Penlan's Journal, 13 January 2016

Great points Penlan, the year will go by anyway, might as well be much thinner and fell a lot better next January! 

3.9 kilos in 2 months is not too fast - it's a great rate to notice progress yet not shock the body. You'll slow up and speed up at times. Enjoy the ride! 

I read about this not long ago. Apparently it is safe to lose up to 1% of your bodyweight per week. If you weigh 70kg, you can lose up to 0.7kg per week with no harmful effects, so no problem there, and that would not be considered rapid weight loss. They are talking about people who crash diet, who drop really a lot of weight in a few weeks. Some of what they lose is muscle, and if they are consuming only a few hundred calories a day, they may be missing out on important nutrients. Generally they return to old eating habits, as they haven't learnt how to eat sensibly, and put weight back on, ending up with a lower percentage of muscle, and a higher percentage of fat. That's not you! You're doing fine. 

Thanks girls :) As you know it's all new for me and I don't want to be one of those who I read about losing too fast and gaining it all back and more. Great support, cheers.  

If you are overweight or obese then you have more than enough stored body fat to keep you going by just drinking water for a month instead of piling more foods into your body.....Think of your body as a restaurant kitchen ....every day it gets deliveries of all types of foods that need to be processed which can take up to 34-45 hours per day and excess foods that are not required by your chefs put into fat storage.....Now if you do not deliver any foods into your body eventually your chefs will go to the fat storage and use this for energy but because its already processed they now have time on their hands to clean and repair any items in their kitchen.... The body does not use muscle this is a falicy and it does not starve - starvation happens when you are extremely skinny with only 7-10% body fat and I am sure we are all not there yet....Good luck Oh and by the way there is enough vitamin and minerals stored in your body fat to ensure you are ok.....Once your body is cleansed of all the rubbish and excess fat you will feel a new person and be very healthy...See Dr Mercola or Dr D' Angostino and many others who give great expert advise having tried these methods  

Thanks NOO6767. I appreciate that I could well not need any input of food in order to not die, and possibly even be healthy, I don't know about that. As biological beings one of our main drives to survive is eating. I know when my sheep are ready to die, they lose the capacity to eat. Also, using only my stored fat (while it is available to me), any concern over ending up with saggy skin or other problems because of too rapid a weight loss is increased. I have 10 kilos surplus fat, which is significant, even though it is closer to the healthy weight within the overweight category in any BMI calculator. That fat will keep me going a long time, and if I incorporate food at the same time as weight loss I am surely less likely to fall into the trap of piling weight back on as soon as I do eat. Total abstinence of food does odd things to our bodies. When food is reintroduced, as far as I have read, food is squirreled away much more readily in case of further dire food shortages. While my 'internal chefs' may be working less frenetically they don't need to fill spare time cleaning. I eat clean, and am happy that my body is healthy and working well, apart from of course carrying historic fat which is steadily disappearing. Actually, I don't have internal chefs, but if I did they would not be struggling to keep pace with ill ordered foodstuffs which they can't deal with. That would be bad management, and I am not that person. If I was in that situation, I would be gaining rather than losing weight. To use your analogy: Anyone who is losing weight by whatever means or diet is creating an imbalance 'in the kitchen' which causes the 'chefs' to look to the 'pantry' and use what's in the store. I agree about the body not losing muscle when there is fat as a fuel within the body; why would a body break down tissue which is vital to ensure the capacity to search for food and eat food, if nothing else? But, in the total absence of food, I think atrophy is likely as the body shifts the protein resources from underused to essential body tissue. Muscle atrophy (wastage) happens very quickly indeed and is very much an active process rather than a latent one. If one is active, and thereby causing the need for muscle support and repair, in my view a lack of food is bound to cause some sort of bodily imbalance and damage as far as proteins and muscle. As far as 'piling more foods into your body' - well, I happen to enjoy eating good food. I never 'pile' food into my body. I eat with consideration and appreciation. It takes me a lot of time to prepare and eat my food. Both processes are hugely enjoyable to me, and as I can continue to do that AND lose weight in a comfortable pace I see it as a win win.  

I've been on a slow-loss diet for over a year now and have lost 62 pounds, averaging 1.5 pounds per week. After a limetime of trying miracle diets, fasts, etc., I am a true believer this is the only way to lose weight and keep it off. I wouldn't worry about losing too much weight -- usually not a problem for persistently overweight people! I also have experienced spurts of rapid loss, 2-3 pounds per week, but there is always a plateau-ing period afterwards as my body adjusts to the lower weight. Also, my weight loss toggles up and down 1-2 pounds for a couple of days before I truly drop a pound or so and am able to move on to the next loss. So everyone's metabolism is different and everyone's weight loss journey is different. You really have to study your body's response to diet & exercise to refine your approach. Keep on going...it's worth the wait.  

Cheers Carol in kinderhook. Interesting that you feel 1.5lb loss a week is slow. My loss the past year was about a half pound a week, a third of your 'slow loss'. Even my recent 'speeded up' equates to only a pound a week, so Yowzers! A 1.5lb a week seems really, really fast to me. That said, I have never dieted before. I am happy with what I am doing, though I am cautious to avoid further speeding of the weight loss. I think that will happen naturally anyway. I log ALL my food, so I can see what's happening and why, if any trends work up. In order to do that we have to know what's going on, cause and effect. As you say, we have to be as individual in approach as each individual is. It's fascinating for me to see all the different ways and means :D  

You can of course loose large amounts of weight, and people have been known to do that with professional help, but to do so by yourself is a recipe for disaster no matter how well you know your stuff. Slow and keep to the old 2lb a week maximum is fine. I just look upon any loss of a period of time to be a bonus 

I have a way yet to go to reach as much as 2lb a week, I am up to 1lb and feeling that that's way fast enough. Seems what I call fast is slow! Happy with my real low and slow. Tidy. 

Why is losing a large amount of weight by yourself a recipe for disaster Mindful_Body? If you 'know your stuff' then surely you understand how and why you gain/lose weight and ultimately how to maintain your desired weight when you get there. For the first time in my life I'm managing a diet that isn't so much a weight loss diet as a change for life diet. At the moment, I *am* losing weight. As I get nearer my goal the loss will be slower but as I'm eating my life plan and aim to always eat the way I'm eating now, there will be no need to make a large adjustment to my intake when I reach my goal. I am currently eating the amount of calories I will need to maintain my weight when I am 60kg.  

Enola Grey - Quite! I didn't understand that from Mindfull_Body either. Mindfull_Body can you help please? WHY should it be a recipe for disaster to lose large amounts of weigh on one's own??? I know plenty people who have lost large amounts of weight with 'professional' help - WW, SW,whatever, and they ALL regained their loss and more, quite quickly. Their wallet was the only thing which successfully slimmed down permanently. That's not to say that all who go on aided plans WILL regain weight, but some interesting statistics which I have been reading suggest that only 2-3% of dieters succeed in keeping the weight off. That is evident even here on FS. I have read the journals and bio's of so many people who mention they have been battling weight for years, tried every diet out there, lost weight and found they 'got lazy' and it came back on..... Food for thought. 

I think the biggest problem with all diets is that most people think that once they get to their goal they don't have to diet any ore and so, because their diet wasn't about changing habits for life, they regain the weight. The truth is, if you go back to living the way you did when you got fat, you will get fat again. The only way to maintain a loss and an equilibrium is to change your lifestyle. Permanently. It is why I shun 'diet' products - I want to lose my weight eating 'normal' food. Full fat. High sugar. High carb. IF that's what I want - I want to learn how to eat a little of what I fancy and enjoy these things occasionally and not want them as a daily staple. So, if it takes me years to achieve my goal weight, so be it. It took me years to get fat.  

Exactly, well said. Why carry on with what caused the problem. 

Penlan -- I was losing about .5 pounds per week and having trouble staying with my regimen UNTIL I began to drink water throughout the day. It really makes a difference. I also began to focus on getting more 50+ grams of protein each day and making sure I had a goodly amt. in each meal. This hasn't been easy for me - I used to go without breakfast, snack throughout the day, then eat one big carb-loaded meal in the p.m. No faster.wonder my weight increased every year! Focusing on my intake of water and protein has made the weight fall off more rapidly. Hope this helps... 

Hi Carol. Out of interest, what was the regimen you had trouble staying within? If you read my journal and food diary you will see that I drink 4 or 5 litres of water every day, have done all of my life once I was grown and had a choice, from 17 years old I suppose. I used to have special mugs in college as the staff got fed up of me ordering several cups at a time for myself. I think I am well hydrated. It seems most people are borderline dehydrated most of the time, but not me. I also have protein with every meal, based on 1g - 1/5g of my LBM, and spread it equally throughout the day. My main meal is usually at lunchtime, I have never been able to eat late, or early for that matter, though I have started having a bigger breakfast. I call it breakfast as it is the food I have which breaks my fast. I don't see the point of eating when I am not ready for it in the early hours of the morning. I like to get my farming and physical chores done before I eat. A lot of us farmers work like that. Eating and then going out to lift heavy bales and feedsacks, straw and hay on a full stomach does nobody any good, and leaving the animals to wait is not fair. As ruminants they need a constant supply of forage to keep their rumens working properly. When forage is scarce as it is now, they are dependent on me to provide that. I have never eaten much in the way of processed foods, which I call factory foods, I don't ever eat 'fast food' and rarely even eat away from home. Outside food just isn't as good as mine. I have not eaten grain of any kind for 3 1/2 years, nor pulses. I eat good food. My monetary priority is my food. I can't see how anyone could have, as one recent FS journal described, priority of toiletries, top ups and travel over their food budget. What I put in my mouth is ultimately me, my body and my energy of life, why would that be anything other than paramount? I don't understand why people eat crap and think of it as a 'treat', especially when it causes physical harm, followed up by emotional distress. Sure I got fat, as we all did. I like my good food and my weight crept up slowly, but surely, and almost imperceptibly, over a period of 30+ years. I didn't get fat on garbage food or a bad way of eating. I never binged or craved, I just ate too much I guess, little by little. I aged and became less tolerant of certain foods. Time to stop the rot, here we are. I'm not looking for rapid weight loss. I accept I am unusual. Glad what you are doing is working for you and hope you keep it off once you get to your desired weight.