Exercise is indeed an important part of this. I intend to write about it with one of my weekly posts. To kill the suspense, I got a treadmill and have been using it frequently.

Kathy –

Well, I don’t like to brag, but I’m better at being nagged than almost anybody. (Hmmm…wait a sec. In what sense could that possibly be construed as “bragging?” Never mind.)

I calculated my BMI the other day and I agree with you — it discriminates against those of us who are getting more muscular in our old age. I’ll probably write something about it one of these weeks. That’s the great thing about this feature…I know I have many more installments to write!

I went to the site ivankirigin listed, to calculate my BMR, but I suspect it’s biased for my age–I have a lot more muscle mass now than I did in my thirty’s even–and I think it calculated my BMR on the sole basis of my height, weight and age. What do you think?

For the amount of time it takes, running is an extremely good way to get fit.

While you might be alarmed by how few calories are burned by the actual process of exercise, calorie burning tables usually ignore the increase in metabolism that can last for 1-4 hours afterwards. You Basal Metabolic Rate is how many calories you need just to exist — keeping your body warm, breathing, etc.

So if you are counting calories input, you should also be counting calories output. From this site, your BMR is around 2300 calories (I guessed your height and age):
http://health.discovery.com/tools/calculators/basal/basal.html

Also, with exercise, your muscle mass increases, and your BMR increases with greater muscle mass.

I’m at 212 and working my way down to 195, with muscle. Thanks for the inspiration!