And I can choose an end point?
Really?
Shouldn’t a successful end-of-diet be, at most, a once-in-a-lifetime experience?
I’ve never had a diet succeed before, so how I am supposed to know what success looks like? Metrics. I need some metrics. Am I there yet?
Or, more gently, it appears I’ve never given this whole end-of-diet thing much thought.
Which, again, is entirely reasonable. A chronically overweight individual might experience dieting” or “diets” repeatedly, but, ideally, any one such individual would only need to experience successful end-of-diet once in a lifetime.
Put another way, if the weight loss is sustainable, then, by definition, it’s not something you need to do twice in a lifetime.
But, beyond the obvious — the dietary changes must be permanent — I guess I hadn’t really thought about it much.
It, being, effectively, the dietary hereafter.
I am unprepared to state a good end point for my diet, for at least two reasons.
First, and most obviously, I never thought I’d get to this point. That, based on a life-long history of failed diets.
Second, in the heat of battle, you’re not focused on the ensuing peace. To be losing weight at a steady clip is enough. Where to stop? Beyond my planning horizon.
In any case, if you start off fat enough, as far as weight is concerned, down is good. Subject to not trashing yourself. So things are simple.
But the idea that I might be able to choose and keep the end point? Pick a weight/body type, within reason? That really hasn’t quite registered yet.
Is big-boned a myth?
Let’s just stop right there.
Can I choose? To what extent can I choose?
Can I actually, within some range, choose a body-type (for want of better term) at which I end up, with this diet?
Or, by contrast, aren’t some people just sort of naturally fat?
BMI aside:
To clarify, I’m not talking about the well-known discrepancy between BMI and body fat for (e.g.) body builders. Let me just grant that some people are “big boned”, defined as low body fat despite high BMI.
But.
But, first, that doesn’t mean that I was big-boned. Though that was always a comforting way to dismiss some of my life-long excess weight. But it’s the rare person that would be the significant exception.
Body builders are well aware of the issue. But hoi polloi rarely have the heavy musculature (or, I guess, big bones) that would put them far outside normal BMI guidelines.
Or maybe your fat is like an ice cube.
I always thought I was kind of naturally fat. As a fat person, naturally.
But now I’m beginning to accept an alternative hypothesis. Maybe my fat is like an ice cube. It’ll melt, if I keep up the heat long enough. In this case, if I keep up a modest calorie deficit long enough.
Maybe to a close approximation, your body fat percentage is just the long-term residual between energy intake and energy expenditure. No more, no less.
Like a glacier.
But, I do not now wish to make the same logical mistake in reverse. Maybe, all throughout my life, my body fat percentage could have been adjusted within a fairly wide range. That’s no evidence that everybody’s fat works like that.
Conclusion
That’s quite enough diet therapy for one day.
It was enough to discover that I really don’t have a good idea of what end-of-diet is like. I get the fact that your eating patterns must remain permanently changed.
Beyond that, I never thought about it much. Never had to.
For now, “down is good” is all I need to know, about my weight. I’m under 30% body fat, by several estimates, but not by much. I haven’t even reached the upper cutoff for healthy weight (20% body fat) per NIH.
Body fat percentage points erode slowly. Chance of overshoot is slim.
But now that my diet may be ending of its own accord (or not, we’ll see), it’s time to get up to speed on the topic of where best to stop, if you have the luxury of choosing the end point.
An addendum contrary to the laws of Nature.
Weirdly, the only piece of diet puzzle that doesn’t fit is that, to the best of my recollection, the last time I weighed 185 was when I was in high school.
So, I can weigh no more than I weighed in high school, if I want to have a normal weight? That’s per the NIH BMI chart.
Odder still, I might actually be able to weigh that, at age 66, while being in good health? That should occur if I can manage to maintain a daily calorie deficit of about 500 calories, for another few months.
Something about all of that seems unreasonable.
Contrary to the laws of nature or something. That older inexorably means fatter.
But until I come up with something better, that’s the goal.
Funny how a round number becomes a hard target.
