I’ve discovered another sad fact about my metabolism. Not only is it the world’s slowest and most efficient calorie hoarder, but apparently it’s going to take incredible daily diligence for me to stay within my self-proclaimed “weight maintenance range.

Allowing myself a generous five-pound plus-or-minus target window, I thought it would be a snap to “eat like a semi-normal person” and not have to be so hyper vigilant about what I put into my mouth on a day-to-day basis.

Wrong!

After much fussing with the numbers, it turns out that to maintain my target weight, I can have no more than 1100 calories a day. Thankfully, that’s net, not gross. But that’s still not much. So, if I want to have a little more to eat, like for a special occasion or a dinner out with friends or something, I have to exercise off the difference.

For instance, if I have my normal breakfast and lunch, which on average totals something like 500 calories, then to have a nice Chinese dinner, which often totals 1100 all by itself, I must be sure to “burn” an “extra” 500 units of energy to keep from watching the numbers on the scale creep upward.

Fortunately, I’m a whiz at math, and I can juggle numbers all day long. And apparently, that’s exactly what it’s going to take.

In my daily food and exercise log, I record everything I eat and how much I move, whether walking, biking, swimming, and so forth. It’s something I must be willing to do every day for the rest of my life, no time off for good behavior.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to report that I’ve successfully maintained my goal weight for the past five months. Five months down, and 40 years to go.