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Well, I’m 40! (With an exclamation point no less!) Yes, I turned 40 a few months ago. I have to say until my dr. appt. yesterday I really embraced 40, last night I didn’t and today.. even worse.

Let me start at the beginning.

For my 40th birthday, I had a birthday party. I have family and friends around. My husband, son and 2 step daughters (kids are 7, 15, & 17 respectively) were also with me. I had a great time and really found myself embracing the 40 year old syndrome. I am reasonably active after work, but during the day, I have a day job and sit at a desk all day.

So, after my birthday, I continue with my life, but a funny thing started to happen, I started to feel more confident. It was like a revelation one day. I felt like I gave off an aura of confidence and I felt sexy!! I felt more sexy at 40 than I did in my 30’s. Maybe because I could flirt with younger men and know I could get away with it. (no sexual innuendo’s just flirt). Maybe I was embracing the cougar in me. I felt more comfortable in my skin. So, life is good…

Well then I started noticing little things, my size 8 shorts didn’t fit.. uh-oh I went to a size 10…o.k. I wanted to get back into the gym more often. I started doing the workout that I did at 37 and –oh my the size 10 shorts are getting..umm snug..I also added modifying my food intake–diet for all of the non-dieters–which is something i didn’t do before.

For an athlete, turning 40 can be traumatic. Jon Williams turned his first full season as a masters runner into the best of his career.

The Miami resident didn’t go quietly into the masters division. He continued to run at the front of the pack, winning 43 races in 2009 and recording personal-best times at several distances, including a 2-hour, 39-minute marathon at Chicago in October.

Sesame Street turned 40 yesterday, the Internet turned 40 last month, Diddy and Matthew McConaughey blew out 40 candles last week…guys, I think we’re on to something here. Turning 40 is as cool as it gets.

I was at work the other morning waiting for my relief to come on and the only thing I could think of was the line or two from David Lee Roth before the Van Halen song Hot for Teacher. You know the part where Eddie is twidling on the main guitar riff and David Lee ab libs, “I don’t feel tardy.”

I suppose that is sorta how I feel about turning 40. I don’t feel forty. A good point is that no I do not listen to Van Halen much but my Ipod is instead loaded with Sublime, The White Stripes, Shiny Toy Guns, Wilco, TV on the Radio and the like. I suppose I believed when I was a kid that forty year olds just listened to Paul Anka and were busy yelling at the neighbor kids to get out of their yard.

I suppose it is a blessing to feel more at ease talking to those younger then me then those older, but it is a bigger blessing that I feel I have more in common with the youth. Some of this youthful outlook is great. I love working out. Most folks my age seem to be less fit and as time goes on just give up being healthy. What started as weight loss morphed into weight training and now is taking on new avenues of fitness. I Loved bicycling into work the last few days and flipping off the gas sign on the way. I plan to do this until late fall (gas sign flipage contingent on future gas prices), but who knows we may have a mild winter. The point is that I am in the best physical shape of my life and I plan to improve to a higher excellence as time goes on and that is not the thinking of an old man.

I think it is very telling that there is a site started just two years ago called ‘turning40′. I think our generation is  “insistent”, in some ways, of not having the turning 40 stigma. I mean didn’t MTV just celebrate an anniversary?

I turn 40 in 5 days and I asked a bunch of people for a list of all the things I should do in the next 5 days that would be socially unacceptable for me to do after I turn 40. The only thing that came up was “take dirty pictures”.

I am very happy with how my life has turned out. However, one of my goals in life was to reach that point…. no matter WHERE I was in life at any given time. That’s all we all really want is to just be happy regardless of circumstances.

The only thing I am NOT happy with is my weight. I lift heavy weights alot so I have sort of a football player look to me, but, I do carry more fat than I want. But on the other hand, I think, WHY DO I CARE? I have the most amazing wife in the world, awesome kids, and a fun life. Why do I care if I’m ’sexy’? BFD! Right? Now I just have to convince myself of that.

Physical Training