Lifting and losing.

I’ve done sports at different levels of activity my whole life and predictably, my weight has varied conversely. I don’t get too worked up about this. I’m never really thin, but my shoulders are broad and I have big haunches from spending my childhood in a deep lunge. These make me sortof hourglassy. The range where I look like an unremarkably sized person spans tens of pounds. But I was definitely at the top of that range when I started weightlifting. Deeply resentful at spending my thought on something so fucking boring, I figured I should accompany the weightlifting with modest efforts at weight loss.

I’m not willing to do much about weight loss. I did too much of that when I was making weight for tkd competitions, and besides, I love eating. But I grudgingly figured I could maybe try portion control, and I happily did the part I always like, which is work out like an animal. My trainer forbade me from weighing myself more than once a month (which is twelve times a year more than I’d done since I quit tkd). So I switched to more protein and ate slightly less and sortof wondered whether it was working. Without weighing myself, I tried to find other gauges.

That didn’t work. I’m definitely on board with not weighing myself often. But all the ways I tried to tell what my body was doing disagreed with each other. They were all haphazard and subjective, and they always countered each other. Looked good in glimpses in windows and mirrors? Clothes would feel tighter. Didn’t eat much? Felt heavy and sluggish. Felt great, light and springy, clothes loose? Scale said I was heavier that month. Running my hands over my body, felt bulgy and fleshy? Looked thinner in mirrors, got compliments. It wasn’t so much that I cared whether the indicators were going up or down, but the fact that they never agreed frustrated me to tears.* The best thing I did was find a physiology professor at Sac State with a dunk tank, someone who could tell me my BMI.

The other thing that happened that was frustrating and baffling was that my numbers, the weight I was lifting on the big lifts, weren’t going up. I thought they would go up! That’s the fun part, right? The big early gains! My push-ups are looking sweet. My box jumps are getting higher. I’m so close to a pull-up! But my max deadlift gained five pounds in nine months. That sucked. I walked into that gym a beast and a year later I’m the same beast? How does that work, especially when I feel stronger at daily stuff?

It was the physiology professor who sorted things out for me. I’ve been to the dunk tank three times, once in January, once in May and once in August.  I’ve lost twenty-five pounds of fat and gained one pound of muscle. He told me to be patient. He said not to expect big gains in strength as long as I’m losing weight, because it is so hard to build muscle in calorie deficit. He compliments my trainer, says it is unusual to gain any muscle while losing weight. He picked a target BMI for me and a corresponding goal weight. Since that turned out to be my off-season college weight, it sounds reasonable to me.  Now I have appointments with him every three months.

I have some more weight to lose. Not as much as I’ve already lost. I’d like to be done with that by the end of the year, because frankly, having a weightloss perspective on food is fucking boring. So, you know. Working out really hard and eating less is working. The only other interesting part has been my appearance, which maybe I’ll tell you about another day.

 

 

*This finally went away this summer. Turns out that was because my weight has held steady since May. This is fine. I was grateful for consistency between my guesses at indicators and my weighed results. Also, since my weight has been holding steady, I was able to lift ten more pounds on my deadlift.