Satchel Paige once posed a ponderous question I'd like all of us to consider: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" That is to say, if you throw chronological time out the window, how old would your body be? How old are you in biological time?
After my heart attack a good friend of Mrs. Twayn and I gave me a book, Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge, MD. I recently finished reading it and I have to say it has been a true revelation for me. A New York Times bestseller, the book begins with the simple premise that you don't have to get older and more decrepit with each passing trip around the sun, that there is a fairly simple formula that allows middle-aged men (there's a separate version of the book for women) to halt and even reverse the biological processes that we typically associate with aging, but which in reality are processes of bodily decay. Did I say the formula is simple? Well, it really is. But that doesn't mean it's easy.
Written by a patient and his doctor, this book chronicles a formula for literally getting younger, more vital and more alive for several years, and then staying vital and healthy and alive for years to come. Don't worry that the book is geared toward men approaching or hitting retirement age, the lessons may mean more for us old farts, but much younger men stand to gain a much better understanding of fitness and health and how to achieve both over a longer lifetime. Did I say that the formula is simple? Well, it really is. So simple it can be summed up in seven rules - and the second and third rules are just elaborations on the first rule, so really there are just five. But that doesn't mean it's easy.
Based on the fairly new field of evolutionary biology, Younger Next Year lays out the science of aging and how to slow it down. What it really boils down to is this: Modern life is killing us because our bodies still think we're hunting antelope on the African plains where we evolved as homo sapiens, and nothing about our modern sedentary lifestyles makes any sense at all to our bodies. Our bodies are built to hunt and gather, to spend hours each day roaming the landscape in search of food. And that's why the first rule is to exercise six days a week for the rest of your life. Because daily exercise tells your body that the herds are grazing, the hunting is good, and it's time to invest energy and materials in building muscle and sinew and repairing your body from the cells up. Exercise is life, but here's the rub. You have to do it most every day for the rest of your life. It's a hard investment to make. It's so much easier not to make it. But the payoff is huge.
I don't doubt that perhaps I'm going to be more excited about this book than others might be. It did, after all, come to me when I was ripe for the lessons and hungry for the science and knowledge and looking for answers to questions I didn't even know I had until I had them. It's become a beacon of hope for me in a very real sense, a way, just maybe, to beat the coronary artery disease that claimed my father's life, that nearly took my brother's life seven years back, and that gave me a swift kick in the ass just six weeks ago. After reading this book I feel armed, empowered, loaded for bear, fired up and ready to go, and eager to learn more. It is, after all, just the first step, and I intend to learn much more in the months and years ahead. Because, dammit, I'm still pretty young, too young to start dying, anyway. And because my kids still need me and my wife still wants me. Because just a few months ago I was contemplating the steady downhill slide that so many men my age think they are facing, a future dominated by slow decay and eventual debilitation. But not anymore. Thanks to this book, I don't see the future as a burden I'm going to have to learn how to carry for fifteen or twenty years before I cash in my chips. Now I see the future once again as an adventure full of possibilities. As long as I follow the rules. And that starts with exercising every day, so my body thinks that it's springtime in the Serengeti, even when it's the dead of winter in Minnesota. It's like Satchel said: "Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." But you have to do the work, too. Damn near every day. From where I sit right now, that's not a real high price to pay.
Come on, guys. Let's go hunt some antelope. Who's with me?
Curious what this book has to say about someone like me in my mid-thirties? Does it have a lot of "everyone should be doing this" caveats?
I think the lesson there is that the earlier you start, the better off you will be. A lot of the benefit comes from preventing diseases caused by a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy food supply.
I linked to this yesterday.
I am in favor of staving off senescence and immobility for as long as possible, then pretty much keeling over dead.
I haven't chimed in on any of these yet because as much as I want to exercise every day, its really, really hard to do with a baby in the house. I do some (really, not nearly enough, about 20 minutes per session) weight lifting about 3-4 times per week. But, over the past few months, my cardio exercises have basically gone away. I really can't run on solid ground because the last time I did that I blew out my knee from the impact. I do have a treadmill, but its really hard to get motivated for that. Fortunately, my current job has me doing a lot more daily physical labor than any other job I've had, mostly in the form of lifting air/gas piping. (the 4" schedule 40 pipe air line I put together today is not light.)
That all said, with the curling season fast approaching, I'm hoping to keep my weight lifting schedule going, but also plan to try to add Wii Fit Yoga back into my life on days I don't lift. If I can get my ass out of bed in the morning, I can usually have time for 20-30 minute workouts.
Harder than my own motivation, though, is trying to get my wife motivated to get back to exercising at least somewhat. With the baby, she has basically completely stopped any strenuous activity in general under the excuse that our daughter doesn't give her the time for it. Now, her sister has recently moved in with us to go to school nearby, and they've talked about running together. But, my wife has been saying she wants to start running again for the past year, but never follows through. Does anyone have any advice on how to try to motivate her to start doing stuff? Every time I try to remind her she wanted to start running again, and say I can watch the baby, I get the stereotypical response when really, I'm concerned about her health.
Start with walking. Walk with her and baby. Do you have a jog stroller?
Yeah, we have one of those. She did start watching three other kids a couple days a week, and they walk places, so there is that. I've told her I can handle our daughter (for some reason, she's still really hesitant about leaving her with me because it is, admittedly, much more difficult for me to get her to calm down when she gets upset.) for the 30-60 minutes she'd be exercising.
she's still really hesitant about leaving her with me
Outside of the fitness, I'd suggest working on fixing that. Maybe ask Ms.Toy to teach you what she does that works better or just send her off and tell her that you won't break the baby, everything will be allright or something. Take the baby with you running errands on the weekends. Let Ms.Toy learn that you can take care of the baby well enough on your own (and if you can't, be willing to learn). She probably feels tied down and that she always has to be with the baby.
I wanted to say this but wasn't sure how. Last spring, my wife was finishing up her MBA and had to go to class on Wed nights. Leaving me home with the kid was scary at first (for her) but she soon found it to be a relief. Then, a few months ago, I stayed home with Kernel while my wife and her sisters went to Napa for my SIL's birthday. She was terrified about leaving the kid
home with mefor that long but things went smoothly and she enjoyed herself. She still hasn't really started working out again, but she feels comfortable leaving the kid home with me and returning to regular gym visits is next on our list.baby steps (pun intended)
This place is always good for a pun, bad or otherwise!
I stayed home with the trinket about three weeks ago when she was sick for two days while my wife went to work and there were no problems. So, I'm not really sure what her hang up is. Honestly, I think its easier to keep our daughter from getting whiny when my wife isn't at home than when she is, which probably has a lot to do with it. My wife, I imagine, sees me having trouble calming trinket down unless I pass her off, but never actually sees how much easier it is when she's out on errands, or the whatnot.
The answer, quite clearly, is that they* don't want to done with that part of the baby's life where they were the end-all, be-all of the child's existence. At least, it's clear that that had been my wife's hang up.
Your point about her not seeing how you manage the tantrums & fussing is a good one.
*new mothers...not to dig myself too deep a hole, I'm speaking generally of course.
She basically said as much when I talked to her about it by saying she doesn't think anyone else can take care of her as well as she can. It's very frustrating, especially because the two days I did spend with her by myself were wonderful.
That said, I still can't get her to go to sleep for shit.
sounds like an SBG intervention is in order. He is Teh Master at getting little girls to go to sleep.
The first night I took over, she cried for 45 minutes straight before she gave up and went to sleep. I held her in the dark very calmly the whole time. The next night, it was 30 minutes. In a week or so, it was 5 minutes. In two weeks, she didn't cry at all and I could put her in the crib without her being asleep.
My wife has really screwed up the sleeping since then, no doubt about it. She is not anywhere close to where I would like her to be. But, I can't fight that battle anymore.
The night before school, she didn't want to go to sleep, so I dragged her out to the chair to rock her. Really, she should be way beyond this. I blame the wife. Miss SBG said she wouldn't go to sleep. I told her she couldn't go to school if she didn't go to sleep. She said that she didn't want to go to school.
I said, okay, but you are going to have to get a job, then. She said she was too young for a job. I told her I'd get her a job at a gas station. She said I want my zebra. She got her zebra and was sound asleep 30 seconds later.
That sounds quite a bit like my progression...the first paragraph that is - my kid doesn't have a zebra.
She'll get past it eventually. As Rhu_ru said, "Baby steps".
As for "getting her to go to sleep", I worked hard (and to no avail) to convince my wife that Kernel needed to learn how to soothe herself at bedtime. We were rocking and walking and cooing and shuushing for sometimes hours. Needless to say, bedtime was a real chore during her third and fourth months...a REAL chore. But once my wife heard the pediatrician say that if the kid was clean and fed, she should be able to get herself to sleep without too much parental interaction, it was/became my job to simply remind her.
That's not to say that it was easy to let her fuss and cry a bit (and I'm a much more hard line with stuff like that than my wife is) and we still occasionally have to go down and help her find her nook (a sleeping requirement...still), but I just feel like the harder you try to get the kid to do something, the harder they fight it. Bedtime is easy now. It's meal time that kills me - I can't handle watching her try to feed herself with a spoon and she refuses to let anyone feed her anything but a bottle (which we're also trying to wean her from).
Our current bed time strategy is going ok. Around the time she usually will go to sleep for the night, my wife will feed her to get her to fall asleep. Then we can move her to her crib and she'll sleep until around midnight-1 am. When she wakes up then, I go get her and bring her in to our bed where she'll fall asleep right away until about 5-6 am. That's when she gets her breakfast and will usually go back to sleep in her crib for a couple more hours before she's awake fully. Its not sleeping through the night, but its close. We just ordered the No-Cry Sleep Solution though, so we're hoping that will help in situations where I might need to get her to bed and my wife's boobs aren't around.
As for eating, trinket is a champ. We've been giving her what we eat since she was about 6 month old and we haven't really found anything she doesn't want to eat. She's also not real good with a spoon, but that's what hands are for. We got a chair for her that attaches to the table so she can feel like she's eating with us, which I think helped convince her that she should try what we put in front of her. In fact, she's a big brussel sprout fan, so hopefully that sort of non-pickiness continues as she gets closer to toddler years.
Sleep is killing us with Aristotle. Used to be she'd sleep 6 hours or so straight, but now whe keeps waking up in the middle of the night, and we've been tending to go the easy route and Philosofette breast feeds. Aristotle is 11 months old (almost a year), and is going to be weaned fairly soon, so we've got to suck it up and deal with the sleep thing too, but finding the energy and will power to do that is brutal.
The first time mrsS left me at home alone with the Boy, he started screaming the second she left. And Did. Not. Stop. for the next hour-plus while she was out. I was scarred for life.
Later, he added insult to injury by projectile pooping on me (legs up for a diaper change on the changing table; he staggered me with the force) in the middle of the night.
Let's just say I have some getting even to accomplish still.
To be fair to my wife, that is pretty much what happened the first time she left me alone with the trinket. Of course, she was much younger and more dependant on breast feeding, but she started screaming and I called my wife to tell her she needed to hurry up and finish what she was doing so she could come home. Admittedly, I could have handled it better.
I just retreated into beer therapy after she returned. Eventually, the ringing in my ears subsided.
more seriously, I was pretty distraught. That sort of thing really can make a young father question his competence. I eventually figured out that it wasn't about me so much as about him and her.
Yeah, those first few months were hard on me emotionally. I definitely felt like the unwanted member of our new family. The first time I came home from work and she smiled at me went a long way to making me feel a lot better about it.
Oh yeah, there's nothing better than that in the world. My favorite words are "Daddy's home!"
I remember those days fondly. They are distant, distant memories. Now, I am lucky if the cats come to greet me at the door.
when did this turn into a Father Knows Best column? 😉
I haven't been posting much in these threads, but I'd like to more. I'm not comfortable sharing all the stuff I'm doing, my weights, etc. (for a lot of personal reasons) but I do kind of want to chime in and give/take advice. So, I guess here's my contribution for today.
I got a really good deal on a FitBit Ultra, and I started using it last night. It's an activity monitor, and pretty much a pedometer on PEDs. It also tracks your sleep patterns, which is cool. That's what I did last night. It syncs wirelessly to the docking station when you get near it, and you can track all your activity online. The tools they have also let you track your food, weight, blood pressure, glucose, etc. It's nice for me since I'm horrible at keeping track of this kind of stuff myself. I'm hoping it's a valuable tool for me.
Keeping up with the theme started by Cheap and Zack... I haven't been posting in these threads either, but I've been checking 'em out.
I was on vacation all last week, which had both ups and downs for fitness and diet. Starting work again yesterday was brutal, but I managed to avoid slipping into some old stress relievers (soda, fast food), and had a salad and water for lunch. I try to keep at one soda a day, but on days of big stress I'll often break and let myself have another one (or two). Pop is kind of like my cigarette that way... stress relief that isn't really. Yesterday was very stressful, but I managed to only have one soda in the evening, and had milk with dinner (I gotta keep doing that more).
I haven't managed to do a dedicate workout for a while, but have spent a lot of time walking and even did some swimming over the weekend. I'll echo Cheap's sentiments about it being difficult to work out with kids. Babies are tough, but I think toddlers might even be tougher. One of these days I'll get back on that horse.
I weighed in (after breakfast) this morning at 197, pretty close to where I started a few weeks ago. So the Tom Thumb donuts, beer sampler, and raspberry sundae at the Fair didn't do me in, nor did the lamb, steak, etc. at brotherS's.
also, science is cool.
One of the things I really like about his book is how they lay out the science that supports their program. Our bodies communicate on the cellular level using chemical compounds - proteins and hormones and such. There are certain chemicals that signal your body to build and repair cells, and others that signal your body to conserve energy by letting cells and tissue decay. Exercise is the switch that releases the build/repair chemicals, signalling your body to grow instead of conserve. It's all about physiological survival strategies and how evolution has programmed our bodies to handle times of plenty and times of scarcity. I would not be surprised at all to learn that such things are coded into our DNA.
A revolutionary new diet:
(the story is about a portion control approach called "Lifesize". Basically, get a bunch of sized scoops for different kinds of food servings -- e.g., carbs, proteins, dairy, etc.)
I've been a lot more diet conscious in the last few weeks, which is good. And I'm walking a couple miles at least on my shifts, being in constant motion for 9-11 hours. So in that regard, I'm confident that I'm engaged in healthy activity. However, I'm beginning to worry about the affect on my sleep schedule. I'm a lot more irritable than I usually am, and I threw a box last night (I made sure it was only paper towels) after stubbing my toe and just losing it. I usually sleep 8AM-noon on Mon, Wed, and Fri after my night shifts so I can get to sleep at a decent hour to be up early for my shifts the next morning and not be up all night, but today I went ahead and slept till 3.
Night shifts are tough, man. I spent several years producing morning news shows, and it just wears a person down after awhile. When I got the chance to take over a weekend evening newscast I jumped at it, even though it was sort of lower on the producer pecking order. Part of that had to do with having kids and wanting to actually, you know, see them once in a while. But there's no doubt that night shifts are hard on the body.
I think I could get by with just night shifts, but it's the subsequent morning shifts (ie I got off work at 7AM today and go in at 8AM tomorrow) that force me to truncate my sleep today so I can fall back asleep at night. I can only sleep about 4 or so hours mornings after a night shift, otherwise I'm up too late and it affects the next morning.
I worked 12 hour shifts (7 to 7) alternating nights and days every 6 weeks for about 7 years. The only way I could make night shifts work was by changing my sleep schedule around to make sure I got at least 6 hours after I got off work. Not sure if that will work for you on a more frequently switching schedule, but might be worth a shot.
I got more irritable when I worked nights, too. I'd catch myself getting upset about stupid little things, but once I realized it was because of the sleep deprivation, I could stay on top of it. Just keep making sure you know what you're throwing (paper towels are good), and you aren't truly losing it.
I worked shifts just one summer at a 3M plant in NU.
I found "evening" shifts the worst, 3pm-11pm. I'd come home wired and awake and ready to do things, but the rest of the world was asleep. Then I'd sleep like 3am-10am, have lunch and have nothing to do but sit and wait for work to start.
Why am I still up now? Oh, right, poor timing of stimulants. Forgot my reg coffee with lunch, so I had a Coke with Dinner for fear of Caffeine headaches.
The two full-time jobs I've held both had me primarily working 2-11pmish hours. Yup, I never fell asleep before 130a no matter how hard I tried.
I did a bit of shift work back in the 80's, and I found it easier to instead sleep in two sessions, one when I got home for however long I could, and a second later on to make up the difference.
I spent the summer after my senior year of high school working 10 pm - 6 am at a suspension assembly plant (disc drives). 3 nights on, 2 night off - then 2 on, 3 off. I'd usually sleep until 2, waste the afternoon, go to work and do it again. The "off" days were killer as I usually just kept the same routine going to be ready for the next shift. That summer (& job) were teh suck. I did overnight security work at a downtown hotel the summer before law school...that sucked too. Pretty much no point here other than to suggest that night shifts suck. Put up with it for as long as you can, then get out.