Back in the day, I was a bit of a gym junkie. I would train pretty hard, consume a lot of supplements, and read a lot of bodybuilding magazines. Despite being totally unblessed with the necessary genetics, I would quietly obsess over growing bulging biceps, thunderous thighs, and washboard abs, just like the magazine ads promised.
Back then, mirrors rather than smartphones were the screens of ruthless comparison.
It was all about the body image. The body image and the projection of what today would be called hypermasculinity.
Compensation for my lack of self eseteem? Maybe. Yes, probably a little. Yet, at the time I was a student nurse, living and working in a predomenantly female environment, and I think it was also about trying to connect with a little Jungian warrior archetype masculinity amidst all that feminine energy.
Thankfully, not only did I not have the genetics to be a jacked cage fighter, I lacked the personality traits that might engender the mysonginy, homophobia, agression etc etc. that this path can so easily lead to (exponentially more so in these days of social media).
I have pretty much pumped all the iron out of my body since then. My nursing career (36 years in an Emergency Department) taught me the precious fragility of being “in good health”. That you can be cured but not healed. And the opposite is also true.
–ooOoo–
Today, I still excercise regularly. It is no longer about body image, it is not even about longevity. It is about quality of life. I have a deep awareness that my life lived now exceeds my life to be lived. Time of death is uncertain. So pack that quality in like insulation in an igloo.
There are a lot of moving parts to be tended to as you get older. There is a winding down that needs to be aknowledged, and there is a matured wisdom that needs to be honoured.
Tending to all my own moving parts is an ongoing project. I thought you might like to take a look at my current routine. Not that this would necessarily be a good fit for your own days, but as an encouragement to explore your own habits and ways.
Im not going to dive into explanations or justifications for most of these things (some evidence references are in the footnotes), if something interests you I hope you dig into it yourself.
My current program:
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 0500 | Wake up. Morning ablutions. Drink 500 mls water. Rehydration counters overnight fluid loss, and blunts vasopressin-driven cortisol elevation (2% dehydration increases fatigue). A slow cup of peppermint tea. |
| 0545 | Gentle stretching. Waking my body up and preparing my legs to sit in half lotus after a night of inactivity. One day I will take up yoga. |
| 0630 | Zazen (meditation) for 40 min. Perhaps my most important medicine. |
| 0730 | Breakfast. Light meal high protien. My aim is for 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. This is divided into meals of 30-40g. Older people will develop anabolic resistance to protien metabolism and require higher levels. First coffee of the day (I usually have 3 cups/day). I used to have coffee first thing, but I find this leads to a definite energy slump in the afternoon. |
| 0800 | Exposure to direct sunlight as soon as possible. Anchors circadian clock and sets the daily wake/sleep pattern. I aslo experience SAD1 during the winter months, and this habit makes a definite improvement. Ride bike to gym. A while back I purchased an eBike. Highly recommend. Makes replacing many short car trips with bike trips totally feasable …plus all those benifits of aerobic conditioning. |
| 0830 | Gym (resistance training) for aprox 1 hour. |
| 1000 | High protien snack (eg fruit and Greek yoghurt) Creatine 10g. Creatine monohydrate is one of the most extensively researched supplements for adults over 60, and the evidence is compelling—particularly for those already exercising regularly2. Fish oil capsules (Omega-3) 3g. Studies show modest but consistent cardiovascular benefits3 |
| 1800 | High protien dinner. Note: I eat a mainly plant based diet making adequate protien intake a little more tricky. |
| 1900 | Wind down. For me, maximising probability of having a good nights sleep includes minimal screen time & no coffee. |
| 1930 | Zazen. 25 minutes. I like to ‘bookend’ my day with meditation. |
| ???? | Bedtime. Essentially, I go to bed as soon I feel tired. Usually I am an early (very) to bed and early to rise kind of guy. |
To this list I can recommend that you can also consider experimenting with:
- Journaling
- Doing something creative every day.
- Looking for ways to replace digital, electronic activities with analogue (for example, reading actual books, using notebooks, and paper maps).
- Find a primary hobby and become obsessed with it.
- Volunteering. Something I think is very important and something I do not currently do (note to self).
- Seasonal Effective Disorder ↩︎
- Key sources backing this: a PubMed-reviewed study on creatine in the elderly, a systematic review in Nutrition Reviews, and a comprehensive review in Frontiers in Physiology (2024) on creatine plus resistance training for healthy aging. ↩︎
- Reduction in risk of myocardial infarction (evidence). Reducion in trygliceride levels. Small reduction in systolic blood pressure. Anti-inflamatory properties (evidence).
Here is a fact sheet on Omega-3).. ↩︎
Leave a Reply