11.07.22

last in, first out

11.07.22| 250.2 pounds

I did absolutely perfect yesterday on my "diet," besides one thing! I will get to that thing shortly. I still call it diet because I have yet to enter into a healthy, lasting lifestyle. I am only on day 4 so gimme a break peeps! I get why people suggest not to call it a diet. A diet is temporary and suggests tweaking only food for a time. A healthy lifestyle though really suggests that one has moved away from Yo-Yo dieting (YYD) and embraced a well-rounded regime that includes diet and exercise.

Anyhow, I have done really well since Friday (the day I officially started) and when I weighed in this morning I half expected a six-pack when I took off my shirt. Nope! Still fat. Not surprising though as one can hardly expect any noticeable physical results after just 4 days. My latest yo-yo gain cycle has lasted around 4 years. I have tried to reel it back in several times, but blank happened. Blank: insert some lame excuse or shit. Yesterday, I fasted all day until Dinner. I can't remember the last time I skipped two meals! I was hungry and feeling faint. Working on the roof was probably not the best idea.

While I haven't noticed any physical changes, I can really sense some mentals shifts. For me, a day of fasting, skipping breakfast and lunch, does wonders for my motivation and will power. I will come back to this later.

The first two days of my diet, I just really watched what I ate. Just priming the pump so to speak. No massive lifestyle changes, just a slight tweak. I focused on having a new awareness of what I ate. I definitely wasn't perfect, but I think I managed to shave off around 25% of my regular daily caloric intake these days (I wasn't counting). Not a drastic change, but that wasn't the point. While I could certainly lose a good amount of pounds shaving off 25% of my calories (roughly 500 calories per day) I am coming up with a plan that will hopefully help me lose 2 pounds a week. For the record though, a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day should produce one pound of fat loss for a healthy adult.

Again, while I don't have a solid plan for weight loss it was more important that I started. I actually prefer to just ease into it so not having a tight plan yet is... the plan.

For me the pounds crept on over 4 years. I gained 40+ pounds since April 2018. I started at 210 pounds and was around 9% body fat. I hit the pinnacle of "the healthiest I have ever been" then let myself go. Slowly at first, then become an ignorant F&@*. Doing the math, I would have only had to eat an additional 100 calories per day above my BMR to gain 40 pounds over 4 years. That is like one scoop of peanut butter! While we all want instant results, I think it is important to appreciate the long game because I am convinced that until one thinks of health in terms of decades they will be stuck riding the yo-yo diet.

Now, for the main purpose of this post. Have you ever heard of Last In First Out (LIFO)? This is a term I learned in accounting for inventory management. In a nutshell, LIFO means that the last item produced is the first to be expensed. If I make one widget and have already 99 in my inventory, I now have 100 widgets. I sell one widget and instead of recording the oldest widget (with its associated production cost), I record the the newest production (and it's cost) as the one sold. The 99 remaining widgets, although older, are still in the inventory. I am kind of stretching here, but I had an epiphany this morning. I realized that if I just didn't eat the "Last In" (last calories ate) of the day it couldn't be the "First Out" (first calories burned). Let me explain with an example:

Last night, I was full. Definitely not hungry, but I wanted one last snack before bed. I was tired and my ability to rationalize was weak. I decided on a toasted cinnamon and raisin bagel. On one side I smeared cream cheese, on the other - butter. This snack was easily approaching 500 calories. BTW: when losing weight, this should be considered a meal! Only after eating it did I think - I really didn't need that. My epiphany - if I would just skip that last "snack" of the day, I would be way more successful. When losing weight you don't want to use the LIFO method for inventory management. I wouldn't have to burn that bagel from last night if it was never consumed. Instead, I could be working on burning the old fat deposits.

There is another accounting method for inventory management - FIFO. First In, First Out. While it may not be entirely true physiologically (I don't know for certain), I am going to start thinking about how I can better tap my calorie storage (inventory) before having to burn last nights snack. The only way to do this is to be in a caloric deficit at the end of the day. In this way, my body has no choice but to burn old calories stored as fat.

I am convinced that my last snack of the day has consistently put my caloric consumption above my BMR (what I burn). It is that bowl of cereal or midnight snack that I routinely eat that puts me into LIFO. What put's you into caloric LIFO?