Balderdash and poppycock!

Earlier this month, the American Psychological Association (APA) announced that for the first time ever, it’s releasing guidelines to help psychologists work with men and boys.

Its concern is that there’s something wrong with men because they commit 90 percent of the homicides in the United States and represent 77 percent of homicide victims.  They tell us we’re more likely to be victimized by violent crime and 3.5 times more likely than our lady counterparts to die by suicide. 

And, if that’s not enough, we’re told our average life expectancy is almost 5 years less than women.  The APA’s litany goes on and on, but I’ll spare you of the statistical details.

Now, no thanks to these new APA guidelines, the psychologists of the world whose mission it is to tell us men that we’re all nuts, will also be teaching that traditional masculinity is, for the most part, harmful.  Men socialized in this way, we’ll be told, are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors.

Quick to drink this Kool-Aid was Proctor and Gamble, an American multi-national consumer goods corporation founded by traditional men and whose products include the Gillette brand traditionally-masculine shaving creams and razors marketed towards young men wanting to be traditionally-masculine, and older traditionally-masculine men.

Thirty years ago, Gillette introduced its popular tagline, “The best a man can get” which it defined as an inspirational statement reflecting standards that many men strive to achieve. 

Now, Proctor and Gamble, and I’m sure others to follow, has not so cleverly yet sublimely given a two-thumbs down to traditionally masculinity, doing it slyly with its own descriptive tagline of “toxic masculinity.”

It’s a misguided attempt destined to fail that will fall upon deaf ears of most middle-aged men in America and around the world who have a correct understanding of traditional masculinity and what it means to be a traditional man.

America was made great thanks to traditional masculinity and traditional men who exhibited this time-tested and desirous virtue.  And, collectively, we traditionally masculine men will make America great again.  It’s what we want for our sons and our grandsons and succeeding generations of males to be born that we’ll never know.

Well thanks APA, for letting this middle-age man know what you think about traditional masculinity.  As ambassador of all middle-aged man around the world, the Pierini Fitness gut reaction response to your guidelines and new mission is thanks but no thanks.

APA’s guidelines aren’t relevant to the middle-aged men of Pierini Fitness, traditionally masculine men who think before acting, and are constantly reflecting about living and dying, gracefully-aging and trying our best to live good and honest lives.

Therefore, there are two words that best describe what we collectively think about this new APA nonsense.   

Balderdash and poppycock! 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Tools in my Pierini Fitness toolbox

For many years, this middle-aged man belonged to a gym and that’s where he went to exercise and chase his fitness, health and wellness pursuits.  In June 2015, however, I made a minimalist “business decision” to end my gym membership and be a fitness vagabond, getting my workouts in at various local parks, a spare room in my office and, occasionally, at home.  For some reason, working out at home isn’t something I do well.  I need to go somewhere for best results.  The various local parks I frequent are my training landscapes of choice.

Along with this minimalist fitness lifestyle, the tools in my fitness toolbox are few in count but get my job done.  I have two categories of tools, fitness equipment tools and fitness technology tools.  Today, I’d like to share with you the few items in my minimalist fitness toolbox.

What’s the difference between being a fitness frugalist and a fitness minimalist? - click here

Fitness equipment tools

First up is my Tommy Kono-autographed “Louisville Slugger” wooden pole.

My dear departed friend, American’s greatest Olympic weightlifter, Tommy Kono made this and gave it to be about 10 years ago when I was training in the Olympic lifts.  I use it to warm up my shoulders before a workout since a lot of what I do places great demands on my shoulders.

Here’s a dated picture of me using my Tommy Kono-autographed “Louisville Slugger” wooden pole:  

Many years ago, I made a video demonstrating the shoulder dislocates and overhead squat warm-up drill I use to loosen up my shoulders.  Here it is:

Here’s the autograph:

RIP Tommy Kono.

Next up is my kettlebell (KB) tools that I use the most.  I own three “bells” – a pair of 20kg KBs and one 24kg KB.  After researching various brands, I settled on Ader.  Here are pictures like the “bells” I own: 

I own two of these

I own one 24kg KB

Here are a couple of my favorite KB workouts:

Now that I’m back on the saddle at Pierini Fitness, I hope to make and share other KB complex training videos in the future.  Wish me well in my pursuits.

Next up is a pair of 5-lb. dumbbells I own.  I don’t use them often but when I do it’s to generally do a Heavy Hands workout. 

Here’s an explanation of one workout I do when using these 5-lb. dumbbells:

A weekly date with HeavyHands

Here’s another workout I created to do at work when I’m very busy and don’t have time for a longer workout:

Next up is a 12-inch high-quality step box I purchased late last year.  I keep it at my office and use it there.  I use it for high-volume step exercise activities generally done in superset fashion along with another exercise like, for example, two-hand KB swings perform for multiple rounds.

One tool I own but don’t use is my jump rope.  I prefer to run or walk briskly because doing so is easier on my knees than the rope.  But there’s no doubt that the rope is an excellent tool that should be in most middle-aged men’s fitness tool box.  I reserve the right to take it out of storage and use it from time to time.

Finally, since I perform pull-ups and chin-ups in my training, I go to a local park that has a good pull-up station.  I owned one for many years that I used at home but a move several years ago made it necessary to get rid of it. 

Fitness technology tools

I’m a heart rate monitor junky and have been for many years.  Late last year I decided to “relapse” after being in recovery and not using my heart rate monitor for a while.  It was time to update this technology tool.  After much research, I learned that the “new kid of the block” was Garmin so I jumped ship after having been a faithful Polar user for many, many years.  I ended up buying a Garmin Forerunner 35 and am extremely pleased with my purchase.

Garmin Forerunner 35

What’s nice about Garmin is that you can create a Garmin Connect account at their website allowing the workout information captured on the watch to transfer to your account and get lots of good training performance analytics.  Since I’m an analytic guy, I really like this feature a lot.  Additionally, this Garmin Connect information automatically syncs to my MyFitnessPal account – see below.

Next up, is my iPhone app at MyFitnessPal.  I previously talked about MyFitnessPal in an earlier Pierini Fitness blogflection.  You can get a free membership by going to MyFitnessPal.com but I chose to upgrade a get a premium membership so that my visits there would be advertising-free, and I could have access to some other analytical tools.  I believe I pay about $50 a year for this premium membership and, thus far, it’s worth every cent of it.  I use this app daily.

Last technology tool in my fitness toolbox is my most recent purchase.  It’s a Withings Body+ Body Composition Wi-Fi Scale and I use it for my daily morning weigh-ins.  I understand that Nokia purchased Withings so sometimes the unit I purchased will be described as Nokia and sometimes as Withings.

Some fitness people say you shouldn’t weigh yourself daily, but this middle-aged man takes exception.  I’m an analytical fitness dude and what my data daily.  What’s neat about this scale is that the information automatically syncs to my MyFitnessPal account.

Finally, not pictured is a blood pressure home unit that I use periodically to see how I’m doing in the blood pressure department.  Thus far, my blood pressure is excellent, and I want to keep it that way.  Getting a reading from time to time is the best way to make sure all is well.

A closing comment is that everything I’ve shared with you is solely to explain what I use in my middle-aged man fitness, health and wellness journey.  Unlike some bloggers, I don’t have any affinity agreements with any of these companies to earn spending money.  I make my money practicing my profession.   Everything I share here is solely for the joy of sharing information that’s hopefully helpful to you.

My dear fellow middle-aged men fitness brothers from different mothers, these are the tools in my Pierini Fitness toolbox.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

The mathematical proof of CICO

In my last reflection, I shared a proposition that the ideal weight for a middle-aged man is what they weighed at age 18 plus 10 percent.  There were several assumptions I made for this proposition to be valid.  You may want to revisit or initially read that reflection before reading today’s reflection. 

This middle-aged man is in a weight loss mode with a birthday weight goal of 177.0 lbs.  He’s been using the tools available at MyFitnessPal – www.myfitnesspal.com - to guide him in his journey.  Today, I’ll share the mathematical proof of the CICO approach I’ve been using to get me where I want to be.  I’ll use actual information reported by MyFitnessPal for December 2018 to crunch the numbers that follow.

By the way, CICO is an acronym for “calories in calories out”.  It’s a weight loss approach that’s been around for a long time and expresses that losing weight ultimately comes down to burning more calories than calories consumed.  In other words, you must create a calorie deficit.  To lose a lb. of weight, that deficit must be 3,500 calories.

On December 1^st, I weighed 190.6 lbs. and on December 31^st, I weighed 186.0 lbs so I lost 4.6 lbs. of bodyweight for the month.  Check my math because legend has it, I’m not good with numbers.

If I lost 4.6 lbs. of bodyweight in December 2018, this means that I had a monthly calorie deficit of 16,100 calories.  Here’s the math:

3,500 calories x 4.6 lbs. = 16,100 calories

Let’s compare the above with what my nutrition and exercise diaries report and considering my basic metabolic rate and sedentary lifestyle.  Mathematically:

Calories in (CI) = calories consumed during December 2018, and

Calories out (CO) = calories expended during December 2018 – my basic metabolic rate plus an allowance for sedentary lifestyle activities plus calories burned from exercising. 

My daily average calories in (CI) for December 2018

MyFitnessPal reports I consumed the following calories during December 2018: 

Average daily calories	1,930
Carbohydrate grams percentage	56%
Protein grams percentage	15%
Fat grams percentage	29%
Total	100%

My daily average calories out (CO) for December 2018

Using an online calculator at www.tdecalculator.net, I calculated my daily calories expended at 2,186 based for a 63-year old male, height 5’11”, weight 190 lbs. 22 percent bodyfat (my best guess) and a sedentary lifestyle, the wicked truth.  

To this I added the average daily calories expended by using information reported by my MyFitnessPal.  My average daily calories expended from exercise was 260 calories.  Note that I didn’t exercise every day, so the 260 calories daily average was calculated by taking the total calories expended for December 2018 and dividing it by 31 days.

So, my daily average calories out (CO) for December 2018 was 2,446 calories (2,186 calories basic metabolic rate above considering my sedentary lifestyle plus exercise calories of 260) for a daily average total of 2,446.

Now, let’s do the math.

Daily average calories expended	2,446
Daily average calories consumed	1,930
Average daily calories deficit	516
Number of days in December	31
Total calories deficit for December	15,996
Number of lbs. equivalent	4.6

Note that the number of lbs. equivalent of 4.6 lbs. was calculated by taking the total calories deficit for December 2018 and dividing it by 3,500.  This is the calculated weight loss I should have achieved for December 2018 based on the calories deficit for the month.

This calculated expected CICO weight loss agrees with my actual weight loss of 4.6 lbs.

Note that my way of eating wasn’t low carbohydrate or low fat.  Many believe the two are evil for people trying to lose weight.  None of that mattered to me.  I focused on eating what I wanted but less, yet enough to fuel my body to perform my exercise workouts with some decency of performance.  A calorie is a calorie and that’s the beauty of CICO.

And this, my fellow middle-aged men, is your lesson today of the mathematical proof of CICO.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Pierini Fitness has joined Twitter!

Pierini Fitness has joined the Twitter social media network to provide another venue for all middle-aged men of the world to have access to middle-aged man reflections and pearls of wisdom to guide them in their fitness, health and wellness journey.

It will supplement the middle-aged man reflections about living and dying, gracefully-aging and trying to live a good and honest life appearing here at Pierini Fitness.  And, it’ll share daily affirmations to motivate you to chase your fitness, health and wellness goals with the intensity necessary for success.

Finally, it’ll give you advance notice of upcoming Pierini Fitness content. Visit and follow along at https://twitter.com/PieriniFitness to learn of upcoming Pierini Fitness content that’ll be published tomorrow and next Monday.  You can access us at Twitter by clicking the Twitter icon appearing on the right sidebar of this page.

Yes, my fellow middle-aged men brothers from different mothers, Pierini Fitness has joined Twitter!

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

18 years plus 10 percent

How much should a middle-aged man weigh?

Good question and there’s no shortage of experts and published expert opinions to quickly answer the question.  Problem is, nobody asked Pierini Fitness, the self-appointed ambassador of all middle-aged man around the world.

I’ve had my thoughts about this for a long time.  I’ve shared them vocally with various middle-aged men but have never shared them here at Pierini Fitness until today.

I recently shared my thoughts at the MyFitnessPal Community, a large discussion forum community of people generally having a common goal of losing weight.  I’ve joined this community and use the MyFitnessPal app which I think is outstanding.  More about this, perhaps, on a different day.

Anyway, this was a discussion topic post I made there verbatim:

"I haven’t spent much time here but hope to, starting in late February when I’m projected to be at my ideal weight range which I’ll call 177-182 lbs. my single point target weight is 177 lbs. I’m 5’11” in the height department.

It’s based on my belief that, as a middle-aged man (soon to be age 64), my ideal weight is no more than 10 percent higher than what I weighed at age 18. I propose this is a benchmark for all middle-aged men.

Hear me out before you sic the attack dogs on me.

This proposition assumes you were pretty much done growing at age 18 and were neither super skinny, fat or heavily-muscled due to competitive sports. Essentially, you were an active late-stage teenager and entry-level young man. That was me and I weighed 161 lbs. for my Army physical, circa 1972.

Three years later, I weighed 169 lbs. for my Army exit physical.

So, using my 10 percent plus proposition, this pegs my ideal weight at 177 lbs. and that’s my target ideal weight expected to be achieved on or around my 64th birthday.

Now, I would modify this higher if I was chasing a more heavily-muscled outcome but that isn’t a goal at this point in my life. My benchmarks are, as Jeff Cavaliere of ATHLEAN-X website describes, light, lean and strong. I do want to be above average in the cardiovascular department.

Release the attack dogs!"

Over a dozen people added to the discussion.  Some agreed but more took exception to my proposition.  Honestly, I believe some of these naysayers took my comments too personally.  Rather than get in a back-and-forth debate with them, I chose not to but did add the following clarifying comment:

"If you read my initial post, my assumptions were that this mythical 18-year old was done growing, not skinny or fat or heavily-muscled. Basically, normal or average.

The 10 percent allows for an American reality that most of us are less active than we were in high school. Realize my frame of reference is my generation when we walked to school, played outdoors and had PE class every day in high school. There were no video games or computers or smartphones.

Not asking anyone to accept my proposition. My guess is that those who won’t are those who would also reject the BMI benchmarks."

There was one comment that I thought added the greatest perspective to this discussion:

"I propose that all middle-aged men should be more flexible with their goal weight.

You have never been this age before and when you get to goal you may realize that what you thought was ideal actually isn't.

Which was my experience based on my simple initial goal of my favorite adult weight. I found it was too high when I got there so I adjusted in a series of steps until I found my ideal weight for now rather than 30 to 40 years ago. And after maintaining a while and adding some muscle I adjusted back up again. Especially for someone training your ideal weight isn't set in stone forever.

My 18 YO weight would be too low for me now, my weight when at my muscular peak in my late 20's would be too high. Both weights are irrelevant to me now, I don't have the same goals or capabilities I had then.

For comparison my current best weight is 168 lbs at 5'9 for my current fitness goals."

Another benchmark that I’m sure you’re aware of is the Body Mass Index, or BMI.

(BMI) is a measurement of a person’s weight with respect to his or her height. It is more of an indicator than a direct measurement of a person’s total body fat.

BMI might correlate with total body fat, meaning that as the BMI score increases, so does a person’s total body fat. This isn’t always the case for athletes or other heavily-muscled people.

The World Health Organization, which I take everything they publish with a grain of salt, defines an adult who has a BMI between 25 and 29.9 as overweight - an adult who has a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese - a BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight, and between 18.5 to 24.9 a healthy weight.

So, with a current bodyweight in the 185-lb. range, according to WHO, I’m overweight with a calculated BMI of 25.8.  At my targeted weight of 177.0 lbs., my BMI would be 24.7 and WHO would classify me as being at a healthy weight.

Let me dial my life clock back to a picture of what I weighed when close to the 161 lbs I weighted for my Army physical exam, circa 1972.  Probably the best photo I have is one taken about two years later while stationed in the Republic of South Korea.  I had a 10-speed bicycle that I used for my primary transportation and like a lot of young soldiers, I walked a lot.

My best guess is that I weighed around 165 lbs. in this photo, close to the 161-lb. starting weight I mentioned earlier when I said: “My ideal weight is no more than 10 percent higher than what I weighed at age 18.”  

So, taking this 161-lb. starting weight and adding 10 percent to it, the Pierini Fitness middle-aged man bodyweight benchmark calculates to a bodyweight of 177-lbs. and that’s what I’m currently training to weigh by my 64^th birthday coming up in less than six weeks. At this bodyweight, my BMI would be 24.7 and I would no longer be considered “overweight.”

By way of comparison, here’s a current photo taken a little over one week ago:

My bodyweight this day was 186.2 lbs. which calculates to a BMI of 26.0.  According to the WHO, this makes me overweight.

Share your thoughts in the comments section below about my Pierini Fitness middle-aged man ideal bodyweight benchmark of 18 years plus 10 percent

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum