Fantastic tips for weight loss, hunger, satiety, nutrition, meals timing etc

AnnPT77 wrote: »

kimny72 wrote: »

OP, first read the flow chart above

10 lbs in a month is fairly aggressive. With only 12 lbs left to lose, you really should only be expecting a loss of @ one-half to one lb per month, so what you saw this month was actually not that far off. Once you get down to around the 10 lb mark, it is slow and you don't have much margin for error. Patience is your friend. And normal water weight fluctuations can sometimes hide those small weekly losses. Hang in there and Good luck!

+1 to that.

Also, if you're finding yourself hungry, it may be a good idea to fine-tune the timing & composition of what you're eating.

First, get basic nutrition in line. Make sure you're getting sufficient protein (at least hit the MFP default grams, but more would be better). This is just my opinion, but based on some research: I went for at least .6-.8g per pound of goal weight while losing. Try to proportion it out semi-evenly across your major meals. Get at least some fats, ideally some healthy ones (cold water fish, nuts, avocado, olive oil, etc.) at every meal. I tried for .35g fat per pound of goal weight. Strive for a minimum of 5 servings daily of fruits & veggies.

Once that's solid, consider whether the timing of your eating is optimal for you (satiation seems to be very individual). Here on MFP, I've seen people find their best routine on anything from 1 big meal a day (intermittent fasting) to 6 small meals, and everything in between, in terms of number of meals/snacks. Same applies to the relative size of each meal/snack. Some people do better with a big breakfast, some better if they skip breakfast. Some need a big dinner, and/or need to save some calories for an evening snack, while others do better if they eat a light dinner then shut down the kitchen for the day.

You can also vary the composition of your eating, within a healthy range: Some people find protein satiating, others find fat most satisfying, some favor high-volume/low-calorie foods (which are usually fibrous veggies). Some people aren't satiated without some filling carbs like potatoes or rice, but others find that carbs just make them crave more carbs.

If you're finding yourself too hungry, try a new routine for a couple of days. If it's more satisfying, keep it, maybe tweaking around the edges to make it even better. But if the new approach isn't any better than where you started, try something else. Rinse & repeat.

Throughout, diary review is your friend. Look at what you've logged every couple/few days. Which days were you most satisfied? Most crave-y? What was different: Timing or composition of eating? Stress? Exercise? Sleep? Something else?

Look for foods that contributed a relatively larger number of calories to your day, but don't really seem worth their calories in terms of satiation, nutrition, or tastiness. Replace them with something else you like that better fits your goals.

Keep fine-tuning until you find the sweet spot for you: This is the learning you need to make weight maintenance easy for you in the long run.

Best of luck!

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I think there are 3 things here that are getting confusingly interwoven here – weight loss, healthy eating, and satiation. Yes, they’re inter-related, but I think it will help to talk about them individually, then talk about the relationships. (There’s also the “am I eating too few calories” question. I’ll take a stab at that later, too.)

Weight loss: It’s about the calories – just the calories. I know, some people here on MFP say there’s more to it, but let’s do a thought experiment. If someone locks me in a tiny cage, and feeds me fewer calories than I burn, I will lose weight. If they keep doing it, eventually I’ll die.

It doesn’t matter whether they feed me only pure cane sugar, only lean beefsteak, or bottles of canola oil. If it’s fewer calories than I burn, I’ll lose weight. Yes, I may be very unhealthy, and I may have terrible cravings – but I’ll still keep losing weight, because I’m locked in a cage and can’t binge.

If I have a relevant medical condition (like a thyroid problem), or a “fast or slow metabolism” (whatever the heck that is), I may burn fewer or more calories compared to the guy in the next cage, but as long as I’m eating below the calories I personally burn, I’ll lose weight. Evil regimes have proven this amply over the course of history: People who don’t get enough food lose weight and eventually die.

Obviously, we want to lose weight (if we’re overweight), but avoid the unhealthy/dying pitfalls. Which brings us to . . .

Healthy Eating: Most of us want to be healthy. This is why the twinkie diet (and a lot of crash diets) are bad ideas. This is also where the suggestions come in about “.6-.8 grams of protein per pound of healthy goal weight” and “.35g of fat, preferably healthy fat, per pound of goal weight”, and “eat at least 5 varied fruit/veg servings”. You don’t need to do these to lose weight. These are about being healthy (which sensible people want to do while losing weight and after).

Different people may prefer different specific number ranges. The ones above are what I prefer based on my research (reading scientific studies, though I’m not a scientist), but others may differ. Both the protein and fat numbers are a minimum. So you want to eat at least that much.

Ideally, you want to eat that much protein every day, spread more or less evenly across your major meals, because our bodies don’t store protein for much-later use, except in the form of muscles and such, which we want to keep, not burn up. Fat is maybe a little more forgiving (we have some stored, obviously), but it’s still good to get that as a minimum to keep the body running smoothly while in calorie deficit.

Unless you have some kind of unusual medical condition, you’re unlikely to get too much protein – your body can handle pretty large amounts. As long as you’re not seeing negative consequences (like digestive or bowel issues, bad blood test results, etc.), you really aren’t likely to be getting too much fat, either. So, it’s fine if you go over the suggested protein or fat level, from purely a health standpoint. (Skipping back briefly here, if going over that range means you go over your calorie budget, or it forces you to take other needed nutrients out of your day to meet your calorie budget, that’s not a good thing, of course.)

The fruits & veggies part is so you get plenty of vitamins & minerals & such, without getting super-detailed about trying to count each micronutrient separately (which one can do, if one wishes to be super-precise, but it’s difficult).

Some people have special issues with carbohydrates. Either they get cravings if they eat too many, or feel most satiated if they eat really few, or their energy level needs them to eat certain amounts at certain times, or something like that. Other than that, IMO, there’s no real reason to fuss about one’s carbs. If your energy level is good, you don’t have difficult cravings, and you’re losing weight at a reasonable rate, there’s no need to worry about them.

“Low carb” is a great solution for some, and really necessary for them. For the rest of us, it’s not essential IMO. I just try to get my other nutrients right, hit my calorie goal, and let carbs fall where they may.

In this “being healthy” part is where I’d put your question about fiber. I personally try for at least 25g, and usually exceed it. If you eat plenty of whole fruits & veg, and whole-grain things (if you eat grain), this will happen almost automatically.

MFP (the free version) tracks macros in percentages rather than grams. I just set my percentages so that with my baseline (pre-exercise) calories, it gives me approximately the grams I’m aiming at, for fats & proteins.

Satiation: Satiation – feeling full enough to be happy – seems to be very individual. Many people do find fats & protein satiating, as you seem to be doing. Some people need lots of fiber, some don’t. You’ve found your sweet spot – that’s really all you need. It doesn’t matter what others find satiating, or find to cause them cravings – unless you need others’ input because you’re having trouble feeling satiated, then their ideas might give you things to try. But you’ve found something that works for you: Yay, you! Yes, that can change over the process of losing weight, but now you know how to use diary review to solve these problems, so you can handle it.

Putting it together: If someone wants to lose weight, while eating healthily, that’s where things get tricky. If we cut calories, we may lose weight, but in order to stay healthy at the same time, we have to still get the right amount of fat, protein & micronutrients, and it may be harder to do that on fewer calories. Getting more of one means getting less of something else, since there's a calorie limit.

So, the trick is to figure out how to use your limited calorie budget to get the right amounts of nutrients. When you do that, you’re well on the way to “healthy weight loss”.

You say you’re still working on getting your protein to a good level. Keep working on it!

But I still haven’t pulled the satiation back in to the combined picture: Clearly, if you’re not satiated, it’s going to be hard to stick to your calorie goal, and you may fall off the wagon or binge. If that happens, you may not lose weight.

To avoid that, you go for the whoooole goal: Hit your calorie target, get at least the minimum of important nutrients, then experiment with nutrients within a healthy range until you’re satiated and can stick with that way of eating long term, until you’ve lost all the weight you wish. That’s the winning spot.

But that still leaves one question:

Am I eating too few calories? I would argue that that’s the wrong question. The right question is “Am I losing weight at a healthy rate?” It really is possible to lose weight too fast. Why?

Our bodies can only burn up a certain amount of stored fat per day. Think of it as a limitation in how the chemical processes in our bodies work. Scientific research suggests our bodies can burn only 30-some calories of fat per day per pound of fat on our bodies. If we lose weight faster than that, our body will burn things we don’t want it to burn, like muscles, tendons, bones; or it will slow down less-survival-essential bodily processes (so things happen like hair growth slows & hair falls out, we have less energy to do daily chores, etc.)

Clearly, we don’t want that! But most of us don’t know exactly how many pounds of body fat we have, so the right maximum healthy weight loss rate can be confusing to calculate. So, there are some rules of thumb.

It’s best not to lose more than about 1% of your body weight per week. Even that may be too fast, as goal weight approaches. At 20-25 pounds from goal, it should slow down to no more than 1 pound lost per week. At around 10 pounds from goal, it should slow down to no more than 0.5 pounds per week. It’s always fine to lose more slowly than the recommended maximum, as long as your doctor isn’t pushing you to lose weight very, very fast for some health reason – in which case your weight loss should be doctor (and registered dietician) supervised.

So, is it OK to eat less than your calorie goal? If your actual weight loss is within those guidelines, it’s probably fine. If your weight loss is much faster than that, it would be a good idea to eat more. Since you’re already feeling full, if you’re losing too fast, it might be easiest to add some calorie-dense, healthy foods like peanut butter, nuts or avocado to bring up your calorie level. Or maybe to eat some extra protein, since you say that’s still a little low.

Apologies for the length, but I hope this helps!