FWIW - Calorie Counting, nutrient dense foods, starvation mo

Skinnytime

We all seem to be on the same page about idea of eating at least 1200 calories a day to prevent starvation mode. We also need to make sure we're getting great nutrition in those calories in order to keep our bodies out of starvation mode. Eat only 1200 calories of junk a day and I doubt there will be any significant long term weight loss. Eat clean, nutrient dense foods, "live" foods and make sure your body is getting the vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids it needs and hopefully we'll all lose weight for good.

I posted for opinions on the Gabriel Method book and got none, so I'm assuming either nobody bothered to post, or there's not much info in this community about it.

I read the book. Some of the ideas are frankly a little strange to me - especially the whole mind body visualization thing, but some are spot on. Even if we're consuming all the MFP calories we can STILL be in starvation mode if they are not the right calories or they are not from sources that we can digest, and process.

He makes some great points about the quality of the food we eat and how well our body is able to use the nutrition the food contains. Food that is full of chemicals (as most "diet" food is) can do more harm than good. He does not advocate counting anything except looking at food in terms of how close to natural it is, and how much usable protein and Omega 3 it contains. He also says that we need to be careful in our combinations of food for optimal digestion.

He contends that we can be consuming 100 grams of protein a day, but if it's over processed or from grain fed sources, the protein is not usable by our bodies. Now, I don't know how scientifically accurate that is, but it can't hurt to eat more grass fed lean meat, free range chicken and organic produce. It can just be expensive :sad:

He talks a lot about the connection to our ancestors and primal reasons why we hold onto fat and how to convince our bodies that they do not need to be fat. A great deal of the book is about finding out why we hold onto fat and on addressing those reasons. He proposes that physical and mental stress (even stress from over exercising) can cause our bodies to feel threatened and go into starvation mode. He describes HITT (but does not use the term) as the best way to convince your body that it needs to be thin in order to survive.

All in all, it was a good read and and I would recommend it as it put some things into perspective for me. A lot of it was information I knew, but failed to put into practice.

I'll keep you all posted on how (if) any of this works for me.

Skinnytime

We all seem to be on the same page about idea of eating at least 1200 calories a day to prevent starvation mode. We also need to make sure we're getting great nutrition in those calories in order to keep our bodies out of starvation mode. Eat only 1200 calories of junk a day and I doubt there will be any significant long term weight loss. Eat clean, nutrient dense foods, "live" foods and make sure your body is getting the vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids it needs and hopefully we'll all lose weight for good.

I posted for opinions on the Gabriel Method book and got none, so I'm assuming either nobody bothered to post, or there's not much info in this community about it.

I read the book. Some of the ideas are frankly a little strange to me - especially the whole mind body visualization thing, but some are spot on. Even if we're consuming all the MFP calories we can STILL be in starvation mode if they are not the right calories or they are not from sources that we can digest, and process.

He makes some great points about the quality of the food we eat and how well our body is able to use the nutrition the food contains. Food that is full of chemicals (as most "diet" food is) can do more harm than good. He does not advocate counting anything except looking at food in terms of how close to natural it is, and how much usable protein and Omega 3 it contains. He also says that we need to be careful in our combinations of food for optimal digestion.

He contends that we can be consuming 100 grams of protein a day, but if it's over processed or from grain fed sources, the protein is not usable by our bodies. Now, I don't know how scientifically accurate that is, but it can't hurt to eat more grass fed lean meat, free range chicken and organic produce. It can just be expensive :sad:

He talks a lot about the connection to our ancestors and primal reasons why we hold onto fat and how to convince our bodies that they do not need to be fat. A great deal of the book is about finding out why we hold onto fat and on addressing those reasons. He proposes that physical and mental stress (even stress from over exercising) can cause our bodies to feel threatened and go into starvation mode. He describes HITT (but does not use the term) as the best way to convince your body that it needs to be thin in order to survive.

All in all, it was a good read and and I would recommend it as it put some things into perspective for me. A lot of it was information I knew, but failed to put into practice.

I'll keep you all posted on how (if) any of this works for me.

MyaPapaya75

Interesting post..thanks... We eat all organic meat and dairy..unless of course we are eating out..its true its so expensive so what I have done is cut down on the amount I eat and have exchanged lentils/legumes for most of my meat days..

christy559

Thanks for posting this useful information, I'm not familiar with the gabriel method.

I try to eat as minimally processed foods as possible - I shop around the perimeter of the store, if I shop in the aisles, I try to get items with as few ingredients as possible.

ivykivy

About the protein issue. I'm sure there can be a point made that grass fed cattle are better food wise . However; to say that we are unable to process those protein is high speculative. If that were the case most of us would either be dead or suffer from serious muscle atrophy.

I think most people tend to forget our bodies have an amazing capacity to adapt to our environmental conditions. Take smoking. It takes smokers years of inhaling tar and other chemicals on a daily basis before they develop cancer (not saying anyone should smoke and factoring out heart disease which is caused by unhealthy eating also). We have a body that can deal with a whole host of toxins and stressor before in falls over dead. But I agree we shouldn't put it through the ringer. But vegetables have more direct contamination from pesticides and chemicals that have leeched into the soil.Most of the food we eat is processed whether spinach or beef. If it comes from the store it is processed to some degree and bad spinach will kill you just as fast as bad beef.

I'll be looking foward to your post on how it works for you and how you feel physically. I have always wondered would hormone free make any difference physically.

Thanks for the post!:flowerforyou: