A reader asked the following question:
But now I want to know what you think is the psychopathology of people who want to lose a more moderate amount of weight (say twenty pounds) and are unable to do so?
In these situations, there is a strong possibility that the body is simply comfortable at that weight and struggling with this state of comfort is pure masochism. If this were my situation, I’d do the following:
1. Measure fasting blood sugar level over a course of a couple of months (once a week should do it).
2. Measure blood pressure over the same length of time, preferably in summer.
If the blood sugar is consistently under 90 and the BP is always around 120/80, I’d just quit worrying about weight altogether and accept it the way it is.
If the anxiety persists, one has to start asking the question of what purpose this anxiety serves in his or her life. What is the constant worry about “the extra 5 lbs” trying to shut out? What is the bigger, scarier concern that is lurking behind it? Small, mundane anxieties often exist to distract us from bigger underlying problems.
Clarissa's Blog 
Of course you quote me the time I misspell “lose”… Thank goodness for internet anonymity 😉
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I didn’t notice it either or I would have changed it. 🙂
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Well, my motivation for losing some weight is rather trivial. I love good quality clothes and over the years, have managed to assemble a very decent wardrobe (thrift stores, super sales, ebay etc.) on a very modest budget. I was looking to buy a jacket online tonight and just to make sure it fit, I asked my girlfriend to measure me. I’ve gone from jacket size 42 to 44.
That means most of my clothes, especially the winter-y, more ‘fitted’ ones don’t fit me now and it’s seriously bumming me out. Not only do I not get to enjoy my awesome clothes, but I also can’t afford to replace my wardrobe.
I’m seriously thinking about using this as motivation for losing this small amount of weight (probably 10-15 lb).
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Good clothes are serious, man. I totally support!
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Well, having a wardrobe one no longer can use is a great reason to lose weight. However, if you have a stable weight / BMI of 19 to 25, have normal blood glucose and blood pressure, and find it very difficult to lose more than 5 pounds, I am with Clarissa. Your body is likely to maintain itself most easily at that weight – why fight it? Get your wardrobe at the stable weight. Exercise, and expect that your weight may not change much (perhaps even increase a bit), just the proportion of muscle to fat.
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” Exercise, and expect that your weight may not change much (perhaps even increase a bit), just the proportion of muscle to fat.”
– I have actually started gaining weight ( a little bit but still), even though I have never been as physically active in my life. Is it possible that the weight-lifting is actually giving me muscle mass?
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Yep, this is known to happen. If you’re gaining weight and dropping in size or even staying the same size, you’re converting light fat to heavy muscle. This tends to be really good both health-wise and ease-of-activity-wise.
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Well, getting down to a weight just because it is the official right one is a losing proposition as your body will want to go to the range it likes best.
But, you can go to the lower end of the range it likes best just by REALLY eating a little less and exercising a little more. But you also have to decide it is really going to happen, believe in it … and I find that when fatigued / stressed, I do not make this priority even when I think I might or should. So you have to rest up, then set an intention, then do a noticeable but not very extreme program, and not try to go below a weight you find your body actually likes and maintains easily.
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I find that when fatigued or stressed I do not eat, in which case….voila I was once down to 49 kilos.
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Under MEGA stress my metabolism goes up, and then I lose weight despite getting hungrier and eating more. But it has to be MEGA stress.
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One should never worry too much about weight, in some respects, as it is a first world problem.
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It’s 6:43 am here and I have to know you are being ironic about “first world problems” or I will lose faith in humanity. 🙂
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I could be wrong, actually, as I just found this article:
http://dailysun.mobi/news/read/6349/bathembu-s-fat-curse
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Well, in first world it is the locus or metaphor wherein and whereby various kinds of psychic pain are expressed and-or suppressed, so it is not to be ignored.
Globally there are all these issues about food policy and access, among others, so it matters too. Obesity has become a problem in Mexico since NAFTA, and in Brazil you can see the formerly skinny poor now covered with an unhealthy layer of probably Nestlé induced fat. There are all these questions of food, agriculture, power, identity, etc., and it is key … one of the things I’d like to work on if I were in another field, actually.
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Sure, although in some respects the answer really is just so easy — if you were to get completely stressed out of a prolonged duration or have little access to food, you would not be concerned about weight.
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That though is just the reply to the worry about 5 pounds, though. I’m interested in it Freudianly, in part … people, when they worry about weight, are often actually worrying about something else … the same as with money, what is one really talking about when one talks about it, not money itself much of the time.
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If worries about money become so intense that they visit you in your dreams, that means your psyche is telling you that you are exausted and your energy is depleted.
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Yeah, a lot of times when one imagines one is worrying about one thing, one is worried about another. For instance I recently bought a computer chair on Ebay and I am worried about it. It’s not that I am not completely covered for the cost of it by PayPal or that it was even unduly expensive, but I had a notion recently, just on the basis of a couple of strange events, that one or two people were treating me like a typical woman (that is, without status or respect), so I anticipate that for some bizarre reason this company may withhold a piece of office furniture from me, to put me in my place.
Odd, I know.
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You will become fixated later on, however, and will pass this obssession down to future generations. I obviously wasn’t around during Holodomor but my attitude to food is as unhealthy as if I had been. When I can’t eat when I planned I become extremely distraught and unhinged. You don’t want to see me in that state because it’s scary.
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In Russia, after American food started getting massively imported, there are soaring obesity rates. This is why I keep saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with American food and everybody keeps freaking out.
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US food, it is all the weird stuff they feed the animals now and probably the plants as well. You are consuming whatever was put into the food to fatten it up fast. It was not like this earlier on.
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