The real key to losing weight is Metabolism!!

Contrarian

I agree with the OP 100%. Thanks for sharing! This has worked for me. Let everyone who disagrees find out the hard way!

Um. Some of the most fit people on this site are disagreeing.

Sidesteal

If you disagree with the poster don't send us to sites that want us to subscribe and seem to be oriented to the fitness elite. The topic was losing weight not body recomposition whether related or not.

If this references the reply I made with the sites I linked:

ALL of those sites have free articles and I am not a member of any of them with exception to the AARR research review.

I'm not suggesting that anyone become a member of anything and I'm not recommending that anyone subscribe to the sites. I WILL recommend reading the FREE resources that I linked as they are both highly informative, and reputable. As for the AARR, I would only recommend that to the nutrition NERDS out there because it's not really baseline info that will help the majority.

Lastly, they are not sites for the fitness elite. They are fitness sites that promote quality information -- but even if they were oriented to the fitness elite, wouldn't you think that the people got to be elite by using the quality info they provide?

AngelikaLumiere

I have pretty much been doing what you suggest and in 10 months I have lost 100 pounds. Some people say it's all a bunch of hooey, you just have to eat less than you burn, but I say if you can make it easier for your body to get with the program, why not?

strawberrie_milk

So much broscience, OP. Meal timing does not matter.

treehopper1987

Thanks for the good advice.

Anomalia

lol.

Neize

bump

70davis

bump

airlily

ask4itall = cutest profile pic EVA!

joejccva71

I like how there are posts here that tell the OP that his info is broscience, but I got a warning from a mod when I told the OP the same thing. Unreal. The site hasn't changed one bit.

lois4468

The metabolism part I get, makes sense. I am still a doubter on the water... I never I mean never drank water. I was fine with my soda. Since I started this site over 30 days ago I started drinking the water and no more soda. My skin is dryer now than it has been in years, I don't see any of the benifits that all the sites claim. I'm starting to wonder if it really matters. Again it may work for some and not for others. Still good to know.

rextcat

When you are sleeping at night, so is your metabolism.

That is nonsense. I expect this to lead to the "breakfast myth"...and I was right...

2.) Frequency of Eating:

The typical American diet is to skip breakfast, grab a decent lunch, over-eat at supper and snack at night. BAD IDEA!! To promote your body's metabolism, you should eat 5-6-7 times small meals per day.

Numerous studies have found this to not be true. This is one of those myths that need to die.

I am waiting for somebody to tell me why the hell I would want to eat 5-6-7 times per day!! How many calories would that mean for each meal?

Sorry I do not go with this multiple eating during the day, never have.

The metabolism still works during sleep too, if it stopped you would drop dead.

they are expecting you to eat about 250 to 300 cal' with each "meal" my mother allways referd to this as "grazing" as oposed to eating a meal and so do i but it dose help keep you from haveing huge meals if thats what your used to

Elizabeth_C34

I understand that you're trying to help people but you should really update your nutritional information. Most of what you've written isn't correct and while none of what you said will be harmful, you're suggesting that people do a lot of things that really won't do anything towards helping them with their goals. See below.

1.) Breakfast IS Important:

Why is breakfast soooo important? Your body is naturally programmed to conserve as much fat (energy) as possible when it is not being fed trying to protect vital organs and lean muscle tissue.

Metabolic slowdown doesn't occur intra-day and doesn't even occur after 24 hours. 48-72h fasting might start to show metabolic issues but certainly intra-day periods of not-eating are not going to cause ANY metabolic issues whatsoever. Please see www.leangains.com for research to back this up.

When you are sleeping at night, so is your metabolism. Starting your metabolism as soon as you wake-up is vastly important.

Rubbish. Your metabolism doesn't slow down during the night and you will continue to digest food. Sure, you aren't active so you aren't running around burning calories through any activity thermogensis but you're still burning calories. Secondarily and MOST importantly, you're trying to narrow your scope to acute processes when the big picture is key. Your only goal when trying to slim down is to have lipolysis exceed lipogenesis and if you're in a calorie deficit, this happens by itself over time REGARDLESS of the short term effects.

Furthermore, after you eat your metabolism increases due to something called the thermic effect of food. Thermogenesis is the process of how your body increases heat to burn calories.

Thermic effect of food is based on macronutrient content and total calories consumed. It is not based on frequency of feeding. For example, if you eat 5 meals per day at 400 calories each, TEF would dictate that, for example, you'd burn 10% of that each time you eat (I'm using 10% for simplicity). 10% x 400 = 40 and you do this 5 times and burn a total fo 200 calories per day via TEF. If I eat 2000 calories all at once for 1 meal I will burn 10% x 2000 = 200 and we arrive at the same place.

2.) Frequency of Eating:

Pretty much everything you wrote in this section was false, at least the metabolic portions. See above for an explanation of TEF. But, there's part of what you said that I'd like to comment on additionally:

An added benefit of eating every three hours is that you don't get hungry. By never getting hungry, you reduce the chances of overeating, or grabbing something quick and unhealthy just because it's there.

This is personal preference and some people DO feel less hungry eating smaller, frequent meals. However, there's adequate research suggesting otherwise and you can also find that at www.leangains.com.

In short, Ghrelin is a hunger signaling hormone that adapts itself to behavior in that if you employ a specific feeding schedule, Ghrelin will adapt to this and the end result is (for some people) that you "feel" hungry around your feeding times. The bonus to this effect is that if you choose an intermittent style of eating (for example, when I cut weight I only eat between about 2pm and 9pm and it works wonders for me) it can be easier to go longer periods without food.

and more important, when you eat after “starving,” you body will immediately convert the consumed calories to fat. Not good.

This is just physiologically incorrect, entirely.

a.) Regular cardio raises your metabolism while you're doing it, but once your finished the exercise, your metabolism immediately returns to its regular rate. On the other hand, doing HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) cardio raises your metabolism for hours afterward.

EPOC or Excess PostExercise Oxygen Consumption is quite overstated with HIIT. While this is from 2006, it's from one of the best sources you'll find and I'd speculate that if this were out of date, it would be removed from his site. I'll link you the information for your reading and also copy the summary here:
http://alanaragon.com/myths-under-the-microscope-the-fat-burning-zone-fasted-cardio.html

Summary -- This is a direct quote from Alan Aragon:

: • In acute trials, fat oxidation during exercise tends to be higher in low-intensity treatments, but postexercise fat oxidation and/or energy expenditure tends to be higher in high-intensity treatments.
• Fed subjects consistently experience a greater thermic effect postexercise in both intensity ranges.
• In 24-hr trials, there is no difference in fat oxidation between the 2 types, pointing to a delayed rise in fat oxidation in the high-intensity groups which evens out the field.
• In long-term studies, both linear high-intensity and HIIT training is superior to lower intensities on the whole for maintaining and/or increasing cardiovascular fitness & lean mass, and are at least as effective, and according to some research, far better at reducing bodyfat.

A few final thoughts:
1.) Nutrition is vastly complicated and I do not pretend to know a fraction of what a nutritionist knows, I'm just sharing what works for me.

And a few final thoughts from me too sir: Despite me not agreeing with you, please understand that there's a lot of misinformation out there regarding fitness and nutrition. I'm not attacking you personally, I just find your information to be quite out of date and I'm posting so that you don't continue to misinform people. If I spew any misinformation I expect to be corrected and when done so I'll absolutely look into opposing arguments and change my stance when it calls for it.

To use an analogy, if I were to tell someone they could eat at a deficit, lift weights, wear a red hat, and consume adequate macro and micronutrients and in doing so they would successfully improve body composition and health markers, I would be correct and I could say that this worked for me. But they don't need the red hat, and they might not like wearing it.

Multiply that logic x 1000 and you end up with people doing all sorts of crap they don't have to do. It's complicated enough as is so it's best to get people straightened out, at least to some degree.

3.) Try not to combine fats & complex carbs. Both are turned into energy (fat) by your body and the combination will pack on the pounds. A perfect example is a PB&J sandwich…which is considered to be one of the worse sandwiches in the world…same with Mac & Cheese…both high fat and high carbs.

Food combination is completely bogus and has no scientific backing whatsoever. It literally makes no difference how you combine your macronutrients.

Here are some good sources for you:

www.alanaragon.com
www.bodyrecomposition.com
www.weightology.net
www.body-improvements.com

These are reliable sources that use science as the foundation for their statements, not dietary myths. These people are either top-in-their-field nutritionists and/or people who train others for a living but the commonality you'll see here is that they do their research and don't rely on anecdote or "what's in the magazines" to fuel their knowledge of nutrition.

THIS

For those who obviously didn't read past the first page.

irisheyes42us

:flowerforyou: BUMP!

AFitJamie

Having read the entire thread, (Whew!)

I appreciate the detailed information everyone provided. Contrary to a number of posters, I found very little negativity, just posts hoping to better inform the OP (and the rest of us) with information they do understand. I've heard many of the myths thrown around the fitness and weight loss arena, and I'll admit it takes time to figure out which are "polkadot dresses" and "grass clippings".

I for one truly appreciate the work, detail and attitude of Sidesteal. Thanks for taking the time and sharing the details you have.

In the end, I'm convinced that the statement - "The real key to losing weight is Metabolism" - and some of the details in the original post - are flawed. No offence intended to the OP, I believe his approach has worked for him - In fact, from the websites I've looked at it appears this may be a business for him, and I suspect his advice - along with hard workouts, logging of food intake, etc. have been successful for many clients.

But, I think that today I found a way I can keep a few grass clippings out of my laundry as a result of reading this post.

I'm new here, and I appreciate the opportunity to learn from the dialogue. I've seen many many internet forums with far less polite conversation - Thanks Moderator - great job keeping the thread on topic. (I know, it's a thankless job sometimes.)

I'm a fan of the support forums here and I see a great number of people here who are positively inspirational, and are open to being friends and helping others - a nice place in the internet world (from my looking around so far) - but I do think critical dialogue and critical thinking are important - I want to have as much knowledge as I can, but I want that knowledge to be founded in facts and reality, not myth.

Thanks again for the discussion - always love when I can look back and see that I learned something today.

SergeantSunshine_reused

Damn I got here late xD

I think it is hilarious how so many are crying about the "negative" posts, when this is calm. This forum is so tame compared to most I have been on.

pg1girl

There have been no scientifically proven benefits to drinking extra water when you're not thirsty.
There was a study done with two identical twins- one drank the daily reccomended amount of water every day for a month and the other just drank when she was thirsty. At the end of the month there were absolutely no health benefits for the woman who drank the extra water.
I'm willing to bet a lot of the people who say they started drinking extra water and felt better are experiencing a placebo effect.

Of course if you WANT to drink extra water I'm not saying that you shouldn't- but I just don't understand why a lot of people on MFP preach that its a fact that you should drink a specific amount of water every day.

Article if anyone wants proof/evidence: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eight-glasses-water-per-day

So if this is true why do people end up in the hospital on an iv for dehydration? because they don't feel thirsty and don't drink enough.....thus making what you say not accurate.

SergeantSunshine_reused

I can honestly say that everything stated by the OP has helped me on my "journey".

I'm a firm believer in drinking lots of water to not only stay hydrated, but more full as well.

And the breakfast "myth"?
When I was in school each class was polled to see who ate breakfast. Sure enough, EVERY obese kid in the school neve ate breakfast, whereas my parents wouldn't let me (the bean pole in my class) ever leave the house in the morning without a decent meal in my belly.

And I used to eat breakfast every morning and was incredibly pudgy. Now I get up at 6 am and don't eat until 2pm and very lean. WHOA!! I should be obese by what you say then??

Just blew your mind I know. lol xD

tammyclinch

Wate flushes the toxic for your body .. drink up

pg1girl

It's weird...I've noticed since I've started exercising that my mood has become very positive. But I'm noticing that is not the case for many others haha. Goodness, so much negativity. I thought the post was wonderful!

Agreed.