DROP WEIGHT STARTING NOW – NO B.S.

Drop Weight. This is the point of this post. I’m not selling anything and expect nothing in return for my efforts.

If you are overweight or obese, you’ve heard it all, the unsolicited advice, the rude and painful comments, and the outrageous ads blaring out at you from the TV set and the magazine rack at the supermarket checkout. You are the target of a multi-billion dollar industry that does an awful job of delivering what they promise.

No promises here. I will be straightforward and honest about these issues in this post. I will give you facts and suggestions – no judgments, quick fixes, or outlandish claims.

Just straight talk.

Overweight and Obese Definitions:

Before we get started, let’s define our terms, so there are no misunderstandings. In this post, I will use the adult BMI Calculator as my reference guide. Many of you are familiar with this tool and its ranges.

For our purposes, we’ll be looking at the healthy range, the overweight range, and the obese range. So here they are:

• Healthy: 18.5 – 24.9
• Overweight: 25.0 – 29.9
• Obese: 30 and above

The link I gave you above gives you a wealth of information about the Body Mass Index.

This post is not only for the overweight and obese but also for those who love and appreciate them. Please ask your loved ones to share this post with you – it is also about them.

About Me:

I don’t normally talk about myself because this blog is not about me. It is about helping you live long enough to enjoy advancements in anti-aging technology and live even longer.

So what about me? I’m a former fat man. I weighed roughly 145 pounds during college and stood 5’8″ in height. This is well in the healthy zone listed above. After college, I married a lady who was a marvelous cook and also liked to bake.

Every day when I arrived home from work, I would be greeted with a fresh plate of chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven and still warm. Or maybe a thick slice of German Chocolate cake.

And sometimes, a hefty slice of her divine chocolate peanut butter pecan pie, whose deliciousness was beyond description.

After two years of this eating style, I weighed in at 250 pounds. That’s an out-of-control BMI. I wasn’t fat or overweight. I was obese.

I’m telling you this because I want you to know I’ve been there. I’ve heard the insults, the comments behind my back, and the hurtful jokes. I’ve been called a glutton, a pig, and a fat slob to my face.

I know how this feels, and I want you to know that I’m not some guy telling you what’s going to happen to you if you keep overeating. You and I already know that.

Here’s the list of what we will look at:

Drop Weight Assumption:

I assume you have a normal metabolism and no psychologically driven eating disorders. If you have these problems seek professional help – I am not qualified to help you deal with these issues.

OK, let’s get going. What I say might not be pretty, and at times I might be blunt. As we go through the following discussions, please remember that I’m a person that’s been in the same spot as you or someone you love – overweight and obese.

Natural eating – we’re all gluttons:

We are made that way. It’s in our metabolic design. Blame it on our ancestors. Sapiens (modern humans) appeared on the scene at least a hundred thousand years ago – maybe more. So let’s look at the world as Sapiens saw it.

No farms, ranches, grocery stores, restaurants, or fast food joints existed. Sapiens had to work hard for their food, and sometimes the “food” ate them. This was a tough time to be alive, and humans spent most of their days gathering food.

We probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the human brain and its baked-in survival skills.

Yes, getting food was an all-day, every-day full-time job. And even after working this hard, many days, there was nothing to eat other than what could be found on trees and bushes. This was the real definition of living in a feast-or-famine world with no escape.

So If You Were a Sapien In This World, What Would You Do?

Early modern man (Sapiens) were hunter-gatherers, hunting game and gathering edible plants. The problem was that these things were not always available. Animals can run and hide and, even worse, fight back when confronted. Plants are subject to weather changes and droughts.

These things being the unalterable state of survival, when food was available, humans gorged themselves to the point where they could not swallow another bite. They did this because they had no assurance that they would eat again tomorrow or even longer.

They also had no way of storing food effectively, so they ate as much as possible while it was there.

This was the standard of eating for many thousands of years, and the result was that our metabolic system accommodated our (then) eating styles and started storing excess food as fat. Today, we still have the same metabolic mechanism.

So this is the beginning of your journey toward understanding how we get fat.

Western Eating Habits – Eating Without Limits:

In today’s Western societies, food is plentiful. Famines are rare and usually caused by sociological chaos, wars, supply chain disruptions, and economic collapse. Other than hunger strikes, it is extremely rare to hear of someone starving to death.

This is not to say that we don’t have malnutrition problems. We do. This stems, however, from poor food selection choices, not from a lack of food availability. We are used to three meals a day and snacks in between.

This is where we get in trouble. Our pre-trained metabolic system uses what we need from the food we eat and stores the rest as fat. This happens day in and day out, and our bodies keep storing the excess.

Please understand that this is not a complicated issue, regardless of what the “Diet Industry” tells you. I just explained in simple – no BS – terms how we get fat.

Metabolic Set Points -Homeostasis and Sticky Fat:

Here’s where things get a little complicated. Your body has no problem storing fat, and as far as it’s concerned, the more, the better. Your body is building a food savings account – that’s what it’s supposed to do.

There’s a limit, of course, but this limit allows you to be very obese before it kicks in.

You ever watch a bumper jack? every time you pump it, the bumper hook goes up another notch and stays there. It will keep going up as long as you pump it and will not go down unless you allow it.

Think of each upward ratcheting of the jack as a new set point. Now with the jack example in mind, let’s talk about body fat.

Here’s a parallel: Every time you gain weight, ten pounds, for example, your “fat jack” goes up another notch and stays there, it sticks there unless you release it. This is called a metabolic set point.

Every time you gain weight, your set point goes up and will stay there unless you do something about it.

Set Point Rules:

It’s easy to raise set points. Just eat more than your body needs consistently, your body will store it as fat, and your fat set point will also go up another notch. This is simple and doesn’t require a scientific study – just plain logic.

Not so simple on the way down, though. See, your body stores fat for a rainy day. This is how your metabolism is designed. Strong fat is easy, and your body is a well-designed fat-storing machine. This is completely normal and as it should be.

That said, your body is extremely reluctant to lose fat because it sees fat as a survival mechanism to be saved and used only in an emergency. Again, this is simple logic using man’s evolutionary design.

Adjusting Set Points – Up and Down:

One thing we don’t know is the size of a fat-volume set point. This is because it might vary from individual to individual. For the sake of argument, then, let’s say it’s ten pounds.

This means that if you lose ten or more pounds, your (built-in) fat maintenance mechanisms kick in to get the ten pounds you lost back.

TEMPTATION PAYS YOU A VISIT

There are several ways this happens, and it can be complicated. But mainly, your metabolism slows down and reduces fat burning. You are pestered constantly with hunger and temptation. This “relentless retention” aspect of fat stores is what makes it so difficult to lose them.

Remember, your body is just being itself. As preposterous as this sounds to an obese person, it’s protecting you from starvation. Your metabolism will burn every energy source available before tapping into your fat reserves.

To your body, fat is gold. It saves and stores it. As a human animal, your metabolism assumes that famine lurks just around the corner and holds on tightly to its survival stash.

Keep in mind that you have an upper and lower range for your fat set points.

You will need to work within these ranges to get results and not violate your set point limits – this is the key to weight loss. When you get past your set point’s lower limit, your metabolism will fight back, and it’s pretty good at winning.

Working Within Set Points:

So we’re down to the finish line. Both you and I know that anyone can lose weight – you’ve probably done it yourself, only to gain it back. This is a common experience in the overweight, and here is an excellent article from Cleveland Clinic.

Now let’s talk about the implementation of your set-point diet. Under this diet, violation of set-point limits is a no-no because it triggers your fat retention mechanisms. So we will work within the borders of our fat set points.

Nobody knows what your fat retention set point borders are, but to keep it simple, let’s say it is 10 pounds. This means that you can lose 9 pounds before triggering your retention mechanism.

This also means that losing more than 9 pounds is self-defeating because your body’s retention mechanisms will make you miserable until you put it back. So the trick is to lose 9 pounds and let your set points re-adjust downward, then lose another 9 pounds.

This ratcheting down process is what you want to work on. Below I’ll give you some hints, but in reality, you will need to respect your body’s metabolism – It might take you a couple of months to let your metabolism re-set, but it will.

Remember, if you’re obese or significantly overweight, you didn’t get there overnight; it probably took years, so don’t expect to lose your excess fat quickly.

What I just described is a tortoise approach – lose some weight, wait a while, stand your ground, and then lose some more – keep repeating this pattern, and you will succeed.

Final Comments on Weight and Obesity:

I am on your side, and so are those who love you and who interact with you every day. Commit to following the tortoise and losing weight slowly and in steps like a bumper jack in reverse. Drop down and hold, drop down and hold…

Food for thought:

1. Don’t give up – remember the tortoise won the race by being slow and steady.
2. A good place to start after losing your initial ten pounds is to hold steady for a month to accommodate your metabolism’s set point adjustment (this might take longer, but after a while, you will understand how your metabolism works).
3. A good weight loss pace is one to two pounds per week.
4. Don’t weigh every day – your weight will vary daily. Think in terms of downward trends, and weigh weekly.
5. Don’t get involved with people or organizations making wild claims. Most of these are bogus – stick with the tortoise.
6. You know that overeating makes you fat, Don’t blame it on something else – that will get you nowhere. Work the plan, and the weight will come off.
7. Stop snacking between meals and before bedtime – this alone might start the weight loss process. Evaluate your food choices. For starters, ban sweets altogether if you can. The most significant cause of being overweight is eating and drinking sweets.
8. Caution: In your first two weeks of dieting, you will likely lose a lot of water – this is not weight loss. Stay on your diet and start counting your pounds after your first two weeks.
9. Keep records and evaluate your eating behavior. This will not be easy, and you must stay in the game mentally with record keeping, study, and constant re-evaluation.

A word from OMY1:

As a former fat man, I want you to give the tortoise diet a shot. When I struggled with my own weight issue, I was constantly frustrated, and I understand that you might be as well. Just keep pushing ahead and respect your set points.

You will be hungry, but changing your food type consumption and eating more fiber-rich choices might help. I wish you well, be patient, and weight loss will happen. I won’t go into all this, but there are many good eating tips online.

Please don’t get in a hurry. Patience and consistency are on your side.

By the way, if you’re struggling with finding a healthy diet, this post might be helpful.

OMY1

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