Some days I modify my route just for unpredictability, but most days on my lunch walk I go by a public transportation hub in my city. There are often armed DHS agents there, along with local cops.

Today when I saw the group, all duded-up in their tac vests with plastic pistols, I said to myself, “Ah, there’s a fat-ass Fed.” Then I said, “Why, there’s fat-ass number two, and look, there’s fat-ass number three” (who was a local cop trying to elbow in on the yammering-and-yakking session with the DHS boys, none of whom were doing anything of value for their pay).  Uh huh, mama makes some good biscuits and gravy, doesn’t she?  Yea, I like the biscuits and gravy too, but it doesn’t like me so much any more.  A half dozen FedGov employees doing absolutely nothing, with a couple of local *.gov employees doing absolutely nothing.  Welcome to America.  It sounds like communism, yes?

Anyway, we can be better than that, regardless of age. The days that I could eat anything and do nothing and get away with it are long gone.  As a general rule, I go on a three mile walk every day at lunch.  In the afternoon, I climb fifteen flights of stairs.  In the evenings after work (three or four days a week) I go the gym and lift weights and do resistance work, and before that I might climb another 35-50 flights on the stair machine.  After dinner at night, I take the dogs on another 1.5-2 mile walk.

As a general rule I do my own yard work rather than pay somebody to do it (or leave it undone, which is the second worst option since entropy always increases). On the weekends I always try to do some sort of more extreme workout like hike with weight on our many mountains in the area, or better yet, ride some single track at Dupont, Lake James or Bent Creek.  Going down the mountains is exhilarating.  To go down, you have to go up, which is exquisitely difficult.  It’s always a thigh burner and lung scorcher.  And I make sure it hurts, and try to keep going when the lactic acid is screaming to stop.

I’ve cut carbs a good bit, and reintegrated (good) fat to my diet, along with high protein intake and protein shakes, and try to stick with steamed vegetables. I almost never eat bread any more, and I’ve cut my dairy intake to almost nothing (except for the whey in the shakes).  Lactose is sugar and will add belly fat faster than anything else you do except maybe eating potato chips or ice cream and apple pie.

Belly fat is a killer. It leads to heart disease, high blood pressure, reduced testosterone and loss of sex drive.  Get rid of it.  You don’t need it for anything.  It’s your enemy.  It’s your enemy because if you are 40-60 years old, you’re at your peak income-earning potential.  Your family needs you.

And your family needs you to protect them. If you’re weak and become easily winded, you can’t fight.  You may as well sell all of your weapons to me.  So am I some sort of physical specimen?  No, I’m a 58 year old man with asthma and RA.

I have RA so severely that the knuckles on my right hand are swollen enough from joint scarring to cause me to get rid of all of my cheap plastic pistols that have double-stack mags. I can’t grip them correctly, I just don’t get good purchase.  Every handgun in my safe now is a single stack 1911, which fits perfectly and holds well with my deformed hand (except for wheel guns or my FN5.7, which is also an internal hammer gun).  Every handgun I own now is a hammer gun.  Honestly, getting rid of the scratchy, crinkly, cheap-ass rubber-band feel of the striker fired handguns is probably the best outcome of having RA.

So again, I’m not a physical specimen. Believe me when I say that if I can do this, you can too.  We need to be better than those fat-ass DHS boys.  There are some of you who don’t need to hear this.  You get your PT by chasing Elk around Montana with guns.  Goody for you, not all of us can live in Montana.  Besides, you can do that all day long and if you eat Mama’s gravy and biscuits and drink beer at night, you may still have a gut.

One final word about recovery. In order to recover from this kind of exercise, you need good and protracted sleep.  Don’t be fooled by the supermen, the special operators, into thinking that long duration endurance runs or no sleep is actually a good thing.  My former Marine also did that sort of thing when he went for days without sleep in Iraq, or put on 120 pound kit and “humped” 20 miles in 110 degree heat.  He’s now healthier, leaner and in better shape than he was in the Marine Corps.

According to studies, “just as there are things men can do to boost levels, there are activities that lower testosterone scores. Endurance exercises, such as marathon training or cycling long distances, can lower levels, as can stress. Dr. Bhasin said that the kind of training endured by special armed forces — tough exercise, lack of sleep and food — can cause testosterone to drop to the levels of men who have been castrated — lower than 50 (ng/dL).”