Losing Weight is 80% Diet- BS

http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/losing-body-fat-and-cutting-without-losing-muscle.html

read that article as it tells you a little bit about the body and metabolism etc and how it works for example if you eat too little then your body will go into starvation mode and try to store any fat from your food so it can survive thus maybe a little weight gain. I constantly read about eating 6 small meals a day as opposed to 3 normal meals as the best way to speed up metabolism is to eat little and often to stop your body starving. One example I read on this was if you think of your body as a fire and food as fuel. If you throw a massive log on a fire and leave it then it will smother it and eventually go out but if you throw on small bits of wood often then the fire will burn better, faster and hotter. I am no expert but this is my opinion

http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/losing-body-fat-and-cutting-without-losing-muscle.html

read that article as it tells you a little bit about the body and metabolism etc and how it works for example if you eat too little then your body will go into starvation mode and try to store any fat from your food so it can survive thus maybe a little weight gain. I constantly read about eating 6 small meals a day as opposed to 3 normal meals as the best way to speed up metabolism is to eat little and often to stop your body starving. One example I read on this was if you think of your body as a fire and food as fuel. If you throw a massive log on a fire and leave it then it will smother it and eventually go out but if you throw on small bits of wood often then the fire will burn better, faster and hotter. I am no expert but this is my opinion

I'm afraid your 'opinion' is based on outdated information.

Current thinking is that it doesn't matter how often you eat.

Your metabolism is raised by '1' for every small meal you have. But if you just have two big meals rather than six small ones, your metabolism will be raised by '3' for each of the said bigger meals, giving you a total metabolism raise of '6' with either method.

Rather than wood, think about it like petrol.

You could put a little on at a time and get a constant heat, or throw a load on and get a lot of heat quickly.

Some people might work better being warmed up lots quickly others just a little bit over a longer period. But the same amount of heat would be produced regardless.

i am the same way for me its more like 50-50 i have insulin resistance pcos and hashimoto the only way i see the lbs move is when i move low cals and not exercising i wont shift a lbs

Ok I have learned, don't post something and leave all day.:embarassed:

I am really sorry I was not here for this discussion, but I want to put a cap on it from the OP perspective (since I am the OP lol)

I appreciate everyone's comments...well most of everyone's. People are entitled to their opinions but my mileage DID vary. Yes I do think a diet is important and that a calorie deficit works...to SOME degree. But diet has not been the most important factor in my weight loss this time. Exercise and macro choices are at this point. I will explain if you care to read...

I know I am not alone in this, people like Dave Aspery and Gary Taubes have lost weight on different paths. It is not all about calorie in and out - Metabolism is the most important factor in weight management. Not calorie intake, especially as you age and especially if you are 50 lbs or more over weight. And with that exercise and food choices directly affect your metabolism and how you burn energy, not just how much you put in but what you put in, and what you do with it once it is in.

On Nutri System I should have been in a minimum of a 1000 calorie deficit DAILY and over time that should have provided about a 1.5 lbs of weight loss PER WEEK, but it did NOT. I had an active job and I walked every day. I stuck to the program faithfully for six months and lost less than 6 lbs. That is a NOT successful diet, but it WAS a calorie deficit. And this whole notion of starvation mode is just ridiculous. Calories in vs Calories out either works ALL the time, or it does NOT work well enough to base the whole success on it. You can't say calorie deficit works, but only if it is not TOO MUCH of a deficit??? Come on. More deficit should equate to more loss if it is all about a calorie deficit (that is math). We all know that more deficit does NOT work. Our board is LOADED with testimony of people who ADDED calories, and lost weight. That proves diet are not what it is all about.

If a person has any metabolic resistance issue or autoimmune disease (I have two, hypothyroid and PCOS) and many people 50 lbs overweight or more DO have those issues, then the whole calorie deficit issue is not going to be as effective for them and they need to look for others solutions to improve metabolism. I did. It is called exercise and balanced macro ratios. Yes I eat in a calorie deficit, but nothing close to what was suggested by the likes of Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem or the medical world of whom push extreme calorie deficit as the ONLY way to lose weight.

I have learned that every time I put myself in a major calorie deficit for long term WITHOUT exercising it reduces my metabolism. So now I can and will gain weight on less calories (which pretty much blows the whole BMR and calorie deficit science out the door- two people, same age, same weight and height, and same health level can respond completely different to 1200 calories, wth???). A life time cycle of deficit dieting produces NOTHING but a constant cycle of losing and gain and getting there on even LESS calories than each time before. THAT is what calorie deficits alone do.

To the person who asked about my exercise:

3 days a week I do heavy resistance training (New Rules) and 3 days a week I do cardio for 90 min, broken up into spinning classes with HIT and swimming. I use my Polar HRM to track calories, granted they have been known to be off, but I burn close to 5,000 calories a week. THAT is why I have been successful! I am burning energy, not just reducing my intake of it. And every month I stay in shape I am burning calories more efficiently and making it more difficult to put it back on because now I burn energy at a more effective level.

Yes, I have a ticker too. It says I lost 40 lbs and that is since Dec 26, not a shabby weight loss in that time frame and it has been MOSTLY from exercise, IF, and macro choices.NOT just calorie deficit. I focus the LEAST on my diet deficit throughout the week, no joke. I eat what I want in moderate portions (not those little bitty portions that WW or NS want you to eat), I log it, I make sure it is under my calorie goals(most days), and I try to make good choices (sans the ice cream cone I get once or twice a week). But at least six times in five months I have had huge refeed days…and gained NOTHING back in the long term. I figured one weekend I should have gained at least 5 lbs from my calorie intake, and it should have taken weeks to get it off due to the deficit needed.I actually LOST 2 lbs that week. Go figure...all I know is my experience has taught me it is NOT all about diet at least not 80%.

I cycle calories, I cycle carbs, I intermittent fast, I balance my macros, but the most important thing I do is get off my *kitten* and go to the gym 5 or 6 days a week in a fasted state rather than sit in front of the TV all day and that consumes at LEAST 50-60 percent of my attention (not just 20%), so much more than the few minutes I spend putting food in my mouth.

Losing weight is definitely not 80% diet for me

I smell a scam, and you are either a victim, a paid spammer, or both. The claims made by that website amount to the biggest news in nutrition in the last decade. You need a bit more than a shot of some dude in a hotel bathroom to prove that.

Ugh... so much fail in this thread.

First, weight loss and gain is 100% about diet. There are a million factors individual to each person, but the fact is that if you eat more than you burn, you will gain. If you eat less, you will lose. Hormonal factors, environmental factors and lifestyle factors all come into play, along with any medical issues that you have but it's ALWAYS CI versus CO. Period.

Second --

Look, if you seriously cannot lose weight through diet alone, and gain FAT (we're not talking scale weight) eating more than 1200 calories per day, there are two possible reasons;

1. You have a medical issue and need to see your doctor.
2. You dropped calories too low and have been dieting for too long. You are experiencing 'adaptive thermogenesis', and your body is slowing down it's metabolic functions to keep you alive on the paltry amount of food you are consuming.

I'm going to assume the latter is the case here.

What you need to do is reverse diet! Up your calories and get your body the nutrients it needs to function properly.


Now I know that you aren't going to listen to any of that. I'm not you, and what happened to me could NEVER happen to you. You are special, and your chronic undereating will never come back and bite you in the butt... right?