For what it’s worth, I never claimed that anyone consumes thousands of calories per day worth of wine.
I didn’t say anything about time periods. Now granted, I could have been more precise, but my point is that (1) not all calories are equal, in terms of weight gain; and (2) the fact that some people consume lots of alcohol but don’t get fat supports this.
So, feel free to quibble with my example as much as you like. But my basic point still stands - in terms of weight gain and weight loss, not all calories are equal.
IANA Dr. but I’ve always felt that breathing is a major factor in controling metabolism. And that overweight people breath mainly with there chest and thiner people with ther diaphram, thus useing more of the capasity of there lungs. I have always been on the thin side wile eating all I want ,much more than hever friends of mine, and have never been big on exersize. But due to the influence of my father I have always breathed from the diaphram, and I believe this is why I’ve never had any problems with my weight and have always had plenty of energy when needed. Also whenever I’ve had to pull overniters, a few deep breaths will usualy give me the boost I need to go the distance. In addion to dieting and exersize this should help and shouldn’t hurt. But learning to breath from the diaphram takes time and practice but the results are worth it IMHO.
I’ve never heard anything about this before Stinky, but I’ve been a singer and have studied voice years before I lost any weight and have been breathing from my diaphram all that time. I can’t see any relation to breathing and weight control. There are many singers who are overweight and breathe from their diaphrams as well…Aretha Franklin, Anne Wilson etc… Have you seen/heard any studies on this? And if so could you provide a link?
For what it may be worth, I’m kinda skeptical of the “diaphragm” theory. It seems to me that you’re confusing cause and effect. i.e. many fat people appear to breath more shallowly because of their shape and the fit of their clothes.
Now, I realize it’s a bit hypocritical for me to beat up on someone else’s theory when I don’t have a lot of evidence supporting my own.
I suppose the real way to test it would be for an overweight person to continue to eat normally while making a conscious effort to breath from the diaphragm.
dreamer, I would recommend against Stoid’s suggestion. If you’re working out 3-4 times a week, you need those carbs. I would not disagree with you increasing your caloric intake, or at least analyzing how you get those calories, but when working out regularly, low-carb is probably not a good idea.
Probably the best way you’re going to find to jump-start your weight-loss is to change your exercise program. New lifts to exercise muscles differently if you lift, adding weight training if you don’t. Making adjustments in the type, frequency, intensity and time of day for whatever other exercise you do should work, too.
I really don’t know what to change. Here’s an example of a regular day for me eating wise - every morning I have two packets of Oatmeal (approx. 300 calories) and that gets me started very well in the morning (along with coffee of course). Then for lunch I’ll usually have a bananna, a light yogurt and either a Gardenburger Patty (soy) or a can of tuna with just mustard, or some crab meat. All for protein. Then I’ll have some fruit or something as a snack later in the afternoon and for dinner sometimes I skip it entirely or just have some salad with salsa or something with very little carbs.
As for my workout schedule I do Tae-bo - usually between 30 min to 45 min 3-4 times a week. I don’t really want to change that because I enjoy it. And finding a work out that I enjoy was not easy . Anyway all I can think of doing is maybe eating more at night to keep my metabolism going? Or working out a few more times a week. I think I’m eating healthy and on the weekends I eat a lot more carbs.
So, that’s it. Any suggestions on different low cal foods maybe I could change?
Well, lucwarm, I don’t think your plan would work for me. You gain weight because of too many calories, not because your body ‘knows’ that Ho-hos are bad for you.
The times when I was gaining the most weight were the times when I cut out the foods and drinks that I liked (like sweets, diet soda, dairy, and so on). I was so hungry and driven to eat more than I normally would have otherwise to try to satisfy the cravings. You can say ignore that, but it’s very hard to live happily (let alone sanely) if you’re just hungry all the time.
You just can’t cut all fat out of your diet. Honestly, most of the things I really, really like aren’t the absolute crap – they’re things like pesto sauce, pasta, black beans and rice, and so on. In moderation, those are fine, but you eat too much, and you gain weight.
Heck, I think a lot of my weight problems are because diets I was always trying (or being forced to use, as a kid) were just unreasonable. How on earth can you give up entirely on all of the foods that you like? I remember eating crappy rice cakes (they’re better now, and I like them, but 15 years ago or so they were awful), hot dogs on bread (buns were verboten), raw celery up the ying-yang, and other stuff I never really liked to eat.
I guess it’s a quality of life issue. Saying I’ll never get to eat sweets again, even in moderation, just can’t work for me. Likewise, never spending ‘empty calories’ on alcohol, or eating ‘fatty’ foods like my Mom’s homemade pesto sauce. I don’t think they’d help me lose weight at all. I’d rather just try moderation, which does work when I practice it! I’ve also been having a lot of luck with trying low-cal versions of existing recipes. The weight loss foods around today are really a lot better when I was a kid. On the diet I’m on now, we made (crustless) pumpkin pie, and it was 2 points (less than 1/15 of my total points for the day) for a sixth of the pie, and it tasted good! I am very surprised. I am actually enjoying eating this way, because I like vegetables and am motivated to eat them (no points), and no more mediocre Pasta Roni and frozen pizzas is not a bad thing where my palate’s concerned.
So, I take it that, if you had to eat 2500 calories a day for three months, and you had to choose between eating nothing but fried foods, cake, ice cream, soda etc. (plus a vitamin supplement!) or fruits, vegetables, lean meats, etc., you would be indifferent?
Well, my theory is that you can eat as much “good” food as you want without gaining weight. If your experience is correct, then I concede it undermines my theory.
I’m not saying that it’s fat that is the culprit. At the same time, I agree that many “bad” foods are high in fat (and sugar).
Do you take your rice and beans with some kind of sauce? What kind? I would probably categorize many (or most) sauces as “bad.”
In moderation, any kind of food is ok. In moderation, cigarettes are ok too. But most ex-smokers won’t have even one cigarette. Or they won’t be ex-smokers for long.
I think that giving up “bad” foods is much less of a sacrifice than you think. Further, I would make the fairly radical claim that the good taste you associate with certain foods is largely an illusion.
Let me give you an example, again from the world of smoking. When I used to smoke, I just loved the feeling of smoke going into my lungs. (Of course, the first time I smoked, I hated that feeling.) What happened? Well, as I became addicted to nicotine my mind/brain/whatever came to associate the feeling of hot cigarette smoke going into my lungs with the feeling of satisfying the nicotine craving. So I came to like the feeling of smoke going into my lungs.
In the same way, I think that the taste for “bad” foods is acquired as a result of the positive effect they have on the mind/brain/whatever.
Keep in mind that the way food tastes has as much to do with the eater as the food itself. I would suggest that, to someone who has eliminated all “bad” food from their diet, an apple tastes just as good as apple pie would have tasted before. A sandwich with just turkey and lettuce tastes just as good as ham & swiss would have tasted previously.
See, most of the “pleasure” that comes from consuming something to which you are addicted is in relieving a craving that is caused by consuming the thing on a previous occasion. Eliminate the thing entirely from your life, and you are no less happy, on average, than you were before.
But look, I’m just theorizing. If you’ve found an approach to dieting that works, that’s great. My concern is with the issue that many (most?) dieters seem to stall and/or fail, leaving the dieter unsuccessful and frustrated.
There is also the issue of just how the Calories in a given piece of food are measured to begin with.
From my understanding, Calorie content is determined by essentially burning a piece of food in a calorimeter, and measuring the amount of heat-energy that is given off. This gives a measurement of just how much chemical combustion energy there is in a given substance.
This is all fine and good for, say, sugar or fat, but is bound to give inaccurate results for items that can’t be digested very well. A piece of driftwood, for example, would have many Calories, but would not contribute any Calories to your body if you ate it because it would go all the way through your digestive tract without being absorbed. Thus, using the traditional “Calorie” measurement for driftwood is not going to accurately represent its nutritional and energy contribution to your body.
Perhaps a similar case can be made for alcohol and/or veggies.
Ya know, I have been following this thread, and I haven’t really seen any evidence that we need to invoke anything other than metabolism, exercise, and diet to explain weight changes. My reference point might be a little different from yours. My little sister was hospitalized for anorexia (she’s fine now, and getting better), and in an effort to have her gain weight, they were feeding her 4200 calories per day (that’s not a typo) and not allowing her to do anything but sit most of the day. She wasn’t gaining weight. Before you ask, yes, she was under close observation–she really did eat all that, and she really didn’t do any physical activity. Apparently this is not an unusual occurence for recovering anorexics. So the human metabolism is stranger than you think, and can probably account for any dieter’s plateau.
Secondly, not all exercise programs are created equal. It’s entirely possible to have a tough exercise program that’s not effective at burning fat. Here’s a page describing an 8-week study comparing the effects of pure aerobic exercise (riding a bike for 30 minutes) and a mix of aerobic and anaerobic exercise (riding a bike for 15 minutes and lifting for 15 minutes). The results are staggering–the group who only rode the bike lost three pounds of fat and half a pound of muscle, whereas the other group lost ten pounds of fat and gained two pounds of muscle. Just to check, dieter’s plateau is with reference to weight and not body fat percentage, right? Muscle gain from exercise programs can cause your weight to stay the same or even increase.
I agree, but I think what’s primarily being debated is what kinds of diets have what effects on weight.
There seems to be an idea floating around that a diet can be evaluated solely by adding up the total number of calories consumed.
My theory is that different foods have different effects on the mind and body, and therefore upon weight changes, even if the number of calories consumed is the same.
As was pointed out earlier, weight loss is determined by calories used and calories taken in, and sometimes it’s hard to measure how many calories are being used. I don’t see any need to resort to any theory about different foods having different effects when metabolisms can vary so much over the course of one’s life.
Suppose you had 100 volunteers who were required to each eat 2500 calories worth of food per day, for 3 months. The first 50 (Group A) eats nothing but fruits, vegetables, lean meats, basic breads and cereals, etc. The remaining 50 (Group B) consume nothing but fried chicken, ice cream, soda, cake, french fries, etc. (everyone takes a vitamin supplement!)
At the end of the 3 months, who do you think would have gained more weight?
Well, right now it sounds like you’ve got the first group on a higher-fiber diet, which could make a difference. Assuming that you can fix that, then I’d wager that both groups would gain the same weight, if they were really receiving the same number of calories. I think that tracer made a very astute observation about the difference between measured calories and calories that can be obtained from digestion. The variables like that might make it a little tough to get a good answer.
On the other hand, I think this is a really good idea for an experiment, and being that I’m not really an expert, I have no issues with being proven wrong. Maybe some budding nutritionist would care to stage this?
Actually, now that I think about it, there is another significant difference between the diets of the two groups; namely, one group has a much higher fat intake. That will make a difference in the weight gain of each group. Does that suffice to explain all the results of your theory, or do you think there’s something else at play?
So it sounds like you agree that maybe not all calories are equal?
For what it’s worth, I’m not convinced that “fat” per se is the culprit. It’s true that most “bad” foods are high in fat (or sugar). But keep in mind that there are many substances that are referred to as “fat”; many substances that are referred to as “sugar,” etc. It seems possible to me that different kinds of fat have different effects on the body.
I think we agree on something, although I’m not entirely comfortable with the way you say it. Different kinds of fat definitely affect the body differently; some have to be metabolized to be stored as fat, and some don’t. Judging the effectiveness of a diet simply on the caloric intake probably is naive, but there’s something I don’t like about “not all calories are equal”. I don’t have any better way of saying what I want to say, though, so I’ll keep thinking.
This experiment also doesn’t account for the differences in individual metabolism. The study I quoted above noted that, before the study started each person’s metobolic rate had to be measured and then, even taking this basic difference into account, the participates gained at significantly different rates.
The study attributed these differences to the difference in who much each participant wiggled in his chair.
When I first asked about dieter’s plateau, it was because of something I heard at my first Weight Watchers meeting. Well, we had our first weigh in and-- with everyone following the same diet, adjusted for weight and muscle mass-- the difference in individual weight loss was huge. From a high of 6lb to a low of .8.
P.S. I would really love to hear from some medicos, scientists and researchers here (I know we’ve got 'em). Is there any scientific and not anecdotal evidence of dieter’s plateau?
If you’re talking about the experiment I proposed, I think that using lots of subjects should nullify the effect of individual differences.
In any event, I note that you never answered my question.
In the study I proposed, which group would you rather be in and why?
If you think that it wouldn’t matter; that 2500 calories is 2500 calories no matter what; and that any differences in weight gain/loss would be purely attributable to individual differences, I’d like to hear it.
Oh, I didn’t know I had to pick a group. The fried chicken and ice cream group, no doubt, 'cause I like fried chicken and ice cream.
As an aside, I believe the ice cream group will be hungry all the time. A 2500 cal diet of french fries, cake and milk shakes will include about, oh, one thigh and drumstick, one piece of cake and a half a cup of milk shake a day, if that much.
. Anyway all I can think of doing is maybe eating more at night to keep my metabolism going? Or working out a few more times a week. I think I’m eating healthy and on the weekends I eat a lot more carbs.