Why do people struggle to lose body fat?

SuperRabbit

A lot of people struggle to push themselves below a healthy weight or to lose weight dangerously fast. Many obsess over numbers and don't mind warning signs like losing hair and losing periods and losing the ability to poop properly and losing fertility as long as the numbers are on a downward trend. People also over-restrict which is counterproductive and results in weight gain in the long term (long term in this case being 12 months).

SuperRabbit

Omega28 wrote: »

I try tell myself I won't die if I don't eat that chocolate bar nut it's no good, I keep going for it in a state of anxiety without thinking of the calories.

I'd love to go cold turkey and stop eating the junk food all together but it's not just the junk food. Yesterday, I had 9 slices of bread and almost 3 litres of milk on top of everything else. I weighed myself today at 100kg so I did my strenght workout plus 1 hr incline walking on the treadmill (15% Gradient/5kmh) burning 1000 calories and the sweat was pouring heavily.

Is it possible to savor the chocolate bar and eat it slowly? Not like super slowly, that's just disordered eating, but slowly enough that you really taste it and really enjoy it. After a few squares it stops giving you a dopamine hit and then you can stop when you notice it's not delicious anymore... UNLESS you have been heavily restricting sugar or some other ingredient in it, in which case you could probably eat 10 bars and not stop getting a dopamine hit. That's one of the many reasons that over-restriction causes long term weight gain

Omega28

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Is it possible to savor the chocolate bar and eat it slowly? Not like super slowly, that's just disordered eating, but slowly enough that you really taste it and really enjoy it. After a few squares it stops giving you a dopamine hit and then you can stop when you notice it's not delicious anymore... UNLESS you have been heavily restricting sugar or some other ingredient in it, in which case you could probably eat 10 bars and not stop getting a dopamine hit. That's one of the many reasons that over-restriction causes long term weight gain

How exactly does long term restricting lead to weight gain?

dublin49

I am a regular exerciser ,everyday,rarely eat takeaway.Can stay off sugary foods for weeks on end and drink very little alcohol,I am 62 and reckon I am 2 stone overweight.I can and do 50kms cycles regularly and walk at least an hour a day.My view is unless you are very lucky genetically it is almost impossible to avoid the paunch as you age unless you are willing to be feel hungry most of the time and be extremely disciplined re portions,goodies,takeaways etc,I did do it for a period some years ago but you have to live like a Shaolin monk to maintain weight.Unfortunately lifesytle as you get older that involves foreign holidays ,lunches ,nights out all make the task extremely difficult,My one word of advice to parents is never encourage your children to clear their plates.An awful habit to develop that is hard to throw off later in life.

SuperRabbit

Omega28 wrote: »

How exactly does long term restricting lead to weight gain?

I'm not talking about small calorie deficits that might help you lose weight over a few years, or making healthy swaps with food that doesn't matter to you (e.g. swapping whole fat milk in your tea for skimmed milk or soy milk and not even noticing after a few days) but bigger calorie deficits or having food rules and forbidden foods.

1. you crave what you over-restrict and the cravings overcorrect. I stop myself eating one slice of bread now and I end up eating 10 slices of bread later. It's amazing how specific the binges are, if you are on a low fat diet you'll be binging fat and if i'm on a low carb diet i'll be binging carbs and if we try and generally restrict we will binge on anything! It's not any personal flaw in you, it's your body's natural reaction to over-restriction

2. When we over-restrict energy our metabolism adapts and slows down to make it harder for us to lose weight, then we go back to normal eating it overcorrects and we gain wait on a diet that would previously have allowed us to maintain weight or even lose a little bit at a time. There's a lot of evidence that dieting leads to weight gain: you take 200 people with the same BMIs and put half of them on a diet, one year later the ones who dieted have higher BMIs than the ones who didn't (controlling for people who became body builders and gained BMI through sheer muscle )

3. Losing weight and putting it on and losing it and putting it back on is a predictor of far worse health outcomes than just staying at a high weight, so slow and steady wins the race.

There are people who manage to beat all the odds, and many of them then they say the majority whose health is hurt by dieting are being hurt because of their own human weakness, which is not true.

Dieticians these days study this and study our relationship with food. I nearly think Dieticians and Nutritionists need to swap names since Nutritionists seem to always want to put you on a diet and Dieticians seem to want to improve your nutrition and relationship with food.

I second the idea of getting a Dietician to help with the relationship with food and a counsellor to help deal with the stress, dieticians are quite short term and there are lots of low cost counselling options

I am sure a lot of people will disagree with what I said but I think what most of us will agree on is this: any "diet" that you can't *happily* do for the rest of your life is not a good diet. Could you go your entire life eating a low-fat diet? a low carb one*? No, you'd go off your game, almost no one could do that. So it will probably be another yo-yo diet and not worth starting


(*for a lot of Irish people, the normal diet means getting 90% of your energy from carbs... it's not a low-carb diet to reduce that )

SuperRabbit

bladespin wrote: »

Learn to enjoy it, if you feel hungry you're doing something towards your goal.

Being hungry on purpose is disordered eating. No ifs ands or buts. It is bad for your health, whatever your weight is, and it doesn't even work. Online forums are not a good place to get advice and there's a lot of stealthy pro-anorexia content. Anorexia is not an effective weight-loss plan. I know a lot of us will do something we know is dangerous to help us reach our goals (look at all the people who die taking illegal diet pills that they know are dangerous!) but this is not even an effective way to reach your goals. If I'm going to risk hurting myself it should at least work (sorry for being facetious)

Ok, also not a dietician, but I think Kelly from Fitness Blender's story is a great example of how eating less was a less effective weight-loss diet than eating more. This applies whether your goal is to eventually lose 0.3 stone or 30 stone
https://www.fitnessblender.com/blog/my-before-and-after-story-how-i-lost-40-lbs-and-beat-my-eating-disorder-

Coybig_

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Being hungry on purpose is disordered eating. No ifs ands or buts. It is bad for your health, whatever your weight is, and it doesn't even work. Online forums are not a good place to get advice and there's a lot of stealthy pro-anorexia content. Anorexia is not an effective weight-loss plan. I know a lot of us will do something we know is dangerous to help us reach our goals (look at all the people who die taking illegal diet pills that they know are dangerous!) but this is not even an effective way to reach your goals.

This is a load of absolute rubbish.

We know the science behind weight loss. You eat fewer calories than you burn in a day. It's as simple as that. If you happen to feel hungry while eating in a slight deficit that is not 'disordered eating'. Nor is it remotely comparable to anorexia, and I dont have the slightest clue what random 'illegal diet pills'have to do with anything, or the supposed deaths from them.

If the OP wants to lose fat, he will have to eat at a deficit. Simple. Eating at a deficit may make him hungry. Eating at a deficit does not make him anorexic. Jesus Christ. He was in a surplus to get to this point, now he needs to be in a defecit to get to where he wants to be.

Whatever nonsense you are peddling would be best kept for a forum that isnt fitness related, because you are coming out with ridiculous tripe.

SuperRabbit

Coybig_ wrote: »

This is a load of absolute rubbish.

We know the science behind weight loss. You eat fewer calories than you burn in a day. It's as simple as that. If you happen to feel hungry while eating in a slight deficit that is not 'disordered eating'. Nor is it remotely comparable to anorexia, and I dont have the slightest clue what random 'illegal diet pills'have to do with anything, or the supposed deaths from them.

If the OP wants to lose fat, he will have to eat at a deficit. Simple. Eating at a deficit may make him hungry. Eating at a deficit does not make him anorexic. Jesus Christ. He was in a surplus to get to this point, now he needs to be in a defecit to get to where he wants to be.

Whatever nonsense you are peddling would be best kept for a forum that isnt fitness related, because you are coming out with ridiculous tripe.

Everything i said is evidenced based and in line with the consensus among eating disorder specialists and dieticians at the moment. I'm sorry if it offends you, maybe in the future new studies will show that I am wrong, but at the moment this is where we are, this is what the evidence shows.


The weight loss pill thing was an aside but since it peaked your interest check out this article in the Independent: https://www.independent.ie/life/health-wellbeing/healthy-eating/the-5-worst-dieting-fads-to-avoid-dietitian-orla-walsh-on-the-diets-that-dont-work-and-the-strategies-that-do-37702240.html

Wishing you all the best.

Coybig_

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Everything i said is evidenced based and in line with the consensus among eating disorder specialists and dieticians at the moment. I'm sorry if it offends you, maybe in the future new studies will show that I am wrong, but at the moment this is where we are, this is what the evidence shows.

Wishing you all the best.

Nope.

The evidence shows that to lose weight you must eat fewer calories than your body uses in a day.

That is it. No ifs buts or maybes. The evidence shows nothing but that scientific fact.

Anything else is absolute waffle and pseudo babble.

SuperRabbit

Coybig_ wrote: »

Nope.

The evidence shows that to lose weight you must eat fewer calories than your body uses in a day.

That is it. No ifs buts or maybes. The evidence shows nothing but that scientific fact.

Anything else is absolute waffle and pseudo babble.

Dieting is a major predictor of weight gain, this is consensus this is not some kind of groundbreaking fringe thing I am saying, it's just the diet industry obviously doesn't talk about it a lot. Here's one of many things you can read, it's a meta-study so it's a good place to start, but if you google this you'll find lots more. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3759019/ (restrained eating does not imply going hungry). I'd google in incognito mode or skip right to google scholar because if you are big into fitness it's likely standard google will show you stuff that supports your world view rather than showing you both.

I hope that helps!

Coybig_

SuperRabbit wrote: »

The weight loss pill thing was an aside but since it peaked your interest check out this article in the Independent: https://www.independent.ie/life/health-wellbeing/healthy-eating/the-5-worst-dieting-fads-to-avoid-dietitian-orla-walsh-on-the-diets-that-dont-work-and-the-strategies-that-do-37702240.html

Wishing you all the best.

That article is basically dieting tips for people who dont know the slightest thing about food. Nobody is advocating starvation diets. People are advocating a slight deficit based on his tdee. Nobody is pushing any teas or any other nonsense on him.

You can have protein with every meal and dramatically under consume your requirement for the day. She advocates for eating carbs based on your size? Yeah because that is measurable to the ordinary Joe. She talks about fruit and veg with every meal with people shouldn't be consuming mass quantities of fruit which is high in sugar.

And she makes a well known point about fat not being the devil. Yes we know, low fat being a diet fad is over a decade old.

Coybig_

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Dieting is a major predictor of weight gain, this is consensus this is not some kind of groundbreaking fringe thing I am saying, it's just the diet industry obviously doesn't talk about it a lot. Here's one of many things you can read, it's a meta-study so it's a good place to start, but if you google this you'll find lots more. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3759019/ I'd google in incognito mode or skip right to google scholar because if you are big into fitness it's likely standard google will show you stuff that supports your world view rather than showing you both.

I hope that helps!

I genuinely dont know what you're talking about.

Eating at a caloric deficit cannot lead to weight gain.

What leads to weight gain can be a failure to adapt to a new maintenance level after a period of eating in a deficit. Or returning to older eating habits after eating in a deficit.

That is why we promote sustainable weight loss by starting in a small deficit and increasing over time. By eating filling foods, such as oats, sweet potatoes etc.

If by the diet industry you mean the likes of Motivation, where they give verage Joe's loads of shakes, then sure I'll agree that long term that does not give people the tools to maintain a healthy weight, and it is about getting to a certain number for publicity.

However the following is indisputable.

Eating in a deficit will cause you to lose weight. You must eat in a deficit if you want to lose weight. Eating in a defecit does not mean eating nothing. Eating in a deficit does not lead to weight gain. What happens after may lead to weight gain, the same as how eating in a surplus leads to weight gain.

Nobody on this forum is advocating the OP eat 500 calories a day of juice. People are advocating he finds out his true TDEE and eats at a deficit if he wants to lose weight because his diet at the moment is gluttony and overeating.

SuperRabbit

Nothing you are saying coincides with the research but since I've pointed you in the direction of the research I don't know what more I can do? Did you read the meta-study? 80% of the people who went on diets had gained weight 12 months later, and that was just one meta study 7 years ago, there's been more and more research done since then and this is consensus now. Our body is ready and able to compensate for caloric deficits by slowing our metabolism and by giving us overwhelming cravings. They are designed by our brains to be overwhelming, the fact that 20% of people beat the odds doesn't mean that diets are evidence based in any way.

If you really feel strongly that it is incorrect maybe it might inspire you to go into the field of dietetics and do your own research eventually, the world needs more scientists

It's interesting you felt 500 calories a day was disordered eating and you didn't give 1200 calories a day as an example of over-restricting, which it would be unless OP is very short. You went all the way to 500? even though a 4 year old toddler needs 1200 calories a day. Also, i don't want to introduce another tangent, but callorie counting is not actually calorie counting, we can't get reliable information on calories because energy released in a lab does not mean that our body can use that food as energy. Here's an article about it: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-reasons-why-a-calorie-is-not-a-calorie this caused people to say ridiculous things like "don't eat nuts" the calorie count in nuts includes fibre, which the human body doesn't actually digest. It might be very high calorie if you were a cow, because you'd get the full count, but as a human you only get about 60% and meanwhile you feel very full

I'm not sure that you are interested in reading about this stuff so I think I might take your advice and feck off out of your forum and back to my own one.

Coybig_

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Nothing you are saying coincides with the research but since I've pointed you in the direction of the research I don't know what more I can do? Did you read the meta-study? 80% of the people who went on diets had gained weight 12 months later, and that was just one meta study 7 years ago, there's been more and more research done since then and this is consensus now. If you really feel strongly that it is incorrect maybe it might inspire you to go into the field of dietetics and do your own research eventually, the world needs more scientists

The study is literally garbage.

What is a diet in your eyes? What is a diet in their eyes? There is crazy variation there between what people were eating. Were their meals tracked? Their exercise? Their tdee? How much of a deficit they were in? Of course not. Absolute nonsense 'study'.

You must eat at a deficit to lose weight. It's as simple as that. It is indisputable science. Stop trying to be patronising when you havent a clue. Stop peddling pseudoscience and misinformation on a fitness forum. The only person that needs to do more research is you.

Coybig_

SuperRabbit wrote: »

It's interesting you felt 500 calories a day was disordered eating and you didn't give 1200 calories a day as an example of over-restricting, which it would be unless OP is very short. You went all the way to 500? even though a 4 year old toddler needs 1200 calories a day. Also, i don't want to introduce another tangent, but callorie counting is not actually calorie counting, we can't get reliable information on calories because energy released in a lab does not mean that our body can use that food as energy. Here's an article about it: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-reasons-why-a-calorie-is-not-a-calorie this caused people to say ridiculous things like "don't eat nuts"

What on earth are you talking about? I used an example of 500 calories because of the absurdity of it. In all of my posts I have advocated for finding out a TDEE and eating at a controlled deficit.

And as for the rubbish about calories, I dont know have I ever come across somebody so confident yet so absolutely clueless on a topic. You havent the slightest iota of knowledge about diet and nutrition.

SuperRabbit

I'm sorry you were unhappy with the peer reviewed meta-analysis that I posted, if you want more details you can click the studies in the links that they provided at the end. There have also been many studies since confirming this. You seem to have your mind made up though. Any way I'm really happy you found something that worked for you! You can see that that's not a very common thing! All the best!

Alf Veedersane

I think there is a difference between what is referred to as 'dieting' and modifying either quality, quantity or both.

A lot of diets are inherently unsustainable. They are to lose weight as opposed to improve eating habits.

That doesn't mean you can't restrict calories and be successful in the long term.

I don't necessarily agree that you have to be feel hungry. You can bulk up meals with low calorie ingredients (veg etc) and address that. There might be a psychological component knowing that you're eating less and you feel hungry because of that in the same vein as people think they haven't eaten enough because it looks like less food on a bigger plate.

Mellor

SuperRabbit wrote: »

1. you crave what you over-restrict and the cravings overcorrect. I stop myself eating one slice of bread now and I end up eating 10 slices of bread later. It's amazing how specific the binges are, if you are on a low fat diet you'll be binging fat and if i'm on a low carb diet i'll be binging carbs and if we try and generally restrict we will binge on anything! It's not any personal flaw in you, it's your body's natural reaction to over-restriction

That shouldn’t be happening with a normal healthy deficit. If that’s happens for you, it could be a deficiency or perhaps mental issue.

When we over-restrict energy our metabolism adapts and slows down to make it harder for us to lose weight, then we go back to normal eating it overcorrects and we gain wait on a diet that would previously have allowed us to maintain weight or even lose a little bit at a time.

This is massively overstated. It happens in response to ENERGY restriction, not food restriction. Basically not going to happen for anybody with a lot of weight to lose.

There's a lot of evidence that dieting leads to weight gain: you take 200 people with the same BMIs and put half of them on a diet, one year later the ones who dieted have higher BMIs than the ones who didn't

Dieting is hard. People fail. They often give up at this point and start to eat extra.
Maintaining is easier, so that state is sustained for longer. But you’ll never get smaller. Many creep up slowly.

That’s a list of people not losing weight.
Kinda ignores the people who succeed. Energy deficit is the only way to do that.

I am sure a lot of people will disagree with what I said but I think what most of us will agree on is this: any "diet" that you can't *happily* do for the rest of your life is not a good diet.

The opposite is also true. Just because you can happily follow a particular diet for life doesn’t make it a good diet either.

bladespin

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Being hungry on purpose is disordered eating. No ifs ands or buts. It is bad for your health, whatever your weight is, and it doesn't even work. O

We are designed to eat when we're hungry, we're supposed to feel hungry, it's your one of your body's signals, if you don't know what that feels like then you're not eating properly, more than likely overeating - it's not an eating disorder or anything like it.

Cill94

SuperRabbit wrote: »

I'm sorry you were unhappy with the peer reviewed meta-analysis that I posted, if you want more details you can click the studies in the links that they provided at the end. There have also been many studies since confirming this. You seem to have your mind made up though. Any way I'm really happy you found something that worked for you! You can see that that's not a very common thing! All the best!

You know how to use Pub-Med, congratulations. You don't seem to know the difference between a review and a meta though, this study being the former.

All this study shows is that people who follow over-restrictive diets are likely to fail and regain their weight and then some. Most people on here are already aware of that fact.

There's a difference between the above and following a sustainable calorie deficit, which may or may not include feelings of hunger.

shootermacg

Cill94 wrote: »

You know how to use Pub-Med, congratulations. You don't seem to know the difference between a review and a meta though, this study being the former.

All this study shows is that people who follow over-restrictive diets are likely to fail and regain their weight and then some. Most people on here are already aware of that fact.

There's a difference between the above and following a sustainable calorie deficit, which may or may not include feelings of hunger.

There's truth in both your arguments.

1) Cill94 says if cals in is less than cals out then you lose weight. This is a fact and cannot be argued with.

2) Rabbit saying people who lose weight rapidly, in a lot of cases, put the weight back on. This is true in a LOT of cases. A drastic diet can damage to a person's metabolic rate, meaning the leaner they get, the less calories they are able to eat. A lot of people, who've gone of harsh diets and exercise plans, lose hope near the end of their diets when struggling to lose the last few pounds.

Personally, towards the end of one of those diets, I found myself thinking. Is this all I will be eating for the rest of my life? And will I have to do this much exercise? It's almost enough to make you give up, as was the case with me multiple times.

I think the process of moving from a heavy diet and exercise regime to one of maintenance really needs to be looked at seriously.

There are two questions that need to be answered in the transition phase:

1) How to speed your metabolism back up to normal?
and
2) How to transition from a serious amount of dieting and exercise, which is not really sustainable in the long term, to one that is?

I don't think losing weight slowly (while probably the best strategy) is the best idea for most people because it is much harder to sustain the will power over a longer period. When people decide to lose weight, seeing immediate results is what keeps them going.

I am nearing the point where I'll be transitioning to maintenance in about 6/8 weeks. I'd love to figure out 1 & 2.

Black Sheep

I don't think it's actually that difficult to eat in a deficit, train appropriately, hit a weight target, and then eat at maintenance. It's not rocket science, and to be honest I would throw the concerns about metabolism out the window for now, they are overstated and no relevant to most people in this thread. Someone beginning from a knowledge base of zero will need coaching or to self-educate but it's pretty do-able.

This has absolutely nothing to do with yo-yo dieting, crash dieting, pro-anorexia or any other bogeyman that was needlessly injected into a thread which has been discussing someone saying they are overweight, gaining weight and are a compulsive eater.

With regard to hitting a target weight which involves weight loss, and a calorie deficit, I actually agree that personally I would rather eat at a greater deficit and do it in a marginally shorter period of time, for the reasons shootermacg mentions. This is still something that's in a timeframe of months, not weeks, however.

endacl

D13exile wrote: »

And for the piece de resistance, once a month I do a 3 day water only fast to clean out my system of toxins.

Unnecessary. If you possess a functioning liver.

Alf Veedersane

As alluded to above, 'diets' are a method to lose weight...but they don't address what happens afterwards and that's why diets often don't work. They're not a long term strategy so people often find themselves losing weight and then slowly returning to old ways and effectively reset.

Most people here advocate to sorting out the quality and quantity of the food they eat to arrive at a point that is sustainable in the long term and any tweaks down the line just involve amending portion sizes rather than overhauling their diet.

Reducing caloric intake is the simple answer to lose weight but there is a psychological component to it as well that often needs to be addressed. The degree to which the psychological impacts the physical varies from person to person.

This thread is a prime example...the psychological component is having a big impact. For others, it has less of an impact. That's just human nature.

I have no idea what my point was when I started typing so I best just stop now.

dublin49

Most people know what it takes to lose weight ,eat less and exercise more,simple as ,if only .

All advice on here is a version of that simple message but unfortunately its not simple to build this into a long term sustainable lifestyle.

The biggest pitfall for most is we adopt a lifestyle that regulates our weight and for whatever reason events conspire against us.

Injury,sickness,changing workplace ,relationships all contain potential pitfalls for the regulated caloric intake.

So its not simple or easy for most ,its a constant lifetime battle that you master at times and oft times fail miserably at ,as in general most peoples preferred lifestyle will have them overweight so accept it for what it is,a fact of life and win the times you can and more importantly
when you are losing the battle ,lose as well as you possibly can.

Dravokivich

dublin49 wrote: »

Most people know what it takes to lose weight ,eat less and exercise more,simple as ,if only .

All advice on here is a version of that simple message but unfortunately its not simple to build this into a long term sustainable lifestyle.

The biggest pitfall for most is we adopt a lifestyle that regulates our weight and for whatever reason events conspire against us.

Injury,sickness,changing workplace ,relationships all contain potential pitfalls for the regulated caloric intake.

So its not simple or easy for most ,its a constant lifetime battle that you master at times and oft times fail miserably at ,as in general most peoples preferred lifestyle will have them overweight so accept it for what it is,a fact of life and win the times you can and more importantly
when you are losing the battle ,lose as well as you possibly can.

What you are describing there are are just outliers. They'll average out over time. Changing eating habits as a lifestyle thing, requires consistency, not regidity.

Patsy167

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

As alluded to above, 'diets' are a method to lose weight...but they don't address what happens afterwards and that's why diets often don't work. They're not a long term strategy so people often find themselves losing weight and then slowly returning to old ways and effectively reset.

Most people here advocate to sorting out the quality and quantity of the food they eat to arrive at a point that is sustainable in the long term and any tweaks down the line just involve amending portion sizes rather than overhauling their diet.

Reducing caloric intake is the simple answer to lose weight but there is a psychological component to it as well that often needs to be addressed. The degree to which the psychological impacts the physical varies from person to person.

This thread is a prime example...the psychological component is having a big impact. For others, it has less of an impact. That's just human nature.

I have no idea what my point was when I started typing so I best just stop now.

This hits on a very important point that applies widely - It is more worthwhile to teach someone to do something (for themselves) than to do it for them (on an ongoing basis).

It's a good rule of thumb when looking at any personal trainer, nutrition coach etc. Are they actually teaching you fundamental concepts or are you being strung along with superficial information.

Low Energy Eng

Hi OP,

Everyone has their way of doing things, here's what I recommend

http://www.jaduncan.com/2006/04/how-i-lost-stone-in-week.html?m=1

I wouldn't be exercising much during it though. This will shave some initial weight off and by the end of it you will be used to the calorie deficit. (First 4 days are very difficult, but it gets easier the more you do it).

Once you've complete it you should look at high volume low calorie meals to keep the weight sustained, or slightly negative calories. As mentioned previously it's usually vegetables.

But reading your food intake, simple things like replacing milk with water will see the calories drastically reduced.

Finally, I spent a few weeks using myfitnesspal a few years ago and it opened up my eyes to the amount of calories in certain foods

At the end of the day, you're human, it's not easy but it's definitely doable, good luck.

Coybig_

Eating what appears to be circa 500-700 calories a day for a week is the last thing I would recommend to somebody. It seems extremely dangerous and absolutely terrible advice. Also what happens at the end of a week where you've starved yourself so much? Odds on for a binge.

Any eating plan where you have to discourage exercise should be put into the bin.

Low Energy Eng

Coybig_ wrote: »

Eating what appears to be circa 500-700 calories a day for a week is the last thing I would recommend to somebody. It seems extremely dangerous and absolutely terrible advice. Also what happens at the end of a week where you've starved yourself so much? Odds on for a binge.

Any eating plan where you have to discourage exercise should be put into the bin.

It's a great method for shredding, if you want to exercise, add some extra calories to it.
What exactly is extremely dangerous about it? I've survived to tell the tale... numerous times.

shootermacg

Low Energy Eng wrote: »

It's a great method for shredding, if you want to exercise, add some extra calories to it.
What exactly is extremely dangerous about it? I've survived to tell the tale... numerous times.

Just putting this out there. I fasted for a year 2 days a week. Occasionally I'd go 3 days. You notice the lack of glycogen on day 3, but a 2 day fast is fine.

I stopped because I felt my metabolism was slowing down. If you have low blood pressure then I wouldn't do it, but there's a lot of studies that say it's actually good for your health.

JohnnyKq

shootermacg wrote: »

Just putting this out there. I fasted for a year 2 days a week. Occasionally I'd go 3 days. You notice the lack of glycogen on day 3, but a 2 day fast is fine.

I stopped because I felt my metabolism was slowing down. If you have low blood pressure then I wouldn't do it, but there's a lot of studies that say it's actually good for your health.

What happened to the 70s era of burn it off with exercise and eat as normal?
Its not the quick fix slim fast but works.
If in the Tipperary Limerick area why not join a cycling club?
PM me as looking for new members always.
I have 2 stone to loose on de belly and beyond and have the same ambitions after the festivities

Minime2.5

partyguinness wrote: »

If you are referring to me then you have misconstrued my posts. I specifically mentioned it was about rebalancing the ratio of macros (fats, carbs and protein).

Cut down on the excess carbs (not exclude) because that is where most people overload on calories and substitute it better foods like you did- with vegetables. TBH it is downright impossible to completely exclude carbs anyway. I significantly cut down and then started to reintroduce complex carbs after a couple of months once I had researched more. I love my toast and marmite too much.

You don’t hear of people piling on the weight gorging on tuna and turkey meat in front of the TV. Crisps, biscuits, bread yes but not protein or fats.

Excluding entire food groups is a crash diet and no good in the long run. It is merely another form of calorie deficit but with a fancy marketing gimmick.

Great going with the weight loss.

Alot of what youve writren here is incorrect. Sugar is not addictive . Alot of foods that people lump into the bad carb category like what you have done here like crisps biscuits cakes etc have just as much fat in them . there are very few carb only foods that run into the junk food category

Thelonious Monk

It's amazing how people overcomplicate this subject. I think I've put on 2kg or so over the past month with all the booze and food and finally being let out again. I've decided that today I'm off booze for a while and going to clean up my diet.
3 small meals a day for me is how I do it, mostly veg and some fish, comes in I'd say under 2000kcals, maybe 1800. I'm about 86kg now and a couple of weeks eating right will see a couple of kilos fall off. When I see people posting that they eat 4000kcals a day etc I just find it flabbergasting, no matter how much exercise you do.

JohnnyKq

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

It's amazing how people overcomplicate this subject. I think I've put on 2kg or so over the past month with all the booze and food and finally being let out again. I've decided that today I'm off booze for a while and going to clean up my diet.
3 small meals a day for me is how I do it, mostly veg and some fish, comes in I'd say under 2000kcals, maybe 1800. I'm about 86kg now and a couple of weeks eating right will see a couple of kilos fall off. When I see people posting that they eat 4000kcals a day etc I just find it flabbergasting, no matter how much exercise you do.

You can eat 4000 calories if you run a marathon or cycle a Tour De france stage daily. As mentioned on here to loose weight you need to consume less calories that you burn.
My build makes me put on weight easily and I find tracking my exercise amount helps offset binge eating calories.

As a simple rule; 50 calories per mile cycled is burned and 100 calories per mile ran.
These are ball park for simplicity so please no Pedantic Pats need comment.


A bottle of wine has about 700 calories and the Doritos have 150.
A 40 miles cycle or a 9 mile run is required to burn off your indulgence on New Years night!!. This will quickly help you to cut down the snacking like I have to do.

rpurfield

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

It's amazing how people overcomplicate this subject. I think I've put on 2kg or so over the past month with all the booze and food and finally being let out again. I've decided that today I'm off booze for a while and going to clean up my diet.
3 small meals a day for me is how I do it, mostly veg and some fish, comes in I'd say under 2000kcals, maybe 1800. I'm about 86kg now and a couple of weeks eating right will see a couple of kilos fall off. When I see people posting that they eat 4000kcals a day etc I just find it flabbergasting, no matter how much exercise you do.

I'm the same. I'm up about 9 pound in three weeks because I rowed back on the exercise and ramped up on the rubbish food. Went back out for a run yesterday and nearly died. It's actually a bit scary how quickly you can go backwards when you don't mind the food.

Thelonious Monk

rpurfield wrote: »

I'm the same. I'm up about 9 pound in three weeks because I rowed back on the exercise and ramped up on the rubbish food. Went back out for a run yesterday and nearly died. It's actually a bit scary how quickly you can go backwards when you don't mind the food.

Yeah I slipped on New Years and drank a rake of beer and yesterday was a write off with having some hangover junk/comfort food.
Back on track now, weight 86.6 or something this morning, I'd like to get down to 83kg so I'll see how long it takes me from today. Back out running tomorrow too now that the gyms are closed.

Alf Veedersane

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Yeah I slipped on New Years and drank a rake of beer and yesterday was a write off with having some hangover junk/comfort food.
Back on track now, weight 86.6 or something this morning, I'd like to get down to 83kg so I'll see how long it takes me from today. Back out running tomorrow too now that the gyms are closed.

Shouldn't take too long to drop the vast majority of that weight from NYE...a lot will be water weight.

bladespin

rpurfield wrote: »

I'm the same. I'm up about 9 pound in three weeks because I rowed back on the exercise and ramped up on the rubbish food. Went back out for a run yesterday and nearly died. It's actually a bit scary how quickly you can go backwards when you don't mind the food.

Same boat, kept the training up but ate all round (enjoyed every second), up about 7lb or so but looking at the lockdown with purpose now.

rpurfield

bladespin wrote: »

Same boat, kept the training up but ate all round (enjoyed every second), up about 7lb or so but looking at the lockdown with purpose now.

This is it. I kind of need the gym to have the focus on lifting weights so I'm concentrating on the running until they open again. I've a 3k loop around by the house so I'm aiming to at least run it every day for January.

Greyfox

Minime2.5 wrote: »

Sugar is not addictive .

Oh but it is, its the only reason for me having belly fat as everything else I can control.

D13exile

After months of losing weight (12kgs since last March), through diet and exercise, the recent cold snap and icy roads have curtailed my cycling. I’ve put on 2kgs the past week and it’s freaking me out. I know I should lose that once I get back on the bike but after years of struggling with a belly and flab in general, I was proud of myself getting slim and having my jeans too big on me for a change. Had one cycle last week and my average speed had also dropped. So hard to get slim and fit but so easy to put back on the weight and get unfit.😡😡

Dtp1979

D13exile wrote: »

After months of losing weight (12kgs since last March), through diet and exercise, the recent cold snap and icy roads have curtailed my cycling. I’ve put on 2kgs the past week and it’s freaking me out. I know I should lose that once I get back on the bike but after years of struggling with a belly and flab in general, I was proud of myself getting slim and having my jeans too big on me for a change. Had one cycle last week and my average speed had also dropped. So hard to get slim and fit but so easy to put back on the weight and get unfit.😡😡

Keep your diet in check and your weight won’t increase.

bladespin

D13exile - that's just Christmas, once you fall back in to routine you'll have no issue.

D13exile

While I’ve generally been quite “good” at staying away from junk food, I’m still eating the same amount of calories I was before Xmas and with no cycling, I’m not burning the additional calories I was when on the bike. Guess I’ll have to cut back on the food intake until I’m out and about again........unless the COVID restrictions are further tightened and I’m limited to a 2km distance for exercise! As I don’t like cycling in circles, I don’t know what I’ll do (but I fail to see how a lone cyclist on his bike whizzing past one or two walkers on his 30-50km cycles in rural Kildare is a COVID risk to anyone.......yeah I know, can’t make exceptions for anyone or everyone will say they’re “a special” case!).

Macy0161

It's about everyone restricting movements, rather than an individual activity being "safe" or not, as you point out. But turbo trainer maybe an option?

Personally, since March my exercise calories have been consistent, but I had to keep dropping calorie targets as my NEAT/ non-exercise expenditure was and remains way down working from home.

Omega28

OP here. Since the gyms have closed I've been going on daily long walks of 15-20km.

Regarding my diet, I'm trying to change my mindset and see why I'm eating 4-7000 calories a day. I know I don't need to eat that much but I do it snyway. There's a lot of emotional and other psychological reasons why I'm eating like this. I'm not one of those peiple who lives for eating, I'm not happy I have this relationship with food.

I'm well aware of the physiological impact eating that much food can do to the body but it's really difficult to let go of the food because of the psychological effects.

Omega28

Not sure if this will help but what would daily structure of food look like?

Alf Veedersane

Omega28 wrote: »

OP here. Since the gyms have closed I've been going on daily long walks of 15-20km.

Regarding my diet, I'm trying to change my mindset and see why I'm eating 4-7000 calories a day. I know I don't need to eat that much but I do it snyway. There's a lot of emotional and other psychological reasons why I'm eating like this. I'm not one of those peiple who lives for eating, I'm not happy I have this relationship with food.

I'm well aware of the physiological impact eating that much food can do to the body but it's really difficult to let go of the food because of the psychological effects.

Along with trying to resolve the psychological element (have you spoken with the doctor yet?), look at how you can engineer your surroundings to make the overeating more difficult. Plan your meals in advance with normal portions so that when you shop, you're shopping to just have enough for those meals for that week (for example). Just things you can do to minimise what you have available to overeat.

bladespin

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

look at how you can engineer your surroundings to make the overeating more difficult..

Very much this, I remember reading about a guy who quit smoking by leaving the pack of cigarettes in his car, the act of having to get up from the comfort of his living room and walk all the way out to the car every-time he wanted a cig was too much for the habit to bear.