A strongly worded letter to my metabolic processes and hormones
Thursday, December 06, 2012
OK, I’ll keep this brief, and I’m not really sure who (what)
to address this to, so consider this a mass mailing.
I am disappointed in your incredibly
efficient skills at keeping my weight at 238.
Listen, that may be your “happy weight” but it sure isn't mine.
At the same time, I’m also amazed at your efficiency. Seriously, all I have to do is go to a restaurant one time and you slap 2 pounds on me? Really? I ordered the fish! I didn’t eat the rice! I drank water!
Anyway, some changes are in order. We’ll call this a Performance Improvement Plan.
- We will be moving more. We’re doing great with exercise but we’re still not super consistent. And sometimes we go a little too easy on ourselves. Research has shown that high-intensity interval training can goose the metabolism better than steady-state exercise and we’re looking for a BIG GOOSE here.
- We will be lifting more weight. Muscles weigh more than fat, but they’re also smaller and more metabolically active, and that’s important to our 50-year-old innards.
- We will be tracking better. Yes, the Fitbit is a fantastic way to track activity, but until there is a similar device that computes exactly how many calories we’re sticking in our piehole, we need to either write it down in our Fitbook or use a smartphone app. If that means accounting for calories after we’re officially done for the day, then so be it. You are only fooling yourself, and your ass speaks louder than words.
- No late-night kitchen horseplay. I have seen you in the kitchen, snooping around the pantry, the fridge and the freezer, foraging for “healthy snacks” late at night. Go ahead and grab those celery stalks but keep the peanut butter jar where it is unless you plan to write it down -- you haven’t been writing that down. And I’m giving you free reign to eat all the celery you want without having to write it down. (Counting calories or Points for celery is ridiculous.)
- We will be eating less. Yes, you will be hungry – we have gone over this repeatedly. This is the metabolism that decades of dieting has wrought and you will be hungry all the damn time – get used to it, hormones. Yes, it will suck.
I will be checking in with you on a weekly basis to see how you’re doing, and I hope you take this criticism the right way because I love and respect you and want you to do better. I’d also like to keep you around as long as humanly possible.
XOXO,
The Management