Getting Ripped at 65 – I have no idea at all why I decided that this would be a good idea, but sometimes you just have to do things for no apparent reason, and this is one of those times. And it is kind of cool sounding isn’t it? I mean it is at heart the ultimate Old Guy thing to do.
So I decided in January of 2023 that I would get ripped during my 65th year of life, starting on July 19, 2023. I should have a before and after picture shouldn’t I? Well, this is a bit of a saga that you might read with some caution….
It started out well enough, and within about six months I looked – well – sort of almost-ripped except for this annoying paunch that covered my (underneath) six-pack. I knew it was there somewhere.
Then my son-in-law – who is the definition of ripped – started to help me out. He showed me how to lift weights properly, and I started taking Creatine to buff up further. Notably, Creatine is NOT a steroid, although it does have some health risks, and I am NOT recommending it here. And good grief. I was getting closer and closer to being f_cking ripped! I mean I looked in the mirror and the body of a – dare I say hot – forty-year old man started back at me. My wife said:
Wow – you look good!
And she is my worst critic so I know she meant it. Woohoo!
Then it all turned to sh_t……
Just like Icarus – who flew too close to the sun – my body started to let me down and in a pretty dramatic way.
First – just before my 65th birthday – July 12th to be exact – I had a stroke! What a nice birthday present. Happily – if one can be happy about having a stroke – it was a super mild stroke. And I had no symptoms other than some numbness. And now – eighteen months later – there are no vestiges of it. But probably too soon to breathe a sigh of relief.
Second, it also turned out that thee was another birthday present coming – that my heart was running out of steam. I had an enlarged aortic root that had been stable for years but was now growing. And this meant I needed (open) heart surgery. Yuk!
My friends fell over themselves to give me support in a very special way. Namely, they started an informal competition to determine whether they could create more jokes about strokes than hearts. What are friends for except to be there when your chips are down?
I am nothing if not resourceful, so I quickly changed my goal from Ripped at Sixty-Five to
Ripped Open at Sixty-Five
Woohoo!
Also, as an aside, my surgery was (very) major. They took out my aorta, my aortic root, my aortic valve, my ascending aorta and some other stuff I don’t really remember. The doctor – at NYU – allowed my son in law – the ripped one – who is at NYU Medical School – to watch the operation. He came away with just a few words to describe my doctor as “A Rock Star.” So, yes, if you need heart surgery at some point, give me a shout as I have a referral for you.
As another aside, for those who relish ghoulish pleasures, and hopefully without giving you TMI, they use a rotary electric saw to get through the sternum and then……Well, that’s enough about that.
The recovery was not as horrible as I thought it would be.
It was a week of Power Whining – my wife knows what I mean.
Then a couple of weeks of being sentient but weak.
Then I started to recover. Some super light semi-workouts – like wall pushups and two hundred-yard super slow walks
And then – about 45 days after – I turned a corner – and started to feel like the Monty Python guy who said: “I’m not dead yet!”
At this point I had a rendezvous with one of my closest friends coming up. It was planned – long ago – to be at the end of January – about three months after surgery. When we get together, we do what we call Bodily Destruction. It means five (hard) workouts in the morning – followed by lying around – a massage – a couple of cocktails – and dinner. We do it for three days in a row and whoever feels worse at the end loses.
So would I be ready for him? Damn straight! I trained hard. No way I would let him kick my ass.
So we met in late January and had a great time taking turns trying to make the other miserable. I guess I have to admit he won, but I didn’t go down easy.
Now I was pretty close to ripped — i.e. ripped at 65 — but being honest with myself I wasn’t quite there yet. I had work to do. It was time to bear down, but God (or whoever was messing with me) had some other plans and gave me yet another 65th year birthday present — a hernia!
If you’ve ever had a hernia it doesn’t hurt but it looks kind of disgustingly yukky and — no — you can’t get ripped with a hernia. So another surgery coming. But they couldn’t do that till six months after the heart surgery. This meant waiting till April 1st.
That got done but I had to wait two more weeks to work out a gain. Time was running out as I only had till July 19th, but finally I could really pour it on.
Nope!
The heart doctor jumped back into the fray. He didn’t like the way my heart was beating and wanted to put a loop recorder into my heart.
Yikes that wouldn’t get done till May 1st and then two weeks before I could work out again. Time was really running out now.
But as you can see, I don’t give up easy and I was a man with a mission. I had from roughly May 15th to July 19th to pull it off.
It was — finally — game time.
And I am proud to say I won the game!
I have tried many crazy things in life – most ended in failure — but not this one.
Check out the pictures. Before I turned 65. In the hospital getting ripped open. And just before my 66th birthday.
Woohoo! I admit I was really proud of myself. That an Old Guy could do this.
…
Now the question arises — what should I shoot for at 66? Should it be Fat & Happy at 66? Or something else. After deep pondering — for about 60 seconds — I decided:
More Ripped at 66
A last note is that despite being ripped, I have a big scar down the center of my chest where they sawed me open. It is starting to fade but is still pretty prominent. And a woman I respect told me this – truly she did:
Chicks dig scars
I hope she is right.