What it's Like to Have a Homeostat

Calories in, Calories Out

So, I know that I used to have a homeostat that kept my fat reserves where they should be.

As a youngster, my weight rose smoothly as I grew, until I was twenty five years old, full grown, broad shouldered and very strong. I never did any sort of strength training, or indeed much in the way of regular exercise. What I did do, I did for fun. I was just built that way. I weighed thirteen and a half stone.

All my adult life, my weight was roughly what it should be, thirteen and a half stone.

It didn't matter what I did, it didn't matter I was lazy, didn't matter I was sporty, didn't matter what I ate, didn't matter what I drank, and man I drank a lot.

I've very little idea how much variation there was, because I rarely gave it a moment's thought.

My jackets were 44regular, my shirts had 16inch necks (and needed tapering to fit properly because the standard size bagged round the waist for me, I was too V-shaped). My trousers all had 34inch waists.

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Three separate times, I've spent three entire months skiing.

I skied Nine to Five, Monday to Friday, up on the first lift, ski all morning, lunch somewhere, ski all afternoon and then once the last lift has shut, sit and smoke and look at the hills for a half hour; then flying down the mountain all alone as the sun went down, exercising as hard as a human being can handle.

Weekends off because the slopes were busy and I needed a rest. Journal à lire, café à boire.

Eating at hotel buffets where there was as much pasta and cheese and bread and wine as a man could want, making friends amongst the tourists and saisonnaires and carousing in late bars, drinking and dancing.

Burning vast amounts of calories and eating and drinking vast amounts of calories.

Never shifted my weight a bit.

The only time I noticed a change in my weight was the one time it went down.

Once, when I was about thirty, I cycled across France, keeping away from civilization and cars, sleeping under hedges, living on coffee and cigars, eating when I found somewhere that sold food. Usually hungry.

I have a vivid memory of cycling twenty miles to a village I thought might have a shop, looking for breakfast, and having the door to the village shop shut in my face, because it was noon.

<<Monsieur, s'il vous plaît. J'ai très faim. Je n'ai pas mangé aujourd'hui, pas hier.>>

<<Désolé, monsieur, c'est la fête du Travail. On ne fait rien.>>

I love France, I love the French. I love their wit and their cruel sarcasm. The way they're always either hot or cold to strangers. But really....

Occasionally going to a good restaurant when I passed one listed in the Red Guide.

When I got back to Cambridge I was so thin you could see my internal organs. I didn't like it. I was worried someone might try to start a fight with me and I'd have to back down because I was so underpowered.

Luckily, this lasted for a couple of weeks. My weight went back to thirteen and a half stone as quick as boiled asparagus, and it stayed there.

That's what it's like when everything is working right.