I’ve been noticing gravity more than usual — in the everyday way your body starts keeping better score as you get older. Shirts fit a little differently, and not in a flattering way. You move with more calculation because the idea of missing a shift for a senseless injury sounds ridiculous at this stage of life. It’s not a crisis; it’s awareness.
Winter makes this harder. Comfort becomes the default setting. The early darkness settles in, the firehouse counter turns into a buffet of effortless calories, and Thanksgiving shows up like a seasonal permission slip to overdo everything. Most of the weight we gain each year comes from these months, and I can feel that truth creeping in. I’m not off the rails, but the small choices – grabbing whatever is on the counter, letting work push training aside, convincing myself I’ll make up for it later – stack faster than they used to. It’s not failure, but it’s early warning.
I talked to my friend Ryan Provencher – one of the most knowledgeable people I know in the firefighter fitness performance space and someone I never have to posture with. I told him where I was struggling, how I wanted to cut it off before it became a problem. Ryan didn’t give me a lecture or judge me. He just reminded me about raising my standards. It’s refusing to let the baseline sink. It’s seeing the slide early enough to correct it without turning it into a personal audit of your flaws.
Reclaiming Standards Before the Slide
What surprised me – even though it shouldn’t – is how fast the headspace shifts the moment you take back even a little bit of control. My workload hasn’t changed, my schedule hasn’t magically opened up, but the second I stopped handing my standards over to convenience, everything felt different. It’s wild how predictable it is. You move your body, your brain fires differently. Chemicals do what chemicals are designed to do. It’s almost embarrassing how many times I’ve relearned the same lesson: when life gets hard, we deprive our brain of the oxygen and chemistry it needs to handle the very stress we’re under. We ask it to operate at a higher capacity while fueling it with the habits of someone who’s given up. Meanwhile, the formula has never changed – work out, sleep, eat like you care. It’s definitely not “work yourself into the ground and fuel up on junk, then act shocked when your waistline files a complaint.”
That’s the headspace I’m trying to stay in – intentional instead of automatic. I’m paying attention to how comfort sneaks in: the skipped workout because I’m swamped with CRACKYL, the snack grabbed simply because I walked past it, the temptation to wind down early because it’s already dark out. Curiosity makes more sense than self-judgment right now. Guilt kills energy and creativity, and I need both in high supply.
Tony Horton has a line: aging is for people who don’t know better. It stuck with me the first time I heard it, and it’s been echoing lately. You don’t have to follow the predictable path of letting age and convenience negotiate your standards down. This is the season where it’s easiest to slip, and the season where tightening things up makes the biggest difference.
Fighting Comfort With Intentionality
I also keep thinking about my lawn. When we moved into our house 12 years ago, it was mostly weeds and crabgrass. Maintaining the weeds took more work than maintaining the healthy lawn I have now. That never left me. You’re always maintaining something, either the weeds or the healthier version of your life. One creates more problems. One keeps things stable. Neglect doesn’t destroy you overnight, but it slowly takes the lead if you’re not paying attention.
I’m trying to stay ahead of it, be honest with myself, and keep things moderated before the season decides how I’m going to feel in January.
The truth is, I just want to do better before it gets a head start on me. I keep coming back to this: “Make time for your wellness or you’ll be forced to make time for your illness.” Hard to argue with something that straightforward … believe me, I tried.
