Monday, February 21, 2011

Secret Lies Lay in the Rubbish Bin

Pretty innocent looking photo.  My workshop garbage can on the floor beneath the end of my waxing bench to catch all the scrapped off wax.  What lurks inside of the rubbish bin are secrets.  Secrets of nutritional infidelity.
Since October/November'ish I've been gradually getting my weight down from an all time high of 211 lbs.  Over the past couple of weeks it seems that I've plateaued at about 196 lbs.  Or at least that's what I've been telling myself.  15 lbs is a good chunk of chunkiness to drop, if I do say so myself.  It's about the weight of a bike! 
I've even begun to accept the fact that this may be my predetermined and natural weight that Jebus feels is correct for ME.  And who am I to argue with Jebus.  I feel healthy even though I don't look 'cycling fit & healthy'

However, I think that I've been lying to myself a little and have been in denial.
 

A. Bits & Bites  B. my daughter's Goldfish snacks  C. Valentine's Day Hershey's Kisses  D.  Cliff Bar wrapper.

Whether it's been late nights getting off work and caving in to cravings on the drive home or falsley justifying a hard ski or trainer ride with "I really burnt more calories than there are in this bag of salty goodness . . . so I'm actually ahead!" . . . . either way, I've been indulging a bit too much.

My rubbish bin is evidence of that.  My late night snacking empty wrappers never make it into the kitchen garbage can, but instead get buried deep inside the workshop bin full of wax scrappings and workshop throw-out-ted'ness.  It's my secret place where I stash proof of my dietary infidelity.  Perhaps hiding it means it never happened.  Maybe I have deep psychological problems. Yes, yes I must.


Plateau because Jebus feels it's my fate to weigh 196lbs my arse.  Time to put down my pudgy foot and get back to what was working for me.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hmmmm Big Ring, I see you've conveniently forgotton all those yummy cookies your lovely wife baked you!
Robbie

Unknown said...

The first 20 pounds are the easiest, and they are also the easiest to gain back as you find little psychological evasions to add back the calories with little snacks. Good job identifying it.

I can say with some authority that Jebus does not want you to be any particular weight, but there is good evidence that your body does have a fat set-point. The deal is that you can, with sustained effort, change that set-point. The trouble is that it takes about two years of effort before it feels natural---that's two years of feeling hungry every day. A person's fat "memory" is long, apparently. This is also why the loosing the first 20 is easier because the weight you recently gained in the last two years is above your current set-point and pushing it higher, but if you diet, loosing that weight feels naturalish in that you are returning to your set-point.

Carson Chow (ironic?) is a great scientist that studies these things:
http://sciencehouse.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/obesity-weight-gain-and-a-cookie/

and his set-point paper: http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000045

Enjoy and great job getting back to race weight!

the original big ring said...

Starve myself for two years . . . hmmmmmmmm.

Maybe I'm okay at 196lbs.

Will check out that paper Will - cheers!

Robyn - damn those cookies were good!