So I am on track to need 25’-30’(!) scoops of creatine today. When the aerobic energy fatigue first showed up I was taking 9, which is maybe 12’?

And this isn’t “take a bunch more than you need on waking so after a day of decay you’re good enough to take the next day’s” I was already on a 2 dose a day schedule, now I’m taking some to push the fatigue back every 3 hours, and “you would have fatigue if not for this” means it’s burning fat.

The postexertional stuff does seem to clear up much faster than the aerobic energy debt – 1’-2’ scoops a week with rest vs. 1’ every 11 – but on the way it will take me down at least one weight level on its own.

But I find I have more runway to work with! Originally my model was

• Obese
• Fat (obese side of, “true fat”, overweight side of)
• Overweight (fat side, true, normie)
• Normie (overweight, true, slim)
• Slim (normie, true, thin)
• Thin (slim, true, gaunt)
• Gaunt

With “true normie” as the overweight/underweight pivot.

But now I think it’s

• Obese
• Fat (obese, true, overweight)
• Overweight (fat, true, normje)
• Normje (overweight, true, trim)
• Trim (normie, true, slim)
• Slim (trim, true, thin)
• Thin (slim, true, gaunt)
• Gaunt

With “normie” and “trim” as paired overweight/underweight versions of average

Huh, instead of a convex curve outward starting below my pecs my flanks in silhouette are now a concave curve from my armpits down to my hips.

One thing I didn’t expect about my stomach shrinking so much is that the skin covering it would get so soft and delicate as it didn’t have to bear such strain keeping my insides in.

Yeah, I’ve considered that too, in particular I wonder if the muscle gain/fat loss in my calves makes it harder for me to maintain my legs floating horizontal behind me as I kick. So I’m holding on to the edge of the pool and practicing kicking hard enough to lift them that way.

I could really use a kick board, honestly.

My creatine dose is nominally 5’ scoops heading for 4’ but to fill the hole from all the pitching-induced muscle growth/postexertionary symptoms I’m actually taking 10’/day right now, so I might get through “Normie Side of Overweight” and on to “Overweight Side of Normie” fairly soon.

I think that’ll fade totally within 3 weeks at most once I’m done.

My stomach’s getting smaller but more noticeably harder recently, which makes me suspect this topsoil pitching is developing my core so that a wall of muscle is firming up behind the fat.

Can’t wait to see it! Just a few months more now…

Like all my real weight assessments for months have basically been “weight loss is most tangibly noticeable at the bottom edge of the stomach”, I fear you all must be getting tired of all the “…and now it’s all resolved, except for the next phase where the exact same dynamic happens again”

The fat’s all been encapsulated in the same package since the start of the “Normie Side of Overweight” phase, at first really at the edge of how much could be held like that the lower “lip” of fat pocketed in the same stomach location but not moving as part of the same mass as the main bulk of fat was overstuffed

But that’s thinned out and I think this phase might be that last unconsolidated fat fading so everything left is part of the main mass blistered on

I think I’ll at least do one when I hit the middle of “True Normie” state but I kind of like it being just my impressions, if I posted about my experience of living in my body and posted a picture this is the internet, people would argue with my personal experience of my body on the basis of the picture and it would be irritating.

The deposits of fat on my lower back adjacent to both my ass and hips have disappeared.

Now that changes to my body are registering clear my subconscious is pumped, it feels my body and it’s amazed how lean and powerful it is, and I’m like “watch what comes next”

Yeah, the weight loss has finally progressed past reducing the sense of fat upon my body to reducing the size of “my body” as mentally understood

It is incredibly weird to pass your hand through somewhere that by your entire life’s experience you expect to be and not be there

The aerobic energy issues have been gradually resolving all along; they got stronger with new Covid cases but diminishingly so and that seems tapped out now.

In a year and a half I expect them to be totally cleared up, in the interim I need to burn less fat to compensate every day.

Based on past progression I expect by then I’ll be a bit muscle-twinky but not like, gaunt. If I want to retain more fat, I can just stop the creatine entirely at 3’ or even 4’ scoops and I’ll manage until the aerobic fully recovers, especially if I’m not doing physical labor.

Ah, okay, a while ago when after weight loss I was growing less skin all the stretch marks close to the centerline of my torso had disappeared, now it seems we’re doing the more distal ones from top down, I’m not used to feeling it like this.

I remember when those first showed up in college – after what in retrospect was the depression side of manic depression first showed up – I was bummed cause I had thought I could always lose weight later but I felt with that I had ruined my body forever by being fat.

nope!

Really feels like the weight loss up to now felt like fat I was carrying upon my body was disappearing and only now does it feel like what is my body is shrinking

My nose looks better for having lost weight. Thinner and the bridge is sharper.

Driving a bedload of topsoil back from the landscaping yard, passing through an up-and-coming neighborhood see a cute mixed girl in neo-2000s hipster style on the sidewalk, realize that after all the changes lately no she’s not out of my league anymore

Okay, I’m definitely moving towards the “Normie” from “Overweight” state, this means at the edge of where all stomach fat is gathered into a single mass it seems like a more distinct single lip of fat rather than trailing off into foothills, my shirts actually fit worse for it.

In reverse, I think these sorts of dynamics might have lulled me on the upswing, if I’d ever be like “I notice my body now feels this way that signals I’m getting fat”, sooner or later that would resolve in what was really a sign of getting fatter.

Fascinatingly, while I’m still aware of stomach fat upon my torso, going around shirtless now vibes like my torso slot is empty, rather than the stomach being equipped there. I hadn’t felt that since elementary school summers.

This is one of the last looks at the top of my stomach I’m gonna get for a while, possibly my whole life.

Yeah it feels like up to now was the preliminaries, when the deposits lumped upon it were eliminated, but we’re in the end boss battle now, the only thing left is for the main bulk of the stomach to fade.

Well, we’re only at the top of the Normie state, beyond that is Slim and we might even hit Thin, maybe it’s more a midgame boss. Then we enter the underground castle World of Ruin, or something.

My muscular chest feels great right now, my stomach doesn’t feel that bad, and the defining experience of my torso is the area that registers as “chest” expanding while “stomach” shrinks.