Thoughts on my Second Fataversary

May 23, 2019 was the day I decided I had enough. I weighed 408 lbs, and couldn’t live like that any more. The following year, I had lost 186 lbs. I coined the term “Fataversary” to celebrate the occasion. Some may be offended by the word “Fataversary”, but it’s my fat, and I reserve the right to call it what I want.

Looking back on last year, I was in the end push to get below 200 lbs, and still dieting hard. I remember being pretty disappointed in how the bike was going, and was trying to rehab my knees so that I could take a ride without pain. It was also the end of the beginning of the pandemic, and we were all starting to realize that this shit was going to cause long term disruptions to our lives.

This year’s review is very different.

I stopped trying to lose weight in October of 2020. For Thanksgiving and Christmas I decided to eat anything I wanted. Unfortunately the winter made it difficult to take bike rides. By January I was up 10 lbs. But to be honest, I felt better. At 182 lbs I was pretty much hungry all the time. At 195 lbs there was no hunger. On. the days I rode over 20 miles, I could get away eating close to a normal amount of food, and as the weather got warmer, and the days longer it was much easier to do that more frequently.

As a result, I’ve had my longest period of nearly flat weight since I’ve been measuring it:

Back in the cold dark days of January I was definitely not feeling successful, but looking back on it I can see it was kinda part of a “balancing” process that started in October. I’m not sure how long this process will continue, or what I’ll weigh next year, but I’m kinda perfectly happy at 195 lbs.

Technically, with no exercise I would be eating 1800 c/day, but that rarely happens anymore. I’ve been doing close or more than 100 miles a week on the bike, and eating around 2000 c/day. I’m roughly shooting for 35%-35%-30% macros (carbs, protein, and fat). That’s hard to hit consistently, but I try. Not much has really changed other than the quantities of food. I still stay away from starchy carbs, and focus more on stuff with higher amounts of fiber. I have been going into the office more, and I’ve been enjoying going to restaurants again.

I don’t necessarily trust the numbers I’m getting from garmin, or even the calories I still count. I do trust the above graph though, and the fact that I’ve been within a 10lbs range for almost 5 months means I’m roughly getting the same amount of cals in as out.

Exercise has been going well. In March I got a new gravel bike. This lets me do more miles on the road, while still doing the the dirt riding I love. I used the opportunity to repair the mountain bike I bought last year. The chainring was seriously worn, and I upgraded it to a nice 1x setup. So now I’m trying to balance the miles I do on the new bike with those on the old one so that I can wear them out evenly. The mountain bike gets the shit duty of riding around Deer Island in the mornings, getting covered in salt water and sandy mud. The new bike gets the cool miles up in the suburbs.

Life was rough this winter. I ended up getting studded snow tires, but even with these it was hard to get a lot of miles in. They were also dark depressing miles.

Now I can easily do 13 miles in the mornings, and 10 miles after work 4 days a week, and then do a couple of longer rides up in the suburbs where the roads are safer. Mileage has really shot up. I had my biggest month in May with 500 miles.

With all the riding I don’t have too much time for strength training. I do focus on sprint intervals in my morning rides, so I am doing some strength training I guess. It’s ok to take a bit of time off and perhaps make it a focus over the winter months when the miles are harder to get.

Healthwise it’s been a great year. I stopped taking all of the prescription meds. I’m only taking D3 and a baby aspirin now. A heart calcium test scored a 4, which is really low, which means I’m not a high risk for a heart attack. Only thing pending is a follow up cholesterol test. Hopefully that will be down now that I’m not losing so much weight.

To sum up… Feels like this is the start of the middle of the process. Losing the weight was just the beginning. This last year was about sticking the landing, and transitioning onto the rest of my life. Over the past year I’ve found a diet I can live with forever, and an exercise I love. Hope the next Fataversary finds me healthy and about the same weight. Nice and boring.