Big Changes

One of the questions I keep asking myself is .... How can a person lose more than fifty pounds and still be hugely fat? Well, I answer, that's possible if you worked toward the goal of being oh!beast for twenty years. Harumph. Yes, it is true. It took me nearly twenty years to achieve my prominent rotundity. It will definitely take me more than four months to reverse as much of that damage as I can. That leads me to share the news that I have had yet another epiphany in the mental arena of weight loss rationalization. It is okay to lose weight slowly! Yes, I know, it's no surprise to many of you. It was, however, a moment of win for me when I finally realized that I did not need to lose the weight "as quickly as possible." Fancy that! 

This notion is the result of the question Connie asked of me: how will I eat when I have lost the weight and am maintaining? I had a pretty quick answer for that. But, as all ideas do, that one percolated in my mind for a few days. I realized that I need to eat as many calories as possible, right now, in order to end up at a decent level somewhere down the road. Yes, there is the issue of BMR. I won't bring that up again any time soon. But there is also the issue of plateaus. If I eat 1200 calories a day, hit a plateau, and have to drop my calories in order to break it... well, there is no where to go from 1200. If I eat somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 calories a day (or more) and have to decrease my intake, then I will have some wiggle room. This all came to me in a dream of course.

You would be amazed at the amount of food a person can eat with a 2000 calorie budget. It's incredible. Not only do I never feel deprived, but most days I feel positively gluttonous. This is still a new and unusual behavior pattern for me, and so I still approach it with caution. I continue to eat healthful foods, for the most part, and I still exercise like a demon. The only difference is that I have learned to feed myself when I am hungry. That skill makes me feel like a tremendous success.