Why is it that people on the Biggest loser etc
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I don't get all the attacking on here. I don't eat my exercise calories cause I'm not hungry. Listen to your body. Eat what you need to and you'll be fine. I lose at least 500 a day at the gym and I'm not going to stuff myself just to meet some arbitrary number meant for THE MOST AVERAGE PERSON EVER.
Why is "do what is best for you and your body" so hard to grasp?
Um. Do what works for you. But the cal goals on MFP are NOT calculated for "the average person" - they're calculated for YOU, specifically, based on your height, weight, age, activity level and metabolism. It is far from arbitrary. It may need slight tweaking, but is quite a successful formula (Mifflin - St. Jeor equations), used by doctors, trainers, dieticians and health experts to determine your metabolic rate. It is hardly "pulled out of thin air."
They are helpful guidelines, but the gist of this site is to make a caloric deficit of about 500 calories a week in order to lose the 3,500. Not all humans work to mathematical perfection. Four factors doesn't make it that personalized. They measure your height and weight (which doesn't measure your body fat percentage) and they measure in very general terms your daily life. "Nurse, construction worker" are not the only jobs our there that need high energy, so it would make sense if someone under/over estimated what they need. This is a free site and gives general advice and guidelines. This is not your doctor with your medical records. This is not your trainer who has worked with you for months or years. And this is not, most importantly, YOU.
Do what is best for YOUR body. Not what fits the site which is, I'm sorry, made for the most average person of your height/weight/activity level.
Edit: I should add here that I don't mean to say that the site doesn't work, but that the "tweeking" as you put it comes in handy if you deviate from the average.0 -
Do you want to lose weight or FAT?
Biggest Loser people don't care about fat loss hence they eat SFA and exercise a ****load. It's a competition at the end of the day about weight loss not body recomposition. If you wanted to look like a saggy skinned person then following the advice of the biggest loser is a great way to do that (obviously depends on individual circumstances).
So true0 -
Just an FYI - Biggest Loser people have 1400 cals for women, 1800 cals for men minimum cals they are required to eat, but it's tailored to each individual and usually ends up being higher than those...again those absolute minimums. That info has been posted several times on different interviews with various past participants.0
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A number of times on the show they have told people they had a small loss that week because they were not eating enough calories for the exercise they were doing.
It can be hard for the contestants to grasp at times.0 -
BUMP0
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I keep reading these people posting abt their dietician or Dr. or PT telling them, "Don't eat your exercise cals." Every, and I mean EVERY, thing I have read says to eat MOST if not ALL of your exercise cals. I dated a woman who was a P/T at a gym and she told me to eat my exercise cals and I lost weight. I continue to wonder why these naysayers CANNOT cite a reliable source or even ANY source whatever. Here's the one I SWEAR by and a couple book reviews:
Burn the Fat, Feed the Mucle by Tom Venuto
http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/burn-the-fat-feed-the-muscle-complete-review.html
http://www.burnthefatblog.com/archives/2009/12/cheating_on_your_diet.php
I run every AM and do ISO 3 times a week. Cals burned last week: 10464. I eat close to the goal every day and am dropping 2 pounds per week like clockwork.0 -
From my understanding, the reason you CAN eat your exercise calories is when you first sign up for the site, it asks you all your information.. height, weight, etc, asks you how often and for how long you plan to exercise, and asks you how much you would ideally like to lose per week.
Based on the information you provide, it calculates *roughly* what your BMR would be - and gives you however many calories based on your BMR.
So the calories you have to eat in a day are already at a deficit! (To make you lose whatever you said you wanted to in the first place... 1, 1.5 or 2 pounds a week... aka healthy loss)
So for me, a woman who is 5'6 and 159 pounds, my *estimated* BMR is 1478, and MFP tells me to eat 1350 calories a day to lose ONE pound a week.
Of course this will vary person to person, because the BMR it gives you in the first place is only an ESTIMATE. If your body naturally burns LESS than what it tells you then it makes sense that you would not lose while eating exercise cals - because the deficit given to you in your food diary is not actually a deficit for you...0 -
this is the ONLY place ive ever heard about eating you calories back.0
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I keep reading these people posting abt their dietician or Dr. or PT telling them, "Don't eat your exercise cals." Every, and I mean EVERY, thing I have read says to eat MOST if not ALL of your exercise cals. I dated a woman who was a P/T at a gym and she told me to eat my exercise cals and I lost weight. I continue to wonder why these naysayers CANNOT cite a reliable source or even ANY source whatever. Here's the one I SWEAR by and a couple book reviews:
Burn the Fat, Feed the Mucle by Tom Venuto
http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/burn-the-fat-feed-the-muscle-complete-review.html
http://www.burnthefatblog.com/archives/2009/12/cheating_on_your_diet.php
I run every AM and do ISO 3 times a week. Cals burned last week: 10464. I eat close to the goal every day and am dropping 2 pounds per week like clockwork.
im going by what worked for me when I lost 40 lb and kept it off.0 -
I'm not getting involved in the eating your exercise cals debate.... but if you haven't read the interview with former BL contestant Kai, it's rather eye opening to what they go through.
This is part 1... part 2 and 3 are linked within the text of the article...
http://www.bodylovewellness.com/2010/06/09/kai-hibbard-biggest-loser-finalist-part-1-of-3/0 -
its not even that simple i.e you burn 600 calories therefore you have 600 more to play with food wise
If you do a high intensity work out, you may burn 600 calories but theres an After Burn Effect,
I saw a documentary once and a guy did 90 mins of work out and burnt the equivalent of 16grams of fat.
But in the following 24-48 hours he burnt an additional 48grams not doing anything. This is because your body keeps the high rate of metabolism as if you were exercising for a period after words. Therefore theoretically your burning much more the next 2 days than you ever did at your original workout.
Thats why weight losses are never scientific enough to work out to any mathematical equation (i.e your net calorie deficit per week is 3500 that means 1lb of fat loss - but ive had calorie deficits of 1000 some weeks and lost 5 or 6 lbs)
the only problem with this is that you need to work damn hard exercising, and then do more each time you exercise as just a 30 minute stroll in the park wont create the after burn effect.0 -
I don't get all the attacking on here. I don't eat my exercise calories cause I'm not hungry. Listen to your body. Eat what you need to and you'll be fine. I lose at least 500 a day at the gym and I'm not going to stuff myself just to meet some arbitrary number meant for THE MOST AVERAGE PERSON EVER.
Why is "do what is best for you and your body" so hard to grasp?
My body wants chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake every day. Should I listen to it or to my brain that tells me that if I eat that stuff, I'll get fat? That's the same brain that can't comprehend how people can think that their bodies NEED the same amount of food if they sit around all day or if they burn 800 calories a day working out.
As for the Holocast comparison, obviously if you eat NOTHING all day, you'll lose weight. Your body isn't programmed to never need calories. The camp prisoners ate miniscule calories per day (we're not talking 700-1000 calories a day, we're talking 100-200 of food with very little nutrients). They lost fat (and muscle), their bodies stopped working efficiently and their organs eventually stopped working. So they died. The problem with what people are doing here is that they're feeding their bodies ENOUGH that the body maintains bodily functions (unlike Holocast victims) but because the body is starved, it holds on to the calories it does get (those 800-1000 compared to 100-200) so your body won't efficiently burn fat. So no, starvation mode is not a "myth". Read the thread about gaining on 700 calories a day and it explains it better than I can.0 -
I don't get all the attacking on here. I don't eat my exercise calories cause I'm not hungry. Listen to your body. Eat what you need to and you'll be fine. I lose at least 500 a day at the gym and I'm not going to stuff myself just to meet some arbitrary number meant for THE MOST AVERAGE PERSON EVER.
Why is "do what is best for you and your body" so hard to grasp?
My body wants chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake every day. Should I listen to it or to my brain that tells me that if I eat that stuff, I'll get fat? That's the same brain that can't comprehend how people can think that their bodies NEED the same amount of food if they sit around all day or if they burn 800 calories a day working out.
As for the Holocast comparison, obviously if you eat NOTHING all day, you'll lose weight. Your body isn't programmed to never need calories. The camp prisoners ate miniscule calories per day (we're not talking 700-1000 calories a day, we're talking 100-200 of food with very little nutrients). They lost fat (and muscle), their bodies stopped working efficiently and their organs eventually stopped working. So they died. The problem with what people are doing here is that they're feeding their bodies ENOUGH that the body maintains bodily functions (unlike Holocast victims) but because the body is starved, it holds on to the calories it does get (those 800-1000 compared to 100-200) so your body won't efficiently burn fat. So no, starvation mode is not a "myth". Read the thread about gaining on 700 calories a day and it explains it better than I can.
Absolutely BRILLIANT observation !!!0 -
If you do weight training even on very low calorie diets (700 cal in the one study I read an abstract of) your metabolism will not slow down significantly. (I AM NO RECOMMENDING 700 cal diet nor as far as I know did the people who ran the experiment). The issues are whether you are learning to eat differently than you did before. If you lose weight very quickly, say like the biggest loser contestants, you do not have the time to learn new eating and thinking patterns that will keep you from gaining back the weight. I have been on my weight loss journey for a little over a year now (seriously for more like 7 months) and I am still working on learning new eating habits. It is getting more natural now, but say I had done the biggest loser approach and said I can lose 10-15 pounds a week. In a matter of months I would have been at my goal weight (as opposed to having another few months to go) I would have learned nothing about how to eat or had an of my bad habits changed as there would simply not be enough time to change them. That, not a slowed down metabolism, would have put the weight back on. I would very quickly be back to eating and acting the way I did before thinking I could just take it off again the same way.0
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I'm not getting involved in the eating your exercise cals debate.... but if you haven't read the interview with former BL contestant Kai, it's rather eye opening to what they go through.
This is part 1... part 2 and 3 are linked within the text of the article...
http://www.bodylovewellness.com/2010/06/09/kai-hibbard-biggest-loser-finalist-part-1-of-3/
Wow, thanks for sharing. I suspected some unhealthy things were going on but I had no idea it was that demoralizing. How sad.
As a personal trainer, The Biggest Loser just makes my job so much harder... People are already unrealistic about weight loss and seeing folks lose double digits in a "week" furthers that. I tried watching it two seasons ago and actually quit watching it because I got so irritated when someone would ONLY lose 3 pounds in a week and the trainers would shake their heads disapprovingly and say "You need to step it up." As you all know, in the real world, 3 pounds in a week is a LOT.0 -
and I dont mean to sound confused but yet i am
some say you should eat some of your exercise calories and some say not to.. I just dont get which is best
Some do and some don't because I think those that don't just don't understand the concept (not trying to be snarky here). Yes, the common way of thinking about losing weight is to exercise to burn off calories. But you shouldn't reduce your calorie intake AND work out because then your body isn't getting enough fuel.
Think of it this way, say you need 2000 calories a day to stay the same weight you are. You need to eat 500 calories a day less in order to lose a pound a week. So MFP builds that calorie deficit into your daily plan so you are now eating 1500 calorie. Now you could just eat that 1500 calories and lose weight without exercise, but exercise is good because it tones and burns fat faster and improves your cardiovascular health. So if you're going to work out, you've got to eat those calories back so that you are getting enough food. If you burned off an additional 500 calories, your body is then getting a 1000 calorie deficit and your only netting 1000 calories, that's not enough.
Think of your body as a car that needs fuel, as you burn off that fuel, you need to replace it so it can continue to run properly.
I understand the concept just fine, I just happen to disagree with it based on various peer reviewed articles and reading I had done. I don't really want to argue it as either approach will work, but I do take offense at people saying that just because one disagrees with it means they don't understand it. I understand it just fine but realize that measuring the number of calories consumed is not as easy as adding up the numbers on the nutrition labels and measuring the calories burned is not as easy as writing down the number on the readout on the exercise machine or inputing your time in the appropriate exercise on MFP. The calories in are almost always more than the label states, and the calories burned are almost always less than estimated. I'm not even sure a heart rate monitor helps that much although it should be more accurate than the estimates. Either way, based on my research I disagree with the MFP approach at this point. More reading may change my mind, but what I am doing works just fine for me.0 -
Hmm I wondered too especially after seeing the recent one where the board shows 1050 calories or something like that. I was like huh and then they exercise those away. But I'm thinking they have snacks.
I have definite mixed feelings on the show. They also seem to be making people think they can go on and lose double digits each week its just unrealistic. They are monitored and from the body scans losing fat and not just muscle and fat. Its hard to say what happens. I don't think its really 10+ lbs in a week. Former contestants have said it was much longer between weigh ins but I really don't know.0 -
I've lost 11 pounds so far since joining roughly a month ago. I understand the "eat your exercise calories" and most of the time I do, but that's because it's working for me and I'm seeing progress and because my exercise calories are not extreme. Approx 200-300 a day.
If I found my weight loss really slowed for a significant amount of time, I might reconsider eating my exercise calories for a couple of weeks and see if that made any difference.
If I was working out and burning twice what I do, 400-600, I might only eat half my exercise calories and see how I feel.
*This* is what people mean by doing what works for you. You need to tweak for what works for your body and keeps you motivated and you need to continually tweak as you go and you encounter plateaus and/or your body gets used to what you're doing.
Ideally, if you're eating your 3 meals and 2-3 snacks a day, drinking your 8 - 8 oz. glasses of water, eating enough of your exercise calories to keep your body from going into starvation mode, you should be losing, you should be feeling satisfied (hunger-wise).
Your 3 meals should be 300-400 calories each and your 2-3 snacks should be roughly 100 each, depending on the calories you've been allotted and the amount of exercise you're doing. My figures are based on someone on a 1200-1500 calorie plan.
Protein is really important and I see so many people eating a ton of fruit and veggies and feeling like they're starving. Eat some protein! A handful of nuts, some chicken or turkey breasts, some beans or legumes with your salad, etc. Protein fills you up and you stay full longer. As great as fruit is, it does turn to sugar fairly quickly and you burn it up, feeling hungry much quicker.
Anyway. As for Biggest Loser. I watch it but it annoys me to no end that it's so warped people's sense of what is good and sensible weight loss. Double digits are not normal. Four, five, six pounds a week is not normal. These people have trainers, nutritionists and doctors watching them the whole time. Most of them are *this close* to dropping dead when they go on the show. It's essentially a medical intervention and it does not reflect what most people can do - or should do - at home, on their own.
As long as that scale is going down over a period of a month, be it by a 1/2 pound or by 8 pounds (2 a week maximum), be happy and be pleased with yourself. You're much more likely to have that weight stay off in the long run. If your scale yo-yos, it's likely your sodium intake. Monitor it and see what happens. You'll notice a pattern.
If you diet all week and cheat all weekend, you'll also confuse the heck out of your body and it will become more stubborn about holding onto the pounds. Notice I said cheat all weekend, not have one meal out on a Saturday night where you don't worry about calories.
And lastly, yes, women will notice a huge variance in their weight during the week of their period and the week leading up to it. Whee! That's two weeks out of the month we can expect our scales to be screwy, hence it being better to watch your overall progress, month by month, then to hang on each week's reading.
Sorry for the long-winded response. But when I first joined MFP I thought I would find everyone doing this the "sensible" way with food and exercise and I'm actually stunned by how many people are doing the HCG diet and taking various pills and quick fixes and by how many people aren't even aware of the most basic things about how our bodies work and basic nutrition.0 -
Remember the pictures of holocaust death camp survivors? Well they weren't that skinny cause they were eating 6 meals a day, I'll tell you that! "Starvation mode" is really a misnomer: yes, your metabolism will slow down in your body's effort to preserve itself, but if you keep pushing it, it doesn't have a choice but to use that fat supply just to live.
The harm in entering starvation mode isn't that you stop loosing weight, its that when you return to a normal diet, you gain exponentially.
Exactly and you may lose some muscle as well!0 -
The majority of the contestants gain a substantial amount of there weigh back...not all of them but a lot!0
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