Day 138. A documentary on fat + skinfold test #4

Day 138 photo

Consumed 2150 calories. Lifted weights.


I just watched a BBC documentary called "Why are thin people not fat?" According to this documentary, people have a genetic predisposition to be at a certain weight or body fat percentage. Thanks to this genetic predisposition, our bodies have varying degrees of internal mechanisms for making us eat more or less depending on what our bodies think our ideal weight should be.

My own experience has been that for as long as I can remember, I've always had extra abdominal fat. When I first started measuring my body fat percentage about 4 years ago, it was ~24%. Between 2009 and last December, I've spent maybe 2-3 months actually watching my diet and exercising. The rest of the time was spent eating whatever I wanted, however much I wanted, and doing pretty much no exercise whatsoever aside from incidental exercise. My body fat percentage in December was ~24%.

A logical conclusion I can make from this documentary and from personal experience is that unless I consciously work at it--i.e. count calories and exercise religiously--my body will try to attain ~24% body fat again. I've worked so hard to get to where I am now, are my genetics really going to ruin all my work if I decide to stop counting calories when I reach my goal? And while I'm at it, if I want to safeguard against regaining my lost fat, does this mean I have to count calories for the rest of my life? I really hope my conclusion is wrong because it's making me really depressed. And on that note, I'm going to bed.


Oh before I go to bed, I want to mention that I got my body composition tested this morning and I'm now at 17.3% body fat.