Since moving to the city this past year, I've been observing my weight slowly but steadily increasing, and noticing some bulges where there was mostly muscle before. I've been thinking about what might have changed in the past year. My diet hasn't drastically changed. I'm generally pretty active — dancing, biking, running, etc.
The biggest change I can think of is that my commute has gone from an hour plus to just a few minutes.
For much of my life, I've had a fairly active commute, typically done via bicycle. In DC I practically lived on my bicycle. In New York, I did pretty rigorous rides every day from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back every day. And when I lived in Oakland, I biked at least part of my commute from work to the BART.
Doing the math on my typical bike commute, that's at least 30-40 minutes of cardio exercise every day, which is about 300-450 calories burned. Over time, that can make a big difference in overall caloric intake and health.
So what to do? My strategy is for the next couple of months, I'm going to try to extend my total commute to 20-25 minutes, incorporating a rigorous bike ride to and from work. I'll monitor my weight to see if it has any real impact. I predict that it will make a measurable difference by mid-January. If not, a more intensive intervention might be needed.
Meanwhile, I'm overdue for a doctor's checkup. I just checked my own blood glucose, and luckily I still seem to be processing sugar pretty well.
It probably has nothing to do with crossing into the mid-forties. 😉
I could stand to have my bike commute back too.
Yeah I had thought of that as well. But I’m going kicking and screaming (and dancing and biking) into middle age!