I am learning to love this new body of mine. I love its size and strength; I love my bulky, veiny hands and wrists and the way they move when I type; I love my calves, and my chest–I especially love the rippling muscles of my shoulders and back. I love that my body can run fast, lift heavy weights, and bend and twist in yoga classes.

This is the first time in my life I have felt this good about my body. But I still have my moments of regression. In fact, one just happened recently, and underlined the insidiousness of body-loathing.



Since this experiment in fat loss began (almost a year and a half ago) I’ve been focused on growth and recomposition rather than weight loss–and that has worked great for me. But my actual weight and pant size have remained the same for several months now.

Though I can see my body is changing–my muscles keep getting bigger and more defined–I decided to speed up the process of getting lean and make “visible abs” a goal. Not because I thought there was anything wrong with how I looked now, but I figured, since I’m so close anyway, wouldn’t it be nice to have 10-12% body fat for summer?

But I promised myself that if I started to get neurotic about it I would cease immediately.

So I researched my calorie count, based on a rough estimate of my lean body mass. I found an equation Lean Body Mass (LBM) X 12. I figured my body mass was somewhere between 190-and 200 pounds, so I rounded up and made it 2,400 calories.

It was a bit difficult for the first couple of days to eat so few calories–but I pushed through and soon got used to it–I even seemed to have gained energy for a while!

I even gave myself a “cheat day”–which in my own mind I renamed “Feast Day”–for both physiological and psychological benefit.

But after a couple of weeks I experienced a few things:

–I started feeling incredibly fatigued and foggy, such that I had a hard time pushing through with my training at the gym.

–I became, in my mind, more critical of my body. I started to think my gut and love handles were unacceptably big and felt the stress of wanting them to be smaller.

–I felt very restricted in terms of activity. Someone I’m dating wanted to have dinner somewhere and I felt as if basic things like going out to eat or getting a drink were not options for me to consider.

I finally broke down when, on a day following a Feast Day, I found that I was mentally unable to go back to such restriction. My brain and body rebelled against me. I couldn’t get the mantra, “EAT THE FOOD” (inspired by the writer Go Kaleo) out of my head.

Then I remembered the key premise and theme of my blog–the secret to my body recomposition was focusing on growth, not loss. Growth not only in the sense of muscle mass but also in athletic performance. When I hit a wall at the gym because I didn’t have the energy for hill sprints or another set of shrugs, I realized something was wrong with this new plan of mine.

I had this insight: I would rather eat more, lift heavier, and run faster than I would look any different than I do right now–even if I never have visible abs.

So I started eating more. I researched further and found my caloric needs are much higher (2,700 if I’m not active at all–3,700 [!!!] on days I train) and after a couple of days I felt great again.

In the gym and in yoga class my strength, speed, stamina are making huge gains.

While writing this in a cafe I enjoyed a delicious pastry–I feel free once again! This only lasted a couple of weeks for me, but I write this–and started this blog to begin with–because I know what it’s like to have that restricted feeling which inevitably leads to food binges, which leads to shame, which leads to either more restriction or a “giving up” and feeling hopeless.

I write this because there is another way. That old cycle of restriction-binge-hopelessness-restriction is so pervasive in our culture, so insidious, that after more than a year I fell for it again. I kept the deal I made with myself–I stopped as soon as I caught myself getting neurotic about it. I hope reading this helps someone as much as writing it does for me.