Do you like fish? You can eat a lot of fish, as long as it’s not fried.
Do you like music? I ride my stationary bike every day and listen to music while I pedal. No way would I climb on that thing without some tunes to enjoy.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned here is that restricted eating often leads to overeating. When you deprive your body of calories, it triggers a massive hunger reaction to urge you to eat more. Likewise, restricting sugar intake leads to excessive sugar intake. In the infamous rat studies that supposedly show sugar is as addictive as cocaine, the rats only behave like they’re “addicted” to sugar when their access to sugar is restricted. When sugar is freely available, they eat it in moderation. The relationship between caloric restriction and binge eating is why most people who successfully lose weight in the short term end up heavier than when they started. And it’s why people being treated for binge eating disorder have to unlearn everything they think they know about the relationship between diet and weight. It’s the food restriction that causes the overeating. We live in a culture where dieting is considered normal and good and most of us have tried and failed to lose weight through caloric restriction or restricting certain foods throughout our lives. Many of us have been trying and failing since we were children. It doesn’t work with human physiology and psychology. If you are trying to control what you eat, that may be the root of the problem. That has certainly been the case for me.
If you feel you must lose weight, I’d be very, very careful about caloric restriction. I’d go for the barest minimum deficit you can in hopes it doesn’t trigger your starvation response. In actual fact I’d just recommend you quit worrying about your diet and get swol. You’ll probably have greater traction with increased muscle mass. When we’re exercising heavily, we tend to clean up our diets naturally because we know we need to fuel ourselves properly.
I’m in the same boat right now. I was enjoying a group fossil hunting field trip a week or so ago and I noticed one of the ladies leaving after only 30 minutes or so. She is overweight and it’s obvious her knees bother her. I freaking love being outside, looking for rocks or fossils or just walking along in the forest looking at fungus and birds or whatever catches my attention. Sometimes I bring along a book about wild edible plants and see if I can identify things.
I thought to myself “if I don’t get it together, that’s going to be me, leaving early from things I absolutely love because I’m too out of shape to enjoy them”.
I do really enjoy eating and sitting at my computer down the internet rabbit hole as well. So this is not easy for me. Not drinking pop (soda) is always the first thing I drop because I agree with it and it’s not that hard for me to do.
Anyway I’m just letting you know that I’m right there with you.
Alongside of that, a “reward vs punishment” mindset totally screws up a person’s chances at health, because your brain naturally desires reward and avoids punishment.
So when kids think, “Unhealthy = yummy, and healthy = gross,” they are totally sabotaged. And their parents unwittingly contribute to this mindset by saying things like “You need to eat your spinach first, then you can get ice cream afterwards.”
One gym sign said it best: “Exercise is a celebration of what your body can still do, not a punishment for what you just ate.”
You’re right. We just need to tell our kids, “Eat your ice cream now, and you can have some spinach after” and they’ll be all good.
What works for me is adding food. Meaning, add your produce. If you eat two dinners/day, kale and spinach make a delicious and healthy bed for protein. Add a side of berries and a protein. After you’ve eaten that, if you’re still hungry, you can have whatever you want, but the quantity of fiber contained within the fruits & veggies will probably make you full enough you won’t want it.
And I second, third, fourth, etc. working on kicking your soda habit. Start by getting rid of 8 oz/day and replacing it with water. Or iced tea. Or whatever non-caloric beverage floats your boat so long as you recognize all the ingredients in said beverage.
Also, I’m not an exercise fanatic, either, for weight loss, but it can do wonders for your mental health. Walk for 10 minutes tomorrow. See how you feel when you wake up the following morning.
@robby said it best. That doesn’t mean it is always easy to do.
With restaurants, if you find you don’t have leftovers, start ordering differently. Soup or salad and half sandwich combos are likely better and less food. Go out for lunch but not dinner. Lunch servings are often smaller. Always, always be sure your meal includes veggies and/or legumes (and potatoes and corn are not really veggies, they are starches).
I’m trying to work on this myself. I was doing surprisingly okay over the winter when living on food shelf food. But now, I’m staying with a friend who cooks very differently than I and my stress level is high because I’m still jobless so I was slipping into the heavy carb/junk food diet again. I’m working again to put a stop to it.
Tha’ts aburd if you think about it. So it won’t work in theory? That’s fine I guess, I’m here to tell you it works in real life! Ultimately in order to lose weight - to burn fat - calories are by definition restricted. You agree with this right? There’s no way around this.
It’s better to add to exercise to the mix, it will speed things along, given the same caloric intake. No argument there. But at the end of the day people have to weigh (heh) whether it’s worth spending another hour of dedicated exercise to burn off that extra spoon of peanut butter or hunk of cheddar.
Nope, studies have shown that’s an old wives tale. Turns out the metabolism actually increases during fasting. Trust me. Intermittent fasting works great. I shed 55 pounds over 4 years ago simply by eating one meal a day, and cutting back on the calories. I did some exercise, mowing the lawn and stuff like that. What I like about it is I still ate most of the things I love, it allows for large, satisfying meals. I still eat all the stuff I love. Just not very much, and not very often. We have to make permanent lifestyle changes to keep the weight from coming back.
One problem with really obese folks, there isn’t much exercise they can do, the excess weight is pure hell on joints, ankles, knees, and such. Suggesting that people go jogging, for example is right out.
It’s also a huge mental block, I think, because most of the conventional advice on losing weight emphasizes exercise so much. Nobody wants to do that. Coupled with all this “Eat 6 small meals a day to keep your metabolism up!” and recommending sawdust toast and brussel sprout smoothies, it’s little wonder so many people say “F that’, I’ll be fat the rest of my life” and order a big pizza.
It all comes down to figuring out what one’s basal metabolism is (plus the calories required for the day’s activities) For adult males, the basal rate is maybe 1500 to 1800 calories, but as we get older this goes down, sometimes by quite a lot. Sedentary people simply do not need many calories. If people are active they can eat more. If not, not. If we eat more than our bodies need, to include the calories necessary for other activities, our bodies store this as fat. If we eat less, then weight loss will occur.
Don’t misunderstand - exercise has numerous benefits, but we can get many of the same benefits by intermittent fasting. I’m just pointing out exercise has little to nothing do with burning fat, and I think there is an inordinate emphasis on exercise as a means of losing weight.
The error in your comment is that you are talking about losing weight and burning fat as if they are the same thing. They aren’t.
So, yes, if you want to “lose weight” you can cut calories. And your weight will go down. But so will your energy and your muscle mass.
It’s not healthy and not sustainable.
Whereas the people who are most successful with maintaining low levels of body fat use a mixture of diet and exercise. If you endeavor to cut fat (and not endure a health crisis along the way), then dramatically restricting calories over a long period of time will be futile.
Regular periodic eating of low glycemic index meals is an effective way of maintaining consistent insulin levels, whereas insulin spikes exacerbate fat retention. That’s the science behind eating small, consistent meals.
I never said it didn’t. I thought we were talking about cutting calories versus exercise for reducing one’s fat levels.
(I usually “intermittently fast” for about 11 hours each day - from my last meal at about 9:30 pm until breakfast at about 8:30 am the next morning)
Good for you! I’m 45 and can see my abs. There’s different things for different people.
That’s obviously untrue. Lots of people love to exercise, and for a myriad of reasons. Exercise is regularly recommended because it is the most effective way of burning off fat and keeping it off.
What if I told you that you could enjoy food and still eat healthy? Or that you can lose fat and not be hungry? Because both are true.
This is nonsense, for two reasons. One, certain types of exercise burns fat. Two, doing exercise (more specifically, building muscle) improves the body’s fat burning for the rest of the time when you aren’t exercising.
What do you think obesity is? It’s excess fat, by definition. Adipocyte cells.
If someone wants to lose weight, they have to burn the fat. That means taking in less calories than is needed for basal metabolism plus whatever calories are needed based on their activity level. I’ll not argue it is linear, nor a simple “calories in calories out” scenario in the short term. It is absolutely sustainable, we just have to “watch what we eat.” If I eat too much food, I gain weight - fat. If I eat less, I lose the fat.
The beauty of the human metabolism, it has evolved strategies to protect against starvation. It is not going to burn muscle mass when there’s fat there. That’s why it’s there! Studies show this.
“It’s not healthy”. Now you’re suggesting it’s “not healthy” for obese people to lose weight? “Dramatically restricting calories” works every time. In fact.
Then you would be repeating everything I’ve been saying. That’s why fasting is such a great method. What people are calling “hunger” isn’t really hunger anyway. Why would an obese person ever be hungry? Fat is approximately 4,000 calories per pound. The world record for fasting was just over a year. A guy named Angus (really) under medical supervision took only liquids and some electrolyte supplements. He lost several hundred pounds. He didn’t lose muscle mass.
For me, one key thing was to make incremental changes in my habits, not drastic ones. For example if you love soda and can’t bear to give it up, start by limiting yourself to three sodas a day and if you still want to drink something bubbly make it flavored soda water. Do that until it’s a fixed habit. Then you can think about making it two sodas for a month or so.
Find the things you can give up without much struggle and do those first. For me it was a big sit-down dinner, a time of day when I’m never very hungry. Instead I eat low calorie but nutritious snacks like rice cakes and hummus, or a big salad. It wouldn’t work for a lot of people but because I’m not very hungry then, it’s easy for me.
Start small but keep at it. Big changes will lead to big rebounds. Do not keep foods you mindlessly eat to the bottom of the bag in the house. Identify those foods and stop buying them.
And yeah, get active by finding something that not only is fun but you can do almost every day. Doesn’t have to be laps, or lifting weights. For me it’s hiking and riding my horse and gardening. Find something that gets you moving and breathing.
Good luck!
I find avoiding an all or nothing approach works best for me. On any given day I have a variety of exercises to choose from for variable durations. I just decide on that day based on my energy and needs what I want to do. And I track it on a calendar using green, silver and gold dots. Green uses the tiniest of tiny steps - a minute of cardio for example. Gold is a full workout.
Walking is good. It’s underrated, I think. And most people can do it regardless of weight. I’m not sure where we got the idea that fat people can’t do “real” exercise but I can and do run. Slowly, but I do it.
I do the same thing for food. I get a gold dot whenever I cook dinner vs. eating out or raiding the snack cabinet. The book Mini-Habits for Weight Loss talks about meal upgrades. If you normally have a soda with your combo meal, get water instead. If you order pizza, eat a salad first. Or drink a big glass of water. Every little tweak counts as a meal upgrade you can track. If you get three in one day, gold dot.
I’m not sure I believe in weight loss anymore, but if I do it’s more the variety of not focusing on weight loss at all and doing everything you can to make food and exercises choices that make your body feel good. Research indicates that the worst possible reason to focus on making these changes is weight loss, because it’s out of your control, it will likely plateau or even reverse at some point so it just makes much more sense to make the healthy behavior the end goal.
I’m thankful my mom rarely bought bags of chips. I continued that restriction at my home. I may buy a bag of chips for a cook out or party. I like them but understand the salt and fat aren’t healthy. I know a bag of chips in the kitchen wouldn’t last very long. They’re too tempting.
I agree diets often don’t work long term. Most people will return to their old eating habits.
Modifying what we eat requires small steps. Cut back on soda and chips but it has to be sustainable. Maybe one soda a day instead of three. Everyone is different and what they crave.
This is simply not true.
Are you of the opinion that soldiers and prisoners subject to starvation conditions only lost fat before losing any muscle? Basically, the Americans at Andersonville or the Europeans in Auschwitz got (to use a modern expression) “ripped” before any muscle wasted away?
That’s absurd. A picture of any of the victims shows how emaciated they were.
I’d be interested in any of your studies. From where I sit, there are indeed studies that say that fasting does not appear to cause muscle loss any more than other conventional diets, but that’s a far cry from saying that if you simply stop eating that your body will only burn off its fat before going for muscle mass.
Please note: I do understand the metabolic “trick” that short term intermittent fasting leads to - it’s ketosis, wherein your body switches from glycogen to fat for energy. It can be an effective way for very short term fat loss, but long term ketosis is not healthy for the body.
It’s also not sustainable the way learning to eat a healthy balance of natural foods is. I don’t know about you, but I’d far prefer to eat tasty food regularly than to go through the constant ebb and flow of cravings and binges.
Instead of chips, go for nuts. I love eating pistachios, since opening the shell gives you something to do. And nuts are a good source of protein and fiber - a really filling food.
Or eat popcorn instead of chips - you at least get fiber with your salt intake.
Another ‘rule’ along these lines that might be easy to adopt, is being able to say to anything offered you:
- No thanks, I don’t eat between meals
Have that as an automatic response to any offer (or availability) of food, snacks, candy etc. You can even say it to yourself if you find yourself standing in front of the fridge at inappropriate times.
Don’t keep anything around that you feel you shouldn’t eat (chips, soda, etc). Keep things around you can eat that you like enough to go to when you’re craving something. For me it was blueberries, strawberries, Brussels sprouts, oatmeal, or eggs.
Don’t make extras of dinners if you know you’re going to eat extra servings. Just make enough for 1 helping. But having a big pot of soup to fall back on is a great idea.
I have no problem with others drinking diet soda. Sure, plain water is much better, but it’s a good substitute if you’re craving soda. [Dave Barry wrote about losing weight in part by switching to Canfield’s Diet Cocolate (and Chocolate Cherry) Soda, iirc.] Diet soda makes you feel like you’re not being deprived. And the notion that diet soda affects metabolism the same as sugar soda I believe has been debunked. (Although I feel like it’s a huge waste of money, but we all make trade-offs.)
I lost a lot of weight 14 years ago by carefully planning everything I was going to eat that day and sticking to it (counting calories just as a way of verifying how much I was actually ingesting). No meaningful increase in exercise because I’m lazy. Haven’t gained it back yet, but it’s a real ongoing challenge. I’m used to eating like I could in my 20s, but those days are far behind me.
My theory is that the amount of calories expended opening the shell equals the amount in each nut.
Wondering if any of this has been helpful to the OP at all.
OP, what is your starting weight and how much do you want to lose? What is your average daily calorie intake? What is your daily activity level?
Not ripped. Obese people have enormous energy stores, in the form of fat. That’s what it’s for. Once fat stores are depleted then, in extremis, the body starts on muscle mass. That’s why those people in gulags and camps that are very concentrated looked the way they do, they were starved. They burned all their fat stores if any, and eventually, muscle mass.
The human body is adapted to burn fat before muscle.
Intermittent fasting works well, but like anything else it takes practice. There are two main states our bodies are in - “Fed” and “Fasted”. Modern diets or patterns of eating mean our bodies spend very little time in the fasted state. High carbohydrate diets mean we are often “sugar burners”, leading to chronically high insulin levels. By restricting carbohydrate in particular and calories generally the body can become accustomed to burning fat for energy stores throughout the day.
The body utilizes carbohydrate preferentially, the glucose stored in muscles, bloodstream, and liver. Fat burning cannot occur unless and until glucose stores are exhausted. Again, most people with a “modern” western diet of junk food and snacks, the pathways for metabolizing fat are underused all the way down to the cellular level. Time restricted eating, or intermittent fasting forces the body to re-learn how to burn fat very effectively, and transition for burning fat stores.
Of course a “Keto diet” and similar strategies would not be needed once a health weight is achieved, it is a means to an end, not an end. The key to any of these strategies is to recognize that permanent lifestyle changes are required to maintain a healthy weight. I’m not interested in why something can’t work in theory, I know what works in real life. Intermittent fasting isn’t for everybody, but it probably should be.