This is a pretty interesting read. It comes at an extremely frustrating time in my own diet, because after about three months of good progress I'm now riding a two week plateau, so I've been...
This is a pretty interesting read. It comes at an extremely frustrating time in my own diet, because after about three months of good progress I'm now riding a two week plateau, so I've been trying to change things up.
The difficulty in counting accurately doesn’t stop there. The calorie load of carbohydrate-heavy items such as rice, pasta, bread and potatoes can be slashed simply by cooking, chilling and reheating them. As starch molecules cool they form new structures that are harder to digest. You absorb fewer calories eating toast that has been left to go cold, or leftover spaghetti, than if they were freshly made.
This is mind blowing to me. I want to know why. Is it more than temperature, and is this something reproducible at home, or across multiple types of foods other than starches (soups, meats?). Could bringing a rice bowl to work be better than the (conservative-ish) salad I eat almost daily?
This was a fascinating read, and I come out of it knowing more, but I sure wish it was able to make more proclamations about what works and what doesn't—but I guess the point is that our own understanding is constantly changing too.
How much weight have you lost? Every 10 lbs is ~60-65 calories off your BMR. Caloric excess, if greater than roughly 250 calories per day, will tank your T3 and T4 levels after roughly 3-4 weeks,...
This is a pretty interesting read. It comes at an extremely frustrating time in my own diet, because after about three months of good progress I'm now riding a two week plateau, so I've been trying to change things up.
How much weight have you lost? Every 10 lbs is ~60-65 calories off your BMR.
Caloric excess, if greater than roughly 250 calories per day, will tank your T3 and T4 levels after roughly 3-4 weeks, lowering your BMR even further.
Depending on how extreme your diet is and how much weight you're looking to lose, there are a lot of strategies to work past your plateau. None of these strategies require knowing exactly how many calories are in the food you are eating, just that you monitor and adjust them appropriately.
This is mind blowing to me. I want to know why. Is it more than temperature, and is this something reproducible at home, or across multiple types of foods other than starches (soups, meats?). Could bringing a rice bowl to work be better than the (conservative-ish) salad I eat almost daily?
I agree that this is incredibly interesting but it shouldn't really change how you are eating. The base of a salad has mostly indigestible fibers. This is why a cup of spinach or lettuce has 5 or less calories, most of which is from the small amounts of protein present. A cup of bread, no matter how burnt (unless literally ash) will always have more calories.
Perhaps more importantly, however, is the fact that the majority of calories from bread are carbohydrates. It's almost always safe to reduce the number of carbohydrates you eat as the amount that's needed is technically none, but more importantly carbs are not used in any satiation pathways - fats and proteins both affect ghrelin levels which are important for the feeling of "full" and the suppression of the desire to eat. In fact, protein has some limited evidence that when combined with resistance exercise may preferentially go to muscle tissue instead of being used as energy, even when calories are in a small excess.
Since Jan 1st, I've lost just under 25lbs. BMR and T3/T4 are new terms to me. I now have new research to do. (side note: I'm still pretty pleased with my progress, despite the plateau—which seems...
Since Jan 1st, I've lost just under 25lbs. BMR and T3/T4 are new terms to me. I now have new research to do.
(side note: I'm still pretty pleased with my progress, despite the plateau—which seems to be possibly broken if I trust the downward trend I've had over the last few days. but I appreciate everyone's advice.)
It's easy to say "eat less calories". What's more difficult to deal with is hunger, satiation, energy levels, and the side effects of just "eating less". I'd challenge you to eat only twinkies for...
It's easy to say "eat less calories". What's more difficult to deal with is hunger, satiation, energy levels, and the side effects of just "eating less". I'd challenge you to eat only twinkies for several weeks and see how easy it is to stick to a diet, let alone function in your normal life without feeling like shit.
Information like this is important, because it helps you to decide what food is healthy to consume. General guidelines work as well, but this is useful information.
Only eating Twinkies for a few weeks would be stupid and is not what im suggesting at all. Eat a healthy diet at a caloric defect and you WILL lose weight. Its simple science. Its not my fault if...
Only eating Twinkies for a few weeks would be stupid and is not what im suggesting at all. Eat a healthy diet at a caloric defect and you WILL lose weight. Its simple science. Its not my fault if you dont have the willpower to do it long enough to see results.
you could have absolutely made this comment without this line, but also you really can't just demand willpower of people when a lot of them have literally no idea where to begin. just to name a...
Its simple science. Its not my fault if you dont have the willpower to do it long enough to see results.
you could have absolutely made this comment without this line, but also you really can't just demand willpower of people when a lot of them have literally no idea where to begin. just to name a few confounding variables: most people have no clue what constitutes an acceptable amount of food to begin with. most people have been trained to eat that amount of food for their entire lives uncritically, which can also literally change their body if it's a large enough amount of food. it's not always so easy to do even "simple" things like count calories. right now i'm eating a homemade meal, for example, where all of the ingredients aren't so clear and it's not possible to track down the caloric values of every ingredient anyways--how do i count the calories in that and ensure i'm actually eating a healthy meal with healthy caloric intake? how are people in food deserts or who are poor supposed to eat what you would consider a "healthy" meal, which presumably includes vegetables and fruits and other things which may not be readily or easily accessible to them, or feasible for them to cook given time constraints, etc? and that's before you even get to the actual fucking dieting, which takes habit formation and possibly things like time commitments.
the reality for a lot of people is that it's absolutely not nearly as simple as you paint it. i personally can make the commitment you describe--but i live with my parents, have plenty of time to work out and research foods, am able to control absolutely how much i eat and when i eat or do not eat, and am not constrained by the existence of a food desert. can most other people do what i can? probably not.
I feel like the idea of "If you are not losing weight then keep cutting more calories until you are" is a tad misleading. Calories are not the whole story. Obviously, if you sit at your desk all...
I feel like the idea of "If you are not losing weight then keep cutting more calories until you are" is a tad misleading.
Calories are not the whole story. Obviously, if you sit at your desk all day eating cheese burgers; you're going to have a problem with weight.
What really matters is keeping your body in a nice equilibrium. ie: Have smaller, but more frequent meals. If you raise your blood sugar too high because you had a big meal, your body has no choice but to store the access energy as fat. Back when humans were hunter gathers, this made sense. You hunt an animal, eat calorie dense fats/meat and your good for the next few days.
In western diets, the foods that make people fat are the ones loaded with sugar. Regular binge drinking also makes people fat. Drinking a can of coke will give you a "sugar high" meaning your blood sugar is high. Your liver ends up turning this all to fat. Consistent drinking of sugar/alcoholic drinks can eventually lead to liver fat disease.
So if someone is struggling with their diet and weight, the first thing you should recommend is to drink sugarless drinks like tea/coffee/water (not diet drinks, diet drinks can make you more hungry and seek more food/snacks) and to cut the amount of carbs (like rice/potatoes/starches/breads) eaten at a given time.
There's a bunch of other secondary choices that can help or hinder in cutting calories, but it will lead to weight loss eventually if you keep going. Obviously you're right, there are lots of...
I feel like the idea of "If you are not losing weight then keep cutting more calories until you are" is a tad misleading.
There's a bunch of other secondary choices that can help or hinder in cutting calories, but it will lead to weight loss eventually if you keep going.
Obviously you're right, there are lots of different approaches (cutting out carbs in general and sugars in particular works well for a lot of people), but saying that it's misleading when it's literally the one rule that's guaranteed to be true for everyone is... well, also misleading.
Well ya, thermodynamically speaking, if you loose more calories than you gain you'll lose weight. But there's so much more to consider. You can eat the same amount of calories in a day and loose...
Well ya, thermodynamically speaking, if you loose more calories than you gain you'll lose weight. But there's so much more to consider. You can eat the same amount of calories in a day and loose weight by simply eating healthier foods and spreading out their consumption.
You're missing out on the psychological component of diet that makes the "just eat less calories" argument incomplete. If you simply just cut calories, you'll just be hungry all the time and eventually your diet will fail, and you'll gain back any weight you lost during your diet. Simply spreading out caloric intake makes you feel more full (and less likely to consume dead calorie snacks) and also produces less fat than consuming calories densely.
It wasn't disagreement. Sorry if it came across as that. More of an emphasis thing. I think it's important to emphasize that spending more calories than you gain is weight loss. and that the most...
It wasn't disagreement. Sorry if it came across as that. More of an emphasis thing.
I think it's important to emphasize that spending more calories than you gain is weight loss. and that the most effective way to do that is to eat less. Lots of people think they can exercise their way to a healthy weight, but for most people that's just not feasible. The hard part of losing weight is finding a way to run a caloric deficit that doesn't kill you psychologically in the long run.
I've found the exact opposite of your advice to be true for me. My main obstacle when losing weight is that I think counting calories is a huge hassle. I'm much better at dealing with hunger than I am at being consistent in counting, so what works for me is eating fewer meals and then making sure I count those properly.
I believe many methods are effective in losing weight, as you stated, but the reason carb cutting is so effective (as opposed to cutting calories) is due to the modern instant gratification...
I believe many methods are effective in losing weight, as you stated, but the reason carb cutting is so effective (as opposed to cutting calories) is due to the modern instant gratification phenomenon this world experiences. A keto diet will quickly give you results and well... people like results and they like them quick.
Personally I don't believe keto is a fad diet, regardless, it's just a label for a low carb diet. One that works and bar health reasons, is very effective and efficient.
Personally I don't believe keto is a fad diet, regardless, it's just a label for a low carb diet. One that works and bar health reasons, is very effective and efficient.
In what way is a keto diet a "fad"? In fact, out of the three times I've tried to diet, keto was the most successful, and also the quickest. I lost 10kg in about 2.5 months by inducing ketosis....
In what way is a keto diet a "fad"? In fact, out of the three times I've tried to diet, keto was the most successful, and also the quickest. I lost 10kg in about 2.5 months by inducing ketosis. The science behind ketosis is sound.
I was under the impression that this affects satiation, and thus perhaps increases the difficulty of sticking to a given calorie intake, but that it doesn't actually affect fat storage if you do...
What really matters is keeping your body in a nice equilibrium. ie: Have smaller, but more frequent meals. If you raise your blood sugar too high because you had a big meal, your body has no choice but to store the access energy as fat.
I was under the impression that this affects satiation, and thus perhaps increases the difficulty of sticking to a given calorie intake, but that it doesn't actually affect fat storage if you do still stick to the same total calories per day; are you saying that how those calories are spread throughout the day can change their impact on weight?
I'm no expert, and I'm asking from a place of genuine curiosity, so I'd be interested to know if I'm wrong. It sometimes feels like understanding fitness and nutrition is a full time job, even when I start to think I have a decent handle on it.
I think that when considering most tasks, it's a good idea to look at things along two axes: difficulty and complexity. It's important to understand that these are different axes. Some things are...
I think that when considering most tasks, it's a good idea to look at things along two axes: difficulty and complexity. It's important to understand that these are different axes.
Some things are both difficult and complex, like rocket science, as you pointed out. Some things are easy and simple, like washing dishes. Some things are complex but easy, like solving a Rubik's cube. Some things are simple but difficult, and I think that losing weight is in that category.
We all know that eating at a caloric deficit makes you lose weight, but there's a lot of things involved with eating at a caloric deficit. If it was easy we wouldn't have thousands of diets around trying to tell us how to be, and I'd look a lot more like Brad Pitt than I do.
I'd say anyone with an able body could look better than brad pit (body wise) if they ate enough protein and exercised. If you want to lose weight eat less. It really is that simple. You may not...
I'd say anyone with an able body could look better than brad pit (body wise) if they ate enough protein and exercised. If you want to lose weight eat less. It really is that simple. You may not look the best if you dont exercise and dont eat enough protein but you will lose weight.
I know that you either didn't read or didn't understand what I wrote. As I explicitly said, we all know that eating at a caloric deficit makes you lose weight. Every single person who wants to...
I know that you either didn't read or didn't understand what I wrote.
As I explicitly said, we all know that eating at a caloric deficit makes you lose weight. Every single person who wants to lose weight knows that, and I think nearly everyone understands "more food -> fat, less food -> skinny". That's not up for debate, and I'm not arguing it, but you seem to think that I am.
What I said was that while this is a very simple concept, there's a variety of reasons that make this less easy than many people think. I invite you to reread anything said by @Gaywallet in this thread - they're an expert in all the things that make this simple concept a difficult thing to do. Please reread all the things he said, and try to do so with an open mind.
Several times you say things that are some variation of "not my fault if you dont have the willpower to do it long enough to see results." With all due respect, that's an awful thing to say and an awful thing to think. There are a lot of reasons that it's not just about willpower, and putting the blame on the people who are trying to be better just doesn't work at all. There are also other factors to consider, such as the time and money costs for unhealthy food (considering all factors - pre time, cost, ease of access, taste - things that are on the 'good' ends of all the scales tend to be cheap, though there are notable exceptions).
All this amounts to an issue that is simple to understand, but can be very difficult for many people to act on.
This is a pretty interesting read. It comes at an extremely frustrating time in my own diet, because after about three months of good progress I'm now riding a two week plateau, so I've been trying to change things up.
This is mind blowing to me. I want to know why. Is it more than temperature, and is this something reproducible at home, or across multiple types of foods other than starches (soups, meats?). Could bringing a rice bowl to work be better than the (conservative-ish) salad I eat almost daily?
This was a fascinating read, and I come out of it knowing more, but I sure wish it was able to make more proclamations about what works and what doesn't—but I guess the point is that our own understanding is constantly changing too.
How much weight have you lost? Every 10 lbs is ~60-65 calories off your BMR.
Caloric excess, if greater than roughly 250 calories per day, will tank your T3 and T4 levels after roughly 3-4 weeks, lowering your BMR even further.
Depending on how extreme your diet is and how much weight you're looking to lose, there are a lot of strategies to work past your plateau. None of these strategies require knowing exactly how many calories are in the food you are eating, just that you monitor and adjust them appropriately.
I agree that this is incredibly interesting but it shouldn't really change how you are eating. The base of a salad has mostly indigestible fibers. This is why a cup of spinach or lettuce has 5 or less calories, most of which is from the small amounts of protein present. A cup of bread, no matter how burnt (unless literally ash) will always have more calories.
Perhaps more importantly, however, is the fact that the majority of calories from bread are carbohydrates. It's almost always safe to reduce the number of carbohydrates you eat as the amount that's needed is technically none, but more importantly carbs are not used in any satiation pathways - fats and proteins both affect ghrelin levels which are important for the feeling of "full" and the suppression of the desire to eat. In fact, protein has some limited evidence that when combined with resistance exercise may preferentially go to muscle tissue instead of being used as energy, even when calories are in a small excess.
Since Jan 1st, I've lost just under 25lbs. BMR and T3/T4 are new terms to me. I now have new research to do.
(side note: I'm still pretty pleased with my progress, despite the plateau—which seems to be possibly broken if I trust the downward trend I've had over the last few days. but I appreciate everyone's advice.)
Welcome to the beginning of your fitness and health addiction. 😉
If you ever want to ask questions, feel free to DM me.
Would be nice if they included more references. If you are not losing weight then keep cutting more calories until you are. Its not rocket science.
It's easy to say "eat less calories". What's more difficult to deal with is hunger, satiation, energy levels, and the side effects of just "eating less". I'd challenge you to eat only twinkies for several weeks and see how easy it is to stick to a diet, let alone function in your normal life without feeling like shit.
Information like this is important, because it helps you to decide what food is healthy to consume. General guidelines work as well, but this is useful information.
Only eating Twinkies for a few weeks would be stupid and is not what im suggesting at all. Eat a healthy diet at a caloric defect and you WILL lose weight. Its simple science. Its not my fault if you dont have the willpower to do it long enough to see results.
you could have absolutely made this comment without this line, but also you really can't just demand willpower of people when a lot of them have literally no idea where to begin. just to name a few confounding variables: most people have no clue what constitutes an acceptable amount of food to begin with. most people have been trained to eat that amount of food for their entire lives uncritically, which can also literally change their body if it's a large enough amount of food. it's not always so easy to do even "simple" things like count calories. right now i'm eating a homemade meal, for example, where all of the ingredients aren't so clear and it's not possible to track down the caloric values of every ingredient anyways--how do i count the calories in that and ensure i'm actually eating a healthy meal with healthy caloric intake? how are people in food deserts or who are poor supposed to eat what you would consider a "healthy" meal, which presumably includes vegetables and fruits and other things which may not be readily or easily accessible to them, or feasible for them to cook given time constraints, etc? and that's before you even get to the actual fucking dieting, which takes habit formation and possibly things like time commitments.
the reality for a lot of people is that it's absolutely not nearly as simple as you paint it. i personally can make the commitment you describe--but i live with my parents, have plenty of time to work out and research foods, am able to control absolutely how much i eat and when i eat or do not eat, and am not constrained by the existence of a food desert. can most other people do what i can? probably not.
edit: added a word
Yes because a drug addict can just "will" themselves out of addiction.
You're setting science back by talking like this, so please stop.
I feel like the idea of "If you are not losing weight then keep cutting more calories until you are" is a tad misleading.
Calories are not the whole story. Obviously, if you sit at your desk all day eating cheese burgers; you're going to have a problem with weight.
What really matters is keeping your body in a nice equilibrium. ie: Have smaller, but more frequent meals. If you raise your blood sugar too high because you had a big meal, your body has no choice but to store the access energy as fat. Back when humans were hunter gathers, this made sense. You hunt an animal, eat calorie dense fats/meat and your good for the next few days.
In western diets, the foods that make people fat are the ones loaded with sugar. Regular binge drinking also makes people fat. Drinking a can of coke will give you a "sugar high" meaning your blood sugar is high. Your liver ends up turning this all to fat. Consistent drinking of sugar/alcoholic drinks can eventually lead to liver fat disease.
So if someone is struggling with their diet and weight, the first thing you should recommend is to drink sugarless drinks like tea/coffee/water (not diet drinks, diet drinks can make you more hungry and seek more food/snacks) and to cut the amount of carbs (like rice/potatoes/starches/breads) eaten at a given time.
There's a bunch of other secondary choices that can help or hinder in cutting calories, but it will lead to weight loss eventually if you keep going.
Obviously you're right, there are lots of different approaches (cutting out carbs in general and sugars in particular works well for a lot of people), but saying that it's misleading when it's literally the one rule that's guaranteed to be true for everyone is... well, also misleading.
Well ya, thermodynamically speaking, if you loose more calories than you gain you'll lose weight. But there's so much more to consider. You can eat the same amount of calories in a day and loose weight by simply eating healthier foods and spreading out their consumption.
You're missing out on the psychological component of diet that makes the "just eat less calories" argument incomplete. If you simply just cut calories, you'll just be hungry all the time and eventually your diet will fail, and you'll gain back any weight you lost during your diet. Simply spreading out caloric intake makes you feel more full (and less likely to consume dead calorie snacks) and also produces less fat than consuming calories densely.
It wasn't disagreement. Sorry if it came across as that. More of an emphasis thing.
I think it's important to emphasize that spending more calories than you gain is weight loss. and that the most effective way to do that is to eat less. Lots of people think they can exercise their way to a healthy weight, but for most people that's just not feasible. The hard part of losing weight is finding a way to run a caloric deficit that doesn't kill you psychologically in the long run.
I've found the exact opposite of your advice to be true for me. My main obstacle when losing weight is that I think counting calories is a huge hassle. I'm much better at dealing with hunger than I am at being consistent in counting, so what works for me is eating fewer meals and then making sure I count those properly.
I believe many methods are effective in losing weight, as you stated, but the reason carb cutting is so effective (as opposed to cutting calories) is due to the modern instant gratification phenomenon this world experiences. A keto diet will quickly give you results and well... people like results and they like them quick.
Fad diets are not the answer, either.
Personally I don't believe keto is a fad diet, regardless, it's just a label for a low carb diet. One that works and bar health reasons, is very effective and efficient.
In what way is a keto diet a "fad"? In fact, out of the three times I've tried to diet, keto was the most successful, and also the quickest. I lost 10kg in about 2.5 months by inducing ketosis. The science behind ketosis is sound.
I was under the impression that this affects satiation, and thus perhaps increases the difficulty of sticking to a given calorie intake, but that it doesn't actually affect fat storage if you do still stick to the same total calories per day; are you saying that how those calories are spread throughout the day can change their impact on weight?
I'm no expert, and I'm asking from a place of genuine curiosity, so I'd be interested to know if I'm wrong. It sometimes feels like understanding fitness and nutrition is a full time job, even when I start to think I have a decent handle on it.
I think that when considering most tasks, it's a good idea to look at things along two axes: difficulty and complexity. It's important to understand that these are different axes.
Some things are both difficult and complex, like rocket science, as you pointed out. Some things are easy and simple, like washing dishes. Some things are complex but easy, like solving a Rubik's cube. Some things are simple but difficult, and I think that losing weight is in that category.
We all know that eating at a caloric deficit makes you lose weight, but there's a lot of things involved with eating at a caloric deficit. If it was easy we wouldn't have thousands of diets around trying to tell us how to be, and I'd look a lot more like Brad Pitt than I do.
I'd say anyone with an able body could look better than brad pit (body wise) if they ate enough protein and exercised. If you want to lose weight eat less. It really is that simple. You may not look the best if you dont exercise and dont eat enough protein but you will lose weight.
I know that you either didn't read or didn't understand what I wrote.
As I explicitly said, we all know that eating at a caloric deficit makes you lose weight. Every single person who wants to lose weight knows that, and I think nearly everyone understands "more food -> fat, less food -> skinny". That's not up for debate, and I'm not arguing it, but you seem to think that I am.
What I said was that while this is a very simple concept, there's a variety of reasons that make this less easy than many people think. I invite you to reread anything said by @Gaywallet in this thread - they're an expert in all the things that make this simple concept a difficult thing to do. Please reread all the things he said, and try to do so with an open mind.
Several times you say things that are some variation of "not my fault if you dont have the willpower to do it long enough to see results." With all due respect, that's an awful thing to say and an awful thing to think. There are a lot of reasons that it's not just about willpower, and putting the blame on the people who are trying to be better just doesn't work at all. There are also other factors to consider, such as the time and money costs for unhealthy food (considering all factors - pre time, cost, ease of access, taste - things that are on the 'good' ends of all the scales tend to be cheap, though there are notable exceptions).
All this amounts to an issue that is simple to understand, but can be very difficult for many people to act on.