I’ve never been the usual “fitness guy”.
You know these dudes. They are out there in polo shirts, pics of themselves in the gym, shirtless pics, everything is about their workouts or what they are eating and how fitness defines them.
It’s enough to drive me to the Wild Turkey.
I do my workouts and I come home and that’s about it.
Frankly I don’t find the topic all that interesting, believe it or not. I used to, but those days are long behind me.
It’s all pragmatic for me now. Is this going to move me ahead, closer to my goals? That’s the only thing I care about.
On the rare occasions I speak to other people, I don’t talk training, I don’t talk diet.
The main reason?
Everybody has all the answers about health and fitness.
Try it for yourself. You will not find a soul out there that doesn’t already know everything about what it takes to get in good shape and eat right.
Just ask them and you’ll find out.
There’s zero reason to communicate with other people about training, working out, exercising, dieting, nutrition, or eating well. They already know.
Notice I didn’t say they had good answers.
But they’re sure confident about them.
Most of what is spewed from mouths and keyboards belongs in the landfill.
The know-it-alls sure aren’t living the results of their wisdom. It’s interesting that while 99% of the population knows everything, a whole lot less than that are in any condition to speak for their beliefs with actions and results.
(And that is hardly restricted to fitness and nutrition. I remember when I was a kid and thought adults had things figured out. What a lie that was.)
For the same reasons, giving out free advice is worth every penny paid.
It isn’t respected. It’s more junk thrown on the landfill of popular opinion.
It’s to the point that I wonder every single day why I bother writing here. Nobody cares, nobody is interested, and nobody does anything with what I share. If it weren’t good for me to write, for my own sanity, I’d have closed up shop long ago.
Lord knows if I were doing it to make a difference, I’m wasting my time.
I don’t do “fitness guy” because I never related to fitness guy. I never made sports or exercise or outdoor hobbies into my identity. The natural athletes and mesomorphs who are the face of the fitness industry never motivated me because I never shared their goals or their reasons for being there.
I’m an introvert who likes books and sitting in silence, who happened to discover strength training at a formative time of life and became obsessive about it.
It just happens that I’m in my late 40s with veins starting to show in my abs while squatting over twice body weight for casual singles and doing dips with two plates for reps.
I have no interest in posting shirtless pics or pics of me at the gym or being one of these slaves who has to dance to the algorithm with “content”.
Not my scene, not my thing, and it never will be.
I’m just here to age gracefully with as much youthful energy and vigor as I can sustain.
I offer to help others who want that kind of edge, too.
That isn’t for most people, and that’s fine. I’d never expect otherwise. Most people are life’s voyeurs, watching from the chair instead of doing anything to change.
But if you are ready to change, really change — not say that you are and then chicken out 10 days into it to end up on my lifetime ban-list — then send me a message and let’s see what I can do for you.
Matt Perryman