How I manage my weight

I manage my weight by balancing exercise and calorie consumption.

Over the years my weight has pretty much stayed within an acceptable range. So I've been pretty lucky. Except for when I was about 74 when I gained 20 pounds above my decades long average of about 150 pounds. During the period when I gained the weight I was still exercising and running outside and actually running distances of 3 or 4 miles during my workouts.

Gaining weight sneaks up on me and I first notice it when my pants don’t fit and then I weigh myself just to make sure. Sure enough, the pants were right, I had gained a few pounds. New pants are expensive these days.

So, I cut down on the quantity of food I ate. I didn’t change the type of food I ate. I just ate smaller quantities of everything. I love desserts especially ice cream and I like it even better with chocolate syrup but even that turned into a smaller portion.

I cut down on the quantity of food I eat. I didn’t change the type of food I ate. I just ate smaller quantities of everything.

The other thing I did was run for a longer period of time in order to burn off more calories. With a combination of reducing my calorie intake and running or exercising more I lost the 20 pounds and was back to 150 in a few months.

There are a lot of studies, magazine articles, and books about this subject. What most of them have in common is that if you consume a lot of calories and you end up gaining weight then you must increase your exercise drastically in order to burn off the extra pounds. Or, don’t eat so much. That’s what I used to do in my 30s and 40s. In those days it was quite normal for me to go out the door and run a few miles, maybe even 10 or so once in a while. So, I could remain at a fairly constant weight of about 152 pounds and eat just as much of anything I wanted.

But later on, in my 60s and 70s I couldn’t do that as easily. To keep my weight at a healthy level back then I actually had to start cutting down on my food intake as well, just enough to not make too much of a difference. Also, I started using an elliptical from time to time indoors so I could continue the aerobics when the weather was bad and so I could continue to burn calories at the more or less same rate.

To keep my weight at a healthy level, I actually had to start cutting down on my food intake, just enough to not make too much of a difference.

About that time, I learned about metabolism. I didn’t pay attention to that until someone told me that as a person gets older their rate of metabolism slows down. Well, that got my attention! I studied up on metabolism, a very complex subject.

I was interested to learn that as people get older their metabolism is indeed supposed to slow down. If your metabolism slows down and you eat the same amount of food you gain weight. If you exercise in the morning, you give your metabolism an early jump start and that helps burn calories during the day. So, I decided that in order to maintain my level of fitness and continue with my present exercise routine I should, eat less and exercise in the morning.

And I did that and it worked!