Some weighty thoughs on diet....

When I started trying to lose weight about two and a half years ago, my goal was to lose 100 pounds. This was because I had done careful scientific analysis that determined that that would put me at the pefect weight.

OK, that's bullshit. I chose 100 pounds because it was a nice round number. And I'm pretty much there. I was around 250 at my fattest. Right now I'm bouncing between about 149 and 155, depending on how good I've been about diet and exersize in a given week, and if I've taken a big poop or not.

That means on most days I'm still overweight, by a hair. I have a BMI of 25.1, while anything above 24.9 is overweight. Then again, the difference for me between overweight and normal is about 2 pounds. It's hard to imagine that gaining a pound is going to suddely put me in the grave a decade earlier, or vice versa. (Besides, given my driving I'll probably be killed in a car accident long before my body gives out).

The thing is that I've pretty much gotten to the point where I've changed most of my bad habits. I've gone from never exersizing to spending an hour and a half exersizing most days (although I find myself having to shorten my workout one or two days a week for various reasons). My eating habits are much improved, but I still give in to the occasional temptation - donuts and cookies at work, way too much low-fat ice cream eaten directly out of the scround at home (which is why I've been trying to buy popsicles and other novelities instead - portion control). I still like a smear of Nutella on my weekend toast. I eat fewer vegetables than I should, and too much carbs.

But overall I probably exersize more and eat better than the average American. While I have no sympathy for fat advocates who mumble about how they can't do anything about their weight between mouthfuls of fudge, I think there is some truth to genetics, and that I have more difficulty burning calories than the average person, and that I have to compensate for that.

The question is, how much? I obviously could lose more weight - I still have a bit of a gut. And it would make my life easier if I could lose about 3/4" of an inch or so in the waist - right now I'm straddling an anoying line between being a 34 and a 36 in terms of pants size - 36's are what I normally wear, and they are starting to look too big, but I've bought 34's and they still feel snug to me. (On the other hand, 30 months ago I was wearing size 46 pants).

But I'm not sure if skipping the cookies at all-hands meetings or spending 115 minutes on the Precor instead of 90 is worth it. There are a lot of good things about losing weight - I can walk up stairs without getting winded, I don't have to special-order pants, people I hardly know congratulate me, and I piss the hell out of my Aunt, who thinks I'm anorexic. On the other hand, I always thought that the reason I was always single was because I was fat. Now that I'm not fat anymore, I'm realizing that it's probably more because I'm boring, antisocial, and hideously disfigured. It was easier when I could blame it on being fat.