Quick way to get the weight going down!!

People really need to stop telling everyone it's a simple deficit. Yes, for a lot of people, this works; however, there is no need to make people feel stupid or like they must be doing something wrong just because a deficit isn't working for them. It IS more complicated for some people than it is for others. I would weigh a LOT less if a deficit worked for me, but when I eat at TDEE - 15/20%, I get nowhere.

Are you weighing your food? If you're decently healthy and have no conditions (Diabetes, PCOS, Insulin Resistance, etc.) that would restrict your weight loss, you may be eating more than you think you are. I personally used to eat less than I thought I was, and then wonder why I was constantly hungry and binging at night. I once passed out thinking I'd eaten around 9 oz of chicken all day, when really I'd only had around 2-3. A LOT of people are the opposite, though, so make sure you're counting your calories correctly.

As for the deficit, if it's not working for you, you're not alone. Certain conditions may prevent a deficit from being the only diet-change necessary. I personally have PCOS and have to net significantly under my calorie goal in order to lose weight. I also try to stick to a high-fat, mod-protein, low-carb (and by low, I mean around 30g per meal, not 30g per day) diet. Sometimes, when there are conditions such as these, Macros matter A LOT. PCOS comes with insulin resistance, so carbs and sugars are not my friends.

Good luck losing! Just remember that everyone's body is different, and it's a process figuring out what works for you. Not everyone responds so quickly to a caloric deficit.

Eating at a deficit is the one truth about losing weight. Granted that medical problems can impede weight loss, it's pretty darned rare. Your deficit may need to be adjusted but, still, all it takes to lose weight is to eat less calories than you burn.

The type of food you eat has nothing to do with losing weight. You can eat twinkies all day while staying at a deficit and you will lose weight. You might not feel very well, but you'd still lose.

Look at my ticker. I've lost 42 pounds the foods I like, and this includes foods that I'd cut out in earlier diets because I had labeled them as "fattening". I have been successfully maintaining.

This may be true for you, and if it is, congratulations. I gain weight using a "simple" deficit, so I'm happy it's so much easier for you. I also use a HRM to calculate my burns, and don't eat back exercise calories, so it's not an error in calorie calculations. For some, macros DO matter. It's not incredibly rare. In fact, it's estimated by researchers who work with insulin resistance that IR affects around one in four Americans. I'd say 25% is decently common, even if it's not the majority. Congratulations on being in the majority. For me, the lower deficit RESULTS in lower carb/sugar intake, which is what ultimately helps me lose weight. The deficit alone doesn't do it for me, or for quite a few others with insulin resistance problems (ie, if I ate 1200 calories in twinkies all day, chances are, I probably wouldn't lose weight).

How to lose weight is the same for everyone in that if you eat less than you burn then you will lose weight. Macros do not count as far as calories in/calories out, but they sure do count as far as energy and satiation. Calorie are calories in regards to weight loss, BUT they are not in regards to how our body feels when eating certain food.

For example, I am processed sugar sensitive, therefore, I eat sweets in moderation. It will never be the sweets that make me gain weight, but eating too many calories in a day that included those sweets. Believe me, if I allow it, sweets can send me way over my calorie goal.

You say you use a heart rate monitor, and I get the impression that have a difficult time losing weight (please correct me if I misunderstood). If this is true, do you weigh all your solid food and measure all your liquids? Do you log everything you eat?

As a newcomer/outsider reading this thread, it is painfully obvious to me that you guys (who are arguing) are basically going around in circles. All people are identical in that a caloric deficit will cause weight loss. Whether a person is in said deficit or how deep in the deficit depends on your CO. This is where all people are not the same. The CO is what can be affected by a medical condition (or personal activity level, exercise, etc...). You just simply need to figure out how your medical issues affect your CO so you can plan and accurately weigh/measure your CI.

My $.02, take it for what its worth.

Welcome to the argument. The basic issue is that some people are denying that this is true.

exactly ….

I guess simple concepts are tough for some to grasp ...

Right, so isn't how you control it with diet important?

For example, restricting carbs will often help with this so you don't get the exaggerated insulin response? But for some, even this isn't enough and they need medication like metformin to aid with it.

That's essentially what the study showed -- those with insulin resistance on a diet with 40% carbs (and 40% fats and 20% protein) lost nearly twice as much as their counterparts with 60/20/20 ratio for calorically equivalent diets. So, doesn't that show that macro balance of the calories is important for people with those issues? That merely eating at a deficit will not produce the same results for such people?

Of course limiting carbohydrate is how you prevent an exaggerated insulin response. I could be mistaken, but I don't think anybody was saying that people with PCOS shouldn't modify their diet to limit carbs.

Does that show that macro balance is important? Yes.

Does it show that eating at a deficit will not produce the same results for such people? No.

Perhaps what I need to specifically articulate at this juncture is that the macro balance for people with metabolic disorders seems to have an effect on what constitutes a deficit. If they have all that glucose and insulin whizzing around, and that glucose getting shuttled into the cells, the cells will be less likely to be in energy deficit and more likely to be in energy surplus and can store fat. If they limit the amount of carbohydrate (and possibly also take Metformin), thereby suppressing the amount of circulating glucose and insulin, less glucose can be shuttled into the cells, which will be less likely to result in an energy surplus (fat storage) and more likely to result in an energy deficit.

I don't see this as materially different from tinkering with the macro ratio to achieve different TEF efficiencies, and it doesn't change the inescapable fact that weight loss means an energy deficit and a weight gain means an energy surplus.

For the record, I think a 60/20/20 diet would be miserable for just about anyone.

From what I've seen, some people argue that for weight loss, the content of the calories, including macro balance, is immaterial -- it's all about sheer caloric numbers. And for normal folks, this may be true -- though I imagine there can be always some efficiency gains with adjusting macros. It's these people I have an issue with.

I'm not opposed to the whole CICO idea in general -- just that it's not the whole picture for everyone. Some will have to manipulate that deficit in very specific ways to maximize weight loss. To me, that says weight loss for those people is about more than just sheer caloric deficit.

Sorry, if this seems redundant -- I think we're in agreement for the most part.

For those with specific conditions....PCOS, diabetes, etc. Manipulation of macros would be desirable to maximize loss in a healthy way. For the average healthy person, CICO is all that matters for weight loss....NOT OVERALL HEALTH. I think we actually agree after all.