Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy

So you could ride 1:00 or so, 5 days/week, then a hard as possible 4 hour ride on one weekend day, that's 9-10 hours. That's my program on most weeks. On the five 1-hour rides, I'll do different things, sometime just steady endurance pace, some pedaling drills, some intervals. With that program, I can pretty much ride anything I want. 74, been doing about that for the past 20. It does build real endurance. I rode a 400k in the mountains at about your age with no more than that. A lot of that endurance comes from that 4 or so hour ride to exhaustion. The weekday rides are there to make that weekend ride possible. Consistency is everything.

Weight gain can be reversed by simply eating a little less at every meal, consciously stopping eating as soon as hunger is gone. This is the smaller servings approach, no real dietary change, the same thing, just less of it. Works like a charm over the years.