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Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

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Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#21

Post by jakejake »

I've been trying to get into shape myself and I've found that any kind of novelty diet like this may get rid of some pounds but doesn't ultimately stick. Because you can lose 19 pounds in 3 weeks and then gain it all right back in the same amount of time.

You have to make a change that you can live with for the rest of your life, as depressing as that sounds. But what has been working for me is:

1) not eating late night (this is the hardest for me but also the thing that makes the biggest difference)

2) eating smaller portions. once you get into the habit this actually becomes rather easy. just eat 1/2 or 2/3 of the portion size you'd normally eat. eating until I was totally stuffed was just a habit I didn't even realize I was doing

one easy way to eat a little less is to skip the sides. like if i'm eating a hamburger - skip the fries. Or skip the bag of chips to go with the sandwich.

3) kinda watch the snacks and desserts. i don't cut them out but just keep in mind if i ate a bowl of ice cream yesterday, then skip dessert today.

Aside from that I pretty much eat exactly what I have always ate. I have lost about 22 pounds. I'm currently stuck at that weight because I keep cheating on my own system! But I think it's important not to be too hard on yourself otherwise you tend to just give up.

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#22

Post by georgemcbay »

jc4p wrote: post #17
riffraff wrote: post #16

I feel stupid asking this, and I ask forgiveness if it's a dumb question, but why are there so many people improvising diets? What is wrong with dietologists[0] ? I have been overweight and went to a dietologist, got back in shape (lost about 16kg/35 pounds) in a few months and have stayed stable for years. And I did not have headaches and was allowed some "free" meals, alcohol and sweets, with "moderation" caveats.…

Like in everything we do, people always want to find the new cool thing and easier thing to do than the routine every one else does. It's the same reason why every new week a new diet featuring a cool name or acronym becomes popular and then dies off.

Also why there are 10 new JavaScript data binding frameworks released per day.

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#23

Post by Jedd »

riffraff wrote: post #16

I feel stupid asking this, and I ask forgiveness if it's a dumb question, but why are there so many people improvising diets? What is wrong with dietologists[0] ? I have been overweight and went to a dietologist, got back in shape (lost about 16kg/35 pounds) in a few months and have stayed stable for years. And I did not have headaches and was allowed some "free" meals, alcohol and sweets, with "moderation" caveats.…

To answer your first question - I'd posit that (especially for North American readers) the big driver is a lack of credibility in the FDA, and the 'health industry' in general. Look at the evolution of the Food Pyramid (as probably the most well known example) over the years, but also the lack of controls on where HFCS ends up (ie. just about everywhere), alternating between demonising and lionising various food stuffs from one decade to the next.

Any kind of scepticism on this front is probably (pardon the pun) a healthy thing.

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#24

Post by nerdfiles »

Diets that ignore lifestyle are greedy. How about a new term? "Ethnodiet," or "technediet" rather than "logodiet" or "science-based diet." Regardless of the authority of scientists, or nutritionists, you are probably not one. Whereas appealing to the authority of astronomists may be an epistemtically defensible practice, appealing to the authority of nutritionists may not be. The discoveries of astrophysics arguably have direct influence on your life, but if they do, we'd be hard-pressed to integrate those findings in our everyday lives; the discoveries of nutrition, oddly researchers and laypeople alike, seem to carry an inherent imperative as to what-comes-next after said discovery is made. Whatever the content of the discovery, the "what-comes-next" is a matter of decision, but at the same point, it is a decision of whether the discovery is amenable to all of food science or not. In astrophysics, for instance, we have a long-standing set of metarules for the integration and change of the overall conceptual system. Where is this in food science? And what is more, Does a scientist's finding in and of themselves say anything about normative structure? (This idea is from Alain Badiou: "Situations are nothing more in their being than pure multiplicity. Nothing normative can be drawn from the simple realist's observation of the becoming of things.")

1. Eat Food (that could be readily identified by most traditional cultures; no Food Disputes; don't eat foodlike substances)

2. Mostly Plants (-- they have the most mature survival systems; eat them)

3. Not Too Much (learn how to eat little; that is, learn austerity, not asceticism; apply more traditional diets as this doubly expresses a political note and expresses Occam's Razor which does not aim to lose weight, but return one's body to an earlier state of humans within "civilization")

Try it. "Science-based diets" tend to lack consciousness of the ethnological structures we must persist within. A diet that says {nothing} about the contextualized features of Eating is blind. -- Something like what Einstein said.

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#25

Post by jakejake »

riffraff wrote: post #16

I feel stupid asking this, and I ask forgiveness if it's a dumb question, but why are there so many people improvising diets? What is wrong with dietologists[0] ? I have been overweight and went to a dietologist, got back in shape (lost about 16kg/35 pounds) in a few months and have stayed stable for years. And I did not have headaches and was allowed some "free" meals, alcohol and sweets, with "moderation" caveats.…

because doing it the right way is too hard!

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#26

Post by Zimahl »

I’ve dropped 19 lbs in just under three weeks! This is a ridiculous loss of weight. It might even be unhealthy, I’m not really sure.

Oh, it's very unhealthy. That 19 lbs was probably mostly muscle you burned because you essentially went into starvation mode, Christopher McCandless style. There aren't enough calories in meat and (most) vegetables to survive on.

Safe weight loss is pretty simple and there's no other way around it. Cut out 500 calories per day, either by diet or exercise and you'll lose 1-2 pounds per week. Any more and you aren't burning the fat you have you are burning through your muscle.

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#27

Post by llimllib »

jc4p wrote: post #15

First off: congratulations on the weight loss and actually sticking to a diet, that's a really hard step. Anyway, I recently started working at Fitocracy, a fitness website, and decided to make a similar decision to yours. In fact, one of the main reasons I took my job offer was because during my initial interview the CEO looked at my workout history on the site and said "Whoa, nothing logged since March? We'll chang…

> 2. You'll get much better results if you combine diet and exercise, you'll get faster results, and you won't have to be on such a strict diet because the exercise will make up for it.

For many people, this is not true. Exercise uses up surprisingly few calories, and people justify all kinds of crappy foods for themselves based on this reasoning.

The classic example is "oh, I've jogged for a half hour, so now I can have this grande mocha frappa doppa lattechino". The sugary drink crushes the effects of the run.

So! Know yourself. Stick to your diet. And if you work out, you can eat a very little bit more. But crappy sugary stuff is always crappy sugary stuff.

Also, track what you exercise and eat so you know how you're doing.

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#28

Post by jc4p »

Zimahl wrote: post #26

I’ve dropped 19 lbs in just under three weeks! This is a ridiculous loss of weight. It might even be unhealthy, I’m not really sure. Oh, it's very unhealthy. That 19 lbs was probably mostly muscle you burned because you essentially went into starvation mode, Christopher McCandless style. There aren't enough calories in meat and (most) vegetables to survive on. Safe weight loss is pretty simple and there's no other wa…

6lb a week can easily be a large loss of water weight for someone who's overweight, it's not maintainable but if it happens for more than a few weeks in a row is the time to be worried, not now. Also, cutting 500 calories per day is a weight loss of 1 pound per week (a pound is 3500 calories) :)

Oh, and it's very possible for someone who's untrained to lose more than a pound or two a week (by being on a bigger than 1000 calorie daily deficit) and still not lose muscle but instead make new muscle and strength increases, it's just harder.

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#29

Post by jakejake »

nerdfiles wrote: post #24

Diets that ignore lifestyle are greedy. How about a new term? "Ethnodiet," or "technediet" rather than "logodiet" or "science-based diet." Regardless of the authority of scientists, or nutritionists, you are probably not one. Whereas appealing to the authority of astronomists may be an epistemtically defensible practice, appealing to the authority of nutritionists may not be. The discoveries of astrophysics arguably…

I was trying to comprehend your post, but it was a little too conceptual for me! Though point #3 I agree with - I think a lot of us need to re-adjust what is a normal sized portion. Many of us are eating as if we burned 6,000 calories working in the fields all day. But most of us are not doing that type of manual labor so we need to eat less.

Re: Green Faces (or How to Hack Your Metabolism)

#30

Post by doublerebel »

mattlong wrote: post #8

I don't think I would consider this hacking your metabolism. In fact, as the author mentions, his metabolism actually seems to have "slowed down" since he feels fatigued more often than before. For a completely no-carb diet, this should be expected. Cutting out carbohydrates forces your body to primarily convert stored fat for its fuel instead, which is a slower and less efficient source of energy. IMHO, practice mod…

Your practices sound very similar to LeanGains, minus the Intermittent Fasting. LeanGains worked for me, and I love it, because it's really just science (free!) applied to your lifestyle, rather than a cool trend or product designed to sell.

In addition to moderation, balance is important. Having a healthy balance between fat/proteins/carbs/nutrients as well as balance between life/work/exercise. Being off-balance is usually unsustainable in the long term.

For example: Going no-carb will lose weight up front, but the body requires sugars in some form -- much of the weight will come right back once returning to a balanced diet with carbs. However, the body can be trained to crave less carbs, and weightloss with a low-carb diet is sustainable for a lifetime.

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