Thoughts on Turning 70

The beginning of my eighth decade.

I am blessed. Although I know that I may die at any moment, I am looking forward to my 70s.

Sunday was my birthday and, since Monday was a holiday, my wife and I rented a yurt and took our travel trailer to Angel of the Winds RV resort for two nights. Our four children, three spouses, and seven grandchildren all came to celebrate.

The resort is about 40 miles from Bellingham. Ben, our second oldest son, his wife Gina and two children, Harrison and Geniveve live in Bellingham. Our youngest is our daughter Melissa. She, her husband Mike and their two children, Sidney and Marty also live there.

The resort is about 40 miles from Seattle. Our oldest son Sam, his wife Cindy, and their three children, Nathan, Valerie, and Clark live in Seattle. Matt, our youngest son, also lives in Seattle.

Three of the cousins, Nathan, Val, and Harrison spent Sunday night in the yurt with Ben. Mandy and I stayed up the hill in our travel trailer with our two dogs.

The swimming pool was the biggest hit. The resort also had mini golf. The club house with foosball and a pool table will get more use when the kids are older.

The kids also enjoyed a game they created. I was “lava man”. I would capture one of the children and the others would try to be rescuers. It was a great time of wrestling and bonding between the old man and the little ones. We are creating memories. Perhaps the best comment was from Sidney, “This is more fun than Christmas.”

What will the future bring? We never know. My life has taken many turns. Certainly, some were predicted. They were part of my plan. Others were doors that showed up and I chose to step through. Each path created more challenges and learning experiences. One thing I have learned is that when we believe we know it all or we lose interest in learning more, we become old.

When we choose not to improve our bodies, we begin the decent to the grave. I had a goal of having the best physique of my life on my 70th birthday. I can say that I achieved that.

Sunday morning, I weighed three pounds more than when I was 16. For a couple of days that year, I could barely make it through class before I went to the bathroom. I was concerned and told my dad. He told me to stop eating so much. He was right. I was trying to gain weight.

Average for a man is for our chest to measure six inches more than our waist. That has been true for me for most of my life. Even when I weighed 180, I didn’t look too bad because my waist was 36 and my chest was 42. At 16 my waist was about 33.5 and my chest was about 39. Now my waist is 34 and my chest is 41.5.

I will continue to try to achieve my goal of a ten-inch difference between my waist and chest. I was hoping to achieve that by my birthday. I went on a two-week intermittent fast. I ate about a thousand calories only in the afternoon. I had done some calculations and thought that if I just lost about two pounds my waist would be 32. I lost 6 pounds and still haven’t reached that goal. I’ll tell you what happened and give you the calculations someday in another post.

Key is to have a goal to improve. In his book, Outlive, Peter Attia said that the average man will lose 50% of muscle mass in his 70s. I have lost some fat. My goal now is to add muscle. Being underweight is not healthy.

I intend to continue studying and applying my life experience to what I learn. I will continue writing and hope that you enjoy my posts and find that they help you think and enhance your life. However, the big reason is it is good for me. I enjoy it. It gives me something to think and talk about.

Thanks to the Internet, I am studying Spanish using Duolingo and taking piano lessons using Skoove. I am maintaining my licenses as a Doctor of Chiropractic and Real Estate Broker. Both of those require continuing education.

This year I will begin giving over-views or lessons from some books I have read or am reading. I hope you find them helpful.

Thanks for reading. Please like posts you like and share the ones worth sharing. I appreciate you and will try to give you more of what you find helpful.