Been eating less than 2,000 calories a day for a week and gained weight
Replies
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »Actually drinking water would help dilute the sodium levels in your body allowing your body to flush out sodium with water and thus reduce the amount of water you were retaining.
If you eat sodium your body will retain water to dilute it to the appropriate concentration. If you drink water it will dilute the sodium concentration in your body and your body will flush out water to bring the sodium concentration up to the correct level.
Basically if you want to drop retained water then drink lots of water. So someone saying they downed two bottles of water to deal with sodium related water retention is actually totally reasonable.
It might help dilute the sodium levels but it's not going to eliminate the OP's choice of mostly high sodium meals. Drinking two bottles a water is not a substitute for making healthier choices - the OP did not indicate he intended to change his choices. It's similar to a heavy smoker switching to "natural" cigarettes.
Whoever gave me the "woo" click, by the way, thanks. I deserved to be "punished" for promoting misleading and dangerous information - like, don't expect a couple bottles of water to make up for a crappy diet.
IF you're drinking an appropriate amount of water it will in fact flush the sodium out.
It may be 2 liters it may be 3 or 4 or 5, but Except for the low nutrient value(vitamins/fiber) there's very little wrong with the OPs dietary choices. He's certainly getting enough protein... which is most important during weight loss.
Just because you have accepted the erroneous psychological impression that a hamburger from Wendy's or McDonald's is worse for you than the same quantity of meat eaten at home doesn't mean its true, or useful, or valuable.5 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Actually drinking water would help dilute the sodium levels in your body allowing your body to flush out sodium with water and thus reduce the amount of water you were retaining.
If you eat sodium your body will retain water to dilute it to the appropriate concentration. If you drink water it will dilute the sodium concentration in your body and your body will flush out water to bring the sodium concentration up to the correct level.
Basically if you want to drop retained water then drink lots of water. So someone saying they downed two bottles of water to deal with sodium related water retention is actually totally reasonable.
It might help dilute the sodium levels but it's not going to eliminate the OP's choice of mostly high sodium meals. Drinking two bottles a water is not a substitute for making healthier choices - the OP did not indicate he intended to change his choices. It's similar to a heavy smoker switching to "natural" cigarettes.
Whoever gave me the "woo" click, by the way, thanks. I deserved to be "punished" for promoting misleading and dangerous information - like, don't expect a couple bottles of water to make up for a crappy diet.
I suspect the "woo" was for this part of your post: "Drinking water isn't going to reduce the body's tendency to retain water if you're eating a lot of sodium", which I believe @Aaron_K123 addressed nicely, not for the part of your post where you said that drinking a couple of bottles of water won't make up for a crappy diet.7 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »Can you cite the research you mentioned? Interested in reading it.
Your guess would be as good as mine. I read about it 5 something years ago when my "1 big meal a day" diet wasn't working as well as I hoped, made the switch and always thought it was a miracle worker since the pounds started flying off. When I asked my doctor about it, he told me it was better to eat small meals over 1 big meal, so I always assumed that's what caused it.
I won't throw out the fact it could have just been sheer luck that my body decided to start losing weight significantly faster the same time I made the change, but personally I prefer 5 small meals a day so I don't feel like changing it up just to test that theory.
The way you phrased it here I take no issue with. Yeah, it is subjective and for some people they will find achieving their weight loss goals comes much easier if they have smaller meals scattered throughout the day.
I personally found that to be true myself. I also found it much easier to control my weight loss if I ate 5 meals rather than 2.
But it isn't because your metabolism goes into "high gear". That isn't how metabolism functions.
That's all I was trying to say... I just assumed it was keeping my metabolism high and that's why it was working. Maybe it somehow broke my weight loss plateau, maybe my body just prefers regular eating, maybe it was just sheer luck. I really have no clue.
At the end of the day, I don't think eating 1 big wendies meal a day is healthy at all (even if you lose weight or not), which was my original point. The point of losing weight is to be healthy, so the OP should really rethink what he is trying to accomplish.stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »You can't just eat 1 big meal a day. It's terrible for you, especially a insanely high sodium meal. You want 3-5 small meals a day to keep the metabolism running, and you want them to be healthy. Lots of fruits, veggies, very little processed foods, etc.
Sorry but this isn't true. Meal timing has very little effect on metabolism and weight loss.
Many people practice intermittent fasting / OMAD (one-meal-a-day, also called the Warrior Diet) with success. I personally have 2 meals a day and it works wonderfully for me.
I can't really lose weight eating 1-2 meals a day. I tried, my body just holds on to everything and I lose like half a pound a week. 3-5 small meals a day with the same amount of calories, I lose 2 to 2.5 pounds a week.
There's been research to why this is, and eating regularly keeps your body working in high gear because it assumes you are getting regular meals it comes down to logging accurately and satiety.
FIFY
I log accurately, you burn more calories throughout the day if you eat 3-5 meals a day versus 1-2 meals a day because it keeps your metabolism burning longer.
I've literally made the same big meal, separated it out in to 5 meals and ate it throughout the day.. versus eating the whole thing at night. The weight lost difference was significant for me despite eating the exact same thing. (Again, half a pound a week versus 2-2.5 pounds a week).
Wait, you made the exact same big meal and separated it into 5 meals for a substantial period of time, documented the results, and then switched to eating the exact same food/amount of food in one meal for another substantial period of time and documented those results?
How long did you spend on each plan?
Edit: I see you ate the exact same quantity of the exact same foods for four months straight. Why did you choose to do that?
About 2 months doing 1 big meal versus 5 small meals. Same food quantities each day. It made a significant difference for me. People can tell me I'm wrong, but I really don't care. I was the one seeing the results!
To answer your edit, I was super lazy back then. I found it easier to just make a week worth of meals in advance and put them in containers.janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »You can't just eat 1 big meal a day. It's terrible for you, especially a insanely high sodium meal. You want 3-5 small meals a day to keep the metabolism running, and you want them to be healthy. Lots of fruits, veggies, very little processed foods, etc.
Sorry but this isn't true. Meal timing has very little effect on metabolism and weight loss.
Many people practice intermittent fasting / OMAD (one-meal-a-day, also called the Warrior Diet) with success. I personally have 2 meals a day and it works wonderfully for me.
I can't really lose weight eating 1-2 meals a day. I tried, my body just holds on to everything and I lose like half a pound a week. 3-5 small meals a day with the same amount of calories, I lose 2 to 2.5 pounds a week.
There's been research to why this is, and eating regularly keeps your body working in high gear because it assumes you are getting regular meals it comes down to logging accurately and satiety.
FIFY
I log accurately, you burn more calories throughout the day if you eat 3-5 meals a day versus 1-2 meals a day because it keeps your metabolism burning longer.
Actually, you're exactly wrong.
IF there is ANY benefit to one way or another, it goes to IF, because of the intersection between fasted cardio and metabolic/thermogenic limits on how many calories per hour your body can process.
If one were to eat 6000 calories in a single meal, the metabolic and thermogenic processes would only allow processing a percentage of that, OTOH, if one were to eat 6000 calories spread out over 16 hours of wakefulness, the metabolic and thermogenic processes would metabolize more of those calories to glucose and body fat as required/appropriate.
Yup, I'm wrong.
5 years ago, I just made the same exact meal for about 2 months straight and ate it all at once right before bed and I lost only 7 pounds. Then I started making the same exact meal but separating it out to 5 small bowls and eating it throughout the day. The result was 32 pounds in roughly 2 months.
I asked my doctor why that is, and he said the same thing. Some people need regular frequent meals or their bodies slow down and don't get rid of fat as fast.
I'll keep doing what works for my body. I've been dieting again for almost 2 months now, and it's been a near steady 2.5 pounds/week.
How did you measure your activity during this period?
0 exercise, wake up, sit in a chair 15 hours straight. I was super lazy, had no job and played games all day every day.
Getting up out of the chair 5 times vs 1, as well as the other associated activity could easily account for the difference.
Just as one possible theory.
But you should submit yourself to science, I'm sure they would love to study you.
Also, without knowing what the components/makeup of this meal were, especially as you apparently weren't measuring it makes your account an interesting anecdote only.
I guess it could just be more movement throughout the house, but it was 7 vs 32 pounds over the same time spam. That seems very significant, even extreme exercise couldn't make that difference I'd think.
If my theory of high metabolism isn't true, then perhaps it was just a plateau or the fact my body took 2 months to react fully to the new diet. I still stand by eating 5 small meals a day is way healthier for you than 1 giant meal though.
*peeks in* You said you lost weight when you were eating one meal a day so you didn't hit a plateau.
In other news, the whole sodium/water thing is interesting because, when I was on weight watchers, I pretty much lived off fast food and frozen dinners (on the same day) for meals and didn't drink any water. When I hit a plateau and researched ways to break it, one of the things I changed was to drink my 8 glasses of water a day but that ended up not helping at all. It was like all that sodium and no water wasn't even a factor.0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Actually drinking water would help dilute the sodium levels in your body allowing your body to flush out sodium with water and thus reduce the amount of water you were retaining.
If you eat sodium your body will retain water to dilute it to the appropriate concentration. If you drink water it will dilute the sodium concentration in your body and your body will flush out water to bring the sodium concentration up to the correct level.
Basically if you want to drop retained water then drink lots of water. So someone saying they downed two bottles of water to deal with sodium related water retention is actually totally reasonable.
It might help dilute the sodium levels but it's not going to eliminate the OP's choice of mostly high sodium meals. Drinking two bottles a water is not a substitute for making healthier choices - the OP did not indicate he intended to change his choices. It's similar to a heavy smoker switching to "natural" cigarettes.
Whoever gave me the "woo" click, by the way, thanks. I deserved to be "punished" for promoting misleading and dangerous information - like, don't expect a couple bottles of water to make up for a crappy diet.
Saying that drinking water will help counteract a high sodium diet is not the same thing as saying a 1-meal a day fast-food only diet is healthy. Don't move the goal post of your original claim. You said that drinking water wouldn't affect the bodies water retention due to sodium. That is wrong, drinking additional water would help counteract the water retention affects of additional sodium. I was correcting that and that is all I was doing. I said nothing to suggest I thought that the OPs dietary choices were healthy or that simply drinking more water would make them healthy.8 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »Can you cite the research you mentioned? Interested in reading it.
Your guess would be as good as mine. I read about it 5 something years ago when my "1 big meal a day" diet wasn't working as well as I hoped, made the switch and always thought it was a miracle worker since the pounds started flying off. When I asked my doctor about it, he told me it was better to eat small meals over 1 big meal, so I always assumed that's what caused it.
I won't throw out the fact it could have just been sheer luck that my body decided to start losing weight significantly faster the same time I made the change, but personally I prefer 5 small meals a day so I don't feel like changing it up just to test that theory.
The way you phrased it here I take no issue with. Yeah, it is subjective and for some people they will find achieving their weight loss goals comes much easier if they have smaller meals scattered throughout the day.
I personally found that to be true myself. I also found it much easier to control my weight loss if I ate 5 meals rather than 2.
But it isn't because your metabolism goes into "high gear". That isn't how metabolism functions.
That's all I was trying to say... I just assumed it was keeping my metabolism high and that's why it was working. Maybe it somehow broke my weight loss plateau, maybe my body just prefers regular eating, maybe it was just sheer luck. I really have no clue.
At the end of the day, I don't think eating 1 big wendies meal a day is healthy at all (even if you lose weight or not), which was my original point. The point of losing weight is to be healthy, so the OP should really rethink what he is trying to accomplish.stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »You can't just eat 1 big meal a day. It's terrible for you, especially a insanely high sodium meal. You want 3-5 small meals a day to keep the metabolism running, and you want them to be healthy. Lots of fruits, veggies, very little processed foods, etc.
Sorry but this isn't true. Meal timing has very little effect on metabolism and weight loss.
Many people practice intermittent fasting / OMAD (one-meal-a-day, also called the Warrior Diet) with success. I personally have 2 meals a day and it works wonderfully for me.
I can't really lose weight eating 1-2 meals a day. I tried, my body just holds on to everything and I lose like half a pound a week. 3-5 small meals a day with the same amount of calories, I lose 2 to 2.5 pounds a week.
There's been research to why this is, and eating regularly keeps your body working in high gear because it assumes you are getting regular meals it comes down to logging accurately and satiety.
FIFY
I log accurately, you burn more calories throughout the day if you eat 3-5 meals a day versus 1-2 meals a day because it keeps your metabolism burning longer.
I've literally made the same big meal, separated it out in to 5 meals and ate it throughout the day.. versus eating the whole thing at night. The weight lost difference was significant for me despite eating the exact same thing. (Again, half a pound a week versus 2-2.5 pounds a week).
Wait, you made the exact same big meal and separated it into 5 meals for a substantial period of time, documented the results, and then switched to eating the exact same food/amount of food in one meal for another substantial period of time and documented those results?
How long did you spend on each plan?
Edit: I see you ate the exact same quantity of the exact same foods for four months straight. Why did you choose to do that?
About 2 months doing 1 big meal versus 5 small meals. Same food quantities each day. It made a significant difference for me. People can tell me I'm wrong, but I really don't care. I was the one seeing the results!
To answer your edit, I was super lazy back then. I found it easier to just make a week worth of meals in advance and put them in containers.janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »You can't just eat 1 big meal a day. It's terrible for you, especially a insanely high sodium meal. You want 3-5 small meals a day to keep the metabolism running, and you want them to be healthy. Lots of fruits, veggies, very little processed foods, etc.
Sorry but this isn't true. Meal timing has very little effect on metabolism and weight loss.
Many people practice intermittent fasting / OMAD (one-meal-a-day, also called the Warrior Diet) with success. I personally have 2 meals a day and it works wonderfully for me.
I can't really lose weight eating 1-2 meals a day. I tried, my body just holds on to everything and I lose like half a pound a week. 3-5 small meals a day with the same amount of calories, I lose 2 to 2.5 pounds a week.
There's been research to why this is, and eating regularly keeps your body working in high gear because it assumes you are getting regular meals it comes down to logging accurately and satiety.
FIFY
I log accurately, you burn more calories throughout the day if you eat 3-5 meals a day versus 1-2 meals a day because it keeps your metabolism burning longer.
Actually, you're exactly wrong.
IF there is ANY benefit to one way or another, it goes to IF, because of the intersection between fasted cardio and metabolic/thermogenic limits on how many calories per hour your body can process.
If one were to eat 6000 calories in a single meal, the metabolic and thermogenic processes would only allow processing a percentage of that, OTOH, if one were to eat 6000 calories spread out over 16 hours of wakefulness, the metabolic and thermogenic processes would metabolize more of those calories to glucose and body fat as required/appropriate.
Yup, I'm wrong.
5 years ago, I just made the same exact meal for about 2 months straight and ate it all at once right before bed and I lost only 7 pounds. Then I started making the same exact meal but separating it out to 5 small bowls and eating it throughout the day. The result was 32 pounds in roughly 2 months.
I asked my doctor why that is, and he said the same thing. Some people need regular frequent meals or their bodies slow down and don't get rid of fat as fast.
I'll keep doing what works for my body. I've been dieting again for almost 2 months now, and it's been a near steady 2.5 pounds/week.
How did you measure your activity during this period?
0 exercise, wake up, sit in a chair 15 hours straight. I was super lazy, had no job and played games all day every day.
Getting up out of the chair 5 times vs 1, as well as the other associated activity could easily account for the difference.
Just as one possible theory.
But you should submit yourself to science, I'm sure they would love to study you.
Also, without knowing what the components/makeup of this meal were, especially as you apparently weren't measuring it makes your account an interesting anecdote only.
I guess it could just be more movement throughout the house, but it was 7 vs 32 pounds over the same time spam. That seems very significant, even extreme exercise couldn't make that difference I'd think.
If my theory of high metabolism isn't true, then perhaps it was just a plateau or the fact my body took 2 months to react fully to the new diet. I still stand by eating 5 small meals a day is way healthier for you than 1 giant meal though.
well, given what you've said, i'm just going to assume that you were 5 times as active getting up out of your chair to get your 5 small meals than you were when you only got out of your chair 1 time to get your 1 meal.
*please read in a light-hearted tone"2
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