On days after I fasted, those run 36 hours between meals, that resulted in a temporary loss, usually around six pounds, sometimes a little more. All of it back during the week until the next fast.
After eschewing White Death and various forms of lard, including cream and butter and cheese, my cruising weight dropped nine or ten pounds, so 195-196. However, on mornings after the fast, it now drops only four pounds.
I find this interesting. I am doing as much exercise as before, but only shedding two-thirds as much temporary weight after the same length fast.
I'm drinking as much water as I was. Still getting plenty of fat, mostly in the form of vegetable oils and nuts and fake butter–I couldn't give that up on baked potatoes. Not as good as real butter, but at least it's the yellow experience ...
Might be due to body composition. I figure I was about 14% body fat at 205, and maybe 11-12% now.
It is interesting ...
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I know that we're obsessed with fat as a society. Still, I have to wonder whether it's healthy for older adults, (myself included), to have such low percentages of body fat as 10 or 12%. It doesn't seem to be the norm at all in this age group without extreme artificial means. (Of course I do live in this culture and maybe I would observe a very low body fat ratio in senior citizens in some other developed culture.) I'm not talking about heart-straining obesity levels here, but a pot-belly and some fat seems natural at this age.
Unless you plan on getting lost in the woods for a week without any food, ten percent body fat is as much as you need. There's nothing remotely healthy about a pot-belly, it's dead weight you don't need.
Fit is better at any age, vis a vis continuing health.
Actually I do like having "emergency rations" available. But fat also adds some insulation (and I live in a fairly cold climate during the year). It adds a little shock protection if you fall, or whatever. Or if your teacher is fond of using you for power demonstrations it provides a little power dissipation before he gets through to musckle.
And I know that evolution is somewhat accidental, but when it dictates that a certain kind of energy store tends to happen more at a certain age, I suspect there might be some kind of survival value to it (perhaps beside the obvious one for starving situations).
Ooops. In that last comment it should have been "part of the year" and a slightly different spelling than "musckle".
After losing around sixty pounds over the past year and a half, I'm finding it to be a challenge to keep from losing more. Rather interesting, considering how it's been the other way around most of my life. But for some reason menopause flipped a switch.
Considering most of my friends keep telling me "don't lose any more weight," I think I'm definitely at the bottom of the scale for me. Especially since I'm now buying clothing in the "extra small" range and having to contemplate shopping in the junior section....
It is cool to be this slim and fit, though. Never been in this sort of shape before. Feels good, so I want to keep it this way.
True, my experience is that I get colder with less natural insulation, but I can put on another layer of clothing for that. And I can take that extra shirt off when I get warm ...
In a feast-or-famine situation, fat storage is useful. I expect that most of us get our food from markets these days and not using an atlatl, so that's maybe not applicable that you won't eat tomorrow because the deer were fleet.
Back in the day, few of us lived to become old, so that one isn't really evolutionary, but situational. We get fat now because we eat too much and don't exercise enough -- if we were chasing prey with a spear every day for food, probably we wouldn't be carrying excess weight.
We weren't designed to live to a hundred, only enough past puberty to have spawned. That we live longer is because many of our natural predators, including the itty bitty ones that cause disease, have been eliminated. And food and shelter have become more nutritious and better at protecting us, respectively.
Anything less than about 4-5% bodyfat is unhealthy, but for optimum health, there doesn't seem to be any advantage to the spare tire around the middle, and plenty of things that go along with it we know are unhealthy.
It's a choice, but obesity is now in the two-out-of-three range at just about every age, so getting older and fatter isn't necessarily a given -- lot of older folks stay trim. It's true there is a metabolic slowdown, but this is part of getting ready to die, that systems go offline, and if you can keep them running, you might put that off longer.
No guarantees, of course, any of us could keel over at any moment, but it's easier to fill an outside straight than an inside one, and if you can shade the odds your way? Why not?
If you are carrying 25 or 30% bodyfat, that's your business, of course, but I think it's a rationalization to consider it natural.
Returning from China, I don't have to tell you about obesity in the U.S. vis-a-vis Asia--or Europe or anywhere else for that matter.
Not biological then but cultural.
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