Day 15: Old Weight (Barely) In Sight

I've been plainly obese for more than a month now, but I was always on the borderline of being so. Normal weight for me, except for a stretch in the late 1990s, had been about 220 lbs. clothed. In the last several months previous to the beginning of June, I had gotten up to between 225 lbs and 230 lbs. clothed. Taking off 5 lbs. for clothes, this implies a range of 220-225 lbs. unclothed.

Today, I weighed in at 20 lbs. above the middle of that range.

Evidently, the technique suggested by "mk," of switching to 5 snack-sized meals a day, is working for me, although it could also be the exercise I'm doing. There does, however, seem to be a drawback to mixing diet and exercise, as I found out this morning.

The specific exercise I've been doing over the last few days is building up my left arm muscles with a 25-lb. one-hand dumbbell. I'm not doing this out of diet considerations, but because my left biceps are much weaker than my right ones. I'm using the dumbbell in order to reach upper-arm parity. So, my exercising is not specifically diet-related. I should also mention that I'm a bit of an odd duck when it comes to exercise: I don't get any adrenaline rush out of exercising - I tend to plow through it quietly. (Once, I listened to an audiobook MP3 while working out.)

This reaction may be a result of my earlier holiday from the diet, but I suspect that the exercise itself is mostly the cause: Early this morning, I felt a kind of hunger that wasn't as intense as the pangs I felt when I began the diet, but I interpreted it as less of a feeling and more of an intention. I felt seriously tempted to get up, walk into the kitchen, and have a little more food. I actually had to go back to bed to make the feeling pass; when I woke up again, the intention part of my hunger was gone.

Here's a guess for you: the diets that offer the chance to lose a lot of weight without exercise don't do so just to appeal to our sendentary side, they also do so because exercise makes the hunger less intense but more actionable. Exercise brings with it an increased physicality that comes with a hard stint of it - at least, for a fellow like me - and that makes you more action-oriented, including more oriented to the action of going to the pantry or fridge. Exercise may very well increase the rate of weight loss, but there is that added risk. Also, the common-sensical conclusion that a calorie burner needs more calories to burn become more compelling.

This being said, I'm noticing that the fat in my belly is becoming less viscous - more jelly-like. I have to say that it's fascinating watching the gut shrink.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 242 pounds. It might in part be due to fluid loss, though.