Why This Blog?

People are born and die every day. So my grandfather's death last January, two weeks shy of his 93rd birthday, was of course no anomaly in the grander scheme, especially for his advanced age. Sure, I'm saddened by his death. But I take solace in that he lived the way he wanted. How many of us can say that.


Maybe he didn't do everything the doctors told him, but he did what he thought was right for himself: and that was to live life to the fullest so that when he died, he was exhausted. And when you've reached a certain age and see that whatever you're doing is working, it's hard to tell a person what to do and have them listen.

What saddens me most are the possibilities: What if?

Like, What if he'd obeyed his doctors and ate well and stopped drinking? Could he have lived a longer? Maybe. But he wouldn't have been as happy. Those forms of debauchery made him happy.

I'm sure he wasn't alone in his philosophy. There are plenty of people in the world wanting to just live and not worry about such "minute" activities as calorie counting or eating "rabbit" food. To some degree, many others of us are that way. I recalled reading how even though the runner Jim Fixx died at a tender age doctors speculated that he lived as long as he did because he ran.

Anyhow, my grandfather had stopped smoking several years ago after witnessing an army buddy on his deathbed who'd earned a tracheotomy for all his years of puffing away. That scared my grandfather enough that he quit smoking that day and never returned to it. But those other vices (i.e., eating fattening foods and sipping rot gut), he just couldn't or didn't want to give them up.

I understand: Sometimes I also would rather have a fat juicy steak than a salad.

But had he disciplined himself, how long might he have lived. (That's a question for all of us.) I mean he'd defied the odds before, getting open-heart surgery in his 80s and fully recuperating to live well past the time the heart valves were supposed to give out.

So it is within the spirit of his resilience that I start this blog and my own quest for healthful longevity, to which I gladly bring others along. Also, my maternal grandmother is obese, so if I can encourage her become more active and lose about 20 pounds, I can live (and die) happier. Certainly, if I can get her to lose weight, there isn't any mountain I can't move!

I've been an athlete for most of my life, so I've never had a weight problem. Even when I stopped working out diligently to help care for my grandfather in his last few years of life, I didn't gain much weight. I guess, before he became ill, I wore an double 0. Now, I'm a size 0 in most articles of clothing.

I say this with a grain of salt because I know others don't have it so easy, and I never want to be insensitive to them because through learning so much about health and to some degree food addiction, sometimes it isn't just mind over matter.

Because I raced in swimming as a kid, I have a swimmer's body, very broad shoulders in comparison to my tapered waist. Being a gymnast and ballerina also gave me well-developed quadriceps and calves, which I've maintained fairly well.

The funny thing is is I never ate the healthiest foods. I also recall reading that Olympian Florence Griffith-Joyner was thinking of retiring from running because her training regimen was so restricted in terms of the "fun" foods she wasn't allowed to eat, as well as the actual physicality of what she had to put her body through to remain a world-class athlete.

Which brings me to this blog and my own "What if" question: What if I were more disciplined in how I ate and worked out. Many of us are athletes, but what separates us from the couch potato and the world-class athlete. What am I willing to give up to help others who don't have metabolism I do? What am I willing to give up to be a healthier version of myself?

I hope you ask yourself similar questions, no matter what your level of fitness. Even if the question is never asked, does it not show up in how we look and feel?

Believe me. I have my eating struggles.... As of September 1, 2012, I'd decided to finally battle them head on.

According to most weight analyses, I'm considered fit, but my goal as I start to help and coach others is to reach my ideal physique of 13% body fat—pretty close to my personal best of around 14% when I trained as a teen. To provide some perspective, I've read that Jillian Michaels is about 13%.

I just calipered myself yesterday and found that (since starting my regimen in September 2012) I fluctuate between 17% and 18%.

Fowler FOW74-554-630 6in. Outside Digital Caliper (Google Affiliate Ad)

I rely mostly on horseback riding, some running and swimming, and yoga mixed with Pilates to keep fit. But it looks like I need to step up my pace to incorporate more cardio workouts.

Pushing myself harder isn't that much more difficult than when I was younger. But getting the results I want is.

What I want to do with this blog is not write so much about myself but more about some of the health issues, good and bad, that I and my team members encounter. By "team" I mean folks at my health club and on the running teams I belong to.

I also welcome your comments.

Plus, I'm always on social media getting ideas. Just yesterday I got a couple great sites that friends like to visit. One of my friends from LinkedIn also suggested The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight cookbook, which I'd never heard of (but have added to my favorite books list). I learned it's also a TV show in United Kingdom. I also have a few bodybuilding books that I've read that I'll be adding in a few days.

As I said, you guys are also welcome to suggest topics for discussion, as well as resources you've found valuable within your own fitness journey. Please also share your fitness journey online of offline (if you prefer) or anything interesting about fitness and nutrition.

Here's to your health and mine!