Throughout my adult life I have pretty consistently used myself as a guinea pig. Is there a new study about something that could make you healthier? Help deal with anxiety and depression? Yeah, I’m going to do it. Some of it has worked and some of it hasn’t.

Right now, I’m seeing how many of the current issues I have could be related to my vagus nerve and nervous system. I stumbled onto an audiobook on Spotify called Regulate Your F*cking Nervous System. As I was listening to it, a lot of it made sense and seemed to line up with everything I’m going through. Poor sleep, crappy eating, feeling tired yet somehow still awake and jittery. I think I checked off just about every box. And the vast majority of it is probably my own doing.

We recently celebrated my daughter’s quinceañera at Disneyland. That became the excuse. “I’ll eat healthy when it’s over.” “I’ll get to the gym regularly when it’s over.” For months I basically gave myself permission to stop paying attention because there was always this finish line coming. The problem is the party has now been over for more than two weeks and I’m still struggling to flip the switch back.

I’m sitting at around 195 pounds right now. I’ve had the goal of getting to 175 for a few years, so I’ve got roughly 20 pounds to go. I’ve made progress toward it before. Then I’ll start slipping, the habits fade, and eventually I’m right back where I started. That’s one of the biggest reasons I’m doing this publicly.

This whole section of Goatland is going to be about holding myself accountable. What better way to do that than putting it out there where people can actually see whether I did what I said I was going to do? I’m going to update this as frequently as I reasonably can. Ideally that’s every day, but that’s another thing I have to watch. I have a habit of starting a project and letting it engulf everything until I’m spending way more time on it than I should. The goal here is accountability, not creating another giant project that takes over my life.

The basic format going forward is going to be pretty simple. I’ll recap how the previous day went, what worked, what didn’t, and then lay out what I’m doing that day. Today is obviously different because there isn’t a yesterday to recap. We’re starting fresh.

What I’m Doing Today

The first thing I need to do is fix my ice bath. A small piece broke and it should be an easy fix, but again, I’ve just been lazy about getting it done. Once that’s fixed, I should be able to start my morning routine tomorrow with the ice bath and then the sauna. I’ll explain more about that later, and I’ll eventually put together a full article about the setup because I pieced the ice bath together myself. Trying to create 35-degree water in El Paso, Texas, during the summer ain’t exactly easy.

Today also kicks off a much bigger focus on movement. The audiobook was adamant about getting outside, getting sunlight and getting moving. Walk. Ride a bike. Whatever. Just move. I tend to get buried in whatever I’m doing in my office and suddenly realize I’ve been sitting there for hours. Then my back hurts, my neck hurts, my posture is garbage and I’m wondering why I feel like crap.

I’m starting the day with some qigong just to get moving. We don’t need to get into the whole “does qigong work?” debate right now. I’m moving my body, slowing things down and starting the day differently, and that’s what matters to me at this point. I’m also getting outside for some morning sunlight.

Lucy is getting a walk too. She recently had surgery and she’s finally ready to start walking again, so this works out pretty damn well for both of us. One of the goals going forward is to make that a daily thing instead of something I do when I happen to think about it.

There are also some vocal exercises that are supposed to help stimulate the vagus nerve. Really, we’re talking about humming. Considering I spent more than 20 years working in radio broadcasting, it’s kind of ridiculous that I don’t take better care of my voice anyway. So humming is getting added to this little experiment too. I’ll do it and see if I notice anything. If I do, I’ll report it. If I don’t, I’ll report that too.

And then there’s the gym.

My workday usually wraps up around 3 p.m., and one of my biggest problems is that I’ll delay going until suddenly I don’t have enough time, or I’ll somehow rationalize not going at all. That’s done. If I’m healthy enough to train, I’m going.

I also need to stop saying I’m going to the gym just to “work out.” Every session needs an actual purpose. Am I trying to build strength? Improve conditioning? Run faster? Work on balance or athleticism? There needs to be a reason I’m there beyond checking a box.

For today, though, the workout was not about pretending I’m already back to full speed. I’ve recently dealt with recurring neck, upper-back and shoulder irritation, so the plan was to use machines where I could control the movement, then gradually reintroduce dumbbells, TRX, athletic movement and less-stable exercises as things feel better. The larger goal is still to rebuild consistency, progress strength, improve core strength and eventually move beyond machine fitness toward balance, coordination, conditioning, speed, agility and athleticism. But Day 1 had to reflect where I actually am.

What I Actually Did at the Gym

I started with 30 minutes on the elliptical, then did a straightforward upper-body machine workout. This was intentionally an easier first workout back. The goal was not to walk into the gym on Day 1 and destroy myself. The point was to get back in there, move, establish real baseline machine weights and leave myself in a position where I actually want to come back and continue.

Cardio

• Elliptical: 30 minutes.

Upper Body

• Low Row: 65 lb, 3 sets × 8 reps.
• Pec Fly: 70 lb, 3 sets × 8 reps.
• Vertical Traction: 100 lb, 3 sets × 10 reps.
• Chest Press: 90 lb, 3 sets × 8 reps.
• Reverse Fly: 20 lb, 3 sets × 8 reps.

Workout Totals

• 30 minutes of cardio.
• 5 upper-body exercises.
• 15 working sets.
• 126 total strength reps.

Those numbers matter because now I have actual baselines to track against. Not theoretical numbers. Not what I thought I might do. Real Day 1 numbers. The goal isn’t one massive workout. The goal is rebuilding consistency.

There is also one rule I need to start following immediately. I have a bad habit of getting to a machine, seeing somebody sitting there buried in their damn phone for 20 minutes, and using that as an excuse to skip the exercise. No more. If a machine is occupied, change the order. Do something else. Come back to it. If it’s still occupied later, use an appropriate substitute. Somebody else’s Instagram session isn’t going to decide whether I finish my workout.

This Is Bigger Than Losing 20 Pounds

The big thing about this whole post and the posts coming after it is that I’m a 46-year-old man trying to figure out how to actually hit the goals I keep setting for myself. I start doing well, then things fade. I’ll do great at the gym for a couple weeks, get bored, try something different, push too hard, tweak something and slide right back into bad routines.

I’m also a 46-year-old man who has had three shoulder surgeries, one elbow surgery and has perpetual bad posture. I can’t train like I’m 22 and pretend none of that exists. What I do has to have intention behind it.

I want to get down to 175 pounds, but that’s not the only goal. I want to get stronger. I want to move better. I want better conditioning. I want better balance and coordination. I want to run faster again. I want to feel athletic again. More importantly, I want to figure out how to do all of that consistently instead of repeatedly building momentum and then starting over.

That’s what this experiment is really about.

And Then There’s the Food

Food is going to be another big piece of this. Again, it’s something I’ll do really well with for a while and then let slowly disappear. I’m going to talk about how I’m eating in these updates because it’s part of the accountability, but the actual recipes are going to live over in The Eatery here on Goatland.

The goal there is pretty straightforward: simple, healthy, delicious meals that I can make quickly and that my family will actually eat. And you’re not going to have to scroll through 4,000 words about how I was taught a recipe by some ancient monk while visiting China just to find out how much garlic goes in it.

Most of the time it’s much less romantic than that. I know what I like. I know what my family likes. I look at what I have in the kitchen and ask ChatGPT, “What can I make from this?”

I also have a few cookbooks that have become good starting points, and I’ll share some of those over in The Eatery too.

Let’s See What Happens

That’s really the whole idea. I’m using myself as the guinea pig. I’m going to try things and report what happens. Some things are going to work. Some probably won’t. There are going to be days when I hit everything I’m supposed to do and there are absolutely going to be days when I don’t.

I’m not trying to prove that I’ve discovered some miracle nervous-system reset. I’m trying to figure out what actually helps me.

The difference this time is that I’m putting the hits and misses out there instead of quietly starting over every few months.

So here we go. Day 1.

Feel free to come along for the journey.