Low calorie/cardio vs keto/weights

Lois_1989

WinoGelato wrote: »

fitjam00 wrote: »

Hi everyone, so when I was younger low cal & cardio ( 1hr 4-5x per week), allowed me to lose weight fairly quickly. Well fast forward 20 years, low cal & cardio didn't work ( quickly enough for me to feel it was worth the stress if it). So a co-worker, a Physical thearpist, suggested I try keto and weight lifting instead. Boom! The weight started coming off fairly quickly.

Is this because I'm old or my metabolism is changed ?

I would love to hear the experience of other
Or just any insight you may have

I'm still confused how some people read this OP, particularly the bolded, and interpret that as ONLY wanting to hear from people who have done exactly what she is doing (i.e. Keto and weight lifting) and not an open minded inquiry for a better understanding by hearing from different perspectives.

Perhaps OP, @fitjam00 can clarify, did you only want to hear from those following keto, or did you find the comments from those explaining that regardless of what diet you choose to follow or how you choose to eat, a calorie deficit is what drives the weight loss?

It also might be helpful for people to remember that there are other members reading along who may not be posting themselves who may find benefit in the open discussion from different perspectives... rather than only hearing one side to a story. I'm not sure why some are so against presenting facts for the discussion and feel so threatened that they have to insult other users...

I did a quick re-read to refresh my mind and came across her second post

fitjam00 wrote: »

I understand water weight but I really don't get why my 1500 low cal vs 1500 keto progress
I'd like to know if anyone else experienced this or knows the science behind it?

This is a bit more of a specific question. I must have glanced over it, but it was a response to Tavistock's reply.

lemurcat12

I think that question has been answered, but my response would be that many things may have changed between the two times: overall metabolism (which does decline as we get older unless we work to keep muscle mass the same), daily activity without counting/thinking about it (I walk a lot in daily life now, since I live in a city, but for example when I was going to college I was running around all the time, more than now, and if I lived in the 'burbs and commuted by car my walking/daily activity would be less, another possibility is job changes, another possibility is being less in shape or enjoying the cardio less leads to less burned).

For me, I lost from 180 to 120 around age 30 (and kept it off until I started gaining again for various reasons in my late 30s). If you'd asked me how I lost I would have said I ate around 1600 and exercised a lot (I eventually trained for triathlons, although that was to get to goal and maintain). I lost consistently 2 lb/week until 130 -- yes, too aggressive for a lot of it -- and did not think I'd been eating especially low. I did not track calories because I wasn't interested and tracking was a pain back then. I estimated the calories I thought I'd been eating and then cut back, with the intent of cutting back 500 calories and exercising 500 calories.

This time, I did roughly the same, and lost identically (faster, in fact, but I was heavier than 180 when I started), but then about a month into it I logged my meals at MFP and discovered to my surprise that I was eating around 900-1100, not the 1500-1600 I'd assumed. I was eating in my "diet" way -- very sparing on added fat, lean meat only, serving size for meat only (4 oz before cooking), limited/small servings of side starches, no snacking, lots of vegetables. Fine, for me filling, but it probably would get boring. When I lost before I was super motivated and didn't care, and at that time I was changing my diet much more (learning to cook regularly, adding in lots more vegetables) so it was inherently exciting.

Anyway, I decided this time to go with MFP, added back in more calories, enjoyed what I was eating. But the point here is that I was so wrong about what I needed to eat to lose 2 lb per week before. Back then I was eating less than I thought (I would have thought eating 1200, let alone what I probably was, was a horrible, impossible idea).

Now I find that how much I perceive myself to be eating is greatly influenced by how easy it is to keep a deficit. And, of course, there are weekly fluctuations, and starting keto is generally accompanied by a water drop which might make you feel encouraged even if you know that's what it is. I know a number of people like keto because they don't have to count as carefully and they tend to be uninterested in eating or undereat.

So that's my stab at answering the question. No position on what OP should do, except if she likes what she's doing, and it's working, stick with it.