Three things I've learned from my daughter Melanie

Mel and me a few years ago trying desperately to get a New York City subway pass vending machine to cooperate...

My daughter Melanie, our fourth child in birth order and for a time the baby of the family until Jack came along, turned 25 yesterday. I like having a kid who was born in 2000 because it's always easy to remember exactly how old they are.

More importantly, though, I just love Mel. Always makes me laugh, always impresses me, and always has a good story to tell.

Here are three things I've learned from Melanie while watching her grow into adulthood:

(1) Successful people are usually structured people

You don't have to be obsessive about it like me (endless to-do lists, an extreme creature of habit, etc.), but other than a few fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants geniuses, most people I know who are doing well in life are those whose days are at least somewhat planned out. Mel is someone who needs structure in her life, but beyond that, she has figured out exactly what kind and what degree of structure works best for her. There's a trick to that, and I'm not sure I've yet figured it out. Mel still has a way to go, just as I did at age 25, but she has reinforced this valuable lesson for me time and again.

(2) Be ready to pivot

Mel came out of college with a marketing degree. Her first real professional job was in a marketing role, and it didn't take her long to realize marketing wasn't for her. So now she works for a financial services firm. Finance could be her long-term home, or this could be a role that pays the bills while she figures out what she really wants to do. The point is, she was willing to change direction when it was needed. Some people are so terrified of making this sort of switch that they stay for years in a miserable situation just for the stability. Not my Melanie, and she's better off for it.

(3) Don't discount the greater value of hard work at the gym

Mel takes care of her body. You'll see her at the gym a lot, and when you do, she's not there to socialize. She's there to work, sweat, lift, etc. There are aesthetic benefits to that, of course, but more broadly, it also teaches you lessons of perseverance and motivation that transfer well to other areas of life. We exercise for physical health, sure, but that payoff also extends to everything else we do day to day. Thanks, Mel.

If you have a basement gym, you might as well use it

Over the last year, I've gotten a lot of mileage here on the blog posting about my adventures at the gym.

I was never a weight lifter until May 2024, when Elissa and Mark bought me four sessions with a trainer named Kirk at Ohio Sports & Fitness (OSF) in Willoughby, Ohio. My knowledge and enjoyment of strength training really blossomed under Kirk's guidance, and I enjoyed working out with him twice a week almost without fail for 13 full months.

As of a month ago, however, I no longer go to OSF, nor is Kirk serving as my trainer. This has nothing to do with the gym or with Kirk. The facility is great with a lot of friendly and very helpful people. As for Kirk, what can I say? He's an amazing personal trainer whose extensive knowledge blends well with his positive personality.

He's a good egg, that Kirk.

No, my disengagement from the gym has nothing to do with them. It was simply a decision I made several weeks ago when I decided I needed to free up some time in my otherwise hectic life (something I mentioned this past Monday in an egregiously gratuitous game show-related post).

One of the changes I made in my routine was to shift the site of my twice-a-week strength training to our house rather than an outside gym.

It turns out we have a pretty nicely equipped gym in the back room of our basement, thanks to the efforts of my son Jared. When we still lived with us and was really into lifting, he stocked that room with everything you really need to build muscle.

That includes two adjustable weight benches, a rack for bench pressing, a barbell and various weight plates, a full assortment of dumbbells, a machine for hamstring curls and quad extensions, and a bunch of other stuff I won't even list here, all placed on a series of heavy-duty rubber horse mats.

For the longest time I felt guilty I wasn't taking advantage of this nice exercise setup located right in my own home. Now I do.

I admittedly miss Kirk, and I miss the atmosphere at OSF, but so far this change has been for the better. It cuts significant time off my morning routine, and it doesn't involve any sort of membership or personal training fees.

It also helps that my strength training goals are relatively modest. I'm not looking to bulk up or anything. Really, all I want is to maintain what I have in an attempt to stave off age-related muscle loss.

The Tennant Gym is more than equipped to help me do that.

Now if only I could get a machine for the basement that makes me not want to eat cake all the time...

Here's what I've noticed about going to the gym: Everything is heavy

"Yeah, that's the idea," you probably said to yourself upon reading the headline of today's post. But hear me out.

I know the point of weightlifting is to move heavy things around in an attempt to build strength. You're supposed to make your muscles fail, thereby breaking them down and allowing them to rebuild themselves bigger and stronger.

And the only way to make them fail is to lift heavy objects.

Yet there's a difference between "heavy" and "HEAVY."

Like, the first set of everything I do is "heavy." By the time I get to the last rep, I'm working hard to get that weight into the air (or out to my side or whatever the movement calls for). But it's not to the point that I've lost the will to live.

That's not the case when I'm dealing with "HEAVY" weights. These are generally the types of weights my trainer Kirk will give me when I'm working out under his tutelage.

We'll be doing, say, a dumbbell incline bench press exercise. He'll walk over to the dumbbell rack and select two that are, for him, not a problem to move, but that are, for me, at least a small problem to move.

He'll hand me the dumbbells, I'll lean back on the bench, and I'll proceed to lift them 10, 12 or 15 times, however many reps he tells me to do. The last few reps are decidedly uncomfortable, and my earnest desire is for the set to end so I can go back to the mostly comfortable lifestyle to which I'm accustomed.

But then we'll proceed to a second set, and this time Kirk will hand me a Volkswagen or a small elephant and tell me to lift it about the same number of times.

I'm not speaking literally, of course, but he inevitably picks large dumbbells of the kind I normally associate with Mr. Universe contestants and that one women I see every day at the gym who is way stronger than me.

Even if/when I successfully complete this new and decidedly unfair task, Kirk will keep handing me larger and larger objects to lift. It's as if he's playing a practical joke of which he and all the rest of the gym-goers are aware, and I'm serving as a source of endless amusement for them.

I know what my face looks like when I'm really struggling to get a weight into the air, and I'm sure it's hilarious if you're just standing there watching. I also start to contort my body in a way that undoubtedly defeats the purpose of the exercise but also makes me feel like I'm making some progress toward lifting the 4-ton anvil Kirk has given me.

When we get to the heaviest weights, I'm quickly beyond caring whether I live or die. All I know is that existence = suffering and the only way I will make it through is to perform the prescribed number of reps, whatever it takes. This is when I know we have reached the level of "HEAVY."

And, if you'll pardon my language, it really sucks.

Then, suddenly, without me realizing it, my 1-hour session with Kirk is over. He gives me a fist bump, tells me I did a good job, and walks with me back into the gym lobby.

I collect my things from the changing room and head out to my car, noting that while my arms are fatigued to the point I simply cannot lift them over my head any longer, I have logged another workout. Victory.

The next day I am sore. And weak. My daily creatine powder helps, but there's a certain level of muscle fiber breakdown my 55-year-old body simply cannot overcome without the passage of at least a few days.

Yet there I am back at the gym soon after, sometimes the very next day to work on another part of my body while the first part tries desperately to repair itself. This cycle of suffering ends only if I die or decide to give up lifting, which in the eyes of the gym rats around me is kind of the same thing.

So back I go. It's hard knowing that while "heavy" is at least manageable, "HEAVY" is the only way I'm going to get better at this.

And worst of all? I'm paying both Kirk and the gym owner Frank for this suffering.

It always bears repeating: No one ever said I was a genius.

Finding the line between "live your life" and "do what's best for your health"

From the outset, I should establish that I don't believe a fun life and a healthy life are mutually exclusive things. You can (and should) have both.

But there's no denying that, at least for me, a healthy life sometimes means making certain sacrifices and prioritizing my time in ways I might not otherwise.

As an example, let's take the gym-going habit I developed nearly a year ago.

When I started lifting last June, you could find me in the gym five days a week without fail. And it undoubtedly made a difference, to the point that my chest, arms and shoulders are now somewhat bigger, which means some of my button-downs and pullovers are harder to get on than they used to be.

It's a good problem (and a very healthy habit) to have.

But there are downsides to a five-day-a-week gym routine, again, at least for me. They include:

• Sometimes getting less sleep than I really need because I have stuff going on the night before I work out
• Perpetual soreness
• A higher risk of injury and less chance to recover

To that last point, in the past year I have sustained injuries at the gym to my shoulder, back, forearm and foot. All were lifting-related, and while all probably could have been avoided with better form, the fact is they happened and they didn't heal quickly.

That was probably because I kept on going to the gym five days a week and never gave those muscles a chance to heal themselves.

Then I cut back to four days a week of lifting, and now sometimes I'm at three. And voila, as I type this, I'm suddenly injury-free!

Who knew?

When it comes to diet, we all have to decide what we're willing to do to maintain a reasonable weight without being in constant self-denial. Few people can get by without indulging in less-than-healthy treats from time to time.

You have to decide what "from time to time" means for you, though, and what potential long-term health consequences you're willing to accept in exchange for the happiness that extra piece of cake or the double cheeseburger bring you.

As I mentioned recently, you and I each have an expiration date, and we can only push it out so far. As Colin Hay, one of my favorite singer-songwriters, puts it: "Nobody gets a sequel, no, everyone gets shown the door."

I think a lot nowadays about these tradeoffs. Maybe it's because I have a grandchild on the way. Or maybe I'm at an age when everyone starts to look ahead to whatever is left of this life, which for me should be at least a few more decades, though you never know.

Pick a philosophy and stick to it. Find your balance. Then go and live your life the best you know how, even if the final number of years you live isn't as long as it could be.

That's the best advice I can give you.

The only good thing about hurting my shoulder is that now I'm reading books again

At some point recently while lifting heavy weights above my head at the gym, I injured my shoulder.

It was the kind of soft-tissue injury that, when you're a 55-year-old person, does not heal as quickly as perhaps it might have earlier in your life.

So in addition to popping ibuprofen caplets like M&Ms, I've also made a nightly routine of icing and heating the shoulder.

Among the things Terry bought me for my birthday was a sling device with a cold pack that's ideal for icing a shoulder. As for the heating part, we have a big fabric doohickey filled with corn kernels that I pop into the microwave for a minute than slap on my shoulder for 15 minutes of heat therapy.

I don't know how much this icing and heating regimen has helped, but one thing it has done is given me time to read for the first time in...well, for the first time in a while.

I tend to live life in a (perhaps needlessly) hectic manner that allows little time for quiet, reflective activities like reading. Normally I'm bouncing from one task to the next, stopping only at night to get 6 or 7 hours of shuteye before getting back after it again the next morning.

Sitting on the couch while allowing the ice and heat to work their magic, I'm forced to stop and relax. I could spend that half-hour on my phone, but instead I've been using it as reading time.

It has, for example, given me the opportunity to read through the wonderful "From Silence: Finding Calm in a Dissonant World" by Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst (also a birthday gift from my daughter Elissa and her boyfriend Mark). And now I'm on to some war-themed books from Terry (also birthday presents...she's very good to me whenever I turn a new age).

None of this reading would be happening if I hadn't overdone the dumbbell shoulder presses. So I guess the injury was God's way of telling me to slow down.

Or that I'm old.

Or maybe both.

Sometimes I think I enjoy planning life more than I enjoy living it

When it comes to going to the gym, while I do genuinely like the act of lifting weights, what I really like is sitting down the week before and planning out which days I'll be working out and exactly which exercises I'll perform (with the attendant number of reps, sets, etc.)

In the same vein, Sunday afternoon is one of my favorite times because it's when I sit down and type my to-do list for the coming week into Microsoft OneNote.

And while I've never really had a vacation I didn't enjoy, to me nothing beats the fun and excitement of actually planning the vacation.

Do you see a pattern here?

I am by nature a planner. This is good thing to be in many respects, as it provides some degree of control – or at least the illusion of control – in an otherwise chaotic world.

But the drawbacks of being an inveterate planner are perhaps equally apparent. You don't always respond well when a plan (inevitably) goes awry. And you'll never be known as the most fun and spontaneous guy in the world.

There's also a tendency, at least in my case, to skip from one life plan to another in a futile attempt to discover the perfect way of living.

In my heart I know there is no such thing as "the perfect way of living," but my head insists it's out there somewhere and that, with each iteration of my life plan, I get that much closer to it.

To be clear, by "life plan" I mean a philosophy or approach to everything that consumes my time, both at home and at work. How should I do my job? How should I eat and exercise? When will I find time for spiritual nourishment? How much of my fall and winter nights should I devote to PA announcing gigs?

I try one life plan for a few months, then when I discover where it falls short, I switch to another. Sometimes these are small tweaks, while other times I make large-scale, wholesale changes.

All of which begs the question of why I can't just acknowledge that circumstances vary and I need to take things a day at a time, adapting to whatever comes my way without searching for a one-size-fits-all template.

In short, why don't I just, you know, live life?

As if often the case when I examine my own personality quirks, I don't have an answer to that question.

BUT...it's on tomorrow's to-do list to check some books out of the library that might explain why I am how I am.

I expend inordinate amounts of mental energy making sure all of my devices are sufficiently charged

We live in a world of wonderfully advanced personal technology, at least compared with the largely analog one in which I grew up.

We have mobile phones, tablets, laptops, watches and sundry other gadgets designed to make our lives easier, and in some cases more fun.

You can argue whether these devices achieve their stated purpose, but one thing you can't argue is that they all require some sort of electrical power to operate.

I don't know how much of my brain is used to make sure all of my stuff is fully charged and operating throughout the day, but I bet it's an embarrassingly large amount. I constantly find myself wondering:

• "How's my phone battery doing? 30%? I'll never make it through tonight. Gotta charge it."
• "Will the iPad have enough battery life to last through this flight?"
• "When's the last time I charged my Powerbeats?"
• "Why is my watch always at 5% when I take it off at night? What am I doing all day that drains it so much?"

That kind of thing.

I'm forever looking around for charging cords and complaining that I need a new <INSERT DEVICE NAME HERE> because the battery doesn't last as long as it used to.

Speaking of which, there's a subtle art to prolonging device battery life. In the case of my personal laptop, I try to keep it charged between 20% and 80% because that's supposedly the "sweet spot" that keeps a lithium battery working most efficiently.

Or so I've read. This is one of those areas in which I'm relying on Internet strangers to tell me what I should do. (Increasing battery life and changing various filters on my car. Those are the two areas in which the world's collective online knowledge serves as my guide.)

I used to keep constant mental track of how my AirPods were doing charge-wise back when I was running and walking a lot. I rarely exercised without those little white headphones jammed into my ears.

Now that I go to the gym most days, though, I don't listen to music. And I'm not sure why. I like to concentrate on my lifts and making sure I'm using correct form, I guess.

I'm usually one of the only people at the gym not wearing some sort of headphones, I've noticed. I'm also frequently one of the oldest – if not THE oldest – person there.

I don't think this is a coincidence.

I go to the gym to experience regular doses of misery...and that's OK

I'm not sure "misery" is even the right word, but there's no doubt my most productive gym workouts involve bursts of discomfort.

Like, for example, leg days often include walking lunges. I carry a dumbbell in each hand and take elongated steps from one end of the gym to the other, then I turn around and lunge my way back to where I started.

If done correctly, this exercise makes my hamstrings, quadriceps and calves burn. And my legs invariably feel like jelly for some time after I finish.

But then I do another set. And another. And usually another.

The same holds true for any exercise. When it comes to strength training, if you can comfortably perform a particular movement, you either need to add more resistance or more repetitions to make it more challenging.

Or both.

While I am in no way a workout veteran (I'm still adapting from being a runner/walker to being primarily a lifter), I have learned to "embrace the suck," as someone put it.

In other words, there not only have to be times when you say to yourself, "Man, this is no fun at all," you also have to figure out how to enjoy that feeling.

I'm getting better and better at it.

I go to the gym five times a week. Two of those sessions are done under the supervision of my trainer Kirk, while the other three are entirely on my own.

It never fully escapes my notice during those solo sessions that, should I choose to put down the weights and walk out of the gym at any point mid-workout, no one would stop me. Nor would/should anyone even notice or care.

I am 100% responsible for my own motivation and for pushing myself to muscle failure, which is the point where you really benefit physically from weightlifting.

While I've never actually quit in the middle of a workout, early on I found myself backing off effort-wise when things got tough. I might do fewer repetitions than prescribed, or I might ignore proper form in favor of just getting the weight into the air.

But as I've built physical strength these past 5+ months, I've also built mental strength. I continue to need Kirk to set my workouts and ensure I'm performing exercises correctly, but I don't need him there in person for my one-man workouts to be beneficial.

I am slowly learning to embrace the suck, a point I never thought I would reach.

The application to life outside of the gym is readily apparent. Whatever you do, the only way to get better is to apply yourself in a way that's not always going to be enjoyable. "No pain, no gain" has some truth to it, though it doesn't necessarily have to hurt.

It just needs to be uncomfortable for you. Sometimes very uncomfortable.

I find myself these days with more muscle on my frame than I ever had (or thought I had) when I played football as a high schooler, but the real benefit for me to this point has been mental.

I just wish it hadn't taken me more than a half-century to learn.

Sleeping in until 6:00am is suddenly one of my favorite parts of the week

I know a few people will read that headline and ask, "Since when is 6:00am sleeping in?"

And you're right. For most, a 6:00am wake-up time isn't exactly an indulgence.

But I am, and for most of my life have been, an early riser. Not because I've had to do it for work or anything, but mostly because I love getting a head start on the day.

Since I began going to the gym five mornings a week, I've been getting out of bed around 4:45am. I like to make it to Ohio Sports & Fitness just ahead of what I call The 5:30 Crew, which is a small but dedicated contingent of fellow pre-dawn exercisers.

Whenever I have a session with my trainer Kirk, I stay in bed until 5:15, since he and I don't meet up until 6:00am anyway.

But on those two rest days a week, I get lazy and sleep all the way until the big hand on the clock points straight up and the little hand points straight down.

Scandalous!

I could probably stay in bed even longer, but my body is always ready and raring to go by 6:00. Plus I really have to pee by that point, so there's no use fighting it.

Still, I can't tell you how much I enjoy those "sleep-in" days. I always feel like I've earned them after three or four days in a row of early gym-going, then scrambling to come home, shower, change and head to the office for a full day of work.

I should point out that in order to get a decent amount of rest, I'll sometimes ingest a couple of 5mg melatonin gummies the night before. I recently blogged about how I need to have my wife in the room in order to fall asleep, but the gummies have changed that situation drastically.

Now I rarely even notice when she comes to bed, that's how deeply asleep I am.

Interestingly – and don't ask me why I remember the exact date, I just do – I got almost no sleep 28 years ago last night because I was so worried about starting a new job the next day at a company called Self-Funded Plans. That sort of anxiety-induced insomnia used to hit me several times a year.

But these days? Never. My heads hits the pillow, and within a couple of minutes I'm out.

I wake up when it's technically still night time, of course, but there's always those 6:00am sleep-in days to make me feel like I'm living a life of luxury.

You can really take the convenience of summer for granted

It's only around this time of year, with the beginning of autumn just a couple of weeks away, that I realize the best thing about summer is the convenience.

Like, for example, when you want to go somewhere, you just throw on shoes and leave. No jacket, no boots, no hat and gloves. You just go.

And when you're driving around Northeast Ohio like I do, you don't have to add any extra travel time for weather delays. If it's normally a 15-minute trip, it will be a 15-minute trip.

That's not to mention the fact that I never have to worry about small cuts caused by excessively dry skin on my fingertips in June. That's a January thing, as are chapped lips. I keep a steady supply of lotion and Chapstick close at hand during those winter months.

Even on the hottest and most humid days, summer is generally just easier for those of us living in temperate regions.

I suspect this will soon be brought home to me during my five-mornings-a-week trips to the gym.

I started working out in early June. To date, that has meant leaving the house in just my workout clothes and gym shoes. Nothing else.

In a few months, that same excursion will also involve:

• Bundling up in appropriate outerwear
• Driving on potentially slippery roads to the gym
• Walking into the gym and taking off my coat, hat and gloves
• Also taking off my boots or other winter-proof shoes
• Replacing those with gym shoes
• Putting everything back on as my sweaty self leaves post-workout, likely soaking the inside of my coat and gloves.
• Driving back home on those same slippery roads

All of which suggests a move to warmer climes sometime in the future to avoid all of the winter hassle.

But I can't imagine that ever happening. After all, where's the fun in that?

As if we needed more proof that evil exists in this world, along come Bulgarian split squats

(NOTE: I'm in France right now, but I'm not chronicling that trip here. Terry is mostly doing that for us on Facebook, if for whatever reason you want to look her up and see some vacation photos. I think they're viewable by anyone. I will say this, though: Whenever I get to speak French to a French person, I inevitably sounds like Pepe Le Pew because I'm trying so hard to sound French. I need to back off a little...)

Let me say two quick things about my newly formed strength training habit:

1. I have given much of the credit for me taking up the gym life to my daughter Elissa, and rightly so, but my son Jared also had a hand in this. He has been lifting for years, which not only provided inspiration but also led him to piece together a pretty formidable home gym in the back room of our basement (on his own time and using his own money). I now benefit from having that gym. Also, today is Jared's 26th birthday, and he's a good guy, so please wish him a happy happy.
   
   
2. This is the third or fourth time I've written about lifting in the past month, but please rest assured that this is not going to turn into a gym bro blog or anything. It's just that I write 150 or so new posts a year, and they're generally based on what's new in my life as a husband, a dad, and a middle-aged guy. Lifting is still new to me, so it's probably not surprising that I've been writing about it. I'll dial it back, I promise.

I'm writing this post the morning of July 4th. Yesterday I was at the gym with my trainer Kirk for leg day. I've already learned that leg days always lead to soreness 24 hours later, and that is certainly the case now. My quadriceps are killing me.

The primary reason for that is the exercise demonstrated in the video above: the Bulgarian split squat. I hadn't done this exercise before, and I wasn't particularly thrilled to do it when Kirk's explanation of it began with, "This is pretty much everyone's least favorite exercise."

Great!

In the video it appears to be innocuous enough, but man, it's a killer. Kirk had me do two sets on each leg. Each set consisted of 10 repetitions holding a dumbbell, then 10 additional reps with just body weight.

You would think the body weight reps are a welcome reprieve after getting rid of the dumbbell, but no. They are somehow even worse, probably because your legs are already awash in burning lactic acid after the dumbbell reps.

You know what was even worse? Kirk – a seemingly nice guy who has a hidden masochistic streak a mile wide – gave me a heavier dumbbell to use for the second set.

I walked away from Bulgarian split squats with a decidedly wobbly gait. My legs were the kind of rubbery I had only seen before when Mike Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick to win the heavyweight title in 1986.

I will admit, though, that Bulgarian split squats taught me something important. Going to the gym five times a week and activating muscles I haven't used in years has obvious physical benefits when it comes to strength, flexibility, mobility, etc.

But just as important, I've found, is the way in which weight lifting is making me mentally stronger. As Kirk says, it's all about your willingness to approach and break through the threshold.

That threshold is one of physical discomfort, sure, but it plays out just as much in your head as it does in your biceps or your hamstrings.

When we get to the final set of an exercise and Kirk tells me the goal is "8 to 10 reps," I naturally want to hit 10. When it starts getting tough only 5 reps in, though, it becomes a mental game. Do I struggle my way to the minimum of 8 and stop there? Or do I willingly embrace the pain (and potential failure) of those 9th and 10th reps?

So far it has gone both ways for me. Sometimes I'll get to that minimum and simply say, "That's it, I'm done." Other times I've sucked it up and gutted out those 9th and 10th reps.

I feel much more satisfied when I take the tougher road, and I'm working on the best mental approach to ensuring that happens consistently.

In the meantime, the key lesson to take away here is perhaps obvious: Bulgarian split squats are, at their core, the work of demons.

I have once again been bullied into better habits

I like to tell the story of why I began drinking black coffee after years of pouring cream into it.

The date was September 15, 2022. My family and I were at Pine Ridge Country Club in Wickliffe, Ohio, for the Wickliffe Schools Athletic Achievement Hall of Fame induction ceremony. (Someone had scammed the organizers into inducting me. I still can't explain it.)

After the meal, I poured myself a hot cup of coffee to cap off what had been a very enjoyable evening. As I reached for the small pitcher of half and half, my daughter Elissa looked at me and said (in a tone of undisguised condescension), "When are you going to grow up and start drinking black coffee?"

I replied to her, "Right now, I guess." And I did. I drank that cup free of additives, and I have not drunk anything but black coffee ever since that moment.

I have said many times that Elissa bullied me into what is undoubtedly a healthier habit when it comes to coffee drinking.

Fast forward to about a month ago, when Elissa and her boyfriend Mark presented me with a card for a personal trainer named Kirk Simmons. As a reward for coming to their house and taking care of their pets while they were on vacation, they had paid for four training sessions for me with Kirk.

"You'll love him," Elissa said. "He specializes in cranky dads."

Well, sign me up!

I hadn't expressed any interest in personal training, but everyone in my family knew of my longstanding intention to start doing more than just cardio-based exercise. I knew I needed to lift, and deep down I knew I probably needed some sort of kick in the butt to start doing it.

Two days after presenting me with the card, Elissa and Mark were at our house. A very persistent Elissa told me, "We can sign you up with Kirk now." I promised I would do it myself within a day or two, and I did.

Once again, my low-level fear of incurring the wrath of Elissa had pushed me into making a better lifestyle choice.

Here's the funny thing, though: I'm typing this post on May 31st. As of today, I haven't had a single workout with Kirk. I did meet him at the gym for my initial assessment yesterday morning at 5am (yes, 5am, which didn't seem to phase Kirk because the man is an ex-Marine and could probably conquer a small island by himself on three hours sleep).

All he did was conduct a body scan to assess my muscle mass and prodigious fat deposits, and some movement tests so he could get an overall idea of my flexibility, stability, problem areas, etc.

My first workout with Kirk is still four days away, but by the time you read this, he will have put me through my paces several times already.

How can I be so confident this is going to work out? Because I know myself. I'm excited to do this, and when I'm excited to do something, I do it no matter how difficult it is or what obstacles life throws at me.

I don't know that I'm ever going to be a true gym rat or anything, but by the time you read this, I will have at least transformed into a "gym guy."

Which is saying something for me, a lifelong runner/walker and formerly avowed non-lifter.

The upshot of today's post? You need to have a loving bully like Elissa in your life. Or maybe just hire out Elissa herself to threaten you into making better choices.

Trust me, she's very good.

The AI Blog Post Image Generator did a nice job creating the photo you see at the top of this post. But it also produced this image, which makes me laugh no matter how many times I look at it.