email from Dad

[Dad, I'm assuming reprinting here is ok. No one reads this anyhow. I didn't even think you still did! -mns]

Dear Mike,

I see from your recent note that you haven't been doing well with your weight.

hardly know what to say ...... but feel close to certain that if you were ever able to get your BMI down to 22, your outlook on life, vitality, sense of control, ball-playing, etc would all show such benefit that you would find ways to keep there.

But how to get there?

For me it was easy because I became so scared and depressed when my heart rhythm went haywire ..... I zoomed down to 107 by Jan 2008, folloing the CR-ON guidelines at a loss of about 2 lbs a week.

Since then I have "rippled" but never a real yo-yo. I have gone to 115, never higher, and for many weeks seem to have a comfy plateau at 112,. Not that I don't get hungry, I'm often ravenous at night.

But when in my early 50's, and ample data showed that if I could have got my body fat down to 10% I could have comfortably reached my ultimate goal ..... a marathon in less than 3 hours ....... I could never make it. My best marathon was 3:11 in 1978. So just being old may make it a lot easier to get rid of pounds. My appetite and/or poor self control absolutely dominated me in mid-life.

At one point my ease of shedding pounds raised the possibility that I had an occult cancer somewhere, but now many months later and no symptoms I believe I am healthier than I have been in many a year.

How about experimenting with fasts of 12-18 hours with zero calorie intake, only green tea or black coffee, then when you break your fast focus on your achievement and don't go anywhere near overboard on that meal but try to find the time to savor every mouthful in a slow relaxed manner, perhaps with family around. Whatever EXPERIMENT!!!!

BTW if you are 6' tall you would have to reach 162 lbs to have a BMI of 22 ..... that must seem impossible ..... but if you continued being physically active you could do that without losing much if any muscle mass and become a real lean mean efficient machine.