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What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

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Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#81

Post by sridca »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #64

A couple of years ago I found myself weighing 250lbs. Basically morbidly obese. I decided to change that. I went through all the food I bought during the week and decided to do some culling. I removed anything with sugar and replaced it with Stevia. Removed the soft drinks, alcohol, and carbs. I follow this diet 6 days a week. One day a week, I indulge myself: a pizza or burrito or have a few beers. I also go to the…

Fasting is the ultimate weight loss tool. It also facilitates (muscle) growth and healing.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#82

Post by sridca »

kranner wrote: post #68
galvs wrote: post #66

It is very simple. There are 8000 calories in 1kg of fat. If you want to lose 10 kg you'll need to burn 80,000 calories through deficit, either through diet or exercise. Personally I find it easy to live on a strict diet and limiting alcohol intake to once every few weeks

Everybody who's trying to lose weight knows it is about sustaining a calorie deficit. The problem is how.

No the problem is gluttony. Why do we complicate this so much?

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#83

Post by skocznymroczny »

Fricken wrote: post #46

I had read somewhere that after about 45 minutes of cardio your body will start using it's fat stores, and continue burning fat for 6 to 8 hours afterwards. So when I found myself overweight I started doing long trail runs or bike rides, about 2 hours long, 3 times a week. Insomuch as I looked forward to doing the exercise, losing 3-5 pounds a week was nearly effortless. My appetite actually goes down during these pe…

What was your starting weight? Losing 3-5 pounds a week sounds like a lot, unless you were starting from a high weight to begin with. Also, most people trying to lose weight aren't fit enough to run/ride for 10 minutes long, let alone 2 hours.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#84

Post by sridca »

nightski wrote: post #9
Retric wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are both very short term studies. The only critical factor in weight loss is how much people weigh in the long term as in 5+ years. “20% of overweight individuals are successful at long-term weight loss when defined as losing at least 10% of initial body weight and maintaining the loss for at least 1 y.” Things get much worse in terms of 5+ year weight loss.

I'll just say that American culture in general makes it extremely difficult to stick to a healthy and disciplined lifestyle, no matter the specific diet. In keto communities I see people who have met lots of success but find it rough being bombarded by family, friends, and dining out options in general all going against their way of eating. It's getting better, with restaurants especially. But it's still a large hurd…

It is a problem in India too. Moreover people here consider being overweight to be healthy and equate being lean to being malnourished!

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#85

Post by sridca »

thepete2 wrote: post #21

I feel like this article neglects the most important thing, which is sustainability. I've recently come across the idea of fasting for weight loss. Turns out most people can safely fast (eat nothing, only drink water that is) for many days, sometimes as long as 40 days if they are overweight. Switching to a diet of eating minimally processed food afterwards - which is what we're used to from an evolutionary standpoin…

You can still fast, like I do, despite being lean. 4-5 day water fast regenerates the immune system.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#86

Post by taneq »

kranner wrote: post #68
galvs wrote: post #66

It is very simple. There are 8000 calories in 1kg of fat. If you want to lose 10 kg you'll need to burn 80,000 calories through deficit, either through diet or exercise. Personally I find it easy to live on a strict diet and limiting alcohol intake to once every few weeks

Everybody who's trying to lose weight knows it is about sustaining a calorie deficit. The problem is how.

Decide that you want to not be fat more than you want to over-eat.

Then choose to sustain that decision by re-affirming it daily.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#87

Post by cthalupa »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #23
mirceal wrote: post #16

The weight loss is not really what matters. anybody can lose weight. with a little education you can do it. the problem is doing it in a sustainable way and to actually keep it off. the hardest part about weight loss is keeping it off. you have limited will power and unless you are willing to change the way you live your efforts are in vain. Sure it may make you feel good about yourself and your journey but it's doom…

The hardest part of dieting is realising that in order to keep it off, you will have to continue like that forever. In the back of your mind, you want to think that the diet is temporary. Once you have lost the weight, you can go back to eating all the great tasting foods that you ate before. True success is the acceptance that, no, your life will be worse in very real ways. You will no longer be able to just eat whe…

>The hardest part of dieting is realising that in order to keep it off, you will have to continue like that forever.

Yes and no. It depends on your goals.

Some form of modification is needed from whatever you did that made you fat in the first place.

Some form of modification is needed from what is currently keeping you fat.

But you could 100% have a diet that is meant to shed weight quickly, and then switch to something to maintain weight. Add in moderate amounts of exercise and you can eat a bit more.

You need a sustainable, long-term, somewhat permanent diet. It doesn't necessarily need to stay the same for forever, because there might be less radical diets for maintaining. This might be a completely different diet than what got you to your target weight.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#88

Post by taneq »

sokoloff wrote: post #8
peteretep wrote: post #7

I feel like the studies of specialty diets bring misleading conclusions, because they always count calories for both sides. If you’re on a calorie controlled diet, then calories in calories out holds. But most speciality diets (I’m on something pretty similar to slow carb) are targeting adherence, a factor that’s removed if you’re only measuring calories in and calories out. Without white carbs I find it much much ea…

Sometimes feeling hungry is ok and likely healthy. Always feeling hungry is brutal. For me, low carb works like magic and with limited aggravation once past the first week. The problem is, if I never learn to be (sometimes) hungry, it all comes apart when I go off the diet and back to living in the land of infinite crap carbs.

You should spend some of each day feeling at least a bit hungry. If you're not hungry when you sit down for a meal, you've eaten too much already.

There's a huge difference between "a bit hungry" and actually properly hungry. Most people with weight problems probably never let themselves feel more than peckish, and so their perception of hunger adjusts to amplify that feeling. When I'm below my target weight (sitting at a fairly low body fat percentage) and I try to maintain a calorie deficit, the hunger I start feeling is insanely more intense than when I'm a bit chubby and losing weight.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#89

Post by tokyodude »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #64

A couple of years ago I found myself weighing 250lbs. Basically morbidly obese. I decided to change that. I went through all the food I bought during the week and decided to do some culling. I removed anything with sugar and replaced it with Stevia. Removed the soft drinks, alcohol, and carbs. I follow this diet 6 days a week. One day a week, I indulge myself: a pizza or burrito or have a few beers. I also go to the…

I lost 30lbs just removing sugary drinks and side dishes. In other words instead of burger + fries + coke it changed to burger + diet coke. Went from 210 to 180. No other changes, no exercise. Just my results. I don't remember how long it took but I don't remember it being more than a year.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#90

Post by legohead »

I have a friend who I watched try a bunch of diet systems. Pills from amazon that she researched. Trying to not eat as much. Calorie counting. More expensive pills. Doing one of those "we send you all your meals" programs. Nothing worked or was even close. Maybe she'd lose 5 pounds and then immediately gain it back.

Finally she went to a clinic. The Dr. gave her a prescription to phentermine and she had to show up every week for evaluation. It worked great, the pounds melted off her, and she has kept it off. She lost something like 35 lbs in a few months (from 160). It basically made her not want to eat, her daily calorie count was stupid low, but it never really affected her energy levels - she didn't have any health issues.

The doctor said her body would get used to the drug in about 3 months and it would be less effective, and that was true. So you can't really stay on it continuously, I guess..

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