What's the secret behind weight loss??

The 'secret' to weight loss is to find sustainable changes in your everyday life. That is, adjustments you can make AND live with that allow you to move more and/or eat less.

The secret to why a body loses more or less weight over a period of time, often goes back to accurate logging, weighing solid food, etc. Though there can be temporary affects of water weight for a variety of reasons.

"Starvation mode" is a complete myth. There is no such thing as eating too little = gaining weight. Eating 1000 calories a day (I do not recommend it because you will feel exhausted and blah) is going to make you lose a ton of weight. Period.

Does that mean I didn't "have" to force myself to eat dinner to reach the minimum 1000 on MFP diary?
I know i know first world problem, lately Ive been having a problem eating more than 800, I'm just not hungry

Why? The fact that it is an ongoing problem is not good.

I first noticed when I was doing intermittent fasting, I realized I can't eat that many calories in an 8 hour window especially since the food I eat is not calorie dense (lean meat, chicken, and veggies) so I stopped doing IF
It also happens whenever I sleep in and I start my day late ( eat around 1 pm) basically same effect as IF since I'm not giving myself enough time to eat
Usually all of this happens on days I don't work out (2 days out of the week) because when I do I'm usually starving afterwards and eat very close to my goal

You're solution is to eat cal dense foods, not leave your days at sub 800 cals.

Having a low day once in a while isn't harmful but if it is common because of laziness or poor planning there is no excuse for it!

OP... as far as getting a food scale goes, you don't have to be extravagant. i think i paid $15 for mine and it measures ounces, pounds/ounces, and grams. i keep it next to my everyday-use tools (knife block, cutting board, etc), and i got one of those magnetic shopping list pads (about $1.50 at any michael's or joanns... look in the bins near the checkout registers) to put on the fridge. every ingredient gets measured or weighed and written down, then logged as a recipe in MFP. it's gone a long way toward keeping things accurate. eventually you'll get to the point where you can accurately eyeball how much shredded cheese or veggie-of-choice is in an ounce... it doesn't mean you don't measure, but it's still good to know.

and don't feel bad. my weight loss has been disgustingly slow, to the point where based on all the calculations available, my body should be burning about 700 calories a day MORE than what it's actually doing.

What's the secret?

Naturally, I'll say it's the wine.

Mmm it does go well with the chicken...

Man some of these comments are out there lol

Hun get a food scale. A lot of people say you need one to make sure your not going over your calorie def but it blew mine how much I was under because I was over guessing on my calories. I had headaches and weakness.... Good luck! Oh and I would just give it some more time

The smaller the number you are trying to lose the slower it will come off. Given that your overall goal is to lose 30 pounds your goal should be to lose 1/2 pound a week, which is two pounds a month. I think your calorie count is off and that you are eating more calories than you think you are. Getting a scale and weighing everything (and measuring liquids unless your drinking water or other no calorie drinks) will improve your accuracy and you will see the numbers dropping.

Before the industrial revolution, think about how often people ate foods high in carbohydrates. Sure, bread and rice was still consumed but nowhere near at the levels we see today.

Before the industrial revolution (late 18th-19th century), but after the agricultural revolution (beginning with the transition to the Neolithic, up to 10,000 years ago depending on where you look), people ate foods high in carbohydrates all the time. That is precisely what the transition to cereal agriculture involved: a shift to wheat, barley, rye, oats, emmer, rice, millet, maize, and all the other cereal crops. I recall one of my reference works on the social history of Europe noting that early modern workers (before the industrial revolution) might get over 80% of their daily calories from bread. That's one reason that the first response to a bad harvest was often to impose price controls on bread, because otherwise there would be bread riots.

People could only eat fresh meat when it was slaughtered (if they could afford it), and eggs and dairy were often luxuries. Cereals and legumes (which were called "meat" by many early modern writers, e.g. by Francis Bacon in his Essays—meaning solid, substantial food, as opposed to drink) were the basic elements of poor people's diets. Of course, the more refined white flour was usually beyond the means of all but the wealthy, so it was whole grain bread with the germ. Those with garden plots might have some leafy vegetables, but certainly not year round.

A lot of those foods were more nutritious before the age of monoculture. The rich, nutritious potatoes that were cultivated in late 18th-century Ireland were replaced in the early 19th century with the "lumper" variety, which was less nutritious but had a higher yield; unfortunately it proved to be especially susceptible to late blight. And the refined flours produced in industrial mills were far less nutritious than the coarse peasant flour made in preindustrial mills.

The health problems associated with eating lots of refined carbohydrates, and added sugars, in the 20th and 21st centuries can't be retrojected to the far more nutritious cereal breads, tortillas, millet bread, etc. of the preindustrial world.

Not putting food in your mouth.

A lot of people on here are rude for the sake of feeling better about themselves. Sure, maybe this question or thread is a repeat, most are because every has a unique situation and you can't get advice for yourself when the stats are about someone else's body.

Remember, the scale is not everything... it can and will be frustrating. Are you feeling better about yourself? Do you feel more confident? Then keep it up! You are going in the right direction. I've also noticed that when I have my weekly weigh-in coming up, I will weigh in the day before or after as well as the weigh-in day itself since your weight flucuates so much... this has really helped me feel less discouraged as usually one of those days I'm down.

Keep on truckin' sister!

Psssst come here I'll tell you..............................


































































There is no secret. You just have to burn off more than you eat.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Just pay attention to what you put in your body, especially processed foods that are high in carbohydrates. The traditional food pyramid has grains, breads, rice, as the foods you should be eating more than any other food groups, but that couldn't actually be further from the truth. Here's a better idea of what humans should be consuming for a healthier lifestyle:



Before the industrial revolution, think about how often people ate foods high in carbohydrates. Sure, bread and rice was still consumed but nowhere near at the levels we see today. People used to believe that eating fatty foods would make you fatter, and while foods high in saturated or trans fats that might be somewhat true, it is simple sugars or glucose/fructose that are the real killers if consumed in excess.

The scientific truth is that very little long term effects of low carb diets are known, at present.
Different places in the world have very, very different food pyramids than these, with healthier outcomes and longer lifespans, less heart disease and their diets and cultures are well established and known.... for example, a Mediterranean Diet and an Asian diet. The Asian diet, in particular, features rice at every meal and as a culture they have little heart disease, live longer than North Americans, and also have no weight problems, as a society, on the whole.

So, scientifically, the truth is that your pyramid is, "at this point in time" highly controversial, and has no long term study results to really outline both the benefits and drawbacks.

Here's a cute article from the BBC
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20141001-manage-like-a-caveman

Here is a traditional Asian food pyramid
http://www.foodpyramid.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/asian_diet_pyramid.jpg
(meat is, in fact, at the top of their food pyramid and a good portion of their calories comes from rice and noodles.)

The Mediterranean Diet has long been accepted as very "nutritionally sound"
http://oldwayspt.org/resources/heritage-pyramids/mediterranean-pyramid/overview

Before the industrial revolution, think about how often people ate foods high in carbohydrates. Sure, bread and rice was still consumed but nowhere near at the levels we see today.

Before the industrial revolution (late 18th-19th century), but after the agricultural revolution (beginning with the transition to the Neolithic, up to 10,000 years ago depending on where you look), people ate foods high in carbohydrates all the time. That is precisely what the transition to cereal agriculture involved: a shift to wheat, barley, rye, oats, emmer, rice, millet, maize, and all the other cereal crops. I recall one of my reference works on the social history of Europe noting that early modern workers (before the industrial revolution) might get over 80% of their daily calories from bread. That's one reason that the first response to a bad harvest was often to impose price controls on bread, because otherwise there would be bread riots.

People could only eat fresh meat when it was slaughtered (if they could afford it), and eggs and dairy were often luxuries. Cereals and legumes (which were called "meat" by many early modern writers, e.g. by Francis Bacon in his Essays—meaning solid, substantial food, as opposed to drink) were the basic elements of poor people's diets. Of course, the more refined white flour was usually beyond the means of all but the wealthy, so it was whole grain bread with the germ. Those with garden plots might have some leafy vegetables, but certainly not year round.

A lot of those foods were more nutritious before the age of monoculture. The rich, nutritious potatoes that were cultivated in late 18th-century Ireland were replaced in the early 19th century with the "lumper" variety, which was less nutritious but had a higher yield; unfortunately it proved to be especially susceptible to late blight. And the refined flours produced in industrial mills were far less nutritious than the coarse peasant flour made in preindustrial mills.

The health problems associated with eating lots of refined carbohydrates, and added sugars, in the 20th and 21st centuries can't be retrojected to the far more nutritious cereal breads, tortillas, millet bread, etc. of the preindustrial world.

Great post!!
Interestingly, some recent archeological work has discovered grains in the teeth of paleolitic man - so their diets may have been more grain rich than previously thought.
And clearly, also it is noteworthy to add that the development of civilization itself was made possible by man figuring out how to grow and harvest food.

Lastly, common sense also makes quite clear that meat eating was not a daily event in the lives of cavemen, anymore than it is for any of the great cats or other meat-eaters - hunting doesn't produce daily kills.

I have often wondered, in fact, whether homo-sapien survival, while Neanderthals became extinct, which was originally thought to be climate related, may, in fact be traced back to rudimentary types of agriculture being discovered and developed. By this I don't mean the growing of crops, per say, but rather, discovering "processing"....that a plant or grain that was foraged could be ground and stored, thus providing food during winters and during times when hunting was unsuccessful.

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Here's a good article for you.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/3/665.long

Human beings, are "starchivores".... LOl - according to most anthropologists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufNEoLeVplc&feature=youtu.be