{"id":99,"date":"2014-01-15T19:06:46","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T19:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/?p=99"},"modified":"2014-01-15T19:06:46","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T19:06:46","slug":"the-fat-trap-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/?p=99","title":{"rendered":"The Fat Trap Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is from a journal entry from the end of 2011, but it still feels true today.\u00a0 I notice that back then my goal was 160 and now it’s 170 – perhaps that means I’ve gotten a bit more accepting of myself in the past couple of years? <\/em><\/p>\n

People act like \u201cit\u2019s my metabolism\u201d is just an excuse us fat people make for being overweight, and always discredit us when we claim to exercise as much (if not more) than many people.<\/p>\n

An article in the Times<\/a> got me thinking about my own weight struggles.\u00a0 It cites a study finding that people who have lost 10% of their body weight actually burn calories more slowly than people who are naturally that lower weight \u2013 and, bonus, the pleasure centers of their brain respond more when they see food.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter you\u2019ve lost weight, your brain has a greater emotional response to food,\u201d Rosenbaum says. \u201cYou want it more, but the areas of the brain involved in restraint are less active.\u201d Combine that with a body that is now burning fewer calories than expected, he says, \u201cand you\u2019ve created the perfect storm for weight regain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past 10 years or so I\u2019ve lost about 55 pounds (and regained about 25 of it).\u00a0 I\u2019ve gone from 235 all the way down to 175, only to see my weight creep back up to 185 and then 195, and now right around 200.\u00a0 That means at one point I\u2019d lost about 23% of my total body weight and am now about 15% lighter than my starting weight.<\/p>\n

A lot of my weight gain was having an office job that kept me at the computer 12+ hours a day, but even then I was seeing a trainer two or three times a week.\u00a0 The trainer is what kept me around 190.\u00a0 Now that we can no longer afford a trainer (and despite a honeymoon that involved hiking and tons of walking) say hello to 10 more pounds.<\/p>\n

How did I make it down to 175?\u00a0 Caloric restriction and exercise, plus sleeping 13 hours a day.\u00a0 Yes, that\u2019s right, 13 hours.\u00a0 By the end of that year I was forcing myself to go to the gym, rarely ate out, and ate about a bowl of cereal and a sandwich a day.\u00a0 When I told my doctor I felt listless and depressed even though I was getting more exercise than ever, she ran a blood test and discovered I had hypothyroidism.\u00a0 Being put on synthroid to increase my thyroid hormones only seemed to make me hungrier (probably a good thing since my eating habits weren\u2019t sustainable or particularly healthy).\u00a0 I was living alone that year and rarely saw friends and family.\u00a0 I might have been on my way to anorexia without even knowing it, which is ironic because I\u2019ve always joked I don\u2019t have the self-control for anorexia and, of course, all I got for my weight loss were compliments on how good I looked.\u00a0 A woman has to be very thin indeed in this society for people to start telling her she\u2019s too skinny.<\/p>\n

Here I am, starting 2012 with the desire to once again shave 20% off my body weight and get down to 160 pounds, but now that I think more about it, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s even a realistic goal.\u00a0 The health magazines and purveyors of \u201cdiet du jour\u201d (medically approved<\/a>!, it\u2019s your bowels<\/a>!, turn to God<\/a>!) tell you it\u2019s possible to lose weight and experience a range of enhanced well being by the increased self-control of healthier eating, exercise, etc., and while I believe in the importance of a diet full of whole foods and low on the processed stuff, I\u2019ve been living that way for a decade and it hasn\u2019t kept my weight from moving back up the scale.<\/p>\n

What it will take to lose even 20 pounds is an immense amount of effort on my part, both in exercising, and in forcing myself to eat much, much less than my 45 pounds lighter spouse.\u00a0 It won\u2019t seem fair.\u00a0 It won\u2019t be fun. This sounds harder than making it through law school\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is from a journal entry from the end of 2011, but it still feels true today.\u00a0 I notice that back then my goal was 160 and now it’s 170 – perhaps that means I’ve gotten a bit more accepting of myself in the past couple of years? People act like \u201cit\u2019s my metabolism\u201d is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.movesforbrews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}