I am about 5-10 1/2 with an average size frame.
At age 20, I weighed about 155 pounds.
In December 2010, at the age of 53, I weighed 195 pounds.
Then, the doctor told me I needed to lose weight (even though I looked fairly "normal" in a society where probably 9 of 10 middle-aged people are technically overweight).
Anyhoo, I undertook a program to lose weight.
And boy did it ever work. So much so that by last November I was struggling to eat enough to keep myself above 150. I was having to wolf down a lot of nuts to get enough calories. Since it is now winter, and I cannot exercise as much, I have drifted up to 155 lbs.
If it is of any encouragement, losing the weight was very easy for me. I have always done a lot of exercize (I have cycled about 30,000 miles in the last decade), but I changed the intensity of my exercise.
I started doing "interval training", a demanding form of exercise that has the reputation of burning fat. There is a saying about interval training - if you do not feel like you are going to throw up, you are not doing it right. Now that is a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit.
Anyway it seems to have worked. I also entirely eliminated all sugary foods, and otherwise greatly reduced the carbohydrates.
I eat no rice, no potatoes, no pasta, and perhaps the equivalent of three slices of bread a week.
However, I never feel deprived of food. I suspect the reason is that I eat a lot of "good fats". I eat so many nuts, I am worried about been mugged by squirrels.
Anyway, the overall point of this is to encourage others. I found it very easy to lose a fair bit of weight without "dieting" in the normal sense - I eat as much as I want, I just eat no sugary junk, and keep the carbs low. And I exercize rather intensely.
As they say, no food tastes as good as it feels to be light and in good shape.
