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How about we stop "fearing" certain foods and just eat a reasonably varied diet that is calorie restricted? Or if you want to simply lose weight, just calorie r
by joekim29 11y ago
How about we stop "fearing" certain foods and just eat a reasonably varied diet that is calorie restricted? Or if you want to simply lose weight, just calorie restricted.
Or do I have to bring up the people who have lived on nothing but twinkies or McD for a month and stil lost weight?
- mirsadm 11y agoThat is poor advice and doesn't work for most people.
- mdpopescu 11y agoYes. My issue is not losing weight - that's easy, I'll just not eat anything for a week. (I've lost weight before, usually when being violently sick.) My issue is keeping the weight down. I've been in Dublin for three months and lost about 10 kgs (nasty commute, stressful job and so on). I've been back for two weeks and gained back two kgs. Wife's a great cook :)
- mathgeek 11y ago"Wife's a great cook " I think you've succinctly expressed one of the core issues that we have as individuals and as a society: we love tasty food more than we love healthy food. We generally consider meals that derive flavor from fats and sugars as great/tasty/enjoyable while we relegate more healthy options as that which we only eat to either make up for or "save calories for" the meals that we really enjoy.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoNot necessarily - overeating is the real issue. Wife may cook those alfalfa sprouts to perfection. He just eats a bushel.
- mathgeek 11y agoI'd like to hear from someone who got fat eating too many vegetables that weren't covered in oils or other toppings.
- cubancigar11 11y agoI am in no way related to this but have you tried https://www.noom.com/ https://www.noom.com/ ? It not only helps in counting calories it also gives daily articles and a set of TO-DOs. I was 275 lbs around 2.5 months ago but since then have lost 22 lbs. Regarding 'keeping the weight down', I learned from this app itself why it is difficult: 1. Not eating anything for a week is not only a bad strategy to lose weight it is actually a good strategy to gain weight afterwards. In my own experience whenever I tried to lose weight by eating less I lost a lot of weight but gained more than what I lost afterwards. You cannot stay hungry forever and if you lose more than 2 lbs per week your body goes into starvation mode, burning any stored energy rapidly, and rapidly storing anything you eat afterwards as fat just in case you don't get food again. Body is more intelligent than we think. 2. Once a fat cell is born it craves fat and that makes you hungry. Rapidly losing weight by staying hungry will only remove fat from fat cells but won't kill them. Weight loss must be sustained for longer time to have any permanent effect. 3. I have replaced white rice with brown rice, white bread with whole grain wheat bread and started eating sprouts and corn, oranges, guava etc. other fruits. Sprouts are killer deal man - you eat 200g of it you will hardly feel hungry for hours. 4. You need to do some physical exercise everyday - not intense, just walking is okay. But you have to be consistent so your body learns how much energy you are going to lose anyway and doesn't store much fat. I have yet to start heavy exercises but I like the effect on my body :)
- anon4 11y agoI have a feeling that if most people are exposed to a varied enough diet for a long enough time, they'll start eating more healthily. Your stomach has a complicated neural system of its own which seems to be entirely for learning and recognizing what food contains what nutrients, so that you can get everything your body needs.
- nkuttler 11y agoHow about eating a diet where you don't have to count calories to get to or maintain a healthy weight? Fat is very satiating.
- CuriouslyC 11y agoMaybe for you. I could easily put down 6000 calories worth of peanut butter in one shot, but if I tried that with pasta I probably wouldn't break 4000, and with veggies I probably wouldn't break 1500.
- vidarh 11y ago6000 kcal of peanut butter is about 1kg. I'd be tempted to pay to see you do that. But how much you are able to stuff yourself with isn't the full story without knowing how long it takes you to get hungry again.
- nrhtr 11y ago> I'd be tempted to pay to see you do that. How much? > But how much you are able to stuff yourself with isn't the full story without knowing how long it takes you to get hungry again. Certainly less than 2 days.
- visakanv 11y ago> 6000 calories worth of peanut butter in one shot WHAT?! Please make a YouTube video. I will show all my friends and family. The amazing Peanut Butter Eating Hero.
- CuriouslyC 11y agoI bodybuild and I'm trying to get contest lean currently. If that wasn't a concern I would certainly have a furious-pete level youtube channel; even among powerlifters and football players I've always been notorious for my appetite.
- mvanvoorden 11y ago
- smtddr 11y ago>>"eat a reasonably varied diet that is calorie restricted?" Define "reasonably" and "restricted". Otherwise, you might as well say "If everyone just did the right thing, everything would be as it should!" which has no actionable component. >>"people who have lived on nothing but twinkies or McD for a month and stil lost weight?" ....but suffered dozens of other health problems that'll lead to an early grave. "Super size me" -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/
- joekim29 11y agohttp://sploid.gizmodo.com/man-loses-37-pounds-by-eating-exclusively-at-mcdonalds-1496972541 http://sploid.gizmodo.com/man-loses-37-pounds-by-eating-excl...
- comrh 11y agoThis is basically the same thing as the Subway guy. He restricted his calories, fulfilled his nutrient goals and, most importantly, started walking a lot more.
- kbutler 11y agoSuper size me has been (politely) not reproducible, or less politely, shown to be shockingly full of crap. http://www.sott.net/article/126285-Supersize-me-revisited-under-lab-conditions http://www.sott.net/article/126285-Supersize-me-revisited-un... http://www.cracked.com/article_20585_6-famous-documentaries-that-were-shockingly-full-crap.html http://www.cracked.com/article_20585_6-famous-documentaries-... Moral: popular media is a horrible source of scientific knowledge
- smtddr 11y agoWell that's interesting! I'm still convinced that living on Twinkies & McD's isn't going to result in quality health, but it's good to know the super-size-me person had to lie in his documentary.
- geofft 11y agoNutrition isn't just about calories. They're important, but if all we needed were calories, we'd just measure out 2000 kcal of sugar each day. Fats, proteins, etc. are all important. Within eating a reasonable number of calories, make sure that the portion of calories from each source is appropriate. If you focus solely on calories, you will lose weight but you will also lose other aspects of your health.
- justaman 11y agoFear is American. Watch Good Morning America just once and you'll understand what I mean.
- lsniddy 11y agoThe twinkie diet guy was funded by coca cola http://observer.com/2015/10/here-are-the-people-coca-cola-has-paid-to-manufacture-health-claims/ http://observer.com/2015/10/here-are-the-people-coca-cola-ha...
- wlesieutre 11y ago> You probably saw the compelling story on CNN that a nutrition professor ate only Twinkies for 10 weeks and lost 27 pounds! Except they didn’t disclose one important fact — he got paid by Coca-Cola. Perhaps “Coke-Funded Nutrition Professor Tries to Prove Junk Food Healthy” is now a more appropriate title. And his surprising finding that junk food can be eaten without consequence: perfectly on message for Coca-Cola. And? Did he did he supplement the diet by eating Coca-Cola's money as a source of fiber? Because it still sounds like he only ate twinkies and lost weight. Or are you suggesting that his data was falsified?
- code_sterling 11y agoI'd suggest a conflict of interest makes his results suspect.
- wlesieutre 11y agoI'd be more inclined to agree if it were a complicated subject with a lot of data to be cherry-picked and "interpreted." In this case, "lost 27 pounds" and "only ate twinkies" would be pretty hard to play games with. But hey, maybe 20 different scientists ran the same experiment and only the one time when it was successful got published. No way to know for sure.
- mvanvoorden 11y agoIf you lose weight but end up with diabetes, or a serious vitamin deficiency, would you still think this research is legit? Eating only one type of food for weeks will almost always result in losing weight, because it would disrupt the gut flora, as well as deprive one of necessary vitamins/minerals.
- johnward 11y agoCalories in and out is the basic but bodies react to certain macronutrients differently in diabetes. Macronutrients belong in the conversation. Calories in/out may always work but might not be the most efficient.
- visakanv 11y agoVery often, broad calorie restriction leads to constant hunger and even malnutrition, and isn't sustainable over a lifetime. It makes a lot more sense usually to restrict sugary/refined carbs– soda, donuts, bread, buns, etc.
- CuriouslyC 11y agoIf you are smart about what you eat, you can run a large calorie deficit and still feel just fine. My typical day has me eating about 2400 calories and burning anywhere from 3400-3700, and I feel absolutely fine (even though I'm quite lean). I never get hunger-related cravings, when I go off my diet it's more about desire for variety. My diet is primarily comprised of vegetables, beans, eggs and whey protein with a moderate amount of lean meat. I easily clear 225g/protein/day and ~120g/fiber/day, and I consume a lot of fermented vegetables (which definitely have a strong satiating effect).
- logfromblammo 11y agoThe thermodynamic hypothesis is correct to the extent that the change in chemical energy potential retained in the body will be equal to energy absorbed from food minus energy expended by metabolism. It tends to ignore the fact that energy expended by metabolism is a black-box function that takes energy absorbed from food as just one of its input parameters. If you restrict calories below a threshold (that varies by individual), the body will flip genetic switches to enter famine survival mode. It will adjust metabolic functions to slow down weight loss by any means possible. When the restriction ends, some of those switches do not get toggled back to their previous state. So if you have ever tried a diet that included severe calorie restrictions or extended fasting, you may forevermore find it much easier to gain weight than lose it. So if you want to go by the thermodynamic hypothesis, it is far safer for you in the long run to hold your diet constant and either increase exercise or thermogenesis (i.e. live through a winter at one of the poles). Channel swimmers burn about 40 Mcal of energy. Marathon runners burn about 3 Mcal. But their bodies will prefer to use up all glycogen stores before digging in to body fat, and now some will eat glycogen gel during the event to avoid "hitting the wall" entirely. Fat-burning is maximized only after depleting glycogen, or when exercising below the aerobic threshold (and possibly also below the lactate threshold), between 60% and 70% of your maximum heart rate. Obviously, this would ordinarily set a hard limit on the number of kcal you can reasonably expend via exercise to lose body fat. Thus, the uncanny effectiveness of ketogenic diets and "bonk training". Those practices intentionally deplete glycogen stores beforehand, so any exercise done in that state burns more body fat, regardless of your exercise intensity. Ordinarily, you could have 1500 kcal or more of glycogen stores. That's enough for 15 miles of running, or 2 hours of cycling. And that's a lot of exercise to do before you start to get more permanent fat-loss results. It is much easier to eat just enough protein to serve the short-term needs of your body, eat the remaining caloric requirement to avoid switching to starvation mode as fat, and avoid all carbohydrates like the plague. Your body converts only as much protein as it needs into sugars, but not enough to replenish its glycogen, and switches to using fat as its primary energy supply, so any additional kcal you expend are coming directly from adipose reserves. (This sort of lifestyle may have unintended side effects.) People don't want to just "lose weight". When they say that, they usually mean "lose fat". And that goal is a lot more complex than just kcal in minus kcal out. We still don't fully understand how diet, exercise, metabolism, and appetite work together to produce visible effects on the body. But we do know that a single dietary strategy will not work for everybody, particularly the "just reduce calorie count" strategy.