The Cause of All My Sorrow

The Cause of All My Sorrow

I want to become Abbott, with that sunny disposition, delighted with himself and the world…things are just about perfect. For my problems, I’ll chirp his little mantra, “Pitter Patter, Let’s get at ‘er”. Then, let the good times roll. Boy! Will we eat and drink, and be merry—embracing life. His fun is compelling, even overwhelming when you’re with the guy. Could it be the same without the eating and drinking? I’m 40 lbs over; he’s 60 past his ideal weight.
Slumped unconscious and grey faced during dinner, Abbott came back to life just in time to stop the 911call. We drove him to the ER—but not before he slurped up the rest of his pie. He knew the diet was coming. Weeks later I had my own brush with mortality, palpitations on a bike ride. Our fear induced diets were the reversal of our food compulsion. Eventually I ate again…within hours actually, struggling to embrace the concept of “enough”, and trying to alter persona and diet to fit. For Abbott it came to: “All things in moderation, especially moderation.” For me, what?
I try—stop, take a breath during a meal, and ask, “Enough?” I eat no carbs. I like the rapid results. First my liver glycogen burned. One gram glycogen binds four grams water, and 400 grams of glycogen burned yields 1600 grams of water loss for a total of 2 kilos or 4.4 pounds. Zap! (Eat some carbs and zap you gain 4.4 lbs. back) Without carbs the liver makes no fat, so you burn fat, and get ketones on your breath and in your urine and they suppress appetite. I lost. I cut back on salt and avoid sugar; they increase hunger…the free salted popcorn at the bar has a purpose. I take a multivitamin as it is supposed to facilitate the fat burn. I cut back the calories. I kept up the fluids, which surprisingly required effort. I did my best to feel full on a small meals.
The numbers: Calories are units of energy—heat. Fat 9 calories/gram Carbs 4 cal/g Protein 4 Alcohol 7, One pound of weight is equal to 2500 calories. Men need (1500 – 4000) women (900-2500) calories/day, average ballpark. Ghandi fasting=0. Lance Armstrong,racing=7500. The requirement depends on: Weight, Height, Age, gender, exercise, health, %bodyfat, environment. Teen- 1800 Sedentary Adults: Women=1300 Men 1800 Active Adults: Women=1600 Men=2000. Note the small difference between active and sedentary. It’s not fair. Exercise should burn more calories. Still it’s what we can do to burn more fat.
Exercise: Male 65 210 lbs 5'10" doing 1 hour bicycling at average heart rate of 160 burns 680 calories or loss of 680/2500= .272= .3 lbs. Preferred food of the heart is fat. The preferred food of the brain is sugar. Exercise reduces hunger, but one hour later—look out. Strenuous or competitive exercise burns about 10 cal/min. Disappointing news is that exercise won’t do it, you still have to stop eating. That’s what does it.
Estimate maintenance by Body weight X 14. (Note that you will need less as you lose weight, so dieting gets harder.) For weight loss subtract 500 from the maintenance which would be about a 1500 – 1800 calorie diet for an active male. (There are lots of numbers and formulas for maintenance calories, ideal weight etc. on the internet, eg. site: www.annecollins.com/)
Fats may take as long as 5-8 hours to be digested, proteins take about 3-5 hours and complex carbohydrates take about 2-3 hours. Refined sugars take only 30 minutes. Even though fats contain twice as many calories as carbohydrates, they keep hunger satisfied three times as long. A 154 pound adult male requires about 56 grams of protein daily (.8grams/ lb body weight)
So much for science. I lost 15 lbs. in two weeks, I needed a day off. Accounting for days off and re-entry to the dieting life, I will be at this for months. Do I have the discipline for the re-entries? Maybe, just don’t throw the old clothes.
What of the diet, long term? Can I want to stay scared long enough? Maybe these lyrics will eventually pertain, “It’s the cause of all my sorrow, I think I’ll start tomorrow.”