live your life with purpose
The Fringe Tells You Exactly Where Your Bullshit Lives I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately. The fringe. That edge. That place where your brain starts feeding yourself every excuse in the book. Every reason why you can’t. Every reason why you shouldn’t. …
The Ten Minutes Count Every morning, I give myself ten minutes. Coffee. Birds. Quiet. That’s it. No phone. No food logging. No writing out my get shit done list. No mentally rehearsing the day before the day even starts. And this morning, I caught myself …
Today I turn 62.
Somewhere along the way I assumed that by this age I’d be wiser calmer and maybe even more motivated.
Like maybe one morning you wake up and suddenly it’s easy to do all the things that take care of your health.
Eat well.
Exercise.
Drink your water.
Go to bed on time.
Like motivation finally decides to show up and start pulling its weight.
Yeah, still waiting. Turns out motivation is flaky as hell. It shows up when it wants. It disappears when life gets busy. It ghosts you when you’re tired or stressed or annoyed or when you would rather do literally anything else. So no. Motivation didn’t suddenly appear today.
But something better did.
Consistency.
Health has always meant something a little deeper to me. If you follow me and have read my blog post, you know that my dad died of heart disease at 60 years old. I’m 62 now.
Which means I’ve already lived two years longer than he got.
That is not lost on me.
I think about that more than people probably realize.
Every year past that age feels like a reminder that none of this is guaranteed.
Not your health, not your time and not your ability to move your body and feel strong. That changes how you look at things. Health stops being about looking a certain way. It becomes about protecting the life you still get to live.
Somewhere along the way I stopped chasing smaller and chased stronger. Stronger legs. Stronger lungs. A stronger heart and a stronger mindset. Because strength changes everything. Strength means you can move through life without fear. It means independence. It means you’re not fragile. And the older I get, the more important that becomes.
Here’s the funny part though. People assume things go downhill as you get older. But if you keep showing up, that’s not always true. It doesn’t have to be true. In a lot of ways I’m actually getting better. Stronger. More capable. And a lot less interested in bullshit. After enough years you realize the answer never changes.
Lift weights. Move your body. Eat nutrient dense foods most of the time. Sleep. Hydrate. Reduce Stress. And keep repeating. It’s not exciting. It’s not trendy. But it works. It always has. Shout out for the boring basics. I’m fine being a basic bitch.
One thing I wish more women understood is that it’s not too late. Not art 40, 50, 60 and beyond. Your body will respond to what you repeatedly do. Give it strength and movement, nutrient dense food and enough rest and it will fight like hell to meet you there. The problem is most people quit too early. Or they keep waiting for that motivation. Still waiting on that one myself. LOL.
What actually works is a lot less glamorous. You show up. Even when you don’t feel like it. You do the boring basics. Then you wake up the next day and you do it again And again. It’s for the life haul. That’s the real magic.
My dad didn’t get the chance to turn 62. I did. So I’m not wasting the years I get. Every workout. Every ride. Every decision to take care of my health means a little more. I’m not chasing perfection. I’m just showing up. And after al these years one this is still true. Consistency ages better than motivation.
And aging is a privilege.
Ain’t a lot of boys named Gary these days… Man it’s been a while since I’ve written. But today the pull is strong. I heard a new song. Gary by Stephen Wilson, Jr. Songs always pull the memories out of hiding… But grief has its …
At what point to we become accepting and maybe even content? As a victim of diet culture and body image issues for what seems like my whole life, I am leaning in to contentment. All the cliche phrases come to mind about just fucking love …
Today is my birthday.
Today I turn 59.
I’ve been thinking about it all week and have been contemplating what to write about it.
Aging is a privilege. It’s also inevitable. Age with awesomeness instead of dread.
I’m not trying to fight it. I’m trying to live my life with purpose. We only get one life. I see women (and I’m sure men do it to) trying to get as skinny as possible. Or they are trying to look as young as possible. They are trying to be the way they were in high school or college. Our bodies change. They change A LOT. We will never be the same way we were in high school or college. That’s a good thing. Our bodies go through so many changes. It’s so cool. Embrace instead of hate.
In the grand scheme of things, will it matter if you aren’t the skinniest you’ve ever been? Will it matter you aren’t the heaviest you’ve every been?
What does matter?
I’m getting closer to the age my dad was when he died. He had turned 60 about six weeks before that day in June. He lived his life. He had fun. I want to be that way.
How does someone age? However the fuck they want.
Age is an idea. People try to tell other people how they should live or what they should wear or how they should look and even how they should act.
If you know me at all, you know that’s not me. I will wear what I want. I will live the best I can and I will look the way I want. I want optimal health. Anyone who knows me, knows I want that for them too.
It looks different for everyone and feels different for everyone.
The only limitations are the ones we place on ourselves. In our minds. How we age is our choice. Nobody else’s.
Age the way you want to.
It’s a privilege.
This prompt is a good one. When I was little we lived in Hurley, SD. We moved to Pierre when I started Kindergarten. I played with my cousins all the time. My earliest memory is when I was probably around 4. There was a giant …
Brave – Courageous, dauntless, perhaps a little bit daring, a person who is brave faces dangerous or difficult situations with courage. Do it brave. That’s how I look at myself. Doing things that are uncomfortable. Talking into my phone camera every morning, usually around 4:30am, telling …
Taking part in the bloganuary writing prompts. A writing prompt every day during January.
Today is “What is something you want to achieve this year?”
I can take this one two ways. A business aspect and a physical/health aspect. Let’s start with the physical/health aspect.
This year my focus is going to be strength. So many times as women age, the strength training or thinking we should be strong drops off. Or in many cases, women think it’s too late to even start strength training. I call BS on that one. I call being fearful and not believing on that one. Sure, it can be scary to just start lifting, especially if that is something you have never really done before.
The comfort zone carries a lot of weight. We want to stay there, because it’s um well, comfortable. Why should we venture away from it? What would prompt a person to do that? Something needs to pull a person away. The pull looks like wanting to feel stronger. The pull looks like wanting to be better. We want all the time. Until we take the action though, nothing will change. So I plan to take that action this year. I will be setting monthly strength goals. That is something I want to achieve this year. The follow through will be the achievement for me.
The business aspect. As I am a nutrition and lifestyle coach, I plan to focus more on my business this year. I want to work on signing more clients. I want to help as many people as I am able. Again this comes down to a comfort thing. The fear is always there. The more I learn, the less I feel like I know. That is a super common thing, by the way.
Also, the comfort zone. There it is again. I say it all the time. Get out of your comfort zone. I need to tell myself that here as well. Do things messy. Take that messy action. Just take action. Something is always better than nothing. Again, monthly goals will be the action plan here.
So, today I start with the blank slate of 2023. The blank page of Chapter One.
Nothing looks as good as healthy feels. We want to believe that the outside matters more than the inside, but it doesn’t. You can’t judge that book cover, no matter how much you want to. You can’t know someone’s level of health just by looking …
this is 59