Vanessa, as someone who has lifted for more than 45 years, this is so fucking true. I’m tall and lean, and for me to get size, god DAMN man. I train for strength and endurance. The rest is just sweet. At 66, these days what I have gleaned are:

1. Because of the kinds of extremely difficult sports I do, if I didn’t train at the gym regularly I’d be dead by now. Told that by a lot of doctors in other countries.
2. Not too many women of my age can do what I do, including something as simple as a number of deep squats at speed just to warm up. My PT commented that he doesn’t get too many women who can do that. Shit, man that’s just a warmup.
3. Girls approach me in the locker room and say they want my guns. When I tell them what it’s going to take to get them, their faces drop. To your point. It takes time, work and time and work and time and work and time and work. Don’t wanna do that? No patience? Get a fucking silicone implant. However, sis, if you try to lift something heavy with that stupid implant in your arm, your eyeballs telling you that you have working muscle, you are in for a shitstorm of bad news and serious injury. Do. The. Fucking. WORK. Already.
4. There is no ending point. Never ever. You do your thing, you injure. You lose size, strength. You bust your ass for months (thank god for muscle memory) just to get back to baseline. Sucks.
5. I don’t do yoga, I can’t lift. I can’t lift, I get cranky. I do yoga. Lengthens those muscles. People do not understand the importance of stretching. They say they don’t have time. Wait ‘til you injure and see how much time you have.
6. There is a point of diminishing returns. Where that is depends on each one of us. Thirty years ago I trained until I had an additional forty pounds of pure muscle. My father accused me of taking steroids (christ almighty no). I backed way off and liked my body a lot better. Besides, for my purposes, with what I do with my body, lean, mean, strong and cut are a lot more functional than heavy muscle, which would impede my sports. We are as individual as our fingerprints in our why.
7. This: A fellow Coloradan was in Dublin not long ago. Asshole Irishman grabs her on the very shapely ass. When she turns around he laughs, “You’re an American!!! You like it!!” She smashed him in the face. Turns out she’s a competitive powerlifter/trainer. Here is the story. I love that chick. And this is what she looks like. He won’t do it again. Guaranteed.
8. Finally, this past year at 65, I picked up a loveseat that had a metal bed in it. Heavy motherfucker. Nobody else in the house. I manhandled that SOB (with apologies to my kitchen linoleum, shoulda used towels) I got that rat bastard through the house, maneuvered through a series of doors and out onto my driveway for a charity pickup. At 65. You cannot put a price on that. You just can’t. It’s not just about the body confidence you discussed, Vanessa, it’s also about the competence to be able to pull yourself up and out of bad situation, a car accident, back up over a cliff if you slip, and a thousand thousand other situations that you might find yourself in if you live an active life.

Most folks use the weak excuse that they don’t want to build huge muscles for not slinging iron. As you said. What a fucking ridiculous argument. You and I put in the time and the sweat, and it takes goddamned YEARS. So kindly, put a cork in it, folks. You want a better body, better bones, lift. You want muscles, shut up and work.

But if your gym is like mine, Vanessa, folks like you and me are in there on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and Black Friday and all the other holidays, balancing out the bounty. It. Takes. Work. That means not just showing up in January after resolutions, but hanging out the whole year. Year after year after year.

And it’s worth it. You get to my age and have a 36"–25"–35" body that is mostly muscle after being obese with 54 inch hips at 31?

Yah. It’s worth it.