If you find a sport you love, and practice it regularly, it can be the key to a healthy life, Joe Kantor thinks.

Mr. Kantor, 55, of Plum, learned to play tennis when he was 10. He played on his high school tennis team, and was the No. 1 player on the tennis team at Pitt during the four years he attended there. But once he was out of school, he stopped playing. His weight and his blood pressure went up.

Then about 10 years ago, Mr. Kantor returned to his youthful passion. He now plays in three tennis leagues.

"I play four to five times a week in summer, two to three times a week in winter," he said.

"Before I started playing again, my blood pressure was up," Mr. Kantor said. "They wanted to put me on blood pressure medicine, but I didn't. I wanted to go natural. My blood pressure is normal now."

Playing tennis again made it easier for Mr. Kantor, a pharmacist for the mail-order pharmacy MEDCO, to improve his eating habits.

"I have to watch my weight in order to move around on the tennis court," he said. "I've really cut down on fast food."

Mr. Kantor has lost about 15 pounds since returning to tennis, and is now a svelte 195 on a 6-foot frame.

A typical breakfast for him these days is oatmeal. Lunch is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana, with a handful of walnuts or pecans for a snack. A typical dinner is broiled chicken and a salad.

"I have a garden in the summer," he said. "I can things."

Mr. Kantor supplements his diet by taking fish oil and a multivitamin.

He and his wife, Barbara, will be celebrating their 30th anniversary this year. They have two daughters: Leslie, 25, is married and is an actuary in Silver Spring, Md. Stephanie, 22, is a senior at Penn State. She wants to be an art teacher.

Mr. Kantor said his desire to stay in top form on the tennis court also makes it easier for him to work out when he's not playing tennis.

"If I'm not playing tennis, I'm either walking or riding a bike," he said.

He also has a set of dumbbells at home, and he works out with them "a couple of times a week."