Diet and Exercise

My legs are vascularized from years of running and bicycling yet still I'm slow. Right now excess weight on my torso is making things even slower.

It's frustrating that it's so easy to gain weight and so difficult to lose it. Up until my late twenties I could lose weight simply by doing a few pushups and sit-ups 5 or 6 days a week. As I approached 30, I found this no longer worked and that I really had to restrict diet in order to lose weight, regardless of exercise. My body fights against weight loss. 

You can sort of reason why this might be the case if you think about humans living in a primitive state thousands of years ago. For survival, hunter-gatherers needed to be both strong and maintain weight, and store fat against times of scarcity. We are adapted to gain weight and keep it, not to lose it. In the modern world that's irritating.

I've been working out for a few weeks now, despite the snowy March we had here in Flagstaff, but as I strengthen I can feel the extra weight I've been carrying. Hopefully some of it is muscle, because I've been hitting the dumbbells quite a bit. There is progress there but running and cycling I feel every extra pound I carry.