2026 New Year Outlook and 2025 Year-End Fitness Level

I’m not making a concrete New Year’s Resolution this year as I did last year. Last year my resolution was to focus on mind, body, and spirit. I did. And, I fully achieved the body aspect, with my improved fitness, which I’ll highlight further in this blog post.

That said, I suppose my outlook or “resolution” for 2026 will be to continue managing mind, body, and spirit. In addition, I’ll be more mindful of how I spend my time and energy, and direct them to more important endeavors and interests.

Year-End 2025 Fitness Level

I met all my objectives by year-end 2025 with respect to gaining strength, improving cardio, and right-sizing my waist.

Strength

Regarding my functional strength program, I’ve been consistent in lifting weights essentially one day a week, and sometimes every five days or so.

I began using a barbell for weight lifting (mainly for the bench press) back in November 2024. At that time, I didn’t perform any barbell exercises for the legs. Instead, I just used one dumbbell to perform Bulgarian Split Squats. Those work well.

By spring 2025, I acquired some different weights and a bar from a contact who quit using his equipment, so I decided to begin incorporating barbell leg exercises. However, I quickly strained a muscle, an adductor at the groin, while performing lightweight barbell Bulgarian Split Squats. It wasn’t so severe that I had to stop leg lifting entirely, I just had to perform half-motion exercises for a while. It was difficult to jog, too. To this day, nine months after the strain, the muscle is still mildly sore, but I can perform at 80-85% effort without much concern.

Anyway, my progress with gaining functional strength has been slow, but I’m still surprisingly strong on an age-adjusted relative basis (I turned 57 in Nov.), just not at ultra elite, chimp-like strength¹The top fraction of 1% of males by body weight, at any age. levels like when I was 20 years old, of course.

For more details about my renewed exercise habits, back in July 2025 I wrote about my fitness level and strength. I also referenced my earlier strength and waistline in 2024 in last year’s New Year’s resolution (linked to it earlier).

For a concise summary, the table below references the exercise, the barbell weight in pounds, and then the repetitions for a given set.

I should point out, in Nov. 2024 I was using a different bar—shorter and only one inch in diameter. So, even though I marked in my notes that I performed 185 pounds in the bench press, I lowered that amount by ten pounds in this table because I overestimated the weight of that bar.

This reduction seems to properly reflect the weight used at that time, especially when one considers the progression in strength over time. By February 2025, I began using a heavier, longer bar that has an official weight of 45 pounds (an Olympic bar), so the amount of weight referenced thereafter is consistently accurate.

Waist

I wrote back in May 2024 that my waist had expanded like a hot air balloon at a county fair from 2020 until spring of 2024, when I went for a jog for the first time since late 2018 or 2019.

• Pre-Covid (circa 2018−2019): 32”−33”
• May 2024: (a whopping) 37”
• Late summer 2025: 31″ (actually just under it)
• Year end 2025: 32″ (it’s my winter fat)

So, I lost six inches from my waistline from May 2024 to late summer or early fall of 2025. The other interesting aspect of my fitness is my waist shrunk from 33″ or 34″ in June 2025 (reference picture from beach) to 31″ by late summer or early fall of 2025!

One explanation for the waist shrinkage is that I began to run longer, and longer distances on my running day as summer progressed. Moreover, I didn’t “carb load” on run days. On most run days, I’d only drink coffee prior to running, since I’d leave the house in the mornings.

My understanding is that the body will begin to use fat as fuel after, say, 45 minutes of moderate exercise, especially if your body doesn’t have enough fuel stored from carbohydrates (glycogen).

MIT Technology Review explains this concept in more depth:

In general, we store backup energy in fat cells that are distributed around the body, some in the abdomen around the organs (visceral fat) and some under the skin (subcutaneous fat); lesser amounts of fat can also be deposited in muscle tissue. We also have smaller reserves of energy that are stored in the liver, muscles, and brain as glycogen. Glycogen is the stored form of glucose, the sugar that is the body’s main source of energy….

When we expend energy during intense bouts of exercise and other physical activity, the glycogen in our muscles is used first. The liver releases glycogen to help with muscle activity and to regulate blood glucose levels. After about 30 to 60 minutes of aerobic exercise, the body begins to burn fat.

MIT Technology Review | Oct. 2022 | Bonnie Tsui

Consistent with MIT’s research, these long runs and bicycle rides were likely melting away a lot of fat since they entailed a couple of hours of continuous exercise. In contrast, if I were to increase the number of days per week of exercise, and lower the per day exercise time to 30 to 60 minutes, then I’d burn mostly stored glycogen.

So, my one day per week cardio regimen, with two to three hours of extended exercise, melts away the fat! Conversely, this also helps to explain why my waist has gained an inch or so in the past two months; I’m not bicycling and only running six miles on run/cardio day.

Running

As for running, more specifically, I still run one day per week.

In the summer, I worked my way up to running between 10 and 14 miles per run at a pace of 8:45-10:00 minutes per mile. I also would ride my bicycle to and from the trail, which totaled about 14 miles. Currently, I run six miles once a week at a pace of 9:00-10:00 minutes per mile.

Back in May 2024, when I went for a 2.80-mile jog, my first jog or run since 2018 or 2019, my pace was 12:46 minutes per mile. At the moment, I could run that shorter distance at a similar effort at probably 8:45 minutes per mile. I could go a little faster, but would likely injure my arches or knees.

In 2026, I will likely cap my running distance at six miles or so. The reason is, running is just too stressful on my knees, ankles, and arches. I could make up some cardio by bicycling at a faster clip, and bicycling is less stressful and easier on the joints.

Mentally, I’m raring to go; my body, not so much.

Heart Says Pit; Knees Say Balcony

This takes me to a similar concept about wanting to participate in the mosh pits of punk band shows, but the body says, “no thank you.”²I remember attending a Lollapalooza festival in the summer of 1991 at Blossom Music Center (outside of Akron, Ohio). I went with a couple of former high school classmates. We lost each other after entering the mosh pit area. When Jane’s Addiction was playing, I got pushed to the ground and thought I was going to die from being trampled on! However, several punks quickly reached their hands down and picked me up, like football teammates would do after my being tackled to the turf. Fun times.

Though the mosh pit could be bloody and chaotic, it was not without its unspoken rules: no punches were to be thrown; if you saw someone on the ground, you should pick them up before they got trampled; you were not to stage dive if you were a large person; and if someone was being too aggro in the pit, it was your prerogative to tell them to chill.

Medium | “Is moshing dead?” by Ahmed Kabil | 14 Dec. 2016

As such, my aging runner self is not unlike my aging Gen X-er,³I’m not referring to the English punk band founded in 1976: Generation X with Billy Idol as its frontman. punk-rock-enthusiast self:

Punk Music

I suppose this is a good opportunity to share some punk music, an ideal for living in the 2026 New Year, as it were.

So, here is Joy Division’s An Ideal For Living (1978 Full EP), compliments of AudioPunx on YouTube.

Tracklist

• A1 Warsaw 00:00
• A2 No Love Lost 02:24
• B1 Leaders Of Men 06:05
• B2 Failures Of The Modern Man 08:42

Potential Upcoming 2026 Blog Post Topics

Here are several blog posts that have been delayed due to time constraints:

• Pumpkin or Sunflower seed processing
• Irish Inspired Coffee and Cream
• Wild Pears
• Wire Basket on Bicycle
• Rush, the rock band
• Physical Silver versus Paper Financial Markets
• An English Punk Band
• Rendering lard
• Peppermint harvest
• Big bag of Diatomaceous Earth

I’m sure I’ll post at least one of these in early 2026.

Closing Words

I’ll close this post with a Bible warfare quote, from Ephesians 6:12, to keep in mind in 2026:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2026 New Year; a beginning of a golden age with a silver lining, too.

Footnotes

• 1
  The top fraction of 1% of males by body weight, at any age.
• 2
  I remember attending a Lollapalooza festival in the summer of 1991 at Blossom Music Center (outside of Akron, Ohio). I went with a couple of former high school classmates. We lost each other after entering the mosh pit area. When Jane’s Addiction was playing, I got pushed to the ground and thought I was going to die from being trampled on! However, several punks quickly reached their hands down and picked me up, like football teammates would do after my being tackled to the turf. Fun times.
• 3
  I’m not referring to the English punk band founded in 1976: Generation X with Billy Idol as its frontman.