on the causes of physical changes

[jazzfish]

It's been an item of faith with me that I dropped thirty-five pounds in 2006 by taking up running. However, it's recently come to my attention that there may have been additional factors involved. With that in mind, a list of possible reasons why I lost weight, and gained a good bit of it back.

Reason #1: I took up running

Argument for: I started running in late April, three times a week. By mid-July I'd lost a visible amount of weight.

Argument against: The weight loss continued into winter when I wasn't running anymore. Taking up running again this autumn for seven weeks had zero effect on my weight. (It has other health benefits, so it's not like I'm going to stop.)

Reason #2: I took up swimming

Argument for: I spent July and August going swimming two or three times a week in the afternoon, and swimming's more calorie-burning than running. No swimming the past two summers corresponds to no loss of weight.

Argument against: Weight loss continued after the pool closed on Labor Day.

Reason #3: I ate less

Argument for: If I'm acquiring fewer calories and burning the same amount (or more, see nos. 1 and 2), the excess has to come from somewhere. And when I left B'burg I also started eating a sandwich and cookie-snack-pack for lunch every day, instead of a restaurant meal with coworkers.

Argument against: Weight loss reversed itself over the course of 2007 and 2008. It's possible that my body just adapted back to acquiring fewer calories, I guess.

Reason #4: Stress / lack of sleep

Argument for: I spent 2006 from, let's say, Memorial Day through Columbus Day and then Thanksgiving through New Years, exceedingly stressed out. Most obviously over relationship stuff but also with moving, job-finding and -adapting, and Granddad's death. I was sleeping less than was perhaps ideal and generally burning my candle at both ends. 2007 and the first ten months of 2008 were a lot less stressful overall, and I regained much of the missing weight. Stress and five-hour nights started back up at the beginning of last month; I'm down about five pounds, and this after devouring at least one entire pie over Thanksgiving weekend. Also, historical data: when everything went pear-shaped in late March 2003, I dropped five pounds in a week.

Argument against: . . . I really don't want this to be right?

Comments

[jsciv.livejournal.com]

While I agree with this to some extent, I would tend to disagree with the somewhat fatalistic view that you're stuck where you are. Tucker will understand where I'm coming from on that, as I lost over 120 pounds seven years ago and am now still down over 100 from then. It doesn't matter what plans have or have not been shown to work overall, it matters what you the individual do. If you ask most people on plans they will tell you that they haven't lost much weight because they haven't followed the plan, not because the plan itself doesn't work. There's a lot more going on than the physical science of food: weight loss is about the psychological as much as the physiological and about the environment as much as the individual. To say that weight loss plans don't work is to deny the culture that surrounds those plans and that's an oversimplification of what is really a complex issue.

I agree that bodies have a point that they tend to stay at, but I think that our culture of plenty has added a bit to that point for most people in the USA. And I think that whether or not the odds are against the "average" person losing weight, individuals who want to lose weight (with the disclaimer that I'm talking about people who DO weigh too much and not those who have unrealistic expectations or screwed-up body images) should be encouraged.

[jadelennox]

I don't think my view is fatalistic, because I don't think there's anything wrong with being fat. The studies connecting poor health and fat are immensley flawed and contradictory, and weight change is consistently shown to be more of a indicator of poor health, through heart strain, than fatness. Some individuals can lose weight and keep it off, others can't -- and neither type of person is necessarily healthier than the other.

As for lack of maintained weight loss, the "five years" number comes from studies in which people *did* follow the plans, if only because those who stopped following the plans were obviously no longer valid targets for the studies.

[jsciv.livejournal.com]

The studies I've seen all revisit someone after five years, they don't continuously monitor someone for the full time. Can you provide a link to the ones you're referring to? Thanks!

As to "fatalistic": if you as someone who doesn't think there's anything wrong with being fat say "weight loss plans don't work" to someone who does think there's something wrong with it then there's not common ground. I see such a statement as fatalistic because it would require me to accept that being fat was okay (and in my case it most definitely was not). I was assuming from the tone of Tucker's post that he had a similar. It is of course up to him to interpret our opinions appropriately. So I'll retract the word choice but note that it's probably reasonable for us to disagree on that. :)

[jazzfish]

It's complicated. When I started this mess it was from a mental place where being fat was Not OK. I'm happier (not happy, just happier) with who I am and how I look these days, even with not being that much lighter than I was then, and the ways that I'm unhappy are more health-related (again, not entirely, just more).

I'm also a bit more aware of the pressure that says one must be Thin to be attractive.

Which is to say, I sympathise mostly with jadelennox's view, and the places where I don't, I'm still not certain she's wrong.

[jsciv.livejournal.com]

Gotcha.

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

I'll never understand why people get so hung up on the health-related and aesthetic aspects of body size/composition, when to me it is almost exclusively a matter of range of motion and functionality. If someone has the urge to climb a tree, explore a cave, or sprint across a field, I think it's sad that one might be prevented from doing so because of excess body mass.

I've never been heavy, but in the last few years I've developed a great deal of strength and flexibility that I had never had before, and I would be miserable to return to my less functional self. I would feel imprisoned in my body.

[uilos.livejournal.com]

Do you lurk on Shapely Prose?