Butterfly stroke, then back turn into streamline face up flutter kick - 08/24/11 (Summer)
Recently, when renewing my driver's license, I had occasion to refer to an official document from 1970, when I was 18 years old. This document includes my height and the color of my eyes. It also lists my weight as 150 pounds.
Nowadays, more than 4 decades later, at age 60, I still weigh approximately 150 pounds!
I have a long-term habit of weighing myself regularly twice a day - - first in the morning, before drinking or eating anything, and again at the end of the day, before going to sleep. In the mornings, my weight averages approximately 150 pounds. By evening, after 3 meals, and after drinking 6 to 8 glasses of water throughout the day, I'm usually about 4 to 5 pounds heavier.
I marvel that my weight has remained so stable during the last 42 years, while many of the people I see around me have grown obese.
The main factor that may account for my stable body weight is the fact that I've remained physically active throughout my life. I've been doing some form of exercise every day since I was a young teenager. Either playing sports, or practicing some form of martial arts, or weight lifting, or working out with springs, or swimming. Walking. Tai chi.
Even though I spend significant amounts of time sitting in front of a computer, there are many times throughout the day when I am physically active. I move my body in a variety of ways, regularly, every day.
I've also been eating relatively wholesome, nutritious meals most of my life.
I don't count calories. I eat until I'm full, three times a day (I don't snack between meals). I seem to be able to burn off everything I eat. My body doesn't care to store much fat.
95% of what I drink is just plain water, rather than highly sweetened sodas or fruit juices (many doctors are now linking sweet drinks to significant weight accumulation). I don't drink any alcohol (like fructose, alcohol also gets converted into fat by the liver). I've probably avoided the perils of "beer belly" and "soda belly" by relying on plain water as my main drink.
Recently, I watched this video, "Sugar: The Bitter Truth," which features Doctor Robert Lustig discussing the negative effects of sugar on metabolism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
From 1:12:05 to to 1:12:53, he explains the importance of exercise:
"...Remember 'de novo lipogenesis'? Remember those three nasty enzymes? What if you burned the stuff off before you made the fat? That's what exercise does! It makes the TCA cycle run faster. So you don't get the citrate leaving the mitochondria, so it doesn't get turned into fat, so it doesn't precipitate and cause all the problems you just saw. That's what they mean by a 'higher metabolism,' yes. But it has nothing to do with burning of calories. That is the stupidest reason that I've ever heard of for exercise. You've got to be joking me! You can't do it! I mean, one Big Mac, and you have to mountain bike for ten hours! Are you joking?"
Basically, in very technical, biochemical terms, Doctor Lustig confirms my own observations from personal experience, namely, that regular, recurrent exercise continues to SEND SIGNALS to all my cells that I'm going to be burning off everything I've eaten, sooner than later! Don't bother converting anything I eat to fat, because I'm going to need the energy in the next several hours to power various types of physical activity! Since this is a regular daily cycle, my cells "know" not to bother storing fat, because they know I'll be walking soon, or doing my tai chi exercises soon, or working out with weights, or I'll be swimming (during the summer). My cells seem to know I'm going to be physically active several times a day, so they don't bother storing what I eat as long-term fat. That's probably why I don't gain much weight.
In this "Healthy Connections" video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK7jPJHnW0k
from 17:00 to 20:30, Doctor Dean Ornish describes how healthy lifestyle choices turn hundreds of different genes "on" and "off." Maybe some of that is also occurring inside my body. Maybe most of the genes that control fat storage in my body are being turned "off" by my daily exercise routines.
Whatever the scientific reasons, my "gut feeling" is that my habit of exercising every day has a lot to do with why my body doesn't store much fat.
At the age of 60, I still have a body that looks very similar to the body I had when I was 18. I've maintained a similar body weight. I can still do most of the physical things I was able to do as a teenager.
I am very grateful (and thrilled!) that the good habit of exercising daily (which
I picked up early in life, as a young teenager) seems to cause a natural "fountain of youth" to flow through all my cells, allowing me to stay fit and trim into my 60s.
ChiGuy396
ChiGuy396@yahoo.com
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