Health Manifesto II

It was sometime in class today that I reaffirmed why I care about fitness. About being healthy. It’s more than looking good and feeling good. It’s about not dying.

Guy next to me was looking to check my heartrate, seeing if he could read it off of my wrist. Said it was about 60. I remember back when my resting heartrate was around 70. Still would like to do a full 60 second count on my own first thing in the morning. I’ve been doing most lab things with the guy behind me. I was watching him do my blood pressure, and it’s been consistently around 120/80, if not my diastolic slightly less than that, closer to 121/76. About there.

It’s an odd sense of comfort. You know, the whole not dying thing. I’m alive right now and relatively young. I hope to be alive for a long time. I know I won’t be young forever.

Both of my grandfathers are dead because they were dumbasses. Plain and simple. They could still be alive if they weren’t reckless with their health.

My dad’s father smoked. Gee, I wonder whether all that tar caused atherosclerotic plaque in his coronary arteries, necessitating those bypass surgeries he needed. Just a hunch. Liz doesn’t understand why I get so angry at her for smoking. It’s not hard to understand. If you understand what smoking does to you, you don’t want anybody you care about to be a victim of it. Of course, I never started because my big sister told me not to. Dead-serious. If your older sister, who at the time did smoke, tells you not to, you listen. I’d swear she quit at some point. Hope so.

But the cardiac events seem mild compared to how he was afterwards. Slow. Subdued. Medicated. Walking around the block was a cardiovascular event for him. He was very good about going on his walks. He ate a lot of plain yogurt and otherwise ate a very restricted diet. He couldn’t do much. A very atrocious state for any human being to be in. To be the living dead. To be dying.

My mom’s dad wasn’t as dramatic. I remember him having the kind of Grandpa Strength that all grandpas should have. He was fat, but it never seemed like a big deal at the time, because he was mildly active and, again, had that Grandpa Strength. He was also type II diabetic, which was probably his downfall. His activity level declined as he got older, and with it, the stress on his knees. I remember that sort of exaggerated grunt he’d make getting out of his chair. Endearing at times, but I can only guess how much of it was acting towards the end.

If he just ate smarter and got off his fat ass, he’d probably still be alive. Weight can be lost. And if he lost the weight, his knees wouldn’t have felt so bad. And if he was lighter and more active, the rest of his problems wouldn’t have set in. I really wasn’t around when he health declined suddenly in his last couple years. I just didn’t want to see him like that.

My dad himself isn’t headed down either path. He’s relatively light, like his own father. Was never a heavy smoker. Eats a relatively moderate diet. Yet. In terms of fitness and staying healthy, I don’t think he gets it. He may “go to the Y”, which is better than nothing, but I can’t say he challenges himself. He’s weak as sin. He says, “Oh, I’m getting older, so I’m slowing down, I can’t do what you can do.”

I know muscular strength is something that declines as you get older. That’s PRECISELY the reason you train it! Do we get inactive because we get weaker, or do we get weaker because we’re inactive? Catch-22. I know the internets is a big place, but I’ve known of guys in their 50’s who decided to get into shape, and DID IT. The human body is an amazing thing, if you challenge it. He doesn’t need to run a marathon, he doesn’t need to deadlift 5 billion pounds. But if he can’t squat or deadlift, one day he’ll bend over to get something out of a cabinet and throw is back out. That’s how it happens if you don’t teach your body how to move in a safe way.

It’s not like I need to move heavy poundages forever. It wears on your joints. But there’s a relative amount of absolute strength I’d like to achieve that will keep my body safe from injury. Picking up boxes, moving furniture, applying force with my body is nothing that scares me anymore.

I have a bit of my mom’s mother’s spirit. She had a knee operation. They said she’d be out in five days. She was out in three. It’s not like she lifts or jogs or anything, but for a woman in her 70’s, she’s active. She has the spirit to get up and go, to do anything within her limits. The moment you sit and sit and sit, you reach a point where you may never get up again.

I want to be a strong dad. And while I’ll never be as heavy-set as my grandfather, I’d like to have that awe-inspiring Grandpa Strength that’ll impress any grandchild. I want to have energy, I want to know my heart’s working okay, I want to be able to jog a mile into old age. I want to eat all the yogurt I can, not because my health dictates it, but so that I can eat some cheese puffs when I want to.

When I was a kid, I was told, “You can eat anything you want, you’re a kid!” Who actually believes a child’s system will magically make all the crap it eats not effect them? I cringe at all the crap I used to eat constantly. It’s not that I think we should eliminate tasty treats completely. All things in moderation. Life is for enjoyment! But when does that switch flip and our bodies start revolting on us?

I’m not afraid of eating healthy. I’m not afraid of losing my taste for unhealthy things. I’m afraid of being forced into an uber-healthy diet because my body has shut down and can’t function. I’m afraid of my body atrophying, and being too stupid to do something about it. Again, I like tasty things. I’m just afraid of dying and I’m so glad I’m doing what I can to live as full a life as I can.