23 And Me: What’s The Use?

Richard Sullivan @ Age 53

The US Marines have a great slogan: “Be All You Can Be.” Fitness is not about who or what the other guy or girl is or has, or about regaining the body and tight skin you once had as a 20-year-old, or erasing the so-called ravages of time. It’s about doing the best we can with what we have right now in the present time. 

People who have come to view their body as already “wrecked” or “hopeless” reject weight loss or strength training or stopping smoking using the same disclaimer: “What’s the use? It’s too late for me.”

Carting around 50 lbs. on your ass or waist 24/7 is crazy enough if you’re 20, but at 60 it’s both exhausting and potentially deadly. At best it diminishes your physical ability to perform everyday tasks. At worst it shortens your lifespan, either by initiating otherwise avoidable health problems, or by preventing you from escaping a crashed automobile, a burning home, a mugger.

The cure for “what’s the use?” is usually a good fright, one’s emerging intact on the other side of a situation that scared the shit out of them. People shouldn’t be required to nearly die in order to have that wakeup call. If you’re over the age of 23 and you are not strength training, you are deteriorating. If you are 23 and not strength training, your metabolism is slowing down. The downhill slide begins for us around age 23 when we have finished fully developing from child to adult, but it doesn’t have to.