On the Doing of a Thing

In a recent Facebook status update, I reported that I was one pound away from hitting my college weight again.  Many delightful and encouraging responses followed, and of course there was the inevitable question from more than one quarter: "How did you do it?"

In a word: slowly.  I did it slowly.

And of course, since I'm a gadget junkie, there was some electronic help as well, but I'll get to that in a second.

"College weight" is what I'm calling my target—I'm pretty sure I was hovering around 185 by the time I graduated.  (And at 6'3", that weight is squarely within the Normal range.)  The specific memory I'm clinging to is when I was walking through the Boston Common, past the fountain at the corner nearest Downtown Crossing, and some guy sitting at the fountain said something or other to me—and then called me "Slim."

These are the sorts of things we remember.  I weighed 185 when a complete stranger called me Slim.  Almost a quarter century later, that's why that particular weight is my target weight.  It's completely silly, and it's just as valid as any other reason for picking a target weight.  (In truth, in high school I was five to ten pounds lighter than that, so I could pick a lower number if I wanted, and maybe in time I will.)

There was a span when I was gaining about a pound a year, which seemed fine till I realized what would happen in thirty years.  And indeed, shortly after I moved to Los Angeles, something I should have foreseen happened: because I now lived in a place where I drove rather than walked, I gained weight.  A lot of it.  And fast.  Before I could blink, 200 pounds had become 220.

Enter a gizmo.  The iPhone, and a free app called "Lose It."  I had already, with exercise and a little diligence, gotten 220 back down to a range between 205 and 210.  But what Lose It does turns out to be invaluable: it's a simple calorie tracker, and it presents a clean, graphically unmistakable chart with a red line denoting your maximum caloric intake on any given day.  If your bar graph representing that day's food intake passes the red line, you've eaten too much.

There's a large database of brand-name and restaurant foods with the number of calories, the amount of cholesterol, etc. already programmed in, and that helps with the data entry.  I still end up entering a lot of things freehand, but there are lots of websites out there that will tell you the calorie content of almost anything, so it's not too hard to get accurate information.  No, the hard part is really this: you have to be honest.

If you don't enter that third cookie you had, sure, you'll stay on the correct side of the thin red line, but your body will still know the difference and you will have defeated the whole purpose of using the app.  That kind of truth-telling is hard as hell, but there are rewards to be had.

I lost weight slowly.  Very slowly.  Started using Lose It early last February when my weight was 206, and only now have I reached 186.  There are always thresholds, where you'll hit a weight and won't seem able to dip below it for a long time; then suddenly you'll drop far below it and find a new threshold.  Naturally, my current threshold turns out to be 186, so I haven't been able to get below it yet, haven't been able to grab that one last pound.  But it'll happen, I'm confident about that.

I'm no nutritionist, but I have to think that losing weight slowly is better than losing it fast.  Because if you lose it fast, you're very likely to gain it back, just as fast.  In other words, if you go on a crash diet where you follow some program and crush your daily caloric intake and blah blah blah, you're making a temporary lifestyle change.  You hit your target, you congratulate yourself, then you go right back on the rotuine that got you overweight in the first place.

But here's the beauty of Lose It: I didn't change my diet.  Didn't change the sorts of foods I ate, not at all.  (Okay, there was one change: potato chips had to go.  There was no way they could fit into any day without driving me over the red line.  And man, do I love potato chips.  But one sacrifice isn't so bad.  Now, if I'd had to give up pizza….)  (And yes, a nutritionist would hear all this and shudder for reasons that have nothing to do with weight gain.)  (And by the way, even as I write this I am eating a nice lovely cookie.  So there.)

Around last October, I stopped using Lose It for a while.  "I've got the system down," I said to myself.  "I know the quantities, I know when to stop eating.  No problem.  The app got me started, now I can continue on my own."  The result was no surprise at all: the amount I ate started to slide upward, so slowly I never really noticed—till I got on the scale.  And sure enough, the weight was starting to slide upward again.  I got back onto Lose It, saw how many days were well over the thin red line, and realized that this little app, and its descendants, will probably be with me for a very long time indeed.

So that's the answer to how I did it.  (And am doing it still.)  By losing weight slowly, not by dieting, not by eliminating food I like (with that one notable exception), but by simply paying scrupulous attention, being honest with myself, and sticking with the program on a long-term basis.  It's not necessarily easy, but it sure as hell ain't that hard.  Now go forth and shed ye the pounds.