It depends on what your definition of is is

Well, actually, it depends on what your definition of morbidly obese is.

The most common definition, and probably the fairest, is a BMI greater than 40. However, there is another, alternate definition "100+ pounds overweight." Yesterday, no matter which way you cut it, I was firmly in the morbid category. Today, not so much.

Weight: 244.8

Normal weight for someone my height tops out at 145. This means I am no longer 100+ pounds overweight! As of this morning, I am a mere 99.8 pounds over a normal weight. Ah, the things we can rejoice in when we're as far gone as I.

Seriously, even though I think the 40+ BMI definition of morbid is more valid, today marks a substantive milestone for me. My weight loss goal is no longer in the triple digits. And 11.8 pounds from now, I won't be morbid by any definition. Good stuff.

In other news, last night I decided that I was going to stop messing around and make sure I get to 1200 calories every day, even if I feel like I don't really need the last 250 or so.

Now, conventional wisdom in the dieting world is pretty definitive on the "You must eat 1200 calories a day or BADNESS." The badness they most typically threaten people with is that if you eat fewer than 1200 calories a day, your body won't lose as much weight as if you eat just at or slightly above this mark. There's also some shebang about how it's bad for your body and how you need nutrients and whatnot. (The last point is one I mostly agree with, although I'm not entirely convinced of it's importance. Losing weight is self starvation, an inherently unhealthy process. The result is healthy, the value of shedding excess pounds makes it healthy on balance, but the self starvation part still pretty trying on your body. I'm not, for example, 100% convinced that the value of getting things done more quickly--thus spending fewer days starving yourself--isn't worth more than the value of getting perfect nutrients along the way.)

But okay, my real objection is with the idea that if you go below the 1200 calorie low bound, your body will go into "starvation mode" and that you'll lose less weight than if you were above it. It strikes me as absolute nonsense that one would lose less weight at 1150 than 1250 a day, or less weight at 900 than 1200.

The first thing that bugged me about it was that it clearly broke basic rules of physics. Diet industry, meet Conservation of Energy. You see, my buddy conservation is a rule. A real science-y rule, not one of your made up diet ones. That said, I do understand that bodies are complex organisms, and that going below a certain point could trigger your body to do other things that conserve energy, but it's not going to be enough to make up the difference. I'd absolutely 100% buy that because of your body's response there are decreasing marginal returns as you cut more calories (for example, that going from 1800 to 1700 would be worth more than cutting from 800 to 700, even that the cut from 800 to 700 only produces as much bonus weight loss as going from, say, 1800 to 1760), but decreasing marginal returns does not mean the effectiveness stops all together.

Besides, there's absolutely no way that all those people who are out there in the world starving are really just doing so because they're hitting 1300 calories a day, and if they only ate 1100 they'd be unable to lose weight. Ridiculous.

And then there's the fact that when you get into more medical settings, they do use sub 1200 calorie diets with great success. The 1200 calorie rule isn't just nonsensical in theory, it's flat out wrong in practice. Gastric bypass patients, for example, will be on a 600 calorie diet for a few weeks post op. Physician supervised very low calorie diets do exist for rapid weight loss.

So, all that, but: I'm committing to myself to hit the 1200 calorie mark every day for the next two weeks. This is tough for me. I enjoy heterodoxy for its own sake and I hate doing things that I can't independently make sense of. But after seeing my bugg burn values for the past few days (3527 Wednesday and 3172 yesterday), it occurred to me that relative to burn, the extra 220 or so calories I save on sub 1200 days just aren't worth it. I'm better off spending my mental energy pushing myself to get off the couch again to go for a walk than questioning whether or not I really need miracle whip on my daily sandwich (30 calorie difference), and is picking turkey over ham or roast beef (15ish calorie difference) really worth the decreased enjoyment.

Don't get me wrong, I still think diet is more important than exercise in terms of weight loss. And the difference eating 2000 and 1200 calories a day is huge, but right now, for me, it makes sense to stay in the 1200-plus club. For these next two weeks, I'm going to hit 1200 even if it means stuffing down an extra cottage cheese before bed. After that, I'll see where things are, and decide where I want to go from there.

I'm still a little in shock from how much I poured out in yesterday post, so apologies for the overshare. I've now officially told you guys a whole heck of a lot more about me than I ever intended, and even shared a few secrets I don't tell people in real life. But that's blogging, right?

Daily weigh ins vs. weekly weigh ins

"Should I weigh in every day or just once a week?" It's a common question. And I'm going to give an answer that is very true, but one I think people don't hear enough:

Scientifically speaking, you should probably weigh yourself every day.

Now, this is a post I've been mulling over this for a while. Erin (who, by the way, has a great blog that I'd encourage you to check out) commented on a post of mine not too long back that "the almighty 'they' discourage weighing in daily." And in terms of the diet world, she's right. Weight Watchers, Spark People, and most other diet plans and diet books say you should only weigh once a week. The typical justifications are that the scale can change greatly from day to day, meaning it's not all that accurate, and that there are emotional downsides with seeing false losses and gains throughout the week. Essentially, conventional wisdom in the diet world says that weighing yourself every day can discourage you and stress you out. But conventional wisdom isn't always right.

Weighting yourself every day is actually a good idea according to science. A 2005 study showed that "Dieters who weighed themselves regularly shed more pounds over a 24-month period than people who didn't regularly weigh themselves. Those who weighed themselves daily lost the most." Another University of Minnesota study "found that those who weighed themselves daily lost an average of 12 pounds over 2 years; weekly scale watchers lost only 6. The once-a-day group also was less likely to regain weight loss." And there are more studies out there with much the same message.

So weighing daily makes you likely to lose more weight and keep it off once it's gone. But what about the emotional damage of daily weigh ins? At least one study in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology says that's a myth. Here's what they found:

Several recent studies suggest that daily weighing is important for long-term weight control, but concerns have been raised about possible adverse psychological effects.
...
We found no evidence that increases in frequency of weighing or daily weighing per se had any adverse effects in this study population. Rather, increases in self-weighing were associated with increases in dietary restraint (p less than 0.001), decreases in disinhibition (p less than 0.003), and decreases in depressive symptoms (p less than 0.002). Moreover, those who weighed daily at 18 months were less likely to report having = 4 binge episodes per month (p = 0.03). Daily weighing appears to be an important aspect of weight loss maintenance and was not associated with adverse psychological effect.

So there's scientific evidence that weighing daily isn't emotionally damaging. It even seems to decrease depression and binging! And why are we supposed to weigh in weekly, again?

The answer to the question "should I weigh myself every day or once a week?" seems to be every day. Scientifically speaking, if you want to play the probabilities, you should step on your scale every day.

That said, just because something is likely to be right for you doesn't mean something is right for you. If you're not comfortable with daily weigh ins, then you shouldn't weigh in daily. It might be that you get extremely depressed by stepping on the scale, or that you truly can't stand seeing the fluctuations. Maybe for you this journey is more the emotional or even spiritual aspects, and that while you do want to track your weight, you don't care much about the numbers. You need to do what works for you.

My advice:

Seriously consider weighing in every day. It may not work for you, but there's some good evidence that it more likely to work than you might think. But, at the end of the day, trust yourself. If you don't want to do daily weigh ins, don't do daily weigh ins. Stick with weekly, monthly, or whatever else makes you happy. The right answer for you might not be the right answer for everyone else. And with that in mind, next time you hear someone mindlessly parrot the diet industry's standard "you shouldn't weigh yourself more than once a week," let them know that science, at least, says otherwise.

Oh, and to answer the requests from yesterday, I will review the Body Bugg once I get mine. It shipped last night, and should be arriving on the 22nd.