I didn't realise how lean rowing makes you.

[DavidA]

I have major, major envy of all of you that can increase your training & still lose weight without restricting your diet. Those days for me are over 30 yrs ago I'm my rear view mirror. I train approx 10 to 12 hours a week, erging, NT Skier, Ercolina (similar to skierg) & various BW exercises. And unless I'm strict with intake, I'll balloon up quicker than a fat grey tick on a hound dog's back. Green with envy! I guess I chose the wrong parents.

The whole weight thing is interesting. I have often thought that there was more to all of this than just the idea that if your calories in was greater than calories out, you'll gain weight.

I recently read a book called 10% Human. It's written by a scientist and she raises some really interesting ideas. Ideas about disease and looking at weight gain and obesity as diseases. And the premise is that the gut may be at fault, more specifically the microbiome. The community of, mainly, bacteria, which are all so crucial to our survival, health and wellbeing. She also suggest that weight gain may have it roots in injecting the animals we consume with high levels of antibiotics, which enable them to grow much larger. Quite refreshing to read someone who is more interested in root causes than of treating symptoms.

Years ago I visualised becoming leaner. I was quite bulky at the time at 110kg at 6'5", I was very muscular. The bulk kind of fell off in a couple of months. Some people who I didn't see often didn't recognise me. I can't remember how much weight I lost. But I was fed up of not being able to get jeans which fit correctly as my quads were huge. I don't remember losing anything as far performance went, I was still pushing the same weights in body pump and was still able to do spin classes to the same level, or even better. It's a funny thing. Powerful thing the mind.

I also believe that it is not quite as simple as Calories in vs. Calories out.
I have always been fortunate to seem to have a fast metabolism. Now that I am older, I can't eat as much as when I was younger, but I still don't believe in partial containers of most things - I always eat whole containers of cottage cheese, crackers, bricks of cheese, packages of cold cuts, etc. I have half a large container of ice cream most every night.
My wife thinks part of the issue is probably malabsorbtion issues - I have celiac disease.
I do consider myself lucky not to be too concerned with how much I eat. I am also often "thinking about what I'm going to eat next."

David