Andrea’s older brother is a fast runner. He is not Usain Bolt fast, but when he competes in smaller 10k races and Half Marathons, he often wins his age category. He has been running since high school. His collection of plaques and medals is now so large that they could be melted down and used to cast a life-sized bronze statue of him frozen in the classic victory pose. At age 46, he still puts in around 50 miles of training per week.
For most of his life, running was enough to keep him rail thin. In the past few years, however, something shifted. No matter how much he ran and no matter how often he raced, he slowly began to put on weight. For the first time in his life, he had to start thinking about what he ate rather than simply how many calories he burned. There is no getting around it: getting old sucks.
For most of his life, running was enough to keep him rail thin. In the past few years, however, something shifted. No matter how much he ran and no matter how often he raced, he slowly began to put on weight. For the first time in his life, he had to start thinking about what he ate rather than simply how many calories he burned. There is no getting around it: getting old sucks.
In many ways, Andrea’s brother was lucky. His metabolic shift occurred in his 40s. By comparison, we began putting on weight in our late 20s in spite of exercising all the time. Looking back, it’s easy to see how it happened. We always assumed that as long as we exercised we earned the right to eat anything we wanted to. That system worked right up until it didn’t. And once it stopped working, it was easy to see the flaws in our logic.
Back in the day, one of our favorite rituals was to go for a long trail run on a Sunday morning and then celebrate afterward with a burger, fries and pint (or two) of microbrew. We assumed that we had earned those calories. The truth is that six miles of running didn’t even earn the fries. In other words, we would do one long run a week and immediately undo any caloric benefit we earned.
Back in the day, one of our favorite rituals was to go for a long trail run on a Sunday morning and then celebrate afterward with a burger, fries and pint (or two) of microbrew. We assumed that we had earned those calories. The truth is that six miles of running didn’t even earn the fries. In other words, we would do one long run a week and immediately undo any caloric benefit we earned.
Fact: Running earns about 140 calories per mile. This seems like a ton until you realize that it takes two miles to earn a bottle of Gatorade. Our burger and fries required at least six miles, not to burn it off, to reduce it to the calories of a normal lunch. Exercise is important and required on DYC, but at some point most of us have to address our food intake as well.
According to Runner’s World magazine, people burn, on average, 120 calories fewer per day at age 35 than they did at 25. The older you get the more efficient your metabolism becomes and this trend accelerates as you move beyond age 40.
Fact: We get most of our important medical information from Runner’s World. This is a huge step forward for Steven who used to rely on Men’s Health. For those unfamiliar with that magazine, Men’s Health is to health and fitness literature what Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is to serious documentary filmmaking.
120 calories may not seem like much. Consider this: the rule of thumb used by most nutritionist is that it takes 3,500 calories to add a pound of bodyweight. If your calories and exercise are in perfect balance at age 25 and you make no dietary or exercise changes as you age, by 35 you’ll be packing on 12 pounds a year. Obviously, this shift does not occur miraculously on your 35th birthday. It emerges slowly over time. This explains why, even if you neurotically maintain your diet and exercise program, most of us find it more difficult with each passing year to maintain our weight.
Fact: We know of one exception to this rule. We have an old friend who lives on soda, candy bars and other junk food yet remains super lean. He doesn’t exercise and he washes all of that garbage down with several two-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper a day. The only possible explanation is that his metabolism is so freakishly high that if he stopped gorging on high calorie foods he would instantly waste away.
If we could bottle and sell his metabolism, it would be worth billions. But there is a downside, apart from the generally unhealthy nature of his diet and lifestyle. We’ve warned him that if we ever find ourselves in a time of food shortage we plan to kill and eat him within the first 48 hours. He wouldn’t survive much longer than that anyway.
One solution to a slowing metabolism is increasing your exercise. For someone like Andrea’s brother who is already putting in 50 miles per week, this is not a realistic strategy. Aside from a few genetic freaks we are desperately jealous of, most of us are eventually held back in this strategy by another gift of age: a slowing recovery time. We are in far better shape now than we were in our 20s. But we’ve had to come to terms with the fact that we no longer recover as quickly from a hard workout or competition. Our performance gains have slowed and the line between working harder and being stupid is now so narrow it can only be described using Euclidean geometry.
Fact: We recently did a workout involving 45 heavy back squats. We overplayed our hand when we choose our weights. As a result we had to take two days off from exercise. We couldn’t lift. We couldn’t run. We could barely walk up and down stairs. On day two after the workout, Steven proposed installing a grab bar in the master bathroom as he was still having trouble lowering himself onto the toilet.
In the end, we have not been able to increase our calorie burn enough to balance the metabolic shifts of aging. Just like Andrea’s brother we’ve had no choice but to address our diets. Of course, we’ve chosen to tackle this in a very DYC way. We now spend far more time in Austerity Mode than we did even two years ago. Whenever we see our weight shift upward or feel like our diet is getting slightly out of hand, we immediately move into Austerity and eliminate the few complex starches and added sugars allowed on Basic DYC. We accept the fact that over the next ten years we may have to increase our time in Austerity even further just to maintain our current weight. This is a price we’ll happily pay if it means that we can stay fit and trim while continuing to drink our wine.
Even as we exercise and eat lean to fight the effects of aging, we are still in deep denial about getting older. Every time someone shows us a recent photograph we’re shocked by the faces staring back at us. It’s not that we look bad. In fact, we look pretty good for 40-year-olds. We just look older than we expect. When we close our eyes and picture ourselves, we imagine that we still look like we did in college. In Steven’s case, this denial borders on psychotic; his self-image is still that of a scrawny, hairless teenager where in reality he is pretty big guy who is rapidly balding and hairy enough to be mistaken for a Sasquatch.
Even as we exercise and eat lean to fight the effects of aging, we are still in deep denial about getting older. Every time someone shows us a recent photograph we’re shocked by the faces staring back at us. It’s not that we look bad. In fact, we look pretty good for 40-year-olds. We just look older than we expect. When we close our eyes and picture ourselves, we imagine that we still look like we did in college. In Steven’s case, this denial borders on psychotic; his self-image is still that of a scrawny, hairless teenager where in reality he is pretty big guy who is rapidly balding and hairy enough to be mistaken for a Sasquatch.
Fact: There is an entire medical industry dedicated to treating the symptoms of aging. Estrogen shots, testosterone patches, Botox, liposuction, Viagra and Rogaine all promise to undo the effects of aging without requiring you to get up off the couch. Not to mention the 1,000 different surgical options from the Nip & Tuck Cartel.
Our problem is that we don’t simply want to look younger. We want to feel younger. All of these medical options are the equivalent of putting a new coat of paint on rusting mobile home. Hiding decay is not the same as preventing it.
So, in spite of the fact that we are shocked by our own reflections, our long-term plan involves pruning up like Yoda. Of course, our version of Yoda will include running, surfing, hiking and drinking our way around the world long after our much younger looking peers have been parked in a rest home.
We have friends in their 60s who laugh at us when we call ourselves old. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” they say. “When you get to 60, you’ll understand just how young 40 is.” We no more believe them than we believed the 40-year-olds who told us the same thing when we were in our 20s.
Getting Old May Suck, But For Old People We’re Doing Great: A few years ago, Andrea was running in Golden Gate Park. A group of young runners swarmed passed her. One boy was clearly struggling to keep up. In order to motivate him, one of the kids in the front shouted back to him, “Come on! You’re not going to let the old lady beat you?”
Andrea looked around, searching for the “old lady.” Then it slowly dawned on her that she was the “old lady.” She turned to the straggler and said, “He’s right. You should beat me. You’re like ten years younger than me.”
“That’s it?” Andrea was a little shocked by the response. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen” “You’re right. You’re more than 20 years younger than me. Move your ass.”
The boy beat Andrea to the beach by no more than five steps. Unfortunately, his victory celebration was cut short by the fact that the moment he stopped moving he puked.
