Day 24

Today we tried the Ergobaby carrier for the first time. It’s a series of straps and fabric that hold a small child to the chest of an adult. It provides a more comfortable carrying posture for the adult and frees up both hands and arms while giving the baby a snug napping position. Both my wife and I found it to be a good alternative to the copious amount of sitting we’ve done the past few weeks.

This brings me to some thoughts about starting up some physical fitness habits. Before the baby, I was reading the book Outlive by doctor, podcast host, and writer Peter Attia. The part of the book that resonated with me most as I was preparing for fatherhood was the idea of being proactive in preparing for the life one wants to live (quality of life) many years or decades in the future. For example, if as an 80-year-old, I want to be able to pick up my grandkids and take a short hike, I would need to function as a much younger man through physical training and fitness in the years and decades leading up to the octagenarian decade.

Peter advocates having very specific quality-of-life goals in mind and working backward from those to build an appropriate regimen. A further observation here is that in some ways, one must overprepare and overtrain to account for the inevitable natural decline and degradation of aging.

Over the next few weeks, I want to create a list of goals for myself both fitness and nutrition to build a plan. As I create these, I plan to share them in case it may help other new parents in goal setting and training tactics.

So long for now.

Felix