A curious and useful insight for those who need to diet..

Hi folks,

If, like me, you have already over-indulged during the Christmas holidays, you're probably already dreading January when you'll have to start grafting to lose weight, and then face the seemingly constant misery of keeping that weight off you once it's gone..

I'd like to share a snippet of scientific fact which may help you to psychologically prepare & sustain your mindset as you're gearing up to get started. After the fact, I'll share a simple thought which I have sought to extrapolate as a bit of an insight - it may not be accurate, but I'm fairly confident that it aligns with the probable reality we're talking about.

When we put on weight, we often assume that we've generated fat cells which populate the lining of flesh which we share in common with seafaring mammals, the 'blubber', which is designed to function both as an energy store & as a layer of insulation. The thing is, when we're born we come with a ready-prepared store of fat cells in the lining of blubber which is apparent in every newborn. When we later put on weight due to overindulgence & a sedentary lifestyle, we are not creating new fat cells out of nothing - mostly, it is our existing fat cells which swell & gain in mass, overall filling out the space in the layer housing our blubber.

When we exercise properly, we are not 'losing' fat cells, but rather we are tapping into & exhausting the power of the fat cells, in so doing the cell is shrinking & losing mass - we are not 'getting rid of' our fat cells, we are simply shrinking them. Because the blubber is designed to be a layer which stores energy for use in hard times, it is naturally difficult to do this, because if it were easy to exhaust the power stored in the mass of the fat cells, then we would not be capable of retaining the store of energy for use in those hard times, as our normal everyday lives would lead to the energy store getting burnt out through normal activities. This explains why it's so damn hard to lose weight.

But why is it so hard to keep the weight off, once we have lost it? Why does our body seem determined to thwart our efforts to stay trim?

Because the very act of exercising to get rid of the fat stored in our fat cells makes the body believe that we're going through exiistentially 'hard times', and not only the lack of food is having a bearing on this, but the extreme activity required to lose weight is yet another sign to the body's autonomic function control that we are facing very hard times indeed. Thus, when the exercise is stripped back, having lost the weight, the very first thing our body wants to do is to replenish that burnt-off fatty mass with a new supply of the stuff, just in case hard times are once again just around the corner.

I suspect that principles of morphic resonance play into this process (see Rupert Sheldrake), such that the size, shape & chemical consistency of our fat cells is 'known' by the overall resonant 'map' of our various body cell types, which is then regulated by the autonomic subroutines of our unconscious bodily control system. The fact of having carried extra weight is taken to be a normal & desirable state of being by the body's autonomic control system, by merit of the 'fatty map' of terrain within our layer of blubber after lengthy periods of time when this fat layer was habitually amplified against our normal body mass index. Therefore I suspect there is a formula by which the 'learned', 'morphic habit' of fat-carrying can be overcome in the truly long-term, but like any habit which has proven in some way addictive to our body, the effort required to break that habit is more extensive than the action required to provide the first appearances of having overcome the habit. Therefore I suggest that after having lost the weight, which is hard enough in itself, we in fact will have to persist in maintaining the same intensive levels of exercise which helped us to lose the weight in the first instance, for a length of time perhaps two times beyond the time it too to lose ie. So if it takes you 12 months to get down to an acceptable BMI, it is likely to take another two years of the exact same level & intensity of exercise to effectively overwrite your body's morphic habit of carrying extra fat, generating new patterns in which your body now recognises the trim, lean & newly athletic pattern of cell proportions as normal, and thus desirable - and therefore the autonomic subroutine will have been quite literally reprogrammed, ensuring that from that time on you will actually find it relatively easy to keep that weight far away from you as the future unfolds. At that time you will be able to scale your exercise back to a less intense, maintenance standard.

So there you go - it will be a long, hard road, but like many of you, I will be working hard to reprogram my morphically resonant BMI autonomic subroutine (which is mae much harder in my case due to mobility-limiting disability!) I hope this information will prove helpful as you set your expectations & put your plans into action during 2021.

Happy New Year!


FITO.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

here's a tip. stop doing 12 oz curls.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Well, all I can say is I lost 100 lbs in one year with a diet change alone. Processed food is extremely addictive and bad for us. Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food. 👍🏼

Starred and flagged in the process of losing weight and yea I've seemed to have hit a plateau. I've floated in these 40-50 pounds lost since August and I don't want to lose that momentum, good news is it's easily been 90% diet and portions etc. Of course over the holidays the normal temptations were there, but even then I've got me a bowl that's about 2 cups and I won't eat anything more than that no matter what it is. So I have a couple of days now I'll go to my modified Cabbage soup, with no salt added I've actually have grown to like it, exercise is coming I just need to be careful

I started eating less radically but I still pretty much eat what I want.

I have lost a ton of weight this way. I was never obese but for a long time I was "flabby." Much of that is gone, my chin is sharp and my gut is a tiny little thing now. Half my pants are slipping off and I need new belts.

I lost about 50 pounds through diet alone and most of that was just learning proper portioning.

Then I started in on exercise afterward.

Most of weight control is learning what to eat and how much more than anything else.

originally posted by: FlyInTheOintment
...snip...
When we exercise properly, we are not 'losing' fat cells, but rather we are tapping into & exhausting the power of the fat cells, in so doing the cell is shrinking & losing mass - we are not 'getting rid of' our fat cells, we are simply shrinking them. Because the blubber is designed to be a layer which stores energy for use in hard times, it is naturally difficult to do this, because if it were easy to exhaust the power stored in the mass of the fat cells, then we would not be capable of retaining the store of energy for use in those hard times, as our normal everyday lives would lead to the energy store getting burnt out through normal activities. This explains why it's so damn hard to lose weight.

Yes... except - and please believe me, I mean no offense... but, that is all wrong... totally wrong... and I'm living proof of it.

That said, your post inspired me to make a post about something I've been meaning to post about for a few months now, so I'll post a link to it as my response:

Exercise/caloric restriction is NOT the answer to permanent, healthy weight loss

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Thanks for this informative post! Very interesting idea that of the subroutine that the body has to learn after loosing the extra weight. I lost and gained my weight two times before and all this happened because I wasn't careful to follow up with the diet after I lost those extra pounds.

What works for me is a diet with vegetables (plenty of cucumbers and celery mostly) and exercise. I spend too much time on the computer which doesn't help with the weight loss.

.

a reply to: miri2019

Be careful. Dieting with just certain items isn't really a good idea. You'll find out that you can never stick to it.

What you want is whole foods and balance. Mine is mostly lean proteins like fish and chicken, maybe the occasional pork chop, with lots of veggies and fruits. Then on the weekends we make something far more elaborate. This weekend it was white chili using the leftovers from our Christmas turkey, and I'll portion that out as leftovers around the staple fish/veggie, chicken/veggie meals.

Friday night is wing night and it's unhealthy sure, but I know roughly how many calories 3 wings, 3 hushpuppies, bleu cheese, and a small handful of garlic/Parm fries is by now. Friday is fun night. And I get voodoo level hot sauce so the burn is enough to keep me from wanting more than those three wings.



The rest of the time, I get the occasional splurge meal and stuff, but that's about it.

I lost 50 pounds (that's English money to you) paying some other charlatan who persuaded me to buy his weight loss program. If anybody wants to lose more pounds he advertises on the net and similar to the OP you have to read ream and reams before you get to the nitty gritty which actually tells you nothing so you have to pay for his secret.

Losing weight is not hard.

Stop eating so much. Period.
It's 100% how much you eat.
No tricks, magic pills, diets, or otherwise.

Heck you don't even need to exercise.
Just. Stop. Eating so much.

Track your calories. End of story.
If you can't control how much food you shovel into your mouth, you have nothing or no one else to blame but yourself. Whatever age, gender, race, doesn't matter. I have no sympathy for excuses.

i find it pretty cut and dry. Just eat real food. Most meals, eat meat and fish and lots of veggies.. Eat fruit ,and eggs. Stay away from carbs.. bread, pasta, cereals. Drink only water The weight will come off. Is it hard to resist temptation. Yes

originally posted by: HODOSKE
i find it pretty cut and dry. Just eat real food. Most meals, eat meat and fish and lots of veggies.. Eat fruit ,and eggs. Stay away from carbs.. bread, pasta, cereals. Drink only water The weight will come off. Is it hard to resist temptation. Yes

Or if you do carbs, do complex ones. We have a local bakery that makes a 7 grain whole grain bread that has 7 or 8 different types of seeds in it: pumpkin, flax, sunflower, poppy, millet, sunflower, oats, etc. Stuff crunches when you eat it.

We don't eat a lot of bread, but when we do, it's stuff like that.