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May 24, 2007
Will We Gain It Back?
This entry by Robin reminded me of something that happened today.
I was listening to NPR today when I heard an interview with Gina Kolata about her new book, Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. I haven't read it but from the interview I gather Kolata is pretty pessimistic about the possibility of significant long-term weight loss for the vast majority of overweight and obese people.
I must admit I feel so torn when I hear these types of discussions. On the one hand, I want to believe that people are capable of exercising free will when it comes to food. I'd like to think we humans, being rational creatures, have control over what and how much we eat. On the other hand, I'm well aware that genetic factors can strongly influence things like appetite and metabolism in some if not most people. For example, obese people who lose weight often must contend with a constant feeling of deprivation. That's a pretty impossible feeling to live with day in, day out for the rest of your life. I mean, if you honestly feel like you're starving all the time, how long can you hold out before you go nuts and start downing Twinkies like there's no tomorrow? This, Kolata says, is why most people who lose weight on a diet will gain that weight back within a year or two.
So where does that leave me? A year ago, I was over 50 pounds heavier than I am right now. Will I still be this skinny next year? And the year after that? What about 5 years from now? Will I wake up one morning suddenly feeling ravenous and unable to resist the urge to stuff my face with gak? I won't pretend I never worry about it. After all, I've lost a lot of weight before only to regain it when I found I could no longer keep up with all the exercise required to maintain the weight loss.
What gives me hope this time is this feeling, deep down, that CRON truly is different from other things I've tried. It's a completely new way of life. Once you start down this path, you never look at food in quite the same way again. I can't imagine going back to the way I was before. I know too much about nutrition and health now.
And yet...
I still worry just a little when I hear things like this radio interview with Gina Kolata. Her message seems to be: "If you're overweight, you might as well just give up and learn to live with that because no matter how hard you try, you'll never come up with a sustainable way to keep excess weight off." She might be right, at least for some people, but I can't accept that for myself. I have to at least try. To do otherwise would be to meekly accept the myriad health problems the overweight and obese are destined to suffer.
So onward and upward. I hope this time next year, and the year after that, and 5 years from now and even a decade from now, I'll be here to prove Kolata wrong. Stay tuned.
I had a discussion today with some friends about the thought of regaining lost weight. It all happened because an old friend of all of ours who just had a baby asked me if she could borrow some of my size 6 and 8 suits, since her 2s no longer fit (we are all very short.) I was thrilled to let her borrow the suits, as I certainly can't wear them. I'm walking around in an Ann Taylor size 0 these days, and while that's by no means skinny (MR reminds me that I'm not "underweight" by BMI, no matter what the height/weight charts day, and his mom frequently comments that I'm not skinny) it's not a size 6 or 8.
My friends at the lunch table (we were all eating in our office conference room) asked me why I had kept the suits. Am I afraid that I'll gain the weight back?
The honest answer is no, I've never thought I'd gain the weight back. It's just too easy to stay at my current weight. I still go out way more than I should, much to the chagrin of MR and our bank account. I still eat more than I need to, drink more than is necessary for proper resveratrol consumption, and in general live like a normal person. I was just ranting to one of our friends that I've gained a few pounds during the last fit of campaign intensity, and while it's not about weight, there's no question in this case that I've been consuming too many calories. Yes, my nutrition has been excellent. Yes, I've been under a lot of stress. Yes, I eat really good quality foods when I go out. A few days ago, for instance, a friend took me out to celebrate my recent victory, and I ate a non-cream based asparagus soup and a scallop appetizer as my entree, with just two pan seared scallops. No dessert. Drank some amazing French red wine (when is Sara coming over? We would have the best time eating light and drinking well!) Good food, not much by normal people standards, but still more than my usual at home dinner. Point being, I can go out a lot, live a live I very much enjoy, sacrifice nothing, and stay under 110 pounds. Usually around 104, sometimes as much as 108, but not scary numbers, and a solid size 0.
So why did I keep the suits? Mostly because I love them so much and they're such good quality that I have trouble giving them away to someone I don't know, and none of my girlfriends are the right size. Chances are, MR's mom will be taking them home at Christmas, as they'll fit her great with her recent weight loss. I've never thought I'd gain back the weight... the only thing I fear is that I won't be able to take my CR low enough that I really slow my aging process. However, I trust that with constant work and help from MR, I'll get there. Not as soon as he'd like me too, but soon enough.
When I look at the "diets" most people use to lose weight, I'm not surprised that they gain the weight back. They're still eating way too many empty calories in the form of grains, and they're not monitoring their nutrition. The miracle of eating the RDA of your essential nutrients is that you're just not as hungry. Fancy that: you give your body what it needs, and it's happy! Isn't it sad that in our culture food is about everything *but* nutrition, so this concept seems quite radical? Check out RDA Method for more info on eating healthy to live well.
I just learned the simple tricks that make it easy to stay thin. When I watch other people try to lose weight, it's hard to bite my tongue cause they make mistakes that are so easily corrected. But I try not to pry. I just go about my business, and while I still eat way too much for CR at times, I have no doubt that I'll be slim for the rest of my life.
Short recap of the tricks:
-- Stop eating grains, except on special occasions.
-- Eat enough protein. Harder if you're a vegetarian, but eggwhites and nonfat dairy help.
-- Get enough calcium.
-- Eat enough fat, but all unsaturated.
-- Throw out the mixed drinks, replace with red wine.
-- Learn how many calories are in the foods you eat, and plan accordingly.
You don't have to use nutritional software every day or memorize long lists of calorie counts, you just have to learn the basics. For instance, before I learned that it has 74 calories per ounce, I ate a lot of feta. Then I stopped! Every once in awhile, I'll eat some. But pre-CR, I was eating tons of feta on my Greek salad at lunch several times a week. Hundreds of calories that I didn't realize were packing on the weight. Once I knew, I had the power to make a rational decision.
As I've said a hundred million times, it's not about being good, right, moral, or better than anyone else. I keep the weight off because I learned how, and the new habits are no more difficult than the old ones. At least, not much more difficult. When I'm looking for a breakfast option, a Dunkin Donuts bagel with cream cheese is no longer on the list of choices. But with all the healthy, low cal, high protein choices available, I don't miss the bagel.
So I'll lend out my old suits and eventually find a good home for them. Tomorrow I'll be showing up for work in a size 0, and while I wonder where the heck I'll buy clothes once I lose any more weight (British size 0 is much smaller than ours, so maybe I'll go to London to shop), I'll keep striving for more serious CR so that I can join MR on the bus to even greater life-extension. And so that I still look cute when he's 75 and gorgeous and 50 year old chicks are hitting on him.
Posted by april at May 24, 2007 1:16 AM
Comments
British size 0 is smaller than American size 0? Huh. No fair. My Dress really is a Vanity 2 then!
I'd love to come and visit sometime. Unfortunately I always have the worst time with INS on arrival, which makes me so apprehensive. They get closer and closer to locking me up every time, I swear.
You would love the Chinon we've got for our wedding. I'll get the details for you and you can give it a try if you can find it. It's very special!
Posted by: Sara at May 24, 2007 3:18 AM
Why not find a seamstress (tailor) and get those suits reduced in size. It doesn't cost much, and much better than buying new suits!
(Works for me anyway)
Posted by: Lindsay at May 24, 2007 11:37 AM
They do make a size 00 now that is smaller than a 0. Maybe that will work for you!
Posted by: Brianna at May 24, 2007 4:27 PM
Re: the suits: pick me for their final home, pick me!!! Re: tinier clothes: Canadian sizes are smaller than US ones (e.g., a US 8 is a CDN 10), so I guess you'll just have to make a trip north and go on a shopping spree some time! MoMR ;-)
Posted by: Judith at May 24, 2007 6:28 PM
Off Topic--- April, Do you know or could you please ask your readers if they have a good way to make deviled eggs without yolks? M
Posted by: Marti at May 25, 2007 9:14 AM
You're thin because you starve yourself. And you are a moralizing, obnoxious woman who lectured a kid at the grocery store on how he would die from a heart-attack some day ("I guess someone has to subsidize the bypass industry").
This is helping him? To rant about how he's going to die someday? Yeah, well, so are you, April Smith, someday. Maybe it won't be from a heart-attack. Or maybe it will be. At any rate, I hope it says on your tombstone: "I sacrificed Alot of food to not get here, but, hey, looks like Death won out, after all". Like it *always* does, hon.
Posted by: Garry at May 25, 2007 10:50 AM
Garry, you are obviously not a frequent or long-time reader of April's blog. If you were, you would realize that she (like the other people in the CR community) definitely DO NOT starve themselves! They strive on a daily basis to obtain OPTIMAL NUTRITION and some of them eat a great deal of food. So, she made a smart-assed comment to some grocery store clerk. Big deal. Maybe, just maybe, it will get him to improve his diet. In any event, relax, man. If you don't like her blog, don't read it.
Posted by: Judith at May 25, 2007 12:26 PM
Actually, if you read the post carefully, the cashier at the grocery store was the one who was obnoxious and moralizing. He said: "Healthy food just isn't right. Big Macs, fries, that's what I like. Healthy food is un-American." How would you feel if someone implied you were abnormal and questioned your patriotism just because you decided to buy some kale? April's comments to this guy were really quite tame by comparison.
Yes, Garry, death will come to us all eventually - no one ever said otherwise - so why are you wasting precious moments of your life reading blogs of people you obviously despise and writing nasty, rude comments that just make you seem small and petty? Go get a life, hon'!
Posted by: Robin at May 25, 2007 12:49 PM
Hi April...I am about the same size as you, and I am actually really, really surprised to hear that since I don't do anything like CR or CRON (is that the same thing?). I am 61 inches tall and 108-110 pounds - I am very muscular, so I figure if I didn't practice Ashtanga yoga on a daily basis, I would probably weigh more like 105. I eat very little animal protein. I eat quite a lot of fruit and a decent amount of vegetables. I count my calories and try to eat 1200 a day but I think it usually ends up being more like 1500.
I feel very small, very slim, sometimes even very thin, but I never think of myself as skinny, although quite a lot of people tell me that I am and "don't lose any more weight" and stuff like that.
Anyway, I'm just marveling at the notion that your eating patterns are so different from mine (mine are much more haphazard, obviously), and yet we are about the same size. Perhaps this is what Gina Kolata was really talking about - you see, I have never been anything close to 50 pounds heavier except when I was pregnant and except when I was on chemo (had breast cancer five years ago - I'm only 41).
Perhaps 104 pounds IS your version of the pessimistic vision she describes. Like, maybe if you were a person who easily came to thinness, you would be WAY skinny, like an Olsen twin or something. And maybe if I were a person who was CR-ing, I would also be Nicole Richie-esque.
I'm just trying to reconcile what Kolata wrote and what the "reality" might be.
Oh, and I don't know if you're into this sort of thing, but I'm part of a blogroll (http://www.ashtangi.net) which has a wide readership and writership, some of whom are CR and CRON folks. A lot of ashtangis are at the very least, quite curious about the CR lifestyle. Anyway, long story short, our crowd is in the middle of a "meme-fest" - we each "tag" eight other bloggers and whoever gets tagged has to cough up 8 random factoids about themselves and then "tag" 8 more bloggers....
I thought it would be fun to tag...YOU! and see if we could spread the meme-love outside our immediate ashtangi.net circle.
Anyway, whether you join in or not, very interesting post you have here today.
Lauren
Posted by: Lauren at May 25, 2007 10:35 PM
Marti,
I throw away the yolks and fill the hole with yummy vegetables, either salsa or tapenade usually. I suppose you could pile just about anything in there - pesto, crab dip, mushroom "salsa", butternut squash, feta cheese, an almond... The squash would look like deviled eggs if that's what you're after.
Posted by: RG at May 26, 2007 9:39 AM
Lauren,
I don't see that our eating is all that different... when I'm exercising, I average about 1500 per day. I probably eat more protein than you do though, which I find really helps me not feel hungry. Pre-exercise I could eat a lot less, but no more! And I definitely don't want to give up exercise.
Have you ever tried tracking your nutrition on software? It might really help you identify places you could improve. And that would in turn improve your yoga performance. I love your site, btw! I really should learn more about yoga. Seems like a natural compliment to CR practice, and would no doubt help me stay saner and healthier in times of stress.
Meanwhile, should I post my random facts on my blog or where?
a
Posted by: april at May 26, 2007 3:33 PM
You put your random facts on your own blog and then you tag 8 other bloggers to do the same...and on and on and on it goes! I linked to your blog on my site, so people will come here and see your randoms facts.
So, about the eating, most Ashtangis find it impossible to eat anything in the 12 or so hours before getting on the mat. Even those of us who have stuck to our pre-yoga eating for a long time, stubbornly, eventually come to realize that it feels WAY better to practice yoga with nothing going on in the intestines. Energetically, it's nicer - all the energy goes to the yoga, and in a way, you're a bit "weaker" than if you ate pre-workout carbs, and the weakness contributes to a more loose and light practice. Probably sounds strange to anyone else, I know.
But the thing about it is - it is in its own way, quite restrictive. We basically fast half of our lives! The difference between CR and ashtanga-related eating restriction might be that we don't calculate anything. We just try to not eat at all for a period of time before we practice and then we try to eat reasonable amounts of food so that we don't feel weighted down. Usually that ends up meaning less animal protein than a more typical diet. And less animal protein probably means less protein overall, let's face it. Beans and rice just don't have the same number of grams as a piece of salmon.
I'm rambling.
Looking forward to your facts!
Lauren
Posted by: Lauren at May 26, 2007 3:50 PM