7 ms·

Sola dosis facit venenum. I didn't pay attention to my weight for a couple years, ate a lot of sweets and drank a lot of beer. Before I knew it I'd gained 30 p

Sola dosis facit venenum. I didn't pay attention to my weight for a couple years, ate a lot of sweets and drank a lot of beer. Before I knew it I'd gained 30 pounds, and had a minor freakout. I decided to do three things--weigh myself every morning, stop eating sugar except for from fruit, and stop drinking. I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year. I didn't exercise or count calories in any way, in fact I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts. I'm not sure if it was cutting the alcohol, cutting the sugar, or both that did the trick. However, I've been letting myself have some alcohol for the past few months (wine, not beer) and haven't gained a pound since doing so, so my gut tells me it was the sugar. I definitely feel a whole lot healthier.

astrange 13y ago
Most of your changes could be explained just by calories. Beer is quite high calorie since it has so many carbs, and eating nuts satiates you faster so you end up eating less. Alcohol itself doesn't affect weight much, though IIRC fat isn't metabolized well together with it. But it can improve your lifespan: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115
- brianbreslin 13y ago
  Not really. Assume he cut out 300 calories a day of beer. So a pound of fat is 3600 calories roughly. By just cutting out beer he would need 12 days to lose 1 lb. not the rate he was losing which was 1/3lb per day. Many studies have shown pure caloric deficits do not lead to rapid weight loss.
  - mullingitover 13y ago
    I figured the same thing--I definitely didn't feel like I was cutting calories in any way. I took up drinking lots of whole milk, eating bacon, and at my desk I'd eat a whole 12-ounce coffee cup full of mixed nuts (still do, in fact) each day at work. I didn't even cut carbs, I ate pizza and pasta pretty regularly. The only thing I did was aggressively eliminate refined sugars and beer from my diet. I'm curious if gut fauna could be a factor.
    - brianbreslin 13y ago
      Fat is pure energy so you were entering ketosis through the bacon and whole milk etc. nuts are High in fiber as well, so you may have also helped flush out the stuff faster? Pasta and bread I think have less insulin effect than sugars and alcohols so maybe that's all your body needed to avoid fat hoarding.
      - jawilson2 13y ago
        It is hard to say based on the limited info he posted, but you only enter ketosis if you consume under 20-50 g of carbs per day. A single slice of bread, one yogurt, a bowl of cereal, or even a few carrots can take you out of it. You can't really accidentally get into ketosis without very deliberately avoiding carbs.
- zurn 13y ago
  Blaming carbs is not a "just calories" explanation, rather the opposite.
  - astrange 13y ago
    I suppose you're suggesting the same calories+alcohol in some other form (shochu and lean meat?) would be better. Maybe so, but I don't know if there's any studies on that.
saryant 13y ago
I did something similar during my semester in France. Stopped eating all bread and processed carbs. Vegetables, fruit and meat plus Greek yogurt. I didn't cut out alcohol though, nor was my weight loss as drastic as yours. Lost about thirty pounds over four months (which was terrific, my girlfriend of four years dumped me the night I flew home so at least I was ready for singles' life). I won't go so far as to call sugar "toxic" but I know that cutting it out has made me much, much healthier. Also, I had a blood test a few weeks ago. My doctor actually wrote "outstanding" on my cholesterol report.
- philwelch 13y ago
  You stopped eating bread while in France?
  - saryant 13y ago
    I was really fat.
coldtea 13y ago
>Sola dosis facit venenum Pedantically we might say that, but it's not really true. Sure, what makes something poisonous/dangerous is the dosage, but the dosage itself depends on more basic characteristics. It's not like we arbitrarily try high dosages of stuff. We don't go out eating small amounts of cyanide for a reason. Nice taste facits venenum -- by making us increase the dosage. Think sugar, salt, red meat, etc. Uplifting side effects facit venenum. Think heroin, alcohol, etc. Adverse withdrawal effects also facit venenum. Else we could easily quite alcohol, drugs, cigarettes with a little self restraint.
hippich 13y ago
I doubt excluding sugars from your diet made a difference, or excluding alcohol alone did it. Beer in general do not have that many calories, it is usually junk food accompanied beer is what adding a lot of calories and fat. ^^^ IMHO, since there is a chance you were consuming pound of sugar and six-pack of beer daily :)
- jmduke 13y ago
  Beer usually hovers around the 150-200 calorie mark per bottle. If you're putting away a six-pack every weekend, that adds up very quickly. (Which is not to say that you'll magically lose weight if you stop drinking, or that it's impossible to lose weight if you're drinking every week.)
  - hippich 13y ago
    If you drink 6 pack in one evening - this is "overeating" already. All these extra calories will immediately start converting into fat. On the other hand if you drink 6 pack during the span of the whole week - it will hardly make a difference. So yeah - it really depends on how much beer peak usage we are talking about here.
pvnick 13y ago
>I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year >I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed less calories.
- philwelch 13y ago
  The laws of thermodynamics do not preclude your body from ingesting something that has calories and shitting it out without actually doing anything with the calories. Your shit would just have more calories left in it, kind of like how a poorly made car might leak gasoline everywhere.
  - richcollins 13y ago
    More likely increased BMR
  - pvnick 13y ago
    Your statement is only marginally correct, but mostly misleading to the point of being practically wrong. Depending on what you eat, your body absorbs 80%-97% of calories according to the following (simplified) equation: Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores [1] Where "change in body stores" is, for all intents and purposes, either muscle or fat. So while going from eating 3000 calories of pure butter to eating 3000 calories of straight fibrous vegetables will show a modest difference in caloric retention, I guarantee you that's not the case here. [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...
    - philwelch 13y ago
      The point is, don't gloss over things by making dumb statements like "it's impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics". The laws of thermodynamics don't preclude engines that either leak fuel or are fantastically inefficient in converting them to any particular form whether it be locomotion, electricity, or adipose tissue. If your point is that the human body is fantastically efficient at producing fat in ways that don't really vary, then prove that point.

astrange 13y ago

Most of your changes could be explained just by calories. Beer is quite high calorie since it has so many carbs, and eating nuts satiates you faster so you end up eating less. Alcohol itself doesn't affect weight much, though IIRC fat isn't metabolized well together with it. But it can improve your lifespan: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115

brianbreslin 13y ago
Not really. Assume he cut out 300 calories a day of beer. So a pound of fat is 3600 calories roughly. By just cutting out beer he would need 12 days to lose 1 lb. not the rate he was losing which was 1/3lb per day. Many studies have shown pure caloric deficits do not lead to rapid weight loss.
- mullingitover 13y ago
  I figured the same thing--I definitely didn't feel like I was cutting calories in any way. I took up drinking lots of whole milk, eating bacon, and at my desk I'd eat a whole 12-ounce coffee cup full of mixed nuts (still do, in fact) each day at work. I didn't even cut carbs, I ate pizza and pasta pretty regularly. The only thing I did was aggressively eliminate refined sugars and beer from my diet. I'm curious if gut fauna could be a factor.
  - brianbreslin 13y ago
    Fat is pure energy so you were entering ketosis through the bacon and whole milk etc. nuts are High in fiber as well, so you may have also helped flush out the stuff faster? Pasta and bread I think have less insulin effect than sugars and alcohols so maybe that's all your body needed to avoid fat hoarding.
    - jawilson2 13y ago
      It is hard to say based on the limited info he posted, but you only enter ketosis if you consume under 20-50 g of carbs per day. A single slice of bread, one yogurt, a bowl of cereal, or even a few carrots can take you out of it. You can't really accidentally get into ketosis without very deliberately avoiding carbs.
zurn 13y ago
Blaming carbs is not a "just calories" explanation, rather the opposite.
- astrange 13y ago
  I suppose you're suggesting the same calories+alcohol in some other form (shochu and lean meat?) would be better. Maybe so, but I don't know if there's any studies on that.

saryant 13y ago

I did something similar during my semester in France. Stopped eating all bread and processed carbs. Vegetables, fruit and meat plus Greek yogurt. I didn't cut out alcohol though, nor was my weight loss as drastic as yours. Lost about thirty pounds over four months (which was terrific, my girlfriend of four years dumped me the night I flew home so at least I was ready for singles' life). I won't go so far as to call sugar "toxic" but I know that cutting it out has made me much, much healthier. Also, I had a blood test a few weeks ago. My doctor actually wrote "outstanding" on my cholesterol report.

philwelch 13y ago
You stopped eating bread while in France?
- saryant 13y ago
  I was really fat.

coldtea 13y ago

>Sola dosis facit venenum Pedantically we might say that, but it's not really true. Sure, what makes something poisonous/dangerous is the dosage, but the dosage itself depends on more basic characteristics. It's not like we arbitrarily try high dosages of stuff. We don't go out eating small amounts of cyanide for a reason. Nice taste facits venenum -- by making us increase the dosage. Think sugar, salt, red meat, etc. Uplifting side effects facit venenum. Think heroin, alcohol, etc. Adverse withdrawal effects also facit venenum. Else we could easily quite alcohol, drugs, cigarettes with a little self restraint.

hippich 13y ago

I doubt excluding sugars from your diet made a difference, or excluding alcohol alone did it. Beer in general do not have that many calories, it is usually junk food accompanied beer is what adding a lot of calories and fat. ^^^ IMHO, since there is a chance you were consuming pound of sugar and six-pack of beer daily :)

jmduke 13y ago
Beer usually hovers around the 150-200 calorie mark per bottle. If you're putting away a six-pack every weekend, that adds up very quickly. (Which is not to say that you'll magically lose weight if you stop drinking, or that it's impossible to lose weight if you're drinking every week.)
- hippich 13y ago
  If you drink 6 pack in one evening - this is "overeating" already. All these extra calories will immediately start converting into fat. On the other hand if you drink 6 pack during the span of the whole week - it will hardly make a difference. So yeah - it really depends on how much beer peak usage we are talking about here.

pvnick 13y ago

>I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year >I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed less calories.

philwelch 13y ago
The laws of thermodynamics do not preclude your body from ingesting something that has calories and shitting it out without actually doing anything with the calories. Your shit would just have more calories left in it, kind of like how a poorly made car might leak gasoline everywhere.
- richcollins 13y ago
  More likely increased BMR
- pvnick 13y ago
  Your statement is only marginally correct, but mostly misleading to the point of being practically wrong. Depending on what you eat, your body absorbs 80%-97% of calories according to the following (simplified) equation: Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores [1] Where "change in body stores" is, for all intents and purposes, either muscle or fat. So while going from eating 3000 calories of pure butter to eating 3000 calories of straight fibrous vegetables will show a modest difference in caloric retention, I guarantee you that's not the case here. [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...
  - philwelch 13y ago
    The point is, don't gloss over things by making dumb statements like "it's impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics". The laws of thermodynamics don't preclude engines that either leak fuel or are fantastically inefficient in converting them to any particular form whether it be locomotion, electricity, or adipose tissue. If your point is that the human body is fantastically efficient at producing fat in ways that don't really vary, then prove that point.