Hi Dirk Blaubär, and welcome to this group!

My response to your first question: it is perfectly OK to write posts in German/French/Italian/Romantsch in this forum! However, English is the most convenient lingua franca because it's the language that is being shared by Swiss and expats alike. I, for one, was naturalized Swiss last year yet my mother tongue is "southern European". I am fluent in German though.

As for Dr. Holtmeier, I would agree with 95% of what he says. His fallacy, however, is to hold the book up to the standards of a scientific dissertation - which it clearly isn't and was not meant to be. But Holtmeier is right in saying that the book contains many stupid remarks, and I also find it frightening that there is a kind of cult around it. Just read the Amazon reviews: any critical voice (including mine) was countered by vitriol, insults, and ridicule!

On the other hand, I found one question to be extremely compelling: why are so many people overweight although they exercise like crazy? I do not believe for a minute that wheat accounts for the entire problem - but I find it plausible that wheat may be a significant part of it. Other claims though, such as that wheat can contribute to psychiatric disease, are clearly baloney!

Thanks, lq!!! The 7% carb bread sounds amazing! I love this forum - I wouldn't have ever found out! However, at 266 kcal/100g you still need to be careful. Low-carb is no license to gorge, unfortunately (sigh!).

Honau, the problem with bread (no matter whether white, "vollkorn", "bio", or whatever) is that is it full of complex carbohydrates. Now, think of an amount of sugar that weighs exactly the same as your slice of bread. As a responsible dieter, you wouldn't dream of ingesting all that sugar in one go, right? Well, turns out that eating a slice of bread is - metabolically speaking - exactly the same as eating the sugar, or even slightly worse (the glycemic index of starch is higher than that of pure sugar!).

Honau, you have to define what is a reasonable, working strategy for you. But here are a few ideas for thought.

- For one thing, something's gonna give. Weight loss will not happen by itself, hence there are some sacrifices to be made.

- The "FDH diet" never ever works for anybody. FDH means "Friss die Hälfte", or eat-half-as-much. The reason is that it is painful, and nobody is nearly as disciplined to accept self-inflicted pain for a long time.

- running is good, and will improve your fitness which is a good thing. But forget the idea that running alone will make you slimmer. It will not. It helps - but it does not suffice.

In view of the above, radically cutting carbs is found by most successful dieters (myself included) as the most efficient, least painful way of losing weight. Therefore my exhortation is: if you are serious about weight loss, get rid of oatmeal, porridge, bread, and pasta. Not forever: you can start again once you are in "maintenance mode". But when you are in "induction mode", i.e. at the start of your diet, these foods are simply and completely wrong and will prevent you from losing weight.

Well, it turns out that I am very disciplined in all matters of life EXCEPT eating. I was ca. 30 hours in Turkey, giving a talk at a congress and partaking in 2 social dinners, a huge breakfast, and a posh lunch at an upscale restaurant. Result: caloric intake entirely out-of-control. I mean entirely! Only good thing, I managed to squeeze 2 sessions (1 hr each) on the elliptical, totalling some 1800 kcal - which does not suffice (by any measure) to atone my sins! Back to Helvetia now, and back to disciplined eating!!!

Thanks LQ. I totally agree that HIIT enhances fitness. This is my experience as well. I do short sprints whenever I have enough energy, and I always notice that I can sprint more on the next day!

Whether HIIT really enhances burning, is debatable though. I dug out a credible study that purports to have found the opposite (Endurance Training and Obesity: Effect on Substrate Metabolism and Insulin Sensitivity, VENABLES, MICHELLE C.; JEUKENDRUP, ASKER E., Human Performance Laboratory, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, UNITED KINGDOM).

The article is only available through library subscription, hence I am copying only those portions that will not infringe on copyright:

Purpose: Obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus are disease states associated with hallmark features such as insulin resistance and an impaired ability to oxidize lipids. It has recently been reported that an optimal exercise intensity for fat oxidation (FATmax) exists; we hypothesize that continuous exercise training at this specific intensity can lead to greater improvements in fat oxidation and insulin sensitivity than a eucaloric interval training program.
Methods: In a counterbalanced, crossover design, eight sedentary, obese, but otherwise healthy male participants performed two 4-wk blocks of endurance training, either at a predetermined intensity eliciting maximal fat oxidation (TPCON) or at 5-min intervals of ± 20% FATmax (TPINT). During the week preceding the exercise training and 48 h after the final exercise bout, an OGTT, V·O2max test, steady-state exercise, and measurements of body composition were undertaken. Diet was controlled the day before all trials (50% carbohydrate, 35% fat, and 15% protein; ~2900 kcal·d-1). Variables were compared using two-way repeated-measures analyses of variance.
Results: It was shown that fat oxidation rates were increased by 44% after TPCON (0.24 ± 0.01 vs 0.35 ± 0.03 g·min-1, P < 0.05) but not after TPINT, and the whole-body insulin sensitivity index was increased by 27% after TPCON (P < 0.05). These changes occurred despite no change in body weight, body mass index (BMI), waist to hip ratio (WHR), percent body fat (%BF), or V·O2max.
Conclusions: A continuous exercise training protocol that can elicit high rates of fat oxidation increases the contribution of fat to substrate oxidation during exercise and can significantly increase insulin sensitivity compared with a eucaloric interval protocol.

DISCUSSION (WHICH NAILS THE CRUCIAL POINT): After interval training (TPINT), we observed no increase in fat oxidation or improvements in whole-body insulin sensitivity. This somewhat surprising finding may be explained by the different metabolic responses to each intervention- specifically, the amount of fat oxidized during training. During TPINT, 11.4 g of fat was oxidized during a 60-min training session, whereas during TPCON it was more than twice this amount at 24.4 g, and this may go someway to explain differences between the programs. Although there is some evidence within the literature to suggest that high-intensity aerobic interval training can increase whole-body fat oxidation during exercise (44) and, indeed, improve insulin sensitivity (7,10,27), there are many differences between the studies that may explain our conflicting findings. The most obvious difference between the studies is the training intensity chosen; Talanian et al. used 10 × 4-min bouts at 90% V·O2max (total: 40 min at 90% V·O2max per session), whereas the present study used six 5-min bouts at 65% V·O2max (total: 30 min at 65% V·O2max)-a much lower volume, intensity, and, therefore, total energy expenditure. In addition, the participants used in that study were moderately active women, whereas in the present study sedentary obese men were investigated, and there is evidence to suggest that both gender (women) and weekly activity levels are associated with higher rates of fat oxidation (47). As far as application, the intensity used by Talanian et al. would far exceed the tolerance of the obese sedentary male.
With respect to insulin sensitivity, studies that measured whole-body glucose tolerance (7,27) after high-intensity bouts of exercise are actually investigating the acute effects of exercise, which is quite different from those following a period of training, as investigated in the present study. Indeed, Larsen et al. compared glucose tolerance for a period of time either with high-intensity exercise or without (27). Burgomaster et al. (10) performed their investigations at 72 h after the final training session, but they did not directly measure whole-body insulin sensitivity; instead, they report that GLUT-4 protein content had increased by 25%. This is a much lower increase than the 98% increase observed during the more traditional, moderate-intensity training (17), and it could be argued that an increase of 25% in GLUT-4 protein content after high-intensity exercise is not sufficient to bring about any improvement in whole-body insulin sensitivity.

I modified my exercise routine. I climb my "Hausberg" with my MTB in the morning before work, and then again in the evening after work. It gives 1'800-2'000 kcal altogether. Let's see how long I can sustain that...