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Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

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Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#71

Post by Matthias247 »

vikiomega9 wrote: post #47
dsacco wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cardio on its own is very sustainable.

Yes in general. What I meant to say is for someone like me, I had trouble with what I ate, for example overeating after a cardio session. Understanding this and changing behaviour is a lot harder as compared to building more muscle which is "sustainable" in terms of a larger TDEE that's evenly spread out. Unless I'm mistaken building muscle is far more efficient than bursts of cardio. HIIT seems to work on a similar…

I wasn't sure how big that "larger TDEE" really is, so I googled around for some values. I found some claims for between 10 and 30kcal per day for each extra kg of muscle mass. If we assume that most people will not build up more than 10kg of extra muscle mass that will not be a lot (but neverthless it's a nice effect).

Cardio training can burn lots of calories. But you have to take it seriously and should not assume that moving around for 20minutes was already a big workout. My current personal workout is about 10hours of biking on average per week. Calculating with ~500kcal/h of energy consumption that sums up to 5000kcal/h. That's a quite nice number, which can also be interpreted as: Enough to lose nearly 1kg of fat if calory intake stays constant. Or at least enough to compensate for a lot of non-perfect meals. In the end it's a compromise between ones diet and the amount of workout. One can lose weight by increasing consumption or by reducing intake. For some people the first thing works better, for others the second.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#72

Post by intermerda »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #11
cagenut wrote: post #5

ah to be 24 again

I'm 32 and I found a free-weight system for upper body I've had success with. It auto-adjusts the weight over time whether you want it to or not so you are forced to continually improve. It also forces you to do repetitions every day whether you want to or not. Sometimes I do extra reps and the system responds with positive reinforcement. It gives extra positive reinforcement if I hold it over my head and fly it arou…

The book Starting Strength has an anecdote which I found here - https://www.athlegan.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-starting-stre....

> There's a famous story about a greek wrestler, back in the 6th century BC – Milo of Croton. He'd train by lifting up and carry around a newborn calf. Every day he continued doing so and as the calf grew into a bull, so did he. This is linear progression.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#73

Post by sidlls »

s3nnyy wrote: post #44

Losing 30 kg (66 pounds) in 6 months is not normal and this guy definitely did crazy stuff. I would say 3-4 years would be "the norm" to do this transformation, so don't let yourself be discouraged.

How is it not normal? His regimen apparently consisted of eating fewer calories than he expended by exercise and exercising for 3-4 hours a week, and as a result cut approximately 1.25kg per week for 6 months. That's definitely a bit high (for reference, "rapid weight loss" is generally considered to be losing more than 1kg per week), but it's not outlandish.

The weight loss by itself, with no additional work for the physique, shouldn't take more than about 8-9 months (at a loss of ~0.8kg / week, well within the bounds of gradual weight loss). It shouldn't take 27-39 months beyond that to build lean muscle and lose fat to reduce that level of body fat percentage.

One wouldn't even need to follow the fad diets or take the supplements this guy did.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#74

Post by vikiomega9 »

dsacco wrote: post #62
vikiomega9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes in general. What I meant to say is for someone like me, I had trouble with what I ate, for example overeating after a cardio session. Understanding this and changing behaviour is a lot harder as compared to building more muscle which is "sustainable" in terms of a larger TDEE that's evenly spread out. Unless I'm mistaken building muscle is far more efficient than bursts of cardio. HIIT seems to work on a similar…

I'm a little confused by what you mean. I'm not a nutritionist, but I am very active in both running and weight lifting (in other words, I have a lot of personal results, but take my opinions as qualified observations, not educated prescriptions). They're targeted to sufficiently different goals that I wouldn't agree you can make an efficiency comparison for weight loss. Realistically I wouldn't prescribe either for…

> if you're optimizing for weight loss and you find yourself hungrier when you exercise, you're likely going to find yourself hungrier when your caloric needs increase in general

What I'm observing is that with a cardio session there's an increased craving for food in that moment that is quite intense. While in both cases (weight training and cardio) there is a need for additional energy, its easier to manage through weight training is my point. Building muscle overall would need me to consume additional calories but over the period of a day, which in turn makes it easier to manage what I eat.

Taking one step back, to lose weight I really only need a caloric deficit. What I'm trying to achieve is to follow a diet about 5-10% lower than what I would need to maintain my current weight, and add on weight training on top of this to increase TDEE.

This to me seems more sustainable and something I can easily follow, given that I love weight training and find it easier than monotonous cardio.

> Controlled weight loss (or gain) is most effectively achieved by understanding what your body actually needs for survival and strategically increasing or decreasing that. Exercise is helpful for altering the composition of your mass, but it's relatively negligible (hundreds of calories per day) for controlling the amount of mass you have.

I'm not sure I agree here. A deficit of about 4000 calories a week is healthy for a loss of about a pound. I would think those hundreds of calories would easily help hitting a deficit of 500 odd calories a day.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#75

Post by vikiomega9 »

Matthias247 wrote: post #71
vikiomega9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes in general. What I meant to say is for someone like me, I had trouble with what I ate, for example overeating after a cardio session. Understanding this and changing behaviour is a lot harder as compared to building more muscle which is "sustainable" in terms of a larger TDEE that's evenly spread out. Unless I'm mistaken building muscle is far more efficient than bursts of cardio. HIIT seems to work on a similar…

I wasn't sure how big that "larger TDEE" really is, so I googled around for some values. I found some claims for between 10 and 30kcal per day for each extra kg of muscle mass. If we assume that most people will not build up more than 10kg of extra muscle mass that will not be a lot (but neverthless it's a nice effect). Cardio training can burn lots of calories. But you have to take it seriously and should not assume…

> One can lose weight by increasing consumption or by reducing intake. For some people the first thing works better, for others the second.

I complete agree here. I don't think popular advice seems to be doing a good job of explaining this.

Going on anecdotal data. On my wrist HR monitor I seem to be easily hitting around 500 Kcal per weight training session. Assuming on the worst case that the monitor is off by about half, I have burned 250 Kcal per session. This in addition to a easily achievable cut of 250 Kcal with my diet leads me to ~500 Kcal a day. Which would fall in the realm of the calculation you make with biking. I find this easier to perform than an hour of biking :) Plus an additional goal is to increase muscle mass. So as a tradeoff it seems to work.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#76

Post by dsacco »

vikiomega9 wrote: post #74
dsacco wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little confused by what you mean. I'm not a nutritionist, but I am very active in both running and weight lifting (in other words, I have a lot of personal results, but take my opinions as qualified observations, not educated prescriptions). They're targeted to sufficiently different goals that I wouldn't agree you can make an efficiency comparison for weight loss. Realistically I wouldn't prescribe either for…

> if you're optimizing for weight loss and you find yourself hungrier when you exercise, you're likely going to find yourself hungrier when your caloric needs increase in general What I'm observing is that with a cardio session there's an increased craving for food in that moment that is quite intense. While in both cases (weight training and cardio) there is a need for additional energy, its easier to manage through…

> A deficit of about 4000 calories a week is healthy for a loss of about a pound.

There isn't really a hard and fast rule here, it depends on the person. If you are obese enough, you can engage in an extended fast with no food whatsoever (just water, vitamins and electrolytes) and lose up to a pound per day in ketosis.

But obviously that should only be done with the supervision of a doctor.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#77

Post by chiefalchemist »

sidlls wrote: post #54
vamerock wrote: post #31

Don't let the fact that he was 24 deter you. Over at r/bodyweightfitness, there are hundreds of people who started above 45 and are in better shapes than 20 year olds. Obesity is now a taboo topic in tech because you might unfortunately step on the toes of a few sensitive people and be labelled a fat shamer. This is not the case.Obesity in tech is a disease on it's own and it needs to be fought with a sharp edged pit…

Some obesity is a disease, and some (perhaps much) in the western world is brought on by the combination of available foods and the lifestyle driven by our culture as it relates to compensation and work "ethic." Quality, healthy nutrition is hard to come by in America, either because it's scarce in an area or else the basic mechanics of putting together healthy things isn't really taught or socialized. The whole conc…

If it's a disease, it's a social one. We've normalized what used to be fairly abnormal. Today, the person who is 75 lbs over weight looks around, readily sees someone 150 lbs,200 lbs or more over weight. The +75'er thinks "I'm not overweight."

Humans do that. We adjust. We assimilate. We make presumptuous about validity based on what we see. That's the disease.

That said, it doesn't help that people like Oprah have led the "love your body" parade. Sure. Do it! It's your body. But that doesn't make it healthy. That does mitigate the broader societal damager you're doing.

Sure. Let's stop fat shaming. But let's also stop being in denial about the personal health implication of carrying too much extra weight.

I don't understand how we can discuss healthcare, the cost of healthcare, but then not talk about (personal) health. We want lower costs and we want to be more and more unhealthy. It doesn't work that way.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#78

Post by chiefalchemist »

Blackthorn wrote: post #63
sidlls wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some obesity is a disease, and some (perhaps much) in the western world is brought on by the combination of available foods and the lifestyle driven by our culture as it relates to compensation and work "ethic." Quality, healthy nutrition is hard to come by in America, either because it's scarce in an area or else the basic mechanics of putting together healthy things isn't really taught or socialized. The whole conc…

> On the other hand, the concept of "fat but fit" is also not helpful. I don't know. One of my friends is fat, but she's also an incredibly competent rower (including doing it as a varsity sport in college). If that's not fit, I don't know what is.

Of course there are always outliers. However, the older you get the less likely you are to be overweight. That is, you'll typically die sooner, not later. I'd say ("premature") death qualifies as unhealthy ;)

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#79

Post by chiefalchemist »

m00x wrote: post #58
dimgl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone can afford to take a 6-8 month break......

I lost 40lbs in 12 months while working. I did a bodyweight routine at home 4x a week for 30 minutes and calculated calories in and out. 4 months in, I eyeballed everything. I was a pretty experienced athlete in high school/college, so I knew the basics well and knew if I worked at it I'd lose it, so that helped a lot, but I didn't do anything magic.

Kudos.

But the point is, you changed your lifestyle, and stuck with it. I think most who lose weight put it back on because they don't change anything. As if being thinner makes bad food less bad :)

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