After losing a total of 80 pounds, at a steady rate of five pounds a month, my weight loss has stopped.
I reached 205 in the middle of January. I still weigh about that. I have not yet glimpsed 200 on the scale.
Is this because:
A) In some mysterious and unspecified way I have permanently slowed my metabolism by dieting, and thus am now doomed never to reach “normal” weight of 185 pounds? Do I simply now have a slow metabolism?
B) My body simply wants to be 205 pounds. (Though, if so, I wish it had spoken up sooner.) And so, nothing I could ever stand to do will ever get my weight below that “natural” level. I am now doomed never to reach a “normal” weight of 185 pounds? Am I simply “naturally fat”?
OR …
C) I’ve been eating too much.
After checking with the oracle, all indications point to C.
Teaspoons are tablespoons, and other things that suck about dieting.
Above, that’s a 300 calorie peanut butter sandwich. It consists of a slider roll (about 3″ in diameter) and two tablespoons of peanut butter. I know the sandwich contains exactly two level tablespoons of peanut butter, because I took the time to measure it.
The peanut butter is the thin brown line barely visible between the two halves of the roll.
I was appalled by this sandwich. First, by how little peanut butter that was. But mostly, by how much peanut butter I had been routinely using, of late, when I made one of those freehand, without measuring anything.
And as goes peanut butter, so go most of the portions I’ve been eyeballing.
A common teaspoon, in the silverware drawer, is typically about a tablespoon, in terms of its capacity. My coffee cup (mug) is more than two “coffee cups” worth of coffee. My smallest soup bowl, comfortably full, holds about a bowl-and-a-half, as calorie lists typically equate “a bowl of soup” to mean an 8-ounce cup.
I knew all of that, intellectually. But, somehow, of late, I’d been turning a blind eye to it.
Funny how your mind will play tricks on you.
Particularly if you want it to.
Recalibrating and downshifting
I have committed that most basic sin of long-term weight loss, portion creep. This is such a common thing that essentially all guides to long-term weight loss tell you to guard against it. If you don’t routinely measure everything, then once in a while you need to do that, if only to remind yourself of what the portions of food should be, to match the calorie counts you’re using.
To be clear, portion creep doesn’t occur at random. It has not, for example, inflated the amount of lettuce I eat weekly. I have not suddenly been faced with a large weekly bill for cabbage or cucumbers.
Instead, the fact that portion creep only occurs for high-calorie, typically high-fat foods, tells me that this is not simply sloppiness. It’s my brain, working to sabotage me.
And so, for a week or two, I’ll be measuring out “the good stuff”, meaning, energy-dense foods. Things that are high in fat, mostly, but also starches. Just enough to remind myself of what the actual portions are, that correspond to the calorie counts I’ve been using.
It’s also worth nothing that the problem items are energy-dense foods that don’t naturally come in fixed quantities. Of which peanut butter and salad dressing are the poster children. But also including cheese, meat, and some soups.
In the end, this is just the flip side of the volumetrics approach to dieting. With volumetrics, you eat lots of items with low calorie density (calories per ounce). Which boils down to non-starchy vegetables, fruits, and a smattering of other items.
More lettuce. Less salad dressing.
It’s not rocket science.
Conclusion: We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Source: Amazon.
After more than a year, and 80 pounds of weight loss, my diet has ground to a halt.
I’d love to blame my metabolism. Or my genes. Bad luck. Astrological sign. Tariffs. Republicans.
Anything but point the finger at myself.
But the fact is, weight loss at this pace is based on just a 500-calorie-per-day energy deficit. And it doesn’t take much screw that up. A heavy hand with a few high-calorie foods will do it.
So, maybe this is the end of my weight loss. Maybe not. Maybe these excess calories are merely the symptom of my body finally getting tired of losing weight. Maybe I won’t be able to stand going back to a true 1500 calories a day or so.
There’s only one way to find out. And that’s to be strict about everything I eat, for a while, and see if the weight loss picks back up. Or see if I’ve reached the end of my diet.
