Like many others I have been struggling to keep my weight under control and my body in shape for what seems like “all my life”. I tried anything and everything, educated myself on nutrition and exercise, listened to “gurus” and “specialists” and “scientist”….. but realized, that everybody is different. What works for one person, may not work for another. Even just for one person – like myself, in this case – what worked 30 years ago, may not work today.

So, after coming back from a two weeks vacation in Germany last year with an additional three pounds of weight packed on, I promised myself a birthday present: revisit the “body improvement project” in the light of my 62 years old self. It was surprisingly easy to go from 178 pounds (80.8 kg) back down to 168 pounds (76.5 kg) over the course of the past five months. More to go, though.

Here’s how I did it – just in case you want to try the same thing for yourself (not that there’s any guarantee).

The basic rule of weight loss is still valid – have less calories coming in than what you spend over time. Of course you need to make sure there’s no shortage of macro- and micro-nutrients. My first step was to identify “useless” calories that I was ingesting, to be able to lower my intake. In my case, the “culprit” was the mindless snacking that I used to do five nights a week, right after coming home from work – hungry and stressed out.

Once I knew what was causing my weight to creep up (I’d known that for at least 10 years, though), the tricky second step was to find a way to eliminate the problem without too much “sacrifice” or “will-power” necessary. Like all ingenious ideas, the one I had here was extremely easy to implement! I simply switched the meals I have at work around. Now I have my “afternoon snack” at 11:30 a.m., and my “lunch” at 4:30 p.m.. That way I am not hungry at all when I come home, not blindly munching on junk-food anymore.

Just one very small change is all it took for me, and the results have encouraged me to try adding one more small change on the other end of the equation: spend more calories by adding muscle mass. I’ll keep you posted about how this will go.