Ha!! She sounds like my people.
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It goes one of two ways:
- They care about their bodies, then i overload them with information until they dont want to talk to me anymore.
- They don’t care about their bodies, and then i don’t want to talk to them anymore.
I have yet to find a 3rd option.
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Shes a skinny little thing but real tough. She got her black belt in karate earlier this year after 8 years of consistent training. She is not afraid of hard work and 100% doesn’t give a rats what other people think. You would like her. 
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Seems like most people care about their bodies, but they can’t tolerate the discomfort of changing their lifestyle.
That’s one of the reasons forcing yourself to do the uncomfortable is so healthy: learning a new skill, fasting on occasion, taking cold showers, studying difficult subjects, and talking to strangers, for instance. All of these require a degree of courage and flexibility.
And when you voluntarily do them, you have an easier time with future challenges – physical and mental – as they come up. You may even find yourself welcoming them.
Those who stay physically fit for decades have simply been willing to get uncomfortable until their tastebuds, nervous systems, muscles, and preferences adapted.
Ha! I’m betting that those who say they don’t are not being fully honest with themselves. It’s a cope for something else.
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Wow! I adore her. You’ve raised a gem. 
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Hell yeah, man! Way to go
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My goal on flights: see how much you can learn from someone. I’ve made so many friends this way. On occasion, the person sitting next to me will end up saying, “this is the best flight I’ve ever been on.”
Total win.
And people love to open up… even if they think they don’t.
This last flight was interesting. The lady next to me was a classic introvert. But I still got her chatting. How? Well, as it turns out, she was reading a book, and the book I was reading quoted HER BOOK in the prologue!
Awesome coincidence.
The other coincidence was that she’d also read what I just started reading. And we happened to like the same genres.
So we talked about books, her daughter’s wedding, and the poodle wailing and screaming a couple rows behind us.
I don’t have too many natural gifts, but I feel like God wants me to talk to people, and either put them at ease or cheer them up. It comes easy to me.
Wait. Maybe I was supposed to be a therapy dog.
They should’ve seated me next to that poodle.
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Neither one of my parents are meat heads. Both are over weight, one lives off of smoothies, salads and bread, without meat/protein on any of them. The other lives off of canned and frozen food almost entirely.
I have learned to let them eat and live the lifestyle they want. They are both super religious (I am not) and I do not appreciate hearing about the religion. I will change the subject. I treat my meathead-ness as my “religion” to them. I won’t “preach” of they don’t. Some subjects are just better to avoid.
As for eating while there, they have horrible snacks galore there. I do my best to avoid the pantry. For meals, my parents are not great cooks. This means that they let me cook either my own meals or for everyone. My mom doesn’t even offer to make the stuff I grew up on anymore. Maybe you can find some things your parental unit will like and want to?
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sounds like title for a book. LOL
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Not a bad idea. 
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We might have to de-synch flight schedules…
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My parents have simply given up on making me give up my ways. The bigger issue for me is self control since I have easy access to cheap, very tasty, not unhealthy but calorically dense trigger foods and generally less motivation to push hard even with access to a superb gym
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Ok, wife, been thinking about a couple of the topics you brought up above. You asked people to post a pic of themselves in their prime, then later talked about the increasingly delicate balance between muscularity, leanness, and health. It’s hard to get all three at once and stay there.
So I found a photo from roughly 7 years ago. I was about 45 at the time. Recreated that photo today at 52. Yes, I own the same shirt and hat. (Dani just loves this old hat.)
Old pic on the left, today’s pic on the right:
About the same? Some “muscle migration” maybe (some parts bigger, some parts smaller – same amount of muscle just “moving around”)? A little more fat? Two extra pounds of beard?
Not sure. Don’t really care, honestly.
I think that after a certain point, like after decades of lifting, we have to work damn hard just to maintain. And from your 40s into your 50s, maintaining, or close to it, is a pretty good win. Same can be said from 30s to 40s and even 20s to 30s. Life outside the gym selfishly gets in the way of gainz, bro, and makes it hard to keep on truckin’.
Also, we need to be realistic. After years and years of lifting, how much natural muscle can we still build, especially if you’ve already added 30-40 pounds over the years? Probably a couple of more pounds if Coach Thibaudeau was training us, but not that much more after that unless a person has been really sandbagging it or leaving some big part of the equation out, like protein intake. Anyway, I get into all that here:
I’d add one more thing to balancing muscularity, leanness, and health – happiness/joy. Pretty sure I could change my training and diet a little to eek out some more muscle and strength gains, or to go from pretty lean to totally shredded. But that would change my life in a way that would remove some joy. For example, I love to come home, have a glass of whisky, and cook Dani an awesome healthy meal. Counting macros and calories would suck the fun out of all of those things. I also don’t want to get an injury that causes daily pain just to chase a new bench press PR. Would rather shift a little of that training time toward cardiovascular health, which is handier.
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Thats about where Im at now adays… I did a body building contest 10 years ago and the biggest thing I got out of it was just how much extra work goes into those last 10 pounds of fat. Its literally an order of magnitude more effort/work/planning/consistency/deprivation etc… Although at the time I did consider it “fun” of a type, I dont have the drive to do it anymore, but…
Living that life style for so many years did set me up to be “no cardio lean”, and I can even do that while eating food that used to be completely forbidden on a daily basis. Then every 6-12 months I go “eh, little too much spare tire”, and I tighten the screws a bit and in a month I’m back to a level that Im happy with.
PS - That picture on the left is the most jacked I’ve ever seen you look (and I’ve been putzing around here for like 20 years now). And the pic on the right aint no slouch either, good work man
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Hello there, honey-bear.
Seems like your body comp changed a bit: more muscle, less fat, plus the beard adds lean mass.
Somehow you’re getting hotter and I’m aging like a normal person. So that means I’ll eventually look older than you, which is just rude.
Not a day goes by that I don’t consider burning it. Hands-down the grossest thing you own.
For sure. It’s even more of a win if we can maintain or surpass our personal bests without fitness becoming an identity.
Being obsessed with it is a thing we’ve all probably been through, but hopefully for most, it’s temporary childishness. That obsession tends to make people vapid and boring no matter how good they look.
And I’m inspired by those with multiple interests/abilities. Shakespeare’s jack of all trades quote is cool:
“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one.”
Most people misinterpret it to mean the opposite because they only remember the first half of the line.
So this…
is super sexy.
You’ve surpassed your previous physique without caring that much about it. Yet you’ve got more going on than just gainz, bro.
Same.
Can’t wait to see you! Give the pups a snuggle for me. 
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So when you tighten the screws, what kind of adjustments do you make?
Love to hear when competing made someone better. That’s how it should be!
And no-cardio lean sounds like a great article topic. We’re on the same page there.
I haven’t been able to do hard cardio for a couple years because of a reaction in my lungs (upper back) that doctors haven’t been able to figure out, so I don’t do it anymore and seem to be alright without it.
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I don’t have a terrible amount of adjustments to make honestly, but if I don’t keep it in check my peanut butter Intake will go wild, so that’s really the first thing I scale back on haha. Easily can shave off 400-800 cals a day there… it’s a problem haha
Aside from that it’s just little treats and odds and ends that are part of having kids and a wife with no interest in “dieting” in the house (oh look, a box of sees candy showed up… oh hey the kids didn’t finish the fries…oh they ordered pizza at work, Aw shucks)
If I reaaaallly want to crack down I just do the velocity diet for a month.
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That’s a great way to tighten things up!
Mixed nuts have the same effect as peanut butter: easy to overeat, way too many calories for what fleeting pleasure you get out of them. So if the salty, addictive ones are in the house I measure out a serving, or add them conservatively to a recipe, or just leave them for Chris.
Wow. Parents have so many obstacles that I hadn’t really considered. It’s amazing to see super fit moms and dads.
This might belong in the hot takes thread, but I consider the food my kid didn’t finish free calories.
(Obviously wrong, but fun sometimes.)
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That’s just scientific fact. Like calories on your birthday or the fries that end up in the bottom of the bag, the universe has a way of knowing not to count them
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