Weight loss and the bonsai

I am busily visualizing a nicely shaped, mature bonsai tree  as part of my process of just hanging on to this project.  Because, as is probably typical for most of us, progress is occurring, but slowly.

Here’s the rundown: my weight seems plateaued. Meaning I’m about the same as a week ago, roughly six or so pounds lower than at the start of the project, but far from the dramatic 12 or 15 pounds I wish I had lost by now.  So on one level, it could seem like nothing much is happening, certainly nowhere near as much as the many “weight loss stars” seem to accomplish.  (You know, the ones who promise to make you lose 2 or 3 pounds a week, or who report such dramatic results themselves.)

And it’s possible I could be doing much better.  I know I need to cut back some on carbs (meaning “white food”).  My diet isn’t really super heavy in, well, anything, and I almost never (except on those weekend splurges) eat stuff like big burgers on big white buns and pizza and dessert.  But I have generally been eating a few hundred calories a day more than I absolutely have to, nutritionally speaking.  (Example: I am determined to avoid high fructose corn poison and fake sweeteners that turn to formaldehyde in my system, so instead I toss some unnecessary plain old white sugar in my coffee.  Another example: higher fat varieties of cottage cheese and such than I perhaps need.)  So even though I almost always come in within my allowances on my CalorieKing software, the pounds aren’t dropping.

And of course, that’s frustrating!  Not horrible one week, but if it’s the third week and it’s still stuck, especially if that weight is 3 pounds higher than my best-so-far weight… well, that sucks.

Of course, there is a big, big “on the other hand” argument here.  For one thing, my measurements.  Blood sugar is generally great.  My blood pressure is much improved and holding — not dropped enough that I could consider dropping a medication yet, but it’s in a good range and that’s consistent.  Resting pulse continues to be much better than when I started the project.  (Not yet Lance Armstrong, but in a really good range.)

More important: measurements and muscle strength are good.  I lost another half-inch on my waist this week; still not perfect and I still look a little bit pregnant, but the tape measure doesn’t lie.  Chest is same, but then I’ve been doubling and even tripling my upper bod reps on my chest/pecs, just because I have felt I need more upper body strength.

And my capabilities in the gym are improving steadily, as well.  Big muscle groups in particular, going up at best in the double – digit percent improved range in a few areas.  I can lift more weight  more comfortably, and this gets better constantly.  Aerobic conditioning is also clearly improved; at least on good days (when I’ve gotten good sleep and not messed up my blood sugar), I can do more, go faster, sustain intense bursts with better comfort and respiration than in the past.  It’s all good.

Which brings me back to the bonsai tree.  I love the art of bonsai, mostly as a spectator.  (Used to go to the Minnesota State Fair bonsai club exhibit  and man! they are spectacular!)

The thing about a bonsai is that it’s something you tend, change, shape very gradually.  Over time you make consistent, tiny, almost invisible little changes.  You may snip a small bit of a branch or a few leaves or needles from the tree.  You may shape a branch with a piece of wire ever… so… slowly, making teensy little adjustments very patiently.  It generally is a project of many years.

But then you have this amazing thing.  This beautiful tree that seems to have brought all the latent potential of the original tree out, and made it perfect.

I think that’s what this project really is about.  Make little tiny changes.  Go to the gym and maybe the only thing I do on a particular day is push myself just a bit longer, get my heart rate up into my aerobic zone just a half-minute longer than yesterday.  Or drink maybe just the first cup of coffee in the morning without sugar, even if I “cave” after that.  Just don’t replace small improvements with small bad habits in other areas!

And look for little evidences of change.  Because if my weight is the same on the scale but my waist is smaller, even a little, and I’ve added five more pounds to what I can do on the leg press and that’s more than I could do a week ago… something important is happening.

What do you think?

Weight loss: The pros and cons of “splurge days”

 

Yesterday I ate too much, and today I can still feel it.  I don’t think I really enjoyed what I felt after we had our large pizza and the cheesecake dessert we brought back from our “foraging” trip later in the afternoon.  And this brings up an interesting topic — the idea of giving yourself a “splurge day” every week as part of your weight loss plan.  There are pros and cons to doing this.

Pros of having a splurge day

The basic idea is that if you are working on a diet plan as part of a weight loss effort, that you may sometimes find it easier to maintain your plan if it doesn’t mean you’ve got to give up your favorite foods for the rest of your life.  You like chocolate cake, you miss chocolate cake, you don’t think you can possibly do without chocolate cake forever… so you tell yourself that you’ll have it, if you can only hold out until Sunday.

There are some good scientific theories behind “splurge days.”  

• Limits of self-control.  Some psychological researchers suggest that there are limits to our abilities to deprive ourselves.  Their research suggests that self-control seems to operate like the batteries in your laptop or cell phone: eventually you need to recharge them.  The thinking is that if we try too hard to deprive ourselves or control our behavior in too many areas, or sacrifice for too long, we may actually weaken our ability to control ourselves.  So the theory goes that if once a week you splurge, it’s like a much-needed rest period. 
• Avoids “starvation mode.” This is based on the medical research suggesting that our bodies have built-in “famine detector” systems that react to prolonged caloric reduction by going into an energy-saving mode. In other words, if you cut back your calories constantly, you find that you’re less able to burn off fat.  The bod says “no.  Un uh.  I need this fat.”  So a day of splurging is a way of keeping the body’s famine detection system off guard…. so you can keep losing weight.  You eat a few extra cookies on Sunday and on Wednesday you may find you’ve lost more weight than you would have if you’d skipped the cookies.  (This only works occasionally, of course — cookies every day doesn’t have the same effect.)

Cons of having a splurge day

• How it feels.  Sometimes your splurges may just not feel all that good.  When you generally eat a lot of heavy foods, sugary foods or whatnot, you may feel less good than you might feel if you ate healthier instead of splurging.  And the more you are used to healthier eating, the more you’ll notice the effects of your once-weekly splurge.  I think this was part of my feeling yesterday: despite looking forward to a pig-out meal and a great dessert, the fact is I didn’t feel all that great after I ate.  I used to eat like that daily; now I seldom do.  So I felt stuffed and frankly, got kind of sick of eating the pizza and dessert we’d bought.  Ick.  
• Health effects.  Being diabetic, I have to plan carefully and adjust my meds if I am to eat a lot of carbs or sweet desserts or the like.  High blood sugar means having that “sleepy stupid” feeling that other folks mainly associate with the after-Thanksgiving feast.  It’s not healthy, though.  And even if your health is generally great, a pig-out meal stresses your bod anyway.
• Psychology.  I mean, here we are, working not just to “get thin” for a few weeks, but trying to modify our general sense of ourselves.  Part of your sense of “self” is the stuff you do, the stuff you say, the stuff you think.  As Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “you are who you pretend to be.”  So if I want to be a thin, healthy, athletic guy (my mantra), what is that guy doing eating like that?  

What to do?

I think the upshot of this is that like most weight-related issues, there are complex, one-size-fits-one answers here. My current thinking, for me, works like this:

• Having a splurge day is fine, but I’ll try to have a balanced, more reasonable approach to it.  It’s fine, for instance, to make that a “splurge meal” instead of a whole day.  A big brunch or nice dinner should suffice, instead of following an “anything goes and eat like you’ll never see food again” strategy. 
• Even at that, using some portion control and picking healthier treats is generally better, though I won’t lose sleep over it if I am not “perfect.”
• Trying to get some exercise on splurge day is probably a good idea.  It happened that I also was on my “no gym” day (which is usually Sunday).  But a walk in the woods would have been good to have had.
• Getting single-servings of things would be better than buying larger quantities.  Neither my wife nor I really want big slabs of pizza and slices of cheesecake during the week, but we bought a large pizza and a couple of cheesecake desserts that are now sitting in the fridge.  (Actually, we didn’t realize we’d have as much left over as we do.)  It’s hard not to eat that stuff later in the week, ya know?