171–180 of 238 posts
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Calorie deficit is harmful for you though, there's an imbalance. You tell your body it's starving. As soon as you have an extra calorie to spare, you're body will immediately store it as fat, making your hard work essentially meaningless in the long run.
Let me guess you are female and practice haes? Only there I have heard such delusions.
Everybody in the fitness circles (see Reddit Fitness) knows this. It's just that normally doctors, TV & company misadvice you, telling something like "walk more, be more active" when the task at hand is to lose weight. Actually the exercise suggestion should be: do some strength training while seriously dieting in order to retain muscles. A 30 minutes run will burn ~400 calories. The same amount of calories can be ea…
The problem here seems that discussions about this are sooo littered with personal biases. "Bro science" is just one aspect of this, far more common is expecting that one's personal achievement is universally reproducible. Yes, person A may eat all the burgers and twinkies, because he's going to the gym all the time and swimming laps like there's no tomorrow. But as a general rule to combat obesity, that's probably n…
Just eat less and you will lose weight. I hope this is the universal answer you were seeking. "But it worked for me!" ;)
There really isn't that much science to it. On paper its really really simple. To loose weight, you must expend more energy than you absorb. However, conversely to get fit, you will need to eat a balanced diet, with enough calories to replace damaged muscles. However on the weight loss front here are the golden rules: Some people exercise (exercise expends energy) Some people reduce energy consumption (eat less, or e…
> 2) Some people reduce energy consumption (eat less, or eat less calorific food)
> 3) Some people combine both.
> There are no other options.
Exactly, I picked option 2 as I had been unsuccessful with both option 1 and 3.
Still amazed that people are still considering this a pure caloric issue and not a food quality issue. When you look at how various hormones (namely insulin) are affected by blood sugar & affect body composition, it seems you'd want to promote a method that bears that in mind. That said, I think the focus should be on "eating better" not just "eating less."
I found that as I was looking for ways to reduce what I ate, I ended up eating better.
Once I had lost the weight, someone asked me how I could still stay the same weight even though I was eating jelly babies. My response was that I am more conscious now of how much of something I eat and will adjust for it.
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> Yes, person A may eat all the burgers and twinkies, because he's going to the gym all the time One major problem with the standard BMI definitions is that any athlete in a sport that vaguely requires muscles will be classed as 'overweight' or 'obese'. Although there may be some justification for this categorisation, these are people we normally consider at the peak of fitness. One of the best things you can do for…
This criticism of BMI is becoming boring, mostly in fitness Internet communities. Yeah, I get it: it's pretty cool to know that there are different kinds of body mass, and - of course - Internet gurus got to show that they know it. The limitations of BMI are well known; if doctors and nutrition professionals keep on using BMI as an indicator, that's because it's an useful one. We shouldn't assume other professionals…
Um... what? If doctors and professionals are using BMI blindly, that absolutely classifies their opinion as 'dumb'.
The fact is, 'boring' or not, the calculations for BMI most definitely give you skewed results because it doesn't consider muscle mass. As has already been pointed out, this classifies athletes as obese very easily.
This isn't just a 'woe is me' from athletes. It could have real-world implications.
1) What happens when they want to get life insurance, the company blindly calculates their BMI based on height/weight, and classifies them as obese? Tada: Higher premiums.
2) What happens when a self-conscious teenage girl who's very fit and active realizes she's 'overweight' without realizing it's muscle mass causing it? Agree or not, this scenario is a real one and could cause her to eat less, thus depriving her body of the nutrition that she needs.
3) While on the subject of kids... blindly following BMI rules and enforcing standards based on them, schools basically assume that every kid of overweight. As a parent with a child who fluctuates between normal and underweight, it baffles me that he's actively encouraged to eat low calorie meals.
The criticism of BMI is there precisely because it doesn't apply in a large portion of cases. The 'obesity epidemic' doesn't excuse it. It's irresponsible from a healthcare standpoint, and these people are being called out.
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You are confusing "calorie counting", which is a method of losing weight, with a "caloric deficit" being the number one factor for losing weight, which is a fact. It doesn't matter if you count calories or not. What matters is that you achieve a caloric deficit. Any method that is applied successfully to achieve weight loss has resulted in a caloric deficit, whether or not that method was calorie counting.
Calorie deficit is harmful for you though, there's an imbalance. You tell your body it's starving. As soon as you have an extra calorie to spare, you're body will immediately store it as fat, making your hard work essentially meaningless in the long run.
However limiting food intake reduces not only the calories, but vitamins and micronutrients plus minerals. Also not exercising at all means muscle loss and not so much fat loss, which can have severe effects in 3-6 months. So regular exercises are must, swimming for example 3 times a week plus some brisk walk in the park twice a week will do miracles. Not to forget proper feeding is it is as much important as reducing calories intake and creating calories deficiency. If one can't balance his food to have proper vitamins and minerals, one should resort to food supplements at least for calcium, potassium, magnesium, vitamins C, B6, B12 and E if you want to keep you heart and liver healthy during the process. Know what you eat and do the numbers. I started with 39% body fat and 33% muscle.. Now I am 30% body fat and 35% muscle with a lot of cardio. A close friend of mine reduced his food intake and albeit he achieved serious weigh loss, that was on the expense of muscle and tissue, rather then fat loss..
Personally I achieved my loss with the help of numbers and constant measures - get a proper scale that can report body fat/muscle/tissue, cross check with calipers, get a fitness tracker to track daily steps and calories, track you food, exercise, calories and progress.. There are so many sites and applications to do so.. And really important - do a blood work each 3 months for you heart and liver. A few drops of blood can give you so much intel
Hope that helps
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This criticism of BMI is becoming boring, mostly in fitness Internet communities. Yeah, I get it: it's pretty cool to know that there are different kinds of body mass, and - of course - Internet gurus got to show that they know it. The limitations of BMI are well known; if doctors and nutrition professionals keep on using BMI as an indicator, that's because it's an useful one. We shouldn't assume other professionals…
> We shouldn't assume other professionals are "dumb"; we shouldn't assume that we are a brilliant bunch, capable of seeing beyond an indicator, while doctors and nutrition professionals use them blindly. Um... what? If doctors and professionals are using BMI blindly, that absolutely classifies their opinion as 'dumb'. The fact is, 'boring' or not, the calculations for BMI most definitely give you skewed results becau…
They aren't.
> The fact is, 'boring' or not, the calculations for BMI most definitely give you skewed results because it doesn't consider muscle mass.
They most definitely don't give you skewed results. How can the results be skewed if they are straightforward math from the body mass (independently of it being mostly lean or fat)?
Wrong interpretation of the values are what's problematic, not the "values". But, as I said above, professionals aren't using it blindly
> What happens when they want to get life insurance, the company blindly calculates their BMI based on height/weight, and classifies them as obese? Tada: Higher premiums.
Yeah, but this is not a problem with the indicator, nor the . It's a problem with (lack of) honesty.
> the criticism of BMI is there precisely because it doesn't apply in a large portion of cases.
My criticism of the criticistm of BMI is exactly because this is somewhat wrong, depending on what you define as a large portion. BMI applies to most people, and people who really should look at BMI for their job (i.e. doctors an nutrition professionals) are aware of its shortcomings.