Last year, I posted that I needed to changes this to lift weights more. So, I did that. I started in April or so. I ate more calories overall, with 150-200g of protein. I got on a PPL program and was pretty consistent with the gym. There were lapses for sure, but I was way more consistent than I was in the past. I started to see the weight that I could lift go up. I think I upped it twice in about 7 months. Decent progress. I also had a Dexa scan done in April and another Dexa scan done in November. The point of this was to see how much my lean body mass went up. I'm eating more, with more protein, and lifting heavy. Lean mass should go up. It actually went down 2 pounds over those 7 months.
I felt extremely defeated from this. I put all of this effort into gaining muscle and the test scans didn't show it. I felt like my muscles got bigger and stronger. My clothes were tighter, but that didn't show up on this test. Maybe the test was wrong. Maybe I wasn't putting in enough effort when I thought I was. I don't know what happened. What I do know is that I am a man in my 40s. Things change. I get that. I also realize that the best way to age well is to put on muscle mass and keep it on. I want to do that, but I need a dramatic shift in the execution of this plan in order to do so. It might be time to get a trainer or nutritionist to help me out here.
Throughout the year, I 196.5 to 208.5. I gained 12 pounds, and I can absolutely feel it. I was OK with this at first because I knew I was eating more. In order to gain muscle, you gotta gain a bit of fat too. But once I had the 2nd Dexa scan in November, and saw the results, and with just the normal holiday stuff, I fell off the wagon for the last 2 months of the year. I gained a lot during that time.
I continued to run throughout the year. I only put 106 miles on the road though. I had PF for awhile, and just didn't run at all through snowboarding season. Oh, yeah, I hurt my knee pretty badly in January and that's why I didn't run for about 4 months. I have a rule where I don't snowboarding more than 3 days in a row. I did 4 days in a row on a trip to Aspen. I hurt my knee at hte end of the 3rd day, rode on it on the 4th day, and just made it worse. I'm still fighting that injury. Snowboard season was great with 25 days on the season. I was pushing 30 but things came up and that knee injury was rough for awhile. I'm still stretching and staying flexible.
For 2024, my goal is to get back to the gym and be consistent again. While I didn't achieve the goals that I wanted to last year, I can't give up lifting weights. I need to stick with it. I need to change something up though and see if I get different results. I'll still run a bit, and I'll still stretch.
I am starting to feel the effects of aging though. It is tougher to come back from an injury. It is tougher to get back into shape. It is tougher to make gains in the gym. It is tougher to get that belly fat to disappear. It is tougher to do high impact cardio. But I have to keep going. Moving and fitness is such a big part of me that I have to keep this up. I still want to be doing this into my 60s and 70s, and I can't stop now.
2023 run mileage: 106 miles
