So much conflicting information
roseym10
Posts: 101 Member
I read a lot of weight loss articles and honestly it is confusing. These are some of the examples of things I've read:
1. If you lower your calories too much your body goes into starvation mode.
2. If you eat lower calorie your body gets used to it, once you add calories you gain weight.
3. You need to eat breakfast to jump start your metabolism.
4. Don't eat after 7pm if you want to lose weight.
5. Things like dairy, soy, carbs etc need to be eliminated when you reach middle age in order to lose weight.
6. The only thing that matters is calories in, calories out.
7. Intermittent fasting helps with weight loss.
8. Eating keto will curb your appetite.
9. Carb cycling with help with weight loss.
I could go on and on. I have to admit, I have tried many of these and I have yet to lose these 30 lbs I'm carrying. I am on medication known to mess with hunger cues which makes it difficult for me. I just want to find a way of eating that works with my life, doesn't leave me hungry and results in weight loss. Any thoughts from the experts out there?
1. If you lower your calories too much your body goes into starvation mode.
2. If you eat lower calorie your body gets used to it, once you add calories you gain weight.
3. You need to eat breakfast to jump start your metabolism.
4. Don't eat after 7pm if you want to lose weight.
5. Things like dairy, soy, carbs etc need to be eliminated when you reach middle age in order to lose weight.
6. The only thing that matters is calories in, calories out.
7. Intermittent fasting helps with weight loss.
8. Eating keto will curb your appetite.
9. Carb cycling with help with weight loss.
I could go on and on. I have to admit, I have tried many of these and I have yet to lose these 30 lbs I'm carrying. I am on medication known to mess with hunger cues which makes it difficult for me. I just want to find a way of eating that works with my life, doesn't leave me hungry and results in weight loss. Any thoughts from the experts out there?
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Replies
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I'm far from being an expert.
I do believe it doesn't matter what you eat, as long as you're under calorie goals. For losing weight that is. But hopefully good healthy nutrition plays into losing weight as well as lower calories. Ex: eating 1200 calories worth of donuts and 1200 calories of fruits/veggies/protein will basically have you losing the same amount of weight, but which is healthier? I also believe you need to find the way that is most sustainable for you, your lifestyle and needs. Some people claim different methods works for them, such as low-carb, IF, etc., etc. but it's just another way of cutting calories low enough so you lose.
I worked with a lady who used low-carb, lost 40#, then gained it all back when she increased her carbs again. Another woman I knew used Jenny Craig, lost 100# for her upcoming wedding, then gained it all back. Same with me and WW or a liquid diet I used, lost initial weight fairly quickly but never stuck with the plan. I count calories, plain and simple. I include protein, dairy, veggies/fruits, and also have snacks, as long as they're all within my calorie range. If they're not, I go walk for awhile. Which looks like I'll be doing that tonight.
Good luck!! Find what you enjoy and you'll stick with it easier.1 -
I read a lot of weight loss articles and honestly it is confusing. These are some of the examples of things I've read:
1. If you lower your calories too much your body goes into starvation mode.
2. If you eat lower calorie your body gets used to it, once you add calories you gain weight.
3. You need to eat breakfast to jump start your metabolism.
4. Don't eat after 7pm if you want to lose weight.
5. Things like dairy, soy, carbs etc need to be eliminated when you reach middle age in order to lose weight.
6. The only thing that matters is calories in, calories out.
7. Intermittent fasting helps with weight loss.
8. Eating keto will curb your appetite.
9. Carb cycling with help with weight loss.
I could go on and on. I have to admit, I have tried many of these and I have yet to lose these 30 lbs I'm carrying. I am on medication known to mess with hunger cues which makes it difficult for me. I just want to find a way of eating that works with my life, doesn't leave me hungry and results in weight loss. Any thoughts from the experts out there?
A lot of that isn't actual scientific information, but click-bait junk.
Some may be based on preliminary science that gets distorted thusly:
This is essentially what I did to find a way of eating that helped me lose weight without feeling deprived:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p13 -
Losing weight isn't complicated, articles just like to make it sound complicated. Remember, the purpose of an article is to get you to click it, not to give you good information.
Also, most nutrition research is funded by food companies, so take that science worth a grain of salt, because it's basically just really expensive marketing copy.
Focus on eating really nutritious food, and maintaining a consistent moderate *average* calorie deficit. Your body can and will adapt to a sustained deficit, so that's why extreme deficits and rapid weight loss are generally a bad idea.
For me, I never focus on a weight loss goal, I focus on a sustainable lifestyle goal, and I build toward it with incremental steps. So I started with maintenance first.
By "maintenance first" I mean that I never ate or excercised any kind of special way to lose weight only to try and change it later for maintenance.
Instead, I just focused on always improving my eating and exercise. I lived in a way that would support a lean weight and eventually just ended up there.
What this meant for me was that once I established the kind of lifestyle I needed to maintain a lean weight, all I had to do was sit back and wait for it. The weight just disappeared and stayed gone and I didn't have to do anything other than keep doing what I was already comfortable with.
Many people struggle with weight loss because they make it too complicated for themselves. It doesn't need to be complicated.
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Yes/No...kinda. Adaptive thermogensis is a thing and large calorie deficits can exacerbate that issue. The human body strives for homeostasis so with large calorie deficits, the human body will down regulate basic functions like growing hair or nails or menstrual cycles or bring on greater fatigues, etc all of which have a negative impact on your calories out. In essence your body conserves energy when there is a large disparity in energy coming in vs going out.
1. If you lower your calories too much your body goes into starvation mode.
This goes back to adaptive thermogenesis. Prolonged dieting and large calorie deficits once again exacerbate this issue. Diet breaks are often recommended to re-balance hormones and combat adaptive thermogenesis. Also, this works the other way too...when you increase calories you also start ramping up your metabolism again. This is a bigger issue with long term dieting and yo-yo dieting. I lost 40 Lbs and maintained that for almost a decade until COVID...I definitely ate way more in maintenance than when I was losing weight.3. If you eat lower calorie your body gets used to it, once you add calories you gain weight.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a marketing gimmick put out by the Kellogg's Corporation back in the 30s/40s. You aren't a car...nothing needs jump started. You burn calories 24/7.4. You need to eat breakfast to jump start your metabolism.
Completely irrelevant from a biological standpoint, however, it is something often used by people to control calories as are things like intermittent fasting and other time controls to eating...it's just a way of controlling calories and having "rules" that may help you control calories. I don't typically eat my evening meal until 8PM or after and had zero issue losing 40 Lbs.5. Don't eat after 7pm if you want to lose weight.
I'm 47 and I consume all of those things...they don't have anything to do with weight management. Weight management is about energy (calorie) management. A calorie is a unit of energy...when you take in fewer calories (energy) than your body needs you have to dip into energy reserves (bodyfat) to make up that difference.6. Things like dairy, soy, carbs etc need to be eliminated when you reach middle age in order to lose weight.
For the most part, yes. When you consume less energy (calories) than you require then you burn stored energy (bodyfat) to make up the difference. Like banking...if you spend more money than you earn in your paycheck you're going to have to dip into savings to make up that difference. There are numerous things that can complicate the equation such as wonky hormones, medical issues, etc...but for the most part weight management comes down to your calories coming in vs you calorie (energy) expenditure.7. The only thing that matters is calories in, calories out.
Again, another timing issue and "rules" for when you can and cannot eat which may help you better maintain a calorie deficit. In and of itself it isn't magic. I've done IF at various times for various reasons over the years and have lost weight, maintained weight, and gained weight with IF depending on my calories coming in and out.8. Intermittent fasting helps with weight loss.
Massive generalization. Some people find this to be true and others do not.9. Eating keto will curb your appetite.
Carb cycling is largely a product of the endurance athlete world and somehow trickled into gen pop dieting. Endurance athletes use carb cycling to cycle their carbohydrates around heavy training bouts for better performance while they also may be trying to drop a few Lbs to be at a better competitive weight for their sport. These are typically athletes who want to drop a few Lbs to be at an optimal weight for their sport and comfort level for overall performance...carb cycling allows them to perform optimally during heavy training bouts while still maintaining a small calorie deficit which may otherwise hinder performance.10. Carb cycling with help with weight loss.I could go on and on. I have to admit, I have tried many of these and I have yet to lose these 30 lbs I'm carrying. I am on medication known to mess with hunger cues which makes it difficult for me. I just want to find a way of eating that works with my life, doesn't leave me hungry and results in weight loss. Any thoughts from the experts out there?
For the most part, issues with losing weight generally come down to being inconsistent...bouncing around from diet to diet...being on diet and off diet...things like that. Losing weight is simple but it also requires discipline and consistency over time. Losing weight is a slow process and it's easy to start over again tomorrow or next week or whatever and be inconsistent in the process. The process requires consistency and discipline over months and in some cases years.
Most of your bullet points are what people refer to as magic bullets...there isn't any magic or anything that makes losing weight easy...being disciplined and consistent is hard work and that hard work is what a lot of people want to get around with magic bullets.
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The most important things that make you lose weight is eating less calories, thus being in a calorie deficit, and being consistent and patient. There will always be days where the scale will go up a bit again; especially if you're a woman of menstruating age. Thus patience, consistency, and no panic. Hey, with just 30lbs to lose you'd probably chose a weightloss goal of 1lbs per week. If you were to weigh every day, then this one lb per week would be 0.14lb per day. Most scales can't even display this properly, plus add natural water weight fluctuations and fluctuations of the waste in your intestines and you can see that you won't see weight loss every day.1
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#6. True.
Just try getting those numbers in line. Worry about the How (timing, food choices, macros) as you go along. It's all about the numbers for weight management, but good nutrition is still important for healthy living and satiation.
Eat [enough] food, mostly plants. (Michael Pollan)
Calories calories calories.1 -
I tried #9 but I kept getting my foot caught in the chain. 😕2
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mybentley7 wrote: »I tried #9 but I kept getting my foot caught in the chain. 😕
Wait, what?0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »Most of your bullet points are what people refer to as magic bullets...there isn't any magic or anything that makes losing weight easy...being disciplined and consistent is hard work and that hard work is what a lot of people want to get around with magic bullets.
I think this sums up the netnet well. OP already acknowledges that all foods aren't equal and some will do real harm to you over the long run. Diets are prescribed food regimens and the issue I have with them is that they absolve you from having to learn about the calorie density of foods and the nutritional density of foods. If you learn these concepts and apply them to your situation, you are likely to have good long-term results. Without learning about these you will be running into walls all day wondering what you are doing wrong.
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sollyn23l2 wrote: »mybentley7 wrote: »I tried #9 but I kept getting my foot caught in the chain. 😕
Wait, what?
I believe they were being punny - in reference to "carb CYCLING," their foot getting caught in the bicycle chain....2 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »mybentley7 wrote: »I tried #9 but I kept getting my foot caught in the chain. 😕
Wait, what?
I believe they were being punny - in reference to "carb CYCLING," their foot getting caught in the bicycle chain....
Oooooohhhhh, gotcha, that makes sense1 -
Wolfman gave excellent point by point answers upthread a bit, IMO. I agree 100% (speaking as another person who's successfully lost weight - 50+ pounds, in my case - at age 59-60 while severely hypothyroid (properly medicated), and of course menopausal, without increasing exercise (already active while obese). I've stayed at a healthy weight since, now age 66. So worthwhile, in improved quality of life - beyond what I'd have imagined, in fact.
Just a couple of minor things to add, below.I read a lot of weight loss articles and honestly it is confusing. These are some of the examples of things I've read:
1. If you lower your calories too much your body goes into starvation mode.
There's an excellent thread here that explains in detail why this isn't so, but how/why adaptive thermogenesis (a real thing) can make it seem plausible to some people.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1
It also sheds light on your point #2.
Food allergies or sensitivities can emerge at any point during life. Of course a person will want to limit foods that provoke negative reactions in themselves, as individuals.2. If you eat lower calorie your body gets used to it, once you add calories you gain weight.
3. You need to eat breakfast to jump start your metabolism.
4. Don't eat after 7pm if you want to lose weight.
5. Things like dairy, soy, carbs etc need to be eliminated when you reach middle age in order to lose weight.
There's no universal need to eliminate dairy, soy, carbs, or any other food/food category I'm aware of, just because of age. I eat plenty of dairy, soy, carbs, and enjoy them, had no difficulty including them in calorie-appropriate portions while losing/maintaining weight.
If you experiment, and find that eliminating them makes you feel better, or helps you manage appetite better, to the point that it feels worthwhile to you to limit them, by all means do so. No need to do so otherwise.
The only thing that matters directly, for weight management, is calories in, calories out. That's my belief, based on experience.6. The only thing that matters is calories in, calories out.
Sub-ideal nutrition, or specific food choices, can indirectly affect weight management. For example, nutritional shortfalls (or too-low calories) can trigger cravings/appetite, make it harder to stick with a calorie goal long enough to lose a meaningful amount of body fat. Sub-par nutrition (or too-low calories) can cause fatigue, reduce daily life activity (fidgeting and other things), and reduce exercise intensity, so that the person burns fewer calories than expected based on some so-called "calorie calculator" or fitness tracker.
Those indirect things still cause their effects on bodyweight directly through calories, either by triggering us to eat more calories than we need, or burn fewer than we anticipate. It boils down to calories, but they're not the only thing that matters for sustainability, health, and so forth.
Human bodies are dynamic: Our calorie intake affects our energy level and calorie expenditure, dynamically. Starving oneself is counter-productive.
Also, calorie-dense, nutrition-poor foods tend not to be filling. If someone is hungry, they can find it hard to stick to calorie goal. Nutrition is important for health.
On the other hand, some people have particular calorie-dense/nutrient-sparse treat foods that they could moderate, but will feel deprived if they eliminate (because of a mistaken idea that "bad foods" are universal weight-management doom), and that sense of deprivation will eventually cause some counter-productive compensatory overeating of the craved thing.
Some people are moderators, some people need to eliminate trigger foods, in order to manage eating/calories. Some people can moderate some foods, but not others. It's an n=1 personal experiment to figure out which foods are sating, which trigger cravings or over-consumption, and that sort of thing.
Trying to moderate something and discovering we can't is not "failure". It's a learning experience: Learn from it, adapt your tactics, and keep going. The majority of your days determines the majority of your bodyweight/health outcome . . . not that one oopsie experiment. The oops is a drop in the ocean.
As wolfman said, this is true for some. If I ate keto, I'd be P.O.-ed to the point of endangering those around me. I love my fruits, beans, other nutrient-dense starchy veggies, and more. Fortunately, I find those things filling, so found I could eat 150g or so of carbs while losing weight, and 225g or so in maintenance.7. Intermittent fasting helps with weight loss.
8. Eating keto will curb your appetite.
I also found that the timing of my eating had zero direct effect on weight loss, except insofar as it indirectly might have an effect via managing appetite better/worse. One note: Stopping eating earlier in the day can make morning weigh-ins average a little lower than if one ate late, just because there's been more time for food/drink to be eliminated (in the bathroom, by sweating, by exhaling (where most of burned fat goes), etc.). It's not an important thing for total fat loss.
Food timing and food choice are individual. You can figure it out.10. Carb cycling with help with weight loss.
I could go on and on. I have to admit, I have tried many of these and I have yet to lose these 30 lbs I'm carrying. I am on medication known to mess with hunger cues which makes it difficult for me. I just want to find a way of eating that works with my life, doesn't leave me hungry and results in weight loss. Any thoughts from the experts out there?
Talking to your doctor about your medication regimen causing hunger, if that's the case, might be useful. If it's not affecting your hunger directly, but rather your ability to perceive your hunger accurately, you still may be able to make calorie counting work. You can experiment with food choices and/or food timing, to see what keeps you most full/happy feeling. Even things like sleep, stress, type/intensity of exercise, hydration and more can affect appetite/hunger, in individually meaningful ways. You can learn about yourself by paying attention to your food diary, your hunger levels, energy, and so forth.
With only 30 pounds to lose, it may help you not to go pedal to the metal for maximum speed weight loss. Go for a moderate loss rate (0.5% of current weight per week, for example, or slower). You can even consider starting to log food, then gradually reduce calories here and there by reducing/eliminating foods that seem less worth their calories to you personally for satiation, tastiness, nutrition, etc., and gradually moving to a sustainable calorie deficit that way.
Personally, I did the eating approach that was already suggested above:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1
This is a thing you can succeed at, with patience, persistence, and some individual attention and problem solving. Wishing you success!3 -
Thanks for all the great replies and advice!2
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I noticed your last point about not being hungry. Being in a deficit you will be hungry some of the time. Our bodies are designed to feel hunger and its OK to feel hungry. You don't want to be ravenous of course but a bit of hunger between lunch and dinner won't harm and uou probably don't need a snack. Don't fear hunger2
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everyone will believe their method is the best once they see results. however, that is not the case. people need to understand we're unique individuals and one method that works for you doesn't work for them. that's why I ignore users that try to counter argue what I have to say- you have to think the BIG PICTURE, stop trying to search the forest for the trees, and stick with what WORKS FOR YOU!2
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KarenSmith2018 wrote: »I noticed your last point about not being hungry. Being in a deficit you will be hungry some of the time. Our bodies are designed to feel hunger and its OK to feel hungry. You don't want to be ravenous of course but a bit of hunger between lunch and dinner won't harm and uou probably don't need a snack. Don't fear hunger
I need to learn to embrace that slightly hungry feeling. I know it gets easier over time2 -
KarenSmith2018 wrote: »I noticed your last point about not being hungry. Being in a deficit you will be hungry some of the time. Our bodies are designed to feel hunger and its OK to feel hungry. You don't want to be ravenous of course but a bit of hunger between lunch and dinner won't harm and uou probably don't need a snack. Don't fear hunger
I need to learn to embrace that slightly hungry feeling. I know it gets easier over time
One of the ways I learned to embrace it was by telling myself, every time I started to feel a bit hungry "ok, cool, my body's gonna start burning through some fat now, because the tank's on empty. So I'll just hold off eating for a little longer, let it burn a little more, then I'll have something to eat." Not strictly biologically true, but it helped to tell myself that.2 -
KarenSmith2018 wrote: »I noticed your last point about not being hungry. Being in a deficit you will be hungry some of the time. Our bodies are designed to feel hunger and its OK to feel hungry. You don't want to be ravenous of course but a bit of hunger between lunch and dinner won't harm and uou probably don't need a snack. Don't fear hunger
I need to learn to embrace that slightly hungry feeling. I know it gets easier over time
Also, check out Greg Doucette's friggen cookbook- you'd be amazed how much you can actually eat when you use low calorie dense foods.0 -
Cwolfman13's post should be a blog post, really nice point by point.1
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