I’ve mentioned this pattern of mine before in another thread. My experience has shown me that just in the same way that a muscle becomes sore after use, my willpower wanes as I lose weight and near a lower end threshold. At this point, my psychology actually subtly changes and I find myself eating at a surplus. It is not like I am consciously CHOOSING to eat at a surplus, it is more like the sober alcoholic who, with years of sobriety, walks in to a bar in a kind of “fugue state” and is “struck drunk”. I am struck eating at a daily surplus and gain back about 10 lbs. Now, on the upper end of my yo-yo threshold, I become hyper aware of the discomfort both mentally and physically that the extra weight incurs. My brain-muscle is then leveraged to eat better and keep a cleaner routine and thus I begin to drop weight again.
So what is the solution? Based on what I have outlined above, there is something here about mind-body connections and perceptions that needs to shift to the left (lower set point). The body feels regular and regulated at a certain set point and if we lose weight in a deregulating way, we may outwardly look healthy but cellularly and neurologically, we are imbalanced. It may be that we want to parallel the Boiling Frog parable with our weight loss / body recomposition.
Implementing a well-formulated ketogenic diet as best we can, mostly with a non-restrictive mentality, over weeks and months, our digestive health improves and it becomes more arduous (and if we are being honest about our nutrition) its also quite stuffing to continually overeat high fat-moderate protein-low carbohydrate.
Over time the body-mind connection will experience a shift. The body will be reassured that it is safe, well-fed and will be fed well again. This is when we see our fellow ketonians safely fasting effectively, breaking their fasts effectively, resuming their nutrition effectively. No panic, no binge, no increased stress hormones.
Maybe this is an indication that their mind-body set point is ready to shift to the left, gradually. Not 3+ pounds lost a week, but 1 pound lost a week, a half a pound lost a week or even less.
The slower and more consistently we lose weight insofar as our mental-muscle is still effectively placated to, the greater the chance our physiology will actually adapt to a lower set point.
That voice you hear in your head, I got it too. Once we realize that it is an absolutely useful voice, not just that negative self-speak it is condemned to being, the quicker we can realize that it is the very real integration of the tens of thousands of little measurements your body and mind are taking into account to protect you.
