How About a Health Thread?

So several of us have a Moron Health Club going, where we're following one or more aspects of the strategies in this post.

Here's my own update: Continue losing weight. Some muscles now kinda-sorta visible in stomach. At least... if you know what you're looking for. Feel pretty good. Started weightlifting. Immediately hurt shoulder with jackass benchpress form (and no spotter). Now off weightlifting for two weeks.

Here's a thing. I realized a while back that I'm relatively good at losing weight and getting into something that resembles normal shape. What I'm horrible at is keeping it off.

I'm sure many have this same problem -- yes, at first, it's easy, because you're full of enthusiasm and curiosity. it's fun to experiment with your body, like a scientist.

Then you get bored. You get down to those last stubborn 20 pounds and give up. And start... gaining weight again.

So: I did something I thought I'd never do. I joined a weight maitainence program. It starts in a couple of weeks, which is pretty good timing, because that's when I tend to get bored and say "You know what are good? Apple fritters, that's what."

I joined the program not because I think they have anything to teach me -- I think I now have a good strategy. Low carb high fat combined with Intermittent Fasting 16-20 hours a day with occasional (4 times a week) 22-24 hour fast days.

Working.

No, my reason for gong is not to learn how to do this.

It's to keep myself accountable to others for it.

Whenever I have to see the doctor, I lose weight that month. I just don't want to embarrass myself.

When I'm done with the doctor, well. No sense staying lean now, huh?

In the 4-Hour Body, a decent book by Tim Ferris, he repeats the truism "What gets measured, gets improved." And, conversely, what doesn't get measured -- when you don't check your weight; when you don't check your look in the mirror -- devolves.

he notes a study, by the way, in which people were asked to write down what they ate in a diary. They were given no dietary advice or restrictions. They could eat anything they wanted. They could do what they had always done.

Yet, they lost weight.

The simple act of being mindful of what they were eating -- journaling their food intake -- was enough to cause them to put themselves on a regime the researchers hadn't asked for.

So, what gets measured gets improved; what is not measured, devolves.

So I joined this health maintenance program to finally avoid the Aw Fuck It Let's Get Fribbles thing.

I need a nurse taking my weight every two weeks. Yes, I'm already checking it every day.

But I need someone else to tell me, "You've lost 6 pounds." Even though I already know I lost six pounds, it doesn't count unless someone acknowledges it.

That's my plan to stick on this.

But I also thought: Why not open a weekly Moron Health Club thread where other people can post their goals and gains, their strategies and the outcomes from them?

Again: What gets measured, gets improved.

So here are my stats.

Last year I got way overweight (after quitting smoking) then lost about 32 pounds. But then, of course, I gained about 27 back.

From that recent high point, I've lost 20 pounds, and am getting kind of sort of back to my best recent weight. The I can fight through my real resistance point: My problem comes at 180 pounds. I want to be 170, or even 165. But when I hit 180 my body resists further weight loss. I can get to 178 but then I stop losing.*

Then come the Pop Tarts.

I'm on a fat fast right now, to help me get some momentum to break through my 180 pound wall.

Anyway, if you're already in the Moron Health Club, or would like to start, please enroll below.

By the way: Um, I'm not a doctor. You shouldn't listen to me. Everything I say about health is poison and will kill you. That's my disclosure. Listen to any of the stupid things that come plopping out of my mouth about any topic at all at your own risk.

* I'm kind of hitting a new resistance point at 187 but then, I'm also taking creatine -- a muscle volumizer that just stuffs water into your muscles, giving you a purely cosmetic "muscley" look -- so that's adding some water weight.

posted by Ace at 06:25 PM

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