The Effect of Losing Weight

One of the things I've been meaning to share is the how losing weight changes my experience of my body.

1. A slimmer body is more flexible in the middle. I often feel like I'm swaying about my waist, or something like that. That's not always good, it takes more effort to support myself and my upper back feels fatigued more often.

2. Eating used to be a depressant, it would make my drowsy so I would avoid eating during the day. Now eating is a stimulant.

3. I fidget. As I write my feet are wiggling side to side. Sometimes after eating I feel slightly jittery, occasionally more than a little jittery. Never in a bad way, just as though I have an overabundance of energy. That never used to happen.

4. I'm more attentive to my occasional need for water.

5. I used to be able to go all day without eating, now if I do that I would feel all but sick. Not really sick, just depleted and spaced out.

6. Its easier to walk. I walk much faster.

7. Although I can still pack down a huge meal, I have a more a somewhat more sharply defined sense of satiety.

8. I feel full for longer. My stomach doesn't need calming with night time meals.

9. In bed my bones poke at each other and its annoying; can't sit for long, no fat cushion on my bum.

10. I feel like I'm in excellent health instead of just okay. This is more than some euphoria of success, it is likely hormonal in some way.

A friend took a few moments to point out The Leptin Diet. I'm not entirely persuaded, but the guidelines in the diet are much the same as what I've been doing. Of particular interest was the way in which they included scientific research into their recommendations. I have to admit, that my weight regulation phase next January might be better if I took advantage of what is known about the thermogenic effect, which is the tendency of your body to increase metabolic rate when certain foods are consumed. Its not clear to me that the increased metabolic rates are always beneficial beyond their ability to help reduce weight. It does, however, seem obvious that its a great asset in your arsenal of tricks and tips. I'm providing the links to the things I'm learning as I go along. Special thanks to my friend Kenward Chin.

Final Report, Year 1

Hi Folks, its time to report on progress. My last average weight over 3 days was 160.2 and my lowest one-time measurement was 159.4. I would like to have kept going for another week, but alas I'm out of time. It appears now that my weight is going to be maintained at 160 lbs. I'm finding it very hard to lose weight now. I've been in full diet mode for a week to meet my goal. That's not good. I'm setting 160 as my new normal weight. We'll see what happens now. I've lost 75 lbs over a year, but most of it  in the first 6 months. It may however be that 160 is the lowest I can practically go with only light physical activity and that to be anywhere less means hours in a gym, which I'm not willing to do.

I'm on holidays from work now, there's a special social event this afternoon, a special meal this evening, packing up on Sunday and a road trip with beer and burgers on the way. One of the benefits of being able to control my weight is, however, that I have the freedom to indulge because I know I can lose the weight again. So I expect to put on 5 or 6 lbs over the next three weeks and do so guilt free. I will not be tracking my weight for three weeks, and then I will start once more.

My next goal is to gain the ability to lose weight extremely slowly. This is very challenging because its like driving with a loose steering wheel. You don't really know the effect of your choices for some time. An accurate scale would help. I don't trust the one I have beyond +/- a full pound. The other one I have seems worse (it was cheap). I might by a third, but what to buy? I'm considering weighing myself on all three and averaging them. Or I could do like NASA does, make it a vote. You average the closest two and discard the outlier.

Starting January 7th, I would like to start by losing what I gained over the break at the rate of about 1 lb a week to a weight of 160 lbs. Then I plan to try to start a new graph with a goal to lose only a pound a month. So projecting, I'll give myself 6 weeks until the end of February to get back to 160. Then over four months I'll see if I can drop town to 156.0 lbs. That brings me to the centre of the healthy range for my height.

Hi Folks, I'm struggling a little at the 164 to 165 lbs mark. This morning's weight was 164.2. For comparison when I was in Grade 10 in 1975 my weight was 165. Now I know exactly what you're thinking, Awe. But you know what, if its worth doing its worth doing well. I'm going to give it my best shot to get down to 160 by Christmas. Maybe its the end of losing weight the way that I do, but it too soon to know.Maybe two pounds will drop off tomorrow. Generally when I plateau I watch for the following: water balance, exercise, and maximum meal size.  The good news is that the dotted line that compares the change per week is close to the target rate of 1.0 lb/wk. The red line and the light blue line below are both 1 lb per week.

Here's where I sit.

Well its been quite a time of being dragged of for events. My old grandmother passed away, which while death in never great meant a week to be with family and not able to choose my own food. Had some nice restaurant meals too, including at least three hamburgers. I also new this was coming. So I pushed my weight down before leaving and then let it rise. Immediately upon getting back I took a day to use up some of the energy reserves in my blood. So on that day I ate only oatmeal and a couple of buns with cheese. Here's how it all went down.

The dotted blue line shows that I was able to get my loss rate temporarily down to more than 3 lbs per week before leaving. What's amazing is that is the same as it was when I weighed 220. You can see now, I'm back in the zone between max and min.

Present Situation

This is an example of a graph I would make to track how I'm doing. I make lots of graphs, but this is the one I like at the moment. It shows I'm in trouble from lots of eating outside of my regular diet. Luncheons and weekend barbecues peak this time of year. All I can do is track it and deal with the consequences. At this point I also know that my triglycerides are modest but not low and my delicious supper last night means stored glycogen is probably high. I'm above my minimum goal, so that means no fat and minimum calories until that red line is below the green line for at least two consecutive days. 

The Graph:

• Max-Min are the green and yellow lines
• 3 day average is my weight this AM averaged with the previous two days
• Loss Rate is a seven day running average, that running average is compared with the running average a week ago. I need a very stable and sure number to know what my rate of loss is, because I'm going to base eating decisions on that.

I had a weekend of enforced social eating. Since Saturday its been hamburgers, ice cream laden deserts, pizza, and luncheon food. That's refined carbs from genetically modified wheat, animal fat from genetically modified corn, and umm.. not much else. That's bad. But the worst thing of all is it leaves me hungry. I could raid the fridge. What's going on?

Well there is a fullness index, see http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor which includes some consideration for the presence of dietary fibre. It doesn't include my simple model which is that the digestive system wants a certain volume of food, for me I want five cups a day. And air doesn't count. So I would need five hamburgers a day, and that's serious. I could eat a hamburger for breakfast, one for lunch, one later in the afternoon, and two for supper. No problem. A hamburger is about 500 calories, so I think you can do the math.

We all have to indulge once in a while. And I say go for it. Satisfy that desire and move on. If there's anything to the fullness index, I should have had one hamburger with about three paddies.