Malachi O'Dohertyin the media about weight loss tend to focus on body image rather than health and well being. 

You may be accused of exercising a prejudice, body shaming others, if you imply that there is something wrong with being fat. People have a right to be fat if they want to be.

I have twice now in the last ten years, shed a bit of surplus weight and while it is gratifying to see the reduction in my waistline the primary concern for me was not to change shape but to feel fitter. The first time was when I was turning 60.

I was 12 stone 5, which is heavy if you are 5 foot 3. I was aware that I was not as fit as I had been. One day out walking with my twin brother, heading for the top of Knocklayde, I had to turn back. He ran on up to the top. And one thing about having a twin who is so like you that many people confuse you, is that you assume that you can do anything he can.

I was also given a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, though it wasn’t so serious that I had to be medicated.

Over a period of four or five months, with a slow, gradual reduction, I took off two stone.

I did this by eating less and walking more. At the end of the period I bought a bicycle and wrote a book, On My Own Two Wheels; Back in the Saddle at Sixty (Blackstaff).

Since then, repeat monitoring of my alleged diabetes shows that my readings are normal. I stay on the books as a diabetic, because it is regarded as a permanent condition, but if I was being tested for it for the first time today I would be told I don’t have it.

It gets me pulled in for check ups, which is handy, though perhaps a bit of a bummer in relation to travel insurance.

Coming up to 70 I had put back on one of those discarded stone. I was up to about 11 stone 4.

My doctor told me my blood pressure was too high, often about 150/90 and wanted to put me on a tablet.

So I repeated the strategy of the last time, eating smaller portions, growing to feel assured by peckishness rather than alarmed by it and I have shed, so far since Christmas about 11 pounds. Weight varies even through the day and I’m not sure my scales are very accurate. I was trying for an average weight loss of two pounds a week, like the last time, but it is moving much slower than that.

More like two pounds a fortnight. Still, that takes off a stone in three and a half months.

And learning to eat modestly over a protracted period rather than crash dieting helps me maintain new habits of not stuffing myself. I want to avoid bounce-back.

As before, the loss of body fat has been a lovely comfort. It’s my hands which remind me constantly that I am thinner.

Fat is not all gathered at the waist so one of the early differences was the feeling in my fingers and wrist. My watch hung more loosely. Rings slid on and off.

I had to go down a waist size on my trousers from 36 to 34 but there were old pairs in the drawer so I didn’t have to buy new ones.

My blood pressure is lower though the biggest difference is at the diastolic end. I’ve just measured it at 146/66. Night time readings, slumped in front of the tele it’s often about 125/66.

The difference this makes to my life is in my sense of general well being.

My digestion works better.

When I overeat the gut is like an overpacked suitcase.

If I finish a meal with a sense that there is room for a little more the temptation to continue only lasts a few minutes and goes away if I drink a glass of water.

The fat is internal too, clings to body organs and inhibits their functioning.

If you are light inside yourself evacuation isn’t driven by the pressure of what’s behind it. There is less body gas and less urgency. Your arse will reward in all manner of ways for giving it a rest.

If you are fat by choice and want to stay that way, then you are really making quite a foolish decision, like the smoker who claims to want to smoke. No one wants to be unwell.

More likely you are rationalising a condition you don’t feel you can do much about.

Framing the argument in terms of appearance and arguing that big is beautiful - and I don’t argue with that - skips the real concern which is health and well being.

And the health argument tends to focus on hypertension and diabetes. That’s fair, but the immediate rewards are in the body’s own comfort.

And I found that that starts from the first couple of days. Some of the excess weight is the contents of the gut. Letting it unpack and repacking it more lightly is like travelling with hand luggage. It feels so much better.

I spoke to a friend about this and said, Learn to think of a little peckishness as confirmation that your body is working well. She said, I don’t feel peckishness, I feel starvation.

I don’t have an answer to that because I don’t experience that need to eat as strongly as that.

But where I used to break off from work mid morning and have a couple of chocolate biscuits, now when hunger comes between meals I will eat a grape or a cherry tomato and have a glass of water.
 
I will still have a chocolate if someone is passing them round, but I will only have one.

The pleasure I take from a dessert after a meal is always stronger in the first bite than in later bites, so I just take that and no more.

I still drink wine with meals and some nights have a small whiskey before bed. I am not an ascetic.

I’m just a little guy who is getting smaller.

⏭ Malachi O'Doherty is a writer and Broadcaster. 

Battle Of The Bulge

Malachi O'Dohertyin the media about weight loss tend to focus on body image rather than health and well being. 

You may be accused of exercising a prejudice, body shaming others, if you imply that there is something wrong with being fat. People have a right to be fat if they want to be.

I have twice now in the last ten years, shed a bit of surplus weight and while it is gratifying to see the reduction in my waistline the primary concern for me was not to change shape but to feel fitter. The first time was when I was turning 60.

I was 12 stone 5, which is heavy if you are 5 foot 3. I was aware that I was not as fit as I had been. One day out walking with my twin brother, heading for the top of Knocklayde, I had to turn back. He ran on up to the top. And one thing about having a twin who is so like you that many people confuse you, is that you assume that you can do anything he can.

I was also given a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, though it wasn’t so serious that I had to be medicated.

Over a period of four or five months, with a slow, gradual reduction, I took off two stone.

I did this by eating less and walking more. At the end of the period I bought a bicycle and wrote a book, On My Own Two Wheels; Back in the Saddle at Sixty (Blackstaff).

Since then, repeat monitoring of my alleged diabetes shows that my readings are normal. I stay on the books as a diabetic, because it is regarded as a permanent condition, but if I was being tested for it for the first time today I would be told I don’t have it.

It gets me pulled in for check ups, which is handy, though perhaps a bit of a bummer in relation to travel insurance.

Coming up to 70 I had put back on one of those discarded stone. I was up to about 11 stone 4.

My doctor told me my blood pressure was too high, often about 150/90 and wanted to put me on a tablet.

So I repeated the strategy of the last time, eating smaller portions, growing to feel assured by peckishness rather than alarmed by it and I have shed, so far since Christmas about 11 pounds. Weight varies even through the day and I’m not sure my scales are very accurate. I was trying for an average weight loss of two pounds a week, like the last time, but it is moving much slower than that.

More like two pounds a fortnight. Still, that takes off a stone in three and a half months.

And learning to eat modestly over a protracted period rather than crash dieting helps me maintain new habits of not stuffing myself. I want to avoid bounce-back.

As before, the loss of body fat has been a lovely comfort. It’s my hands which remind me constantly that I am thinner.

Fat is not all gathered at the waist so one of the early differences was the feeling in my fingers and wrist. My watch hung more loosely. Rings slid on and off.

I had to go down a waist size on my trousers from 36 to 34 but there were old pairs in the drawer so I didn’t have to buy new ones.

My blood pressure is lower though the biggest difference is at the diastolic end. I’ve just measured it at 146/66. Night time readings, slumped in front of the tele it’s often about 125/66.

The difference this makes to my life is in my sense of general well being.

My digestion works better.

When I overeat the gut is like an overpacked suitcase.

If I finish a meal with a sense that there is room for a little more the temptation to continue only lasts a few minutes and goes away if I drink a glass of water.

The fat is internal too, clings to body organs and inhibits their functioning.

If you are light inside yourself evacuation isn’t driven by the pressure of what’s behind it. There is less body gas and less urgency. Your arse will reward in all manner of ways for giving it a rest.

If you are fat by choice and want to stay that way, then you are really making quite a foolish decision, like the smoker who claims to want to smoke. No one wants to be unwell.

More likely you are rationalising a condition you don’t feel you can do much about.

Framing the argument in terms of appearance and arguing that big is beautiful - and I don’t argue with that - skips the real concern which is health and well being.

And the health argument tends to focus on hypertension and diabetes. That’s fair, but the immediate rewards are in the body’s own comfort.

And I found that that starts from the first couple of days. Some of the excess weight is the contents of the gut. Letting it unpack and repacking it more lightly is like travelling with hand luggage. It feels so much better.

I spoke to a friend about this and said, Learn to think of a little peckishness as confirmation that your body is working well. She said, I don’t feel peckishness, I feel starvation.

I don’t have an answer to that because I don’t experience that need to eat as strongly as that.

But where I used to break off from work mid morning and have a couple of chocolate biscuits, now when hunger comes between meals I will eat a grape or a cherry tomato and have a glass of water.
 
I will still have a chocolate if someone is passing them round, but I will only have one.

The pleasure I take from a dessert after a meal is always stronger in the first bite than in later bites, so I just take that and no more.

I still drink wine with meals and some nights have a small whiskey before bed. I am not an ascetic.

I’m just a little guy who is getting smaller.

⏭ Malachi O'Doherty is a writer and Broadcaster. 

4 comments:

  1. Malachi,

    To keep the pounds off, just take Oscar Wildes advice......

    “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll draw on this - need to, being at my heaviest ever!

    As for the smoker who wants to smoke - I cited Woody Allen in another post where he quipped that you can l live to be 100 if you give up everything that would make you want to live to be 100.

    I no longer smoke but I would love to!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you tried vaping 🚬 ☁ ?

      Delete
    2. I had a few draws one day from a friend's. It was fine but looked too clumsy

      Delete