What's normal?

[S Bear]

Whun you're overweight, it's easy to talk about getting down to a "normal" or "healthy" weight and staying there. But once you're in the neighborhood, it's no longer so clearcut.

I'm working with weights, and, after completing the 6WC, keeping my whey and BCAAs up. And I'm clearly more muscular. And also gaining some weight--up to 152 pounds from my low of 148.

And I'm finding that I no longer have any clear idea of where I "ought" to be.

I also don't know how much someone who is "maintaining" their weight should expect their weight to fluctuate, or how much someone can gain before they get nervous.

In short, I've been so obsessed with seeing the numbers on the scale drop that I no longer have any idea what my goals are.

I seem to have lost lock on "normal..."

[laughingW]

The only people I know who have done this successfully, just take notes and pay attention until they learn about their own bodies. One is my sister. She allows fluctuations within 5 pounds. She's been a low-fatter forever who eats good food, but you can tell she looks deficient in sat fats.

Others are martial artists I know. They watch what different food and workouts do to their bodies and the depth of understanding builds over time. I think they fluctuate by more pounds depending on whether they are in a building-up-muscle cycle or a using-muscle-constantly cycle. like 10-15 pounds in muscle, but only 5-10 pounds allowed to fluctuate in fat.

And all of them use multiple measures. The scale, the mirror, how exercise feels, and how clothes fit, all of those and not just one.

[maxlharris]

I think there are probably two reasons that most people bone it when it comes to maintenance.

1- The Neil Young Problem. "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShF8E55pS9w) Goal isn't everything you thought it should be. But it's hard to reorient. (I've been experiencing the Neil Young Problem since, I dunno, April of 2006. Christ, that's three and half years. Boy I've been wasting time.

2- The Pink Floyd Problem. "Comfortably Numb." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM0Pl80Zf00) You got your goal, and it's good. But you're not used to going for something without a goal. And the steady state goal doesn't trigger the fire the same way a progressive goal does.

I don't have advice on either. Good luck.

[S Bear]

laughingW--Your description of what martial arts folks do is probably what I ought to be doing. I just don't know how yet.

maxl--Nice description of the two problems. I think I'm probably more on the Pink Floyd side of the fence. (Not to mention that I always liked that song, which is probably a bad sign.)

[jilly27]

And I'm finding that I no longer have any clear idea of where I "ought" to be.

I also don't know how much someone who is "maintaining" their weight should expect their weight to fluctuate, or how much someone can gain before they get nervous.

In short, I've been so obsessed with seeing the numbers on the scale drop that I no longer have any idea what my goals are.

I seem to have lost lock on "normal..."


I resemble this myself right now. I really don't know where I think I should end up (I'm close so this has been on my mind lately). I keep dropping my goal, is it fear of reaching my goal? The idea of maintaining as opposed to still trying to lose is unknown territory.

If you come up with any sage advice, clarity of mind etc. please share. :rolleyes:

Jilly

[Mitra]

I've been maintaining for about six years now, and I was losing weight for about six months. It's really only been in the last year that I've managed to stop fretting all the time about whether I'm at the right weight, whether I should lose another five pounds etc.

There were times when I wondered if swapping a few excess pounds for obsessing about my food and weight had actually been a good exchange.

Over those five years my weight has been at a lowest of 110 (possibly a bit low for me, and I wasn't there for long) and a high of 120 (tends to happen after holidays). 115-118 is where I am most of the time. I have finally stopped bothering about whether that's "right" and managed to get a fairly relaxed weighing pattern, that falls between going into denial, and not weighing myself at all, and weighing myself every day without fail. I now step on the scales every few days, and forget about it a lot of the time, but it took a long time to get there.

[Benay]

Not knowing anything about your gender, age, body building (or not) status, it is difficult to answer your question; therefore, I will give you my experience as a woman in her seventies recovering from bilateral knee replacements.

I set myself a goal weight when I started low carb which was based upon what I weighed in the late 70's early 80's when I was active and could do whatever I wanted to do physically and did not have to shop in a fat woman's shop for clothes. A second criteria for my goal weight was my calculation derived from the Eades Protein Power which gave a range for people my age based upon my calculated lean body mass. That BMI, while not in agreement with the standard weight for my height according to all the weight loss standards, did agree with what I had weighed when I was in my 40's and 50's.

That being said, I did achieve that goal weight in 2007, looked good, bought new clothes and promptly fell off the wagon and began eating carbs (mainly sugar). I did not "reign in" at plus 5 pounds or even ten. Not unti I hit plus 20 pounds did I sit back and realize what had happened. (I am slow. Yes?) It has taken me all the months since then to lose 15 of those pounds.

Was it worth it, regaining those 20 pounds? No. In future, I will not let myself regain more than the 5 pounds over my goal as I am today. I am still trying to lose those last 5 pounds. It is so much more diffiult the second or third time around.

Set a goal you are comfortable with whether it is "normal" or not. It's your body and you have to decide what is a good weight for yourself that isn't ridiculously higher than the standard BMI charts. Go for it. Along the way, as we all take a carb holiday now and again, decide for yourself when you have indulged yourself enough. Is it one snack? One day? One week? Or by the pound? After all you are the only one who has to suffer the consequences of what you eat. No one else can do it for you.

[laughingW]

I just don't know how yet.They write the stuff down in their training logs. And then after a training or competition cycle, 4-6 weeks, they review what all happened. It's just remembering to write it down because if you don't you might just forget the data completely.

[S Bear]

Thanks, everybody. This is good info.

jilly27--Ha! You've described me precisely. At first I picked 160 pounds, which was a little less than I'd weighed in several years, and seemed infinitely far away. Then I got to 160. Well, why not 150? Then I got to 150...well, why not go for what I weighed in early college (about 142)? Heck, why not high school (135)?

Mitra--That is very useful advice. My weight drop was in about 8 months, and you've described the situation very well. The fact that you've described a maintenance "band" that has worked for you for so long makes me very hopeful, and the fretting you've described makes me feel less like I'm crazy! (Or, at rate, that I have company.)

Benay--I'm 55, male, 5 foot 8 inches, very active, and push weights around one day a week. My BMI is hovering around 23. My waist is 30", hips 34.5", chest 42". Even though I have the narrow waist and broad shoulders most people associate with bodybuilder types, my frame is built out of relatively fine bones, so 1) I usually weigh less than people expect, and 2) I can carry a lot more fat than I should without looking all that much overweight.

When I had myself hydrostatically weighed a while back (at about 159 pounds), the owner of the facility asked me what my goals are, why I was weighing myself. I said to find out how much more weight I really needed to lose. He said, "I'm not sure you need to lose any at all. You might even want to gain some. But you might want to swap some fat for muscle."

What makes me really nervous, Benay, is that I'm still being very strict about carbs but still gaining weight. The only real differences are that I'm downing lots of whey and BCAAs (some aspects of the 6WC have become part of daily life around here), and adding one day per week of pretty hard weight training to my usual exercise. I guess I ought to expect to gain some muscle, and every time I lift I have a temporary weight spike for two days afterwards (I guess pumped muscles retain water). In any case, my trusty scales no longer seem to neccessarily point in the direction I need to go...

laughingW--sounds like I need to start journaling. It sure couldn't hurt.

[laughingW]

laughingW--sounds like I need to start journaling. It sure couldn't hurt.Yes. These are serious athletes who really want to know - what kind of training, gives me what kind of results? So naturally they want details. How often they lift, and what weights. What rest periods. What did this to do how they feel on competition day. And so on.

I keep journals too because i found out how much I ignore or forget. I used to think I had a pretty good memory until I compared it with what I really wrote down (blush). So now I just consider it a captain's log - just the facts ma'am - and that way I can do my flight plan according to what has been going on. I really like how it works that way.

[maxlharris]

Journalling is always a good idea.

You might also look to compositional goals, which would require less of the scale (unworthy metric) and more of the tape measure.

[Mitra]

Journalling is obviously useful in finding out how different things affect you, and in tracking down any problems, but as far as finding "normal" is concerned, I found that life feels more normal when I'm not weighing and recording every mouthful. I do it from time to time, when I need to review things, but for me, it can start to feel a bit obsessive after a while, and I don't feel it's something I'd want to be tied to for the rest of my life. Maintenance goes on for a long time.

[S Bear]

Maintenance goes on for a long time.

Or, at any rate, one hopes it does!

[maxlharris]

A last thought on normal...
Normal is a societal thing. Not a personal thing.
Feeling good, that's personal.

[S Bear]

A last thought on normal...
Normal is a societal thing. Not a personal thing.
Feeling good, that's personal.

Feeling good hasn't been normal for me for the last few years.

[Eleanor]

Very interesting thread... my current plan is to get down to a BMI (according to the UK government calcuations) of 25, which for me is 140 lbs, and then see what clothes fit me, how I think I look and how I feel. I'm also planning on asking the doctor for some blood tests at that point, just to see if everything's functioning it should be.

I am worried about my health, which is one reason why I'm back on PP, but I am also fed up with having to buy expensive clothes for 'fat birds' (that's my current description of myself:-) or waiting for my Mum's hand-me-downs. We're fairly hard up, and I'd just love to be able to buy size 10-12 (UK size) clothes in charity shops:-)