The real key to losing weight is Metabolism!!

Thank you for posting this! Definitely helpful! :happy:

Again your over simplifying the science of nutrition. You've proved your point, yes Burning more Calories than you consume means an eventual drop in weight but the real questions are

1) Is it a healthy way of doing it
2) Are you losing the weight from the right areas.

You're making it more complicated than it is. You cannot choose where you lose weight from. Saying that eating certain things allows you to lose weight from certain areas is junk nutrition. There is no magic. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. The reason we're overweight is we underestimate how many calories we consume and overestimate how many calories we burn. Thank you for acknowledging that burning more calories than you consume is what leads to weight loss. That's the great thing about MFP. If you're honest and dilligent about your food diary and your exercise, the answer is right in front of you.

Again your over simplifying the science of nutrition. You've proved your point, yes Burning more Calories than you consume means an eventual drop in weight but the real questions are

1) Is it a healthy way of doing it
2) Are you losing the weight from the right areas.

You're making it more complicated than it is. You cannot choose where you lose weight from. Saying that eating certain things allows you to lose weight from certain areas is junk nutrition. There is no magic. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. The reason we're overweight is we underestimate how many calories we consume and overestimate how many calories we burn. Thank you for acknowledging that burning more calories than you consume is what leads to weight loss. That's the great thing about MFP. If you're honest and dilligent about your food diary and your exercise, the answer is right in front of you.

No need to argue over it being simple or complex, it's both. Boil it down and yes less in than going out = weight loss. But as the other guy said there's lean mass to worry about, glycogen stores, fat loss, and a myriad of other things that enter into it.

2+2=4 is about as simple as it gets, but if you've ever seen the mathematical proof of that if's amazingly comlicated.

Again your over simplifying the science of nutrition. You've proved your point, yes Burning more Calories than you consume means an eventual drop in weight but the real questions are

1) Is it a healthy way of doing it
2) Are you losing the weight from the right areas.

You're making it more complicated than it is. You cannot choose where you lose weight from. Saying that eating certain things allows you to lose weight from certain areas is junk nutrition. There is no magic. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. The reason we're overweight is we underestimate how many calories we consume and overestimate how many calories we burn. Thank you for acknowledging that burning more calories than you consume is what leads to weight loss. That's the great thing about MFP. If you're honest and dilligent about your food diary and your exercise, the answer is right in front of you.

No need to argue over it being simple or complex, it's both. Boil it down and yes less in than going out = weight loss. But as the other guy said there's lean mass to worry about, glycogen stores, fat loss, and a myriad of other things that enter into it.

2+2=4 is about as simple as it gets, but if you've ever seen the mathematical proof of that if's amazingly comlicated.

Great point about it being both simple yet complicated.

they are expecting you to eat about 250 to 300 cal' with each "meal" my mother allways referd to this as "grazing" as oposed to eating a meal and so do i but it dose help keep you from haveing huge meals if thats what your used to

Grazing has helped lots of people get fat in the US. A little here and a little there led lots of people to this site. Heck cows graze daily.
There is no science to show that eating multiple meals is better for you than eating even 1 or 2 meals a day as long a calorie and macronutrient/micronutrients are met. Do what's best to help yourself lose weight.

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

they are expecting you to eat about 250 to 300 cal' with each "meal" my mother allways referd to this as "grazing" as oposed to eating a meal and so do i but it dose help keep you from haveing huge meals if thats what your used to

Grazing has helped lots of people get fat in the US. A little here and a little there led lots of people to this site. Heck cows graze daily.
There is no science to show that eating multiple meals is better for you than eating even 1 or 2 meals a day as long a calorie and macronutrient/micronutrients are met. Do what's best to help yourself lose weight.

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Personally it just prevents me from snacking on bad food all day. If I eat 6 times a day I never really feel hungry so I tend not to run for a bad treat. It's purely psychological for me and I agree with you that I've never read any scientific proof out there but it may exist, I've just not found it yet.

wow- some ppl are just MEAN. Thank you for the post and info. And everything I've read says water IS vital. Every doctor I've ever talked to said if you feel thirsty YOU'RE ALREADY DEHYDRATED.

I would bet anything the poster who drinks only when thirsty is dehydrated. And here's the thing - it's difficult to drink TOO much water but VERY easy to not drink enough. I'd rather error on the side of caution. Dehydration is NO JOKE.
Also, MANY people feel hungry when they are REALLY thirsty. I drink water all day long - when I feel hungry, I know it's hunger & not thirst, but I'll have a drink anyway, just to make sure. I have a BIG drink right before bed and FIRST THING in the morning.
If you drink a glass of water in the morning, you'll be surprised how thirsty you WERE without realizing it.

This man is ONLY trying to help. WHY would he waste HIS time with mis-information? And who are YOU people who are shooting him down!? are YOU nutrionists?
eat or don't eat- drink or don't drink. NO excuse for being rude to other posters.

Nope, not chronically dehydrated. You are technically dehydrated when you feel thirsty, because the definition of dehydration is ANY drop in hydration levels. Your body is sensitive enough to register a 0.1% drop in hydration levels and signal thirst. Tell me, do you feel thirsty every time you go to the bathroom? Because technically, you dehydrate yourself every time you do. Over hydration is just as fatal as dehydration, and actually, can kill you faster. The reason Americans can get away with drinking such insane amounts of water above and beyond what we need to survive is because the American diet is ridiculously high in sodium.

If Americans are chronically dehydrated and in serious health risks because of it, then how do you explain the fact that there are still people alive on the African continent? Americans consume 10 times more water than Africans, if we aren't getting enough, they should all be dead by now. The drink tons of water thing was a marketing campaign by the bottled water industry, and obviously, it worked. Approximately 1.5-2 liters of liquid is all you need daily for proper hydration, from any source.

This is my third go at posting a reply as I needed to check a source, and then found I had lost MFP - wish there was a 'save draft' facility!!!
Anyway, here goes for my threepenn'orth!! First, my thanks to the OP for introducing this topic, which made a lot of sense to me, anyway, though clearly it has started a bit of a debate. So anyway 3 points on which I do have a bit of an opinion on:

1) Breakfast - I was always taught that you should "breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord, and dine like a pauper" on the grounds that in the morning you need energy for the day's activities, and that at night you are usually sedentary after dining, so the calories you consume in the evening will not be as easily burned off as those consumed during the day. Also a lot of schools in UK now run breakfast clubs, serving a healthy breakfast at cost for any child attending the school. The reason for these was that teachers observed (and this was followed up by studies) that some children's performance fell during the morning, and usually these were children who had not had a decent breakfast. Schools which have a breakfast club reported that concentration was much better during the morning - and of course, they are a boon to families where both parents have jobs to get to.

2) Water - not only flushes out the body, and keeps organs like the kidneys functioning properly, but it creates a feeling of fullness, and drinking before a meal helps you to stick just to your planned meal, and drinking in between meals also helps to prevent you reaching out for that unhealthy snack.

3) Eating every 3 hours or so - I was again taught that 'little and often' is good, but I fear I don't do it even now. However a book I have been reading by Ian Marber strongly advocates this, on the grounds that it keeps energy levels up and avoids triggering insulin production. He has a website: www.thefooddoctor.com, or you can read his 10 principles of healthy eating on www.eatbetterforever.info.

I tend not to lurk on the message boards, so probably won't see if anyone disagrees with me!!!

Love the thought experiment. I like to take a different approach on what I like to call the "wackiness" of the idea of constantly eating every couple hours while trying to burn fat. The human body ALWAYS burns food for energy when there is food to be digested, and then burns fat during fasting periods. If you eat constantly throughout the day, your body is always burning food for fuel all throughout the day, and never burns any fat. Isn't the entire point of trying to lose weight to burn fat? So why do people continuously force feed themselves constant, small meals that never allow their body to enter fat burning mode?

It just doesn't make logical sense to me. I want my body to be in fat burning mode as often as possible, which means eating fewer meals, spaced much farther apart, to allow the shift into fat burning mode. Keeping yourself constantly fed does the exact opposite.

And yes, I know the body burns fat throughout the night, but don't you want it to burn even more fat during the day, also?

I think this post is pure bro-science. If I'm eating in a deficit, the body will tap into fat stores regardless of the number of times I eat each day.

I've lost a good deal of my weight by eating numerous mini-meals daily. Oh, heck, most days I just graze. I feel better doing it this way and my weight loss has been just fine. For those who prefer to eat bigger, less frequent meals, that works, too. It's what works best for you.

The real key to losing weight is expending more calories than you consume. It's The First Law of Thermodynamics: calories in = calories out + accumulation. If you burn more calories than you consume, your body will draw the calories it needs from your fat stores and you will lose weight. It doesn't matter what you eat or when you eat it from day to day. It's calories in and calories out. When you're moving, your body burns calories at a higher rate. When you sit down or sleep, your body returns to its base metabolic rate. If you want to know what really worked for the first poster, take everything in his post that is related to consuming less calories and burning more calories, and discard the rest. You'll then have what really led to his fine physique. All the rest is the "red hat": magical thinking and superstition that defy the First Law of Thermodynamics.

If it were really that easy then you could just fire all the personal trainers and nutritionists in the world. Way to boil down the complicate subject of nutrition and body mechanics down to Burn More than you Consume.

Your forgetting that your body doesn't immediately go to your fat stores right away.

Personally it just prevents me from snacking on bad food all day. If I eat 6 times a day I never really feel hungry so I tend not to run for a bad treat. It's purely psychological for me and I agree with you that I've never read any scientific proof out there but it may exist, I've just not found it yet.

First, you'd be surprised just how many personal trainers and nutritionists out there have outdated and incorrect data. Anyone can go study a book, take an exam and become a personal trainer or a sports nutritionist. It's not like it's rocket science to accomplish.

Second, it's about and always will be about calories in versus calories out. Being HEALTHY is subjective.

A 5'8, 175lb man who eats a balance of foods including junk food such as pizza, cheeseburgers, ice cream and whom does some sort of resistance weight training every day....

...will be MUCH healthier than

A 5'8, 225lb man who eats nothing but "clean food" and doesn't do a lick of exercise.

Just because you eat alot of fruits and vegetables or "clean food" as people tend to call it doesn't mean you are healthy. If you're overweight, sit on the couch all day long while eating celery sticks and carrots you aren't going to be healthy and are still at risk of CVD and CHD.

Third, as far as eating multiple times a day because it prevents you from "snacking"...thats more of a lack of mental discipline on YOUR part than anything. Meal timing and meal frequency are completely and utterly irrelevant.

Did I not write my comment clearly enough? Of course it's discipline on my part, I thought " purely psychological for me " was clear enough but if you prefer lack of mental discipline then so be it.

FYI I was agreeing with the one who was posting this.

bump!

The real key to losing weight is expending more calories than you consume. It's The First Law of Thermodynamics: calories in = calories out + accumulation. If you burn more calories than you consume, your body will draw the calories it needs from your fat stores and you will lose weight. It doesn't matter what you eat or when you eat it from day to day. It's calories in and calories out. When you're moving, your body burns calories at a higher rate. When you sit down or sleep, your body returns to its base metabolic rate. If you want to know what really worked for the first poster, take everything in his post that is related to consuming less calories and burning more calories, and discard the rest. You'll then have what really led to his fine physique. All the rest is the "red hat": magical thinking and superstition that defy the First Law of Thermodynamics.

If it were really that easy then you could just fire all the personal trainers and nutritionists in the world. Way to boil down the complicate subject of nutrition and body mechanics down to Burn More than you Consume.

Your forgetting that your body doesn't immediately go to your fat stores right away.

Personally it just prevents me from snacking on bad food all day. If I eat 6 times a day I never really feel hungry so I tend not to run for a bad treat. It's purely psychological for me and I agree with you that I've never read any scientific proof out there but it may exist, I've just not found it yet.

First, you'd be surprised just how many personal trainers and nutritionists out there have outdated and incorrect data. Anyone can go study a book, take an exam and become a personal trainer or a sports nutritionist. It's not like it's rocket science to accomplish.

Second, it's about and always will be about calories in versus calories out. Being HEALTHY is subjective.

A 5'8, 175lb man who eats a balance of foods including junk food such as pizza, cheeseburgers, ice cream and whom does some sort of resistance weight training every day....

...will be MUCH healthier than

A 5'8, 225lb man who eats nothing but "clean food" and doesn't do a lick of exercise.

Just because you eat alot of fruits and vegetables or "clean food" as people tend to call it doesn't mean you are healthy. If you're overweight, sit on the couch all day long while eating celery sticks and carrots you aren't going to be healthy and are still at risk of CVD and CHD.

Third, as far as eating multiple times a day because it prevents you from "snacking"...thats more of a lack of mental discipline on YOUR part than anything. Meal timing and meal frequency are completely and utterly irrelevant.

I agree with everything you said except the last paragraph. I realize I'm an outlier as I have diabetes which I can control with just diet and exercise, and I have a pancreas that it still pumping out plenty of insulin. I am also insulin resistant. Eating several small meals keeps my blood sugar levels from rising too much which would then make my pancreas produce over-produce insulin until the insulin finally crashes through the resistance and lower my blood sugar levels. Too much insulin causes a blood sugar crash to levels that are too low which can only be alleviated by ingesting more calories. It's a horrible and vicious cycle to get into.

Again, I realize that not everybody needs to eat the more frequent, smaller meals to avoid this. But this is how my body reacts. If I've eaten too many calories at one meal, starting that cycle, and then need to eat more later to slightly raise my blood sugar levels, it has nothing to do with a lack of mental discipline. Nada. Zip. Unless you think that it's really better for me to actually pass out (which has almost happened to me on numerous occasions until I figured out what works out best for my body) and risk going into a coma.

Due to the high rate of diabetes and other metabolic disorders in this country combined with the fact that many people have these issues and have not been diagnosed, I believe it is very possible that this effects many more people than most of us realize. That said, it can be an excellent way to eat to keep blood sugar levels stable and, thus, be able to moderate food intake to maintain a deficit without hunger or needing to use any kind of mental discipline because one feels satiated.

Again, I'm not saying that everybody needs to do this but I definitely do need to and it just jerks my chain a bit to be told that eating soon after a big meal means someone lacks mental discipline when, really, it may have something to do with the way their body reacts metabolically to the way they are eating and has nothing to do with willpower.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Love the thought experiment. I like to take a different approach on what I like to call the "wackiness" of the idea of constantly eating every couple hours while trying to burn fat. The human body ALWAYS burns food for energy when there is food to be digested, and then burns fat during fasting periods. If you eat constantly throughout the day, your body is always burning food for fuel all throughout the day, and never burns any fat. Isn't the entire point of trying to lose weight to burn fat? So why do people continuously force feed themselves constant, small meals that never allow their body to enter fat burning mode?

It just doesn't make logical sense to me. I want my body to be in fat burning mode as often as possible, which means eating fewer meals, spaced much farther apart, to allow the shift into fat burning mode. Keeping yourself constantly fed does the exact opposite.

And yes, I know the body burns fat throughout the night, but don't you want it to burn even more fat during the day, also?

I think this post is pure bro-science. If I'm eating in a deficit, the body will tap into fat stores regardless of the number of times I eat each day.

I've lost a good deal of my weight by eating numerous mini-meals daily. Oh, heck, most days I just graze. I feel better doing it this way and my weight loss has been just fine. For those who prefer to eat bigger, less frequent meals, that works, too. It's what works best for you.

It's not broscience, it's Biology 101. Food equals fuel, and as long as you have food in your system being digested, you are not burning fat. Period. Eating constant small meals, and keeping your body in a fed state all day every day can create havoc on a hormonal level, as insulin stays high all the time (yes, eating constantly keeps insulin from spiking and crashing, as it stays continuously spiked, because there is a constant flow of food keeping it elevated,) and leptin and ghrelin levels stay low. Then you go to sleep, your insulin levels crash, and glucagon levels spike, as your body tries to play catch-up burning fat like crazy to keep your blood glucose steady. Eat less often, and allow your insulin levels to rise and lower normally, and you burn fat more easily throughout the day, as well as all night.

There are 2 states the body can be in, fed, or fasting. If you're in the fed state, you aren't burning fat. Trying to say your body burns fat while you're eating is like saying you run your emergency generator to power your house electricity even when the main power is running. It doesn't happen.

Well, my body must be in need of scientific study then because I have lost all my weight by eating numerous small meals daily.

Look, if my daily maintenance calories are 2400 and I eat 1900 each day, I'm in a calorie deficit and while my body may be burning off the food I eat first, at some point in the day, probably numerous times in the day, it is going to have to dip into fat reserves to make up the 500 calorie difference. 2400 calories means 100 calories per hour. OK, when I wake up in the morning I can't handle much food so I almost always just start the day with 1 T. of peanut butter which is about 100 calories. I typically get up at about 7am and I rarely eat after about 8pm. So that means I've been burning 1100 calories since my last meal and some of that will be fat being burned (along with some lean). I typically eat my real breakfast mid-morning at around 10am so I have burned off the peanut butter by 8am and then burned another 200 calories. Since the peanut butter couldn't possible fuel my body for three hours, some of what is fueling me is coming from fat. Yada yada, throughout the rest of the day.

Or is my 66# weight loss to date just water weight? <snark>

To use your electricity analogy. My laptop battery is toast and I haven't gotten around to getting a new one. It only holds a charge these days for about 60-90 minutes. I like to work on it in areas where it's not convenient to keep it plugged in so I'll typically work on it until the battery dies, plug it in to charge it and work on it where it's plugged in, and then when it's charged move to my preferred spot and work off the battery until it drains again. That is basically what my body is doing. Running of the main power (food recently eaten) until that runs out and then running of battery power (stored fat) until the body is recharged by plugging into main power again (eating again).

I have nothing against eating 2-3 large meals a day or doing IF. If that works for you, great. However, for most of my adult life I did IF-style eating. During my weight-gaining years, I would often not eat anything until mid- or late-afternoon. That style of eating does not work for me. I also don't like eating 3 larger 'squares". I recently attended a week-long conference where I was pretty much forced into eating a regular breakfast, lunch and dinner as we didn't have breaks to allow for my normal grazing style. I did not feel well at all eating that way even if I kept my meals fairly healthy.. It just doesn't work for me.

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