Saturday, April 19, 2008

Notice of Closure...And Success

After some reflection, I realized that I was beginning to repeat old advice in the text sections of the entries. This repetitiveness has convinced me that I really have nothing new to add. So, there seems to be little point in me continuing this blog. From now on, I'm dieting quietly.

If you want the experience of me going through the earlier diet, you can "relive" it from Day 1, or from "Day Zero" when I announced the plan that I would follow.

I realize that I had announced that I would be doing a with-and-without test of the Plateau Buster, but there seems little point in it now. Perhaps such a test is best left to professional dieticians, or other people more focused on the goal. The small E-book I wrote is still up, and it's fairly self-explanatory.


In closing, I would like to thank any readers who stopped by. I do not intend to delete this blog, as a certain update is indicated. It'll come, perhaps, around March.


UPDATE (March 8): I hit a snag that lasted more than two weeks previous to this part. As luck would have it, I got on a "weight treadmill" almost two months after I resumed the latest diet installment. For the last seventeen or so days, my weight (unclothed) has fluctuated between 210 and 215 lbs.

This could be chalked up to me going off the diet with regularity one night per week (sometimes twice per week), but any added food has been counterbalanced by a lot of added exercise - specifically, snow shovelling. It's been a heavy winter for the snow.

Most likely, my body has become acclimatized to the 1000 calorie/day norm by slowing my metabolism. I would like to think that this treadmilling is a result of me finally straddling the "overweight" and "normal" categories, but I suspect that others have been on this treadmill themselves while still overweight, or even obese.

When even the Plateau Buster doesn't fool the body anymore, the only fallback strategy seems to be the nip-and-tuck. If sustained dieting has pulled down body energy use, then a sustained holiday from the diet will (presumably) bring it up again. Undoubtedly, this will result in regaining some weight, but there seems no other option if metabolism confounds. So, that will be the next test, which may yield a useful tip for chronic treadmill-weight dieters: whether or not the nip-and-tuck technique (two months on, three weeks off) will get the regular weight losses back.

So, to test this, I'm pulling myself off until the beginning of April and then going back on. I hope this nip-and-tuck will enable me to reach that 200 pounds - for me, the midrange of normal.


Final Update: As of April 19th, 6 PM, I stepped on the scale, unclothed, and weighed in at exactly 200 pounds. I've made it.

As it turns out, going on an extended diet holiday proved to be just the trick. I shot up to 215 pounds, for about a five-pound gain, but stayed roughly there until April began. Evidently, my appetite was crimped even when I could eat what I wanted. When April began, I started off at the same 215 pounds.

Yes, it was a metabolism speed-up that kicked in. When I went back on the diet, which included judicious uses of the Plateau Buster, my weight only dawdled at the same 210-pound block point. 205 was a little more of a challenge, but I started sailing through it as of a couple of days previously. April 19 marks the end of it, making for a loss rate slightly greater than that featured in the free E-book I wrote.

Evidently, dehabituation through a diet holiday works. My body had been so good at calorie-burning efficiency, it's actually debatable whether I would have reached 200 pounds by Apr. 19th without that diet holiday. Regardless, I found that it's easier to stick to a diet that's working, so the faster rate gave me extra psychological wherewithal to stick to the final installment.

Before I sign off, I want to make one important point. I lost 15 pounds in 20 days even though I took myself off the diet each Sunday (and not just for a social meal, either.) I also had a "hunger attack" on Wednesday the 16th. Despite this lack of rigor, I still ended up reaching my goal of losing 15 additional pounds, in somewhat less time than I thought it would take. The point I'm trying to make is that one day's eating frenzy does not a ruined diet make. The trick is to make the dieting normal, and diet breaks or diet holidays the exception. The only way to do this is to shrug off the previous eat fest and see a return to diet mode as a return to habit. Obviously, this works best if you hold off from any diet break, or diet holiday, until you've habituated yourself to the calorie restriction. I suggested, and still suggest, three weeks without any kind of break in order to establish the pattern. Then, they will seem like exception-making rather than up-giving (sorry.)

Related to this point is a fallback one. If a diet becomes too much, try as much as you can to limit your daily food intake to weight-maintenance calorie level. This'll roughly hold your weight to your gain, enabling you to mark time until you have the psychological whereithal to diet again.


I don't know where I'll be, weight-wise, in the future. I undertook this diet primarily for the challenge, to see if I could get off weight I put on last year and more. (I'm more than twenty pounds lighter than I've been in years: my regular pants are all loose-fitting now, and my old belt is now too big for me.) This weight is around normal for someone of my height and build. If I chose to make a quest for the "body beautiful," I could probably lose another 15-20 pounds.

Even if I bob back up, though, going through this experience has given me the confidence that I can lose weight again, because I have. That success can't be taken away from any accomplished dieter, no matter how much weight he or she subsequently gains. The fat may come back, but the experience stays.

(Besides, it might come in handy if a doctor reads me the riot act someday.)

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If you don't mind a final self-plug of the free diet book, the download link to "How I Lost 40 Pounds In 60 Days" can be found here.