f13.net

So, I'm doing keto right now. It's one of those "everything you know about food is wrong" diets. Unlike Paleo, this eliminates a shitload of protein and veggies, making it uhhhh more palatable. On the flipside, 70+% of my diet is FAT. And we're not talking like all "healthy" fats (as decided by the surgeon general or FDA or whoeverthefuck), we're talking butter, bacon, oil, lard, FAT. The good stuff.

Pretty easy thus far though 10 days in I'm weak as fuck and my knees feel like jelly due to sugar and carb withdrawal. I attribute its easiness to how delicious everything is. For lunch one day I literally ate an entire container of Lox covered in cream cheese. Weird.

Anyway, anyone else done this diet? Or know anyone that has?

I can tell you all about it if you wish.  My only suggestion is to stop after 4-6 weeks.

If he's eating lard with whipped cream on top, won't he stop after 4-6 weeks anyway?  :grin:

This.

Are you testing yourself? Try not to kill yourself by getting into a state of ketoacidosis. :why_so_serious:

If your breath can peel paint you may want to back off your diet :awesome_for_real:

I would like to know the reasoning behind that suggestion.

Is that an option? :|

The point behind a ketogenic diet is to force your body to use calories less efficiently; fat gets burned for energy as ketone bodies and protein gets used to maintain constant blood glucose levels.  After a while, your body will adjust its metabolism to adapt to this new diet and you'll see it becoming less effective over time.  At this point, you'll see a decrease in effectiveness while the deliterious effects remain the same.  

Your body's preferred fuel is glucose.  That's what your brain and red blood cells want.  Denying your system the fuel that it requires to run most efficiently isn't a good long-term solution.

Does that help?

I can suggest a much better diet, but it's not easy.  I also suggest that you get an idea of your baseline Basal metabolic rate.

Log on to Steam at some point, I'd love to chat about it.

Will do.

I will say that a ketogenic diet can be helpful for people with onset of type 2 diabetes.

See HERE (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/)

Losing weight in any fashion can improve those things they were measuring.

If you are morbidly obese (BMI > 40, or >35 with significant weight-related medical problems) then some diets can be helpful short term in order to very quickly lose a lot of weight. We used to use a modified VLCD (very low calorie diet) with some of our patients for a short period for this reason. It's basically 1-2 slimfasts per day and nothing else, for a few weeks. This was with careful monitoring in a clinical environment though, primarily to avoid electrolyte imbalances from developing.

A ketogenic diet may be similarly useful, but as with a VLCD it may also be at risk of causing sudden and unpredictable changes in things like your blood electrolyte levels. You shouldn't undertake such a drastic regime without medical supervision, and I mean *daily* supervision. This shit is not safe. If you're not morbidly obese then don't do this kind of thing. Seriously.

The other thing to remember is that drastic diets aimed at significant weight reduction are only useful in the short term. Without permanent lifestyle and diet changes the weight will go right back on again, often in less than 6 months. Your diet needs to change forever if your current diet has left you morbidly obese. There's no magic formula either, the only way we ever found patients succeeding long term in keeping the weight off and going into type 2 diabetes remission was if they stopped eating processed food completely, cut out alcohol almost completely, stopped smoking and started preparing and cooking all of their own food.

Diet fads have constantly changed. In the 50s it was the grapefruit diet, in the 60s it was vegetarianism, 70s calorie counting, 80s low fat, 90s low carb, 00s paleo nonsense, etc. The only constant thing with diet books and guides is preparing and cooking your own food, from good quality ingredients. Processed, pre-prepared food will make you fat and kill you. Learn to cook, get some decent cook books, it's really not complicated and it will change your life. I can recommend some very good cook books that are simple, fast, cheap and healthy.

And of course, and this is where I personally fall down, burn more calories than you eat. Don't get a fitband and count calories, just do some exercise. If you lose weight then you're doing it right, if you gain weight (unless it's pure muscle) then you're eating too much and exercising too little. Again, exercise doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. Just walking is enough at first. Then more walking, then faster walking, then faster walking up hills carrying a load of fresh produce you're going to cook later.

All good stuff.  Pretty much covers everything Schild and I discussed in our Steam chat.

True.  The point in linking the article was this statement:

Doctor gave me the year to lose a bit of weight and up my exercise to avoid having to go on anti cholesterol meds. Since the start of the year I weaned myself off of pop completely, and then eliminated high calorie snacks. I also upped my frequency of walking significantly. I also consciously make a point of stopping when I'm full and not feeling bad if I toss a third of a plate because I made too much.  I still drink beer (its one of my true pleasures), and I make a point of treating myself to something bad at least once a week. Really the hardest part is not sitting there munching on a bag of chips when I'm bored.

I've gone from 170 to 159 in five months. Not huge, but its getting there. The best part is that the changes feel like something I can keep up long term. Targeting 150 by the end of the year. (I'm a skinny framed guy that weighed 135 out of high school)

But that's in a supervised clinical setting where the meals were prepared for the subjects and they were tested regularly. That's why I asked if schild was testing himself. A DIY ketogenic diet is risky given the dangers of ketoacidosis.

I've started eating mostly meats, veg, and cut out 90% of the wheat/rice/potato carbs I used to eat. I've switched to honey instead of added sugars in things, and my family is eating dinners we prepare every evening, and lunches prepared by us 3-4 times a week. It's certainly helped me stop gaining weight, but the next step I have to add in is regular exercise, and I'm doing 30-45 minutes of brisk walking a day now. I find it much easier to do than the hardcore stuff, and I've noticed results which is nice.

Dangerous is a relative term.  It's pretty tough to enter full blown ketoacidosis without some pre-existing medical condition.  Most people will get enough carbs to maintain healthy blood glucose levels on these diets.  The big issue is to make sure you're drinking enough water during any high protein diet.  Elimination of urea and generation of kidney stones would concern me far more than ketoacidosis during a 12 week program change.

There's also the flip side where he never actually reaches ketosis so he's consuming all that fat and not actually getting the benefits of being in ketosis.

That's always possible in these diets.  I'm a firm believer in eating clean and maintaining a small caloric deficit.  Not everyone has the discipline for that.

I've had some health problems crop up now that I'm 40, mostly due to lack of regular exercise. I'm using a fitbit to count steps successfully so far and it's keeping me honest about how much activity I'm really doing. Setting a 12,000 step goal is ~6mi per day, so at least a few miles of that has to come from a 30-45minute burst.

Of course, a month into that I've developed plantar faciatis, so hitting that 12k steps goal takes more effort through time stretching and pain. It's getting better daily though and I might buy a bike soon to help switch up the routine.

I wish there was a really easy way to calorie count for the extremely lazy. I would totally pay attention to it if the process was automated.

For me, the calorie counting thing was all front loaded.  I used a website that tracked it (there's a billion now, I have no idea who to recommend), and over time I just started knowing how much I was shoveling into my face at any given time just from entering it in regularly for a few weeks. 

Yeah I suppose my point was that you don't need to get complicated. If using a fitness monitor or calorie counting works for you then that's great - and that's the most important thing, you have to find something that works for *you*. We're all different, one size does not fit all, same goes for what you eat, find what works for you.

Tell me what a normal day on this diet would be like.  I'm confused by it.

Eat a jar of mayo.

I don't want to do that.

Where's the picture of the cat throwing up?

I'm travelling a lot now and stopped exercising.

Got back into it a few days ago, snagged the J&J 7 minute workout app. I do 3 circuits a day. Like someone says just exercise.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82533/yuck.gif)

I love that thing

Hey, so, seems like a lifestyle change is in order.  I have to trick myself since I can't even be trusted to spend money on health books, nevermind implement a diet or exercise regimen.  This is exactly why I have a standing desk.  It's also why I conveniently "forget" to buy donuts at the grocery store, since I have a nice fat lazy streak and I won't leave the house just to get a can of Pringles.

I've also avoided buying preprocessed food except for "emergency" kits of frozen lasagna which are really for my wife to feed herself when I am not at home.  I wasn't at home last week because I was at Boy Scout camp.  I'm pretty sure she lived on Wendy's and frozen White Castles.  Now that I'm back, I cook all this fresh fucking food that I have delivered to my house.

I'm not really sure how I manage to take the stairs everyday other than that I've forced myself into the habit of walking that way on my way into the building.

Something really interesting about sleeping outdoors in the Georgia mountains, and napping occasionally through the day, is that I'm very refreshed.  I also ate smoked salmon, brats, some chili made from brisket, and even greek salad.  Yeah, pizza once but it was from a local joint on Lake Nottley.

Try adding a fatty fish at least once or twice a week. Salmon is super best, catfish is okay, any of the others I'm not sure about. The type of oil in them reduces LDL and raises HDL. Did they explain blood lipids and what's what with your numbers?

Fish is full of mercury.  Probably need to stick with vegetables.

Eat off a smaller plate. Like, literally, a smaller plate. Don't go back for seconds. Move around a little. Done.

There is that rule about not eating more than what you can hold in your two cupped hands.  I find that you have to really mash the donuts into a compact ball to succeed there.

Eat farm-raised not wild. Also, I've been eating shit with mercury in it my whole life and I'm perfectly fine.;slfja;oisfu[ jf[iwej

You mean toilet fish?

Use Krispy Kreme. That's like 4 dozen.

Salmon and Tuna are regular staples of my diet. I'll probably die of Mercury poisoning eventually because of all the sushi I eat.

I much prefer wild salmon to farmed when I can get it, but most sushi places use farmed since its cheaper.

I don't remember the lipid numbers off hand, but he gave me plenty of materials to read on it. Big thing I'm focusing on currently is eliminating Trans Fats.

Salmon is super low mercury IIRC, as well as one of the better ones for omega 3 or whatever.  It's the superfish.

I'm down ten pounds in 14 days. Neat.

Except that's virtually all water.

You're all water, Debbie downer.

Laxatives, right?

Or are you still full of shit?

:awesome_for_real:

As I remember it without bothering to double check, there isn't much mercury contamination except in old, large saltwater fish. Basically tuna steaks. Most small chunk tuna in cans has relatively little -- you're okay unless you're eating it everyday.

If your catfish has mercury in it somebody is doing something very wrong.

Also, wasn't all of that fish oil stuff debunked? Turned out to have been based on really sketchy research that hasn't been born out by long term studies? In other words, just another food fad/miracle cure.

Maybe, but it passed under my radar if so.  I get my omega-3 from flax seed in any case.

It's just biologies and maths, though I probably should've said "mostly all water".

For example, let's assume you really did lose 10 pounds of non-water weight in 14 days. That means you would've been averaging a calorie deficit of 2500 calories a day. Let's also assume you need 2500 calories a day to maintain your current body weight[1] and didn't increase your average daily physical activity. That would mean you haven't eaten in 14 days to lose those 10 pounds[2]. Grats!

As a more realistic example let's assume you need 3000 calories a day to maintain your current body weight (since you are a big boy), still haven't increased your average daily physical activity, but are eating 1/3 fewer calories on your new diet (or the equivalent of skipping one meal a day). That would mean you've lost 4 pounds of real weight and 6 pounds of water. Double grats!

So if I'm correct and you've lost mostly water, why did that happen? The two primary causes are glycogen depletion and dehydration[3], both of which are common when you are on a ketogenic diet. A low-carb diet will deplete your glycogen stores by design and glycogen binds 3-4 grams of water per gram of glycogen so that water will get flushed from your system as your glycogen levels drop. Eventually your body will switch to gluconegenesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis), using protein and fats to produce the glucose it needs[4].

However as your body excretes this glycogen-bound water you may lose electrolytes like sodium, potassium, and magnesium too rapidly reducing your bodies ability to retain the water it needs causing you to become dehydrated. Increasing your electrolyte and water consumption can counteract this affect but of course you'll gain some of your weight back.


[1] That's slightly higher than the average sedentary male of your age which is 2,400 calories (http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/usda_food_patterns/EstimatedCalorieNeedsPerDayTable.pdf) but it makes the numbers even >_>

[2] Or you are a eating a crap-ton of celery (http://www.foodandwine.com/fwx/food/study-finally-confirms-eating-celery-burns-more-calories-it-contains)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-carbohydrate_diet (search for "dehydration")

[4] Assuming you are eating enough protein to go along with all that fat

Trippy, I know it's mostly water. I was just making a post. You spent too much work on this.

His point isn't strictly that it was mostly water that went away. Yes, people are mostly water so that's always technically true. It's that most of the weight you lost is due to glycogen depletion and once you start eating carbs again most of it will come back.

Oops.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85916/bubble_wizard.jpg)

The rivers in my area are heavily contaminated with mercury and they specifically say no swimming or fishing as a result. Makes for a good research project to clean the area up though...

What was wrong with your old diet?  The one that got rid of all the weight back in Phoenix.

It was a starvation diet, beyond unhealthy, and frankly I fucking hate myself too much when I do it.

So don't cut as many calories per day and lose the weight more slowly.

DISCLAIMER: I'm just saying this to hear myself talk...

Diets don't work in the long term.  PERIOD.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to make lifestyle changes.  You need to mentally alter your approach to food.  You need to physically alter your approach to life.  If you don't change these two factors, you are almost certainly destined to regain any weight lost. 

/sermon

Can I go on an ultra diet for a few months to drop myself to sane levels, then go off and binge for months straight putting it all back on, then drop it again with another crazy diet?  In an endless cycle?  A balance of health terror that keeps the medium health level of my body somewhat within reason?

Because that's what I do!   :why_so_serious:

A lot of evidence is piling up to dieting being beyond counter-productive long term. Being hungry tunes your metabolism to slow down, crash dieting traumatizes it to a halt.

A very interesting recently published a study on some of these biggest loser contestants who lost between 50-200 lbs in a short period. 5-7 years later they have gain it back and their metabolism was shocked so hard it is STILL slowing down years later and it's impossible for them to keep weight down even with exercise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=0

To really lose weight it seems you have to haul your ass to the gym and get your metabolism up. That plus more muscle means more calorie burn even while resting. As an upside if you like food, you get to even eat more too.

I'm with Nebu on this one. I don't really have any professional experience to back it up, but anecdotally it's obvious that those I know who are more physically healthy have much better relationships with food than those who don't.


I don't deny myself anything in regard to food but I manage to stay what I would consider a normal weight (around 160 pounds, and I'm 5'11) without much fluctuation. I would guess that what you're suggesting is not going to help you achieve any lasting balance, and will make it harder for you to have both a healthy body and a healthy mentality in the short, medium and long term.

Its only three times in my life that I actually tried to do something about my weight, even though I lost weight during other times it wasn't because I was actively doing something about it, it just happened. 13 years ago I lost 15kg but never changed the way I ate so got it all back + 10kg due to my mmo gaming habits. 6 years ago my weight peaked and I started to mind the way I was eating and kept up my exercising, got a lot healthier but didn't lose that much weight, still not bad for a 130kg fattie to have a rest pulse at 50 and regular blood pressure. 1.5 years ago I had enough of the way I was looking and started getting serious, dropped 15kg in 3.5 months, dropped another 5 kg during the summer and since then I have bounced between 107-112 kg.

This summer I told myself to get below 100 kg, doing a 1kg cut every week. I basically got my menu ready for every day, I keep on exercising 3 times a week and I find all the reasons I can get to use my bike. What determines my success is winter, during a good winter I only gain 5 kg, during a bad winter its 15 kg. If its just 5kg I can lose it easily next summer though.

I have no experience in crash diets though, its just second hand information from my cousin that I do regular walks with. He lost 25kg on a brutal vlcd diet, ended up gaining twice the amount back until he did a gastric bypass 1.5 years ago. That really was my warning shot and its not something I wish to do, given my eating habits I'm not even sure I can have that surgery.

Not endless. :why_so_serious:

Not really a fan of crash diets. Personal story, I lost about 60 pounds through a change in lifestyle and simply eating less than I was burning. For the first 2 years I was just doing walking and some yoga. I gradually worked up to the point I am at now which is working out 5 - 6 days a week. I could lose another 10 - 15 pounds however the last bit seems to be the worst to lose. I am 5'11 and I weigh 200 pounds today. At my skinniest point playing 3 sports in high school I was at 185 with around 10% body fat so I feel pretty good.

It took me a few years to get to this point but my weight is stable and I don't really have a problem eating what I want in moderation. In this time I have seen friend after friend try crash diet after crash diet and lose some significant weight but turn around and actually gain it all back and even weigh more than they did before. They ask me what I kind of diet I am on.. I tell them that its not a diet its a lifestyle change. I try to be supportive and be a good friend but after you see them going through the cycle a few times its hard supporting them. I also found it easier keeping the weight off by removing myself from some friends that have bad habits (drinking to much, eating fast food, never exercising). Its sucks seeing friends grow old and develop issues due to the life they are living.

Best of luck schild I hope this is the spark that kicks you into making some changes. Historically I have seen very few people go from one of these diets into some real changes.

Ate soup & salad today.  Optimistic that it might persist.

I have done crash diets before, I have never gained so much of it back that I weighed more than I did prior. I tend to be pretty good at keeping it off, but there were mitigating circumstances in this last cycle that resulted in, well, absolute sloth.

Also, keto really isn't a "crash" diet. I'm still consuming 2000 calories. My deficit is barely 20%, might be slightly less. I feel like there's a culture of extremes in dieting that's shading a lot of these responses. Diets, as with anything, are about self-management.

My boss did the keto diet. He had great results like you did, Schild, at the beginning, but then stopped losing weight and finally altered his diet back to including carbs again. He has stabilized, but is leery about gaining the weight back so is watching his calories more closely now that he has lost the weight.

The last 3 years we had weight loss challenges at work. I won two and then he won the last one. I won by restricting daily salt and sugar intake. That's all. I used MyFitnessPal to track what I ate and stayed under their recommendations for sugar and salt. There are some places you can't eat at all, like Olive Garden, when watching salt intake. This actually turned into a lifestyle change and now I watch my salt and sugar whenever I buy any food. I have managed to keep the weight off with minimal exercise. The next step is to exercise more which should also help me stay where I am.

Keto falls off if you don't start lowering your daily calorie intake. Really, every diet does. Did he cut his after a month or two the first time in?

There was a British study about 10 years ago that said there was no measureable benefit, but there's a lot more studies saying there is. As for me, I figure I have to eat something to stay alive and fish in general is a way healthier choice even if there really are no benefits from the oil.

The issue with getting omega-3 fatty acids from plant sources is that the benefits are believed to come from two omega-3 fats in fish, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Flaxseed oil has a different, plant-based omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Your body can convert the ALA, but the conversion is very inefficient. You have to ingest an average of 6-7 flaxseed oil capsules in order to get the same amount of DHA and EPA as 1 fish oil capsule. And of course the fish oil capsules aren't as efficient as just eating a piece of salmon.

2500 kcal burn for an average male isn't exactly false, its just that its for an "average" male that is 5'10 at BMI 22.5.

2000 kcal is a solid intake if you want to lose weight, you won't feel awfully fatigue and if you do bit more walking during the day you are most likely dropping 1kg of fat every week. I totally misunderstood what diet you did, its just people that do a vlcd diet always talk about keto.

Quick note of interest regarding salt intake. The evidence that anything other than *extremely* high daily intakes of salt does any harm is not strong evidence, and is - as far as I remember - pretty evenly split either way. The initial study that raised salt as a potentially harmful dietary component was the Framingham study, a very good, long term study of ~5000 people, begun in 1948, which used a shotgun approach to look at a huge range of lifestyle and dietary factors and correlating them with long term cardiac health. This kind of open-ended study design can be very useful in identifying factors to target for further study but it's also very open to false positives due to statistical variation. The research on salt that's followed since then has been very mixed in conclusions. If you look at meta-analyses (e.g. the Cochrane database) then there isn't a strong statistical case for salt reduction beyond avoiding extremes (and I do mean extremes - not the kind of levels you would get without specifically trying to).

I know this seems very odd since the evils of salt have been promoted so long and so hard by so many people that it's hard to comprehend that there's little to no evidence to back it up, but the research really isn't there. If you ate nothing but fast food, restaurant food and processed food every meal, every day, your salt intake might end up being a little high. Other than that it's something that does not deserve the focus that it gets most of the time.

Sugar on the other hand... yeah, that shit is fucking lethal.

I think the key to any diet (and I think it is why a lot of people who do these weird Atkins/Keto/South Beach/etc. diets see results) is being conscious of what you are eating. The more strict requirements on what you can or can't eat means you are paying more attention to it. Which leads to a bit of a lifestyle change as you become accustomed to paying attention to your food.

I lost a bunch of weight by simply tracking everything I ate with a phone app and keeping my calorie intake lower (granted, I was running at a pretty high deficit for quite a while). As part of that, my lifestyle changed in that I cut way back on eating a lot of things I had been and I became a lot more conscious of portion size.

Fucking men. 

 :mob:


Related to what Chimpy said though - good gods, is sugar everywhere in our food once you start being conscious of it.  And learning to tolerate (I doubt I'll ever like it) drinking hot tea without sugar is freaking hard.

Don't worry, most of us who have been drinking plain hot tea all of our lives don't really "like" it either.

When I teach Biochemistry, I challenge my students to find a product in the center of a grocery store that doesn't contain something that chemically originates from corn.  The only way to safely avoid chemicals, sugar, and calories concentration is to make everything from scratch.  Meat, Dairy, and produce.  Avoid all of the pre-packaged shit.  

As a note, this is basically, at its core, what Keto is. Meat, dairy, and produce. It just emphasizes fat over protein. Which means every meal doesn't taste like utter horseshit.

Is apparently not nearly as good at burning excess calories as people would have you believe, no matter how energetic you are about it.

LOL!  Okay, that was a good comeback.

The husband does the majority of the cooking around the house (actually, pretty much all of it) but I really, really need to push him to start with veggies as a base for dinners and then add some meat, not the other way around.  That's if he even makes a veggie.  *sigh*

If only there was a veggie that actually tasted good before you added a bunch of shit to it.

There is, you just can't taste it as you have saturated your taste for a long time with lots of sugar and salt and etc.

I grew up without being allowed to have processed white sugars pretty much ever (along with a bunch of other stuff, some good some bad). To this day I feel sick or do not enjoy many processed foods or other things that others do, simply because they are too sweet, strong, or rich for me.

I enjoy eating broccoli just steamed with a small amount of salt or balsamic vinegar, or just by itself. I like eating carrots raw, etc.

Lots of things taste good and have good flavours, but it you are accustomed to everything being sweetened and flavoured to death you can't notice it.

I've only been to a few places in America, but even there I've noticed that your general level of processed foods are worse than they are in Australia, which is already too much.

Go on a proper diet, change your life. Take diet to mean "what you eat", not "what you eat temporarily before going back to the usual" and eat whole foods, vegetables, lightly processed grains, and moderate amounts of meat, with a balance of seafood.

You will change, not only in regard to your physical shape and feeling, but your taste, idea of what food is and should be, and your wholistic relationship with 'self'.

It pains me to agree with Lamaros, but that was what I was going to say in a less fruity way. I stopped using any added sugar or salt and stopped eating highly processed foods a while ago. After a couple of months if I tried anything sugary or salty I was disappointed and lost my appetite over how vulgar it tasted. Also, individual food items that previously tasted bland start to develop very distinct, pleasant flavors. Especially vegetables. By comparison, something like a candy bar will make you wonder why you wasted your money on it.

On the subject of veggies, our first instinct is to roast them with a bit of olive oil and salt. Even our four year old loves his veggies.

Stopped at a grocery store with a friend to grab something to eat on the way to game night. He starts walking down the chip aisle so I jokingly told him to buy a gross flavour so it won't tempt me.
He bought some Lays "Slider" flavoured chips. I tried one. I appreciated his effort, as they were truly gross. Tasted like a random mixing of condiments.

Over the last few months I've pretty much eliminated the worst of the junk food from my diet, and it doesn't really bother me. Still let myself have the odd bit of candy if someone brings it out, or grab an icecream if I'm out somewhere on a hot day - but I don't find myself craving those sweets the way I used to. Let myself have McDonalds fries every couple of weeks, and it satisfies the urge.

I don't think I could take Bob's approach -- I'm using salty in a lot of cases to replace the sweet urge. I can't imagine cooking without salt. Grilled veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper.

For those who mentioned tea earlier - you can get used to it without sugar. I've been drinking coffee an tea unsweetened for 30 years. If someone stirs my coffee with a spoon that stirred a sweetened one earlier I can taste it and it's gross.

Just weighed myself now - 13 pounds in 4 months. Yay me.

(http://zverovich.net/img/flavor.jpg)

Probably a few days late, but as Nebu says, diets do not work...because the whole idea of a diet is that it is a temporary thing.  People think they can just do it for X number of months, and then do some "maintenance", which usually means going back and doing the same shit as before.  Lifestyle change is what works, not diets.  Your entire relationship to food has to change at least a little bit, but that is just the start.

But even if you have more willpower than average, you are still likely going to put it all back on.  Why?  Because of math.  You got fat because you eat 3000 calories (or whatever) a day.  So let's say 3000 is your magical "maintenance" number on Day 0.  You go on a sensible diet that gets you eating 2500 a week and maybe even doing a bunch of cardio.  When you do this, regardless of your actual numbers, a big chunk of what you are losing is actually muscle mass, together with the fat and water mass.  Your diet is eating it away, and so is your cardio.  After some time, you have lost a nice amount of weight, but you start to plateau.  Because now your magic number is not 3000, it is 2500, because you have dropped a LOT of lean muscle mass.  Fat people have tons (hah) of lean muscle mass.  But you're still a fatty, so you have to drop down to 2000 a week in order to keep progressing.  Now we are getting somewhere, right?  Eventually you get down to 2000 as your magic number, but because you have killed off so much muscle you are probably still fat and are at another plateau.  Maybe you drop down to 1600 for a while, and boy oh boy is this getting tough...that is half of the caloric intake of where you started, after all.  Finally, one day you hit your ideal weight, and you did it at that super low calorie diet and all the cardio where you killed all your lean mass.  But you look good, sorta, and it only took a year!  Yay!

So here's the problem.  You now have a skinny ass frame that only takes about 1700 to 1800 to support (again, the actual numbers do not matter).  But your diet is over, and now you are going to "maintain".  Let's be generous and say you don't go back to 3000 a day where you started, because now you are being sensible.  Maybe 2500, and hell, maybe you'll do a little cardio.  That is how you gain it back.  You have not built a body that can support the calories you are going to give it, and you will soon be right back where you were.  Sometimes, you make it even worse, because you will often end up putting back fat at a higher rate than you lost it (compared to muscle mass).  And then you despair and go right back to 3000 calories, because fuck it.

There is nothing mysterious about this process. 

 

k, still gonna diet

That's fine except you've stacked the already poor odds against yourself by going on a fad diet, which are by design extremely difficult to stay on long-term, instead of eating a diet that you can sustain for the long-term.

Poor odds is a lifestyle choice, says the guy selling e-juice.

True, true.

In the long run, everyone's odds are zero.

If you really just want to eat whatever, I'd recommend the squats and milk diet. You'd be surprised just how much you can get away with if you spend half an hour doing heavy weightlifting around five or so times a week.

Yeah, that's me.  I lift four days a week for about an hour and a half, and can eat pretty much whatever.  It is both easier and more comfortable than a diet/cardio regimen (well, maybe not initially), you definitely look better as well.  People talk about raising their metabolism, but rarely do they understand what it really means.  Going on most diets means lowering your metabolism, which is almost the entire reason they do not work.

People who diet tend to take the elevator.

Which is fine cause exercise has proven to be a poor way to lose weight.

What?

I'll agree that aerobic exercise is a poor way to lose weight.  Weight training, however, is among the best ways to boost your metabolism.

But boosting your metabolism is constrained. I.e. your body adapts to the increased activity:

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(15)01577-8

At a macro level there are 4 things that are working against people trying to lose weight through exercise:

* They increase their caloric intake more than their exercising is burning

* They reduce their other physical activity during the day

* They adopt a "healthier" lifestyle (like cutting down on junk food) which is actually the source of the weight loss

* Their bodies adapt to the increased physical activity so the benefits plateau

Which is not to say you can't lose significant amounts weight by exercising alone (just like you can lose weight by dieting). I did it in High School when I took up running and joined the cross-country and track teams and my sister did it by becoming a competitive runner after college despite having (and continues to have) a horrible horrible diet. However at a population level increased physical activity tends to at best lead to a very modest amount of weight loss. Which is also not to say you shouldn't be exercising more cause the health benefits are there independent of any weight loss.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5939896_Weight-Loss_Outcomes_A_Systematic_Review_and_Meta-Analysis_of_Weight-Loss_Clinical_Trials_with_a_Minimum_1-Year_Follow-Up

http://www.theptdc.com/2014/09/is-exercise-for-weight-loss-really-effective/

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/28/study-reveals-that-exercise-alone-wont-cause-weight-loss?CMP=share_btn_tw

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/28/health/weight-loss-exercise-plateau/

It's very simple:  If calories in < calories burned; you lose weight. 

Weight training increases calories burned most efficiently.  You still have to watch your macros, but weight training allows for a larger margin of error. 

Working out is worthless if you don't also monitor your diet.  Raising your BMR followed by eating more is a silly thing to do if your goal is to lose weight.  This is simple math.

Not to mention that simply being fitter has its own value.

I don't really want to go through those attached studies to verify it, but I'd wager that they are using the word "exercise" fairly loosely, and for most people this means light to medium cardio activity.  In which case, I would agree with the conclusion that it is not very effective.  Nothing new about that.  But again, resistance training lets you keep and/or add lean muscle mass, and that categorically WILL be effective in the long run.  Upgrading your engine will require more fuel to run it. 

But there's a big problem.  To be blunt...I have spent thousands of hours in what you would call normal family type gyms over the last many years, and most people (90%+) are simply doing it wrong.  Half the people are doing stuff that isn't remotely effective in the first place.  Most of the other half are sorta doing the right things, but not remotely with the required intensity.  As in, not even close.  People love to make excuses to themselves for why they can't or won't do certain things, from having bad knees, bad backs, not wanting to look too bulky, not having time, etc.  Most of it is nonsense.  It isn't terribly surprising that they accomplish very little. 

Goreschach said milk and squats.  I'll go one further.  Show me someone who can correctly squat their bodyweight 10 times (let's say 90% BW for a female), and I will show you someone who is in good shape and probably looks pretty damn good too.  One simple goal to solve all your weight related problems, and it is totally achievable.

I agree completely.  I laugh every time I see someone on an exercise bike or a treadmill reading. 

I really hate when people say this, because while at a very very very very very high level sure it's that "simple".  In reality it's not very simple at all.  It's analogous to someone complaining that they are poor and and you replying "just make more money".

How well your metabolism works is MUCH more complex than that simple formula and it heavily depends on what you eat, how often you eat, how often you expend energy, what ways you expend energy, how often you change the ways in which you expend energy, your sleep schedule, the temperature of your environment (some studies show that being cold burns more calories),  genetics / DNA, etc....  

There have also been studies that show that once you get fat many things are working against you from that point on.  For example, one thing I read a long time ago was how when you lose fat you aren't losing the fat cells themselves but the contents stored inside, which means that once you start getting things out of balance again those fat cells quickly refill.  It's a lot easier for the body to refill existing fat cells than to create new fat cells to store contents.

Which is why I get annoyed at some of the skinny people I know because they eat more than me, they eat shittier than me, they exercise less than me, and somehow I'm the overweight one

I'm happy to discuss endochrine effects, genetics, diet, etc.  They are among my favorite topics.  All of those things determine your BMR.  Losing weight still boils down to determining your BMR in Cal and then eating less/exercising more.  The factors you mention really revolve around caloric use and metabolic demand.  Yes, they are complex and not the same for everyone.  I completely agree.

I don't even know what a fucking body squat is let alone how to do it.  I refuse to look up something called a body squat, too, in case it's a trap.

Really? You must spend all your time working on your snatch.

3/10

Are we really going to argue with the PhD on this one?

You should.  Having a PhD doesn't mean that I'm always right.  I enjoy the discussion.

Having a PHD generally also means (and no disrespect Nebu), that personal research and what's found in literature is god. The PHD school of thought typically isn't the most creative or out of the box.

That said I tend to trust Nebu on shit like this.

Speaking of diets and in this case, presumably bad science: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1620631440/thin-ice-20-a-next-gen-weight-loss-clothing-line?ref=category_popular

3.5 weeks into my "diet" I'm down 4.5kg (10 pounds). My daily intake is somewhere between 2200 to 2500 kcal, just eating regular food. Mostly just doing cardio 3 times per week, usually for 45-60 minutes and gushing with sweat afterwards. Also tend to do low intensity stuff on my off-days as long as its not raining.

I can allow myself some indulgence if its a special thing, like my mom's 70th birthday but on regular days its super strict. Was probably hardest the first two weeks and 2200 kcal might be bit low for the days I do cardio.

Two things I would suggest, in addition to all the good lifestyle suggestions above, are:

      1) don't set yourself up to fail - be positive about ANY improvement, even if it isn't as much as you wanted, and be forgiving about any failure, as long as you truly get back on the wagon and keep at it. Don't set goals so high and so strict that one weak moment gives you a fail and an excuse to give up. These are habits of a lifetime you are trying to change, it WILL take time to make them the new habits of your new life!  So if you are targeting losing 50 lbs and you've only lost 10, don't beat yourself up over it, rejoice! Keep at it, and keep trying harder at it, but acknowledge that you HAVE improved. Psych yourself up to keep improving instead of beating yourself up and discouraging yourself so you're guaranteed to fail.

and 2) make the harder (especially lifestyle) changes gradually. Want to do more exercise? Walk first, then walk more, then walk and take stairs, etc.  Want to give up sodas? Switch to sweetened tea - no artificial sweeteners or corn syrup though, which means get it unsweetened or make it yourself and add the sugar (or honey) yourself. Then start gradually reducing the amount of sugar. Eventually you'll find water tastes as good or better than those sodas (YMMV depending on your water source!). Even if you can never completely kick the habit of sweetened tea/coffee, you have done your body tons of good if you can get it down to half a spoon per cup instead of two or three spoons, or the 4+(!) per cup that you were getting with the soda!

But take that with a grain of salt, as there are always exceptions. If you are hyperglycemic, then gradual sugar reduction may not be fast enough and one binge could be catastrophic. For me, tapering sweets and ramping up exercise has worked fantastically well, but I'm also Celiac, and I really had to completely eliminate gluten, full stop, to get any effect. One splurge/mistake can cause weeks (really!  :sad: ) of misery.

Oh, and one other word for any Americans struggling with switching from soda to iced tea: no, it really isn't that hard. You don't actually HAVE to brew up a whole pitcher of iced tea at once. Who knew? Unlike coffee (unless you have a Keurig) you can make iced tea one glass at a time, and it's really really good, often far better than the bulk made stuff. Just make a single cup of hot tea, and when it's ready stir the sugar in (do this before adding the ice!), fill a tall glass with ice, pour the hot tea over the ice and enjoy! And for variety you can do this with any type of hot tea including green (Bigelow's green tea with peppermint makes WONDERFUL ice tea).  I know it sounds silly, and I'm embarrassed to admit it but I had NO idea that making iced tea could be so easy. I used to make it by the pitcher-full for decades - which is still good for entertaining of course - but the hassle of dealing with multiple tea bags, cleaning and storing pitchers, measuring out large quantities of sugar at once, finding space in the refrigerator, etc, made the sodas seem far more convenient. But now, I put about 10 oz of water in a coffee mug, nuke for 2 minutes, drop in a tea bag for 3 minutes or so, pull it out, add my teaspoon of sugar from the sugar bowl, stir and then either drink it hot or fill a tall glass with ice, pour the hot tea over that and drink it cold.

That's 1 teaspoon of sugar for 12-14 oz (including the melted ice) of ice tea vs. 9.6 teaspoons of high fructose corn syrup for 12 oz of Coke, even more for Mountain Dew!

It seems pretty idiotic to me to obsess over that last teaspoon of sugar when I eliminated almost 9 teaspoons of sugar per drink!!!

I make my tea one mug at at time using my Keurig at work and once I clean the one at home again, I'm going to start using that to make tea there as well.  It's convenient because I've found I don't need one of those plastic cups - I just put the bag in the well and hit start.  I get a bit of water bleeding over sometimes, but it's been fine with the little machine at work, plus it let's me use each tea bag twice before disposing of it.

As I make myself not drink pop, I find that the few times I do drink it really make me feel bloated and just icky. 

I'm getting to a point where sodas are just not refreshing. Too heavy on the tongue and I leave it feeling the sugary syrup coating my tongue. I might try the home carbonation machine.

Personally I used a SodaStream to get me off of pop. The flavourings are already lower calorie because they are part artificial sweetener, and then I found I really only needed half the recommended amount. I did that for a few months and then slowly intermixed just drinking plain sparkling water. In the end, it was just easier to drink straight water and I got used to it. I still bring it out on the occasions I get a craving for pop, and make an Orange/Cream Soda mix.

I do like the LaCroix coconut, affectionally called the sunscreen soda.  I don't know what "natural flavors" are in it, which may be bad for my insides.

I find myself inherently suspicious of "cardio does nothing" people.  My routine used to be three miles of running a day on weekdays, no weights to speak of, and I had legs like insane tree trunks made out of steel and manliness and was skinny as fuck.  Then I got busy and lazy, and while the muscle definition on my legs never really left, their tone got shot as I picked up flab.

Now I'm staring at my 40th birthday and it's been apparent for a while that I can't just eat a bag of potato chips and expect my body to deal with it like it could back in the day, so I'm getting back into shape in a cheap gym in preparation for returning to running so I don't break something important one week into things.  It's thirty minutes of cardio daily, strapped into an exercycle targeting 135 BPM, plus weight machines three days a week.  Old me would have scoffed at it, but I want my heart and legs accustomed to working again before I try pounding pavement.

It's seriously one of the most slack exercise programs ever, I consider it more physical therapy to un-cripple my legs than anything else, so I've been surprised at how prompt and visible the improvements have been.  My leg muscles are firming back up, I'm closing in on doubling the amount of work I can put into the exercycle for the same heart rate, I've gotten back a fair amount of my stretching ability, and even though my goal was turning fat weight back into muscle weight instead of losing it, I've lost some weight.  Meanwhile a friend of mine went into things about a year ago all gung-ho for weights, 'cause everyone knows only weightlifting gets any results, then promptly fucked up his arm, spent a ton of time and money on doctors trying to fix it, and got pretty minimal gains while still being unable months later to handle much weight at all on the arm he hurt.

Cardio is great for fitness and cardiac health.  It's just terribly inefficient for weight loss. (https://runnersconnect.net/training/tools/calorie-calculator/) 

Ex: a 175lb man would have to run an 8 min pace for an hour to burn 780 calories.  During distance training, you will lose muscle mass to become more efficient at running.  This loss of muscle will translate to a lower base metabolic rate.  All of this makes losing the weight tougher.

Weight training will add muscle mass.  Adding muscle increases your metabolism allowing you to use more calories at rest daily.  If you workout intensely, this goes up even quicker.

The real annoyance is wanting to lose weight without gaining muscle mass.

Which is precisely what I keep telling my gf who is now lifting with me out in our garage gym (power rack, olympic bar and plates - nothing special). Trying to break her of the notion that she is going to get huge like a body builder is  a hard thing, but getting her to understand muscle grow will make her look better and help burn more calories at rest is the challenge. Intensity is the other thing that I am gradually introducing to her as she is not comfortable with the bar and the lifts yet. Once I don't have to walk her through the set up and the lift is when I am going to hammer that home. Thank god she is very good about correct form.

 :headscratch:

I didn't lose muscle mass from running, I gained it.  Extensively.  The couple times I bothered with weights at the time, I was handling about 400 pound sets on the leg press.  To compare, I can do about 250 sets at the moment.  This is of course all lower body stuff; if I had good upper body muscle and then totally neglected it to run instead, I can see how it'd atrophy, but since I was starting from scratch I didn't really have upper body muscle to lose, so it was a big net gain for me.

There's a difference between gaining muscle mass and getting all bulgy like Ahnold.  For most people, their muscles aren't naturally going to be vein-covered watermelons under their skin, if you see someone who looks like that it's because they've intentionally made that happen.  Muscle is very dense tissue and you can gain a great deal of it without an outward change in your appearance.  Much to the dismay of those who want that outward change.

Shave with a bacon slicer.

Ok I had a super-long rambling post, but opt instead for a TL;DR based on my own experiences and research (and take this all only after heavy salting, as I don't have any formal training in this area):  so hopefully this is slightly-less rambling.

1) Cardio has never worked for me to maintain any long-lasting weight loss, however I think cardio is great for health of the heart
2) Weight-loss diets that cause the loss of more than 3-4 pounds per week mean you are losing lean body mass (LBM) along with the fat
3) Weight-loss plans in general suppress resting metabolic rate due to #2 above
4) The only way to continuously increase RMR is to increase LBM via weight training, especially with lower reps in a continuous overload progression
5) Fat/LBM tend to go up and down in proportion to each other, all other things being equal

In short, I've come to despise the term "weight loss", because the term is pre-loaded to failure.  The weight (in pounds) of your body is secondary to your body's composition:  I think what we should all be striving toward is maintaining a healthy body fat percentage (around 15% based on many studies I've read), and if that means you need to be 300 pounds then so be it.

Most of this was contrary to what I have been told by trainers, and other people who should Know Better (TM).  It boils down to how the body responds to weight loss, and the kinds of adaptions that cardio does to the body versus those that weight training induces.  Adaptations to cardio work (lower intensity work spread over time) include changes to blood volume, recruitment of lungs in supplying oxygen, changes in cells to recruit more conversion facilities from glucose into ATP, etc.  These adaptations are fairly inexpensive for the body to do, and are thus short lived (e.g. a period of 4-8 weeks).

Case in point:  I did a medically supervised crash diet, dropped to 900 calories a day for 20 weeks.  RMR started at 2450 calories.  Lost 80 pounds:  45 pounds of fat, 35 pounds of LBM.  RMR dropped down to 1400 calories at the end.  A highly-suppressed RMR makes it almost impossible to maintain the new weight level unless your calorie intake scales down with your loss in LBM.

Weight training with heavy weights in low rep ranges causes the body to continuously adapt by wholesale changes to skeleton, muscle structure, tendon attachment, neuromuscular changes to promote muscle recruitment:  in short, incredibly expensive changes for the body to maintain.  The body is good at adapting, so the stress must be always increasing:  doing 10 bicep curls with 25 pounds for 10 years does nothing to force adaptations after the first week or so.  Progressive overload can be trained for years, and takes years for the body to "loose".

Increasing LBM directly increases RMR, and RMR is the exercise that you always do, even while sleeping.  I think RMR is the best predictor for maintaining a healthy body composition (not weight!!!!) over the long term. 

I really object to the term 'lean body mass'.  Biochemically speaking, each pound you lose will be 70% fat and 30% muscle until you exhaust your fat stores.  Then you will lose primarily muscle.  There is no changing this.  Your body uses protein (muscle) to maintain stable blood sugar levels during times of caloric debt. 

Thank you.  In my (uneducated) parlance, LBM = the parts of your body most responsible for your RMR.  I've read that muscle is three times better at driving RMR than the equivalent weight in fat.

In any case, rather than trying to sustain caloric deficits over the long term, I'm trying to increase muscle, and eating so that I'm in a slight calorie surplus:  at least enough to maintain constantly adding weight to each workout.  My overall weight has been steadily increasing, however my body fat percentage has been pretty stable.  I figure once I reach a nice strength threshold I can add in more "cardio" work to maintain wherever I end up.

Regardless of your "uneducated parlance", you are basically spot on.  So +++ for you.

RMR is the key.  Cardio does nothing for it, and in the long run definitely lowers it.  Unless you can commit to doing a lot of cardio and staying on a diet essentially forever, your diet is going to fail.  Which is why they always fail, because nobody has that kind of dedication.

There is a lot of of mis-information out there, and I suspect much of it is deliberate.  The dieting industry has no interest in you succeeding, so they're the last people you should listen to.  Personal Trainers...I don't know.  Many of them probably know better if we are being generous (perhaps we shouldn't be, I suspect the collective IQ of that group is on the lower side).  Sometimes the gyms themselves have policies that permit them from giving the advice they want to give.  Other times, I think they adapt to what their customers want, which I understand but at the same time it makes no sense at all.  We should be listening to the science, and making sure that science isn't being sponsored.  The fact that this is so hard for most people to accept is actually kind of fascinating.

What you said was very accurate.  I'm sorry for jumping on that particular wording.  Just a personal thing of mine.  I apologize if I came off like an ass. 


 :heart:   :heart:   :heart:    :awesome_for_real:

I assume that if a personal trainer had his shit together, he would have a real job.

Trainers and nutritionists know very little biochemistry.  This being the case, most also fail to fully understand metabolism and nutrition beyond simple rudimentary levels.  It's not their fault.  These programs attract people that aren't scientifically bent and they are at an immediate disadvantage as a result. 

And actually, once you understand that the body strives to adapt for maximum efficiency, then it makes perfect sense.  In order to sustain cardio work, we want to be an efficient as possible and moving your body weight for long periods of time.  The energy required to move a body is directly proportional to its mass, and since the muscles do not need more "strength" to sustain lower efforts for long periods, it's in the bodies best interest to lower LBM so that less energy is required to sustain the activity.

I always wondered why marathon runners were gaunt and looked like they were being starved:

(http://www.runnersworld.com/sites/runnersworld.com/files/styles/article_main_image_2200px/public/2013topmasterslongdistancerunners_500.jpg?itok=jQ7QFk-G)

And it's because the body has shed every extra ounce (muscle included) to adapt for maximum efficiency of the stress it is being asked to undergo.

For all the talk about science this thread has gone into bro-science territory now.

Studies have shown that reducing your weight reduces your RMR.
Studies have shown that inactive persons starting moderate aerobic exercise will increase their lean muscle mass and therefore increase RMR. However, extreme interventions of physical activity have shown a decrease in RMR.
Studies have shown that there has been no significant difference in RMR for those conducting supervised aerobic exercise compared to those doing supervised weight training, RMR goes up for both categories. However there is a significant difference in changing body fat to lean muscles in favor of weight training.

For all the talk about how important RMR is, the key factor will always be how much I eat. For every 5kg I'm dropping I require 100 kcal less per day. This means that I will regain most of my weight loss after a year if I make no permanent change. Diet is easy, lifestyle change is hard.

Didn't I say this 4 pages ago?

People really like repeating that exact phrase.

(https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Mugatu-So-Hot-Right-Now.jpg)

Its bit like fat people always tends to be on a diet and for some reason still gain weight. Know that one from experience as well.