Friday 21 November 2003

Pic of the day: Still some left, but I don't look about to give birth at least.

Losing fat the boring way

These days, I can look down and see that my guts take up less space than they did this summer. This is not a great loss. There is still more than I would normally need.

***

Being a man is generally great fun, but the male distribution of fat leaves something to be desired, in terms of health at least. Our fat tends to accumulate around the kidneys and then the guts. For reasons not clearly understood (at least by me) this is pretty much the worst place you can have it. I understand that from here it will quickly enter the blood stream in case of stress, even if the stress does not actually require a physical workout to solve the problem. I guess men usually solved their problems through physical work, back when our species was designed.

In contrast, women tend to save their fat further down, on their hips and thighs. This fat is less eager to jump into the bloodstream, and therefore less likely to clog up arteries. It is however released during gestation and lactation. I guess those were the big stresses for women back when the human body was first tested out. (I am sure it is still quite a challenge, but these days it's a lot more optional.) And you may have noticed that children often are fat all over, with the fat being used as a layer of insulation. Apart from these general patterns, there are family variations and individual variations. (I was about to add racial or ethnic variations to the list, but in truth our species is so young that these regional variations really fall under "family variations". There are less extreme variations in the genetic makeup of the entire human race than within some tribes of chimpanzees.)

***

No matter what you may think about my manliness in other ways, I definitely have a manly fat distribution. Intriguingly, this is sort of an afterthought; when I was a teenager, my body was more feminine than it is today. Some changes are irreversible, I guess, such as the general shape of the skeleton; so I still have narrower shoulders and broader hips than the average man. Stuff like that. But over the years, the fat has migrated to just above the belt (and lately there has been more and more of it), along with other changes such as ever spreading fur. (And others, even less fit to mention in a public entry.) Of these changes, only the fat is likely to prove a health problem. And then only if I keep more fat on my body than I need.

This is why I decided this summer to eat more bread with jam and less of everything else. I know from theory and experience that this causes me to lose weight for a while, until I reach the "floor" of my normal weight. (Conversely there is a "ceiling" to my normal weight, approximately 10% overweight, which I believe is determined by my physical activity. As long as I keep walking at least an hour a day, I get more exercise the more fat I carry around. This makes it harder and harder to gain weight, the more I have of it.)

I still have more fat on my "midlife bulge" than I need. I also eat some more fat than I need, mainly in the form of cheese and some milk chocolate. (Dark chocolate is not fattening, rather the opposite. But it makes my guts run wild, so I don't eat it much.) But I am almost certainly below the official "overweight line" and still shrinking. And while it is not a fancy or exciting way to lose weight, it is far better than the flu...