22/02/24 96 36.74 0 1
21/02/24 95.7 36.53 0 1
20/02/24 95.6 36.73 0 1
19/02/24 96.5 0 1
18/02/24 96.3 36.43 1 1
17/02/24 95.6 36.46 0 1
16/02/24 96 36.61 0 1
15/02/24 96 0 1
So I didn't try another ex150 bout, because I think that: 'What happens when I'm not forcing something to happen?' is the most important question I could currently answer.
And it looks like the answer is the one I don't want. It looks to me like my set-point is rising smoothly at 1kg/month.
That's a terrifying rate! The weight gain that worried me into starting this experiment in the first place was 1kg every three months.
To recap, when first I forswore the polyunsaturated evil/gave up sulphites etc, my weight dropped effortlessly from '99kg and rising' to '95kg and stable'.
I had until recently the impression that nothing else I've done has made any difference long-term.
ex150ish and the variant with sour cream (darker blue bits) are clearly a 'magical' way to lose weight effortlessly.
Every time I try it, I rapidly lose some water weight, and I slowly lose some fat too, but as soon as I stop doing it, the water weight comes back on immediately, and the fat weight comes back on slowly, and I keep gaining until I'm back to set-point.
And visiting Mum (red bits) seems to involve being overfed and going a kilo or so over set-point, which then comes back off the following week.
So the whole high-level explanation for my last year could have been as simple as:
'My set-point was rising steadily, giving up PUFAs brought it slowly down to 95kg over three months, and then the effect stopped and it's been stable ever since'.
Metabolically it looks the same, over three months my necessary thyroid dose came down, and then for the last seven months it's been fairly stable at its new level, about half what it once was.
Which was already weird.
But now, something has changed. I'm eating 'ad-lib high protein swamp' like I have been doing all year, and suddenly I'm seeing my set-point rising rapidly.
Thyroid dose still seems stable, though.
So I wonder what is going on.
I came back from the Pennines after Christmas at 95kg, actually a little lower than last time, and I figured that I'd drop a bit over the next week.
That may or may not have started to happen, but before it had time, I for social reasons had four different sessions of getting drunk and eating out.
The one that looked most suspicious involved a Thai green chicken curry, which I think traditionally involves peanut oil, and probably cheap chicken-of-evil which I should be ashamed of eating on animal welfare grounds alone.
That period of indiscipline seemed to increase my weight by a kilo (but not increase my thyroid dose).
I was expecting the extra weight to come off as quickly as it came, but no. It seems that my set point has risen permanently and is now going up.
That's most consistent with 'naive CICO', the theory that seems so self-evidently silly that I've never taken it seriously.
I ate more than I needed, my weight went up. I’ve continued to eat too much, and so it’s still rising.
That's obviously the truth (CICO is a law of physics), but I don't believe it as a causal explanation for a minute.
Any more than I believe that the problem is that I breathed in too much and didn’t breathe out enough. Even though that’s also obviously true. (MIMO is also a law of physics).
Another possible explanation is: 'I ate some PUFAs without realising, that's disturbed my fat-level-sensor, so now my body thinks it needs extra energy stores, and I'm eating more to get them'.
As a causal explanation, I could totally buy that, but I just don't see where the PUFAs came from.
Maybe there was a bit of peanut oil in that curry, and I know Kate used olive oil in her cooking, and maybe there's a bit of olive oil in the Picturehouse Pizzas that I've been eating fairly regularly recently, and maybe my other friends used vegetable oil to make their Sunday roast, etc.
But small amounts of PUFAs just shouldn't make a big difference. If 'PUFAs fuck you up' is true, then it should take lots of PUFAs over a long time to make a difference. And even if there were enough, why didn't they also tank my metabolism and force me to take more thyroid?
Another explanation is just: “you're middle aged, your set point is rising, that's what happens”. But then what on earth has been going on for the last few years? Why weight-stable during the pandemic? Why weight-drop last year?
Predictions then of these three ideas, assuming I just eat ad-lib no-PUFAs no-sulphites from now on, which is the plan:
Naive CICO: Set points don't exist, weight is now 96kg and will fluctuate according to your sloth/gluttony. Which is to say, no real prediction. A tautological idea, a theory that can never be confirmed or disproved. An explanation that always works in retrospect. I already know it’s true, it doesn’t tell me anything interesting.
Got PUFA'd: Absent any further PUFAing, should fix itself, set-point should come back down to 95kg (in fact slightly less, 95kg was the value post Xmas Mom Test)
Set point rising because middle-aged or some other problem: Should keep on rising.
None of these seem satisfactory, but out of the three my money's on: 'Got PUFA'd', so I predict that my weight will drop over the next couple of weeks.
And yet I find that I do not expect that to happen, so it seems that I do not actually believe what I think I believe. Sigh...
Alternatively, you lose weight quickly at first because you're not eating carbs (which make you retain water), but over time all that fat catches up with you and you're gaining... My experience with keto-like diets is that they work really well at first, but eventually all that fat catches up to you.
I wish bodies reacted more predictably.