You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much

Disagree about 'slow metabolism' big time. It is not myth. I know for a fact I eat less than I did when I was 16 for the same body weight. If humans vary by all sort of other attributes, such as IQ, height, or physical strength, even controlling for age and other variables, why would metabolism not vary too? That makes no sense.

Also, 'starvation mode' does not mean that the laws of thermodynamics does not work anymore. I dunno why this concept is so confusing to so many people. It's like people are trying to make this needlessly complicated or being deliberately obtuse because they have some axe to grind. It means that the body burns fewer calories than predicted by weight, physical activity, and other variables, which makes dieting much harder. It is sometimes called metabolic adaptation. So Instead of burning 2000 calories/day as predicted for your new, lower weight, you only burn 1500 or so.

Annoying article to read. Why swear so much?

Anyway. I used to believe this. Every few months I'd flip between dieting, and not dieting (putting on weight). When dieting, I'd go on a 500 calories restriction. This meant religious calorie counting, going to bed every night hungry, and generally being grumpy constantly. Waking up in the night because I wanted some toast or something and trying to work out if I could fit it into my budget. I got my daily calorie requirement down so well I could lose a pound a week reliably. But it was miserable.

Eventually, I'd meet a goal and start eating what I wanted again. And my weight would go up. And then I'd have to diet.

A shit life.

This year, I've started intermittent fasting (12/12), and every week or two I have a 36 hour fast.

I never feel hungry in between meals anymore, and even when fasting for 36 hours I only feel hungry for brief periods of the day.

If I knew this was possible in my early twenties I'd be so much better off today. Instead I listened to everyone online, don't care about what you eat just make it fit your macros. Reductionist bullshit in short. And in consequence my insulin was always up, always demanding more food.

However, to the author, I'm sure they feel good acting like everyone else is stupid. It all comes down to counting calories and people not trying hard enough right. Not fundamentally flawed advice at large on how to eat right, just pure moral failing.

500 calories a day sounds miserable.

Did you have similar success (or similar suffering) on an intermediate caloric number without cycling on/off?

I'm doing CICO and I have been since February, but the thing I found helped make it a lot more livable was to do a small deficit (200-300 calories) instead of a big one (500-600 calories). Ultimately, the most important thing? Just logging everything I eat and hoping to hit said goal. Some days I end up eating 100% of my 'sedentary' calories. Oh well. I still end up losing weight when I look at it in the scale of a month or so (3-4lbs a month!)

I found it a lot less stressful to have a small deficit! I just have to remember to write down what I ate.

That said, definitely YMMV! I think if your BMR is only like 1000 calories and your sedentary energy level is 1200 calories, it would probably be impossible to be satisfied with any kind of calorie deficit. X_X I don't know how smaller people do it! My deepest sympathies!

And to be sure: I was regularly eating 3000 calories a day before I started in February. When I did - it took at least a couple of months to stop feeling hungry all the damn time lol.

This post: A long article about weight loss that is built on a calorie-centric approach to food instead of questioning that fundamental premise and differentiating between types of fats and carbs and their effects on body weight.

I've commented on this in the past but to reiterate, calories as a measure are pseudo-scientific at best and totally bunk at worst. If all you are doing is looking at that number on packaging, generally speaking, your weight control will be very limited due to the lack of precision in that measurement.