I found some dumbbell weights.

I was working on preparing a house for moving, when I Came Upon two 30 lb dumbbells. I thought about putting them for sale, then I decided that when I'm not working hard, I'm going to get into better shape.

I started on July 11th, which is also my birthday. I turned 54. My fiance is 27. 27 + 27 equals 54. A psychologist might think that I'm trying to keep up appearances.

I tend to make certain choices based on what I find for free. A few years ago I found 200 chocolate bars in one of the houses. These were the big type that kids sell door to door to raise money for their school or sports team. I ate a lot of chocolate and added a little bit to my belly. This time I found weights, so I am going to move some of that weight from my belly, to my arms and shoulders.

Another time I found a big cable, so I made my kids a flying fox, so that they could hold onto the handles and shoot across the yard. Most popular place in the neighborhood.

It's a good thing I didn't find a gun.😈

I didn't take any before pictures, but I will do a reveal after I'm a couple weeks in, and then at some later date, unless I find a sailboat, in which case I may be absent for a while.

I expect that within a year, I will look somewhere between Franco Columbu and Steve Urkel.

If I keep it up I should be ready to be the oldest winner of the Mr. Olympia competition, sometime around my 60th birthday.

I have kept at it, a little bit. Usually, I'm too tired after work to do anything more. But on days when work is fairly light, I use the weights. Probably done about 8 workouts during the two weeks before these photos were taken.

There's no before pictures, so just imagine me a little chubbier and not quite so sexy. :-)

With resistance training, you're supposed to increase the weight, as you get stronger. For some moves, 30 pounds in each hand was a bit much. I couldn't accomplish shoulder flys and those things were you dropped the weight behind your neck. But other things like deadlift and bench press require much more weight than this. It seems just about right for curls and overhead press. So, I've simply been adding to the repetitions as I get stronger. Also doing things like lowering the weight very slowly, once I'm tired. I'm sure that soon I will have to either find some heavier weights or go to a gym. That makes sense for me, when I'm not doing a demolition job, since it also provides a shower and other things not readily available to me. I live at those jobs.

I keep the weights in the car. This means that I never have to drive somewhere for my workout. Lately I'm putting on less than 10 kilometers a day, since work is in a very convenient spot.

I've been working on a very tedious job, attaching light fixtures to a concrete ceiling in a mall. It's going to be a fancy ladies clothing store. Several of the lights needed to be moved a little bit, to put them in perfect alignment. This is easy when the ready rod is 2 ft long. Just pull or push on it. But sometimes it's less than a foot long, and there are many of them, so it's difficult to get them to bend. So, using my level 2 MacGyver skills, I devised a very heavy sledgehammer or you could consider it a small battering ram, made from a dumbbell, that could be used to bend the rods. There was a bunch of old bubble wrap on the floor, so that was used to prevent scratching the paint. I was using a scissor lift, which allowed me to get into the perfect position for each strike. It's definitely a two handed operation, but it worked great. And I got a little workout.

There are several places around town, that have outdoor exercise equipment. Some of its good and some of it is junk. There are some good pull up bars and bars meant to support your weight while you lift your knees up, to exercise the stomach muscles. Then there's nearly useless things like a glider with an 18 inch stroke and stationary bicycles with no resistance. The park shown has three pull up bars and 3 of those other stations. All are set for someone 5' 10" or over. I found it quite comfortable, but I imagine if someone 5' 2" tried to use it, it would be very awkward. Three different heights would have made sense.

After a workout, I like to have a shower, or the closest thing to it for someone who has just exercised at the park. This usually involves leaving a 1 gallon milk jug filled with water, on the roof of the car. I leave it on its side, because these jugs make better contact with the hot metal that way. It can heat up in less than an hour, since the entire roof of the car, radiates heat toward the water.

There's another way to get on demand hot water. Lay a towel out, as shown, on either the hood or trunk, or roof of the vehicle. I usually use the rear of the vehicle, just because it's the right height. I pour just enough water to saturate my towel, and a little extra. When I pick it up, I ring it out just a little bit and use that water to clean the trunk. After giving myself a good wash, I rinse it and do the same thing again on another hot spot on the other side of the trunk. It literally takes 10 seconds to have comfortable temperature water on a hot day. My vehicle never gets very dirty in these places, because of the bathing. I have also washed socks and underwear on the back of my vehicle.

A quick lap around the internet, help me to determine that there are lots of free trial membership offers, available from exercise places. Yesterday, I signed up for a free week at Steve Nash Fitness World. Steve Nash is a Canadian who was the MVP of the NBA two years running.

So, I went to the gym last night and got going. I used every machine available for a leg workout. Waits range from 60 lb to 260 lb. That was probably a bit much. Some people have laziness to contend with. I tend to overdo things. Some girls like that :-).

So, I have to be careful not to go nuts and become overtrained or try to lift too much at once, causing injury. The most vulnerable parts are usually the shoulders and knees. Sore muscles recover quickly.  Damage your shoulder and it can be for life.

So, I'm going to do lots of stretching and always warm up well, before doing heavy sets. I was chatting with a really heavily built young fellow of 21. He has already hurt himself several times, basically because his muscles are stronger than his tendons and joints. At my age, I realize that I'm not going to win the Olympia. I want to get stronger, without much risk.

I'm breaking my rule of no unpaid exercise, which I have adhered to for probably 30 years. But if I can regain strength and become an even more destructive demolition force, then I will consider that payment.

It's probably good that I don't have any new pictures. My Studley image is likely to cause heart palpitation and unusual dreams for susceptible individuals.

Dale Hodgins wrote:
It's probably good that I don't have any new pictures. My Studley image is likely to cause heart palpitation and unusual dreams for susceptible individuals.

Does this mean you're ready to be featured on the The MEN and Women of the Permies Forum Sexy Calendar ?

You and Joseph could alternate pages!

Nicole Alderman wrote:

Dale Hodgins wrote:
It's probably good that I don't have any new pictures. My Studley image is likely to cause heart palpitation and unusual dreams for susceptible individuals.

Does this mean you're ready to be featured on the The MEN and Women of the Permies Forum Sexy Calendar ?

You and Joseph could alternate pages!

That's a thread that I started. I haven't posted in awhile, because I assume that our female members get caught up there and don't learn anything about other stuff.:-)

This is what I look like this morning. Not quite up to Franco's standards, but leaving Steve Urkel behind. I've been at the best gym in town for three workouts. It's great being able to alter the weight just by changing a pin. Being really careful not to hurt myself.

It's been 1 month and 4 days. I took this series of pictures exactly one month after starting. Some very large roid freaks saw me taking pictures of my results. There was snickering.

My clothing fits better and I've had to go to a different notch on my belt. I have received a little more female attention than usual. If I didn't have a fiance, I might have to add more notches to that belt.:-)

My old shoulder injury acted up at first, but now it's good. If I'm doing chest compressions or overhead press, I make sure to not bring the weight down too far. Overextending the joint under load, seems to be bad for it.

I'm down to 196 from 198, so it looks like I'm losing fat. One time, I met someone who asked how my older brother is doing. I said he needs to lose about 160 pounds. They were shocked and wondered what had happened. I said he met her a while ago but it's just not working out. :-)

I've used up my free week and now I'm not going to try a new place for a few days, because I have a very heavy workload at work. Jim needs to tear down, stucco to cut and lots of other relatively strenuous things. That's my cardio workout. I don't do anything on the cardio machines other than a few minutes on a rowing machine, to limber up.

I'm tempted to try the Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates approach, which is to lift very heavy weights that can only be raised six to eight times. I might try that in the future, but right now I'm doing sets of 10 to 15 repetitions. Injury is less likely, when not going too close to the maximum that I could lift. I know from past experience that I can deadlift enough to make my back sore for a week.

I'm not improving at the same rate on all parts of my body. I'm probably 1/3 stronger on overhead press, than I was in the beginning. Bench press, leg press and pull down have seen much greater gains.

This is me at work yesterday. I'm turning into one of those guys. You've seen them, guys who can't walk downtown without checking out their own image in every storefront. I can't pass a mirror without checking out the guns. Here I am at work yesterday. I'm looking for $5 for this mirror. You have to pick it up in Victoria.

Looks like your making some progress Dale, good on ya mate.

My wife tells me I have all the weights I need (hay and straw bales, cords of wood, 60 lb. bar) the usual farm stuff.
Then she looks at me and says "chicken legs" that will get a guy into doing squats in a hurry.

But I don't think I'm in that bad a shape for a 67 year old. No I am not posting a pic (to much belly from wolf's good cooking right now).

"But if I can regain strength and become an even more destructive demolition force..."

Best life goal I've heard all week!! Good for you getting good work done.

Tereza Okava wrote:"But if I can regain strength and become an even more destructive demolition force..."

Best life goal I've heard all week!! Good for you getting good work done.

I only went to the gym twice this week, because of the amount of exercise being done at demolition work. The concrete breaker couldn't reach all areas of the large concrete steps and side walls of those steps, which were also the basement wall. So I ended up breaking about 40 square feet by hand. Also tore down a large chimney and and other things.

A guy who works at the gym offered to show me around the cardio section. I used to say no unpaid exercise. But now I've changed it to no unpaid cardio. I probably should have stopped there, but then I said, unless she's really cute.:-)

My fingers were shaky after a hard upper body workout an hour ago. It's hard to operate the phone's camera and I took several shots. I paid $3 for the pants I'm wearing almost a year ago, thinking that I might be able to squeeze into them someday. That day has arrived.

A guy came to buy some stairs from me today. He's got a serious set of muscles going on. I questioned him a little on his starting point and how long he's been at it. He said he had a much lighter build than myself 7 years ago. He was a quiet little guy who was self-conscious about it and he said that he really got carried away with it at one time. He was pumped up far more than the average guy and he said he still felt like he was skinny. He said it's kind of like how anorexics can't see how they really look. His girlfriend is the one who convinced him that he was far ahead of his peers and that he needed to ease up, for his own good.

I'm always interested in how much work it takes to get any result, Wheather it be financial or physical. So I asked him how much of his gains happened in the first year. He figures that about 80% of the muscle that he put on, came during his first year. Then he struggled for several more years, only to plateau at a level that he was not happy with. He's totally good with it now, probably because his girlfriend is very happy with him just the way he is.

He was 25 when he started and is now 32. I'm 54. I told him to feel the bicep and shoulder, he gave them a squeeze and said holy shit, you don't look like you'd be that hard.

I'm not going into it with a bunch of insecurities. I have some wear and tear issues that I want to improve through better strength and I just want to build a good foundation of strength, because I'm not getting any younger.

When I first arrived in Kenya, where my fiance lives, she said that some of her friends had told her that I would probably be a fat old man. Many people there don't make 53. So, a few days later she was on her phone and kept looking over at me and smiling. I asked what she was doing. She had just sent a message to her friend saying, his body is like a tree. This meant that I am strong, and therefore a suitable specimen. Those girls are quite direct about stuff like that. I've been sending her regular updates on my progress. There has been positive feedback, but also a warning that I am not to just rip my shirt off and take my muscles for a walk down the beach in front of every woman in Victoria. Husband and fiance stealing are rampant where she lives and this is not something she would tolerate. :-)

I think I will continue building muscle for 6 months or a year and then at some point I'll have to decide that that's enough. I'm certainly not going to get into using steroids, or diuretics or any of the other things that people use to get some minor change in appearance.

I will have to resist the temptation to perform Feats of Strength, for the entertainment of my family and myself. I did some very dangerous shit when I was a teenager. It was almost all centered around the deadlift, which I was very good at when I was 16 and only about 140 lb. This is the first time, since I was 16 that I have gotten into a serious weightlifting regimen, and stuck to it for more than a few days. At that time, I was putting hours and hours into it, because I was on a rowing team and I had to be the strongest one.

It's surprising how little time I have put into it so far. I'm going for fairly intense workouts that range between 30 minutes to an hour. Since I started, I have probably averaged under 3 hours a week. I hit a muscle group, then another and then another. Because of work I've had some long breaks. Each muscle group only gets hit twice a week, so there's plenty of recovery time. This is something that didn't happen when I was a teenager. I just kept doing more and more and more until my coach made me slow it down. I wasn't allowing enough time for recovery.

With almost every type of work I do, I want to get maximum results, with the least amount of effort that is practical. That's how I'm approaching weightlifting and bodybuilding. If it interferes with my work, I will slow it down. Soon, I will be ready to start training with heavy weights that are raised for fewer repetitions. I won't get seriously into that when I'm in the middle of a big demolition project. That type of workout requires longer recovery time, so I will plan it for when I'm not doing anything hugely physical at work.

My husband was really into Primal Fitness (Mark Sisson, of the paleo diet called "Primal"), and really got into the fitness portion of it. Now that he's mostly recovered from his Crohn's flare up, he's into getting strong again.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time reading stuff from the Primal forums, and listening to him talk about exercise, and I remember that the general gist is that it's better to do 2-3 intense work outs in a week, with rest/normal work on the other days. This gives the body time to recover, build muscle, and then build even more when you exercise again. You get better--and quicker--gains with a few intensive workouts, than with busting your body every day with tons of repetitions.

Anyway, I'm in no way a body-builder (my work outs consist of carrying kids, pushing wheelbarrows, digging, and hauling water), but from what I understand, you seem to be taking the right path with how frequently you exercise.

Yes, there used to be a lot of debate about which method was better. Back in the 70s, it was Schwarzenegger and Columbu, who advocated for very long drawn-out workouts. But another fellow, Mike Mentzer, made amazing gains with far shorter bouts of exercise.

By the 90s it was pretty much settled. Dorian Yates was mr. Olympia six or seven times, and he had one of the shortest workout regimens ever. Dorian is about 4 inches shorter than Arnold and he was often 80 lbs heavier. I'm not going to even dream about doing anything like that.

Here's Dorian at his peak.

I'm looking at it as a renovation project. Certain things have been neglected for decades and it's time to put them back in order.

I have never had a problem with laziness, unless you count the hundreds of employees that I fired. My issue is much more likely to be over training. So, when I have a heavy workload with my job, I will put the training on hold.

I often hear it said that if there's no pain, there's no gain. That may be true when it comes to the very temporary pain at the end of a set. But I'm definitely trying to avoid anything that causes real pain, because that means I'm doing myself damage. I'm finding a little bit of stiffness and slight pain about 2 days after hitting a particular area. But it's not a debilitating thing. I'm generally a sissy when it comes to pain. Although I do a job where there's a chance of catastrophic injury, I really don't like it if I get a hangnail.

I don't plan to do anything about pain. If I find that there is pain in my shoulder or knee or any other part, that means that something needs to change in the way I'm using it. I would never take a painkiller to mask something like that. Athletes often do that and then they do themselves permanent harm, because they can't feel how bad it's getting.

Here's another thing that I've often heard said. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. What a bunch of nonsense. My friend was in a serious motorcycle accident 30 years ago. It hasn't made him stronger. Instead he has endured a lifetime of suffering. I also know quite a few guys in construction, who have shown complete disregard for the long term effects on their bodies. Breathing horrible substances with no mask, kneeling for hours on end, without making a trip to the truck for the knee pads, falls and the associated injury and many other things. These guys are dying by degrees. What hasn't killed them, definitely has not made them stronger. So a big part of my plan is to get in good enough shape, that little thumps and bumps don't have any effect on me.

Being strong is also a great advantage in a physical confrontation. Early this morning, a thief tried to steal some copper from my job site where I was sleeping. I flew down the stairs, half-dressed, with a heavy prybar in hand. I told him to put everything down or I would beat him with that bar. I never go around just randomly issuing threats, but if you're going to do that, it's important to be strong enough to be reasonably certain about the outcome, should it come to blows. I wouldn't have hit this particular guy with the bar, because he didn't seem like much of a threat. He quickly headed down the sidewalk, without my belongings.

Hi Dale. Yeah, man, get that rhythm and keep it going. <g>

A little FWIW. I got 15 years on you and didn't do much for my own good from about 40 through 60, but I started from fairly good shape. Where I'm at now, I've had a few things impressed on me, learned the bad way. And I've gotten religion in the last couple years and can feel things coming back slowly as I get more exercise and movement into my life.

There is an enemy in our midst: It's called the chair. Or maybe it's just an enemy when it teams up with a PC or TV or books or something. But it _is_ an enemy. When used more than an hour a day, not exercising is only part of the problem. It actively messes up the circulation and joint movement from the waist down.

Keep up the movement, always, even if you get lazy or something, keep up the movement. Like walking 2-3 miles a day, minimum - or equivalent. That keeps a little aerobic going and the joints don't tighten so much. Sounds like you got no issues now - just want to emphasize, don't stop, except to heal.

Actively living brings a few injuries, comes with the territory. Muscle/tendon healing requires total rest (but not immobility) and time. So when something bad happens, stop whatever causes the pain. Do things a different way, and do them slowly so you have time to react to the first twinge of pain and stop and reroute QUICK. I've gone through severe tendinitis in both wrists, both elbows and both shoulders, badly strained Achilles tendons, both sides. All healed but only with time and great care. I even had to figure out how to place my hands on the bed when sleeping to ease my wrists. But it does heal. Hot/cold immersions help when you can do it. Healing needs circulation, more the better, and the small system shock of hot/cold therapy increases circulation a bit. I got this from a concert violinist. Musicians depend totally on the health of their hands and do all they can to enhance it. Very few doctors have anything at all to offer. There are no pills that help the healing and medical experts don't even know what detail processes are involved. Every prescription I've heard about, results were all "depends, varies, inconclusive, not statistically meaningful..." - nothing consistent or notable. Perhaps a nod to topical antihistamine lotions, but there were no consistent or superior results; they just let you avoid nuking your whole body with the drug taken orally.

When you have a muscle or tendon injury it's easy, very easy, to make it worse. One problem is that the pain goes away when the area warms up with use so you think it's "better" and work it like you normally would. Later or next morning you find out different. I have worked through most of my injuries, sometimes foolishly and sometimes with care and success. The key is doing things using different muscles and slowly so you can STOP instantly when (not if) you hit the pain spot. Steroids injected into the injury can work... Well, in a very severe  emergency, the life altering kind. Under any other circumstances, steroids are the worst thing you can do to yourself. They actively degrade the soft tissue over time.

A heads up, perhaps. I have found two particular areas that I'd like to go back and be better about: My hips and legs and my abs. Walking or dancing or some equivalent, every day more or less, would have helped a lot with the hips and legs. (Also, less chair - see above.) Not sure what generic activity works the abs daily in this advanced society we live in - maybe some of the martial arts. But when you find something, stick to it, get that religion. The abs (or maybe I should say "core muscle") are what provide for full body movement and also support the backbone. As they degrade, your walking and bending, really all movement, gets reduced and constricted and you start having unnecessary back problems. As that happens you start getting less confident and self restrict your movement more and it's a spiral down in the wrong direction. I _know_ this.

Everything above is on my personal record. I'm can testify this healthy movement stuff is as important as they say. Excepting for the lazy bone, it's hard to see a down side. And that's my two cents for today. Keep on truckin'!

Rufus

I think I've been paranoid about the eventual breakdown of my body since my teens. Therefore, I've always concentrated on good biomechanics. This fear of becoming a broken down old man, is probably also the main reason that I have never smoked or drank alcohol. My entire medical history, is basically a few thumps and bumps, stitches on three occasions, a couple sprains and then regular cold and flu type things. Edit. Lower back pain has been an issue, when I overwork it or pick something up incorrectly. Then there's a shoulder injury that probably happened when I was throwing heavy objects off of a roof. It has only given trouble if I over extend the joint. So I am avoiding that while also working to strengthen that area.

My rowing coach in high school thought that we should do some things until it is painful. One of them was cold stretching. I didn't do it. There were times when he insisted that I do it, but I would always bring up the idea of challenging any one of my crew members to strength or endurance contest, to prove that my way was better. We agreed to disagree.

Rufus mentioned walking long distances. I do this very occasionally, but I take thousands of steps at work each day. I remember a couple years ago, my brother came by my job site and together we walked to a coffee shop. I noted that this was the first time in several months that I had been more than a block from my vehicle.

I agree with the chair thing. I do use chairs quite a bit when I go to coffee shops and other public places. But I bring my own cushions and backrest. I almost always refuse to accept whatever I'm given, as a suitable device to sit on. Right now I'm lying down. If I'm not working I see no reason to stand or sit. I suppose it would be different if I were at a movie theater. But even there, I bring my own little cushions, for maximum comfort. People say, " oh is your back hurting?" No, my back is really really comfortable right now, with no sign of pain anywhere, and that's the way I want it to stay.

I was at a restaurant once, where the owner objected to my use of a rather ugly pillow. I asked if he had any for his customers and he said no. I then presented my "back problem", as a disability. Do you prevent people with disabilities from using this restaurant? End of discussion!  There was absolutely nothing wrong with me, but I knew that any mention of me playing the disability card, would settle things :-)

The bodybuilder Frank Zane, has done an excellent job of maintaining his body.

Frank was only about 145 pounds when he started working out, and he was one of the smallest people to win the mr. Olympia at 176 pounds. He won the Olympia when he was 35 and again when he was 37. Most bodybuilders have retired long before this.

In this picture he is 35 on the left and 65 on the right. He was never a roid freak. Instead he concentrated on healthy eating and exercise. And he was never a giant muscle freak. He concentrated on perfect proportion and symmetry.

When my daughter Jasmine was about 10 years old, she was perfectly healthy but extremely skinny as kids who are half East Indian often are. She's bigger than her older sister now. Anyway, they had been doing yoga together. When I came into the house she said "Dad, did you get your tickets". I said what for, and she said "for the gun show", as she flexed the muscles in her skinny little arms. Her lack of braun was made up for, with extreme facial expressions and growling sounds as she did a pose down. :-)

I've been using that one when I bump into people I know. I usually just Flex the bicep and I don't put in the sound effects.

Sometimes, when you are the person at the front of the line at the store or at the bank, you will be asked, how are you doing. I now have an answer. I say I've got this terrible swelling all over my arms and shoulders and chest and then I flash the muscles. :-)

I was standing, talking to my brother and his grown daughter. Since I was wearing a relatively tight shirt, I decided that it was time to do a pectoral muscle dance. So I'm standing there with my thumbs hooked into my front pockets and I flex first one peck and then the other back and forth back and forth. You could do it to music. This proved to be such a visual distraction that my brother said, "Would you stop that, I can't concentrate. We've seen the muscles."

A few days ago, I was innocently describing my progress when my 30 year old daughter said, rather loudly "Dad, put your shirt on, come on !"

Have I mentioned that I've completely conquered my shyness? :-)

The first two pictures are from about a week ago and the rest were taken a short while ago today. I've still got some man boobs and a layer of blubber over everything, but there's getting to be some lean meat in there too.

Boom  !!!

Chatty, entertaining, lengthy thread.  Good effort & results, Dale.  A little too much repetition on some of the pics maybe.

So...  Fits with the thread subject line: here's something else you can do with that sort of hexagonal dumbell...

I've seen that done before with weights. Around here this particular type of weight sells for about a dollar a pound on the used Market. So those are some very expensive sprinklers. I'd be tempted to use something that is not quite so salable.

I will have to alter the title of this thread at some point. The dumbbells now sit in my storage and sometimes in the seat of my car, but that's different dumbbells. Some are related to me. So, I expect that I will only use the dumbbells now when I travel out of town for a job.

I broke another self-created rule. At first I had a no unpaid exercise rule it tight kept up for several decades. Then I said okay well I'll do weights but I'll still get paid for all of my cardio. I didn't really have any cardio to do at work this week, so I have begun using the rowing machine, two different types of stepping machine, and a bicycle. This is the first time I've ever pedaled a bicycle for any length of time without having to be careful of traffic.

I think when a person grows a new set of muscles, some narcissism is to be expected. I enjoy an overblown comma in your face version, where I just flex and show. I'm not going to get a muscle shirt and take my muscles for long walks on the beach.

I reached my target weight of 200 lb today. But I think I still have 12 to 15 pounds of fat to get rid of. So I may not reach my target of 200 lean pounds until December.

I've maxed out the leg press machine and I can see that I'm at 75% of the plates on a pull-down machine. I don't think I'll ever get close to maxing out some of the chest machines. A 350 lb bench press seems dangerous and I don't think it's something I would ever attained without injury. I saw two young fellows limping today, from fresh injuries sustained while working out. I don't want to head down that road.

Boom!

I'm getting there. My best guess is that by Christmas time I will have attained the level of muscularity and fat that I hope to maintain for the next 20 years. Okay 40 years, but that might be pushing it.

Discipline has been a problem. I know that the best way to do this is with short intense workouts, with plenty of rest time. I'm doing it on 4.5 hours a week now. A couple of times I think I've worked out a body part before I was totally recovered. So I have to discipline myself to stay away from the gym.

The problem is that when I'm not busy, I'd like to come in and work out for 40 hours a week and look like Arnold in 2 months. But that's not how it works. All through my youth, I was too busy for this sort of thing. I can see now that it would have been very easy to maintain a quite buff physique, if I had been willing to put just a few hours a week into it. But I was working, and raising kids and getting exercise in other ways.

Whenever one of my brothers brought up the idea of working out, I told them I'll get on to that when I'm about 55. I will get some really good photos on my 55th birthday, which will be exactly one year after my start date. I probably should have filmed something for YouTube. It's a bit late now.

Someday I'm going to forget to lock the door, when I decide to take selfies in a public bathroom.😅

There's getting to be a six pack, under that layer of fat, and some pecks under those man boobs. I have already achieved my target weight of 200 pounds, so now it's just a matter of losing some fat and replacing with muscle.

I have some chimney work coming up. I'll bet I'm going to be able to swing the sledgehammer better than I've ever swung it before.

I signed up numerous friends and family for 2 weeks free. My youngest daughter went with me yesterday and she's going again tonight. She has sore muscles from her free training session yesterday.

I bought some whey protein. This brand is called diesel. I have seen others called flex and hardcore. I don't think they make any of them that are called rainbows and butterflies. The target audience is obviously male.

Dale, this is just for fun.  I found this joke in a 1961 men's magazine.  I am not making fun, mind you; I am hoping you will find this funny too!

A young fellow we know became hipped on muscle building and spent all his spare time working at it. At a beach party one night he wandered off by himself, strolled under the boardwalk and began doing push-ups. He was hard at it when a drunk came along, stopped to stare at him and then broke into gales of uncontrollable laughter. Annoyed, the budding Charles Atlas asked him what the devil was so funny. The drunk controlled his giggling and said, "What'sh funny? I'll tell you what'sh funny. You don't even reelize at shumbody shtole your girl!"