I often think about something Samuel Wilson Fussell wrote in his memoir Muscle. At the height of his bodybuilding obsession, he resented the hours between one workout and the next. Training made life bearable. Everything else was simply waiting.
I understand that feeling better than I wish I did.
Every workout is Christmas morning.
The days between workouts are spent writing exercise programs the way children write Christmas lists. Should I begin with kettlebell swings? Goblet squats? Romanian deadlifts? Reverse lunges? The anticipation becomes its own form of pleasure. I don’t merely look forward to training. I ache for it.
I’m almost sixty-five, and my one-hour kettlebell sessions in the garage have become my transcendental escape. They feel less like exercise than boarding a flight to a Norwegian sweat lodge hidden deep within a pine forest. There, steam rises through the trees like incense. The air is clean. My mind finally grows quiet. For an hour, I take a vacation from my own neuroses.
Age, however, imposes its own theology.
Injury is now the unforgivable sin.
At twenty-five, I could bully my body into submission. At sixty-five, my body is the senior partner in the relationship. It insists on negotiation. I have to lift lighter, move smarter, recover longer, yet still wander close enough to my physical limits that my muscles receive the message without my tendons filing a formal complaint. Fifty years under the barbell have taught me where that narrow path lies. The art is approaching the cliff without tumbling over it.
I cannot exaggerate how much I treasure those three weekly workouts.
Three.
No more.
My body has cast its vote.
The remaining days belong to the Schwinn Airdyne.
Calling it “cardio” feels charitable. The Airdyne is less Norwegian sweat lodge than medieval torture device, a machine apparently designed by monks who believed salvation was achieved only through prolonged respiratory distress. If I could replace every Airdyne session with kettlebells, I would do it tomorrow. Unfortunately, my joints have become more persuasive than my enthusiasm.
Training, however, is only half the bargain.
Then comes eating.
Or, more precisely, eating the right amount.
People often say, “Just eat healthy.”
That’s charming.
I can eat salmon, berries, oatmeal, Greek yogurt, beans, and vegetables until I resemble a prosperous bear preparing for hibernation. My problem has never been distinguishing broccoli from doughnuts. My problem is that my default setting is abundance.
Real nutrition isn’t merely choosing healthy foods.
It’s choosing enough healthy foods—and then stopping.
That is where the real battle begins.
Like most people, I live with a steady stream of food noise humming in the background of my consciousness. Portion control doesn’t silence that noise. It merely lowers the volume enough that I can hear myself think.
Yesterday was a perfect example.
Breakfast was oatmeal, protein powder, soy milk, and berries. Lunch was a shrimp-and-tuna salad. After my afternoon nap came plain Greek yogurt with mango. Dinner was salmon over a salad with white rice and garbanzo beans, followed by an apple.
Roughly 2,400 calories.
Objectively, I ate well.
Subjectively, I was hungry for most of the day.
Not Hungry with a capital H.
Not the desperate hunger of starvation.
Just small-h hunger.
And over the years I have learned something the fitness influencers rarely advertise between shirtless selfies and discount codes:
Successful weight management is usually hungrier than unsuccessful weight management.
If you’re never a little hungry, there’s a good chance you’re eating enough to maintain exactly the body you already have.
That isn’t a tragedy.
It’s simply arithmetic.
If I want the leaner, stronger body my kettlebell training is trying to build, then I must accept small-h hunger as the price of admission.
So I make peace with it.
Because somewhere in the distance, beyond another measured meal and another day of anticipation, I can already see that Norwegian sweat lodge rising from the forest. Steam drifts through the evergreens like a veil. The kettlebells are waiting.
And, like Christmas morning, it will be worth every hour I spent waiting.
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