“those were all just guesses,
wouldn't help you if they could”
I've hit a plateau. For three weeks
I've been stuck at 210 lbs. I went from 255 to 210 in less than six
months, but now I'm at my first real standstill. So I've been
studying up on plateaus – whether people really experience a
plateau, or whether it's just another myth that we tell ourselves to
make ourselves feel better.
* Not this kind of plateau.
What do most people think, and what do
they say? Well-meaning people will say, “You'll have plateaus, and
that's okay,” but in fact they think you're getting weak, you're
failing, you're underestimating your calories, or you're slacking in
your exercise. And that attitude is really damaging. It's easy to say
it's a myth, or an excuse – a reason to say “Eff it” and eat.
As a dieter, trying hard to do something, you start to doubt what
you're doing. And if it lasts long enough, you might give up.
Plateaus prove that there's more to
losing weight than calorie in, calorie out. We might tell ourselves
it's a myth, but we all believe it. When you hit a plateau, the first
thing you do is cut your calories. But the fact of the plateau shows
that losing weight is complicated.
* Not that kind either.
We want a universal law of weight loss,
but that's not real life. And we don't want to do the work of
figuring out what works for us. We want to buy a book, say “It
worked for them, it has to work for me.” But there's no universal
law, and that's hard to take. Every person's body is different. Every
person's body is different `at different times in their lives – a
body in puberty has different needs from a body in menopause. But we
want these rules of thumb that we can hold onto.
For instance, I once read that genetics
only accounts for twenty pounds of your obesity, and I held onto that
idea for years. That gave me hope – or, at least, I had something I
could blame, and control. “I don't have a glandular issue – it
must be my eating habits.” “I don't have a thyroid problem – I
can lose the weight any time I want.” It always made me mad for
someone to say “It's your genes,” because that meant I had no
control. So thinking that my 100 lbs of excess weight wasn't genetic
was actually liberating – it meant I wasn't trapped, I could do
something about it.
Now I realize that it's even more
complicated than that. The only other time in my life that I've
actually lost weight was when I was doing an extreme
calorie-restriction diet (about 1000 calories a day) and extreme
exercise. I lost 70 lbs and then hovered at 200 lbs. I didn't do
anything wrong – I didn't give up. It just stopped working. Then I
got pregnant, and I blamed it on getting pregnant. But that was just
an excuse – the diet stopped working before that.
Now here I am, again, hovering at 200
lbs, and I got to it completely differently. I'm eating
non-processed, nutrient-dense foods, and more calories. I'm doing
kettlebell three times a week and take a long walk three times a week
– hardly extreme exercise.
The point is, with a different diet and
a different exercise regiment, I'm still hitting a plateau at the
exact same point.
* Okay, Gabe doesn't get to choose pictures anymore.
My research about plateaus has
convinced me of a few things. First, plateaus are real – even if
you're not breaking your diet and eating ice cream cake, you're going
to hit a plateau. Secondly, plateaus happen because your body
regulates – your body gets used to a certain regiment and stops
losing weight because of that new normal. Third, the idea that there
should be a universal way to lose weight that works for everybody is
damaging. When you hit that plateau, you're more likely to think
you're doing something wrong, cheat, and then tell yourself that you
failed because you cheated. Because it's easier to tell yourself you
did wrong and blame yourself than to go through the work of figuring
out why you're getting stuck.
It's also hard when you've bought into
a set lifestyle. When we identify a way of eating as an identity, it
makes it hard to change that, even when it's not working. You don't
allow yourself to tweak it, because in the religion of your diet that
would be sinful. But when Hippocrates says “Make your food your
medicine,” I get the idea that from time to time, when something is
wrong, you need to change – add something you haven't had, take
away something that is harmful. There may be a season in your life
when you need meat; there may be a time when you need to stop eating
meat. And you're not going to be able to try different things if your
diet is your life.
In my research I found two different,
unrelated women who were both near 400 lbs, and who both lost lots of
weight on totally different diets – one on a plant-based vegan
diet, and one on a paleo high-fat diet. They're around the same age
as me – 30s – and both eating whole, non-processed foods like me.
Both are very well-known and vocal in their communities – one just
published the first paleo children's book, and the other operates the
Facebook page of a major plant-based group. And they're both stuck at
200 lbs.
I wonder if it's their true-believer
mindsets that keep them there.
UPDATE: It's pretty much all up there –
stuck at 210 lbs. I'm proud of myself, but it's humbling when I
realize that I am someone else's “Before” picture.
I'm still wearing the big pants.
.png)
