Manipulating One's Body Size - POSTED ON: Aug 11, 2017
It is very difficult to manipulate one’s body size. Most obese people find this to be a laborious task in the short-term. (short-term = a few years) As a long-term task, it is so eternally grueling that it is almost impossible for most reduced-obese people. (long-term = many years). Weight-loss is HARD. Maintaining weight-loss is HARD. Being fat is HARD.
Everyone, … very thin, normal-weight, over-weight, fat, or super-fat, … has the Right to Choose which HARD they can best manage to live with. I’ve found this past 12+ years of maintaining a very large weight-loss to be a consistently grueling task that has become more difficult each and every year so far. Keeping my reduced-obese body at or near a “normal” size still requires continual ongoing vigilance and sometimes almost super-human willpower. Maintaining weight-loss is the HARD that I am currently choosing, but that doesn’t make me superior to other people who choose to live their lives differently. Here’s an excellent article written from the perspective of someone who has made the choice to Stop Dieting and to Accept and Live With their Body’s Fat. “It’s Not a Diet, It’s a Lifestyle Change” is Bullshit. by Ragen Chastain, danceswithfat
You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it. Back in my dieting days - before I did my research - I believed it. The secret to lasting weight loss, they say, is that you can’t go on a diet, you have to make a lifestyle change. This is total, complete, utter bullshit. It’s a lifestyle change alright – you change to a lifestyle where you’re dieting all the time, and it still doesn’t work. One of the big issues that the weight loss industry has created is a world where any weight loss claim said with authority that sounds even remotely plausible is accepted and repeated as proven fact. Even in the world of peer-reviewed research, incredible liberties are given to weight loss research when it comes to not having to support their assumptions with evidence.
Projections about the Rate of Weight-Loss - POSTED ON: Jul 09, 2017
The issue of Projections about the Rate of Weight-Loss has been on my mind for a very long time, and so this article is going to be quite long and detailed. Those who bear with me and press on through, might learn some helpful information, or at least be exposed to something other than empty promises. The Diet Industry knows that people want to lose their excess fat ASAP, and that people also want to spend as little time possible on a weight-loss Diet. It takes advantage of that fact by using the diet-of-the-moment’s maximum 1st week weight-loss number as a marketing tool. Typical is: “Lose 15 pounds in 7 days”; or 10 pounds or 7 pounds, etc. We see that ploy used continually in the media. It is almost impossible to look at any magazine display rack in a supermarket checkout line without seeing a similar Headline. What is implied by this claim is that the number of the first week’s weight loss is a prediction of weight-loss for the subsequent weeks. Marketing claims: “10 pounds in 1 week”. People think, “Wow, If I stick to this Diet for just 5 weeks, I can lose 50 pounds.” Then, when they don’t experience that rate of weight-loss, they feel disappointed. Upon expressing their disappointment to the medical doctor, the nutritionist, the diet guru, the group leader, the program counselor, or whoever, the most common response is: “YOU didn’t follow the diet correctly.” People are blamed for their weight-loss failure; while the Diet Industry gets the credit for their weight-loss success. This is universal. I’ve never seen or participated in ANY diet program that didn’t follow that line of thinking, and during the past 60 years …from adolescence on… I’ve been involved with a great many of them. I have personal experience with a great many diets and diet programs, and I’ve closely watched the experiences of many hundreds of other people as they dieted. People WANT TO BELIEVE the claims of rapid weight-loss that they hear, and they desperately hope that they will personally experience rapid weight-loss by following their latest Diet-of-choice. Some of these rapid weight-loss claims are based on lies; some are based on ignorance; some are based on personal experience together with poor memory; and a few are based on the real results of very unusual people. There are those who make these incorrect rapid weight-loss projections in good faith; who stubbornly hold onto an unreasonable Belief by stubbornly ignoring the overwhelmingly-vast-weight-of-the-evidence stacked up against it. However, the fact is that almost all of those claims are false, and the rest of them are based on factors that...
Current Diet Guidelines - POSTED ON: Jun 28, 2017
During the years of my obesity, I followed a lot of different diets and eating plans. As part of my long-term Maintenance of a large weight-loss, I still do a lot of personal experimenting with different types of diets and ways-of-eating. However, all of my diet experiments include the two basic requirements that are necessary for ME personally in my own Maintenance.
One of these requirements is to consistently track all my food intake every day, and log it into a computer food journal that provides me with a calorie count, and the other requirement is to “eat small to stay small”, meaning that I consistently work to keep my personal calorie count as-low-or-lower than my calorie burn. I have learned to view Dieting as an enjoyable Hobby, see ABOUT ME. I am very interested in learning and experiencing different ways and methods of “eating small”. “Eating small” is not something that is new to me. Before my current successful weight-loss, back in the late 1980s, I spent 6+ months on a medically supervised liquid fast which consisted of Optifast and water. 3 meals totaling about 600 calories per day. Immediately after my open RNY gastric bypass surgery in December 1992, I spent a year of eating only very tiny amounts of food, totaling about 300 to 600 calories per day. See: How Fast…HowMuch…Weight Lost After Gastric Bypass? There are many articles about my prior diets and weight status here at DietHobby in BLOG CATEGORIES, Status Updates. My current diet experiment is based on eating the way one eats immediately after bariatric surgery, which is something that I actually experienced in my life about 25 years ago. My plan uses some of the concepts recommended by Dr. Duc Vuong, a bariatric surgeon who takes a “Tony Robbins” approach to weight-loss education. For more background details see: Palm of the Hand, and Eat Small to Be Small. My current food plan Directly Restricts the total daily AMOUNT of food that I eat, (has a maximum daily...
Status Update - June 2017 - POSTED ON: Jun 09, 2017
As part of maintaining a large Weight-loss for more than 11 years, here at DietHobby I sometimes share my personal weight and calorie numbers, along with Tactics that I’ve used to help me in Maintenance. Treating Dieting as a Hobby (see: ABOUT ME) involves the ongoing task of finding or creating ways to keep myself interested in detailed issues involving Weight-Loss and Maintenance, as well as how MY own body responds to those various issues. As part of my own Maintenance journey, I’ve experimented with many different diets, and as part of that process I’ve created various ways to track my progress. When I first began experimenting with Alternate Day Fasting, back in 2006, I created a chart like the one on this page in order to better track how my daily weight reacted to UP days and DOWN days. I liked this visualization and so I continued using this chart format after I completed my first ADF experiments.
This first chart shows my actual weight and calories from May 23, 2017 through today, June 9, 2017. The second chart shows a 10 week Summary of those charts from April 2, 2017 through June 4, 2017. The first chart shows that on May 23, I weighed 131.0 (red shows a gain from the previous day).
This morning, June 9, I weighed 128.2 (green shows a loss from the previous day).
So, 131.0 minus 128.2 equals 2.8, which means that my weight dropped 2.8 lbs. in the past 16 days.
During that 16 days, my average calorie intake was 594 per day.
No BEFORE - No AFTER - Only DURING - POSTED ON: Apr 05, 2017
The number on the scale is only a number. Only just a number. It’s not a “Before”. It’s not an “After”. Getting that number to a certain set of digits is not an “After”. There is no “After” – happily ever or otherwise. There is only today. Just today – “During”. There’s no point in associating “After” with a number. Losing weight doesn’t mean you no longer struggle with your weight. It's important to understand that. I’ve lost more than 50% of my highest bodyweight, and have maintained that weight loss for more than 10 years, but I still struggle with my food, my weight, and myself every single day.
My “Before” pictures (which I choose to keep private) are ME. The pictures on this website are ME. I’ve had People tell me they don’t recognize the woman in my “Before” pictures, but she is me. The fat ME is not an abomination. Don’t congratulate me on no longer being HER; I still am HER. You can say that I look better, but actually, I just look different. "Better" is a matter of personal taste, or personal judgment. That “fat” ME wasn’t ugly, or a poor, piteous person. She’s just ME, and she’s still standing right here, only thinner. There. Is. No. After. There will never be a pot of gold at the end of the weight-loss rainbow because that rainbow is endless. There is Today. There is Now. There is DURING. It's called Life.
NOTE: Bumped up for new viewers. Originally posted on 4/22/15
Mar 01, 2021 DietHobby: A Digital Scrapbook. 2000+ Blogs and 500+ Videos in DietHobby reflect my personal experience in weight-loss and maintenance. One-size-doesn't-fit-all, and I address many ways-of-eating whenever they become interesting or applicable to me.
Jun 01, 2020 DietHobby is my Personal Blog Website. DietHobby sells nothing; posts no advertisements; accepts no contributions. It does not recommend or endorse any specific diets, ways-of-eating, lifestyles, supplements, foods, products, activities, or memberships.
May 01, 2017 DietHobby is Mobile-Friendly. Technical changes! It is now easier to view DietHobby on iPhones and other mobile devices.