Fitness As An Adult

There’s a great post over at Get Fit Slowly about an encounter with a fit 72-year old neighbor who eschews the entire subject of workouts and dieting, but instead favors staying fit by lifestyle choices.  The following quote stuck with me:

Oh, I hate that stuff,” he said. “I stay healthy by working. I’ve never led a sedentary life. I’m 72 and feel as healthy as I’ve ever been. Well, my knees give me trouble sometimes, but otherwise, I try to stay active.

It got me thinking about how my parents and grandparents would view this subject.  And for that matter, how I looked at it prior to becoming an adult.

Fitness As An Adult

I don’t have a bit of trouble picturing the response I would have gotten from my grandparents if I had told them I was watching my weight, or going to the gym.  These were subjects they never considered.  They spent their entire days doing manual labor.  As a result, they could eat pretty much anything they wanted, and never gave a thought to calories or fat grams.

As a kid, teenager, and young adult, I could empathize.  Most mornings, my parents got up and cooked fresh homemade biscuits, gravy, and sausage for breakfast.  As you’ve probably guessed, I grew up in a rural community.  As a teenager, I earned summer money by doing farm work:  stripping tobacco, hauling hay, splitting wood, etc.  That’s not to say I spent all my time doing hard labor, but my exercise was a by-product of lifestyle.  There wasn’t even a movie theater in my community, so it wasn’t uncommon for a date to consist of going to play tennis.

So when did things change?

My lifestyle changed dramatically when I started graduate school.  College consisted of six hours of classes per day, with “play” in the evenings.  Between research time, course work, and studying, graduate school demanded 12 (or more) hours a day, six and a half days per week.  At the time, I didn’t realize that my eating habits needed to change, so my weight shot up.  Eventually, that ended and I entered the work force, got married, had kids, and bought a house.  I think anyone reading this understands the time commitments those things all take.  In the midst of all these life changes, fitness and health just went by the wayside.

Eventually, I discovered that I need to think differently about fitness, eating, and health.  It took some time for me to realize that I need to actively work at managing my weight and health.  That was probably one of the hardest things for me to come to grips with.  I call it the curse of the suburban lifestyle.  I don’t really like, but I’ve accepted the fact that this is something I’m going to have to do from here on out.

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