How'd you get those extra pounds?

Cafe Society
81

Broke my wrists. Was under much stress from working in a foreign country. Girlfriend broke up with me shortly after I went back to the US for a short visit, around the same time as when I returned to Japan and got the damn casts off. I also hit my mid-20s, so my metabolism was changing.

Carb load spiked from eating rice, and lots of it, with nearly every meal. Contrary to popular belief, Japanese food isn’t particularly healthy if you’re eating out a lot. Lots of fried food along with noodles, rice, and other starchy side dishes. If you’re eating traditional, or mostly home-cooked stuff, Japanese food can be kind of healthy, if skinny on the protein sometimes. I wasn’t, so I was eating like a single salaryman; i.e. like shit.

Had crappy breakfast habits since I had many, many early mornings and road-trips as part of the job. Sometimes had to be leaving home at 05:30 to get there on time. Nothing available but sweet pastries, noodles, and rice in most convenience stores. Quitting time was highly variable, so often had to eat late at night. Basically, everything that could go wrong did.

I peaked at nearly 90 kg (close to 200 lbs.) I’m only 175 cm (5’9"), and my weight at the end of high school, when I was competing in both swimming and springboard diving, was about 155 (70 kg). When I finally got my shit together — after 3 years of being depressed and injured, then depressed and rehabilitating, then just being a fat lazy bastard — I lost over 15 kg just from dietary tweaks (more protein, more vegetables, no real change in calories) and getting active again.

That took about a year. I gained some of the fat back a couple of years later because of changing jobs (new stress) and planning a wedding (good stress). About the time I got married, I got back into a good routine and went back down to a reasonable weight. I was back up to about 83 kg when I got married.

Over the next few years, I got a lot more fit and gradually changed my eating habits based both on what I felt like eating and from personal research. Lost another couple of kg in the last few months now that I’ve cut out most of my grain intake. I now eat pretty much paleo, and at my last health check probably had the best stats in the office. The nurse did a double-take when she checked my blood pressure and heart rate. I’m a couple of kg heavier than I was in high school, all of that muscle since I’m in single-digit body fat now. Not bad for being in my late 30s and only being able to do serious workouts maybe 3 times a week.

I highly recommend a lowish-carb paleo approach for both overall health and fat loss. If I’d known everything that I know now when I was starting out, I’d probably have had much better progress in both fat loss and my fitness goals. Even from where I was when I started eating more in line with paleo recommendations, pretty lean and in better shape than most of the people around me, there was a noticeable change. I was asked several times if I’d lost weight. I’d actually gained a kg or two, but had dropped some body fat.

82

Anxiety and stress causes me to turn to food to cope :frowning:

83

A stressful, sedentary desk job. Honestly, I think that’s all - I moved from a job where I was on my feet half the day to one where I sat staring at a computer screen for 10, 11, or 12 hours a day. Didn’t eat any differently, didn’t work out any more or less. Whammo - in 6 months I’d gained 40lbs.

84

Me too, if I didn’t drink I’d be really slim, as my diet is great apart from the booze.

I’m not really overweight actually, I don’t like snack food, don’t eat processed foods and cycle to work. But those empty calories in wine have probably upped my dress size a notch or two over the years.

85

Several factors converged to assist me in packing on the pounds.

  1. Disposable income. Finished grad school, got a decent job and suddenly didn’t have to ration my entertainment dollars so carefully. I no longer had to choose between going out for drinks and going out for dinner. And because my entertainment budget was bigger I could get takeout instead of cooking.

  2. Age 30. My metabolism took a sharp downturn right around age 30. I’d always been able to stay slim without exercise, simply because I didn’t eat too much, cooked very healthfully and still had a young metabolism. I took off my age-30 excess pounds with Weight Watchers but let them creep back on. I am old enough that even if I succeed in my current WW round, I will not be able to sustain weight loss without finding a way to make exercise a strong daily habit.

  3. Love of cheese and beer. My greatest food vices are inherently fattening because they are high calorie. I can take or leave sweets, but cheese is irresistible.

  4. Significant expansion of my culinary horizons. I discovered high end cheeses, charcuterie, pate, etc.

86

People keep citing “slow metabolism” after they hit a certain age. There is no such thing as slow metabolism. The body does not somehow become more efficient at turning excess food into fat as one ages, which makes sense when you consider that in every other regard it becomes less efficient. What happens is that people tend to become less active, and have less muscle mass, as they age.