Apologies for the hack poetry yesterday. I don’t know why I felt the need to post the way I did, yet it felt like the thing to do. I’ll try not to let that happen again. With that said, I almost feel like writing more poetry, or at least some lyrics to a song today, because the weight has finally started coming back off after a weekend of indulgence. Like I knew it would, the IF + Paleo Diet are yielding the results I’m after: I dropped 3 lbs since Sunday morning.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right; that’s not true weight. It’s water weight. And yes, I know that. However, it was weight I was carrying, and weight that made me feel bloated and made my trousers feel tighter than normal (and according to my friend Steve, they’re already tight enough). With every pound I lose, a portion of that is solid, no-kidding fat.

The weight I’m at right now looks fine, but it’s deceiving. I may look fine, but my weight is actually over the maximum allowed by the DoD for members of the military at my height. The reason I look okay but weigh too much comes down to two things: muscle weight and skin weight. You see, I still have a lot of extra skin on me, and it all weighs about 12 lbs.

While my skin doesn’t hang over or flop on me anywhere, it is visible when I’m doing push-ups or planks. It hangs off my body in a very unnatural way that makes it look like I’m wearing a body suit made of skin that’s just a little too big for me. It even hangs off my thighs and my shins! People have asked me if I’m going to get the skin removed, not because it looks weird when I’m standing up, but because I have mentioned how strange it is at times. I always say the same thing: no. It doesn’t bother me enough nor am I vain enough to get it cut off. I can deal with it. Besides, over time, it’s shrinking a little bit at a time. It’s not nearly as bad today as it was a year ago.

Intermittent Fasting (IF) has been working great for me. I’ve been doing some reading and research on it, and it turns out that it’s a great and healthy way for people to lose weight when coupled with a good, healthy eating program (which is called a diet, btw). Since I’m a pretty strict Paleo adherent (well, the vast majority of the time, anyway), it allows me to continue to make progress toward my ultimate goal despite me getting lax here and there. For example, this weekend is my unit’s St. Barbara’s Ball. I will be eating non-Paleo foods and drinking alcoholic beverages. But it won’t matter; I’ll be able to sustain the evening with some minor bloating and temporary weight gain thanks to IF.

This post is admittedly less about the overall process and more about my own progress. I apologize for that. At least I didn’t offend your brain with my bad poetry. Again, I promise to keep that to a minimum around here.