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It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

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Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#51

Post by [deleted] »

cousin_it wrote: post #6
aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

It's not so simple. People are different. Some people won't need your plan because they stay at low weight no matter what they eat. Others won't be able to follow your plan because it would require superhuman willpower. I'm an example of the first category. I'm 6'2'' and 160 lbs, and have been like this for years. At age 27 I spent a whole year working from home, eating at McDonalds 1-2 times every day, going to slee…

[deleted]

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#52

Post by coldtea »

gozo wrote: post #28
danielbarla wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lastly, exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. This is very true in my personal experience, too. I can quite easily binge-eat an extra 500 calories for dinner because I'm feeling a bit too hungry, but to work that back off with exercise might take 30 - 45 minutes of cardio. With hectic work schedules, it's also very easy to skip exercise sessions, but good eating habits are "working" even at the…

Yes, but it also a losing proposition for most people. Do we really think that people who are overweight, especially in a body focused society as the US, haven't tried to "just eat better"?

Most of them, yes. Or they tried and failed.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#55

Post by Jemmeh »

volker48 wrote: post #7
aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

Do you really believe that eating only 50 extra calories a day will result in someone gaining 5 lbs in one year? 50 calories is about 14 grapes. How many guys are in the gym everyday and eating way above their daily needs to try and gain weight, but can't? If it really was this simple do you really think this would even be a discussion?

Guys in the gym trying to "gain weight" are trying to gain muscle, not fat. Fat is easy to gain, you can get it from overeating. Naturally building muscle takes much longer. (http://scoobysworkshop.com/expectations/)

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#56

Post by michaelgold »

In my experience, losing weight is very hard if you follow fad diets. In the NY tech scene, nearly every tech event has free pizza and beer. I gained a ton of weight from 2008-2012 and have finally lost it. I'm weighing in at 165 pounds now.

In 2012, I was weighing in at 215 pounds. In May of that year, I started on Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Body Slow Carb diet. It worked for a while but I plateued at 195 pounds. I figured that was it for me - that I wasn't going to be able to lose any more weight.

I told my primary care doctor about this in January of 2015 and he recommended ditching the Slow Carb Diet and tracking my calorie consumption in the app My Fitness Pal. He said to continue using My Fitness Pal until I figured out the right balance of food and exercise I needed to eat to drive weight loss or maintain my weight.

Just by guessing calories of the food I was eating, I was able to lose 30 pounds

This may seem like a pain in the ass, but it only added on 5 minutes to my daily routine.

I got a good scale (the WiThings WS-50). It not only tracks your weight, but it tracks your weight loss / weight gain trend over the last 30 days in its app.

In 2015 from CES to SXSW I dropped from 195 to 182 pounds.

From SXSW to June 1st I dropped from 182 to 169 pounds.

I stopped using the app in July and am now weighing 165 pounds.

I've put a few of my friends on to this, and they've also lost weight.

Hope this can help someone else who wants to cut through the noise of fad weight loss advice.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#57

Post by makecheck »

In my case this is what matters most:

- Watch what you DRINK, not so much what you eat. Drink water or black coffee/cold-brew or tea most of the time, and turn other beverages into rare treats. Soda is perfectly fine once a week but buy the smallest size and sip it without a straw so that you enjoy it a lot more. (I was shocked at how I could barely finish a tiny Coke by sipping it but somehow I could practically chug one 3x the size just by using a straw. Don't use straws; they increase consumption and keep you from even tasting most of the calories that you're consuming.)

- Cook most of your meals, multiple meals at once. Yes, this takes time and it'll take awhile to become any good at it but it's worthwhile. Pick a day, spend 1-2 hours cooking your lunches for the rest of the week. You will tend to fill your shopping lists with more raw vegetables and meat that go a long way. This also keeps you from finding excuses to head to the nearest fast-food place at lunch time.

- Do not ever skip a meal, no matter what your weight is. Prefer breakfasts high in protein, like eggs and chicken sausage, with few carbs (not too much of cereal or muffins or similar).

- Take every excuse to walk. Find someplace to go a few times a week, like a coffee shop, and walk the entire way. Even when I drive somewhere, I'm never afraid to park the car and walk in (no drive-through, no spending 10 minutes to find that "good" parking spot; just walk from somewhere a bit further out). Same thing with stairs versus elevators; and if you take an escalator, walk up the escalator instead of riding it.

- Make some effort to build muscle to get some "free" calorie consumption. You don't need a lot. The biggest muscles in your body are better at working off calories so if you have limited time, start with your legs. A gym isn't strictly required for a lot of good exercises; you just need to read up on a few things to do and be really consistent about doing sets a few times a week.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#58

Post by RyanMcGreal »

imgabe wrote: post #42
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been exercise-first. I decided that I'd never be very good at reducing my dietary input (I really enjoy food) so I focused instead on increasing my energy output by incorporating progressively more physical activity into my lifestyle. Over the past few years I have steadily and gradually r…

My own Saturday morning run is about 4 miles and burns ~500 calories according to Runkeeper, so I estimate you're running about 16 miles every Saturday? Do you really expect an overweight, out-of-shape person to jump into a 16-mile run to burn 2000 calories a week? If they drink 2 sodas a day, they could switch them to water or even diet soda and remove even more calories for less effort.

Of course not. I started by slowly walk-running 2 miles, two or three times a week and only increased my distance and speed gradually over a period of two years (compounded with a couple of frustrating delays due to injuries).

These days I run around 25 miles a week - two 6-mile runs during the week and a 13 mile run on Saturday. I also bike around 25-60 miles a week in order to cross-train and give my body a break from running.

Before I started, I was 70 lbs overweight with sore knees and a general malaise after two decades of sedentary living and too much food. I'm in much better shape today than I was two years ago, but I was already noticing significant improvement in my fitness, well-being and body shape after just a few months of what now seem like very slow, short-distance runs.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#59

Post by RyanMcGreal »

Programmatic wrote: post #39
jasode wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been exercise-first. [...] It's hard to believe that exercise isn't the key to weight loss when I burn 2,000 calories on my Saturday morning run. You specified that you were only speaking for yourself but I think that for most people , a healthy steady-state weight is easier to achieve by smart food choices rather than exercise. Recommending exerci…

> Optimizing eating habits (without causing starvation) is much easier than running an extra 10 miles on a treadmill. This disparity in effort is obvious if you ask obese people if it's easier to eat a glazed donut (consume 200 calories) or run 6 mph for 20 minutes (burns 200 calories). Anecdotally, I find that the initial bit of exercise makes the biggest impact. The added benefit of the "exercise first" approach is…

> The added benefit of the "exercise first" approach is that after exercising, I find that I don't even want the donut.

Yes, this exactly! The real challenge of getting in shape isn't the physics or chemistry nearly so much as it is the psychology.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#60

Post by JPKab »

danielbarla wrote: post #9
Shivetya wrote: post #5

The bias isn't against obese people, it is against morbidly obese people who don't want to accept it. There is a whole collection of groups that sprouted up to fight the "discrimination" against fat people, HAES (Health At Every Size) is the most know, but fat acceptance gets airtime simply because it is so much easier to get a message out. Obesity is an issue, we simply have way too much opportunity to indulge and l…

> lastly, exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. This is very true in my personal experience, too. I can quite easily binge-eat an extra 500 calories for dinner because I'm feeling a bit too hungry, but to work that back off with exercise might take 30 - 45 minutes of cardio. With hectic work schedules, it's also very easy to skip exercise sessions, but good eating habits are "working" even at the…

Just want to emphasize something here:

Exercise, when thrown in with the typical "calories-in calories-out" context, is absurdly terrible for fat loss. It makes people hungrier, and then they eat more.

However, when viewed in the context of many people who are struggling with losing fat, it can be an excellent complement to dietary changes. Why?

Because obesity and fat storage in general are extremely metabolically driven, and metabolism is itself driven by numerous endocrine system factors. The effects of exercise on the body can cause someone who is already eating a healthy (minimal sugar/refined carbs) diet to have even better results due to the increase in insulin sensitivity for a 16 hour period after exercise.

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