This is not in GD for a reason. I’m not here to debate diet theories. I’m just here to tell my story.
If you have read my posts on dieting you know in am not a “it’s just calories in vs. calories out” person. I think that there is a lot more to it (and new research seems to be going that direction). I talked to a good friend about different theories: fasting, body-confusion, ghrelin v. leptin (and hormones in general, triggering fat-cell death, etc. We also talked about how different diets have different effectiveness for different people. We know as a fact Mrs. Cad’s weight is hormonal in nature. And exercise is worthless numerically. Do the math and casual ongoing exercise just does not burn a ton of calories. And despite my story I still firmly believe weight loss goes deeper than calories-in, calories-out
This summer I started eating less. One helping of dinner, no dessert. I don’t have to stop for food on my way home even though I’m hungry because I can get a little something at home. But strangely enough I haven’t done a daily fast like I used to twice a week. I also still slam diet drinks. Also this summer I started landscaping my house. I’ve dug up two lawns by hand, fought the roto-tiller, moved close to 100 stones (20 - 50 lb each) by hand from one place to another. It is such a big task that I’m still working on it.
I started at 260 lb. Today I weighed in at 217.
Fuck! I am the poster child for eat less exercise more. I have become everything I argue against. And here is the worst part. Mrs. Cad still has no solution to her weight problem and she is at the limits of frustration so I can’t celebrate my weight loss with her. Family members have commented on my weight loss but don’t do it with her around. It almost feels … no, it does feel shameful that I have been so successful and despite all her effort - nothing.
Women have a much harder time losing excess weight, that’s an unfortunately ineluctable fact of human life. I was in a weight loss program with both men and women, all ages, and for the men who stayed with the program, the pounds melted off; the women lost at about half the rate (and this was a pretty radical program, basically a liquid protein modified fast). I have no reason to believe they weren’t working just as hard as the men (exercise was also a requirement) and sticking to the program just as well. This frequently came up in the meetings, it’s just harder for women.
Congratulations to you, anyway, even if it disproved some of your theories. You have lost 16.5% of your body weight, so expect it to get harder (if you are interested in continuing) to lose as you get closer to your goal. Then there’s maintenance. Remember you haven’t removed any fat cells, you have only made them smaller, and they are going to be fighting you tooth and nail using chemicals that affect your brain, so they can regain their former robust size and get some new friends. Keep up some kind of regular exercise, and it helps that you apparently don’t have a lot of cravings. Best of luck to both of you.
It’s not easy, but it is simple. I don’t count calories, I am largely eating the same things I always have, just less of them. I was very surprised that that was enough.
It took a long time for me to get where I felt happy, approaching a year now, which was down to 83kg from 95kg, but it was a steady drop once I made the change. I recognise this method doesn’t work for everyone, bit I still would recommend it.
This is it right? People confuse the two. It’s a simple formula, if your body absorbs less calories than it spends it will lose weight, but that doesn’t mean it is easy.
“Eat less, exercise more” is not incorrect per se but it is a little misleading. What it actually should be is “consume fewer calories (and exercise not to primarily lose weight but because it’s insanely health promoting on it’s own)”. You can design a diet where you end up eating more in terms of volume or mass of food but still lose weight. How? By eating (very) low calorie dense food, like leafy greens.* In fact, there is a study where people were put on a plant-based diet like this that was isocaloric compared to the reference diet so that they didn’t lose weight. Some of the study participants found it difficult to eat the sheer amount that was required for the study.
*An even better (but not very healthy) example to drive the point home: ice cubes. You can eat an infinite amount of ice cubes but not gain any weight or calories. This is actually comparable to vegetables since many vegetables are mostly water! So remember to eat your veggies.
I am more of a CICO type of guy, but I’m not going to attempt to debate you. To be honest, I’ve arrived at CICO for myself after trying keto, IF, etc and having a lot of theories about hormones and such. So for me, it’s sort of the opposite (well perhaps the same in my personal realization) - I’ve come across more and more research that does seem to support CICO and that most successful diets are about adherence and overall caloric deficit. Also, I’m primarily interested in body composition (I’d rather be slightly overweight if my fat free mass is very high than be “skinny fat”) rather than low weight. Also have come across some studies that show fasting reduces lean mass more than daily restriction, which is very bad long term IMHO.
Since we have some discussion about how it seems easier for men to lose weight than women, I think hormones and other things play a part in that but it’s primarily because women have a much lower TDEE/maintenance level due to much lower fat free mass. More lean mass means you burn more calories just existing and not doing anything. My maintenance is something crazy like 3500 calories a day. I’m sure there are women with similar activity levels and similar body composition (for a woman) who need to cut under 2000 or less. Sedentary maybe 1200-1500. I would waste away if I ate 2000 and did nothing, and I’d probably lose a lot of muscle without increasing my protein and doing some sort of maintenance strength training.
Other research I’ve come across suggests that our metabolism does not decline as we age, at least not until 60s or later, when controlled for lean mass. So I think when it comes to men having trouble with middle-aged weight gain a lot of that is a function of reduced muscle. Caloric needs decrease, we lose muscle and especially if more sedentary if we eat like we did when we were in our 20s we gain fat.
Women are naturally going to have much lower caloric needs than men and it’s going to be harder to create a deficit through either activity or diet. So my wife might look at me and say “I hate that you’re so skinny (hey, thanks for the body-shaming, plus I’m technically overweight,” but for being so “skinny” I’m sure I have a good 50-60 lbs more lean tissue than she does AND I have 50 hours more movement per week. I could eat 3000 a day and lose a pound of fat per week, and she would gain 2 pounds on the same diet.
Yeah, if you do a simple caloric math calculation it can seem a bit depressing to find out how much exercise you need to say, burn off that burger and beer you had the night before. But exercise also ramps up your metaboilism, helping you burn more calories in the long run, and as @yarblek pointed out, has many health benefits.
When I lost a good amount of weight a couple years ago I did a combination of keto and an app that tracked my calories. To reach the “lose x amount by y date” goal I set, I was allowed 1600 calories a day, which ain’t much! But those were net calories-- whatever exercise I did, the burned calories got subtracted from the overall calorie total. So exercise became like currency-- I could buy more guilt-free calories. I could either not exercise and go hungry, or exercise and eat more. I got to like exercise!
I think the part of that the OP and many others are missing, is calories in, calories out is the ends, not the means, the result of action on the biological system, not the action in itself. Yes if you had a slave, and I believe that is still legal in some places in the world, you could do a strict calories in/out by force compliance but for a free person it is those other things that get you into the balance you want.
This step is something that different people will have vastly different struggles with. Some people can change their eating habits relatively easily, while for others it’s as hard as an addict trying to get off drugs. Although this step is simple, it may present a great challenge of willpower in some people and some specialized techniques may be necessary. For example, some people may find it easier to cut out certain categories of foods, like dairy or wheat, rather than try to cut back on portion size. Low-carb is another diet that people seem to generally have an easier time sticking with. For someone who greatly struggles to limit themselves to 1 slice of pizza instead of 3, they may have better luck with a drastic change to their food pallet rather than just cutting back what they normally eat.
As for exercise, although the calories alone may seem insignificant, exercise creates many metabolic changes in your body that can help with weight loss. One aspect is that it may naturally encourage you to eat healthier. Your body will need more actual nutrition to deal with the stress of exertion, so it may seek out more nutritious foods rather than junk food.
When it comes to losing weight, there are first-order effects, second-order effects, third-order effects, etc.
The problem is that a lot of people focus on the second-order and third-order effects when trying to lose weight, while ignoring - or minimizing the importance of - the first-order effect (calories consumed per day). They get frustrated and quit and as result.
When trying to lose weight, focus first on calories consumed per day. Once you have that under control, only then start looking at second-order and third-order effects.
I was thinking of starting a thread on this same subject. I’ve lost about 40 pounds since the pandemic started. I find it rather interesting how I lost it. I weigh myself most days just before getting in to the shower. It seems like my weight will fluctuate within about a three-pound range for a few weeks, then it will suddenly drop a couple pounds and settle into a new range. For example, for the last couple weeks I’ve been bouncing around between 192-195. In a week or two, I expect that to drop down and then be stuck between 189-192 for a few weeks.
Is this a real phenomenon, or am I just imagining a trend in a dataset that has some natural randomness? The resolution of my scale probably has something to do with it, too.
Eventually, if you starve your fat cells for several years, they will apparently begin to die off and disappear. I don’t have a cite for that. But this is why it is so much better to never get fat in the first place, than to try to lose fat and keep it off. And why sound education on nutrition and weight loss is so important to losing weight and even more to keeping it off.
They call it the “whoosh,” and there’s a popular theory about retaining water in your cells as you lose fat. I don’t believe there’s any science to back it up.
But I can confirm that I experience the same set of plateaus and dips when I’m losing weight.
Eons ago, when I was in my 20s, I lost a good bit of weight, and I hated it also. All of a sudden, guys were constantly hitting on me, especially married ones! It truly sucked, and in short order, the weight came back, and then some. Pretty sure it was a defense mechanism. My thinking was I’d rather you like me for me than for the shape/size of my body.
Now, in my later 60s, I’ve shed around 100# (it’s been wavering in recent months) And while I most certainly don’t have the bod of a 20-y/o, I’m no longer fluffy, and I feel so much better. And my knees don’t hurt any longer - go figure! I guess it took this long to put the defense mechanism and a certain amount of laziness behind me.
“Retaining water” seems like an awfully simplistic way to refer to it. Human bodies, and the way they ingest, process, store, and burn energy (and eliminate the waste products) are pretty damn complicated. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are metabolic processes that operate over days or weeks and have an impact on body mass. Seems like the kind of thing that biologists or nutritionists would know about.
I never really understood why people are so insistent on this. The commonly used quote is usually something about “you have to run three miles to make up for a single slice of pepperoni pizza” or something like that. And that’s true, but a slightly more zoomed out way to look at it is this: if I run 20 miles / week, that’s probably about 2800 calories, or 400 / day. That’s 400 additional calories per day I get to (have to) eat. Even on a 2500 cal/day diet, that’s pretty substantial. I know I can tell the difference between 2500 cal and 2900 cal in a day.
Maybe it just comes down to a difference in understanding about the meaning of “casual ongoing exercise,” but I definitely consider 20 mi/wk in that category. I wouldn’t go from nothing straight to that much, but it’s not too hard to build up to it.