Easy on the eyes

Happy New Year 2020 my fellow middle-aged man brother from a different mother.  Please accept my best wishes that all your 2020 dreams and desires are realized in the new year.

I hope to finally be back on the Pierini Fitness saddle and start delivering a more regular dose of middle-aged man reflections about living and dying, gracefully aging and trying to live a good and honest life.  My efforts lately have been spotty which happens from time to time.

The new year brings a new decade of life and with it is a realization that Pierini Fitness – the blog - now covers three decades of cyberspace presence.  That’s not suggesting I’ve been at it for 30 years but, nonetheless, it now has a cyberspace presence covering three decades - 2000-2009, 2010-2019 and, now, starting 2020 decade.  God willing, hopefully there will be many more.  

So, where should I start with this first post of a new decade.  Maybe with some rambling and eventually something will come from it.  

How about sharing my Winter 2020 fitness goals for starters?  I do have some, continuing with a season-based theme of fitness goals that give me fitness training focus while having fun chasing my middle-aged man fitness, health and wellness goals.

These are the Winter 2020 fitness goals I’ve set for myself:

1 - Complete a single set of 18 pull-ups.  My best recent effort is 16 reps.

2 - Morning weigh-in no more than 175 lbs. with 170-175 lbs. being ideal weight range.  My average morning weight in 2019 was 173.22 lbs.  

3 - Complete 100 burpees in 10:00.  Yikes! - this will be a challenge and it may take until Summer 2020 before I get close to achieving this goal.  My best recent effort is 11:44 but it would take longer now after being on vacation for 15-days and hardly working out.  

4 – Perform a pull-up hang hold of 2:20.

5 – Perform a handstand hold against wall for 1:30.

6 - Make further progress lowering my body fat percentage with a Summer 2020 goal of 16.0 percent and be at 16.5 percent by end of this winter.

None of these goals will make me a more virtuous and wholesome middle-aged man.  Some of my harshest critics may think I’m chasing wind and being vain with goals like these.

Good for them being able to complete a thought!  There’s nothing wrong under the sun having goals, whatever they may be.  They give us direction as we navigate the turbulent world in which we live.  

The hard work I’ve done since reporting to Pierini Fitness boot camp last August 31, 2018 has been rewarding.  It’s enabled me to reclaim my middle-aged man fitness, health and wellness with upper-percentile strength endurance and cardiovascular-respiratory condition.  But, there’s more work to do and I’ll do it in 2020!

One of the “fruits” of my hard work has been a more pleasing-to-the-eyes body appearance, at least in my eyes.  The middle-aged man paunch is gone, my knees don’t hurt, my face doesn’t look like a chipmunk that’s been harvesting chestnuts from my previous gluttonous adventures, and my across-the-board fitness measures are all up.

Mrs. Pierini Fitness, my chief critic, did give me some honesty perspective recently.  She told me that while all my hard training has given me a more fit, lean and mean-appearing body appearance, the weight I’ve lost has made my face look like a 70-year old man.

Yikes!  

Is it now, like, when I ring the doorbell and the person on the other side says, “Who’s there?” that my answer is “Freddy Krueger calling.”

Seems like I’ve got some other work to do.

And, what might that be?

To see if I can make my face easy on the eyes.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum