Set point.
Set point.
Set point.
Set point.
Something about leptin…
Fuck the set point.
So apparently once I’ve lost all the weight I want to lose and I’m in maintenance mode (please come soon…) my body will start pining over the fat it’s lost like I pined over that certain someone. I’m just going to go ahead and say that the two things are equally awesome in that they are both not.
When I started losing weight I was just kind of like, “eh, I’ll worry about that when I get there” but I’m starting to think that perhaps I should take it into account now and try to come up with a smarter strategy to minimize the effect of my needy, less fat, ass.
So, like the shoddy researcher I am, I consulted Google.
At least it wasn’t Wikipedia…
What I found is that no one really knows much about how this works and many theories abound. In other words, I’m fucked.
Supposedly my body really really really wants me to maintain the weight I’ve gained just in case Mount Rainier does go off and Seattle goes all Lord of the Flies. Look body, didn’t you actually read Lord of the Flies? Don’t you know what happens to the fat kid? I might be able to survive longer off my own fat but other people will also be able to survive longer off my fat and they’ll probably win! Even at a larger size I really can’t take on a hungry mob. Thanks for making me dinner.
Ahem.
In reality, the major thing that seems to be the key is losing weight slowly. This makes me feel SO much better about my lack of motivation or progress this year. I’m not sucking at weight loss; I’m just taking it slow… or something like that.
Here’s the thing, though, with the method I’ve used all along, I’ve never felt hungry or deprived. Rather than tracking the amount of calories I was eating, I tracked the type of foods I ate. I made the decisions about which foods I ate but let my body make the decisions about how much I ate. Rather than fighting my body and my weight, I’m trying to work with my body to get to the right weight (and be ridiculously hot, of course).
There are some things I only want to do once in life; get married, lose a shit ton of weight; get run over… just to name a few. Doing them right the first time is the key.
That, and not finding yourself on the underside of a car.
Okay, so doing this slowly and letting my body moderate the amount of food I eat is the first step but it seems like there HAS to be more to it than that. According to a lot of studies that I’m not going to cite here because I’m too lazy right now (and we’ll talk about them another time for real), it appears that the human body really does know how to moderate weight if we feed it the correct things. Sadly, I don’t think that cinnamon rolls are included in that.
So, I’m making a new plan. No, actually, I’m making a variation of the original plan. It’s always been a good plan but it needs a refresher due to new information. I’m not yet going to talk about what I’m going to do; I’m just going to start doing it.
Maybe the holidays aren’t a very good time to do this but I’m more excited about the new information I’ve gained than I am about the sugary things I could be eating. A few weeks ago I said that I had to get my head back in the game and immerse myself in weight loss-ey things. I did that and now I’m kind of pumped about it again.
And yeah, there’s a small possibility that my excitement might win out over my laziness.
