The Fat Trap

I thought this article in today's NY Times was interesting. The author looks at why people have so much trouble keeping weight off. I don't agree with all of the conclusions put forward because I don't think they go far enough toward explaining why people used to be skinny and are now fat, but I do agree with many of the observations.

I am glad to finally see in print that weight loss/gain is not governed by a simple mathematical formula. I have been making a determined effort to loose weight this year. I lost enough that I look slim, but since then I have been trying to push it down further, toward the bottom end of the healthy BMI, because it reduces injuries and makes me faster. I am currently at 150 lbs (with no clothes or glycogen) and I would like to be between 135 and 140. By the book, I eat about 1500 calories a day and burn an average of about 850 calories in running, so my net intake is about 650 calories a day. That should mean I have a calorie deficit of about 1200 a day, or 8400 a week. That means I am loosing about 2.4 pounds a week, right? Actually, it's about a half a pound a week. Often less.

I can accept that my numbers are probably wrong. I probably underestimate my caloric intake, but I doubt I'm off by a thousand calories a day. And Garmin probably overestimates my caloric output (though it has very precise input data to work with). What is more, the numbers all worked out just fine when I was loosing the first twenty pounds. Back then the scale lined up with what the Daily Plate predicted. So something changed (beyond the fact that I need less calories now than I did when I was heavier because there is less of me to move and to feed) and made all the clever formulas inaccurate. My body is doing more with less, so much more that it makes me wonder why it took so much to do so little in the past.