Approximately five years ago, I weighed 210. I got on the scale recently… 238. Dangit. Again. That’s only about fifteen pounds off my heaviest record weight seven or eight years ago.
I don’t think of myself as a yo-yo dieter. I gained a lot of weight, stayed steady right around this weight for several years, lost it for several years, bounced up about ten pounds then watched my eating again to lose it, and then slowly regained over the course of several more years. Basically one big thirteen-year cycle of up, down, then back up again. I guess perhaps that qualifies as yo-yo dieting, but I think of months and not decades for weight loss/gain to qualify.
Day 1
So today, I launched back into tracking my eating and exercise. It’s work, but for several years it was a daily habit: write down what I eat, and remember to do at least a little exercise every day. When I follow that process, regardless of what plan I’m on, I drop the weight. So far, my personal plan is 1500 calories per day, low on the carbohydrates (because carbs make me feel more like binging) to the tune of less than 100 grams of carbs per day, and concentrate on getting proper nutrition according to US RDA guidelines.
If that tracks, I should drop about ten pounds in the first month, then a bit less in subsequent months the closer I get to my target weight of around 195-200lbs. Below 226, I’ll no longer be considered “obese” (or in the euphemism used by various health experts today, “severe overweight”), and that day will deserve a celebration of some sort.
Not food, though. When I do this right, I’m never really hungry, and I stop obsessing about food after a week or two. I just don’t allow myself to chow down the 3000+ calories per day my body requires to maintain this extra bulk.
It’s a simple engineering problem. A pound of fat contains 3500 calories. For every 3500 calories I burn more than I eat, I’ll eventually lose the weight as long as I keep physically active to maintain muscle mass. Some muscle is inevitably lost — I won’t be hauling around an extra forty pounds all day, every day — but I’m naturally a fairly muscular guy as long as I pick up heavy things with some regularity.
What are you doing right now to fight the battle of the bulge?
right there with you
I’m hovering around 229 at the moment, and I’d like to get back down to 200. My problem is that I’m a stress eater — when I’m busy and thinking of a bunch of things at once, I’d rather just get a cheeseburger than a salad.
So, I just read a book called “Eat to Live” by Joel Fuhrman MD. It’s got a six-week intensive diet, which is about 90% vegetarian, and then general advice on a more sustainable diet that involves more vegetables and fruit and less meat and simple carbs. A friend of mine did it for six weeks and lost 25 pounds.
I figure that if I can get myself to stick to this for six weeks, and get close to my target weight, I can retrain my palette and work out some sort of “moderation” diet somewhere between how I eat now and what the book suggests, and maintain a lower weight.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
— Ben
First week: 5 lbs
Well, it’s gone up and down, but I lost about 5 lbs. I need to make sure and read my weight at the same time every day.
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Matthew P. Barnson