Dumb Diets: KETO

[schild]

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.

[schild]

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

[Gimfain]

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.

[Count Nerfedalot]

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!  ) 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!!!

[RhyssaFireheart]

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. 

[01101010]

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.

[Bunk]

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.

[Yegolev]

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.

[Kitsune]

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.

[Nebu]

I find myself inherently suspicious of "cardio does nothing" people. 

Cardio is great for fitness and cardiac health.  It's just terribly inefficient for weight loss. 

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.

[schild]

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

[01101010]

I find myself inherently suspicious of "cardio does nothing" people. 

Cardio is great for fitness and cardiac health.  It's just terribly inefficient for weight loss. 

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.

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.

[Cyrrex]

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

 

[Kitsune]

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.

[Kitsune]

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

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.

[apocrypha]

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

Shave with a bacon slicer.

[Miguel]

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. 

[Nebu]

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

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. 

[Miguel]

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

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.

[Cyrrex]

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.

[Nebu]

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.

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. 

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.

         

[Yegolev]

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

[Nebu]

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. 

[Miguel]

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.

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:



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.

[Gimfain]

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.

[Nebu]

Diet is easy, lifestyle change is hard.

Didn't I say this 4 pages ago?

[schild]

People really like repeating that exact phrase.

[01101010]

People really like repeating that exact phrase.

[Gimfain]

People really like repeating that exact phrase.

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.