[Evans, Marv]

I think a lot of it is genetics and life style in general. I'm now 68 and weigh around 170 at 5'10" with a waist of right at 32". I'm barely inside the healthy BMI index at around 24. Moses said his caloric intake indicator may be off, but it allows me to eat around 2,600 calories/day - maybe a little less. I don't think I would be that comfortable eating that much, but I imagine I take in around 80% of that. I was at 148 in my senior year of HS, 156 when I was drafted, 139 when I was released, 165 at around 30, 170 more or less from 40 to 55. I did go up to 180 for a while when setting behind a desk before retirement, but dropped back to the low 170's after retirement when I got more normally active. During the last half of HS, I put out a huge amount of energy between football, track, and my night job loading semi trucks at a dairy 4 nights a week. I think that amount of activity (true or not) set my metabolism up for a decently high level for the rest of my life. I've always been active with sporty activities such as hiking, climbing, skiing, diving, bike riding, weight training, and just plain walking, but I've never been radically committed to any of them and just done what I liked, as much as I liked, for as long as I liked. I have always eaten what I liked, but have never "lived to eat, but just ate to live" and always stopped eating when I felt I had eaten enough. To me that's a normal life for anybody, and I'm far from perfect. I see lots of other people spending most of their time sitting around (hey, you high post count guys), eating a lot, drinking some, and generally not being interested in getting out of the house. To me, that's not normal. So after all this rambling, It would seem to me if most people got off of the couch and up from the table more and had some interest in a normal amount of physical activity, there would be many less overweight people in society. Obviously I'm not saying (and don't believe) people should become anorexic exercise nuts, but just mostly do what people were normally designed to do. There will always be thin people and heavier people genetically, but I think the distribution should follow the bell curve. Right now that curve is skewed to the heavier side because of an excessively artificial life style.