Tag Archives: Exercise

Growing old is not for sissies

Went to H.E.B. yesterday morning for free blood pressure and blood glucose tests. BP of 110 over 87 73 was no surprise. But the BG of 91 was. A happy achievement. My annual physical, a month ago, had it pegged at 126, the threshold of diabetes. The difference was a month of largely eschewing sweets, excessive fats and carbs, and walking a mile almost every morning.

I can eat the old favs, just not every day, and not very much when I do. And the exercise, which I largely avoided in youth, has become mandatory. All potentially depressing, if not for a conscious effort to introduce more variety into meals and activity than I ever thought about doing when young. Old habits turn potentially deadly as one’s meter reading climbs. Old dogs can’t learn new tricks? On the contrary. Them as can’t might as well get back in bed and turn their face to the wall. It’s over.

UPDATE:  I heard the title from a friend. I didn’t know, until recently, that it was a paraphrase of one of SciFi author Larry Niven’s "Niven’s Laws." Just wanted to set the record straight.

Ah, exercise!

After getting everyone off to school and work, respectively, I tied on my tennies and set off on a mile-walk, as part of a new resolve to lose some suspiciously-reforming around-the-waist weight, and clear the old brain pan for future effort at whatever might come along. I listened to the twittering birdies, and felt the cool morning breeze at the start of what promises to be a scorcher of a day, with an unseasonable high in the upper 90s, before I turned on the MP3 player for a fresh round of Dixie Chicken, etc. Not like some people I could mention who only get up early to stoke up the charcoal smoker to spend all day smoking some artery-clogging brisket. But they’re young and I’m not.