Rare Update
I haven't posted here, much. That's probably not going to change, in the long run. However, I guess I'll write a little about how things are right now, and where things are going.
I have a pretty good, pretty stable job, such that I'm not worried about rent and food for the next few years, absent catastrophe.
After saying, "I need to lose weight, sometime soon" since around 30, I'm finally getting on a sustainable plan for that. I've tried (briefly, at least) a bunch of different things, looking for that magical diet on which I'll lose weight without requiring any willpower. I was Atkinsy for a while 8-10 years ago, and tried low-calorie dieting after that from time to time. None of that was especially helpful for me, though all of it produced serious cravings for stuff I couldn't have on the diet. I'm pretty dysfunctional diet-wise anyway, and rarely wait until I get hungry to eat. Most of the time I *want* to eat, but am not physically hungry.
My latest approach is to try intermittent fasting: eat every other day. On "eat" days, I eat whatever I want. On "no eat" days, I don't eat, except a few very low calorie things like gum (3.5 calories per stick) and creamer (10 calories per serving), of which I have four a day on work days, typically. The long-term plan is to do this indefinitely, since eating less is so difficult for me, but not eating at all isn't difficult at all. On this plan, it seems doable to lose two pounds a week for the next year and a half. Since I started this at 336 pounds, this will put me at 180 pounds, if I can sustain it. It's not clear to me if that will continue to work when I'm around or under 200 pounds, but we'll see. Quite possibly I'll level off naturally somewhere around there.
Early results are promising enough to make me excited about continuing, though I'm under no illusion that it will keep up. I was, as I mentioned above, 336 pounds on the 15th of February, 2010. On the 16th, I decided to do this IF thing (having not eaten anything before lunch that day, I made the decision while going to lunch, and then skipped lunch as that became my first no eat day). Yesterday morning, I was 319 pounds. Again, I don't think that the pace of more than one pound a day will keep up, but it sure is nice to see. Even if it doesn't, I may be under 300 pounds by the time I take my first sailing lessons in April.
I have a pretty good, pretty stable job, such that I'm not worried about rent and food for the next few years, absent catastrophe.
After saying, "I need to lose weight, sometime soon" since around 30, I'm finally getting on a sustainable plan for that. I've tried (briefly, at least) a bunch of different things, looking for that magical diet on which I'll lose weight without requiring any willpower. I was Atkinsy for a while 8-10 years ago, and tried low-calorie dieting after that from time to time. None of that was especially helpful for me, though all of it produced serious cravings for stuff I couldn't have on the diet. I'm pretty dysfunctional diet-wise anyway, and rarely wait until I get hungry to eat. Most of the time I *want* to eat, but am not physically hungry.
My latest approach is to try intermittent fasting: eat every other day. On "eat" days, I eat whatever I want. On "no eat" days, I don't eat, except a few very low calorie things like gum (3.5 calories per stick) and creamer (10 calories per serving), of which I have four a day on work days, typically. The long-term plan is to do this indefinitely, since eating less is so difficult for me, but not eating at all isn't difficult at all. On this plan, it seems doable to lose two pounds a week for the next year and a half. Since I started this at 336 pounds, this will put me at 180 pounds, if I can sustain it. It's not clear to me if that will continue to work when I'm around or under 200 pounds, but we'll see. Quite possibly I'll level off naturally somewhere around there.
Early results are promising enough to make me excited about continuing, though I'm under no illusion that it will keep up. I was, as I mentioned above, 336 pounds on the 15th of February, 2010. On the 16th, I decided to do this IF thing (having not eaten anything before lunch that day, I made the decision while going to lunch, and then skipped lunch as that became my first no eat day). Yesterday morning, I was 319 pounds. Again, I don't think that the pace of more than one pound a day will keep up, but it sure is nice to see. Even if it doesn't, I may be under 300 pounds by the time I take my first sailing lessons in April.