let’s try this again

last new year’s eve i told budnik three things i wanted to work on in 2024…

…those three things were fitness, flexibility, and finances.

three months later he died in my arms, having rapidly sank after the passing of his little brother only a week after that conversation. yeah, it wasn’t a great year.

but this is a new one, and while i still dwell a bit on the past and the pain therein, i need to push past it. “onward and upward”, as the expression goes. so, to that end, i’ve been revisiting what DIDN’T happen in 2024 that shoulda, and trying to figure out how to get that right. there were some unintentional dark clouds that had some silver linings in the mix that might have inadvertently helped out with two of the “big three” from last year.

first off “fitness”, which in my world just tends to mean “lose weight, try not to lose muscle” which typically translates to “stay where you’re at” because losing weight in your fifties is hard…unless you have two part time jobs that both seem to think they’re full time jobs. then you barely get a chance to eat for days at a stretch, which really fuels the pounds coming off. i remember this piercer i knew, john, who succeeded bear at forbidden fruit. he lost a good chunk of weight, and when i asked him how he did it, he told me he was noticing his dogs only ate once a day and were fine and maintained a healthy weight, so why was he eating three meals a day? he cut back to one and lost a good chunk.

i did that involuntarily for a few months, and now find i can’t eat nearly the portions i used to. well, actually, i can – but only for one meal a day. the others have to be really small or i have to be really active during the day or it’s no go. and snacky dinners tend to help control your portions, so you tend to drop off a bit. i’m still tossing around relatively the same weight in the gym, but i’m around 210 now whereas this time last year i weighed 228 according to my weight tracer app on the phone.

“flexibility” is the big one – it’s the one i feel needs the most work. not schedule-wise…my life is almost TOO flexible when it comes to that shit. no, i’m talking about actual physical flexibility. my hips and legs are constantly stiff and sore. i’m having to edit leg day workouts because of pain. that’s not normal – they were always my stronger part, but it meant i tended to skip them when workout time was short and maybe that happened once too often? of course, there’s always the old adage…

which may have some validity here (although hopping back on a bike would probably be better for now).

and then there’s the “finances”. i had the dual hiccups of the car thing in november and the job thing in september, but both of those combined to get me another ride, which adds the financial stress of a car payment and increased insurance, but means the main concern of trying to seek out a solution to consolidate credit card debt and lower that bill is removed – i was worried that i’d need to do that, and ride it out for at least a year, before i’d be able to qualify to finance another car. but that still got done without it, so now i’m free to just seek out a financial solution for that in the next month or two that will reduce costs to help afford the new car payment that’s now in place. it makes it a bit more required, but it eliminates the worry of “how long can my high mileage cars get me around before they collapse and i’m fucked”, so that’s actually a positive.

see – the year’s looking up already!