Anecdotally I feel I noticed a very fast ageing speed between 38 and 40. Suddenly got white hairs, feel more tired, more wrinkles, way harder to keep VO2max up (I run a lot), muscle sores after training suddenly lasting up to 3 days instead of 1, face looks older, etc.
I feel like that all happened real fast around this age.
It's like there's two versions of me now, the one who was somehow moderately fit by biochemical decree, with a healthy amount of flesh to his face, voluminous dark blonde hair and a pleasant complexion...
... And the grey haired, weathered, lined, dessicated mummy I see in the mirror. I love my kids dearly but the constant caring really takes something out of you. That and the whole getting older thing in TFA.
I keep telling myself I'll get a gym membership soon to reclaim some of my dignity.
The kids still need lots of care (they are 5–9 years old), so finding time and motivation is still a challenge. For me the trick is to do training I really like. That helps so much with motivation. So, find something you like!
What I happen to like is bouldering and hiking. I have a fixed day of the week for bouldering, just after work, and I never miss it, because I know if I start skipping I might fall off my training habit.
Then the rest of the training is motivated by getting better at what I love. I do pull ups to better my climbing etc…
I will fight hard to keep at it through my 40s, because it is such a quality of life improvement. I also attribute the fact that I haven’t been really sick the last few years to my exercise.
The oldest go to bed later and later & I also like to hang out with my wife for a few hours each week... finding the energy and motivation for "me time" has been tough indeed. I should just do something I like, and stick with that on a regular schedule. It's as simple as what you write.
Go for it!
And try not to be in the majority group of gym goers who pay the membership without attending ;)
The nearest gym is truly the best gym for 90% of people, as everyone seems to look for excuses not to go. So just go, people there will not bite you or shame you.
Spotted an 18 year old the other day that hit a PR at 315lbs on bench. I bench 405lbs and at that exact moment I decided I have to hit 495lbs. 405 had been my goal for decades. I went from I've hit the most I will ever need to "the journey continues".
"people there will not bite you or shame you" I have found the gym to be filled with the most grim looking people that transform into the kindest, happiest people as soon as you say hello. No one is there to judge anyone. You are 100% right
But! There's no shame in napping mid-day, even more than once. Even in the office :)
Looking back at pictures from really not that long ago (less than 5 years) to before kids or the first year of the first kid and one of the overriding comments both me and wife have are "We look so young!". We have two aged 3-to-5, and its been hard but not that hard, especially now that there are no nappies/diapers and they sleep 10-11 hours straight overnight and we pay for gardeners, cleaners etc and pretty much do our usual 9-5 as we did before kids.
FWIW though, I would say that you don't need a gym membership. I try to run/jog/saunter a couple of times a week - its free and easy to do. Getting started is as easy as putting some shoes on and stepping out your door - no set up, no memberships, no travel to get to the place to do the running etc. You don't need to go buy special shoes or anything - just something vaguely appropriate will be fine to get started with for short distances and steady pace.
Its what your body has evolved to do, and I think there is a good mental-health aspect to just going out on your own and running and letting the mind wander. I personally don't especially "enjoy" running, and it is sometimes hard to persuade myself to actually go do it, but once I have started and I am 5-10 minutes in, it's quite nice.
Good luck
Now that they are older I have more free time. Once they get to the point where they can stay home alone things become much easier. For me that was around when they hit 10. I'm 46 now and in the best shape of my life. Keep pushing through, there is light at the end of the tunnel
It's not just my perception either, other people assume I'm early 20s.
I can't really relate to the physical stuff though because muscle sores after training was always 3 days for me and it was always difficult to keep VO2max up, even in my early teens. So I guess I just started out in middle age.
Sometimes I can't believe how low discussions on HN can fall. Did really nobody in this thread bother to check this? Are we fine disparaging research solely based on the fact that they used a method that gives bad results with bad inputs (which doesn't?) and their incentives could be misaligned (whose aren't?)?
If there are well justified concerns about the method or data then by all means let's talk about it, but please let's all try to keep low effort anti intellectual conspiracy theories away from here.
They didn't test the theory that rapid aging occurs at those two specific time points in an independent hold out set.
Most importantly even if these peaks exist this paper does not prove they are biological. They could correspond to common socially driven changes in behavior
That's good, now I'm wondering about the others in the thread.
> 'Omics papers get away with a lot of hand waving
Making assumptions and interpreting results is part of any type of analysis, especially for unsupervised learning approaches like clustering. Or maybe I am missing something: how do you not-handwave the results of a clustering analysis if you don't have any supervision signal?
In any case, I agree that omics in particular take many more liberties than usual with their interpretations. And yet, sometimes they come up with useful and important finding. Yes, a broken clock...2x a day, but maybe after working in the same field for many years one can gain some insights and intuitions.
> but you are going to find peaks in a random walk
I would hope so since a random walk has pretty obvious peaks, and it's not hard to test if the peak is significantly beyond the level expected due to chance.
Do you have actual concerns about the data and the peaks they found, or are we back at wondering about all the fallacies that they may or may have not committed?
> They didn't test the theory that rapid aging occurs at those two specific time points in an independent hold out set.
This is a glaring omission, I agree.
> this paper does not prove they are biological. They could correspond to common socially driven changes in behavior.
True, but it dot make this paper worth any less. If anything, it's a great question for follow-up work.
All young people think they are special and age is just a number. The rest of the population knows that isn't true. Spare me your weight lifting 80 year old, or "my grandpa worked the farm til he was 90" stuff, we all know those are extreme outliers.
People also often tell me I look and seem younger than my age.
But I also prioritize sleeping 8 hours a night. Eating low carb. Regular exercise. Plus I have no kids. :-)