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What are your unpopular opinions about health / fitness?
Replies
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cmriverside wrote: »There is plenty of protein to be had in actual food. Resorting to powdered protein seems like a waste of yummy real food. So expensive, too.
I don't know if I agree or disagree with this one. It's true, and I try to get my protein from food, but sometimes I just want protein without the calorie baggage that comes with other protein rich foods which I'm very picky about. I just would rather have it all, hit my protein goal (which isn't even that high) and eat all the things I like (which are often not high in protein). When my day is at an acceptable level of protein I don't use the powder, when it's not I supplement. I fight these mental battles every time I buy a new tub wondering if it's worth the (very expensive) price I'm paying, but then when I dig into my second plate of mushrooms and potatoes it feels so worth it. It's always a tug-o-war in my head.11 -
i hear this being preach to newbies so often,
"food is food, theres no junk food"
"calorie is calorie, it makes no difference to the body"
I want to see these people who preach that just drink beers all day long n then go lift with progressive overload in the gym
I don't think you understand what a calorie is. And I suspect that anyone who suggested it would be a good idea to drink beer all day and lift would be laughed out of the forums.
why is everybody reading this wrong. NOBODY suggested to drink beer all day long n go lift. it is my SARCASTIC suggestion/remark to people who preach "food is food"
But you're switching goals. If the goal is 'weight loss', then yes, calorie deficit is the method that's needed. But if the goal is different (such as lifting weights) then the method will also be different.
The idea behind progressive overload also applies to eating habits - make small, sustainable changes. Then when you're comfortable with those, make some more small, sustainable changes. There are different ways of arriving at a calorie deficit - smaller amounts of what you already eat, or switching to foods that are less calorie-dense, or switching to foods that give higher satisfaction. Trying to do all of that right at the beginning is more likely to result in frustration and failure.
Finally, I don't think I've ever seen someone post "calorie is calorie, it makes no difference to the body" on any of the forums. I've seen "it makes no difference in terms of weight loss," but that's not the same thing.11 -
cmriverside wrote: »There is plenty of protein to be had in actual food. Resorting to powdered protein seems like a waste of yummy real food. So expensive, too.
Seconded. And I'm a vegetarian with a medium-high goal, around 1g per pound of wild guess at LBM.
Don't even get me started on fake meat: Mostly expensive, salty/fatty, yucky.3 -
cmriverside wrote: »There is plenty of protein to be had in actual food. Resorting to powdered protein seems like a waste of yummy real food. So expensive, too.
Seconded. And I'm a vegetarian with a medium-high goal, around 1g per pound of wild guess at LBM.
Don't even get me started on fake meat: Mostly expensive, salty/fatty, yucky.
Protein powder is processed, too. Oh noes.
I can't tell you how many Food pages I've seen with two or three servings of protein powder through the day. I don't get it; but then I am not one of those 1g per pound of body weight people. The last time I posted that protein was fine at 1g per kg, I got jumped on by half a dozen MFP posters. I stand by my belief.
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cmriverside wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »There is plenty of protein to be had in actual food. Resorting to powdered protein seems like a waste of yummy real food. So expensive, too.
Seconded. And I'm a vegetarian with a medium-high goal, around 1g per pound of wild guess at LBM.
Don't even get me started on fake meat: Mostly expensive, salty/fatty, yucky.
Protein powder is processed, too. Oh noes.
I can't tell you how many Food pages I've seen with two or three servings of protein powder through the day. I don't get it; but then I am not one of those 1g per pound of body weight people. The last time I posted that protein was fine at 1g per kg, I got jumped on by half a dozen MFP posters. I stand by my belief.
I get over 1g/lb just fine with 15g collagen powder my only "non food".... I don't get needing to use a lot of supplements either. There's so many better things to spend calories on!0 -
cmriverside wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »There is plenty of protein to be had in actual food. Resorting to powdered protein seems like a waste of yummy real food. So expensive, too.
Seconded. And I'm a vegetarian with a medium-high goal, around 1g per pound of wild guess at LBM.
Don't even get me started on fake meat: Mostly expensive, salty/fatty, yucky.
Protein powder is processed, too. Oh noes.
I can't tell you how many Food pages I've seen with two or three servings of protein powder through the day. I don't get it; but then I am not one of those 1g per pound of body weight people. The last time I posted that protein was fine at 1g per kg, I got jumped on by half a dozen MFP posters. I stand by my belief.
"Processed" is fine by me. I mean, I have standards about what I prefer to eat, but I'm never even sure what "processed" means, let alone "clean".
But IMO, life is way too short for calories that don't taste good (to me). If anyone tries to feed me another Quest protein chip, Imma smack 'em. It's assault if someone tries to feed you salty sawdust, right? It's simple self defense.
Usually when I post on protein threads, I say that amounts are controversial, and that bodies like USDA/WHO suggest amounts like your goal. Then I advocate for my opinion. I'm sticking with my opinion, too. 4 -
Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
How often do you get stuck with your car because you didn't know exactly to the millilitre how much gas you needed?
Did you know that it's also impossible to accurately calculate gas mileage, because there is much more to it than meets the eye? There are multiple variables that can throw the math off (acceleration, road surface, air temperature/density, altitude, speed, grades, wind drag factor, etc.). The burn measurements are often extremely imprecise, yet the vast majority of people are perfectly capable of filling their cars up with fuel before they run out of gas.
Perfect analogy
I like this analogy too. The thing is, I know how much fuel my car needs and when because it has a little gauge that tells me. The gauge in my body that tells me when I need more fuel, however, is a freaking troll!
I feel like eating when I don't need to. Thankfully, I am able to ignore this gauge (sometimes) and stick to counting calories. Which would also work driving a car without a gauge I suppose, but with much higher risk of getting stuck somewhere with no fuel. 4 -
cmriverside wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »There is plenty of protein to be had in actual food. Resorting to powdered protein seems like a waste of yummy real food. So expensive, too.
Seconded. And I'm a vegetarian with a medium-high goal, around 1g per pound of wild guess at LBM.
Don't even get me started on fake meat: Mostly expensive, salty/fatty, yucky.
Protein powder is processed, too. Oh noes.
I can't tell you how many Food pages I've seen with two or three servings of protein powder through the day. I don't get it; but then I am not one of those 1g per pound of body weight people. The last time I posted that protein was fine at 1g per kg, I got jumped on by half a dozen MFP posters. I stand by my belief.
"Processed" is fine by me. I mean, I have standards about what I prefer to eat, but I'm never even sure what "processed" means, let alone "clean".
But IMO, life is way too short for calories that don't taste good (to me). If anyone tries to feed me another Quest protein chip, Imma smack 'em. It's assault if someone tries to feed you salty sawdust, right? It's simple self defense.
Usually when I post on protein threads, I say that amounts are controversial, and that bodies like USDA/WHO suggest amounts like your goal. Then I advocate for my opinion. I'm sticking with my opinion, too.
I *may* have used language in my (past controversial post) that *may* have been a little/lot more absolute than your approach. I like being right.
I don't even like protein bars. They're just expensive cereal mashed into a wedge with protein powder sprinkled in 'em. Never even heard of protein chips.2 -
I mostly prefer to get my protein from "real food" (although whey is real food, IMO), but every once in a while I just want to drink breakfast, and adding some protein powder to a smoothie tastes good and makes it more filling for me.
It's funny that this happened to come up when I'm just in from a 6 mile run in the sun and wanted something quick and cold for breakfast, so whipped up a smoothie including protein powder. (It's also way off my normal macros, but I just was in the mood for it -- nothing to do with worrying about protein as my protein is usually over my goal.)
I don't find that protein powder is more expensive than at least some of my normal sources of protein (pastured meat, fish), or even necessarily more per gram of protein than something like Fage, I haven't checked. It lasts forever, which makes it a convenient thing to have in the house.
So I guess (not sure if this is unpopular or not), don't assume you know why someone is consuming something, or that they aren't choosing it simply because they enjoy it.4 -
cmriverside wrote: »There is plenty of protein to be had in actual food. Resorting to powdered protein seems like a waste of yummy real food. So expensive, too.
I think it depends on your protein goal as well as convenience. I usually have a chicken breast for lunch, fish or something else for dinner, as well as higher protein snacks but I like to fill in the gaps with protein powder. I buy flavourless so I add it to other foods (yogurt, pancakes, oatmeal etc) without changing the flavour or adding fat, carbs etc so it doesn't affect my other macros. I probably get more than I need.. but it fills me up too.2 -
veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
haha you get so defensive it's crazy.
She never said flawed. She said imperfect and imprecise. Which is 100% is. Everyone makes it seem like this easy formula that you just plug in what you burn, and then eat 500 less than that and you lose weight. Yeah, if it was that easy no one would ever have any issues. But you NEVER really know what your calorie expenditure is, at best it's an educated guess, and most of the time it's based off some random calculator online that knows NOTHING about you, your health, your body functions, your lean mass, your bone structure, NOTHING. It just says, most men, at your age, who are that tall are expected to burn this much.
That's why when people offer for people to try and lose 0.5 pound per week its absolutely ridiculous. That's so small of a deficit that one day you might be in a deficit and the next you might be in a surplus because one day you went to work and sat around all day, and that Saturday you took your kid to a soccer game and burned the extra 250 calories walking for 45 min to and from the field and getting everything set up.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.5 -
CipherZero wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »
Here's the thing, and the link will no doubt be posted soon... It's possible to fuel effective progressive overload with "junk food"... someone on MFP with an open diary did it... for 90+ days with photos and detailed logs.
SO it's pretty well settled... FOOD is food.. calories are calories.
Check what NFL, NBA, Olympic athletes use to fuel their training. Sure there is some junk food, but most of it is nutrient dense.
You definitely shouldn't base what your diet and training should look like based on what genetic outliers do.
Genetic outliers?
How about hardest working athletes? You're weak.1 -
Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
How often do you get stuck with your car because you didn't know exactly to the millilitre how much gas you needed?
Did you know that it's also impossible to accurately calculate gas mileage, because there is much more to it than meets the eye? There are multiple variables that can throw the math off (acceleration, road surface, air temperature/density, altitude, speed, grades, wind drag factor, etc.). The burn measurements are often extremely imprecise, yet the vast majority of people are perfectly capable of filling their cars up with fuel before they run out of gas.
Perfect analogy
That's a terrible analogy? Theres a gas meter, haha2 -
She never said flawed. She said imperfect and imprecise. Which is 100% is. Everyone makes it seem like this easy formula that you just plug in what you burn, and then eat 500 less than that and you lose weight. Yeah, if it was that easy no one would ever have any issues.
It is that easy. If you are maintaining, cut out 500 calories.
If you've been logging, calculate an estimated TDEE.
Or start with a calculator estimate and adjust based on results.People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
Bodies don't slow down metabolic functions because you eat "crap" for 6 weeks (also, why would you do that?). They certainly don't slow down metabolic functions because you fail to eat perfectly "clean" (whatever that even means) for 6 weeks, since no one is suggesting that people eat poor diets. They DO eventually slow down metabolic functions somewhat if you cut way too low or combine intense exercise with inadequate calories over time.3 -
veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
haha you get so defensive it's crazy.
She never said flawed. She said imperfect and imprecise. Which is 100% is. Everyone makes it seem like this easy formula that you just plug in what you burn, and then eat 500 less than that and you lose weight. Yeah, if it was that easy no one would ever have any issues. But you NEVER really know what your calorie expenditure is, at best it's an educated guess, and most of the time it's based off some random calculator online that knows NOTHING about you, your health, your body functions, your lean mass, your bone structure, NOTHING. It just says, most men, at your age, who are that tall are expected to burn this much.
That's why when people offer for people to try and lose 0.5 pound per week its absolutely ridiculous. That's so small of a deficit that one day you might be in a deficit and the next you might be in a surplus because one day you went to work and sat around all day, and that Saturday you took your kid to a soccer game and burned the extra 250 calories walking for 45 min to and from the field and getting everything set up.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
Yeah, but YOU know about you, your health, your body functions, your lean mass, your bone structure...etc. All it takes is a couple of months of watching what your body does and adjusting your calories accordingly. Most people on this forum have the mental capacity to adjust their intake/activity up or down. It really is that simple. While I don't think anyone should eat crap (that's disgusting) it's not going to slow down your metabolic functions.
What's interesting to me is that people judge counting calories as inaccurate then advocate methods that are so far off on the precision scale it's not even funny. If it's precision that you want, counting calories is your best bet. If that's not what you want in weight management tool, then why bring it up in the first place?
Going back to the car analogy: while you can't calculate your exact mileage, after driving your car for a while you know that driving from point A to point B needs a full tank. How close or far that value is from the manufacturer stated mileage is irrelevant, what YOUR car does is all that matters.9 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
haha you get so defensive it's crazy.
She never said flawed. She said imperfect and imprecise. Which is 100% is. Everyone makes it seem like this easy formula that you just plug in what you burn, and then eat 500 less than that and you lose weight. Yeah, if it was that easy no one would ever have any issues. But you NEVER really know what your calorie expenditure is, at best it's an educated guess, and most of the time it's based off some random calculator online that knows NOTHING about you, your health, your body functions, your lean mass, your bone structure, NOTHING. It just says, most men, at your age, who are that tall are expected to burn this much.
That's why when people offer for people to try and lose 0.5 pound per week its absolutely ridiculous. That's so small of a deficit that one day you might be in a deficit and the next you might be in a surplus because one day you went to work and sat around all day, and that Saturday you took your kid to a soccer game and burned the extra 250 calories walking for 45 min to and from the field and getting everything set up.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
Yeah, but YOU know about you, your health, your body functions, your lean mass, your bone structure...etc. All it takes is a couple of months of watching what your body does and adjusting your calories accordingly. Most people on this forum have the mental capacity to adjust their intake/activity up or down. It really is that simple. While I don't think anyone should eat crap (that's disgusting) it's not going to slow down your metabolic functions.
What's interesting to me is that people judge counting calories as inaccurate then advocate methods that are so far off on the precision scale it's not even funny. If it's precision that you want, counting calories is your best bet. If that's not what you want in weight management tool, then why bring it up in the first place?
Going back to the car analogy: while you can't calculate your exact mileage, after driving your car for a while you know that driving from point A to point B needs a full tank. How close or far that value is from the manufacturer stated mileage is irrelevant, what YOUR car does is all that matters.
I am not judging it to be this completely in accurate thing and that I may actually be burning 5,000 calories and I'm only eating 3,000, I am saying that people on here make it seem like it is just cut and dry and super easy for someone to just join the forum, get their calculated TDEE and then eat that. That's not how it works, I agree it takes monthsssss and as your body changes, and your activity changes, that number drastically changes. But you constantly see someone coming on here saying that they are doing this much activity and eating this much food and everyone attacks them saying that they must not be tracking accurately, tracking everything, or eating back exercise calories, and just trying so hard to defend this estimate (almost abstract) number that has been given to them that could be completely inaccurate.0 -
veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
haha you get so defensive it's crazy.
She never said flawed. She said imperfect and imprecise. Which is 100% is. Everyone makes it seem like this easy formula that you just plug in what you burn, and then eat 500 less than that and you lose weight. Yeah, if it was that easy no one would ever have any issues. But you NEVER really know what your calorie expenditure is, at best it's an educated guess, and most of the time it's based off some random calculator online that knows NOTHING about you, your health, your body functions, your lean mass, your bone structure, NOTHING. It just says, most men, at your age, who are that tall are expected to burn this much.
That's why when people offer for people to try and lose 0.5 pound per week its absolutely ridiculous. That's so small of a deficit that one day you might be in a deficit and the next you might be in a surplus because one day you went to work and sat around all day, and that Saturday you took your kid to a soccer game and burned the extra 250 calories walking for 45 min to and from the field and getting everything set up.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
I guess you missed the part where I said "I refined my calorie goals based upon feedback from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along". No formula is perfect, but you have perfectly viable feedback mechanisms to measure whether it's working or not, and/or how much it's working. This ain't rocket science.
[ETA:] I'd be very interested to hear how you think weight loss works.9 -
Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
How often do you get stuck with your car because you didn't know exactly to the millilitre how much gas you needed?
Did you know that it's also impossible to accurately calculate gas mileage, because there is much more to it than meets the eye? There are multiple variables that can throw the math off (acceleration, road surface, air temperature/density, altitude, speed, grades, wind drag factor, etc.). The burn measurements are often extremely imprecise, yet the vast majority of people are perfectly capable of filling their cars up with fuel before they run out of gas.
Perfect analogy
That's a terrible analogy? Theres a gas meter, haha
And there's a scale, tape measure and/or skinfold calipers which can serve as a person's "meter", haha.15 -
veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
Nope. It'll be because your body used to need 2000 calories to maintain at your previous weight and now you've lost enough that it only needs 1750. Or whatever. I started with a 1710 calorie allotment. 62.4 pounds lost and I'm now at 1380. Nothing to do with eating crap. Everything to do with needing fewer calories to fuel what's left of me.12 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
Nope. It'll be because your body used to need 2000 calories to maintain at your previous weight and now you've lost enough that it only needs 1750. Or whatever. I started with a 1710 calorie allotment. 62.4 pounds lost and I'm now at 1380. Nothing to do with eating crap. Everything to do with needing fewer calories to fuel what's left of me.
But you understand something about the physiology behind it... 1 -
I hang out here a lot.
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estherdragonbat wrote: »veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
Nope. It'll be because your body used to need 2000 calories to maintain at your previous weight and now you've lost enough that it only needs 1750. Or whatever. I started with a 1710 calorie allotment. 62.4 pounds lost and I'm now at 1380. Nothing to do with eating crap. Everything to do with needing fewer calories to fuel what's left of me.
The 62 pounds of fat lost would lower your daily calorie burn by less than 200 calories. Somewhere between 124 and 186. Which means you also would have lost muscle mass, which means you would have lost somewhere between 8-10 pounds of muscle along the way, not ideal. 1380 is not a healthy amount of calories to maintain off of.estherdragonbat wrote: »veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
Nope. It'll be because your body used to need 2000 calories to maintain at your previous weight and now you've lost enough that it only needs 1750. Or whatever. I started with a 1710 calorie allotment. 62.4 pounds lost and I'm now at 1380. Nothing to do with eating crap. Everything to do with needing fewer calories to fuel what's left of me.
But you understand something about the physiology behind it...
Aren't you the one that always comes in talking about context?
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Who's maintaining? I've got another 61 lbs to go. But as far as muscle goes, I've been doing strength training. Some muscle loss is inevitable with any weight loss, but I've seen improvements in strength and endurance. I imagine I'll end up maintaining around 1800 or so, depending. Probably more; the 1380 is base before exercise and I'm not planning to stop exercising when I hit goal.4
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veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
haha you get so defensive it's crazy.
She never said flawed. She said imperfect and imprecise. Which is 100% is. Everyone makes it seem like this easy formula that you just plug in what you burn, and then eat 500 less than that and you lose weight. Yeah, if it was that easy no one would ever have any issues. But you NEVER really know what your calorie expenditure is, at best it's an educated guess, and most of the time it's based off some random calculator online that knows NOTHING about you, your health, your body functions, your lean mass, your bone structure, NOTHING. It just says, most men, at your age, who are that tall are expected to burn this much.
That's why when people offer for people to try and lose 0.5 pound per week its absolutely ridiculous. That's so small of a deficit that one day you might be in a deficit and the next you might be in a surplus because one day you went to work and sat around all day, and that Saturday you took your kid to a soccer game and burned the extra 250 calories walking for 45 min to and from the field and getting everything set up.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
I guess you missed the part where I said "I refined my calorie goals based upon feedback from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along". No formula is perfect, but you have perfectly viable feedback mechanisms to measure whether it's working or not, and/or how much it's working. This ain't rocket science.
[ETA:] I'd be very interested to hear how you think weight loss works.
I am not arguing that the laws of thermodynamics aren't true.
What I am arguing is that it's not as easy as people make it out to be. It's not as easy as saying, well the treadmill said I burned 500 calories on the treadmill and this chocolate bar is 500 calories, so if I do this everyday, I can eat this chocolate bar everyday and just walk on the treadmill everyday for 500 calories and not gain weight. That will not stand true. Over time your body starts to adjust and become more efficient. The second day you may only burn 499 calories even though the treadmill says you've burned 500, but the chocolate bar is still equally as dense. At some point you will become efficient enough where the calories in (chocolate bar) will exceed the calories out (treadmill), to the point where weight loss will slow or stall. If you have a huge deficit and are eating 1200 calories a day (which is seems like half the people on here are doing), which is absolutely ridiculous, of course you'll continue to lose weight, you're essentially starving yourself and it would be difficult to be in a surplus at that many calories.
CICO is not as easy as it seems. And don't come back saying yeah it is cause I lost X amount of weight counting my calories. Yeah so what, so has everyone, but no one actually knows if they were being as efficient as they could be until after the fact, which is when you make adjustments for the future, but you still don't know how those adjustments will work until another future time.1 -
kshama2001 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »exercising to lose weight is dumb. Especially spending time on a treadmill to justify a candy bar.
I'm a very short older woman. If I didn't exercise on my treadmill, I'd have the paltry caloric allowance of 1200 calories to create a 150 calorie deficit since my maintenance for being sedentary is 1,350 calories.
I don't want to eat like a toddler.
Can't say enough how awesomely true for me this is.
My (maybe) unpopular opinion:
Maybe you can eat crap food (hamburgers, soda, ice cream (weep a little), candy bars, milk shakes) and make it all fit into your calories for the day, but food is fuel for me, and my body doesn't function properly when I feed it garbage. Good for you if you can make it work. But I actually doubt even you (whoever you are) can make that work for a lifetime of health.
A hamburger is bread, meat, and maybe some toppings. A body can easily use bread and meat as fuel. It's carbohydrates, protein, and fat -- three things I'm eating every day anyway. Also consider the micronutrients it contains like iron, B12, potassium, and B6 and I'm confused as to why anyone would think a hamburger is "garbage."
I'd call hamburgers from McDonald's "garbage" in that their taste is vastly inferior to the burgers I make myself or get at local, non chain restaurants.
In the context of that post, it didn't seem to be about taste. The statement was made that the individual's body wouldn't function properly on hamburgers. Given that everybody has different tastes, I think blanket statements about whole types of food being "garbage" don't make much sense. A McDonald's hamburger isn't for me or for you, that's fine. But many people do genuinely enjoy them.
Interestingly, my OH, who eats fast food all the time, considers burgers as a whole to be junk food while I reserve my disdain for burgers that taste inferior to me.
Just goes to show what an interesting term "junk food" is. Two people can use it and mean very different things.
It's very interesting. You need to deconstruct the burger ingredients, form them into a "proper" meal, then call it a fancy name. It stops being junk food right away, and may even be called "healthy" and "high protein".
Yeah, if I told you that I was making a hand-formed freshly-ground beef patty served on an artisan roll with aioli, local greens, heirloom tomatoes, bacon from a heritage pig, and small-batch cheese, most people probably wouldn't call that junk food . . . even if the macros were pretty much the same as another, less fancy, hamburger. Or maybe people would. I can't even guess anymore.
As a vegan you may have to just trust me on this - there will be no comparison in taste.
I haven't had a fast food burger since seeing the ammonia plants in Food, Inc., but for discussions like this, I had a bite of my OH's BK burger and it's just not the same as what I make at home or get at non-fast food chain restaurants.
I'm not referring to the taste. Different ingredients and preparation methods can results in different tastes. You don't have to eat meat and cheese to realize that.
Also, I have only been vegan for about ten years. Before that, I ate animal products (including fast food burgers, homemade burgers, and non-fast food restaurant burgers).2 -
ForecasterJason wrote: »
Over here in the U.S., I'm pretty sure those same foods would be laced with preservatives, particularly when it comes to cheaper brands.VintageFeline wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »@WinoGelato I will admit that my first thought when i see diaries over run with packet/convenience/take away meals is they are either lazy and/or cant cook :blushing:
Awesome. Let me tell you about my typical weekday. Wake at 5:30 am. Spend about 30 minutes with morning routine. 6-6:15 am I check emails that came in overnight from Europe and Asia for work and answer any which are critical. Work out from 6;15 -7:15 am. 7:15-7:30 get my kids (6 and 8 year old boys) up and get them ready for the day (breakfast, make sure they got dressed, brushed teeth, etc, pack lunches for them). 7:30-8am I get ready for work. 8-8:30 I gather everything up for myself (computer, breakfast, lunch) and the kids (backpacks, water bottles, lunches, and the stuff they need for evening activities as well), drive to drop them off at school and then get myself to work by 8:30 or 8:45. I heat my breakfast up (if hot breakfast like a breakfast sandwich or bowl) or eat the yogurt, granola, and fruit I brought from home while I am getting situated in the office. I am in meetings most of the day, and when I do break for lunch, I either have leftovers from a meal that I cooked myself the night before, or I have a frozen meal that I can heat up. I eat at my desk and go for a 30 minute walk at lunch. I work till 5:30 and leave to get my kids by 5:45 or 6pm, then take them to soccer or baseball practice, tutoring, scouts. Sometimes multiple activities in the same night. The whole time I am trying to walk, as well as check more emails on my phone, sometimes calls with Asia while I am at the ball field. We usually get home from the activities by 7:30, at which point I help them with homework (15-30 min) and then have to figure out dinner. Yes, I like to cook and am not bad at it - but on nights like this often hamburger helper with a salad, or a skillet meal, or grilled cheese and tomato soup wins. I get that together while the kids are in the bath, we try to eat around 8pm, and then I spend about an hour putting them to bed and reading to them. By the time I get them in bed it is after 9pm and I have to clean up the kitchen, lay out clothes for the next day, - sometimes if I do want to cook myself a nice meal I do it after they have gone to bed and I eat around 9:30 pm. I spend about an hour just vegging out, watching TV, before getting ready for bed around 10:30, reading for a half hour or so, and finally go to sleep around 11 pm so I can get up and do it all over again.
I can see how that makes me sound lazy.
But thank you for making the point about why my opinion that these foods are a helpful addition to my life is unpopular.
BRA-*kitten*-VO.
Perhaps before assuming someone is lazy, you may consider they may have less time on their hands than you perhaps do.
I don't tend to think people lazy for choosing convenience foods except for cases where I know it's true. But I do think they are often using lack of time as an excuse to eat convenience foods instead of something that might be a little healthier. It doesn't take any longer to bake frozen fish and precut broccoli in the oven than it does a frozen pizza. It doesn't take any longer to make an omelet or stir fry using precut vegetables than it does to make Hamburger Helper.
I'm not suggesting anyone shouldn't eat whatever they want, just saying I rarely buy the "I don't have time" excuse.
How about those of us with chronic illnesses that physically or cognitively impair ones ability to cook. Even sometimes things you can throw in the oven. I forget and burn things. Not yet burned my flat down but that's because I know when not to cook.
I don't use frozen meals but here in the UK we have massive choice of fresh meals from the fridge. My nutrition and macros are fine.
Here's the ingredients of a few of those awful convenience foods.
This is chilli and rice:
Cooked Rice (Water, Long Grain Rice), Red Pepper (18%), British Beef (17%), Onion, Red Kidney Beans (11%), Tomato (6%), Beef Stock (Beef Juices, Tomato Paste, Onion, Carrot), Tomato Purée, Cornflour, Garlic Purée, Rapeseed Oil, Coriander Leaf, Cumin, Salt, Smoked Paprika, Molasses, Chilli Powder, Oregano, Coriander, Black Pepper.
Tomato and basil chicken:
Baby Potato (42%), Tomato (25%), British Chicken (20%), Onion, Water, Rapeseed Oil, Sundried Tomato, Garlic Purée, Tomato Purée, Sugar, Cornflour, Olive Oil, Sunflower Oil, Rosemary, Basil, Salt, Potato Starch, White Wine Vinegar, Oregano, Black Pepper, Lemon Juice from Concentrate, Garlic Extract, Basil Extract.
But yeah, totally nutritionally deficient and full of preservatives. Carry on judging me.
Untrue. I'm a big label reader (because I'm vegan) and it's become much easier (especially in the last few years) to find ready-to-eat/convenience foods that aren't "laced with preservatives." I don't personally avoid preservatives, but I've noticed the swing in the market as consumers become more interested in things like that.4 -
Dude, you're majoring in the minors here. The general population ARE overweight and obese because they DON'T apply the basics of calorie counting. It's not any simpler than that. They don't see how much they eat nor count it. They just eat.veronikamellon wrote: »Ya'll will slaughter me here but I believe there is more to CICO than meets the eye. Human body is not a car engine, it is much more complex. There are multiple variables that can throw the math off. Heck even the calorie intake and burn measurements are often extremely imprecise. Until they invent some sort of an implant that measures exactly how much is consumed and burned, I will remain skeptical. That being said, I still log calories, since it is a working method, albeit imperfect.
So explain to me how I've lost nearly 70 pounds using such a flawed, imprecise, imperfect system.
I didn't do keto or low carb. I didn't fast, nor did I go paleo, vegetarian or vegan. I didn't cut a single thing out of my diet. I didn't detox, cleanse, drink ACV or Shakeology, nor did I take "fat burners" or appetite suppressants. I'm 54 years old, I drink diet soda daily, eat fast food several times a week, don't even track my sugar intake and still eat candy, ice cream, etc. I drink beer and hard alcohol on occasion. I eat plenty of red meat and am not in the least scared of carbs or fats.
In short, I haven't done any of the "tricks" or fads that people think help with weight loss. All I've done is count calories (even eyeballing a large portion of my meals rather than using a food scale), maintained a reasonable deficit and exercised consistently. I've refined my calorie goals based upon feedback obtained from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along. My blood pressure has lowered significantly, my GERD is completely gone, my RHR has dropped to the high 40s/low 50s, my bodyfat has gone from about 35% to around 15% and I have no medical/health issues whatsoever. I'm in the best health and physical condition that I've been since my teens and if I could go back in time I could easily kick my 20, 30 or 40 year-old butt.
So I guess my unpopular opinion is that not only does CICO work, it's the only thing that works. It's the only way anybody loses weight, whether they choose to recognize that fact or not. You can refuse to believe in gravity, but you're still going to hit the ground when you jump out of a tree.
haha you get so defensive it's crazy.
She never said flawed. She said imperfect and imprecise. Which is 100% is. Everyone makes it seem like this easy formula that you just plug in what you burn, and then eat 500 less than that and you lose weight. Yeah, if it was that easy no one would ever have any issues. But you NEVER really know what your calorie expenditure is, at best it's an educated guess, and most of the time it's based off some random calculator online that knows NOTHING about you, your health, your body functions, your lean mass, your bone structure, NOTHING. It just says, most men, at your age, who are that tall are expected to burn this much.
That's why when people offer for people to try and lose 0.5 pound per week its absolutely ridiculous. That's so small of a deficit that one day you might be in a deficit and the next you might be in a surplus because one day you went to work and sat around all day, and that Saturday you took your kid to a soccer game and burned the extra 250 calories walking for 45 min to and from the field and getting everything set up.
People on here make it seem soooooo easy it's terrible to watch people just say to count your calories and stay under your calorie goal, that's all that matters for weight loss, yeah, and in 6 weeks when that same calorie count is only having you lose 1 pound a week instead of 2, you know why, because your body is screwed from eating crap the last 6 weeks and your body isn't able to function appropriately an d has slowed down your metabolic functions.
I guess you missed the part where I said "I refined my calorie goals based upon feedback from the scale and anthropomorphic measurements as I went along". No formula is perfect, but you have perfectly viable feedback mechanisms to measure whether it's working or not, and/or how much it's working. This ain't rocket science.
[ETA:] I'd be very interested to hear how you think weight loss works.
I am not arguing that the laws of thermodynamics aren't true.
What I am arguing is that it's not as easy as people make it out to be. It's not as easy as saying, well the treadmill said I burned 500 calories on the treadmill and this chocolate bar is 500 calories, so if I do this everyday, I can eat this chocolate bar everyday and just walk on the treadmill everyday for 500 calories and not gain weight. That will not stand true. Over time your body starts to adjust and become more efficient. The second day you may only burn 499 calories even though the treadmill says you've burned 500, but the chocolate bar is still equally as dense. At some point you will become efficient enough where the calories in (chocolate bar) will exceed the calories out (treadmill), to the point where weight loss will slow or stall. If you have a huge deficit and are eating 1200 calories a day (which is seems like half the people on here are doing), which is absolutely ridiculous, of course you'll continue to lose weight, you're essentially starving yourself and it would be difficult to be in a surplus at that many calories.
CICO is not as easy as it seems. And don't come back saying yeah it is cause I lost X amount of weight counting my calories. Yeah so what, so has everyone, but no one actually knows if they were being as efficient as they could be until after the fact, which is when you make adjustments for the future, but you still don't know how those adjustments will work until another future time.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Christine_72 wrote: »- The people who brag that "I lost all of my weight eating junk food everyday". This is not something to be proud of.
That's one I can't get behind. Losing weight is always something to be proud of. Just because I did it with a serving of ice cream most nights and some chocolate chips in my Greek yogurt, you don't get to take that away from me.
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My unpopular opinion is that I like the frozen banana "nice" cream.13
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diannethegeek wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »- The people who brag that "I lost all of my weight eating junk food everyday". This is not something to be proud of.
That's one I can't get behind. Losing weight is always something to be proud of. Just because I did it with a serving of ice cream and some chocolate chips in my Greek yogurt, you don't get to take that away from me.
The concept that what one eats or doesn't eat should be a source of pride is an idea that's been really harmful to me in the past. It's food.
Saddling it with additional moral weight may work for some people, but not for me.11
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