It Would Have Been a Triumphant Day

See, today would have been a triumphant day.

About a year ago today I came to the conclusion that I was sick and tired of dragging my fat ass around, and so decided to spend effort to change my lifestyle to actually lose weight. I had a copy of The Hacker's Diet by John Walker for a while, and read it. The key ideas for weight loss (and subsequent control) are:

1. Recalibrate the body's feedback system;
2. Alter the lifestyle to keep the feedback system;
3. Ensure that the feedback system is sensitive enough to detect changes, but not sensitive enough to ``over-react'';
4. Much of the variation in body mass is water, so choosing the correct feedback system is crucial.

What Walker suggested in his text is to use an exponentially weighted moving average of the mass as the main computation.

He uses pounds, I use kilograms---the principle is still the same.

My original goal was to drop below 75kg first. That's a good 10kg or so less than the starting mass of around 85kg (84.2kg at the point of first measurement, but a variation of ±1kg is not unheard of). As you can tell from the screenshot, I've hit that goal by around December. The trick for me was to do ``one meal a day'' (OMAD). There were two reasons for OMAD:

1. The realisation that the hunger pangs I felt were more psychological than physiological (i.e. I wasn't keeling over from ``low blood sugar''); and
2. It was far easier to just have OMAD having anything I wanted for that meal than to calorie count like an OCD sufferer.

OMAD meant that I had to choose which meal it was that I would be having, and I chose dinner because it was the meal most likely to be needed due to all the usual socialisation aspects (and I was still in a relationship with her then, making it much easier to have something to do together at the end of the day). To avoid killing myself accidentally through a lack of the necessary micro-nutrients due to such a severe limitation [with almost no planning], I took a multi-vitamin daily as well. Suffice to say, the strategy worked well since I'm still alive now, and have suffered little side effects from malnutrition.

I went for surgery in January to settle an emerging problem (circumcision to tackle phimosis, if you have to know), but didn't stop my regime of OMAD. Recovery time was nearly a month, but it was all right.

The Hacker's Diet did talk about a daily 15-minute exercise component based loosely off the Royal Canadian Air Force's 5BX (RCAF 5BX). I didn't start on it till April, because that was when I guesstimated that I would have lost enough mass for the exercise to be somewhat meaningful. I had worked on the RCAF 5BX plan before, but it was, as Walker put it, rather confusing. More importantly, since it wasn't done with weight loss progressing at the same time, it also meant that I was stressing my body out more than expected with all the excess weight.

After that, I started to more seriously consider my goals. I know that the Body Mass Index (BMI) isn't exactly the best of benchmarks, but I thought it adequate for my needs because it was mainly for the sedentary individual. Last I checked, I have been sedentary for a long time. The small hiccup here was that the ``standard'' numbers for BMI were less correct for the smaller build of the typical South East Asian person, and so I resorted to using the Singapore standard for BMI instead.

Those numbers (and their associated masses given my puny height of 1.67m) are indicated in the screenshot as well. The more astute would notice that there are two numbers next to the one labelled ``Latest Wt''. The smaller number is the number of kilograms to the low-moderate risk border of 23 (64.1kg), while the larger number is the number of kilograms to the mid-point of the low-moderate risk border of between 18.5 and 23 (works out to around 57.9kg).

The next milestone to me was to dip below 70kg, something that I reached at around April---I took that opportunity to finally tailor some new pants since my old ones were really too large for me to even look remotely presentable. Incidentally, that was also when the ``circuit breaker'' began, and when she broke up with me via letter. At that point, I kinda started giving up a little as the bummedness came in (dare I call it depression?), eating coated peas and almonds with anchovies as snacks. The lowest trend mass I ever reached so far was just 67.1kg (with spot masses nearer 66kg), but it could not last. Part of the OMAD strategy hinged on being sufficiently distracted to not let the hunger pangs bother me (remember it was psychological), but with all the lock down and aftermath from the break-up, there was just too little to distract me from it.

And now, today, at the twelfth month, I'm at 69.9kg, just 0.1kg shy of the last big milestone I hit.

I have new resolve to get back into OMAD to drop the mass down to the next milestone, which is dipping to lower than 65kg. I'd probably either have to alter my dress shirts, or tailor new ones---I'm more inclined to do the former if I can help it, because I remember them being more pricey than the pants. Besides, I think it would probably be easier to adjust the shirts (reduce the waist line while keeping everything else), but I will only know when I bring it down to the tailor for suggestions.

I said earlier that today would have been a triumphant day. It would have been triumphant because I was making myself healthier and more presentable for my future married life. But that isn't happening, at least not with her, and that has bummed me out.

In a way, my slow and careful triumph over excessive mass is basically meaningless for the moment. A pity.

But Jesus did mention that He would raise a new temple from the razed one in three days; the temple He spoke of was the place where the Holy Spirit resides, and in this case, it is exactly this body that I am carefully reshaping to ensure that the risk of cardio-related issues due to excessive mass is heavily reduced. So perhaps there is some meaning after all.

I don't care how selfish I sound now. On those days when I throw away those rose-tinted nostalgia-ridden glasses for whatever reason (like today), I feel like I've been played out, and it annoys me. Don't get me wrong, there were many many good memories, just as there were many many good and fun plans for the future. I forgive, I truly do, but I'm no Christ---it still pains and annoys me that it took five years to end up like this. Five years of opening up myself, of thinking about our future with great happiness and anticipation. Five bloody years, to have everything ended in five days. I'm happy for her that she finally figured out what she wanted, and I am exceedingly glad for her that after being broken, she is finally made whole once more to right her relationship with Him.

But... what about me?

I'm still broken, am I not? Who would want me now? Can I even live with myself now? Do I even want me now?

My Heavenly Father, forgive me for feeling like this. To err is human, to forgive, divine. I forgive, but I still feel broken in ways that I don't know if I will ever be put back together in a way that is still acceptable by someone. I pray to You for guidance, for wisdom, and for strength to get through my days---I know not what else to pray for other than these generic platitudes. Part of me says to pray for death so I can go away from this world and have eternal life with You, but I don't even know if that is what I want, or if that is Your Will, or is it just the deeply repressed sinful nature in me seeking the easy way out. I study Your word every day---each time I read them and try to understand what they mean, I have an inner peace. I sleep well at night, dreamless and restful. But sometimes deep within the peace, an uneasy and undefinable stirring bubbles beneath, a feeling that I do not know nor understand. My Heavenly Father, I am troubled in ways that I do not understand; may the Holy Spirit intercede on my behalf to tell you what is it that my heart and soul needs. Into thy hands I entrust myself, for it is your will, not mine.

Amen.