Coffee Tour du Jour

Fitness – or not…

I spend a great deal of my time surrounded by people much younger than myself, in the gym and in coffee shops. So I often lose sight of how much CrossFit has had such a positive affect on my life. Fitness is just what I do for fun.

Today, after the noontime WOD, I wandered home and cleaned myself up and changed my clothes to attend a wake for one of the beloved old timers of my Dad’s generation. Most of the people paying their respects were my generation – people I grew up with in this little New England town.

I was shocked how much older they looked. So many people in their mid-sixties, with the countenance of someone in mid-to-late seventies. I observed people dealing with a myriad of health issues that affected their gait, posture and even their ability to stand for extended periods. Many of my contemporaries are exhibiting the effects of consuming overly processed and overly abundant food, compounded by a very sedentary lifestyle. The result? They grew old before their time.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. – Ferris Bueller

Comfort Will Kill You

I did not sit down to write this essay to be condescending. These are the very things that I witnessed, slowly killing my own parents two decades ago. These are the very things that drove me to discover CrossFit.

Yet our culture seems to accept obesity, diabetes, arthritis and heart disease as a normal part of aging. With genetic predispositions, some of it is, but much of it is avoidable, or reversible by lifestyle.

My friends ask why I spend so much time at the gym, I tell them it is simply to “Delay the Decay”. I may not add a single day to my life. But if my last ten years are on my feet living, instead of circling the drain, it will have been a worthwhile use of my time.

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75. – Benjamin Franklin

After the wake, I went to Barbell Club. Tonight was simple, work to a 1 rep max of my Snatch. I succeeded up to 95%, but I repeatedly failed getting my 1RM Snatch PR. One time I bailed from the lift and catapulted myself back about 8 feet, onto my butt. I laughed at the spectacle, as did all my friends.

Why did I laugh? Because I am having fun. I lift and workout with kids and grandkids of the people I grew up with. Like many of my peers, I will wake up sore tomorrow. But I will KNOW why I am sore, I earned it, and I’ll do it again.

Though I make light of falling, for most people my age it is not funny at all. We know many people our age who fall and break hips, arms, legs and more. These people have lost their agility, strength, balance and proprioception. A quick shift in direction, and down they go.

“One in four Americans aged 65+ falls each year. Every 11 seconds, an older adult is treated in the emergency room for a fall; every 19 minutes, an older adult dies from a fall. Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults.” – National Council on Aging

I drop and fall frequently, mostly on purpose in the gym. But I am stronger and my bones are denser, so I don’t break. That’s directly attributable to the past five years of fitness with CrossFit.

CrossFit isn’t all Elite

This weekend when I was at a CrossFit competition, I made a smart aleck remark regarding my weakness in a certain area. I don’t remember the specifics, but it was a lightning rod for stares and rebuke from my colleagues who are frequently on my case about “Negative Self Talk”.

One coach even went so far as to say he is “looking forward to the day when the Self-Deprecating Chuck is replaced by the Arrogant SOB Chuck”. I hope he was joking.

I am too old, er, I mean too seasoned, to be arrogant in the Gym. I am not the old dog who grew up in the gym and who has seen it all and done it all. No, I am just the old dog who came in from the cold. The stray dog who was near death, until someone took me in and nurtured me back to health.

I have no reason to be arrogant. Some friends say, “But look what you’ve accomplished over the past year”! They are right, I have grown considerably, but much remains to be done. Though I am much stronger than I was a year ago, I am still weak. Though I may be stronger than many men in their seventies, I am still weak. I have far to go.

When I say I cannot do something, I am not imposing limitations on myself. I am speaking in shorthand. Usually, it means, “I cannot do it – yet!” or “now”, or “today”. It seldom means I will not strive to do it but recognize that it will happen in incremental steps that may be much smaller than yours.

Regarding my being arrogant; I have been arrogant in the past in other areas of my life and career. I’d rather look in the mirror at a struggling old man than at that arrogant young fool I left behind. My humility in the gym is not feigned. I am in awe of what my colleagues do and I realize that I am the new kid, in spite of chronology, and I will have to fight for every ounce I lift, and every inch I jump. And I am grateful that by God’s Grace this body still rises to do it. I rejoice when I succeed. I am joyful when I PR. But arrogant? I hope not.

So guys, get used to my self-deprecation, it’s not negative self-talk. It’s a reality some of you have yet to realize. But don’t let that discourage you from pushing me to try harder, I need it, I savor it.

Years ago I bought a Leo Kottke album entitled “My Father’s Face”.

The title is taken from one song called “Jack Gets Up”. This song that I listened to fifteen to twenty years ago has begun to haunt me.

In the song, Kottke laments the grind of daily life. He seems to be frustrated with the pointlessness of it all. It’s kind of like reading the first chapter of Ecclesiastes. The song is fascinating in a sort of depressing way. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not depressed and I wake up every morning eager to seize the day. Give me my cup of Bulletproof Coffee and my gym bag and send me out the door. I revel in the beauty of the sunrise and the slamming of barbells. I praise God for the morning. I love morning.

But for some strange reason, these lyrics have started sticking in my head:

And there’s tears in the bank and the credit card
In the back yard, in the back yard, in the back yard
If you look in the mirror it’s your father’s face
Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed

The lyrics, “…If you look in the mirror it’s your father’s face, Everyday in the morning when you get up and you crawl out of bed” have all of a sudden hit me like a sledgehammer. Why? Because though my mirror frequently lies to me, the camera never does. Recently I grew a goatee. No particular reason; just because. I thought it would be a different look. A change. It grew white as snow. That didn’t phase me in the least. Then I posted a photo of me smiling. Oh my goodness! For the first time in my life, I saw Dad in my face.

My pal from the gym, Julia, sent me a photo yesterday. One of the first things I thought was, “what’s Dad doing with Julia?”, he doesn’t belong in that picture. Several years have passed since we buried the last of our parents. When Suzanne and I left the gravesite after burying her Mother, I said to her, “Honey, we just moved to the front of the line.”

There is a strangeness that comes with being aware of your own mortality. There is beauty in aging. There is a tension that grows between what you know and what you can do. I no longer fear failure, there is no shame in failing. There is only shame in not trying. When I fail, I simply rise again tomorrow, to fight another day. I revel in my daily pain, because I know I am alive. I lift weights to stay alive. I eat real food to stay alive.

When I am shocked seeing my Dad in my face, it’s not that I don’t love my Dad. I love him, I admire him, I respect him and I am grateful to him and I appreciate all he taught me. But some of what he taught me was through omission. Once he retired, he didn’t revel in the wonder of his body, he rested.

A key law of physics is “A body at rest, stays at rest”. Dad lived a long life, but his last decade was fraught with illness, much of it was perhaps due to lifestyle choices. Some of his choices may have been obvious, but many were not. I am not a body at rest. Lord willing, I will not rest until I Rest in Peace. So I set my clock, I rise before the sun, I lift weights and I praise God that I share another sunrise with people I love.

I place a great deal of value on rituals. There are some things whose ways are timeless.

Rituals bring with them a sense of place; a level of comfort.

The frying pan in the photo is symbolic of ritual. Suzanne gave me this pan forty-three years ago. It cost over $100 in 1980. We were in an artisan gift shop in Amherst NH when we spotted it. It was handmade by a local blacksmith. It is ten inches in diameter and one and a half inches deep. The hand-forged handle is twisted into a heart. I loved it when I spotted it, but I didn’t buy it.

A few months later I returned to buy it, and the shop was no longer in business. Sometime later, perhaps it was Christmas, or my birthday, Suzanne gave me a lovely package. When I opened it I was thrilled to find the hand-forged frying pan that I had longed for.

This pan resides on the back burner of my cooktop. It was there for over 20 years in my old house, and now that we’ve moved, it has spent the past nineteen years in the same spot. It is well-seasoned. It is always wiped clean with a paper towel and perhaps some kosher salt. That is part of the ritual. It has never been desecrated by detergent and water.

This pan has never been used by Suzanne because she doesn’t prepare breakfast. Our ritual is that I prepare breakfast, and this pan has one purpose and one purpose only. I use it for frying eggs and for omelets. Never ever has it seen a scrambled egg or anything else. Every morning I stumble down the stairs, and my ritual begins. I turn the dial on the front burner, slightly past 3, and bring the pan to life; then I turn on the coffee. By the time the coffee has been brewed the pan is at the optimal temperature for butter and eggs.

Life in this modern world is filled with complexity that brings stress to every day of our existence. Savor the rituals in your life, that bring order, calm, or comfort to your day. If your typical day lacks a ritual or two, look for opportunities to create some. They can add richness to every day of your life.

For years I used to stop by Cafe Ziba on the way to work. I’d get a Latte, a cookie or two, and a muffin; carb heaven (or hell). When Farzad sold the shop to Acton Coffee House, my behavior continued unabated.

All the regular customers were there every morning, on the same schedule. We all knew each other by sight, some we knew by name. We always greeted one another, and often engaged in conversation.

Then I committed to changing my approach to food and nutrition. I knew I had to avoid the old haunts. I couldn’t simply order a black dark roast coffee with all those pastries beckoning to me from the glass case. So I drove past the shop for fourteen months.

I have learned to deliberately avoid the use of the word “diet” in my conversations.

Last week, I stopped by the Acton Coffee House, since I was running errands in Acton. As I was approaching the door, Gary, one of the “regulars” came out and we greeted one another. He jumped back in shock, “Chuck, what the hell happened to you?”

I explained to him that I had taken control of my health by paying attention to getting proper rest, nutrition, and exercise. I have learned to deliberately avoid the use of the word “diet” in my conversations. He said, “You look fantastic. It’s really great that you’ve lost weight and that you are fit, but how has it improved your sex life?”

Call me old fashioned, but I don’t discuss my sex life, even if I had one.