Measure it!

I spend a lot of time measuring things.  I measure my work in steel to .0001" or better.  I get a consistent body weight every morning at a certain time to .1 of a pound.   I want to know how hard I can climb on rock to the letter grade or how fast I run a 5 K or a marathon to the second.

I want to know if I am in the black on a target.  Is it in the X ring or just a 10?  I want to know how many pull ups or sit ups I can do and my blood pressure and resting HR every morning.  My Max HR on the bike and the same a run.  And I want to know what my dbl boots and my bikes weigh to the gram.

I measure because I want to do better.  If you aren't measuring how do you know if you are doing better?   The fact is you don't.   The flip side of that is if you aren't getting better you are getting worse.  If you don't measure you don't know what is better or what is worse.  There is nothing that takes any kind of physical skill that stays the same for long.  Use it or loose it.  Measuring it will help you keep it or better yet, get better at it.

The better shape you stay in, the more likely your are to notice changes in your own body and it's abilities.

This is the first cross post I have done.  But it seems really appropriate.  I found my cancer (yes I originally found it, not my Doc) because I keep track of my resting heart rate and recovery while climbing and working out.  There were several indicators that I was sick.  None obvious and all were very subtle.  None of them would have indicated cancer.  To the point at my annual physical, that I intentionally did early, my family Doc said, "don't worry, it is NOT cancer".  While I never even remotely thought I had cancer I did know something was wrong, seriously wrong.  My resting heart rate would not come down to normal.  I was gaining weight no matter what I did for exercise short of starving myself and I wasn't recovering from hard physical efforts like I typically would.  I was being told, "it is just part of aging."  And I started calling "bull shit".

Thank God I measure and keep track of things.  Because cancer is best treated as early as possible.  I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.  The cancer had already metastasized from my throat to my lymph glands when it was found.

If I had left my family Doctor's office and gone by what he said my prognosis even a couple of month later would have been a lot different.   As would have been the cure and then the even longer recovery.

My suggestion is eat better, exercise more and keep track on a daily basis of what your body is doing.
It is never too late to start.  Try to get your loved ones to do the same.