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How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

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Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#141

Post by VLM »

cwzwarich wrote: post #139
VLM wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... eat a carrot? I will admit there is a societal trend to just relabel high meat low carb atkins type diets as paleo, and be done with it. That doesn't mean the paleo diet is "eat organic steaks every night". As a programmer/hacker community the best analogy I can give is my impression of a venn diagram of a atkins/low carb type diet is the circle for the diet mostly contains meat and not much else. And the venn…

I was just pointing out that a paleo diet still has some expensive food choices. If you don't eat grains, legumes, or dairy regularly then you're probably going to have to eat meat or eggs for protein, both of which are considerably more expensive than vegan sources of protein. This is especially true if you try to go a step further and try to find grass-fed beef or free-range chickens.

There exist some very expensive grain based foods. Trying to live off a diet of wedding cake would be very expensive. That does not prove a paleo diet is cheaper, any more than the mere existence of kobe beef proves grain based diets are cheaper.

I eat an awful lot of salads and veggies and fruits, probably less meat than a "real american"... I just eat lots more pears than wheat.

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#142

Post by voidlogic »

cwzwarich wrote: post #140
voidlogic wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It may be possible to grow fat from eating raw celery and tomatoes Doing this with celery will be more difficult as it takes more energy to digest than is gained from it. I had a humorous image in my mind of someone trying to get fat via only veggies, imagine the volume of food they would have to eat every day! Examples: The Kimchi I had with lunch was 15 calories, the half bag of russels sprout I had last night (ex…

> Examples: The Kimchi I had with lunch was 15 calories, the half bag of russels sprout I had last night (excluding the oil oil cooked in) 130 calories. I'm not one of the downvoters, but "satiety of eating unrestricted quantities of vegetables outweighs any caloric intake" approach only works if you don't add fats or sugar sauces.

I'm pretty sure I didn't recommend eating unrestricted amounts of veggies, I did laugh about the idea. After all, I would have to eat a walmart/target size bag FULL of brussel sprouts to get my daily allowance of calories from brussel sprouts. That is a huge volume of food! I'm not sure if would be possible.

I was responding to someone talking about eating "raw celery". Vegetables in general are low in calories (before as you and I mentioned, oil sugar etc are added), BUT raw celery is well known to have a net negative impact.

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#143

Post by espeed »

Wow, this is almost exactly what I did last year, and I had the same results -- went from ~260 lbs to 180 lbs.

Cut out wheat, cut out sugar except whole fruits (no fruit juice because as Lustig pointed out, "you get all the fructose and none of the fiber" to counter balance), cut out diet soda and caffine and now only drink water (spring, filtered, or distilled), cut out peanuts (they were causing inflammation -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4344167), eat protein in the morning and make sure I consume enough nutrients throughout the day to keep my system in balance.

For me, cutting out wheat was one of the key factors (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5693679) because I suspect the wheat/yeast was throwing my intestinal microbes out of balance (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/health/studies-focus-on-gu...) and causing inflamation so when I cut it out, things returned to homeostasis.

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#144

Post by crusso »

encoderer wrote: post #130
crusso wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what you've posted in this thread, I gather that you have not taken the time to understand insulin, what it is, and how low carb diets affect insulin, carbohydrate cravings and cell metabolism. First link briefly covers the insulin response second link is general information regarding insulin. http://www.spinalhealth.net/insulin.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin See the Gary Taube youtube link elsewhere…

And from what you've posted in the thread, I gather you believe nutrition and weight gain or loss can be explained in the micro sense by individual things like insulin. Most of what I know about sugar, simple carbs in general, and insulin is what I learned from the just-OK book http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Blues-William-Dufty/dp/044634312... But most of what I've learned about weight gain/loss and nutrition I've learn…

Actually, we know a great deal about weight gain in the micro sense that is explained by insulin. Jeez, point after point you've made are answered in that Taube youtube link in this thread. You could have your answers if you just clicked the link, opened your mind, and thought about what the guy said.

At the end of the day, here's what I know from going on and off low-carb eating for the last ten years.

I eat carbs, I crave carbs, I binge eat, I gain lots of weight. Contrarily: I stop eating carbs, I lose the cravings, I eat moderately, salads even look satisfying, I lose weight.

Oh, for those of you who are fans of the Security Now podcast, Steve Gibson went into geeky detail in his switch to a low carb diet: https://www.grc.com/health/lowcarb-podcasts.htm

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#145

Post by mike_herrera »

Proleps wrote: post #121
vmarsy wrote: post #78

Interesting post, the author can be proud. Not being from the united states, and now living there since one year , here is my 2 cent , I think these are the most important points of the post and my own advices: - Drink water only, no soda, even diet coke and whatnot. - Avoid sugars (I'd say especially high corn fructose syrup). - Eat vegetables, cooked in good olive oil in a pan, it's really good. I don't know about…

> no soda, even diet coke and whatnot. Why?, there are a lot of diet sodas that do not contain any calories. > Avoid too salty food (preprocessed food will be too salty.) Why, salt doesn't contain any calories. Going on a diet is very hard in the first place, giving up these two things doesn't seem to make much sense. It will only make a difficult lifestyle change even more difficult.

Aspartame, the artificial sweetener in many diet soda products, is a controversial topic. For many years it was thought that it may cause insulin spikes or even increase the risk of cancer. But studies have shown that the folk-lore links between aspartame and cancer have been unmerited.

The most convincing argument to avoid aspartame has been a behavioral reason. Sweets beget sweets. By enjoying an artificially-sweet diet soda it will be easier to choose a conventional sweet treat if you wander back into the kitchen.

Also, as anyone who has abstained from sweets can attest, after a few days the idea of sweet candies just don't sound appealing.

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#146

Post by joe_the_user »

jmduke wrote: post #32

There's a massive signal-to-noise issue in the fitness world, particularly because there's so much value to be made just by making some noise. For anyone reading this post and inspired to lose weight, I recommend you keep the following basic tenets in mind when researching a plan/regimen: 1. You lose weight by eating less calories than your body uses. (As a corollary, you almost definitely consume more calories than…

I am six feet tall, constantly 5-10 pounds underweight. I eat as much as I can, always. I scare people with the amount I eat. My usual helping size is generally twice what most people take (which can cause friction if I'm not careful). I never, ever fluctuate in weight beyond the five pound fluctuations.

You lose weight by eating less calories than your body uses. (As a corollary, you almost definitely consume more calories than you think you do. Get a calorie-counting app.)

Obviously this is true on some level but it's truth doesn't seem establish any automatic or definite cause-and-effect relationship between the amount of food a given person eats and their weight gain or loss. Some people may indeed find their consumption determine weight gain or loss. Fine but don't assume your experience will automatically carry to others.

I recall current research has shed light on some complexities of this. Perhaps someone has a link.

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#147

Post by toble »

Proleps wrote: post #121
vmarsy wrote: post #78

Interesting post, the author can be proud. Not being from the united states, and now living there since one year , here is my 2 cent , I think these are the most important points of the post and my own advices: - Drink water only, no soda, even diet coke and whatnot. - Avoid sugars (I'd say especially high corn fructose syrup). - Eat vegetables, cooked in good olive oil in a pan, it's really good. I don't know about…

> no soda, even diet coke and whatnot. Why?, there are a lot of diet sodas that do not contain any calories. > Avoid too salty food (preprocessed food will be too salty.) Why, salt doesn't contain any calories. Going on a diet is very hard in the first place, giving up these two things doesn't seem to make much sense. It will only make a difficult lifestyle change even more difficult.

I've seen it suggested that sugar-free drinks will result in an expectation of energy. The body gets none of that energy. It compensates by seeking more energy.

Just drink water. It's virtually free. Soft drinks allow for a huge profit margin because they have been processed and you have been programmed over years to like them.

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#148

Post by dkersten »

encoderer wrote: post #95
codyb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a 1000 calories of sugar are going to do far different things to your body than a 1000 calories of protein. That's why focusing on calories always seemed to be the wrong metric to me.

If you mean "far different things" relating to weight gain or loss, I completely, completely disagree. In terms of weight gain or loss, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. That's why there are fad diets that have and do work for people that each cut different things. Low carbs in one. Low protein in another. The Cookie Diet for chrissakes. They work because the common thread between them is caloric restriction. Now,…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Also, random internet sites suggest a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie. For example:

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/06/when-a-calorie...

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#149

Post by acconrad »

jmduke wrote: post #32

There's a massive signal-to-noise issue in the fitness world, particularly because there's so much value to be made just by making some noise. For anyone reading this post and inspired to lose weight, I recommend you keep the following basic tenets in mind when researching a plan/regimen: 1. You lose weight by eating less calories than your body uses. (As a corollary, you almost definitely consume more calories than…

> in particular, intermittent fasting (eat once per day)

FYI that is incorrect. Intermittent fasting simply refers to eating your calories in condensed time windows. For example, Lean Gains suggests eating 2-3 meals in an 8 hour window.

Re: How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how

#150

Post by cwzwarich »

VLM wrote: post #141
cwzwarich wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just pointing out that a paleo diet still has some expensive food choices. If you don't eat grains, legumes, or dairy regularly then you're probably going to have to eat meat or eggs for protein, both of which are considerably more expensive than vegan sources of protein. This is especially true if you try to go a step further and try to find grass-fed beef or free-range chickens.

There exist some very expensive grain based foods. Trying to live off a diet of wedding cake would be very expensive. That does not prove a paleo diet is cheaper, any more than the mere existence of kobe beef proves grain based diets are cheaper. I eat an awful lot of salads and veggies and fruits, probably less meat than a "real american"... I just eat lots more pears than wheat.

The reason I pointed out grass-fed or free-range meat is that paleo advocates often like to point out the nutritional inadequacies of the more modern "factory farmed" alternatives. I am not in tune enough to know whether this is a firm part of the paleo diet or not.

Whole grains and legumes are pretty cheap. I don't think there is any source of protein from a whole food that is cheaper.

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