OnePhatMan
How’s life? Mine’s good. I’m spending a goodly chunk of my free time kayaking with Robyn and hiking alone. Things are wonderful.
Spring has sprung, and the trails are alive.
I talk pretty regularly with people who’re trying to lose weight. Lots of people, and most of them have one thing in common. And lest you think I’m looking down on them from my high horse, let me assure you, I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing in the past. There’s no condescension here, just the voice of experience.
The thing these people have in common is starvation.
Not the mental kind of starvation, where you spend all your time thinking about how hungry you are. That’s just obsession with something you feel you can’t have. I’m talking about literal starvation, where you’re not eating enough to keep yourself alive and full of energy. The absolute minimum energy a person needs to survive is (and before you email me to point out the folly of my generalization, I know there are many factors affecting these numbers, like age, weight, climate, and health; it’s called “generalizing” for a reason) 1200 calories a day for women and 1500 calories a day for men.
That’s what you need to stay alive. Barely. Problem is, when you cut yourself back to the bare minimum, several things happen: Your body’s survival mechanism kicks in, and you begin to cannibalize your lean mass. Your muscle. Because your body’s in starvation mode, it takes the path of least resistance, and muscle (protein) is easier to utilize than fat, because fat’s a more complex structure.
Say goodbye to a few pounds of muscle.
It’s not a set point, like some want you to think, it’s the point where your body - realizing you’re starving to death - starts conserving every little bit of energy you consume, because your system thinks there’s a famine.
Generally, people start to gain weight at this point, for a couple of reasons. First, your body’s conserving everything you ingest, because it’s a very efficient machine, and second, since you’ve lost some muscle mass, you need less energy to survive and therefore more energy can be stored as fat.
It’s a vicious cycle. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
You get disgusted with your crappy restrictive starvation diet, and start eating normally. You pick your water weight back up, and since your metabolic rate is slower right now, you probably pick up a little fat, too. Contrary to popular belief, however, that muscle mass will come back. No matter what the diet gurus who want your money tell you, you can’t yo-yo diet yourself into being permanently fat. The muscle comes back because your body needs it to support your new fat.
But you still end up a little fatter after your diet than you were before you started. The one other time I made a semi-serious attempt to lose weight I weighed 330 pounds at the beginning. I started eating between 1000-1200 calories a day, and dropped almost 50 pounds in about three months.
And stalled.
And gave up.
And weighed 371 pounds before I knew it.
What’s the point of all this, Fred? you’re thinking, Are you ever going to get to it?
The point is, most women need in the neighborhood of 1500-2000 calories a day to be healthy, and most men need somewhere around 2300-3000. Again, these numbers are generalized–active men in cold climates may need 7000 or more calories a day to be healthy–and there are always exceptions to my generalizations.
Don’t be stupid. Don’t starve yourself. If you simply start eating the foods you were designed to eat (hint: think natural) in reasonable quantities, and moving your butt in activities you enjoy, true miracles can–and will–happen. Fat will melt away. Blood pressure will go down. Chronic diseases–like diabetes in my case–may vanish. Your clothes get baggy, and people around you start to tell you how good you’re looking.
I’ve been there, I know.
Springtime also means the cats bring us presents.
From all this chatting with people who want to lose weight, I’ve noticed something peculiar. Without fail, those of us who’ve dropped semi-large amounts of weight all have something in common: we’ve all basically modified the quantity and quality of what we eat, and we’ve become more active than we once were. We’ve then proceeded to habitually do these things.
Interestingly enough, we’re the ones that most people are unwilling to listen to. They want to know about the cabbage soup diet, or the Atkins diet, or Meridia, or anything except the way to actually succeed.
Why is that?
We’re a sensible people for the most part, reasonable, except about one thing: our health. We abuse our bodies year after year, getting fatter and fatter and picking up complication after complication, until we reach some point where we feel like we have to change (note: this could be “finding your pain” that I talk about, but most often it isn’t).
And we lose our minds.
We try to undo years of unhealthy living by spending a few days having a “juice fast” to “remove the toxins” from our bodies. We buy a pill that makes us crap out excess fat or one that hypes up our heart rate so high it could possibly be dangerous. We drink our green tea, because we heard that it’s a “natural metabolism booster”, and we consume mass quantities of any supplement we think might help us get to some magical scale number.
Be sensible. It took time to get fat; take a little time to get not-fat. I remember how it felt to be that big (though the memories are fading, I must admit), but I also remember how it felt to fail at the fads time and time again. Take your time, enjoy the process, and watch the miracle unfold before your eyes.
You’re worth the wait.
If you want to get notified when I write an update, this link will do the trick.
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Fred, I always tell people that the period when I lost 100+ pounds was a time when I was never hungry, eating delicious meals, and often having to remind myself to eat my daily fibre, unsaturated fat, and dairy. I was never hungry.
They don’t like that, though, because I also say that I had to be mindful of what I ate and also do some planning.
I am intrigued, though, by what I’ve read of the Shangri-La Diet (http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/05/the_strangest_e.html) - have you heard of it? What do you think? I must say, I like the idea of hacking into the legacy brain we humans have, and am sort of intrigued to try it.
[...] WOW. Read THIS. It really makes sense. [...]
That was really powerful.I actually don’t want a quick fix.Faster would be better but I think the slower..the better and more likely you will stay healthy and keep the weight off.
I have tried hard several times to lose weight and this last time I really gave 100%.I don’t know what it is..I do have low thyroid and PCOS but no matter how healthy I eat and stay active DAILY I lose a pound here and there or stay the same weight.I have about 150 lbs to lose “at goal”.I am only 28 years old and have two young children I want to be healthy for (along for myself and spouse).I want to feel good..and be able to do things with them.
I am considering weight loss surgery.I personally see it as a tool to help me get to my goal.I have not and will not try the drugs or drinks..it scares me.I had a surgeon tell me that being this obese is not as dangerous as taking something that could damage my heart or give me a heart attack.
What do you think about gastric bypass? lapband?
Shannon: See this.
Fred - When you were at your highest weight, what did you start doing for exercise. I am finding that while I am losing slowly, moving around just kills my joints. I am doing it, but damn I am paying.
Spin: I started treading water for 10 minutes a day, and moved up from there.
BAAAAA! We’re sheep I tells ya!! =) My problem truly isn’t eating too litle calories at all, just eat too little healthy foods. It’s easier to have someone tell ya what to do than to use common sense ;).
Fred,
You are right on the money here. I LOVE my new way of eating on Weight Watchers. So many points at my starting weight and ANYTHING goes, as long as your 6-8 glasses of water and 5 fruits/vegetables and 2-3milks and 2 tsp of healthy oils are included. Many people say they cannot eat so much, it is the wonderful fiber and healthy foods that leave you feeling satisfied. From what I read, those who get impatient and go below CAN lose more quickly (believe me this slow loss is hard to endure sometimes!) but I just remind myself that they will have to lose that again and that hopefully this will be the last time I will be seeing this!
Hmm. While I agree that people will generally be happier and look better if they eat a bit more and exercise to compensate (as opposed to eating less and not working out as much) the “starvation mode” that so many people talk about is not a binary function. It’s a sliding scale depending on the amount of calories you’re consuming (and many other factors as you said).
And the problem is that one you get down to a “normal” weight it becomes nigh on impossible to drop fat by just exercise (if you still want to work and have a normal life that is). In my quest to lose my last 10 pounds therefore, I’ve increased the amount of weight lifting I do, but also decreased the amount of calories (while increasing my protein ratio). It’s the only thing that’s working for me.
I loved this entry, and believe that healthy, natural eating and regular exercise is the best way for me to lose the person and a half that I’ve been carrying around for far to long. It’s time… it’s past time. And I understand that it’s going to take time to undo what I’ve done. I didn’t get here overnight. This post brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for writing it. I’ll be visiting again.
Thanks for this post, it was a much needed reminder for me to stop letting my caloric intake inch down into the too-low range.
I started out trying to lose weight (for the hundreth time) last July. I remember I could only go around the track near my house once, and that one third of a mile lap just about did me in every time. I also changed my eating habits, nothing drastic.
Anyhow, I started at nearly 420 pounds and now I’m at 275, down 143 pounds (but who’s counting) and still having at least another 100 to go. The loss is still pretty steady but not as rapid as in the good old days and lately I’ve been finding myself cutting calories bit by bit when probably what I need to be doing is upping the duration and intensity of the exercise I’m doing.
Question for you though, don’t the generalizations you’re talking about apply to WLS patients too? Aren’t they starving, and wont they lose lean muscle mass, setting up that same vicious cycle?
Fred,
I’ve been reading both of your websites (this, and your “chunk-to-hunk” one), and I’m completely awed! Congrats on the weight-release!
I love that your plan is basically following “intuitive eating” — something I’m a HUGE fan of! (see my blog). Our bodies tell us when we’re hungry, and when we’re satisfied (have had enough to “refuel”), and we can trust them! Doing so leads you to drop whatever excess weight you have until you reach your God-given size! :o)
Using the Intuitive Eating approach since July 2005, I’ve released 25 of my 25-30 excess pounds! ANd, it’s something I can do for life! Whoohoo!
http://thinwithin4life.blogspot.com
Hi Fred
Thanks for the posts, you have a great style. You hit the nail on the head when you say that it will take a little time. It took me 10 years to get to 80 pounds overweight, with the best will in the world it’s going to take a couple of years to get rid of it (I’m about half way there).
What I have recently noticed, (which does my ego no harm at all), is that women are starting to give me calculating looks again, something that never happened when I was a lard-ball. It is good to have an ego again, something you lose without really noticing when or how as you inflate yourself. Call me shallow, but self love, strutting, being cocky ARE essential, and often sadly lacking in overweight people.
Cheers
Jim