Health And Fitness Advice Sent Back In Time To My Younger Self

So the bad news is that you don't have skinny genes and you are a weight gaining machine (almost a super power).  The good news is that if you work really hard and suffer a lot you might be able to sometimes not gain weight.

First of all here are all the dumb ideas you will try that just don't work:

• Exercising a lot.  You will always be able to eat more than you can burn.  Worse, you will "treat yo' self" too much as a reward for hard workouts.  You can even gain weight when training for a marathon.  Amazing!
• Any diet.  There is no diet you can't gain weight on. Vegetarian, Low Carb / High Fat, Paleo, Slow Carb.  Unless you have a conscious enforced limit on how much you eat, you will gain weight.

Losing weight and being fit is hard work.  There is no easy route.  Some routes suck less than others so do that as much as possible.

You have two levers: eating and exercise.  You have to use both but one of the major lessons is that eating is the more important one:  how much and what.

Basic eating tips:

• You'll hear people say that calories in / calories out is too simple of a model and doesn't work as a weight loss plan.  Don't listen to them.  Even if they are right in some way, this is too dangerous of an idea to keep around.  It will always cause you to eat too much.
• Don't be afraid of fat.  It's delicious and filling.  It's calorie dense but that is really the only problem.  Stop having dry toast.  And stop pretending you like it that way.
• Eat less bread/carbs.  Mostly this is just a calorie issue but more importantly eating tons of bread, pasta, etc will just make you hungry.  It's not fair but it will happen every single time.
• Protein is pretty filling.  Eat it.  But it's still calories so watch how much you eat.
• There is no one diet that is the best for everyone.  Eating lots of vegetables and reducing carbs is always a win but pretty much any diet you like eating will work if you watch the amount you eat.  You have been equally thin as a vegetarian and as a low carb/paleo guy. 
• There doesn't seem to be any way around the "wanting to eat" thing.  Regardless of how much and how recently you have eaten you will always want another helping. Being a little hungry is really not *that* bad.  You don't need to have the feeling of fullness all the time.  Eating until you aren't hungry will just not work for you on any diet.  
• On that vein, try fasting.  It sounds unbearable at first but if you set your mind to it you can keep pushing your comfort zone.  And (surprise, surprise) not eating is one of the fastest ways to lose weight.  Start with 16/8 schedule and then work up to 24hr and 48hr stretches.
• A good starter goal is to just skip or delay breakfast.  You'll be shocked that you ever considered breakfast mandatory.
• Cheat days are fun but as much as possible make it something you have to earn (don't just do it automatically on the weekend for instance).  Also the less you cheat the less damage you will do.  Currently one unrestricted cheat day will do at least a week's worth of damage.  It's less fun but having a calorie target instead of a 24 hour period is a better method.  Savoring a few calories is better in every way than wolfing things down.  Unfortunately the desire to wolf will always be there.

Exercise:

• You are not fast but you like to run.  Unfortunately it will never be enough.  Lifting weights is more effective for feeling fit and keeping your metabolism higher (which makes it easier to burn away calories).  Keep running but do other things.  Also do lots of planks.  Your back will thank you later.
• You won't ever like lifting weights, but keep doing it.  If it sucks too much, back off a little, but don't lose the habit.
• Running is good cardio though so do it right.  
• Running barefoot style (on the fronts of your feet rather than heel strikes) will do wonders for your knees and give you really strong calves.  Stop heel strike running immediately.
• Whenever something goes weird with your feet or knees, etc, look it up on line.  So far you've been able to diagnose and address everything with weird stretches and exercises.  

And finally some general wisdom:

• Experiment with different eating patterns and exercise.
• Anyone who says they have the one special diet is just a liar.   People are different.  Even the same person at different times of life is different.
• It keeps getting harder to be fit and non-obese (I hesitate to say thin) as you age.  It's doable but it is not something that can be on autopilot.  It's one of your jobs. 
• You frequently won't know what is working or why.   Giving up on weight lifting was a mistake; it took too long to figure out its importance.
• Most diet info you will hear is wrong and/or out of context.  It's OK to try things but nutrition science is not very trustworthy most of the time.  It will take decades for people to realize something fundamental like "fat isn't poison" and that making up the calories in carbs is even worse.  There are valuable truths about exercise and fitness but it is somewhat unique to each person and the needles are well hidden in the haystack.  Keep looking but the right information won't necessarily be obvious.

Anyway, younger me, hope that helps.  Also the flying cars in the future are AWESOME!

regards,

older, smarter me