Eating healthy

Eating healthy is a popular topic in fitness, health and wellness circles, be it an internet article, social media content or conversations among fitness, health and wellness enthusiasts. 

An internet search defines healthy eating as "focusing on whole, nutrient-dense foods. It emphasizes protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and whole grains." 

On first impression, this reads like a good explanation, but I beg to differ and have defined healthy eating differently in my fitness, health and wellness journey. 

For me, healthy eating is eating only the amount of food necessary to fuel your body to support the life you're living. 

This food should be nourishing and satiating, as you determine, and support your daily energy and strength requirements, but consumed only in amounts to achieve your bodyweight goal. 

If you're at your target bodyweight, healthy eating is eating only the calories necessary to maintain your bodyweight. 

If you're underweight, healthy eating is eating more calories than you expend from your daily living activities. 

If you're overweight, healthy eating is eating less calories than you expend from your daily living activities. 

Note that my definition of healthy eating focuses on the amount of food you eat, not your food choices. 

Like doughnuts? Eat whatever you like but stay within your calories allotment. 

Like bacon? The same, and this is so for all your other food desires, stay within your calories allotment. 

What you'll quickly realize is that poorer food choices, while they may give you a joyful moment, will leave you insufficiently nourished and satiated, and will likely not support your daily energy and strength requirements. 

You'll likely make better food choices the following day because healthy eating is only eating the calories needed to help you maintain or achieve your target bodyweight. 

It's analogous to spending your paycheck. Do it foolishly and you won't get a good financial result because when you spend all your money, there's no more left until next payday. 

Your fitness, health and wellness mileage may vary, but this is how I eat healthy. 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum 

Some people say

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Some people say they're fitter and stronger now than when they were younger.  If this is their truth, it's because they weren't the fittest and strongest they could've been when younger.

There's definitely an inverse relationship between age and peak fitness and strength performance, regardless of what some people say.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum 

Crapping my pants

I occasionally get asked why I keep meticulous training journals and videos of my fitness endeavors. Is it really necessary?

Yes, I reply to them and myself. I do this so that when I'm a very old man, sitting in a rocking chair, viewing my fitness training journals and videos, I can take great delight fondly remembering the fitness things I used to do, while crapping my pants. 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

2026 fitness and health goals

Happy New Year 2026 greetings Pierini Fitness sports fans.  Wishing that all your aspirations and dreams for the new year are realized.

 

Some of your goals may be fitness and health related; mine are too.  I’d like to share with you my 2026 fitness and health goals.  Mine is a list of five and here they are:

 

Goal #1 – Continue being prescription medicine 

According to one internet source, the Merk Manual Consumer Version writes that “older adults tend to take more medications than younger people because they are more likely to have more than one chronic medical disorder, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or arthritis.”

 

This source goes on to say that “approximately 90% of older adults regularly take at least 1 prescription medication, and 43% regularly take at least 5 different prescription medications.”

 

Thus far, Pierini Fitness has been blessed with good health and does not take any prescription medicine, so my first goal is to continue being prescription medicine free in 2026.  This goal has an asterisk next to it in that if I somehow develop a bacterial infection and take an antibiotic briefly, this won’t preclude me from achieving my goal.

Goal #2 - Complete 100 burpees with jumps in under ten minutes

Burpees continue to be my go-to exercise for cardiovascular conditioning and strength endurance and I’ll continue regularly doing them in 2026.  My best time completing 100 burpees with a jump is 9 minutes and 42 seconds that I did on May 1, 2024.  Afterwards, I relaxed and have since done them at a slower gentleman’s pace.

 

My second goal is to complete 100 burpees with jumps in ten minutes or less by my 71^st birthday, which is less than two months away, and I’m currently training to accomplish this.  If I achieve this goal, this will be great but if I don’t, it’s not the end of my fitness world and I’ll keep on chugging along with a regular serving of burpees for my fitness nutrition.

Goal #3 – Run, run, run, and have fun, fun, fun in 2026

I’ve had an on-again and off-again relationship with running as a regular fitness training activity; currently it’s “on.” 

 

Currently my relationship with running as a fitness training activity is on again, so I plan on entering a 5k distance fun run in 2026 with a goal of completing it at a pace of 8 minutes and 45 seconds per mile. 

 

The last run I entered a fun run was on July 4, 2024.  It was a 5-mile distance, and my time to complete it was 52 minutes and 31 seconds, a 10 minutes and 29 seconds mile pace.  This is slower from 25 years earlier when I could run this distance at a 7 minute and 10 second mile pace.  Gracefully aging and my lack of consistent running has created this slower pace. 

 

Let’s see if I can do something about it and achieve my third goal mile pace this year.

Goal #4 – Train smart, rest and recover, and remain injury free in 2026

I’ll train smart with plenty of rest and recovery to remain injury free in 2026.  While I may engage in pedal to the metal workouts from time to time, I’ll always be mindful that I’m an older man, training for upper percentile, age-adjusted cardiovascular conditioning, and strength endurance.  

I’m not training to make the 2028 Olympic team but to gracefully age and enjoy my life. 

Training smart, with plenty of rest and recovery, is how I’ll plan on remaining injury free in 2026.

Goal #5 – Lighter and leaner in 2026

I’m training to weigh 172 lbs. by my 71^st birthday in less than two months.  This morning, I tipped the scale at 174 lbs. so I’m getting close.

A second goal is to weigh 161 lbs. by the first day of Summer 2026. This was my weight in late 1972 when I took my Army entrance physical exam.

I was a dripping wet 17-year-old in late 1972, over 50 years ago, when I had this physical exam.  Three years later, in November 1975, I tipped the scale at 169 lbs. for my Army discharge physical exam.

At this older age of my life, lighter is better.  It makes it easier for me to do burpees, pull-ups and running, fitness training exercises I regularly do.  Plus, it’s easier on my old man knees and hips.

We’ll see if I accomplish my fifth and final goal.  I’ll relax my dietary discipline once I achieve it and may climb back to 169 lbs. which, as I previously said, was my Army discharge physical exam weight.  The last time I weighed this was in 2020.  

Tell me one of your goals.

Take care, Pierini Fitness sports fans, be safe and enjoy the new year.  I’m Pierini Fitness #FITAT70 and blessed, signing off. Until we meet again, I’ll be diligently working to achieve my 2026 fitness and health goals.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Merry Christmas 2025 greetings!

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Aging is not for sissies

With over nine months in septuagenarian-land, Pierini Fitness now regularly identifies himself as an old man.  Honestly, it’s not a label that I view unfavorably, rather it embraces the golden years existence-sphere to which I have successfully arrived.

 

I’m happy to be aging because it beats the alternative.  I’ve been aging since the day I was born and will continue doing so until that unknown date in the future when my life ends.   

 

But the old man I am now is different than the young man I once was.  While I enjoy good health and physical fitness, there are many reminders of my old man status.  I don’t see as well, I don’t hear as well, and I move slower, unless I’m intentionally doing an intense speed-oriented workout. 

 

I don’t have many aches and pains thus far, knock on wood, but my wrists and hands do hurt which could be arthritis-light, or the result of the cumulative things I’ve done in my fitness training that have created this result. My knees, hips and shoulders feel fine, but they sometimes wake up to stiffness, and they don’t have the flexibility they once did.

 

Overall, today, I’m doing pretty good for a 70-year-old man, but it can all change in a moment.  This I’m fully aware of and am prepared as an old man can be.  When this day comes, my thinking about aging will undoubtedly be different and that is, aging is not for sissies.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Chapters left to be written

Longevity expert Peter Attia has been making the social media rounds this past week at a higher pace than normal after appearing on the television news program 60 Minutes last Sunday. If his name doesn’t ring your bell, he’s a Canadian American author, physician and researcher known for his work in longevity medicine. He’s one of many peddling to the crowd of those wanting to live forever. 

 

I didn’t view this 60 Minutes segment because I don’t own a television, a luxury for “rich people.” But I was able to read various internet articles and view several videos highlighting his message. I won’t repeat all that he had to say, but there were a couple of soundbites striking a chord with me.  

 

The one hitting me like a hard slap in the face was him talking about the “marginal decade,” defined as the final 10 to 15 years of life when many are plagued with sickness and immobility; when strength, balance, and independence collapse for most.  He explained that at age 75, both men and women fall off a cliff. At this population level, he explains, it’s unmistakable what happens at the age of 75.  That’s what we’re up against. 

 

His longevity ministry evangelizes that the best “drug” to delay physical and cognitive decline is exercise, something he does in large doses.  He personally targets 10 hours of exercise a week and what he does includes cardiovascular training to burn fat and improve his VO2 max (a measure of respiratory fitness) and weightlifting to maintain his strength and muscle mass.  It was reassuring to know that the exercise he advocates for longevity is what Pierini Fitness does daily. And I best continue because I’m less than five years away from falling off this cliff he talks about. 

 

So, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing because it serves me well.  As social media fitness guy Chandler Marchman recently said, “If you always do what you did, you’ll always get what you always got.” I like what I’m doing and what it has got me in my upper percentile fitness, health, and wellness department. 

 

Talking to myself, I’ll keep training knowing that my gracefully aging physical fitness is a success story with chapters left to be written. 

 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum