There are many books and articles published by medical people who work with the dying. People in their last weeks of life share their thoughts. One thought you always see is "I wish I hadn't worked so hard." I am far away from end of life (I hope!) but now less than a month into "semi-retirement". This is exactly what I'm thinking -- I wish I hadn't worked so hard and focused on other things. I worked hard for companies that will dispose you like trash when they are done with you.
A friend gave me a book on longevity. What causes people to live longer? There are some interesting points here:
- A key predictor of long life is your VO2 Max. This is your maximum rate of oxygen consumption during physical exertion. People in the top quartile are far more likely to live longer than people in the bottom quartile. For my age, and elite level would be over 40. I'm not quite there, but I'm in the high 30's according to Apple fitness.
- Strength is another predictor. One test the book suggested -- can you dead hang from a pull up bar for a full 2 minutes? I failed that one, but working on it. I can see why strength is so important as we age.
- Getting adequate sleep is also important. I have no problem with this one.
- Of course there are the usual......diet, BMI, walking, emotional health and relationships.
- I learned about some new biomarkers, like Apo_B.
Immediate priorities for me are diet, losing a few kg, and strength. I am not doing well on the strength tests and need to work on this.
I learned about health span vs life span. How long do you have a healthy, active life versus just a life? Life can be in poor health or stuck on the sofa watching TV all day. Who wants that?
Lot's of interesting things to think about. Affirms my decision to stop working.
I have been working out for many years, but only starting 3 years back, I decided to take my health and fitness seriously. I keep tracked of my diet (caloric intake) as I wished to gain weight and increase muscle size, work extremely hard in the gym. For 2 year, I gained from 66kg to 84kg. In 2024, I decided to lose fat and drop my weight til 70kg. I was happy with it. So my next goal for this year is to, again, gain muscle size but in a strategic way. I actually had plan to compete for physique competition in upcoming month. I have talked to my trainer and he needed me to gain up to 10kg in 5 months and cutting for the following 2 months. It was challenging but I managed to gain up to 77kg as of now. I still got 2 more months to go for bulking. But since my mum is in serious illness, I may have to forgo the idea of entering comp and focus on gaining muscle size instead. Let's see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteI hope you partake strength training as much as you could. It HELPS a lot in terms of mental and physical health, and, most importantly, sex life.
You were bulking for five months -- gaining muscle? With high protein intake?
DeleteYes. Not unusually high protein intake. Just high enough for me to be able to consume. You may use chatgpt to plan an entire meal plan, workout routine, and caloric intake and macronutrients. It is so much more reliable than consulting a professional trainer who usually confuse you whole lot more than giving you clarity.
DeleteCongratulations on your semi-retirement.
ReplyDelete