The real key to losing weight is Metabolism!!

mrkhoneybee

So helpful for someone who has been trying to eat healthier and needs help! Thank you so much : )

kristi_asco

bump!

tigersword

Love the thought experiment. I like to take a different approach on what I like to call the "wackiness" of the idea of constantly eating every couple hours while trying to burn fat. The human body ALWAYS burns food for energy when there is food to be digested, and then burns fat during fasting periods. If you eat constantly throughout the day, your body is always burning food for fuel all throughout the day, and never burns any fat. Isn't the entire point of trying to lose weight to burn fat? So why do people continuously force feed themselves constant, small meals that never allow their body to enter fat burning mode?

It just doesn't make logical sense to me. I want my body to be in fat burning mode as often as possible, which means eating fewer meals, spaced much farther apart, to allow the shift into fat burning mode. Keeping yourself constantly fed does the exact opposite.

And yes, I know the body burns fat throughout the night, but don't you want it to burn even more fat during the day, also?

I think this post is pure bro-science. If I'm eating in a deficit, the body will tap into fat stores regardless of the number of times I eat each day.

I've lost a good deal of my weight by eating numerous mini-meals daily. Oh, heck, most days I just graze. I feel better doing it this way and my weight loss has been just fine. For those who prefer to eat bigger, less frequent meals, that works, too. It's what works best for you.

It's not broscience, it's Biology 101. Food equals fuel, and as long as you have food in your system being digested, you are not burning fat. Period. Eating constant small meals, and keeping your body in a fed state all day every day can create havoc on a hormonal level, as insulin stays high all the time (yes, eating constantly keeps insulin from spiking and crashing, as it stays continuously spiked, because there is a constant flow of food keeping it elevated,) and leptin and ghrelin levels stay low. Then you go to sleep, your insulin levels crash, and glucagon levels spike, as your body tries to play catch-up burning fat like crazy to keep your blood glucose steady. Eat less often, and allow your insulin levels to rise and lower normally, and you burn fat more easily throughout the day, as well as all night.

There are 2 states the body can be in, fed, or fasting. If you're in the fed state, you aren't burning fat. Trying to say your body burns fat while you're eating is like saying you run your emergency generator to power your house electricity even when the main power is running. It doesn't happen.

funkycamper

The real key to losing weight is expending more calories than you consume. It's The First Law of Thermodynamics: calories in = calories out + accumulation. If you burn more calories than you consume, your body will draw the calories it needs from your fat stores and you will lose weight. It doesn't matter what you eat or when you eat it from day to day. It's calories in and calories out. When you're moving, your body burns calories at a higher rate. When you sit down or sleep, your body returns to its base metabolic rate. If you want to know what really worked for the first poster, take everything in his post that is related to consuming less calories and burning more calories, and discard the rest. You'll then have what really led to his fine physique. All the rest is the "red hat": magical thinking and superstition that defy the First Law of Thermodynamics.

If it were really that easy then you could just fire all the personal trainers and nutritionists in the world. Way to boil down the complicate subject of nutrition and body mechanics down to Burn More than you Consume.

Your forgetting that your body doesn't immediately go to your fat stores right away.

Personally it just prevents me from snacking on bad food all day. If I eat 6 times a day I never really feel hungry so I tend not to run for a bad treat. It's purely psychological for me and I agree with you that I've never read any scientific proof out there but it may exist, I've just not found it yet.

First, you'd be surprised just how many personal trainers and nutritionists out there have outdated and incorrect data. Anyone can go study a book, take an exam and become a personal trainer or a sports nutritionist. It's not like it's rocket science to accomplish.

Second, it's about and always will be about calories in versus calories out. Being HEALTHY is subjective.

A 5'8, 175lb man who eats a balance of foods including junk food such as pizza, cheeseburgers, ice cream and whom does some sort of resistance weight training every day....

...will be MUCH healthier than

A 5'8, 225lb man who eats nothing but "clean food" and doesn't do a lick of exercise.

Just because you eat alot of fruits and vegetables or "clean food" as people tend to call it doesn't mean you are healthy. If you're overweight, sit on the couch all day long while eating celery sticks and carrots you aren't going to be healthy and are still at risk of CVD and CHD.

Third, as far as eating multiple times a day because it prevents you from "snacking"...thats more of a lack of mental discipline on YOUR part than anything. Meal timing and meal frequency are completely and utterly irrelevant.

I agree with everything you said except the last paragraph. I realize I'm an outlier as I have diabetes which I can control with just diet and exercise, and I have a pancreas that it still pumping out plenty of insulin. I am also insulin resistant. Eating several small meals keeps my blood sugar levels from rising too much which would then make my pancreas produce over-produce insulin until the insulin finally crashes through the resistance and lower my blood sugar levels. Too much insulin causes a blood sugar crash to levels that are too low which can only be alleviated by ingesting more calories. It's a horrible and vicious cycle to get into.

Again, I realize that not everybody needs to eat the more frequent, smaller meals to avoid this. But this is how my body reacts. If I've eaten too many calories at one meal, starting that cycle, and then need to eat more later to slightly raise my blood sugar levels, it has nothing to do with a lack of mental discipline. Nada. Zip. Unless you think that it's really better for me to actually pass out (which has almost happened to me on numerous occasions until I figured out what works out best for my body) and risk going into a coma.

Due to the high rate of diabetes and other metabolic disorders in this country combined with the fact that many people have these issues and have not been diagnosed, I believe it is very possible that this effects many more people than most of us realize. That said, it can be an excellent way to eat to keep blood sugar levels stable and, thus, be able to moderate food intake to maintain a deficit without hunger or needing to use any kind of mental discipline because one feels satiated.

Again, I'm not saying that everybody needs to do this but I definitely do need to and it just jerks my chain a bit to be told that eating soon after a big meal means someone lacks mental discipline when, really, it may have something to do with the way their body reacts metabolically to the way they are eating and has nothing to do with willpower.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

treetop57

Great point, funkycamper. Yet another exmple that all absolutes are wrong . . . including this one.

funkycamper

Love the thought experiment. I like to take a different approach on what I like to call the "wackiness" of the idea of constantly eating every couple hours while trying to burn fat. The human body ALWAYS burns food for energy when there is food to be digested, and then burns fat during fasting periods. If you eat constantly throughout the day, your body is always burning food for fuel all throughout the day, and never burns any fat. Isn't the entire point of trying to lose weight to burn fat? So why do people continuously force feed themselves constant, small meals that never allow their body to enter fat burning mode?

It just doesn't make logical sense to me. I want my body to be in fat burning mode as often as possible, which means eating fewer meals, spaced much farther apart, to allow the shift into fat burning mode. Keeping yourself constantly fed does the exact opposite.

And yes, I know the body burns fat throughout the night, but don't you want it to burn even more fat during the day, also?

I think this post is pure bro-science. If I'm eating in a deficit, the body will tap into fat stores regardless of the number of times I eat each day.

I've lost a good deal of my weight by eating numerous mini-meals daily. Oh, heck, most days I just graze. I feel better doing it this way and my weight loss has been just fine. For those who prefer to eat bigger, less frequent meals, that works, too. It's what works best for you.

It's not broscience, it's Biology 101. Food equals fuel, and as long as you have food in your system being digested, you are not burning fat. Period. Eating constant small meals, and keeping your body in a fed state all day every day can create havoc on a hormonal level, as insulin stays high all the time (yes, eating constantly keeps insulin from spiking and crashing, as it stays continuously spiked, because there is a constant flow of food keeping it elevated,) and leptin and ghrelin levels stay low. Then you go to sleep, your insulin levels crash, and glucagon levels spike, as your body tries to play catch-up burning fat like crazy to keep your blood glucose steady. Eat less often, and allow your insulin levels to rise and lower normally, and you burn fat more easily throughout the day, as well as all night.

There are 2 states the body can be in, fed, or fasting. If you're in the fed state, you aren't burning fat. Trying to say your body burns fat while you're eating is like saying you run your emergency generator to power your house electricity even when the main power is running. It doesn't happen.

Well, my body must be in need of scientific study then because I have lost all my weight by eating numerous small meals daily.

Look, if my daily maintenance calories are 2400 and I eat 1900 each day, I'm in a calorie deficit and while my body may be burning off the food I eat first, at some point in the day, probably numerous times in the day, it is going to have to dip into fat reserves to make up the 500 calorie difference. 2400 calories means 100 calories per hour. OK, when I wake up in the morning I can't handle much food so I almost always just start the day with 1 T. of peanut butter which is about 100 calories. I typically get up at about 7am and I rarely eat after about 8pm. So that means I've been burning 1100 calories since my last meal and some of that will be fat being burned (along with some lean). I typically eat my real breakfast mid-morning at around 10am so I have burned off the peanut butter by 8am and then burned another 200 calories. Since the peanut butter couldn't possible fuel my body for three hours, some of what is fueling me is coming from fat. Yada yada, throughout the rest of the day.

Or is my 66# weight loss to date just water weight? <snark>

To use your electricity analogy. My laptop battery is toast and I haven't gotten around to getting a new one. It only holds a charge these days for about 60-90 minutes. I like to work on it in areas where it's not convenient to keep it plugged in so I'll typically work on it until the battery dies, plug it in to charge it and work on it where it's plugged in, and then when it's charged move to my preferred spot and work off the battery until it drains again. That is basically what my body is doing. Running of the main power (food recently eaten) until that runs out and then running of battery power (stored fat) until the body is recharged by plugging into main power again (eating again).

I have nothing against eating 2-3 large meals a day or doing IF. If that works for you, great. However, for most of my adult life I did IF-style eating. During my weight-gaining years, I would often not eat anything until mid- or late-afternoon. That style of eating does not work for me. I also don't like eating 3 larger 'squares". I recently attended a week-long conference where I was pretty much forced into eating a regular breakfast, lunch and dinner as we didn't have breaks to allow for my normal grazing style. I did not feel well at all eating that way even if I kept my meals fairly healthy.. It just doesn't work for me.

tigersword

No, you said you are diabetic. Your rules are different, as Diabetes is a metabolic syndrome that alters the way normal metabolism functions. I'm not talking about exceptions, I'm talking about how a normal, healthy metabolism functions.

Also, calorie burn is NOT linear, and your example is way too simplistic to be realistic. Caloric burn is actually not even based on a 24 hour clock, it's based more on a weekly or monthly average. You do not consistently burn the same number of calories an hour every hour, it's a constant flux up and down based on average activity.

Acg67

"Whether fat oxidation is greater during waking or sleeping hours doesn't matter. What matters is 24-hour fat balance, which is fat synthesis minus fat oxidation. See, those are the 2 sides to the equation. If you eat less during the day & more at night, fat oxidation will occur at a greater rate during the day. If you do the opposite, fat oxidation will occur at a greater rate through the night - & you end up at the same spot. After 24 hours, the body doesn't know nor give a flying fuk which half of the day contributed to either a net loss, gain, or maintenance of fat balance. Unless you have a specific need for increased energy intake (ie, prolonged competition in a particular sport ocurring in the earlier part of the day), there's no reason to assume that eating more during the day & less in the evening is INHERENTLY beneficial for body composition goals. That type of thinking will at the very minimum get you a Broscar nomination."

-Alan Aragon

ninerbuff

A 5'8, 175lb man who eats a balance of foods including junk food such as pizza, cheeseburgers, ice cream and whom does some sort of resistance weight training every day....

...will be MUCH healthier than

A 5'8, 225lb man who eats nothing but "clean food" and doesn't do a lick of exercise.

The first one is me..............well plus 7lbs.

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

iqnas

bump

funkycamper

No, you said you are diabetic. Your rules are different, as Diabetes is a metabolic syndrome that alters the way normal metabolism functions. I'm not talking about exceptions, I'm talking about how a normal, healthy metabolism functions.

Also, calorie burn is NOT linear, and your example is way too simplistic to be realistic. Caloric burn is actually not even based on a 24 hour clock, it's based more on a weekly or monthly average. You do not consistently burn the same number of calories an hour every hour, it's a constant flux up and down based on average activity.

Well, I still contend that there are probably many more people with metabolic syndromes in this country than we realize as it is vastly undiagnosed. I know many people who do not believe they have any kind of metabolic issues that exhibit many signs of hypoglycemia, for example. It is unknown how many might be insulin resistant due to the fact that insulin levels are rarely tested for in normal blood work done by physicians at annual physicals. I doubt I'm as much of an exception as you claim.

Also, I know my example was too simple to be realistic. But the whole electricity/plugged into the main power example was rather simplistic and ridiculous, too. I simply answered the ridiculous with the ridiculous. Don't like it? Don't use silly examples.

I'm totally agree that our body is not on a 24-hour clock and that calorie burn isn't constant due to different schedules with different daily activities, different exercise work-outs on different days, yada yada. That's why I zig-zag my calories throughout the week and shoot for a weekly target rather than a daily one.

Jlwebb07

bump

frugalmomsrock

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

I used to only drink water when thirsty and drank coffee the rest of the time... since I started hydrating properly, whether it has helped my weightloss or not, it has helped my skin TREMENDOUSLY. My elbows, knees, ankles, heels, and toe knuckles used to be horribly scaly and dry. I have no issues now, and I even stopped using lotion (I used to moisturize 3x a day or more trying to hydrate my skin). The hydration from within is cheaper and more effective... whether it helps my metabolism, I don't know... I don't care. My skin looks prettier. Also, My veins used to be sunken and were hard to catch when donating blood. Since I have started hydrating properly, my veins almost bulge and are very easily hit and I bleed my pint much quicker. I like not getting jabbed up by the phlebotomist, too--whether it helps my metabolism or not!

mctiernan

Great post! thanks for the information

Reinventing_Me

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

By the time you experience thirst you're body is already dehydrated. Thirst is the FIRST signal you FEEL or notice when dehydrated; your system has already begun to experience the negative effects of dehydration before you even start feeling thirsty. Decrease in mental clarity, dry skin, sluggishness and fatigue are all symptoms as well.

If you haven't tried it yourself, give it a shot. You may be surprised.

Reinventing_Me

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

I used to only drink water when thirsty and drank coffee the rest of the time... since I started hydrating properly, whether it has helped my weightloss or not, it has helped my skin TREMENDOUSLY. My elbows, knees, ankles, heels, and toe knuckles used to be horribly scaly and dry. I have no issues now, and I even stopped using lotion (I used to moisturize 3x a day or more trying to hydrate my skin). The hydration from within is cheaper and more effective... whether it helps my metabolism, I don't know... I don't care. My skin looks prettier. Also, My veins used to be sunken and were hard to catch when donating blood. Since I have started hydrating properly, my veins almost bulge and are very easily hit and I bleed my pint much quicker. I like not getting jabbed up by the phlebotomist, too--whether it helps my metabolism or not!

Well said!

andrejjorje

I'd love to see more comments from gurus here.

3laine75

all good advice - thanks for sharing. eating 5 times is my limit, 6 at a big push. don't worry about the others, some people just want to be skinny (calories in - calories out) not healthy.

don't know about the water study with the twins but try drinking the 2 - 4 litres a day, when u usually drink a whole lot less, and see how much better your face looks and you feel after a week - that's proof enough for me.

Lisamba09

fantastic post. Thank You!
I completely agree with water, water, water. If I do not drink at least 8-10 glasses a day, I retain really bad, cannot workout for any length of time and just overall feel icky.

I am down 6% bodyfat, but NO POUNDS lost. (still sitting at 183 lbs at 5"9 - shooting to get back to 140 lbs)

My trainer after 4 months just lost her mind on me last Thursday. I was crushed.
Decided to regroup and read as much as I can to see what else I am missing.

rileysowner

Thank you...I'm surprised how ugly some people have gotten over this post. It's crazy.

Regards...


David

Dear Posters,

Vigorous debate on topics is certainly an acceptable use of the MFP forums. People sharing alternate views, even passionately, should not be viewed as "negativity" in and of itself.

HOWEVER, I just want to remind folks to please share your opinions (and/or research references) without personally attacking other users or insulting anyone's intelligence or character if you don't agree with the validity of their opinions or views.

Please read the community guidelines and keep them in mind when you are posting on the main forums: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/welcome/guidelines

With Respect,
_Sally_
MFP Forum Moderator

[EDIT - I also want to remind users to please use the REPORT POST link for any inappropriate posts you see.. please do not respond or reply to innappropriate posts, which takes away from the thread. Also, if there are other users that just plain annoy you, but are not in violation of the community guidelines, please consider using the IGNORE USER option from the drop down located under the poster's profile picture.]

I find it so interesting that disagreeing, and for that matter citing actual clinical studies that show that some of the points you have made at the beginning are not essential to losing weight and have no effect on metabolism is see as being ugly. I have read the whole thread up to this point, and none of it has been ugly (unless the moderators have removed the ugly stuff).

What I am finding is that there are many people, many of them new here, who are taking the original post as what they MUST do to lose weight. That if they do that it will increase their metabolism. Sadly when people like Sidesteal and others give actual clinical studies to point out that while doing some of those things can be a choice, but does not have any effect on whether you lose weight or not, that is won't make that calorie deficit any more effective, they are simply ignored both by the original poster and pretty much everyone who agrees with him.

It has been all I can do to resist writing a long response that basically says the same things that others such as Sidesteal, Tigersword and others have said yet again. What is absolutely necessary is a moderate caloric deficit. How often you eat, whether you have a PB&J sandwich, whether you eat breakfast, and the like are only relevant in whether these things help you continue to maintain that deficit. Nothing more. Thus, they work because of the deficit.

For me that realization came after doing all the various "diets" out there. You know they all work, but they do so not because they are paleo, primal, atkins, zone or whatever other ones there are. They work because every single one of them establishes a caloric deficit. There is not an exception. The same is true for the "rules" posted originally here. Sure doing that will work, but not because you are eating breakfast, or 5 meals a day, or not mixing fat with carbs. It is because you are maintaining a moderate calorie deficit. That's it.

Baring certain medical problem, that is all that is needed for the vast majority out there. It is what help you maintain that.

For me a bunch of small meals leaves me hungry all the time. When I did that it was a constant struggle to not overeat or binge. Now eating all my calories in a 6-8 hour time span I am satisfied and feel full. It is when I stray from that that I am tempted to overeat. Do I say because of that everyone should do it. No. But some here would benefit from realizing that many of the points in the original post are completely extraneous to losing weight.

That is one of the advantages of scientific study, over time we learn what is important and what is not. Sadly, from what I see here many are not listening.