Look at that trend line baby, mm-hmm! I am just as amazed as I was a decade ago when I lost roughly 20kg by maintaining a calorie deficit. It was truly magical for someone who was overweight and obese throughout their childhood. It became a defining feature of my self, something the chatter in my brain would keep affirming.
A decade later, after having maintained that weight, gained it back twice, and lost it again, I have more thoughts on the topic. I feel I was entirely missing a very important aspect, and I would like to revise my position.
There's the mechanics of weight loss, which undoubtedly remains to be a calorie deficit, and then there's the humanity of weight loss, which is often overlooked. A decade later, we have weight loss drugs that essentially "cure" the "illness" of hunger, which definitely work on a mechanical level by simply reducing the calories consumed more than your maintenance needs, but it too, I feel, mistakes hunger for the illness, so to speak.
The real question is not how to lose weight, because today we already have a pill for that, or of course insights from my old blog post, but it is to understand why we feel insatiable hunger and exceed our BMR so easily in the first place? How was I able to overcome it multiple times in the last 10 years? Why was I unable to maintain that and ended up gaining weight back? From normal BMI to obese?
This is exactly what I feel I missed back then, and was forced to confront. This can be a question with a unique answer for everyone, for brain, gut, and hormones are literally not fully understood. However, there are some hypotheses you could have, hormones? obesogenic world? toxic relationships? For me, it was the modern hobby we all share.
stress
Yup. The final boss of most maladaptive behaviors. In my case, the stress is what kept me away from doing the things that guarantee a calorie deficit. You may really optimize every ingredient to be low in calorie density, remove all snacks from your pantry, switch to zero oil or sugar free alternates, but the underlying stress is what made me order a 12-inch pizza at night, quickly stuff embarrassingly huge portions of leftovers straight from the fridge over the sink before even plating or heating it. What brought out this "illness" in me was not lack of understanding of a calorie deficit, but underlying stress. My body was screaming for help. If this feels familiar, it may be worth seeking support. Ironically, the stress of maintaining a calorie deficit in such a state only fuels the stress, so you'll find yourself burned out after a few weeks of diet or gym.
What worked for me a decade ago was the fact that I had moved 2000 kms away from home, which could usually trigger stress, but thanks to my colored childhood, it actually suddenly calmed my nervous system. On top of that, I had joined a new job where I felt overqualified, with a commute of a 10-minute walk, albeit with a dreadful road crossing (remember folks, India is not for beginners). I also had free time to devote to 3 hour-long walks, access to office canteen's affordable and healthy breakfasts and lunches, and still having enough time to cook my own meals. Imagine the luxurious life I was living back then? The 30s me just dreams of that.
so what changed?
I was able to maintain my weight for a good half-decade 2017-2022, but late 22 to 26 have been quite chaotic. As I am writing, I can already remember some major life events that caused bursts of stress, be it the dark clouds of layoffs in the tech industry, my individual discovery of self, the infliction of 30 revolutions around the sun (how does one suddenly start getting injured doing absolutely nothing?) and some major shifts in relationships. That's an enormous amount of stress, that the 20-something me could never have imagined enduring.
These were fires that I needed to fight, as opposed to the second favorite hobby of us all, avoidance. As these got addressed, it became easy to focus on weight loss/muscle gain/health in general. I implore you to focus on these two world-famous hobbies of stress and avoidance, and take it easy even if your diet is not "working". The mechanism might not be faulty, the environment might be, the self that the environment or the mechanism is happening to might just not be in sync.
tldr please?
I wrote about a simple understanding of a calorie deficit and immediately benefiting from it a decade ago, but what I missed was how stress-free my life was, which allowed me to maintain a calorie deficit for years going forward. But life in my 30s brought various anxieties and reflections that made it hard to achieve a deficit. My challenge is anxiety control, not calorie control.