5 ms·

How To Lose Weight And Influence People

jacques_chester 14y ago
> After the first week, which is always the hardest, I'd lost 10 pounds. Dropping carbohydrates from the diet causes a drop in retained water. For instance, some energy is stored in the muscles as glycogen, which binds with water on an approximately 1-to-3 basis. Each gram of glycogen binds ~3g of water; so when you cut carb intake and begin to break down stored glycogen, you unsurprisingly lose weight quickly. Paleo and keto types call this a "signing bonus". It's generally not an indicator of the long term trend because there's not much of your body mass tied up this way. When people are overweight, it's usually fat. And fat is a stupidly dense store of energy compared to the glycogen/water mechanism. Athletes in weight-class sports (boxing, powerlifting, wrestling, weightlifting etc) have known about carbohydrate and sodium tricks for manipulating water weight for a long time. All the matters is: can you impose a long term deficit? Whether by paleo, keto or any other dietary method, the sole long term determinant of average body mass is net caloric balance. I wrote about this simple physical fact last year [1], which prompted what one friend called "the diet riot". It was good for lulz then. I bet it will be again. In the past year I've followed a diet called "Eating Less" (Intermittent Fasting, to be all trendy about it[2]). So far this has put me down about 30kg from my peak weight -- approximately 65lb. [1] http://chester.id.au/2012/05/26/fat-and-simple/ http://chester.id.au/2012/05/26/fat-and-simple/ [2] http://chester.id.au/2012/04/17/my-diet/ http://chester.id.au/2012/04/17/my-diet/
- angersock 14y ago
  Read The Hacker's Diet a while ago, and it seemed reasonable to my old control-systems training. What's the current sort of counter-argument to the abstraction presented there?
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    The counter argument seems to be that ketosis is somehow magically exempt from the laws of physics. One of those blog posts sparked exactly such a discussion -- that the body was "too complex" to be governed by mere physics.
    - forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
      "that the body was "too complex" to be governed by mere physics." The body is too complex to be governed by "mere physics", because it uses control systems that regulate the intake process. I can eat three times more than a friend of mine, and incorporate to my body way less than my friend, because bacteria and virus in my intestines are completely different from hers. Also my body is different. A calorie of fat has nothing to do with a calorie of sucrose or glucose. "Mere physics" of burning something at 1000C and measuring the thermal output is completely different from the "real physics"of metabolizing substances in a 20 different steps chain process, where every step could be inhibited or excited by cell control systems.
      - jacques_chester 14y ago
        As I say elsewhere, all this is by the by; all that matters is net calorie balance and all that's needed is to compare inputs (diet, exercise) with outputs (weight, appearance). Your friend no more needs to know about your gut flora than you need to know about my insulin sensitivity.
      - kyberias 14y ago
        I doubt that you can eat three times more than your friend. In fact, that is impossible. Please provide us with some real numbers and data.
        jacques_chester 14y ago
        If I may generalise most offensively, people in prosperous societies have basically no freaking idea how much they are eating (or not eating, as the case may be). Eg: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7869932 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7869932 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2082216 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2082216 I remember talking to a (rake-thin) cousin of mine about this when we went to dinner one night. "I eat as much as anyone", he protested. Later in the evening, noticed that while I had finished the chips that came with our dinners, he had not.
  - jiffyjeff 14y ago
    The Hacker's Diet hinges on: ((calories in) - (calories out)) / 3500 = (l lb of weight loss) The Hacker's Diet holds as an axiom that calories from fat, carbohydrate and protein are equivalent in this formula. This assumption neglects the powerful influence of the hormone insulin, which plays a key role in regulating fat metabolism. Insulin release is very highly correlated with carbohydrate consumption, and a diet that restricts carbohydrate will often lead to weight loss.
    - jacques_chester 14y ago
      This sounds awfully ... Taubesy. Problems with the Taubes' it's-all-carbs-and-insulin hypothesis: * Protein consumption causes insulin spikes too. * Insulin is not the only hormone involved in weight control system and energy system behaviour. Also involved: leptin, ghrelin, glucagon, cortisol and probably dozens of others neither of us will hear of in our entire lifetimes. * Population obesity closely tracks calories-per-capita, apparently regardless of macronutrient breakdown (http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-still-matter.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-st...).
      - wlievens 14y ago
        How about the argument that higher sugar intake causes you to be more hungry, therefore making it easier to eat less calories on a low suger (high-fat) diet. I know it's an entirely different argument from the "keto magic" argument you are ranting against, but do you object to it?
        jacques_chester 14y ago
        Firstly, it doesn't come up in proper trials (eg http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413101 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413101). That's part of the general Taubes carbs-insulin hypothesis; that insulin affects satiety (the feeling of fullness, or no longer wanting to eat). As I said above, there are more hormones involved than insulin. For example, one very influential hormone is leptin. It has a profound affect on appetite and satiety; but we still only understand it poorly. And leptin can be affected by all sorts of factors. Sleep deprivation, even small amounts, really play merry hell with it. Next time you're running on fumes, you may notice both that a) you're starving and b) your ability to resist the temptation to eat anything is greatly diminished. And so on. The body is more complex than the thermodynamic equation, but ultimately that is enough to control your mass. The additional details are worth introducing as and when they are necessary (and a good dietitian will do that), but not before. People are very good at giving themselves excuses and, of course, analysis paralysis allows them to forestall any real change.
- eof 14y ago
  I am not a dietician by any stretch, but this 'net calorie' business seems really unlikely to me. Cars have different gas mileage; i doubt I am shitting out 0 calories, etc. Ketosis is a real thing and people do shed a shit ton of weight getting into that state; all of these things basically invalidate 'long term deficit' as the sole coeffecient into what is likely an incredibly complex equation only barely understood.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    Read my longer blog post. I go over the whole matter. The tl;dr is that ketosis is not exempt from the laws of physics.
    - eof 14y ago
      No offence but your post is overly simplistic and not in anyway convincing that your actual thesis is a complete picture of what is going on. It is undeniably true that calories in vs calories out is a driving factor, it is not however the only factor. Your article shows how you think about diet/weight, and is not really reflective of any strong scientific understanding, and, in my opinion, needlessly disregards "… insulin! Starvation mode! Carbs! Zones! That study I saw written up in the New York Times!", when there is actually something here, or atleast potentially here that is also a driving force in weight. edited for politeness/accuracy
      - jacques_chester 14y ago
        Care to elaborate? I can only suspect that, as usual, this will turn out to be a dispute over the boundaries of the system we're discussing (single-human-body-mass-system vs economy-society-and-single-human-body-system). If you genuinely believe that net calorie balance isn't the sole determinant of long term average mass, then I'd like to know what else it could be. Saying "oh it must be more complex than that!" isn't such an explanation.
        eof 14y ago
- stickdick 14y ago
  > Then I went to Kauai for a week and gained 10 pounds Is probably ~8lbs water. I'd be amazed if someone could gain 10lbs of fat in a week. That clocks in at about 50k total calories?
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    The rule of thumb is 3500 kcals / lb. So 10lbs of fat would be nearly 35,000 kcals, a daily net caloric surplus (not caloric intake, surplus) of 5,000 kcals.
  - fingerprinter 14y ago
    It was water and glycogen. When I'm running low carb (for whatever reason) and have a carb refeed, I routinely gain 8-10 pounds in a 24 hour period. Same for people making a weight for powerlifting/boxing/wrestling. They manipulate their water/salt, getting all the glycogen out of their system before reintroducing them to "pump" them back up etc etc
- fingerprinter 14y ago
  I can't reply to your comment below b/c it is too many deep. I'll do that here and add some comments. Net calories is fine if your only goal is "don't be a fatass". If, however, you are an athlete, lift weights or want something more, net calories don't tell you much. There are some easy experiments. ===================================== Let's assume 2000 cals daily is a supposed 300 cal deficit for someone. Let's assume sedentary lifestyle. A. 2000 protein B. 2000 fat C. 2000 simple sugar carbs D. 2000 complex carbs What is going to happen? A and B will loose weight. C will likely gain weight, quite a bit of it fat. D will most likely gain weight as well, but probably less so. D in particular would depend on how "sensitive" they are to insulin spikes. ===================================== Same setup. New items. A. 2000 cals prot+fat B. 2000 cals prot+carbs C. 2000 cals carbs+fat D. 2000 cals prot+fat+carbs (35/25/40%). A will lose/maintain weight. B would be tough. Probably lose/maintain. C would gain weight (carbs and fat together do bad things, particularly in sedentary individuals). D. This is you. Would lose weight, but suboptimally. A would be better for weight lose. ===================================== For some context, I guess. I'm an amateur bodybuilder and powerlifter. I used to play competitive basketball. I have a (rather time consuming hobby) of writing fitness books. When people say "net calories are all that matter" it is clear they don't understand the problem domain nearly enough. Nor do they understand that one must manipulate the macronutrients to achieve certain goals. I hope we one day STOP talking about calories completely and only talk about macronutrient ratios and grams. This is much more important. For instance, I have a photoshoot coming up for a book. I'm cutting bodyfat right now to get as lean as possible. I'm running 6.5 days of near zero carbs, .5g fat/lb of desired bodyweight and 1-2g protein/lb of desired bodyweight (leg day I take in more protein for instance) and a singular non-carb insulin spike after my workout (whey protein, leucine and creatine shake to spike insulin and spare my muscle). On the 7th day, I "carb up", or refeed. I basically go nuts and eat simple carbs (icecream, rice, cereal) to replenish my glycogen stores and, WAY MORE IMPORTANTLY, recalibrate my hormones. When I'm trying to gain muscle, I do this: only protein and fat before a workout. Only carbs and protein after a workout. My macronutrients are about 20/25/55 (fat, protein and carbs). If net calories were the only thing that mattered, I could eat 1000 cals of pure sugar and get ready for my photo shoot. I can't. That is stupid. If net calorie surplus were the only thing that mattered to gain muscle I could eat 5000 cals of pure sugar or 5000 cals of pure fat to put on muscle. I can't. That is stupid. You have to understand what they are doing. However, there are some VERY simple rules. It just isn't nearly as simple as you think. And it is foolish to perpetuate this decades old bunk science. EDITED: tried to fix up the formatting a bit.
Peroni 14y ago
Devils Advocate Time. Technically I'm morbidly obese. I'm 6'3" and I weigh in just shy of 300lbs. This shocks most people as I don't look like someone who weighs close to 300lbs although I'm very obviously overweight. I'm working hard to lose weight purely to prevent myself from dying young so that my son has a Dad he can grow old with. In the mean time, let me dispel a myth: Fat != Lazy I have absolutely no doubt that I will have more energy when I'm a healthier weight however I sleep well, I feel good when I wake up, I can maintain focus at a consistently high level throughout my typical 14 hour work day and I still have plenty of energy to chase after my 2 year old boy for a couple of hours in the evening when I get home. I have bags of confidence and as far as I'm concerned, I'm successful. Being overweight isn't always indicative of laziness, failure or a lack of discipline. Sure you're better off being a healthy weight but beating yourself up for being overweight is torture. Take responsibility for your weight and health, commit to doing something positive to fix it and in the mean time just get on with enjoying life.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Being tall makes it easy to carry a lot of fat without looking traditionally fat. I'm 6'3 as well. I got up to 139kg -- about 305lb. Losing weight has been easier than I thought it would be. The trick was alighting on an eating pattern that I can sustain indefinitely. For some folk (like OP) that's paleo. For others, keto. Some people swear by portion control -- I am not one of them! If I could take one thing back, it would be my cheapshot at overweight people in my weight-control blog post-slash-rant last year (linked elsewhere in the thread). I've left it in, but ... it was mean.
- forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
  I'm over 6,7, or as a European 2m height, and 90kilos. Being tall means you could weigh more and be healthy, and it depends on your body structure, like bones and so. But probably you need someone else and not you to judge what is your ideal weight. "I can maintain focus at a consistently high level throughout my typical 14 hour work day" I have yet to see a person that really works 10 h/d, let alone 14 hours a day, but probably your definition of work is different than mine. "Being overweight isn't always indicative of laziness, failure or a lack of discipline." I have a very close family member that is taller than you and also weights more, agree with the laziness thing but I will call it a failure in some way, thinking on the contrary is just deceiving yourself. For me being morbid obese is the result of the culture and the way of living, specially work routines and eating, everybody could see the statistics of 40 years ago in Europe and US, The only thing that significantly changed is that, what we eat, pre made food with lost of sugar and bad quality fats(enormous unbalance between Omega 6 and 3). Discipline means nothing if you don't know what to do. My advice to you is to develop different routines,improve what you eat, let the torture thing for the masochistic fanatics. Start thinking that you are in a hole and you need to get out of it and your life will be better when you get out(if its so good it will be even better).
Tichy 14y ago
I've been a vegetarian since I was 18 and always was very slim, until a couple of years ago (mid thirties - actually not a strict vegetarian anymore in recent years). The vegetarian diet was of course very rich in carbs. I don't see a way to go low carb as a vegetarian. That I was slim with a "high carbs" diet for 20 years also makes me doubt the carbs theory a bit. There seem to be other factors. I exercise less, but there were stretches of time when I didn't exercise a lot, too. My wife having a baby gave a big boost to my waistline, too. Might even have to do something with hormones (men's hormones change during pregnancy, too)? I've also heard that changing one's diet in any way is likely to cause weight loss at first, so I'd be careful with evaluating anecdotal evidence. I'm curious about the energy aspect, just wish there was another way. The thought of eating 4 eggs for breakfast makes me sick. I just feel repulsed by eggs and meat most of the time. I actually have a hypothesis that human digestion might be very adaptable. Humans managed to hold on in very diverse environments, from the arctic to the desert. Presumably they had to dwell on different kinds of foods depending on the environment. So it makes sense if digestion can adapt to a huge variety of food. Might be that industrial food is a main culprit after all (lots of sugary foods that have only been around for about 100 years). Another thing: how did people manage to eat the equivalent of four eggs for breakfast in paelo times? I've read that gathering was more effective than hunting, so presumably they had more vegetables and fruit than meat on average?
- kunil 14y ago
  How can you be a non-strict vegetarian?
  - Tichy 14y ago
    By slipping now and then. I'm not really a vegetarian anymore - happy now? I've actually gained weight since not being a vegetarian anymore, but I think that is a coincidence. I very rarely eat meat (once every two weeks or less). So I am a vegetarian for stretches of several weeks at a time.
- shaunxcode 14y ago
  Just my anecdote/experience - but I've been vegan since I was 18 (now 30). I knew that as I got older my metabolism would drop off but a little over a year ago I weighed 248 (I am 6'1") which was a wake up call. To rectify things I picked up running on the reg again and cut the shit from my diet e.g. no added/processed fats at all (you can get more than enough from whole grains, legumes, and vegetables) and I am down to 185. Meaning I am actually lighter, healthier and more "energized" now than when I was 16. I can recommend the rave diet book and the mcdougal books for recipes/theory. I also keep a photo blog if you want an idea of what my average diet looks like on http://www.stoicvegan.com http://www.stoicvegan.com
jaggederest 14y ago
Honestly, any form of elimination diet (don't eat x, for any x) works, in direct proportion to how many of your calories typically come from that x. It's not what you eat, in that regard. Pick anything you eat a lot of, and stop eating it. You'll have a hard time matching that missing intake with other foods, and so you'll eat fewer calories, and so you'll lose weight. If your diet has a name, it's a fad.
bjourne 14y ago
I get the lose weight part, but what about influencing people? :)
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  It's a blog post. A finer and more effective mechanism for influencing people has yet to be devised.
zatara 14y ago
"The most important piece of knowledge I took from 4HB and haven't seen anywhere else is to eat a protein rich breakfast (I do 4 fried eggs) within 30 minutes of waking up. This was very hard for me to keep up with so I have sample data from weeks where I was very consistent and weeks where I didn't even make it out of the shower in 30 minutes. For me, eating that breakfast within 30 minutes of first waking up more than doubles my weekly weight loss. I still don't fully understand why this works, but it does, at least for me. It's one of those things you read and don't believe until you actually do it to yourself and measure often." Anyone interested on this bit should have a look at Jack Kruse's leptin reset diet (http://www.jackkruse.com/my-leptin-prescription/ http://www.jackkruse.com/my-leptin-prescription/). His posts are incredibly difficult to read, but as a dentist and neurosurgeon who has lost tons of weight himself, he really seems to know what he is talking about.

> After the first week, which is always the hardest, I'd lost 10 pounds. Dropping carbohydrates from the diet causes a drop in retained water. For instance, some energy is stored in the muscles as glycogen, which binds with water on an approximately 1-to-3 basis. Each gram of glycogen binds ~3g of water; so when you cut carb intake and begin to break down stored glycogen, you unsurprisingly lose weight quickly. Paleo and keto types call this a "signing bonus". It's generally not an indicator of the long term trend because there's not much of your body mass tied up this way. When people are overweight, it's usually fat. And fat is a stupidly dense store of energy compared to the glycogen/water mechanism. Athletes in weight-class sports (boxing, powerlifting, wrestling, weightlifting etc) have known about carbohydrate and sodium tricks for manipulating water weight for a long time. All the matters is: can you impose a long term deficit? Whether by paleo, keto or any other dietary method, the sole long term determinant of average body mass is net caloric balance. I wrote about this simple physical fact last year [1], which prompted what one friend called "the diet riot". It was good for lulz then. I bet it will be again. In the past year I've followed a diet called "Eating Less" (Intermittent Fasting, to be all trendy about it[2]). So far this has put me down about 30kg from my peak weight -- approximately 65lb. [1] http://chester.id.au/2012/05/26/fat-and-simple/ http://chester.id.au/2012/05/26/fat-and-simple/ [2] http://chester.id.au/2012/04/17/my-diet/ http://chester.id.au/2012/04/17/my-diet/

angersock 14y ago
Read The Hacker's Diet a while ago, and it seemed reasonable to my old control-systems training. What's the current sort of counter-argument to the abstraction presented there?
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  The counter argument seems to be that ketosis is somehow magically exempt from the laws of physics. One of those blog posts sparked exactly such a discussion -- that the body was "too complex" to be governed by mere physics.
  - forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
    "that the body was "too complex" to be governed by mere physics." The body is too complex to be governed by "mere physics", because it uses control systems that regulate the intake process. I can eat three times more than a friend of mine, and incorporate to my body way less than my friend, because bacteria and virus in my intestines are completely different from hers. Also my body is different. A calorie of fat has nothing to do with a calorie of sucrose or glucose. "Mere physics" of burning something at 1000C and measuring the thermal output is completely different from the "real physics"of metabolizing substances in a 20 different steps chain process, where every step could be inhibited or excited by cell control systems.
    - jacques_chester 14y ago
      As I say elsewhere, all this is by the by; all that matters is net calorie balance and all that's needed is to compare inputs (diet, exercise) with outputs (weight, appearance). Your friend no more needs to know about your gut flora than you need to know about my insulin sensitivity.
    - kyberias 14y ago
      I doubt that you can eat three times more than your friend. In fact, that is impossible. Please provide us with some real numbers and data.
      - jacques_chester 14y ago
        If I may generalise most offensively, people in prosperous societies have basically no freaking idea how much they are eating (or not eating, as the case may be). Eg: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7869932 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7869932 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2082216 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2082216 I remember talking to a (rake-thin) cousin of mine about this when we went to dinner one night. "I eat as much as anyone", he protested. Later in the evening, noticed that while I had finished the chips that came with our dinners, he had not.
- jiffyjeff 14y ago
  The Hacker's Diet hinges on: ((calories in) - (calories out)) / 3500 = (l lb of weight loss) The Hacker's Diet holds as an axiom that calories from fat, carbohydrate and protein are equivalent in this formula. This assumption neglects the powerful influence of the hormone insulin, which plays a key role in regulating fat metabolism. Insulin release is very highly correlated with carbohydrate consumption, and a diet that restricts carbohydrate will often lead to weight loss.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    This sounds awfully ... Taubesy. Problems with the Taubes' it's-all-carbs-and-insulin hypothesis: * Protein consumption causes insulin spikes too. * Insulin is not the only hormone involved in weight control system and energy system behaviour. Also involved: leptin, ghrelin, glucagon, cortisol and probably dozens of others neither of us will hear of in our entire lifetimes. * Population obesity closely tracks calories-per-capita, apparently regardless of macronutrient breakdown (http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-still-matter.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-st...).
    - wlievens 14y ago
      How about the argument that higher sugar intake causes you to be more hungry, therefore making it easier to eat less calories on a low suger (high-fat) diet. I know it's an entirely different argument from the "keto magic" argument you are ranting against, but do you object to it?
      - jacques_chester 14y ago
        Firstly, it doesn't come up in proper trials (eg http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413101 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413101). That's part of the general Taubes carbs-insulin hypothesis; that insulin affects satiety (the feeling of fullness, or no longer wanting to eat). As I said above, there are more hormones involved than insulin. For example, one very influential hormone is leptin. It has a profound affect on appetite and satiety; but we still only understand it poorly. And leptin can be affected by all sorts of factors. Sleep deprivation, even small amounts, really play merry hell with it. Next time you're running on fumes, you may notice both that a) you're starving and b) your ability to resist the temptation to eat anything is greatly diminished. And so on. The body is more complex than the thermodynamic equation, but ultimately that is enough to control your mass. The additional details are worth introducing as and when they are necessary (and a good dietitian will do that), but not before. People are very good at giving themselves excuses and, of course, analysis paralysis allows them to forestall any real change.
eof 14y ago
I am not a dietician by any stretch, but this 'net calorie' business seems really unlikely to me. Cars have different gas mileage; i doubt I am shitting out 0 calories, etc. Ketosis is a real thing and people do shed a shit ton of weight getting into that state; all of these things basically invalidate 'long term deficit' as the sole coeffecient into what is likely an incredibly complex equation only barely understood.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Read my longer blog post. I go over the whole matter. The tl;dr is that ketosis is not exempt from the laws of physics.
  - eof 14y ago
    No offence but your post is overly simplistic and not in anyway convincing that your actual thesis is a complete picture of what is going on. It is undeniably true that calories in vs calories out is a driving factor, it is not however the only factor. Your article shows how you think about diet/weight, and is not really reflective of any strong scientific understanding, and, in my opinion, needlessly disregards "… insulin! Starvation mode! Carbs! Zones! That study I saw written up in the New York Times!", when there is actually something here, or atleast potentially here that is also a driving force in weight. edited for politeness/accuracy
    - jacques_chester 14y ago
      Care to elaborate? I can only suspect that, as usual, this will turn out to be a dispute over the boundaries of the system we're discussing (single-human-body-mass-system vs economy-society-and-single-human-body-system). If you genuinely believe that net calorie balance isn't the sole determinant of long term average mass, then I'd like to know what else it could be. Saying "oh it must be more complex than that!" isn't such an explanation.
      - eof 14y ago
stickdick 14y ago
> Then I went to Kauai for a week and gained 10 pounds Is probably ~8lbs water. I'd be amazed if someone could gain 10lbs of fat in a week. That clocks in at about 50k total calories?
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  The rule of thumb is 3500 kcals / lb. So 10lbs of fat would be nearly 35,000 kcals, a daily net caloric surplus (not caloric intake, surplus) of 5,000 kcals.
- fingerprinter 14y ago
  It was water and glycogen. When I'm running low carb (for whatever reason) and have a carb refeed, I routinely gain 8-10 pounds in a 24 hour period. Same for people making a weight for powerlifting/boxing/wrestling. They manipulate their water/salt, getting all the glycogen out of their system before reintroducing them to "pump" them back up etc etc
fingerprinter 14y ago
I can't reply to your comment below b/c it is too many deep. I'll do that here and add some comments. Net calories is fine if your only goal is "don't be a fatass". If, however, you are an athlete, lift weights or want something more, net calories don't tell you much. There are some easy experiments. ===================================== Let's assume 2000 cals daily is a supposed 300 cal deficit for someone. Let's assume sedentary lifestyle. A. 2000 protein B. 2000 fat C. 2000 simple sugar carbs D. 2000 complex carbs What is going to happen? A and B will loose weight. C will likely gain weight, quite a bit of it fat. D will most likely gain weight as well, but probably less so. D in particular would depend on how "sensitive" they are to insulin spikes. ===================================== Same setup. New items. A. 2000 cals prot+fat B. 2000 cals prot+carbs C. 2000 cals carbs+fat D. 2000 cals prot+fat+carbs (35/25/40%). A will lose/maintain weight. B would be tough. Probably lose/maintain. C would gain weight (carbs and fat together do bad things, particularly in sedentary individuals). D. This is you. Would lose weight, but suboptimally. A would be better for weight lose. ===================================== For some context, I guess. I'm an amateur bodybuilder and powerlifter. I used to play competitive basketball. I have a (rather time consuming hobby) of writing fitness books. When people say "net calories are all that matter" it is clear they don't understand the problem domain nearly enough. Nor do they understand that one must manipulate the macronutrients to achieve certain goals. I hope we one day STOP talking about calories completely and only talk about macronutrient ratios and grams. This is much more important. For instance, I have a photoshoot coming up for a book. I'm cutting bodyfat right now to get as lean as possible. I'm running 6.5 days of near zero carbs, .5g fat/lb of desired bodyweight and 1-2g protein/lb of desired bodyweight (leg day I take in more protein for instance) and a singular non-carb insulin spike after my workout (whey protein, leucine and creatine shake to spike insulin and spare my muscle). On the 7th day, I "carb up", or refeed. I basically go nuts and eat simple carbs (icecream, rice, cereal) to replenish my glycogen stores and, WAY MORE IMPORTANTLY, recalibrate my hormones. When I'm trying to gain muscle, I do this: only protein and fat before a workout. Only carbs and protein after a workout. My macronutrients are about 20/25/55 (fat, protein and carbs). If net calories were the only thing that mattered, I could eat 1000 cals of pure sugar and get ready for my photo shoot. I can't. That is stupid. If net calorie surplus were the only thing that mattered to gain muscle I could eat 5000 cals of pure sugar or 5000 cals of pure fat to put on muscle. I can't. That is stupid. You have to understand what they are doing. However, there are some VERY simple rules. It just isn't nearly as simple as you think. And it is foolish to perpetuate this decades old bunk science. EDITED: tried to fix up the formatting a bit.

Peroni 14y ago

Devils Advocate Time. Technically I'm morbidly obese. I'm 6'3" and I weigh in just shy of 300lbs. This shocks most people as I don't look like someone who weighs close to 300lbs although I'm very obviously overweight. I'm working hard to lose weight purely to prevent myself from dying young so that my son has a Dad he can grow old with. In the mean time, let me dispel a myth: Fat != Lazy I have absolutely no doubt that I will have more energy when I'm a healthier weight however I sleep well, I feel good when I wake up, I can maintain focus at a consistently high level throughout my typical 14 hour work day and I still have plenty of energy to chase after my 2 year old boy for a couple of hours in the evening when I get home. I have bags of confidence and as far as I'm concerned, I'm successful. Being overweight isn't always indicative of laziness, failure or a lack of discipline. Sure you're better off being a healthy weight but beating yourself up for being overweight is torture. Take responsibility for your weight and health, commit to doing something positive to fix it and in the mean time just get on with enjoying life.

jacques_chester 14y ago
Being tall makes it easy to carry a lot of fat without looking traditionally fat. I'm 6'3 as well. I got up to 139kg -- about 305lb. Losing weight has been easier than I thought it would be. The trick was alighting on an eating pattern that I can sustain indefinitely. For some folk (like OP) that's paleo. For others, keto. Some people swear by portion control -- I am not one of them! If I could take one thing back, it would be my cheapshot at overweight people in my weight-control blog post-slash-rant last year (linked elsewhere in the thread). I've left it in, but ... it was mean.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
I'm over 6,7, or as a European 2m height, and 90kilos. Being tall means you could weigh more and be healthy, and it depends on your body structure, like bones and so. But probably you need someone else and not you to judge what is your ideal weight. "I can maintain focus at a consistently high level throughout my typical 14 hour work day" I have yet to see a person that really works 10 h/d, let alone 14 hours a day, but probably your definition of work is different than mine. "Being overweight isn't always indicative of laziness, failure or a lack of discipline." I have a very close family member that is taller than you and also weights more, agree with the laziness thing but I will call it a failure in some way, thinking on the contrary is just deceiving yourself. For me being morbid obese is the result of the culture and the way of living, specially work routines and eating, everybody could see the statistics of 40 years ago in Europe and US, The only thing that significantly changed is that, what we eat, pre made food with lost of sugar and bad quality fats(enormous unbalance between Omega 6 and 3). Discipline means nothing if you don't know what to do. My advice to you is to develop different routines,improve what you eat, let the torture thing for the masochistic fanatics. Start thinking that you are in a hole and you need to get out of it and your life will be better when you get out(if its so good it will be even better).

Tichy 14y ago

I've been a vegetarian since I was 18 and always was very slim, until a couple of years ago (mid thirties - actually not a strict vegetarian anymore in recent years). The vegetarian diet was of course very rich in carbs. I don't see a way to go low carb as a vegetarian. That I was slim with a "high carbs" diet for 20 years also makes me doubt the carbs theory a bit. There seem to be other factors. I exercise less, but there were stretches of time when I didn't exercise a lot, too. My wife having a baby gave a big boost to my waistline, too. Might even have to do something with hormones (men's hormones change during pregnancy, too)? I've also heard that changing one's diet in any way is likely to cause weight loss at first, so I'd be careful with evaluating anecdotal evidence. I'm curious about the energy aspect, just wish there was another way. The thought of eating 4 eggs for breakfast makes me sick. I just feel repulsed by eggs and meat most of the time. I actually have a hypothesis that human digestion might be very adaptable. Humans managed to hold on in very diverse environments, from the arctic to the desert. Presumably they had to dwell on different kinds of foods depending on the environment. So it makes sense if digestion can adapt to a huge variety of food. Might be that industrial food is a main culprit after all (lots of sugary foods that have only been around for about 100 years). Another thing: how did people manage to eat the equivalent of four eggs for breakfast in paelo times? I've read that gathering was more effective than hunting, so presumably they had more vegetables and fruit than meat on average?

kunil 14y ago
How can you be a non-strict vegetarian?
- Tichy 14y ago
  By slipping now and then. I'm not really a vegetarian anymore - happy now? I've actually gained weight since not being a vegetarian anymore, but I think that is a coincidence. I very rarely eat meat (once every two weeks or less). So I am a vegetarian for stretches of several weeks at a time.
shaunxcode 14y ago
Just my anecdote/experience - but I've been vegan since I was 18 (now 30). I knew that as I got older my metabolism would drop off but a little over a year ago I weighed 248 (I am 6'1") which was a wake up call. To rectify things I picked up running on the reg again and cut the shit from my diet e.g. no added/processed fats at all (you can get more than enough from whole grains, legumes, and vegetables) and I am down to 185. Meaning I am actually lighter, healthier and more "energized" now than when I was 16. I can recommend the rave diet book and the mcdougal books for recipes/theory. I also keep a photo blog if you want an idea of what my average diet looks like on http://www.stoicvegan.com http://www.stoicvegan.com

jaggederest 14y ago

Honestly, any form of elimination diet (don't eat x, for any x) works, in direct proportion to how many of your calories typically come from that x. It's not what you eat, in that regard. Pick anything you eat a lot of, and stop eating it. You'll have a hard time matching that missing intake with other foods, and so you'll eat fewer calories, and so you'll lose weight. If your diet has a name, it's a fad.

bjourne 14y ago

I get the lose weight part, but what about influencing people? :)

jacques_chester 14y ago
It's a blog post. A finer and more effective mechanism for influencing people has yet to be devised.

zatara 14y ago

"The most important piece of knowledge I took from 4HB and haven't seen anywhere else is to eat a protein rich breakfast (I do 4 fried eggs) within 30 minutes of waking up. This was very hard for me to keep up with so I have sample data from weeks where I was very consistent and weeks where I didn't even make it out of the shower in 30 minutes. For me, eating that breakfast within 30 minutes of first waking up more than doubles my weekly weight loss. I still don't fully understand why this works, but it does, at least for me. It's one of those things you read and don't believe until you actually do it to yourself and measure often." Anyone interested on this bit should have a look at Jack Kruse's leptin reset diet (http://www.jackkruse.com/my-leptin-prescription/ http://www.jackkruse.com/my-leptin-prescription/). His posts are incredibly difficult to read, but as a dentist and neurosurgeon who has lost tons of weight himself, he really seems to know what he is talking about.