Getting Older? Not In Fantastic ‘Shape’? I Get It.
The arthritic knee that started it all.
The X-Ray of my knee is probably the most important ‘progress picture’ I can show you, to let you know that I understand 100% about feeling like you aren’t aging the way you hope, or already facing challenges that make getting started tough. Minor meniscus damage diagnosed in 2012 only healed because I had to start taking better care of myself. By 2018 I was still dealing with the early signs of arthritis.
But as of 2021 2025, I’m still doing too well to need a knee replacement.
The transformation
Still with me? Here’s a picture of how my external appearance changed over the first few years of my fitness journey. I know we all pay attention to how we look even if it isn’t our most important goal. Keep in mind: the essential things are that my knee is still reasonably healthy, my sleep habits are good, my nutrition has improved, my cholesterol numbers are excellent, and my mood and outlook on life have gotten so much better, I can hardly remember the old me. The pretty picture of a slimmer body is a poor proxy for all of those things. But it might give you an idea of what’s possible.
Note: the guy on the left had already been working out for a year and was already feeling MUCH better. And don’t be fooled by the shadows on the right: the slimmer guy still had love handles. As of 2025 I’m a leeetle bit less shredded.
Not bad for a dude who considered himself unathletic.
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I’ve had borderline hypertension since my teens. Probably a family/genetic trait. In my 20s and 30s I was just athletic enough at times, not at all at others. Heavier at times, thinner at others. The blood pressure reading never changed. After my father’s first mini-stroke, which they said was triggered by HIS hypertension, I told my doc to stop lecturing me to ‘keep an eye on that’ and start treating me. I’ve been on BP medications for over 20 years.
Getting ‘fit’ later did NOT solve everything all alone. We’ve tried taking me off the meds and things go back to ‘borderline’. But fitness has absolutely helped my quality of life, and this reading my dentist took before some surgery is the best I’ve ever seen. Sometimes we follow more than one path to solutions, eh?