An 80-year-old cyclist who lost more than 130 pounds to get fit was brought onto the KHTS AM 1220’s Wednesday weekly show “The Senior Hour” hosted by Dr. Gene Dorio and Barbara Cochran.

Lehman Eaton, also known as Lee, of Granada Hills, came on the show to talk about leading a cycling group in the Santa Clarita Valley and his journey to fitness.

“He is a very good person as far as making sure everybody gets out. He watches out for us, makes sure that we all stay together and nobody gets left out,” said Barbara Koehler, a fellow cyclist. “I’d say without him we wouldn’t have the group that we have now. He’s the one that’s been instrumental in keeping it going. If it wasn’t for him, we’d probably all be home watching TV today.”

Eaton turned 80-years-old on Saturday where many of his family and cycling friends came out to celebrate.

“He was overweight some and so he decided to lose the weight and decided a sport that wouldn’t be bad on the joints. He really gets into it. He’s learned a lot about the sport. He takes on anything first, studies it, learns it and then he’ll get the equipment for it,” said Kris Baader, Eaton’s daughter. “He really has a lively life right now, very vivacious guy and nothing held him back.”

Listen to “The Senior Hour” hosted by Dr. Gene Dorio and Barbara Cochran with guest Lee Eaton here.

“The Senior Hour” airs every Wednesday on KHTS AM 1220 from 11 a.m.- 12 p.m.

Lee Eaton’s Autobiography:

The year was 2002 and I had retired at the age of 68. I was in terrible shape. I weighed 295 pounds and had a severe pain in my right hip. The pain was caused by arthritis and the orthopedic physician said I needed a hip replacement. I also had arthritis in my left hip and lower part of my spine but it was not as advanced as in my right hip.

I went on the internet to learn more about the hip replacement surgery. I learned that my severely overweight condition made the surgery more difficult and added risk to the recovery and rehabilitation process. I also learned that bone density was important as the prosthesis would be fastened to my leg bones using screws. Given this information, it was obvious that I needed to improve my health before having the hip replacement.

A little more internet searching and I decided to join the Nutrisystem Diet Plan, wherein you buy a four week supply of food which is shipped to you. In order to give myself the best chance of succeeding, I joined the plan where I choose all my food from their extensive list of choices rather than a plan with pre-selected foods.

As a goal, I decided a weight of 160 pounds was correct for my height, thus I had to lose 135 pounds. I decided that a goal of one pound per week was realistic and gave me the best chance of developing an eating habit that would keep the weight off once I reached my goal.  The approximately six weeks from Thanksgiving to New Years would obviously be a problem so my goal for this period was to avoid gaining any weight. That left forty six weeks at one pound per week, or forty six pounds a year, weight loss.

To increase my bone density, I converted a bedroom into an exercise room and purchased a Bowflex Extreme 2 weight lifting machine. I bought some books on weight lifting and set up a routine to train each Monday, Wednesday and Friday for about 75 minutes including some stretching exercises that were suggested as being helpful in avoiding injuries.

I bought small 3 by 5 inch spiral bound notepads and began to record all my food consumption throughout each day and to record the associated calorie count. I settled on a 1500 a day calorie intake to maintain my one pound a week weight loss. I also generated an exercise chart so I could record the weights I was lifting and thus keep track of my progress.

I stayed on target for about two years, losing about 95 pounds and had reached a strength level that I considered adequate and would now simply maintain. However, I was beginning to tire of the foods offered by Nutrisystem and was starting to snack between meals to satisfy my need for tastier food. There was a Jenny Craig facility about four miles from my house. I decided that new foods and visiting a consultant once a week would help get me back on my one pound per week goal. The switch to Jenny Craig worked and one year later I had reached my goal of losing 135 pounds bringing my weight down to 160 pounds. I still visit Jenny Craig once every two weeks and buy some of my foods from them. I have had the same consultant, Pati, for the 10 years I have been with Jenny Craig. Her encouragement has taken me through some rough times. I think of it as an insurance policy against gaining weight again.

It was now 2005. I had my hip replacement surgery and it was very successful. After eight weeks of physical therapy and regular walks, I was able to return to my three days a week weight lifting routine using light weights, planning to gradually increase the weights and return to my pre-surgery level.

I felt so good physically, that I grew restless. My doctor recommended low impact exercise. I had a 25 year old mountain bike that I took to the local bike shop and had it refurbished. I started riding a few miles around my neighborhood. I enjoyed the riding so much that I decided to buy a lightweight, carbon fiber road bike.

My youngest daughter lives in Valencia and she had been riding the bike paths here in Santa Clarita and she invited me to join her. That was my introduction to the wonderful bicycle riding available here in Santa Clarita. In talking with other riders I met, I learned that a fitness training center in Santa Monica, named Phase IV, would develop personal training plans expressly for any sport, including bicycling. I went to Phase IV and had them develop a personal fitness training program for both bicycle riding and weight lifting designed to use my Bowflex machine at home.

It was now 2006, I was 72 years old and this was the start of my serious bicycling fitness effort. My Phase IV Training Program was 26 weeks long. It scheduled six days a week of exercise, combining bicycle riding and weight lifting, with the emphasis on bicycle riding.  Every fourth week, the training effort was reduced and there was only five days of exercise.  The program was designed to gradually increase my riding distance each week as my fitness improved.

I did all my bicycle riding using the bike paths and bike lanes here in Santa Clarita. I would drive to the Pavilion’s parking lot and start my training routine for the day at 8 a.m.  A bike path runs right next to the parking lot, so this was a convenient place to start my rides.

The training program was designed to develop my fitness so that after 26 weeks of training, I would be able to complete a 100 mile ride. My graduation ride took me almost nine hours including four ten minute rest stops (one rest stop every 20 miles.)

On one of my training rides, late in my program, I met a group of riders at Pavilion’s.  =It was an informal group that met every Sunday to ride. They invited me to join them so I started riding with them on Sundays. The leader of this group was a woman whose name was Mona.  She would email all the riders in the middle of every week and asked those who planned to ride to respond by email so we would know who was planning to ride. This way if someone was a little late we would delay our start until they arrived.

Eventually Mona had family and business obligations that prevented her from riding on the weekend, so I took over leading the group. We now ride both Saturday and Sunday, meeting at Performance Cyclery on Cinema Drive. I email the group on Thursday afternoon and suggest a route to ride on Saturday and a different route for Sunday. Riders then respond as to which day, or days, they plan to ride. Then Friday afternoon I email all riders with a list of who is planning to ride each route on the weekend.

At present, my exercise goal is just to maintain my fitness level. I do weight lifting on Tuesday and Thursday. On Wednesday I ride my bike alone and on Saturday and Sunday I ride with the group. With the three days of bike riding, my goal is to accumulate at least 100 miles for the week.

In the eight years, I have been cycling I have had two accidents that interrupted my biking.

About five years ago I was riding on a bike path when another cyclist decided to pass me.  He came too close to my bike and his hip bumped my handlebars and threw my bike out of control. I crashed pretty hard, resulting in two cracked ribs. Healing took eight weeks, during which I could not do any strenuous exercise. I lost fitness during this idle period, so I had to gradually work my way back into fitness.

Then this year, on April 26 (a Saturday) I was riding on a bike path when I was hit by a car. I was very lucky because the car was going slow and I escaped with no broken bones. I suffered severe trauma resulting in huge swelling and also whiplash to my neck. Physical therapy and special exercises helped my recovery. I was able to start easy riding after about twelve weeks and my strength and fitness is essentially back to its pre-accident level.

This past Saturday, Dec. 27, was my 80th birthday and I plan to continue my bicycling as long as my health permits.

Lee Eaton

Photos courtesy of Melissa Lampert.