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Other/Mixed Your mid-life crisis?

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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I was fit from outdoor sports for a lot of my adult life and then my job changed and I became a father. I put on a lot of weight and then lost it through 5:2, but as I wasn't in the outdoors anymore I was just light and unfit.

I was at Disney world with the in-laws and my children, I wondered what I could do to ensure I could do the same with my grand kids. I could easily be hitting 70 when/if grand kids came along. Strength training was the internet research answer so I started lifting. I've hit the basic standards I got from somewhere so now I'm working on keeping it and getting mountain fit again.
 
I'm now 42, I spent my 20s playing videogames and doing drugs. I was skinny fat and unhealthy. Late 20s I fell into harder drugs, cocaine and crack. That left me a physical wreck. Met my wife at 27 and cleaned up within a few weeks/months, stopped drugs and quit smoking. We married and had 4 kids from age 29 to 36. At 35 (after my 3rd child was born) I decided I needed to get back in shape, still being skinny fat and weak, being riddled with low back issues and knee pain.

I wanted to be able to do sports with my kids, roughhouse and just play around with them, without fear of getting injured or just not being able to. My start into the world of fitness was a flop, I tried the Insanity DVD program and just wound up with a lot of tweaks and pain. I kept at it and started reading Dr McGill's books on back pain and performance which led me to Pavel since he talks about him a lot in his books. I read more and more books, attended workshops, took one on one sessions.

I've been training since then, either BW à la CC or SFB and KBs mostly. Did a run of PTTP in the past too. I love OS, GMB and MovNat stuff too.

I'm still dealing with a lot of accumulated issues from my negligent past but I am determined to keep training and get stronger and to keep learning. I'm nowhere near where I thought I'd be after even just 1 year of training, but I realised I needed to get my expectations in line with reality a bit more. I can reach my goals, just not as fast as I first thought.

I also tried tons of different eating plans in the past years, finally settling on what works best for me to maintain a decent bodyfat level and still have some enjoyment. That took a lot of trial and error and tweaking here and there.
 
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When I was a kid, I was lean, I was endurant, but surely not strong. I despised sport (why sweat when you can just sit and read a book?).

Then I started martial arts and really got into it in my twenties. Lean, not as weak as before, and globally in very good shape. I have never been super good at it, but I enjoyed it and my dedication compensated my lack of natural talent.

Then life happened: more work, more money, more restaurants, less time to practice martial arts and train. I got incredibly weak and I got fatter than I realised. As Dan John says, it happened bit by bit, so I did not pay that much attention.

A picture of the fat and weak me opened my eyes. I was 32 at the time.
In my head, I was still picturing myself as the lean martial art practitionner, but this pictures showed me how other people could actually see me!

It took me a few months to really get into a proper training again, but I did. I did my research and found a few books that challenged my view on training. I especially was blown away by The Naked warrior and Power to the people, along with Relax into stretch by Pavel, but I also read a lot of other authors, like Marty Gallhager, Mark Rippetoe, Tom Kurz, etc). It was the opposite of what I thought was necessary. Very challenging to accept being wrong for sooooo long about effective training.

I lost the fat quickly, in a matter of a few months. It took me longer to get stronger, but it is worth it.

My 32 me would be surprised to see what he could do 13 years later!

Now, my mission is to show other busy professionals with a family that getting weak and fat as we age is not normal, and that with minimalist work, we can stay lean and strong enough to enjoy life, be present (and more useful) with our family and friends.

If you read French, here is the longer version of the story (with the pix): A propos – Strong mobility
 
Mo04 said:
Thanks for detailed reply.

I'm managing to do 2 meals a day.

However, I'm trying - and struggling - to get off the crisps and candy bars. Did you go cold turkey or find alternatives?
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I’m of the opinion that the sugar ‘addiction’ is real. It’s my biggest vice when it comes to eating.

Going cold turkey and breaking the addiction is the answer for me. It gets to where you won’t crave them (as much). Have plenty of nutritious snacks (cashews and pistachios for me) on hand to eat when you feel like grabbing a candy bar.

I will add that having 2 kids in the house and the assortment of their junk/processed food laying around makes it difficult to resist the temptation. So get the junk food out of your house before trying to go cold turkey.
 
Tirofijo said:
I’m of the opinion that the sugar ‘addiction’ is real. It’s my biggest vice when it comes to eating.

Going cold turkey and breaking the addiction is the answer for me. It gets to where you won’t crave them (as much). Have plenty of nutritious snacks (cashews and pistachios for me) on hand to eat when you feel like grabbing a candy bar.

I will add that having 2 kids in the house and the assortment of their junk/processed food laying around makes it difficult to resist the temptation. So get the junk food out of your house before trying to go cold turkey.
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Thanks. I'll give cold turkey a try.
 
The cure for excessive sugar or fats is to...eat less. I still have a cookie or two after dinner, but I don't go for seconds of the main course if I'm going to. I still have some chips with a beer while watching TV, but it comes in a small bowl and when its empty I stop.

The trouble starts when you eat so much of the trash foods you are no longer eating enough of the good stuff - macros are OK but micros are deficient.
 
North Coast Miller said:
The cure for excessive sugar or fats is to...eat less. I still have a cookie or two after dinner, but I don't go for seconds of the main course if I'm going to. I still have some chips with a beer while watching TV, but it comes in a small bowl and when its empty I stop.

The trouble starts when you eat so much of the trash foods you are no longer eating enough of the good stuff - macros are OK but micros are deficient.
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I resorted to only eating some of those on the weekends, easy to manage. Instead of 2 cookies I might have 4-5 and feel satisfied. Same for most of my indulgences. I don't have chips or cookies every weekend though, makes them more of a pleasure/treat than a snack.
 
When the film Middle Age Crazy came out, I'd never heard of a mid-life crisis before. If you haven't seen it, it's pretty good, Bruce Dern and Ann Margret is his wife, back in 1980. So I was 30 at the time, and thought how bad could it be, He's an architect and Ann Margret is his wife, plus he gets a new red Corvette to help with his crisis. I never got that lucky, in my mid-life experience. But at the ripe old age of 47 or 48, I made a total career change, from engineering to a stock broker, even worked within walking distance of the Twin Towers in NYC. We had drinks at the bar at the top of North Tower on some Thursdays or Fridays after work. So in the next three years, I piled on about 45 lbs., almost no exercise with all the hours I was putting into my business. My company was a top five firm at that time, meaning mutual fund companies were regularly gifting us with nice lunches, even breakfasts.

A year or two later, I took my family to Va. Beach, and wife snapped a few pics of me on the beach. She was showing me pics back home and I stupidly said to her, Hey, who's the fat bald guy on this one. No I didn't recognize it was me, for a few seconds. Holy crap! I rounded into a svelte 260 about the same time, that my hair had given up the ship simultaneously.
It wasn't hard getting back into a workout routine, but dieting was like learning to speak Klingon. I adopted a modified low-carb diet, and dropped 55# in the next year. That was about 20 years ago, and I've gained 7-10# back, but don't beat myself up over it. That job was the main reason for my sloth, so I went back to engineering, where I actually knew what I was doing, LOL.
(edit); I'm still a retired tech analyst, here's a chart I posted on twitter:
 
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North Coast Miller said:
The cure for excessive sugar or fats is to...eat less. I still have a cookie or two after dinner, but I don't go for seconds of the main course if I'm going to. I still have some chips with a beer while watching TV, but it comes in a small bowl and when its empty I stop.

The trouble starts when you eat so much of the trash foods you are no longer eating enough of the good stuff - macros are OK but micros are deficient.
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Thats very good advice - I always assumed a cookie or 2 after dinner effectively terminated the entire project. I see now you can balance the cookies by eating less on the whole.

Thank you - you've changed my paradigm.
 
Mo04 said:
Thats very good advice - I always assumed a cookie or 2 after dinner effectively terminated the entire project. I see now you can balance the cookies by eating less on the whole.

Thank you - you've changed my paradigm.
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Realistically they are only calories, building blocks. When you add too many blocks for the number that are taken away, the project gets bigger to accomodate.

The danger is that cookie and chip blocks add up quickly and don't add good mineral or vitamin nutrients. Energy balance doesn't automatically = healthy, by same token 250-300 calories from low value food per day in a diet that is maybe 2800-3200 calories is not much of an insult.
 
Dr. Tom Rafai (MD, health coach, bodybuilder [former competitor]) calls that cookie etc a "non-negotiable" or "5% Fun Zone" food meaning up to a max of 5% of your total calories and you'll be fine so long as the other 95% are real food. He's on Facebook and posts what I think is solid, sane content. Very short "Cliff Notes" of his overall approach at the link-->

 
GeoffreyLevens said:
Dr. Tom Rafai (MD, health coach, bodybuilder [former competitor]) calls that cookie etc a "non-negotiable" or "5% Fun Zone" food meaning up to a max of 5% of your total calories and you'll be fine so long as the other 95% are real food. He's on Facebook and posts what I think is solid, sane content. Very short "Cliff Notes" of his overall approach at the link-->

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Thank you. I'll check it out.
 
Currently 47.

End of last year. Was incredibly depressed - mother's death in a car accident, bushfires, trump, covid, stressful job were all killing me. Just getting out of bed was a struggle. Getting to work and putting a day at work in was taking all my strength and willpower. This was just a steady decline over the last 4 years. I found myself with 0 energy at all. All I wanted to do was lie in bed

Somehow summer vacation (January in Australia) I was able to get some energy back while on holiday. I figured I had better take advantage of it and do something. When I got home I went on a sensible diet (fitfatherproject) and began working out again. 2 days of squat, row bench. 2 of a kettlebell circuit from fitfatherproject. I also had my blood tested and started heavily suplimenting my Vit D.

So far I have gained some serious muscle and dropped about 6 inches off my waist. I put 30kg back on my squat and 20kg back on my bench.

Feeling really good.

I've developed a real liking of kettlebells. Think I have got the basics of clean and swing and have started learning some of the moves like snatch and Turkish GU. Been trying some of the programs - current favourite is DJ's Armor.
 
The Trump/Brexit depressive score is a new phenomena in the mental health domain.
It's a new stressor isn't it? Well at least for 50% of the population.

GeoffreyLevens said:
5% Fun Zone" food meaning up to a max of 5% of your total calorie
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North Coast Miller said:
Energy balance doesn't automatically = healthy, by same token 250-300 calories from low value food per day in a diet that is maybe 2800-3200 calories is not much of an insult.
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Yeah. Usually with very little thought process I probably do similar. Bar of choc here and there, ice cream etc.
My definition of 'fun zone' changes and feel pretty confident that is the same for most. Some fun zones are more equal than others.

I'm self isolating as my daughter is covid positive.
It's been a stressful time for many of us. No one has been untouched by the pandemic.
I'm ,unusually so, quite stressed about the future. Not for me directly, but my kids and society generally.

I'm in constant shame over this country's national embarrassment of a prime minister and his gaslighting Brexit government of spivs, charlatans and liars.

It does affect my motivation and mental health. It shouldn't do and politics here is off topic....I know, sorry...but the combined mental health impact of covid and recovery from it, on this political landscape of incompetence and elitism is going to be a major public health disaster.

And it will affect everyone. Another stressor to manage.

I'm extending my fun zone limits.
 
ali said:
I'm ,unusually so, quite stressed about the future. Not for me directly, but my kids and society generally.

I'm in constant shame over this country's national embarrassment of a prime minister and his gaslighting Brexit government of spivs, charlatans and liars.
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Incompetence of most governments has become a near total global phenomena. Combined with urgent need to address climate change, nuclear arms race, resource depletion, compounded by segments of the population who don't comprehend basic science, this train is 900,000 tons of steel out of control. Not a day goes by I don't feel guilty for having kids. This would be the unspoken part of my mid-life crisis, staying strong enough to do what I can, for as long as I can, for these people who are only here because of me.

Who knows what's around the corner - if the pandemic taught us anything, its that anything is possible.
 
ali said:
It does affect my motivation and mental health. It shouldn't do and politics here is off topic....I know, sorry...but the combined mental health impact of covid and recovery from it, on this political landscape of incompetence and elitism is going to be a major public health disaster.
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North Coast Miller said:
Incompetence of most governments has become a near total global phenomena. Combined with urgent need to address climate change, nuclear arms race, resource depletion, compounded by segments of the population who don't comprehend basic science, this train is 900,000 tons of steel out of control.
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I like to say that I train for the zombie apocalypse... it just may not be the kind of zombie we expect. ?

I think tonight I'll sit down with my son and have the Conan talk:

The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan. You must learn its discipline. For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts. This you can trust.

Then I'll hand him a kettlebell.
 
ali said:
I'm in constant shame over this country's national embarrassment of a prime minister and his gaslighting Brexit government of spivs, charlatans and liars.
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Without wanting to get overly political, it does feel sometimes like being in a fast car with a drunk driver. I worry that we've gotten used to constant background stress and don't realise how detrimental it us until we find outselves burned out from what seem like trifling inconveniences.

You've got to put your own oxygen mask on first, as they say. Look out for others, by all means, but make sure you take care of yourself first or you'll be in no state to take care of anyone else.

Feel free to drop me a DM if you want to vent.
 
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