The no BS approach to weight loss.

sugarbone · August 2011

Yeah, the starvation mode idea freaked me out when I first started learning about weight loss. The idea that if I lost weight "wrong" my body would start making me fat again without me being able to tell, scared the crap out of me! I'm glad it's a myth. It's really just calories, calories out. (besides a few details in the fructose processing department and such, but that's a longer story

kfitz10103 · August 2011

Thanks for the info. My hubby said the other day he needs to re-work his eating schedule. He was eating McDonald's right before bed and he needed to change it so he would be eating 2 hours before bed. Hello dear! The solution isn't changing when you eat McDonald's its NOT eating McDonald's to begin with. The 1200 calories don't change whether you eat them at 10 pm or midnight. I don't think he realized how silly his logic sounded. It's not my place to comment. He clearly doesn't want unsolicited advice. I'll just wait patiently until he's ready to make healthier choices. That's why I refuse to take health advice from him.

carrie1128 · August 2011

Thanks for the info. My hubby said the other day he needs to re-work his eating schedule. He was eating McDonald's right before bed and he needed to change it so he would be eating 2 hours before bed. Hello dear! The solution isn't changing when you eat McDonald's its NOT eating McDonald's to begin with. The 1200 calories don't change whether you eat them at 10 pm or midnight. I don't think he realized how silly his logic sounded. It's not my place to comment. He clearly doesn't want unsolicited advice. I'll just wait patiently until he's ready to make healthier choices. That's why I refuse to take health advice from him.

This made me giggle. I know what you mean though. I know so many people who are not ready to hear it. They complain about not losing weight but still eat garbage and I have to bite my tongue.

portexploit · August 2011

Meaning that a person who consumes 800 calories will lose more weight than the one who consumes 1200 calories, but will lose proportionately less weight.

This article explains it better:

http://www.weightwatchers.com/templates/print.aspx?PageId=1211021&PrintFlag=yes&previewDate=1/4/2011

Restricting calories during weight loss lowers metabolism1 because the body becomes more efficient, requiring fewer calories to perform the necessary daily functions for survival. Consequently, this can slow (but not stop) the anticipated rate of weight loss.

For example, if an individual needs 2,000 calories per day to maintain weight, reducing intake to 1,500 calories, assuming exercise stays the same, should provide a 1 pound per week weight loss (Note: 1 pound of weight is equivalent to about 3,500 calories). Furthermore, reducing to 1,000 calories should result in a weight loss of 2 pounds per week and going down to 500 calories a day should result in a weight loss of 3 pounds per week. However, if an individual actually reduces their intake to 500 calories, the weight loss would not likely be a steady 3 pounds per week because of the reduced metabolic rate. It would likely be around 2¼ to 2½ pounds. This "lower than expected" rate of weight loss is a lot different than "no" weight loss as the "starvation mode" notion proposes."

sics

There are too many variables in this. I am sure you already know math and phyics don't apply to the body directly. You can calculate a 2lbs weight loss a week, but does it always workout that way?? rarely. As you said so yourself a person who is on a lower caloric diet would lose more weight initally. If I lose 30lbs in 2 months following a low calorie diet, then the next to months i lose 10lbs that's a total of 40lbs in 4 months. If I took the slower approach, I might be able to lose 10lbs per month. It might turn out to be the same.

I doubt you have done a VLCD(Very low caloric diet), haven't either. We're both talking on theory,which is where the majority of the BS comes from. I jumped from 2,500 calories down to 1750 calories. My BMR(Basal Metabolic Rate) is around 2,500. I lost 13lbs in 18 days like this. This is very low calories for someone like me.

I am also doing an alkalizing diet which is mostly green vegetable, right now about 90% of my diet is green vegetables. There is a theory behind this diet that most people eat acidic food, from cough to cancer it's based on how acidic your body. Even toxins get stored in fat cells because the body can't cope with them. When you change your diet to a more alkaline diet.. It get rid of the acid in the body and releaes the fat from the body because fat is acidic problem.

I am not sure if my weight loss results on this eating method is according to the theory, or because of the reduce calories. Is I am getting good result eating kind of low for my body.

gravindon · August 2011

The no bs approach to losing weight. Lets look at all the weight loss diet out there.

Atkins – This is a diet that is high in protein and low in carbs. Why this method works. Protein uses 30% of calories to digest. What this means is if you eat 1000 calories from protein 700 calories get absorbed the other 300 go to digestion. This diet is also high in fat. Fat releases CCK(Cholecystokinin) which helps you feel full for a longer period of time. Protein also helps keep you full.

Cons – Protein uses a lot of fluid to digest, this will lead to constipation. Since it’s dehydrating it can put a lot of stress on the kidneys which can lead to kidney stones or more severe kidney issues.

Controlled Portions – This diet you eat whatever you want but in a limited amount. This works because of its caloric deficit which all dieting methods are based on.

Cons- I personally don’t like this method. The issue with this diet is you can eat twinkles and cupcakes all day and lose weight assuming you’re under your caloric limit. I don’t believe this is healthy. This diet can also be used in a healthy manner, it depends how you implement it.

Of course there are other diet methods such as, CKD, Ketosis diet, Dukan diet, South Beach, Paleolithic diet, they all fall in to these 2 categories. Reducing carbs, or reducing calories. Here’s the kicker, eating too many carbs will increase insulin, also eating too many calories will also increase insulin. All these diets are designed to target insulin.

Insulin is referred to as a storage hormone. When you eat carbs(sugar) it will convert in the body to glucose(blood sugar) your body sense this blood sugar in the body and insulin is released to clear the blood of this sugar. It stores it in muscles as glycogen but if your muscle stores are full, it will convert glucose in to fat. As I mentioned eating too many calories also increases insulin. Now you know why these diets are the way they are.

Some people criticize one diet over another. I promise you I can find flaws in your diet, even in my diet. No reason to bash someone’s diet. What a person eats is their personal business and their choice. This brings you to the topic of “what is healthy?” “Generally” a diet in whole foods, this means foods that are in their most natural state. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and lean cuts of meat. Red meats have been linked to colon cancer, so stay away from those. Research is now showing carbs to be the culprit of heart disease. The sugar in the blood scars our blood vessels causing cholesterol to stick and form a clot. A ton of our hormonal processes run on cholesterol, anabolic steroids are based off of cholesterol. This means it can help build muscle mass. Supposedly people with high cholesterol live longer assuming there is no scared tissue.

A few myth’s I want to debunk.

1. Starvation mode- Yes the biggest debate on the forums. The theory is “if you don’t eat enough calories you will store body fat, lose muscle mass, and slow down your metabolism. ” If this was true, lapband, gastric bypass, and doctors who recommend VLCD(Very Low Calorie Diets) wouldn’t work. Any professional bodybuilder would tell you, muscle mass loss is almost inevitable on a reduce caloric diet; this will cause your metabolism to slow down. You will also weight less meaning you burn fewer calories. If I went from a 3000 calorie diet down to a 2000 calorie diet, I will suffer from some degree of these symptoms. So I guess I must be in starvation mode eating 2000 calories a day. Very low calorie diets can lead to malnutrition, this isn’t starvation mode, this is something else.

2. Eating 5-6 times a day speeds up your metabolism- This is one of the biggest lies started by the meal replacement shakes. They wanted you to buy their meal replacement shakes because it’s a “quick meal” which you can consume in between meals. If I eat 2000 calories in 1 meal, or 10 meals, I still consumed 2000 calories, I still use the same amount of calories to digest it, weather it be in 1 meal or 10 meals. It makes no difference.

If you read in between the lines you’d notice one thing in everything I said, it all boils down to a reduced caloric diet, there is no way around it.

Rules to follow for weight loss

1. Don’t go to hungry or you will more than likely binge.
2. Don’t drink your calories
3. Make sure you exercise.
4. Eat more vegetables
5. Drink a lot of water
6. Stay away from processed foods.
7. Be patient, don't focus on how far you have to go, focus on how far you have come.

I personally don’t believe in setting weight loss goals in terms of time. For example “I am going to lose 10lbs this month” You can’t control how much weight you lose, all you can control is what you eat, and when you exercise. Accept what you get, when you resist you get frustrated, disappointed and this can lead to giving up.

Thanks for the great post! These tips are really helpful to reach weight loss goals. It’s better to take in 200-300 calories per hour of exercise so your effort will be more efficient and your appetite better controlled. It’s important to keep your favorite foods in your nutrition program so that you don’t feel you are dieting.

LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo · August 2011

2. Eating 5-6 times a day speeds up your metabolism- This is one of the biggest lies started by the meal replacement shakes. They wanted you to buy their meal replacement shakes because it’s a “quick meal” which you can consume in between meals. If I eat 2000 calories in 1 meal, or 10 meals, I still consumed 2000 calories, I still use the same amount of calories to digest it, weather it be in 1 meal or 10 meals. It makes no difference.

However eating 5-6 times a day does help regulate your blood sugar so you're not high or crashing

As a diabetic, I usually eat 5 times a day because I need to control my blood sugar level. There are times that I go hypoglucemic & in that case I suddenly feel unusually tired, weak and then just lose consiousness then only to realize that I have not eaten for 5 hours.

LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo · August 2011

Controlled Portions – This diet you eat whatever you want but in a limited amount. This works because of its caloric deficit which all dieting methods are based on.

Cons- I personally don’t like this method. The issue with this diet is you can eat twinkles and cupcakes all day and lose weight assuming you’re under your caloric limit. I don’t believe this is healthy. This diet can also be used in a healthy manner, it depends how you implement it.

This type of diet works for me. It all depends on our choice of foods. Same number of calories from fresh fruits & a slice of cake will not get the same results. But this is the best diet because it can give you more freedom to eat plus its easy to maintain unlike those other diets you mentioned.

portexploit · August 2011

Controlled Portions – This diet you eat whatever you want but in a limited amount. This works because of its caloric deficit which all dieting methods are based on.

Cons- I personally don’t like this method. The issue with this diet is you can eat twinkles and cupcakes all day and lose weight assuming you’re under your caloric limit. I don’t believe this is healthy. This diet can also be used in a healthy manner, it depends how you implement it.

This type of diet works for me. It all depends on our choice of foods. Same number of calories from fresh fruits & a slice of cake will not get the same results. But this is the best diet because it can give you more freedom to eat plus its easy to maintain unlike those other diets you mentioned.

Thanks for the point. I didn't mention a free day. I do have a free day once a week with no limits. I did this on a low carb diet too. Sometimes i'd eat 400 carbs a day, then go back to under 10 the next day. It's very difficult to go on a marthon diet session, it usually fails. Some people perfer a "cheat meal." There are many benefits to letting lose once a week. What most people don't know if you do a low calorie diet for a long time, or a low carb diet for a long time, you can develop a supressed thyroid which will cause you to slow down on your weight loss. This is one reason to have a free day.

taem · August 2011

<snip>
Here’s the kicker, eating too many carbs will increase insulin, also eating too many calories will also increase insulin. All these diets are designed to target insulin.

Insulin is referred to as a storage hormone. When you eat carbs(sugar) it will convert in the body to glucose(blood sugar) your body sense this blood sugar in the body and insulin is released to clear the blood of this sugar. It stores it in muscles as glycogen but if your muscle stores are full, it will convert glucose in to fat. As I mentioned eating too many calories also increases insulin. Now you know why these diets are the way they are.

<snip>

I just want to clarify your point on insulin.

There is nothing wrong with insulin being increased when eating "carbs." As you and almost every dieter here will acknowledge that eating vegetables increases insulin in our bodies (because it is a carb) but the benefits far outweigh the risk of increased insulin. I think we have to realize that our bodies were not meant to eat processed foods, especially those that contain little or no fiber or has been extracted from its original design (I am talking about vegetable oils and fruit juices). The closer to nature we eat, the more acceptable we are to eating "carbs." Let me take the point a bit further. There are many threads regarding sugar. There are so many people stating that when they eat fruit, they find sugar consumption more acceptable. So let me clarify my first statement, as I am sure there will be others who will now just take that sentence and twist it: natural foods that are from the carb category increase insulin, but it is, in large part, acceptable to our body when at an ideal weight range. I am not saying you are wrong, I just want to clarify the stance that insulin is bad and insulin is released in the body by carbs, therefore all carbs are bad. This is clearly an extreme stance. When you look at carb consumption, most all of that are coming from processed foods containing sodium and sugar that has no regulation from fiber and no control over portion sizes.

But lets look at the function of insulin. Why does the body produce insulin to store fat in our bodies? Why do overweight and those with chronic diseases consider this bad?

Insulin (I am paraphrasing John McDougall), is the metabolic "dollar." The body receives food, and stores the rest as fat when it has received enough. This is a natural function, when we are sick or when primal man did not have readily accessible food, the only way to store food was to convert food to fat.

Why is this good? Why do we need insulin to store fat? Well, how would women receive enough nutrition for their unborn babies if they didn't have fat stores in their bodies? What would happen if we didn't have enough fat stores to sustain us if we had, say 3% body fat? How long would we live if we couldn't eat for more than a few days?

Here comes ketosis to the rescue. When people who are starving or sick for days on end, the body is gracious and kind and tells our mind to take away the feeling of hunger, because it will eat away our fat stores. This is often the reason why once sick people recover, their appetite returns.

The problem, as McDougall states, is that we no longer have a reason to fast (food is now readily available) and that the type of food is no longer food (processed and too rich).

So now you know why I don't like to use the reason of insulin making us fat to avoid eating carbs, especially for women. When you look at women around the world, you notice that even in the malnourished countries, babies would be born almost at a "perfect" weight until they leave their mother's womb. This is also explains why women can carry an extra 20 pounds of weight without their metabolism or energy consumption rising and why it is more difficult for women to lose weight.

I hope to have clarified why insulin isn't necessarily bad for us. It is our discretion of what we eat and our abusive of them that leads our natural body functions to cause us to be overweight and cause disease.

hush7hush · August 2011

Mmmm, starvation mode must exist, he is my bff.

portexploit · August 2011

taem, thanks for you post and I agree with what you have said. I do like what you said about ketosis. I think I started in the OP, that you can increase your insulin by eating too many calories. This includes fats and protein. Just eating in general causes are insulin to go up to some degree. What you said about ketosis is good. The thing is, it depends on the “type” of carbs you eat, as you well know. I eat about 90% green vegetables, my carb intake turns out to be around <= 125grams a day, but I am also on 1750 calories a day. Which is low for me. Overweight people are more sensitive to carbs, as they lose weight they can increase their carbs. As you said it, we are designed to eat things that aren’t processed. My view is we’re designed to eat the way man is supposed to eat. Before agriculture there was no disease. Once agriculture was created was when people started to develop disease. What man ate was things in their natural state. No rice, pastas, breads, or anything of that sort. Fruits, vegetables, and protein sources.

erinkeely4 · August 2011

Meaning that a person who consumes 800 calories will lose more weight than the one who consumes 1200 calories, but will lose proportionately less weight.

This article explains it better:

http://www.weightwatchers.com/templates/print.aspx?PageId=1211021&PrintFlag=yes&previewDate=1/4/2011

Restricting calories during weight loss lowers metabolism1 because the body becomes more efficient, requiring fewer calories to perform the necessary daily functions for survival. Consequently, this can slow (but not stop) the anticipated rate of weight loss.

For example, if an individual needs 2,000 calories per day to maintain weight, reducing intake to 1,500 calories, assuming exercise stays the same, should provide a 1 pound per week weight loss (Note: 1 pound of weight is equivalent to about 3,500 calories). Furthermore, reducing to 1,000 calories should result in a weight loss of 2 pounds per week and going down to 500 calories a day should result in a weight loss of 3 pounds per week. However, if an individual actually reduces their intake to 500 calories, the weight loss would not likely be a steady 3 pounds per week because of the reduced metabolic rate. It would likely be around 2¼ to 2½ pounds. This "lower than expected" rate of weight loss is a lot different than "no" weight loss as the "starvation mode" notion proposes."

When I cut my caloric intake drastically I lose weight very, very quickly. But then when I start eating regularly again I put it back on very quickly!!

taem · August 2011

taem, thanks for you post and I agree with what you have said. I do like what you said about ketosis. I think I started in the OP, that you can increase your insulin by eating too many calories. This includes fats and protein. Just eating in general causes are insulin to go up to some degree. What you said about ketosis is good. The thing is, it depends on the “type” of carbs you eat, as you well know. I eat about 90% green vegetables, my carb intake turns out to be around <= 125grams a day, but I am also on 1750 calories a day. Which is low for me. Overweight people are more sensitive to carbs, as they lose weight they can increase their carbs. As you said it, we are designed to eat things that aren’t processed. My view is we’re designed to eat the way man is supposed to eat. Before agriculture there was no disease. Once agriculture was created was when people started to develop disease. What man ate was things in their natural state. No rice, pastas, breads, or anything of that sort. Fruits, vegetables, and protein sources.

I wasn't disagreeing with you, I just wanted to point out that carbs, insulin, and ketosis are natural functions and give a bit more detail and history. We can go deeper, but then the low carb, low fat debates are going to happen again.

I generally agree with your OP.

portexploit · August 2011

I wasn't disagreeing with you, I just wanted to point out that carbs, insulin, and ketosis are natural functions and give a bit more detail and history. We can go deeper, but then the low carb, low fat debates are going to happen again.

I generally agree with your OP.

I know you weren't diagreeing with me. Yes they're natural functoins, they do serve a purpose. It's just sometimes, by our actions the purpose they serve can harm us.

errbear315 · October 2011

I will say that as a college student, eating three small meals of 300 calories apiece has helped to boost my weight loss. Then, I save a whopping 400 calories in "snacks." A granola bar between class, an apple after the gym, and a bag of soy crisps in the library. It's not a perfect system, but it prevents me from ever feeling like I'm depriving myself.

The no BS approach to weight loss.

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