What's your Secret Truth on Weight Loss?

CICO

Psyjohn319 wrote: »

Wow! I don’t get it. You can lose muscle weight (which is heavier than fat weight) by cutting back on exercise. However, if your caloric intake is higher, it doesn’t make sense physiologically.

Muscle is more dense per pound than fat (smaller volume) but a pound is a pound, when it comes to how it affects the bodyweight scale.

If a healthy person cuts back exercise (doesn't eliminate it altogether) I suspect muscle mass loss will be somewhat slow, especially if nutrition (especially protein) is adequate. I can't prove it, but here's what makes me think that: Lazy, pleasure-seeking, and undermotivated soul that I am, I've reduced exercise pretty much every Winter for 15+ years now. Most of those years**, my weight was stable, i.e., I was maintaining, and I didn't have to buy new clothes every Spring to accommodate a body that had materially increased in size (because fat is less dense) at that same weight. (As measured by readily-measurable exercise performance, I wasn't significantly weaker by Spring, either, though of course I realize that muscle mass and functional strength are related but not identical things.) (** In the few other years, I was either intentionally losing weight, or gaining it at a slow-creep rate.)

If a person loses weight (on the scale) more readily at a higher calorie level, the physiological mechanisms would be things like the effect of fatigue (or adaptive thermogenesis) on daily life activity level, and on exercise intensity; plus the cortisol-related water retention that can come from the physical stress of a long-ish term excessive calorie deficit. Then, of course, there's also the role of compliance with calorie goal, and the possibility of self-denial/selective memory about overeating incidents that are more likely to happen when the calorie deficit is too extreme.

Discipline

The only secret is taking responsibility for how much food I eat.

Choices - Actions - Consequences.

I've put on some COVID weight as well and I know why. Changing that now.

- drinking my calories way too often. For me this is #1. On the rare occasion I went out to coffee shops, I'd gone back to old habits of ordering "skinny mochas" and sometimes even full calorie lattes when I normally - for years post weight loss - I'd had a 5-10 calorie coffee or Americano.
- baking way too much.
- feeling like takeout was a free for all. If I was going to a restaurant I'd also go running errands for 2 hours and a hike. Just waking up on a Saturday and ordering takeout, I was burning no calories and actually eating more food because it felt like a "treat" more so than previously.

Bad ideas.