
  • Lift heavy things

The biggest downfall (literally as well as figuratively) are falls and injuries that stop us from doing the 3 things mentioned above. Case-in-point: fall and break a hip and suddenly you aren’t likely to be doing any of the above for weeks if not months… and then getting back to it afterwards you probably aren’t going to be as able to continue where you left off. Inversely, doing the 3 things above make you stronger, more vital, and less likely to do things like accidentally fall and break your hip.

So, we put on our vests this morning and started up the hill. On Dave’s recommendation… which I like… for the next 6 months we’ll do our Coquitlam Crunch with weighted vests the first Saturday of every month. In 6 months we will re-assess and maybe go to twice a month. It was hard enough today that I don’t think I’d be motivated to do this every week (yet) and we aren’t in a race, so once a month seems like a good start.

So this is my public service announcement: Lift heave things!

Be the hero that carries all the grocery bags from the car to your house in just one trip.

Haul your ass up the stairs rather than taking the elevator or escalator.

Increase the weights you lift so that you are actually working you muscles to fatigue rather than finishing 3 sets of 12 at a weight where the last 2 reps are almost as easy as the first 2.

Find ways to push your body without being stupid about it. My vest came with 40 pounds of weight, but today I did 16, and I’ll keep it at 16 for a while, eventually increasing the weight on my treadmill first. Again, this isn’t a race, it’s more about making lifestyle choices and lifting heaving things is a choice that will help you be able to do things you want to do for much more healthy years.