No. 1 is utterly true. It's like I hit 40, and my whole metabolism just spun down to about 60%, the weight piled on despite no change to my diet or lifestyle. I'm still overweight (40" waist, 5'11" height), but having never really exercised in the past, getting the motivation to do it (and more importantly keep at it) is really hard.

So now I eat yoghurts instead of bagels, and stare miserably at my sugarless fat free white tea. For all the good it does...

I found that walking in the morning can kick-start your metabolism and helps. A bit.

But basically I had to eat less. Soup was my trick - warm chicken noodle soup was on 30 kcal, but the liquid filled up my stomach.

1 good meal and 1 activity a day.

not being too hard on yourself is the key to winning this :).

I got hit with 1 too, I caught it early fortunately. Don't miss fried food anymore but I have cravings for desserts which I never had in my 20's :\

About 2, I started balding in my teens and my hairline more or less stabilized in 30's. Full head of hair was never part of identity, 'me according me' has been bald for a while. 20's sucked being bald but became irrelevant in 30's :D.