How Boys Lose Weight

Warning – Gross generalizations about the differences between the sexes follows. If they don’t apply to you, don’t get mad at me. That’s why they are called gross generalizations… When I was 13, I went on the Dr Stillman’s Water Diet and lost 25 pounds. That same summer, my brother Al decided he needed to shape up, so he did what boys do when they want to lose a few pounds. He gave up Cheetos and started running and lifting weights.

Guess who still has the weight problem?

When girls want to lose weight, we starve ourselves. When boys want to lose weight, they cut back on the junk and head to the gym. And they always lose weight faster than we do. And, in my family’s case at least, they keep it off.

Diets don’t work. I am living proof of that. But until recently, I couldn’t wrap my brain around that in a way that was meaningful enough to move me to anything other than frustration.

Lately, though I have been doing a lot of reading, inspired by my friend Sam’s 30 pound weight loss following the program called “Burn the fat, Feed the muscle“. I started reading the program book (it’s over 300 pages, so it’s taking some time), and what I’ve read so far is this – When you diet alone, you lose fat, but also a fair amount of water and muscle. At a certain point, if your calorie intake is too low, you go into starvation mode and your metabolism slows down. So the weight loss slows, and when you go off the diet, you gain wieght back faster than you can say “Cheetos”. Okay, I’m starting to get it…

Then, a few weeks ago, a study is published showing that dieters who don’t exercise don’t just lose muscle – they lose bone! Researchers compared those who went on a diet for a year with those who ramped up their exercise for a year. The former lost an average of 18 lbs, the latter 15 lbs. But most shocking was that the dieters also lost 2% of their bone mass!

So, you go on a diet. You drop 20 pounds. If you do it the way I usually do, which is rapidly, the first 5 pounds of that is probably water, part of it is muscle, a fair amount is fat, and some of it is bone! Then you regain, and you’ve replaced that muscle and bone with fat.

I can hear Henry Higgens now… “I think she’s got it!”

You know what? I just remembered. I was thin for a number of years. I lost 25 pounds during my first 3 months living in New York City. I did absolutely nothing consciously to lose the weight, and in fact, that first year in New York was one filled with culinary awakenings. All I had done was live like a New Yorker, which basically meant that I walked everywhere I went. I exercised. I didn’t diet. I started running shortly thereafter, and even did a few10K’s. And I kept the weight off for almost 10 years.

Then I got pregnant.

Since then it has been nothing but gain, gain and gain. I’ve lost up to 30lbs at a stint using either Weight Watchers or Atkins or South Beach. But it comes right back on, because who can keep that up forever?

Call me an idiot, but I swear that I just realized that at no point since having my kids have I ever gotten back to a regular exercise program. I don’t think I’ve gone to the gym or done my treadmill for more than a week or two at a time. And, since my office is now a scant one block from my apartment, I don’t even walk anymore. No wonder I can’t keep the weight off!

As my friend Sam, who is also a doc, says – “All those years of medical training, and I never really learned about nutrition till I read this book.'”

Well, this year, I’m giving myself a break from dieting. Or, more truthfully, a break from trying to start a diet. This week, I’ve been to the gym 3 times, did cardio and even picked up a few weights. And I’m going to try to do that for most days of this upcoming year of my life. And I’m not going on a diet.

Oh, alright, I’ll give up the Cheetos…

Category: Second opinions, considerations