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Calories in, calories out

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Re: Calories in, calories out

#161

Post by bluecalm »

iopq wrote: post #81
thaumasiotes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star” metric for health than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less fat, and I think that’s true of most men That depends on the goals you have for your metric. % fat by weight is probably a better fit than total weight for describing body image, but there are two issues that help the viability of total weight: 1. There's not so much variation in % b…

You can lose water weight to the tune of 10 pounds and conclude that a low carb diet is superior. But of course, once you lost those ten pounds and start eating carbs again you'll regain them as your body replaces that glycogen and conclude that carbs are the devil. Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the numbers go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS or h…

>>Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the numbers go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS or how much it went down, as long as your caliper measurements decrease.

There are a lot of formulas to estimate body fat at home. Sample website I just googled: https://www.linear-software.com/body-fat-calculator.html

Most are caliper based but there is one based on belly/neck measurement. No idea how accurate those are in general but they give very similar estimations in my case.

Re: Calories in, calories out

#162

Post by chriswarbo »

Evgeniuz wrote: post #152
bluecalm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>It's not about fighting your body, it's about having discipline Yeah, and giving up heroin, smoking or alcohol are just matter of discipline as well. People are just lazy slobs who can't control themselves why should we ever think about how to help those people if all that is needed is just stop taking heroin/drink alcohol/smoke cigarettes. Oh, and I've never been addicted to cigarettes/alcohol/heroin so I have fou…

I think the author of previous comment meant that changes need to persistent, not transient. One can't just stop taking heroin for few months to improve their health and then go back using it again. Same with food - if you want your weight to stick, you need to adhere to your diet permanently and don't start eating junk food once you hit your target weight.

> One can't just stop taking heroin for few months

That's exactly the point; but not in the way you intended.

Re: Calories in, calories out

#163

Post by [deleted] »

hrktb wrote: post #65
autokad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

actually, almost ANY diet works. if you are over weight and reduce your calorie intake: you.will.loose.weight.period. people have a tendency to either not adhere to the diet over time or not partake in the diet at all by listening to people say: all these other magical factors effect your weight, why bother? negative platitudes if you will. 'its not that 4000 calorie a day diet that is making you fat, its genetics!'…

> actually, almost ANY diet works. if you are over weight and reduce your calorie intake: you.will.loose.weight.period. What we are saying here is that you reduce your calorie intake within the range where gut bacteria can act, it might not have any effect, or even negative effect. If you reduce your calorie intake below the level gut bacteria activity matters, you will lose weight, but only if you can sustain the di…

[deleted]

Re: Calories in, calories out

#164

Post by kyllo »

scottious wrote: post #153
hspak wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been work and research that state gaining weight is not a simple matter of calorie in = calorie out. Gary Taubes has written a lot about it.

At some level though, it HAS to be a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out. I will bet a large sum of money that if you literally give an obese person ONLY water and necessary vitamins for 3 months that they'll lose weight. You'll never find somebody who hasn't eaten anything for a month and is maintaining their weight. Sure it's an extreme case, meant only as a thought experiment, but it's obvious that 0 cal…

You're right, but that's not what it's about. Try putting yourself on a strictly regimented, hypo-caloric, laboratory controlled diet for more than a few days. It will consume all the willpower you have and then some.

The point is that enough sleep and exercise, the right mix of gut bacteria, and a diet consisting of sufficient protein, fat, and fiber, with very little simple sugars and starches, will allow you to feel satiated on fewer calories, and lose weight without having to count calories, strictly regiment your diet, or suffer through hunger pangs.

Re: Calories in, calories out

#165

Post by kyllo »

ghshephard wrote: post #112
iopq wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I put on less than ten pounds of muscle, it hasn't been a good way to put on weight even when I tried to bulk and eat a surplus. When I did eat a surplus I gained fat, and some muscle, but mostly fat. I then cut and lost the fat, but retained very little muscle. People have a very unrealistic expectation from how much muscle they can gain going to the gym. Some can do better than others, but as for me, I have a very…

Different results for different people I guess - also your particular workout regime. Doing a lot of heavy lifting (Starting Strength) over nine months resulted in a about 20 pounds of muscle/fat gain for me (but more fat than muscle). This wasn't unexpected, and given my principal objectives were to lift heavy things, I wasn't too concerned. There is a certain amount of satisfaction associated with a 300 pound low b…

Yeah, Starting Strength is a gainer program, it's designed to make you as big and strong as you can possibly get in a 3-6 month time frame. I put on about 30 pounds from doing it, mostly muscle in my legs, butt, and back. Some of my gains were fat I'm sure, but probably not very much, because my waist size hasn't changed at all.

Re: Calories in, calories out

#166

Post by kyllo »

annnnd wrote: post #145

> I learned that a chicken thigh loses over 40% of its weight from grilling... Wow, seriously? Does that depend on whether the chicken is raised on farm (in open spaces, with enough room to run around) versus in battery cage? I would expect it matters a lot (the taste is _very_ different to me).

Supermarket chicken is injected with saline solution to make it look more plump and appealing. This solution, as well as much of the water that was inside the meat to begin with, evaporates during cooking.

Re: Calories in, calories out

#167

Post by refurb »

pja wrote: post #129
DanBC wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating, thank you. It's surprising to see a causal link between ED and gut flora. Anorexia is, when we adjust for factors, the most fatal mental illness. Has anyone tested people who have a reliable diagnosis of either anorexia or bulimia? That would seem ethically easy enough. Especially since current treatment sometimes involves detention against the patient's ill in hospital, and forced naso-gastric f…

Did you read the paper? They studied women with and without diagnosed eating disorders as part of the research. From a cursory read, it looks pretty damning to me - I'm not qualified to do a deep dive in the research methodology, but the conclusions look sound.

The did the tests in mice. Where do you see the studies with humans?

Re: Calories in, calories out

#168

Post by GFischer »

eitally wrote: post #110
ghshephard wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, going to the Gym is also a great way to put on weight, so, I wouldn't correlate "going to the gym" and adding/losing weight. There's good research that shows even high-metabolic activity like running 5 miles/day isn't correlated with losing weight (though it is well correlated with increased aerobic capacity). Basically, any diet whatsoever will result in you losing weight. Just measuring/charting your weight i…

Anecdotally, I added 40 miles per week of running (actually performance-oriented running, not just casual jogging) to my lifestyle over the past year and it has had literally zero effect on my weight, or, according to my Fitbit Aria scale, my bodyfat. I also haven't been trying to lose weight and have been doing quite a bit of bodyweight strength exercising, so I am not at all surprised by this. I did drop my resting…

But do you feel better? I used to be able to run 5k in less than 20 minutes (10k races are very popular here), but now I can't even run 1k.

If you lost fat and gained muscle, you're doing OK :)

Re: Calories in, calories out

#169

Post by dragonwriter »

scottious wrote: post #153
hspak wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been work and research that state gaining weight is not a simple matter of calorie in = calorie out. Gary Taubes has written a lot about it.

At some level though, it HAS to be a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out. I will bet a large sum of money that if you literally give an obese person ONLY water and necessary vitamins for 3 months that they'll lose weight. You'll never find somebody who hasn't eaten anything for a month and is maintaining their weight. Sure it's an extreme case, meant only as a thought experiment, but it's obvious that 0 cal…

> Sure it's an extreme case, meant only as a thought experiment, but it's obvious that 0 calories in and non-zero calories out absolutely MUST mean weight loss. What are the alternatives?

Conversion of body weight to a form that has less stored energy per unit of weight mass (e.g., fat to muscle). That's unlikely with zero calorie intake (since activity, which is difficult to maintain with a too-extreme deficit, and protein are both important to it), but it balances the calorie equation just as well as weight loss does.

More generally on the point under discussion, adjusting caloric intake alone without changing calorie output is expected to produce weight loss if a bunch of other factors are held constant, but the way humans are constructed, its actually not at all simple to adjust calorie intake and not alter calorie output or any of the other relevant factors -- in fact, many of them the body will itself change as a result of a change in calorie input.

Re: Calories in, calories out

#170

Post by kyllo »

iopq wrote: post #118
ghshephard wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different results for different people I guess - also your particular workout regime. Doing a lot of heavy lifting (Starting Strength) over nine months resulted in a about 20 pounds of muscle/fat gain for me (but more fat than muscle). This wasn't unexpected, and given my principal objectives were to lift heavy things, I wasn't too concerned. There is a certain amount of satisfaction associated with a 300 pound low b…

I did SS for 7 months, but the last few months my gains slowed. I gained some muscle and fat, but they changed the scale at the gym and I don't know how much weight I ACTUALLY gained because the old one was off by like 10 pounds and they changed it half way through so it had me confused. I probably gained 15 lbs, half of which being muscle. Didn't gain much more after that, even though I continued working out, nothin…

Yeah, that's expected. SS is a beginner program designed to be done for only 3-6 months. When your progress on your lifts stalls out, it's time to switch to a periodized intermediate program such as Texas Method[1], which will have you doing ramped work sets and taking deload weeks to allow for more recovery time between your max effort sessions.

[1] http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/The_Texas_Method

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