You and I Are Way Too Old To Expect Others to Do Our Tough Mudders for Us
Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back
Deep Work is Dirty Work: the hard, satisfying slogging to get in shape, eat better, live better, grow as humans and enjoy vitality as we age
Nobody else can do that but us. So why do some of us expect our coaches and caregivers to do the work if we just pay them?
Personal growth, in some ways, is like a lifelong Tough Mudder.
Like winning, placing or just surviving a Tough Mudder is deeply satisfying, realizing that we’ve grown beyond who or what we once were is just…damn, man. No better feeling.
Nobody can take that away from us. We paid the price.
So why is it that so many people want the medal without the Mudder?
Why do so many folks want the credit without the crucifying difficulty of the work to earn an accolade that is theirs and theirs alone?
Let’s talk about coaches.
Shannon grinned back at me from the other side of our booth at Glendale’s, a lively little breakfast spot in south Eugene, Oregon. She’s generous, funny and dedicated, having recently opened up SM Nutrition.
Shannon crafts and delivers delicious home-made meals which have detailed information about their nutritional values on the packaging. Nothing you can’t pronounce.
And, she custom-designs for folks with all kinds of persnickety special needs and requests. Guilty as charged.
She also offers nutritional counseling and education for people who have decided that they really do want a better relationship with their body.
Shannon delivered a bunch of those meals to me after a recent surgery, making my life a lot easier for that first week and giving me a first-hand experience of what her kitchen can do. Her food is simply amazing.
A big part of the reason: you can taste the love and care she weaves into every dish.
In particular, Shannon has been delivering big results to big people who are tired of being big, and living with big physical problems.
Shannon and I met when she was prepping for a show. This is how she looked on show day:
Shannon was in her early fifties at the time. She knows something about how to be fit, ready for a show, and how to live a healthy, everyday life for folks who will never set foot in a gym.
She and I have both also been heavier than we want at certain points. We both know the frustration and personal pain of losing our best body.
She knows how to be fit without the need to be ripped.
Shannon also understands how an aging woman’s body is vilified for the crime of aging, yet how much beauty exists in the many proofs of life that aging woman’s body shows to the world.
She’s also middle-aged, subject to the same sadness and depression and lack of sleep as are we all.
She’s a mom, a grandmom, so she really gets what many middle-aged and older women are facing.
Especially in the mirror.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if grammas loved their bodies as much as they love their babies?
As she searches for and finds better answers, she passes along what she learns. She’s humbled by what she doesn’t know, and enjoys learning along with her clients.
That’s a great coach. If you’re considering hiring one, these might be some attributes to consider. I prefer to work with people closer to my age, whom life has both battered and sculpted. Therein lies compassion.
Anyone who’s ever been obese, and I have, might recall what it felt like to have a 17-year-old who can’t spell cellulite screaming instructions at you from the front of an aerobics class. Will you just please.
At breakfast, Shannon and I had both gotten a few badly-needed nights of sleep, so we were in fine fettle.
We were laughing because Shannon gets frustrated when otherwise competent adults expect that by working with her, somehow she’s going to do all their work and all they have to do is sit back and enjoy the benefits.
Or worse, blame her when they don’t get healthier and fitter.
They won’t track their macros, won’t stick with the plan. Shannon knows what’s going on because she can see the results.
Rather, the lack thereof.
That attitude isn’t just silly, it’s ridiculous. It also insults Shannon, who is deeply committed to helping people fall in love with their bodies, or at the very least, negotiate better terms.
Shannon does two things which I truly respect:
First, she educates, largely for free or low fee, so that people see value and then get to choose.
Then, she wants you to fire her when you get so good at managing your food, your body and its needs that you don’t need her anymore.
Most folks and businesses want you to subscribe for life, forget about it and go to your grave with X bucks a month still slapping their bottom line.
Shannon wants to figuratively slap your (slimmer) bottom as you sashay out the door, ready and able to take care of your body business without her help.
I’m a fan of that business model.
You and I are way Too Old to believe we don’t need help, coaching, support.
Yeah, we do. Even better, assuming we can swing the costs, we deserve help, coaching and support.
This is particularly true when it comes to the dizzying world of dietary advice, nutrition and what on earth to eat. I highly recommend Substack’s
, but I personally do better when I’ve also got someone to help me navigate the morass of misinformation about food.
Being overweight is Shannon’s most common client complaint. Clients often need to lighten the load a bit and improve their health numbers before their doctors will green-light a serious workout plan.
What frustrates her are those who hand over their hard-earned cash, but who cheat-eat, fail to monitor their intake (which teaches them what they really do vs what they say they do) and then lie about it.
Then they complain they’re not losing weight.
That guy who spends a fortune on a trainer? Then spends his entire hour sitting on the weight bench jawjacking about the Sunday game, and then brags to his buds about spending an hour at the gym?
That.
You and I are way Too Old to expect others to do our Dirty Work/Tough Mudders for us.
It took us years and a million million minuscule daily decisions for us to end up with the body we have right now. It’s likely to take a good long time to properly, safely and permanently - ahem- take it off.
Shannon told me about a woman who wanted to lose weight as quickly as possible. Lots of it. That’s a recipe for disaster for our organs and our skin, to say nothing of how nearly impossible it is to keep it off afterwards.
Such fairy tale demands are how we can do terrible damage to the body in the name of being thin vs. learning to harness the extraordinary physical body we inhabit, and collaborate with it.
Besides, while it’s true that the world treats us differently if we’re not obese, losing weight in and of itself does not deliver all the things we hope to get. Some folks end up with masses of loose flesh which horrifies them.
Others fall into a deep depression because the world didn’t suddenly fall at their feet when they reached that Magic Number. Their Prince didn’t ride in, they didn’t get the big contract, whatever unrealistic expectation they carried with all that weight now weighs on them just as heavily.
That’s just one reason why many gain it all right back and then some.
The trick, and why we might want a coach, is to build character, faith and confidence as we invite the ounces off.
People who are successful long term at weight loss do it slowly, carefully and with great patience. We learn real self-regard through eating well, moving more, and being very intentional and loving about the process.
Hiring a coach is an act of great self-love. A good coach gives us permission to slide, to fail, to flail, to get back up and keep going. From that we learn how to give ourselves such grace.
Life is a Tough Mudder.
Mastering that mud, finding it fun, learning to love this extraordinary body we inhabit and help it help us through life is a long, slow slog dotted with millions of amazing moments.
A good coach helps us see those moments where we might otherwise be distracted by a recalcitrant muffin top.
One last thing. It’s football season. If you’re a fan, you know that every great player from the quarterback to the running back has a dedicated coach or three. He has to learn how to eat better, play better and correct his mistakes.
None of those coaches plays the game, but they are screaming encouragement and corrections from the sidelines. The best of the best all have coaches. If you can swing one, it might be time to invest in yourself.
You most assuredly deserve your best life. The truly best life is one where we slog the mud, accept help, and also accept the congratulations when we hit our goals.
Be in the game. Consider a good coach. Learn to love your body and invite it to love you back. Let’s do the work ourselves, and allow our coach(es) to celebrate the wins we have earned.
Let’s play.
Thanks for spending irretrievable time with me. I hope you got value and inspiration. If so, kindly consider reading more or even this:
If you know someone in need of a little oomph, this might work for them too:
However you spend your day I hope it is with good people (including yourself) and is full of incredible moments.