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| As long as he doesn't lose the beard and brows, I guess this is ok. |
Recently, a small blip on the gossip scene has made hash of comedian/actor Zach Galifankis's weight loss. When abruptly asked about it by a bubble-headed interviewer at a red carpet event, he stonily answered, "I'm dying." A small part of me is, "Damn, another positive media representation of us big boys succumbs to the pressure to conform!" but the bigger part of me is simply happy for another human being who has gotten his shit together.
From what I know of Mr. Galifankis, he's about my age, also has young kids, and now has gone through a similar reckoning where he realized, "damn, I better start looking at this eating thing if I'm going to be around and functional for the long term." Though the gossip thugs are hungry for any stupid unserious story that will fill up their endless hours and column inches, I'm not really concerned how Zach lost the weight (though for his sake I do hope it was slow, steady and under his own steam and not a team of outsiders.) I do wonder about if he (and I) can keep it off. Popular science tends to be pessimistic: let's consider the theory of the Set Point.
Set point theory is a theory that the body maintains its normal weight and body fat level with internal regulatory controls that dictate how much fat one has. According to the set point theory, some individuals have a high setting, meaning they tend to have a naturally higher weight as a set point, and others have a low set point, and therefore a naturally lower body weight.
The set point theory suggests that despite dieting efforts, the body tends to return to its set point weight, however regular, consistent exercise may help to adjust the natural set point. Some refer to the set point theory as an internal "thermostat" that regulates body fat.
While it's easy to understand that the body gains weight when too many calories go in and not enough go out, Set Point points to things like hormones and the hypothalamus which have evolved over millions of years to assure the human race that our bodies have emergency back up sources of power in case of periods of famine. Restricting calories will throttle your metabolism, grinding weight loss to a halt and increasing your drive (hunger) to consume more food. If you're fat, hey, it's genetic. It's implied that when you try to lose weight, the set point's pull grows stronger, potentially snapping back at a higher weight. Maintaining a lower weight will require constant and unending vigilance, as you are fighting nature.
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| Another famous fatty abandons us. |
This theory has a certain grip on the popular imagination, and it's easy to see why: it relieves the individual of responsibility for fat-assedness, as well as the role of the Food Industry in encouraging people to consume more and more to fatten their own bottom lines. The diet book industry loves selling the latest "trick" or "secret" to breaking through the set point. Then there is the theory of the Settling Point:
The settling point theory was proposed ...to help explain why overweight and obesity are more than problems of metabolism. (The) idea is that weight loss and gain in most humans are more related to the patterns of diet and physical activity that people “settle” into as habits based on the interaction of their genetic dispositions, learning, and environmental cues to behavior. Evidence suggests that obese people are more sensitive to food-related stimuli in the social and physical environment, which influence their energy intake, than to the stimuli for energy expenditure.
Simply put, it's a combination of nature and nurture, both genetics and the choices of what you regularly and constantly put in your mouth. The idea is if you eat about 4500 calories a day on the regular, your body's set point will rise to accommodate it, and if lower it to 3000 calories, your set point will eventually lower to accommodate that, too. That means that your desire for food, the unthinking urge to eat until you are full, can be reduced with a little bit of behavioral modification and tenacity.
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| Fitty Cent lost weight to star in "Tyrone Biggums: The Movie" |
I didn't pick those numbers from nowhere. I was consuming somewhere around 4500 calories a day, unmindfully, around the time I decided to start trying to lose weight and did a 2-week recording of what was flying down my throat. I was able to keep a steady 2300-2500 calories diet for a year or so but since/because my weight loss stopped, I find I'm only satisfied when I consume about 3000 calories daily. I have devised a new settling point, if not a set point, and it us up to me to continue to settle there, regardless of work, weather or schedule stress.
Does the human set point automatically shift when foreigners move to America? It all circles around to the fact that all diets fail because they are assumed to be something you visit for a while before going back to how you ate before. The only "diet" that works is when the d-word is simply referring to how you eat. When you change how you eat permanently and within your comfort zone, that is where me, Zach and Jonah try to dwell.
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| I guess this is the "Celebrities: Just like |
I've been thinking about set point recently because I'm soon to undergo some change in my professional life, and between the stress of that uncertainty, the change of the seasons that will see significantly less weekly miles on the bicycle, and the heavier food of the holidays and the like, I suspect this is the first major challenge in a few years to what I hope is a newly set "set point".
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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2830
WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2830
Continue to try to live well in uncertainty. Rain Thursday made for a good Friday early AM ride.
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MONDAY COUNT: 3000
SLEPT: 10pm-6:30am, 1:45pm-2:45pm, 9.5hr
Thought I got enough sleep, but blinked out during my quiet reading session over lunch.
Thought I got enough sleep, but blinked out during my quiet reading session over lunch.
AM SNACK: 6:45am, iced green tea
BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/
BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with almonds, honey, vailla, 450 cal
LUNCH: 12:45pm, falafel, matzoh ball soup, health salad, pickles, 680 cal
PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox nut mix , 330 cal
EVENING SNACK: 7pm, 2 kind bars, 400 cal
EVENING SNACK: 8pm, popcorn, +/- 300 cal
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TUESDAY COUNT: 2740
SLEPT: 9:15pm-5:45am, 8.5hr
Feeling better today, sad sleep is eating into weight-lifting time, but it's a fair trade off, I suppose.
Feeling better today, sad sleep is eating into weight-lifting time, but it's a fair trade off, I suppose.
AM SNACK: 6am, iced green tea
BREAKFAST: 8am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/
BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, Steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal
LUNCH: 1:30pm, chicken meatballs, curry lentils, steamed string beans, pickles, 680 cal
PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox peanut & dried bean mix , 260 cal
EVENING SNACK: 7pm, 1 kind bars, ramekin of cashews and chocolate chips, +/- 500 cal
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 3110
SLEPT: 9pm-2am, 4:30-5:30am, 2-2:45pm, 6.75 hours
AM SNACK: 5:45am, iced green tea
BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/
BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with almonds, honey, vailla, 450 cal
LUNCH: 12:45am, pork tenderloin, roasted brussels, quinoa, pickles, 770 cal
PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox popcorn , 230 cal
PM SNACK: 4:45pm, poppa salad with Cesar dressing, 200 cal
PM SNACK: 4:45pm, poppa salad with Cesar dressing, 200 cal
EVENING SNACK: midnight, 2 kind bars, a little peanut butter and chocolate syrup, +/- 600 cal
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THURSDAY COUNT: 2470
SLEPT: 1:30am-5:30am, 4 hours
x
x
AM SNACK: 5:45am, iced green tea
BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/
BREAKFAST 2: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal
LUNCH: 12:45am, vegetarian meatballs, sauteed mushrooms and onions, pickles, 595cal
PM SNACK: 1:14pm, work cookies, +/- 200 cal
PM SNACK: 1:14pm, work cookies, +/- 200 cal
PM SNACK: 3:15 pm, momma salad, Grazebox pistachios , 200 cal
Had to dig up this saved draft, as google ate my current draft and destroyed Friday's log. Oh well.
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