Agree on this too. From The Hacker’s Diet I took the averaged weight loss tracking and daily weigh-ins (he provides an Excel spreadsheet, but I’m using the FatWatch iPhone app, which uses the same method and tracks the Exercise Ladder), as well as the very slow and steady short progressive Exercise Ladder. I can walk all day if I have to and can lift decently heavy things, but I kill myself doing any other exercise, so slowly building up using this is a good idea.
I think that there’s an additional, non-obvious benefit to exercise. A lot of people are obese partly because they’ve gotten used to doing things in a lazy way. Instead of bending their legs to reach for something on the floor, for example, they will bend from the hip instead – or worse, try to pick the object up using their toes. Some get used to moving at an unnaturally slow pace. Of course, it doesn’t help that the extra poundage tends to encourage people to conserve effort by reducing the amount of movement that they perform.
I see this in the cardio classes at our gym all the time. We’ve got determined, overweight people who pour intense effort into their moves. They often need to adapt or take a break, but they pour in that effort nonetheless, and I don’t doubt that they’ll see solid results. Then you’ve got many others who try to move as little as possible. Instead of doing squats, for example, many of our folks just kinda dip forward from the waist without moving their legs. Instead of doing trunk twists, one guy just holds his forearms at waist level and then shakes them back and forth. In effect, he generates an unconvincing illusion that he’s twisting his trunk, and he winds up cheating himself in the process.
I think that if you exercise well, you will learn to avoid some of these bad, effort-conserving habits that people develop. That is, if you educate yourself, pay attention to proper form, and adopt a determined mindset. Learning how to move more energetically, even in one’s day-to-day activities, can have a huge benefit in the long run.
BTW, I realize that what I’ve just said might be construed by some as “sneering.” It isn’t. It’s simply a statement of fact. For a lot of people, their difficulty in losing weight DOES have a lot to do with the fact that they’ve gotten used to moving with as little effort as they can get away with. This thought can be unpleasant to hear, and so some will tend to construe it as ridicule. It’s not, though. The truth isn’t always flattering, but that doesn’t make it mean-spirited or untrue.
My understanding is that if you restrict calories too far, your body will usually turn first to your muscles for catabolism. Exercise and protein will help spare your muscle mass, but the better thing is not to push the calories down so far.
Once the muscle mass starts to go, the metabolism is slower. Fat doesn’t require much energy to maintain.
So, it’s not a direct thing, but it appears to be indirectly true.
How much did you expect to lose? Even sven made most the points I was going to, but also, it’s completely possible you did lose weight, just a matter of when you weigh yourself. My weight has fluctuated as much as 7 pounds in a single day, and if I’m retaining water for whatever reason (usually from partaking in salt-heavy foods), sometimes it will take several days for that water weight to shed. If your caloric load was truly less than your normal caloric load, I would expect one to at the most two pounds of weight loss after than amount of time.
I’ve found on these boards there’s a lot of ‘you’re fat and because of that you’re stupid, I mean you just need to change your calorie intake’.
It’s super aggravating. I mostly stay out of the weight loss threads. I’m a certified fatty but I know I am. And I know it’s the same thing as smoking or drinking or any other crappy addiction but smoking doesn’t get met with ‘those smokers with their yellow fingers touching clothes in the store, they’re so fucking disgusting, don’t they know they just need to not smoke any more?’.
ETA: (responding to pulykamell)
Not only that, and to be a little crude, but lets just say you ate 2 lbs of food on Superbowl Sunday…you step on the scale the next day and you’re up 1.5 lbs and are REALLY depressed over it…then the NEXT day, you take three trips to the bathroom and you’re right back down to the weight you had before the Superbowl.
This is an excellent point. Also, if you are a woman, your weight can fluctuate up to 10 pounds with your menstrual cycle. Also, if you are not regular, not having pooped in a while will make you heavier. (And sometimes eating less can stop up the pipes.)
I also share the opinion that others have that you are eating too little. When I was dieting (I am now just eating but consciously and am very slowly losing), I lost the most weight the fastest when I would take the basal calculation and subtract around 500 calories. 1400 calories for a heavy woman is bad news.
Also, exercise is important. It’s often boring and no fun but it is critical to your health (if not your weight loss). Different things work for different people. I have set a restriction that I am only allowed to listen to my favourite podcast if I am walking. Given that they are 30-45 minutes a day, it works. I have tried a billion other things but this is the first time I am actually doing something consistently.
I’m a fairly thin person - I don’t each much - but I overdid the holidays and have been trying to loose ten pounds since the new year. Its ROUGH. As I said, normally I don’t eat too much, so my portion control started good. Six weeks, and I’ve lost four pounds. I started jogging again - I expect that won’t help drop weight but will add muscle, which will help tone.
And, no. The numbers don’t add up. I can know that I’ve set up a calorie deficit for the week that should loose me a pound plus, and end up not losing anything. Then I can spend a week being “bad” and not gain anything - or even lose.
This conclusion is not supported by studies in human nutrition and energy metabolism.
It is not easy to alter your basal metabolic rate, though there are various diets that claim to do this. “Crash” dieting (severe calorie restriction) may lower metabolism, but I’ve not seen convincing evidence (as opposed to personal anecdotes) that sensible, gradual weight loss through limited caloric intake does this.
“It is a common belief that a slim people have a “high metabolism” while overweight/obese people have a “low metabolism”. This is very rarely the case. Studies carried out in North America and Western Europe have invariably shown that slow metabolism, or underlying conditions, such as hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) are very uncommon reasons for most cases of obesity. Quite simply - most overweight people do not have an underlying condition. The weight gain is mainly due to an energy imbalance.”
Three sensible keys to weight loss - eating less, exercising more and getting enough sleep. The will power element, as always, is a tough but necessary part of the equation.
With all due respect, that’s exactly the sort of imagined sneering that I was talking about.
I have yet to see ANYONE in these threads say that fat people are stupid. They might say that certain posters are engaged in foolish behavior or taking an unproductive approach to fat loss. They might even chide people for certain false notions, such as the infamous “Exercise doesn’t work!” or “Dieting doesn’t work!” mantras. That’s not the same as calling them stupid, though.
Similarly, people tend to conflate the terms “simple” and “easy.” Dopers will often correctly point out that the principle behind fat loss — consuming fewer calories than you burn – is simple. That’s not the same as saying that it’s easy, though. Nevertheless, because this is a hypersensitive topic to raise, people will read such things and then say, “Oh, so you think that it’s easy, do you? You must really condescend toward us fatties!”
I understand the frustration; after all, I used to be majorly overweight myself. Nevertheless, I think we should take a sober approach to this problem rather than reading too much into what has actually been said.
There is plenty of unfair treatment toward overweight people – and I say that as someone who used to be fat. There is also a great deal of resentment toward people who are fit or who have been successfully working toward that goal. This subject matter is volatile enough, so there’s simply nothing to be gained by adding manufactured outrage to the mix.
Yes, yes. Stoid, read this. If you don’t want to go buy a copy yourself from a bookstore or order it, I will be happy to send you a copy, I think he’s that spot on. I’m serious, just PM me.
Just came in to say that I really sympathize with the OP. Weight loss sucks. Maintenance sucks even more.
I lost 25 pounds a few years ago when my son was 2. I’ve kept the weight off, but I could stand to lose another 30. I had gotten into a good groove last September, but I fell off the wagon and just haven’t been able to motivate myself lately. Losing a baby a few weeks ago and having to have surgery didn’t help. I’ve been exhausted and depressed and just want to sleep after the kids go to bed. Still, I’ve started making myself pack all my lunches again, dragging my sorry ass onto the treadmill at night even when I don’t want to and, slowly, slowly, slowly, the weight is coming off. Or at least I’m getting more toned.
Weight loss is such an individual issue. The way I look at it, you’ve got the base: calories in, calories out. Fixing the base works for most people and is a good place to start. But that’s still just the base. Everyone’s body responds differently to different stimuli. So, even if you’re taking care of the base, that might not be enough. You just have to figure out what you have to do in addition to make it work, whether that’s the composition of your diet (some people can lose weight simply by portion control, or by going on a high-protein diet, or low fat diet), a combination of diet & exercise, exercise only or even something else. I’ve known people who lost weight only after they dealt with underlying issues like depression or a chronic condition they didn’t even know they had.
Regardless, good luck to you, OP. Your hard work will pay off one way or the other. I know it’s not much consolation when you can’t physically see the change, but by doing what you’re doing, you’re still making yourself healthier, which is so very important.
If you think your metabolism is messed up, you may want to Google “metabolic damage”. Scott Abel talks about it a lot in his blog (though it’s in reference to body building competitors). From what I understand, there are ways to repair it, but it can take a year or two of effort.
I’ve had good luck changing disordered eating through the Lean Eating program done by Precision Nutrition. I’ve lost 30 pounds in the last 7 months and improved my blood pressure, cholesterol, fasting blood sugar, etc.
Regardless of what you do, I hope you feel healthier a year from now than you do today. That’s pretty much all any of us can do. 
Moving thread from IMHO to MPSIMS.
I love averages. To lose an average of two pounds per week, the reality is that some weeks you will lost 0 to 1 lb.
People, be smarter than the dopes that report the weather. Losing .5 lb for two weeks in a row is normal if your goal is to average 2 lbs/week. You might go for 26 straight weeks and never lose two pounds in any week. You might lose less for a while, and then more for a while, and it’ll average out.
I wouldn’t even bother weighing more often than every 30 days anyway.
Also: Your body is going to try FOREVER to get you back to the heaviest you’ve ever been.
I’m not sure how that calorie recommendation for 2 lbs/Wk can be right. I’m 1" taller, 40 years old, and about 165 lbs right now, pretty much sedentary, and I’m eating per SparkPeople’s recommendation 1250-1600 calories a day for what is working out to around a pound and a half a week. (If I exercised as much as I should I’d probably be at 2.)
Edit: Philster, that’s why I chart my weight versus an average loss; it shows the real trend and smooths out those humps from all the other stuff your body does. And yes, one month is way too short a tracking period to assume anything at all.
Ooh, good to know. Thank you.
Aaaaaannnd this is why fat slugs like myself are confused about weight loss. Should I be gobbling 3,000 calories/day or 300? I can’t do both.
I meant to add that I had read that AGAIN, for about the 20th time a couple of days ago. It’s a very pervasive myth and I fell for it!