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You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

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Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#441
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

> You gain weight in kilograms and lose weight in grams.

Ultra false. It takes years to get fat while in few months you can lose a significant amount.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#442
post #225
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my roommates tried everything, including good hard exercise and all sorts of diets. Nothing seemed to be working. It was kind of perplexing me, actually. Then we started working the same schedule, breakfast together. The whole thing unravelled with a casual comment he made. "Wow, you're really stingy with the sugar in your coffee." Except I wasn't. I was actually indulging myself, like two tablespoons. Show me…

Story time! I used to drink my coffee with sugar. Next to the coffee machine at my office there was this big box of sugar sticks, I took one with every cup. One day, we ran out of sugar sticks, the box was empty. I asked around in the office if anyone knew where we keep the boxes of sugar, everybody answered that they didn't know, because they didn't take sugar in their coffee. If found I was the only one in the enti…

Aren't you having violent blood sugar swings with that amount? God it sounds like hell for your body and mind.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#443
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. There are many examples of pairs of people who eat the same and exercise the same, yet one remains slim, the other becomes obese.

Exercising the same doesn’t imply their bodies expend the same amount of energy. One body may be more efficient than the other, for example producing less excess heat. Exercise also isn’t the only factor in energy expenditure. People have different basal metabolic rates (how much energy your body consumes when you’re doing nothing), and changing your diet, your sleep, your mood, etc., can affect it, as can stress and…

> (...) changing your diet, your sleep, your mood, etc., can affect it, as can stress and cognitive activity.

This is exactly my point.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#444
post #418
post #264

It’s not that you’re eating too much, it’s that you’re eating (and drinking) too much sugar . Consume less sugar, and don’t eat when you’re not hungry, and you will be amazed at the results.

Sugar isn't specifically worse than other ways to consume calories, as far as I understand. The way we know this is that there have been many studies in humans , some with high-sugar diets and some with low-sugar diets, and as long as calories are equated, almost everything else about them is the same. Same amount of weight loss, blood markers look similar, etc.

References? Because I remember reading that the metabolic path for sugar (fructose in particular) produces some pretty nasty by-products.

But that's not the main problem with sugar. The main problem with sugar is that it doesn't fill you up. In fact, it has the opposite effect: it makes you feel hungrier. So yes, if you eat the same number of calories in sugar or fat & protein that in and of itself will have the same effect on your weight. But the sugar will leave you feeling hungrier than the fat&protein, and that is what messes you up.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#445
post #431

My god there are many people in this comment thread who trivialise weight loss, clearly having never done it themselves. I'm a healthy weight, do heavy workouts 5 days a week and am in very good shape. When I cut my body fat down to ~10%, I go through hell in terms of hunger. There's not a minute I'm not thinking about how hungry I am, and how much I want to eat. I'm completely unable to do productive work, spending…

How do you have time to do 5 times a week? You must not have young kids with special needs I take it?

yup, I'm 24 and single which probably gives me a lot more free time than many on this forum.

That said I think you can get very far with a 35 minute workout 2-3 days a week, if you do the right compound exercises and push yourself.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could ask the same of someone addicted to smoking or cocaine or whatever. Every fibre of your body is telling you to go eat/smoke/get high etc. It is an all consuming urge that relentlessly interrupts whatever else you are trying to do or think about. You literally cannot stop thinking about your next think you are going to eat. For me, it is not even physical stomach ache as you suggest, it is the mental aspect…

> You could ask the same of someone addicted to smoking or cocaine or whatever. That comparison with addiction to illicit drugs always perplexes me, because those drugs are clinically known to cause physical addiction to that substance, but that's not the case for (most?) food. I do get the thing about it completely consuming your brain though (and being doubly painful if your stomach's in pain) even if it's a differ…

Of course this has been tried. I think you are doing people a disservice (and with respect frankly it is quite insulting) by thinking they have not tried to use simple will power. People are on diets for years (potentially their entire adult and lives) - of fucking course people have tried giving their bodies time to adjust.

If it was just a matter of waiting a few weeks then we'd not have an obesity epidemic in the west, nor would the huge huge huge dieting industry exist.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#447
What I've found out, after going from a pretty damn athletic lifestyle (10+ years of boxing) to turning into a full-fledged couch potato (smart working, working from home, pandemic, accumulated injuries preventing me to exercise regularly), is that the body is pretty forgiving as long as you keep it under a constant exercise routine, but it suddenly starts taxing you as soon as you become sedentary. Pretty recently I've taken a photo with a colleague coming to visit my hometown, and I couldn't recognize that fat f#@k in the photo which was supposed to be me.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#448
post #438
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

> There is a very good chance that someone is writing a reply with some suggestion as to how I should eat so that I'm not hungry. I will write about a personal experience that has nothing to do with selecting different foods - intermittent fasting. First I thought this was a torture people put themselves up to. Then a few friends tried it, said you get used to it, and this made me curious. I used to say black coffee…

I never had weight problems… I naturally started intermittent fasting without realising it was a thing! I never have breakfast (only an espresso), I have lunch around 1pm (usually one dish and no dessert), then dinner around 8pm (again usually just one dish) and that’s it. No snacks or other meals during the day!

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#449
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

> There is a very good chance that someone is writing a reply with some suggestion as to how I should eat so that I'm not hungry. Thank you for the thoughts, but realize that you don't live in my body, you don't know how I feel, you don't know what I've tried.

I completely agree with this. I still do want to chime in a little. Don't feel obligated to try any of this, maybe you have already tried. I have a hunch you've tried it already. Perhaps someone else hasn't and will try upon reading it.

One rather simple change in diet is volume eating. As in, eat food that fills your stomach, but does not contain (many) calories. A prime example is lettuce, broccoli, or practically any vegetable.

When you're hungry try eating a large salad (a clean one that is, no sauces, or oil). When eating dinner add a large portion of broccoli, raw spinach, cauliflower. Try grilling or steaming vegetables.

In normal dishes try and replace as many ingredients with lower calorie alternatives, especially oils when cooking. These calories add up, quickly.

The above doesn't mean you cannot eat heavier sources of protein, fats, and carbs. Please just keep eating those, in balance. In balance meaning there's no need to have more grams of fats per day than a healthy weight in kg (e.g. 80kg -> 80 grams). Same story for proteins, but at a moderate ratio of 1-1.6 grams per kg body weight. Feel free to play with carbs.

> Hunger sounds like a problem to people. Hunger feels like a problem inside the body. People still tell me I shouldn't be hungry. Maybe part of the solution is realizing that eating to satisfaction is ... bad for some people. Maybe it's Ok to be a little hungry.

Strong agree with this. Funnily enough it's often thirst, which feels similar.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#450
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commenting purely on my own experience. I have found that my hunger is malleable. If I start eating breakfast, I will be hungry in the morning at around the time I started eating breakfast. But, if I stop eating breakfast and only do lunch and dinner, I will eventually lose my hunger for breakfast and have no problem coasting till lunch on nothing but a coffee.

It's really odd how much you (read: I; I obviously can't comment on other people, everybody is different) actually can bend your appetite. In Ramadan I can easily coast until 8-9 PM without any thoughts on being hungry until like an hour before I break my fasts. And I always do OMAD while fasting, so I dont eat breakfast before dawn. If anything, diets should focus on the psychological factor more than the actual foo…

yup, really interesting. It seems that hunger is tightly coupled with expectations.

Something else I have found interesting is that I will occasionally be really hungry, start cooking a meal, spend 30 minutes smelling all the things cooking, and then by the time I'm done cooking I've lost my hunger. It's as if my brain was tricked in to thinking that I ate and I'm satisfied.

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