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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

#61
- Don't eat 600 calorie bombs from carls jr that fit inside the palm of your hand and don't fill you up still. Eat more satiating food for the calories, which is fibrous vegetables and proteins. Avoid liquid calories and other such things that are easy to overeat.

- Eat like my skinny indian friend. He takes a bite, chews it for quite a while, and then take another bite about a few minutes later. He doesn't do this on purpose, it's completely habitual. Such a slow eating speed really helps him stay skinny.

- Stop snacking on high calorie nuts, chips and bars. If you just habitually nibble on food that is in front of you until it's gone, recognize that and don't put food infront of you.

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

#62
post #40
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…

You lose weight by eating less calories than your body uses Yeah, and if you want to reduce your chance of auto accidents, limit the amount of gasoline you put in your car. I'm a bit sorry to come across as rude, but this advice and then your later dismissal of ketogenic diets reflects the extraordinary ignorance that inflicted us with the food pyramid and war on fat 40 years ago. Understanding and controlling the in…

It's seen as a fad because of the large initial water weight loss and the numerous myths about it, e.g.:

1) it's impossible to gain weight while in ketosis

2) the first time you go into ketosis, it has magical fat-burning effects that are lost after you go out of ketosis and back in

3) that ketosis is in fact magical in any way, and in any way better than simply -moderating- carb intake (as opposed to cutting it to 50g or under, and giving up delicious things that you enjoy).

Fact is, plenty of people have tried it as a magic bullet and eaten copious amounts of cheese and bacon only to find that, surprise, fats are insanely calorie-dense and things like salt can still happily make you hungry enough to overeat.

On the positive side, trying keto also permanently changed the way I felt about food - I permanently reduced my carb intake, increased protein and fat, and have a much better understanding of how high-carb foods create 'hunger'. And it happens to work very well for some people, which is awesome.

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

#63
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…

> 1. 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.) If this is true, why don't we become incredibly fat or skinny over time? It would require incredible precision to maintain weight. But a lot of people seem to be able to do it with no effort... The reason why this is not true is simple: our…

> "If this is true, why don't we become incredibly fat or skinny over time?"

I mean, we do. One of the big tricks here is that your basal metabolic rate is not a constant. As your weight increases you burn more energy than before simply existing. If you're running a very slight caloric surplus this will be neutralized as your weight increases, thus stabilizing you.

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

#64
post #3

I thought the article was going somewhere different, but it appears the answer is "diet and exercise"...

While the answer boils down to "diet and exercise" the point of the article was explaining the changes in mindset it took to get the author to change his habits. Knowing that diet and exercise is the most effective way to get healthy and putting that knowledge to practice are two different things entirely.

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

#65
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. 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.) If this is true, why don't we become incredibly fat or skinny over time? It would require incredible precision to maintain weight. But a lot of people seem to be able to do it with no effort... The reason why this is not true is simple: our…

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.

That may be true but weight gain/loss wise, it's the same.

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

#66

I am more interested in his next post: "Five years later and I am going to tell you how I managed to keep the lost weight off" > I took some pills, specifically raspberry ketones, a multi-vitamin, and cod liver / fish oil. I went back and forth on these, and then decided to drop them. I may go back to the oils, but I think vitamins may be snake oil. It is hard to really tell though. Vitamins are snake oil. Ok. (And w…

Agreed up until calories in, calories out. I know what you mean, but that way of thinking is quite dated. It's clear these days that the macronutrient composition of the diet also needs to be taken seriously.

People saying that are talking about -weight-, not fat.

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

#67

I don't get the title at all. It seems like a very concerted effort using a bit of trial and error, changing things, seeing what works, what doesn't and having success. Or did I miss the joke?

Agreed. At first I thought he'd just woke up on morning and been like "Wow, I've lost a lot of weight".

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

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. 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.) If this is true, why don't we become incredibly fat or skinny over time? It would require incredible precision to maintain weight. But a lot of people seem to be able to do it with no effort... The reason why this is not true is simple: our…

> "If this is true, why don't we become incredibly fat or skinny over time?" I mean, we do. One of the big tricks here is that your basal metabolic rate is not a constant. As your weight increases you burn more energy than before simply existing. If you're running a very slight caloric surplus this will be neutralized as your weight increases, thus stabilizing you.

Also the Glycemic Index of the calories that you consume matters.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/w8079e/w8079e0k.htm

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

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How low did your body fat percentage get down to? I've been 'mostly paleo-ish' for two years. I know people who have been strict on the lifestyle. There are only health-gains talked about. By low carb, do you mean you avoided vegetable carbs too? Did you try "no wheat/gluten/processed foods" but still a metric tonne of veggies and non-lean meats?

I did paleo for 9 months. No wheat, gluten. Veggies, some sweet potatoes and nuts, lots of meat (lean and non-lean). I lost 30 pounds (I wasn't really overweight). I don't know my body fat % at that time but I pretty sure it was lower than 15%. Exercising 3 times a week (Weight training). I had carb craving all-day long even after eating 2000+ calories. I was between 50g and 100g of carb per day (as recommended by Ma…

A lot of people lose the carb craving after a few days, but it doesn't work for everybody. While I didn't "crave" carbs per se, I really did not enjoy not eating bread. What really worked for me is skipping breakfast and skipping carbs for dinner (just meat and veg). Even though I don't do that every day due to social events, I can lose 1lb/week or so without much trouble.

30lb/9 month is pretty impressive, good luck with your endeavours!

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