The fundamentals of successful longterm weightloss for everyone.
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Thankfully for those of us who are working toward weight loss or maintenance, the complexity that comes from exploring the biology and psychology of weight loss still doesn't change the simple elegance of CICO.
I think this quote is sheer perfection and should be dropped into almost every thread on this forum.
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PeachyCarol wrote: »Exercise does not just boost one's health but it has so many other positive impacts on mental health and social wellbeing.
Absolutely!
Exercise is one of the ways I deal with stress.
Time, away from computers, technology, busy-ness, and most people, to think things through ... or time to push myself to my limits and get all my frustrations out ... or time to just relax and enjoy nature ...
It helps keep me sane!
Oh, so much this^ I solve the problems of the world while out walking/jogging. Sometimes my mind just gets blissfully empty, too -- never underestimate the value of time spent with a totally empty mind in the fresh air!
I'm also much more energetic overall throughout the day for having exercise as a regular part of my life.
yes this is exactly why for me exercise is part of the package.
i am no longer knackered by mid day, i feel healthy and strong. I also feel that exercise clears my head once i have finished.0 -
I agree with @farfromthetree
I enjoyed the initial post but the knee-jerk defensiveness and ranty rebuttals from the OP after that were a bucket of cold water on my enthusiasm. I would be too scared to ask questions in case I got in the line of fire.
Yep^^^0 -
TL:DR But seriously, 10 months? That's not "long term".0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »TL:DR But seriously, 10 months? That's not "long term".
@sabine has done a fab job on maintaining. congrats.
now i just wonder what is a good length of time to feel that yes i have been successful?
only this lunch time my daughters ex health visitor congratulated me for still keeping the weight off, but now just thinking about it what is long term?0 -
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Therealobi1 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »TL:DR But seriously, 10 months? That's not "long term".
@sabine has done a fab job on maintaining. congrats.
now i just wonder what is a good length of time to feel that yes i have been successful?
only this lunch time my daughters ex health visitor congratulated me for still keeping the weight off, but now just thinking about it what is long term?
Most statistics that deal with long term weight loss that I've seen usually look out 5 years and then 10 years.
Edit: that's not to say that anyone shouldn't be happy to keep it off 10 months. You can't get to 5 years without first getting to 10 months.0 -
I was in the same situation (re having to quit exercise due to injury adn consequent regain)... I had one of my best years of cycling and finished the season slim and trim. Then I had an accident and burnt my left foot to the bone. Could not leave the house for 5 weeks. Could hardly move at all for those 5 weeks. Just standing caused the blood to pool painfully in that foot because the artery/vein system was damaged at the foot end of things.
Just about every other year, I put on about 20 lbs in winter (but remained within my normal BMI range) because I exercised less in winter, and then I lost it with the extra exercise come spring. So gaining 20 lbs in winter was OK with me. I didn't mind starting the season with a little bit of extra weight. But that year, I realised that it wasn't a matter of exercising less ... it was a matter of not exercising at all. Sedentary barely described my activity level. So I made a point of eating less. I did gain some weight, but only about 15 lbs that winter instead of my usual 20.
I was bound and determined not to let that injury stop me. As soon as I could be upright without much pooling blood, I put my bandaged injured foot into a slipper and rode my stationary bike. In the beginning, I could only do about 5 minutes, but I slowly built up. And then, when the foot had healed to the point where my homecare nurse thought I could try a real shoe ... 3 months later ... the first shoe I tried was my cycling shoe. I actually shed tears of delight. I went on to have an even better year of cycling that next season, and dropped to the lowest weight I had been since I was about 18.
(Oh, and I had a full-time job + was taking night classes).
The point being that we've all got a choice when it comes to dealing with situations like that. Weight loss or weight maintenance is all about keeping a balance. If the amount of exercise decreases, like it no doubt will at some points, then we can choose to eat less. If the amount of exercise increases, like it does when we're ramping up toward an event, then we can choose to eat more. Just because something comes along to disrupt the exercise does not necessarily mean that all is lost.
In my experience, for me, this kind of awareness helps a lot with maintenance.
Oh dear, with all the replies this morning, i can see keeping up with this thread might be more work than i can handle.
Anyway to address machka's reply first.
I think your story rather supports my contention actually.
like me when you had to quit exercise you regained the lost weight. Nevertheless come spring you were able to resume exercise and you chose to rely on exercise as a key means to getting rid of the excess weight regain and or also not to regain as much weight in the future. I an others like me are frequently unable to hit the restart button so easily.
And my point is that you didn't have to resume exercise to get the weight off. You were ready to hit the restart button adn you could just have got the weight off with diet. I certainly don't discount your experience as having worked for you. What i'm saying is that it is possible to lose weight and keep it off without exercise. But IF your weight is very low, then YES you will have to do exercise to keep it off. And that's where the point I made about ideal body weight comes to be of significance.Read on...
In further response to sidesteel earlier on in his link with a study showing that people lose more wieght with exercise than without.
I agree that people will lose more weight with exercise than without. It has been my experience also. But i have come to see that being 55kg (the bottom end of my healthy weight range) is not my ideal body weight. It is too hard/too much work is required for me to maintain that low weight. If you want to maintain a very low body weight exericse is essential but this is way beyond matters of health and normality. And as i have pointed out already, you can get from being obese to being inside your healthy weight range easily without exericse.
If you want to go from being obese or overweight to being within your healthy weight range, you do not need to exercise at all . YOu can be as sedentary as you like but you will still find it quite easy if you do all of the above in my fundamentals. And this a most important point.
Even with me, i am now currently exercising. And i know it has helped me lose weight more easily at this end of my current weightloss story. But I do not need to exercise to lose to weight at a steady pace when i am 66kg, 70kg, 80kg or more. I do not even need ot exercise to get down to 63kg. But to get below that and to stay there it seems i do need to do regular exercise.
To get down to 61 kilograms i do not need to do much exercise. 30 minutes of moderate exercise is enough to give me more food to make me happy. But to get down to 55 kilogram or under 60kg then i seem to need to do a lot of exercise adn i need ot keep doing a lot of exercise almost every day.
NOw i am not sure that most people are willing or able to do that. I am neither willing nor able. I used to be willing. But i have seen that willingness is not enough. YOu need to be able to keep it going through thick and thin and I wasn't able to do that.
Hence my whole argument about exericse not being necessary to lose weight and keep it off.
I feel i've used too many words here and so i fear that many of you will still not get what i'm saying. I dont' think i can go over it here anymore on this particular point.
Down the track i will try to make alonger clearer argument about exercise.
that said, i have one more point to make in response to sidesteel's links which i have now looked at but maybe later.
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"Are you including the thread you started in the Fitness forum where you seemed to indicate that exercise might somehow be detrimental to us all?"
I know you are being cheeky but i do not recall suggesting anything like the notion that exercise could be detrimental us all on any thread.
Exercise is pretty much always good when its done for health and fitness. For health and fitness you do not need to do a lot of exercise. If people cnanot distinguish between what i mean by exercising for health and fitness versus exercising for weightloss, then I can't help you.0 -
Reply to CAITWN.
Thanks for your reply. I think we are more or less understanding each other now. And thanks for the correction about Kessler.
If i recall correctly Salis's work was with hormones. It is the hormones that trigger what she conceptualised as the famine reaction and the fat break.
Currently i myself seem to be going through a famine reaction episode. There doesn't seem to be any other clear explanation for my sudden increase in appetite and weight regain of a few pounds. But because i have been on the journey i'm on, I am not flustered by it. And i do intend to keep trying to stay below what i think may be my ideal body weight for a few more years.0 -
Patttience wrote: »
I agree that people will lose more weight with exercise than without. It has been my experience also. But i have come to see that being 55kg (the bottom end of my healthy weight range) is not my ideal body weight. It is too hard/too much work is required for me to maintain that low weight. If you want to maintain a very low body weight exericse is essential but this is way beyond matters of health and normality. And as i have pointed out already, you can get from being obese to being inside your healthy weight range easily without exericse.
Just to make a quick point about how individual this can all be - I'd say the same thing you just did for myself, only I'd switch diet and exercise! For me if I could envision a diet where I dumped all my favorite caloric things, I imagine I would easily get to and stay at a very low weight. Alas, all I can do is exercise while eating all the things, therefore for now I'm at the high side of a healthy weight0 -
Yes you see here while we may go about it differntly Jane, we are not in a disagreement. My fundamentals are for people to lose weight and stay in their healhty weight range. They are not for people to lose weight and get to their preferred body weight. For me keeping a low body weight is hardly an important matter in terms of health. What's important is for people to get into their healthy body weight range. Even getting into the overweight but not obese range is important if the scientists are to be believed when they say you can be overweight and not be risk of developing weight related diseases. But of course we do want to be in our healthy weight range. And many people want to be very thin. My fundamentals are not designed to help people to become very thin. For that, i would suggest indeed exercise is worthwhile but diet is still the most important factor because any length of time on a bad diet will ruin your health and if you are prone to weight gain anyway, will cause a rebound - the famine reaction because poor diet leads to lows in mood.
Its only now that I see this is about a distinction which might have been good to put at the outset but its only this long thread has made it clear to me that making the distinction is necessary.
That said, if you haven't yet tried dumping all your favourite caloric things and staying there for a while you might find it's not easy at all. Try it first and then tell me about it.
I don't eat very much junk or high caloric stuff at all though i do have a very varied diet and if i did want to have pizza one day I can. To eat at say 1200 calories every day is not something I find easy. And my food is geared very much to getting maximum bang for every calorie in terms of nutrition and satiety because i don't want to play the game of pushing through hunger. I believe it's better to eat if you are hungry. (Also what Dr Salis recommends).0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »TL:DR But seriously, 10 months? That's not "long term".
I began my journey in january 2014, reached goal in 10 months and have been maintaining another 10 months. Its a damn sight longer than i have ever been able to do it before and the way it feels so different on every level assures me that it will be 5 years 10 years etc.
I know that what i'm doing now can survive every road bump that's likely to come along. I know this because of my years of experience with weightloss. I'm just about 52. As well as what i know about all the ways i've gone about it and what is different this time.
The only thing i think that will seriously knock me over is a sliding into an enduring depression. My journey dealing with depression is pretty long. I have not just had many episodes. I've done a lot of personal growth work and therpies and my epsidoes for the last few years have been much shorter than previously and i've been able to avoid many episodes from getting established. My philosophy on life ensures that i should be able to roll with the punches much better than i have done in the past regardless of what happens in my life and my policy of getting professional help when i get stress i can't manage alone has helped me so much.
The particular element of my philosophy which is relevant here is the buddhist attitude and practice of letting go. Letting go enables you to avoid depression and or reduce the duration of it. Many people cling to things which cause them pain becuase they are afraid of their imagined future eg people clinging to relationships, jobs, wealth and so on. Anyway i do'nt want to stray too far from the subject of the first post. But so many people tend to pile on weight when they get depressed so i believe its essential to avoid it and or recover it and prioritise your mental health. People do have little experience with depression will have to deal with this when it strikes but if they follow my advice to do not delay to get professional help, they will recover more quickly.
Anyway I am confident that i can carry on as i am indefinitely. If it doesn't impress you enough to take me seriously, I am not bothered. I really had hoped that what i wrote would be enough but now i can see that all the ideas need to be fleshed out much more in order for people to take me seriously.
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Patttience wrote: »
I was in the same situation (re having to quit exercise due to injury adn consequent regain)... I had one of my best years of cycling and finished the season slim and trim. Then I had an accident and burnt my left foot to the bone. Could not leave the house for 5 weeks. Could hardly move at all for those 5 weeks. Just standing caused the blood to pool painfully in that foot because the artery/vein system was damaged at the foot end of things.
Just about every other year, I put on about 20 lbs in winter (but remained within my normal BMI range) because I exercised less in winter, and then I lost it with the extra exercise come spring. So gaining 20 lbs in winter was OK with me. I didn't mind starting the season with a little bit of extra weight. But that year, I realised that it wasn't a matter of exercising less ... it was a matter of not exercising at all. Sedentary barely described my activity level. So I made a point of eating less. I did gain some weight, but only about 15 lbs that winter instead of my usual 20.
I was bound and determined not to let that injury stop me. As soon as I could be upright without much pooling blood, I put my bandaged injured foot into a slipper and rode my stationary bike. In the beginning, I could only do about 5 minutes, but I slowly built up. And then, when the foot had healed to the point where my homecare nurse thought I could try a real shoe ... 3 months later ... the first shoe I tried was my cycling shoe. I actually shed tears of delight. I went on to have an even better year of cycling that next season, and dropped to the lowest weight I had been since I was about 18.
(Oh, and I had a full-time job + was taking night classes).
The point being that we've all got a choice when it comes to dealing with situations like that. Weight loss or weight maintenance is all about keeping a balance. If the amount of exercise decreases, like it no doubt will at some points, then we can choose to eat less. If the amount of exercise increases, like it does when we're ramping up toward an event, then we can choose to eat more. Just because something comes along to disrupt the exercise does not necessarily mean that all is lost.
In my experience, for me, this kind of awareness helps a lot with maintenance.
Anyway to address machka's reply first.
I think your story rather supports my contention actually.
like me when you had to quit exercise you regained the lost weight. Nevertheless come spring you were able to resume exercise and you chose to rely on exercise as a key means to getting rid of the excess weight regain and or also not to regain as much weight in the future. I an others like me are frequently unable to hit the restart button so easily.
Allow me to clarify ...
I have an acceptable weight range. A weight range in which I'm happy. And that weight range is approx. 125 to 140 lbs. I'm also OK if it goes a bit lower or higher than that, but I generally prefer to be in that 125-140 range.
When I was cycling a lot, I would drop to about 118 lbs during the summer, which is underweight for me. I tried not to, but I just couldn't keep up with that amount of exercise. So, come winter, I would deliberately try to gain about 20 lbs by continuing to eat the same amount I did when I exercised. If all went well, that would take me up close to 140 lbs which would give me something to work with throughout the summer so that I wouldn't drop too low by the end of the season. Therefore, most of the time, I was in my happy weight range ... but sometimes toward the end of the season, I'd drop into underweight.
Occasionally, I'd gain the weight a little faster in the off-season than intended and might hit a weight near 140 by, say, Christmas, so then I'd just cut back on the amount I ate or I might add a bit of exercise just to put the brakes on and maintain until March when the season began and I started losing.
Occasionally, during the season, I'd drop the weight a little faster than intended and would find myself in the grocery store looking for high calorie food in small packages.
As I've said before, it's all about balance. Sure, occasionally, it can take a little bit of adjustment to get the right balance going. Sometimes we might gain or lose a little bit too fast, but since it is all just CICO ... and math, really ... it's just a matter of reducing from or adding to one side of the equation or the other.
I'm a numbers person and the math works for me.Patttience wrote: »And my point is that you didn't have to resume exercise to get the weight off. You were ready to hit the restart button adn you could just have got the weight off with diet. I certainly don't discount your experience as having worked for you. What i'm saying is that it is possible to lose weight and keep it off without exercise.
I think I've mentioned this before elsewhere ...
CICO means that calories in (what we consume) should be less calories out (what we burn). This can be accomplished in a number of ways:
-- A person can reduce the amount they eat, and not do much exercise, if any.
-- A person can eat the same amount as always, and burn it off with exercise.
-- A person can do both ... reduce the amount the eat and increase the exercise.
All three methods work. I've done all three at different times of my life.
But I prefer a method to both lose weight and maintain my weight within my happy weight range that involves exercise for many reason including things like:
-- enjoyment
-- stress relief
-- feeling stronger to accomplish more
-- feeling healthier
-- being able to eat more
-- and sustainability.
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OP, your insistence that after 10 months you know better than everyone what works goes well beyond arrogance and into hubris.
There are rules. It is incumbant that people understand the basic rules and make adjustments for themselves.
Advocating people don't work out is comically obtuse. Advocating it in conjunction with mental health is borderline criminal.
http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/guide/get-regular-exercise-for-mental-health-topic-overview
I'm glad you found what works for you. Just don't tell other people you haven't met that have been doing this a lot longer than you, especially when many of them are trained in this field, that you know better than them.0 -
Not everyone has to deal with mental health issues...
Not everyone eats veggies and maintains weight loss.
losing weight and maintaining weight are two different things...
Have you read any research from the weight loss registry?
http://www.nwcr.ws/research/ these people are all those who lost...and maintained for a long time...
and not my post agrees with you except for losing weight is as simple as CICO the rest are for health and/or fitness...wow
I have been here since June 2013...lost my weight and have maintained since...trying a new goal weight (5lbs lower than my maintenance) and my fundamentals are as follows:
1. Log accurately and consistently
2. maintain my macros for health - get in enough protein to help maintain my muscle mass esp since I lift heavy.
3. maintain my exercise for fitness
Simple easy direct.
And to be very frank you don't need any of them except CICO to lose weight...let me reference the twinkie diet or the high school teacher who ate at McDonalds as an experiment for his students and lost weight.
To lose weight it is CICO and as long as you stay in a deficit you lose weight.
Maintenance is about CICO and as long as you stay in check you won't gain or lose.
...
You are missing the points I have made 2x due to your defensivness and you are missing the FACT that I agreed all your points were important for maintenance and health and fitness..smh
so I am off and won't be back to say it 3x because apparently unless I just say "nice post" you think I am disagreeing...
+1
+2
OP I been maintaining now for a year doing CI/CO. I exercise for health and sometimes for ice cream.
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Coolhand, you clearly have not read or understood my posts. You seem to think that i have drawn all of this from ONLY my own experience when time and again i have said this is a combination of my own experience, and that of scientists and other experts in the field.
You calling me borderline criminal just shows how ignorant you are about any of this. Please read my posts carefully before writing another posts and look for those points above and what i actually say about the goals of losing weight. And note that i have not ever said that people should not exercise.
Now please go away if you can't do any of that.
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I cannto be bothered to go back and find previous quotes so i will rewrite it since you can't find it either.
1. The Men Who Made us Thin on youtube is a BBC program which interviews with scientists and discusses studies about exercise and all the rest of the exercise industry.
2. Dr Michael Mosley on exercise also on YouTube in which he advoates HIIT. but HIIT is hardly practical for obese people.
3. Psychiatrist and ex gym owner Dr George Blair West who wrote a book called Weight Loss for Food lovers in whidch he writes a chapter full of reasons and argument as to why exercise is not necessary for weightloss and can be counterproductive.
4. I have mentioned Dr Amanda Sainsburies Salis book many times for her discussion on set point theory and how that pertains to the notion of ideal body weight.
Because i udnerstand people will assume that these are the only sources i draw on, i will mention that i have been reading many other books. And i have mentioned all these sources in a great many posts on this forum including recent ones about CICO nad exercise. If i didn't put it on this particular thread then i am mistaken becuase i thought i had. I know i have put it in pms to certain poster that have written to me in recent days about these threads.
To post one study here or there is of almost no consequence. Scientific fact is not established from one study. Science is made from repeatable studies and concensus tends to come from a range of studies with the same conclusions. Dr West said her surveyed all the studies on exercise to come up wtih his conclusions and i believe him becuase what he says confirms my experience.
There is another really important show on youtube which figures largely in my personal approach but which is not directly relevant above but since i am posting some of my favourite programs i might as well put it out there. Its about the importance of fibre for health. The show is called Gut Reaction and its on youtube and produced by Catalyst a respected tv science show from Australia.
Anyway i think i'm done with this thread. If anyone wants to actually get a better understand of what i am talking about and is not just on about tearing me down, then please feel free to pm me.
but i will reiterate a few things;
My fundamentals are this:
To lose weight (to get from obese or overweight to inside your healthy weight range) AND to maintain a healthy body weight in the long term I believe these things are vital.
1. CICO. Yes this is baseline fact of the matter. You can't eat more than you burn or the same as you burn if you want to lose weight. You must eat less. But you will probably find this hard if not impossible to do if you do not factor in the following to your program.
2. Exercise. You do not need to exercise to lose weight and if you are unable to lose weight without exercise you risk failure. That said, exercise is good for you so in the long term it is indeed worth finding a form of exercise that you enjoy and do regularly.
3. Vegetables. Can't see how anyone prone to weightgain can sustain weightloss if you are malnourished and or eating a poor diet.
4. If you do not prioritise yoru mental health and maintain a fairly happy and optimistic outlook you will likely succumb to depression which for many if not most leads to poor food choices and lack of concern for your weight. So resolve stress early and find soltuions to life's problems. GEt help if you need to. But don't delay.
5. Trying to achieve a very low body weight is not sustainable for most people. It requires a lot of work (exercise) and so it is worth understanding that your body might have its own ideal weight adn that is where you will find it easy to maintain. I'm not saying one should settle for htis but it is important to understand how this concept.
the phone ….I'll have to finish later.0
This discussion has been closed.
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