Perspective on weight and obesity

While my true goal is one based on a target body fat rather than weight, it is still easier to consider weight as I know the approximate weight that the target body fat would equal. Today I received the new dumbbell set and this helped me put some of the weight loss in perspective.

Back in March when I said "Enough!" to myself and started on this journey to get fit and healthy I would not have considered my 85.5kg weight to be obese (and technically I was not). Yes I was overweight with the fat having built up predominantly on my belly and chest. I also had the benefit of having been in good shape 4 years ago so I knew that my target stats were 70kg, 14% body fat and a 30" waist.

I have so far lost 9.2 kg in weight (using today's unofficial weight in) since March. That is the equivalent of 20lbs in weight or just over 9 litres of water. For those in the USA the small bottles of water sold in the supermarket are typically 0.5l or just over 1 US pint. Try lifting that weight when you're next in the supermarket or find a 20lb dumbbell when you're in the gym! I'm also only part way on my journey and expect my total weight loss to be over 30lbs or 15kg. So that would be 15 litres of water or 30 of the smaller size bottles.

This then helped me take the thought further in comparing this to the obese people I see every day, who are likely to be around 100 to 150lbs (45 to 68kg) overweight (or more!) it is astonishing that the human body can actually adapt and cope with this excess weight.. That's significantly more than my wife actually weighs that these people have as additional weight!

There are plenty of stats available, especially for the USA, and one of my prior posts included some. Once you get to this level of obesity it is not going to be easy (or cheap) to get back to a normal size. Unless very drastic (and possibly dangerous) action is taken it would likely take at least 2-3 years to safely lose the weight. What are the alternatives...

• a life plagued with more and more medical complications (high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, ...)
• a life plagued with even more medication and pills to control the medical complications
• a life likely to be short, maybe without the opportunity to see grandchildren (or at least see them reach their teens/twenties), due to stress on the body and increased chance of an early death
• .....

The list goes on, and on.

So while it is easy to snigger or joke at seeing the very overweight in the gyms, I have to applaud them for taking the first step towards better health and for taking responsibility for what they have done to themselves. Well done to all those who are trying, who have the courage to confront and improve themselves!