Jan 28; The Old Man is Rebelling

We are almost at the end of January and the old man inside of me is beginning to rebel.
A number of years ago, I had an impinging bone growth removed from the end of my collar bone and the rotator cuff (that it damaged) repaired. It would appear that the impingement has regrown and is greatly aggravated by certain motions such as push-ups.

I cut short my push-up goal for yesterday and am going to give it a rest for a few days. I've found that push-ups with the hands closer together are less painful than a wider placement. They're also harder to do. In fact, I probably couldn't have done them at the beginning of the month. After a short rest, I'll go back to doing push-ups, but I'll also try to keep from irritating the shoulder too much. I'm not really interested in another shoulder surgery.

I'm also suffering some knee discomfort, but I was expecting that to happen. I'm actually pleased that I made it this far. I think the attempts to add some running to my walking did more to aggravate my knee than the walking and buildup of daily squats. With only a couple of days left in the month, I'll go ahead and finish out the squat challenge and then give the knee a rest, as well.

I have walked nearly every day this month. I've only missed two days. One, when it rained all day and the other when it was just a busy day. I have enough extra miles to cover those days and still make my monthly goal. The main reason for the monthly goal was to get into the habit of walking every day. I've even missed some good motorcycle riding weather in order to get my hour of walking in.

The short-term goal setter in me should probably be more upset about not pushing through to the end. The wiser, more philosophical part of me (notice how I left out the word older) realizes that the ultimate goal is better health and is okay with it. I'm not the first person to lament that aging sort of sucks. I'm trying to work out an agreement with my body to postpone it for a short time or to age more gracefully rather than just falling apart. I'm sure it would have been easier if I would have come to this understanding with my body a couple of decades ago rather than giving the old body the upper hand in these negotiations.

On the weight part of healthy living --
I'm re-reading the book that I read at the beginning of my last weight loss journey and re-establishing patterns that were successful in the past and are a sustainable lifestyle. I've realized that the key to making it sustainable is to realize that the goal isn't weight loss -- it's living and eating healthy. A more suitable weight is the byproduct of healthy eating.
Having said that -- I did lose ten pounds in the first four weeks of the year. It's nothing too notable, but it is a significant shift.

Most importantly, I feel better.

I'm not going to get into a heated argument with the Old Man living inside of me. I'm just going to back off for a bit and then continue to appeal to the reasonable benefits of healthy eating and regular exercise.
Like I said, it would have been easier a couple of decades ago. You know how unreasonable and curmudgeonly old men can be!

John