segovm Member

Just to put it in perspective I've been doing the same thing for over two months and feel great and still have all my hair. I felt so good the other day I went for a nearly eight hour bike ride. Everyone is different. I would never do anything that makes me miserable or unhealthy, I'm glad you stopped when you did. Doesn't…

Maybe the bad stuff only happens in the real world then and not when under supervised conditions in which all the variables can be observed and measured?

I get that which is why we are all here talking about it. If I thought I knew everything I wouldn't bother talking to mere mortals. The issue that I am asking about though is from where does one draw this information about "net calories" being the same as "gross calories" because narry a study or report have I seen that…

That's kind of the distinction I have been making. I eat between 1700-1900 calories a day but burn more than that most days. I don't feel malnourished and keep getting better faster stronger so I'm going with it for now. I think the people that end up suffering are the ones who eat too little and especially those that eat…

Appreciate you clearing that up. Thought you got down way low to have the negative side effects you mentioned. I guess my next question would be were you eating low calories or netting low calories? I suspect that most of the negative stuff comes from eating too little as I have never heard of anyone having problems from…

I could be way off on this sounds like someone who was underweight due to an eating disorder that she eventually dealt with by eating more food. Not sure that's the same thing as an overweight person just trying to drop down into a healthy weight range.

The entire idea of weight loss is fraught with inaccurate estimates and guesses. I'm in the same boat as the OP, doing the best I can with the data I have. I bike for 2-7 hours a day but the calorie burns are over the top high so report them as if I were a 150 lbs rider instead of a 230 lbs rider and that seems to get them…

Just eat real food. It's good for you and far cheaper than the shakes, spells, potions and pills. If you've had trouble with real food before, folks here are happy to help, even if you want to spend a fortune on shakes before you try again with something that will work.

And I'm with you DeguelloTex. I've been at negative net calories for most every day the last few months. I try to eat a healthy 1700-1900 calories a day but burn far more than that doing lots of bike riding. Folks seem to imply that we are going to fall over from not having enough food but I just keep getting better faster…

Sadly this is one of the failings of the human desire to associate cause and effect even if the two are not at all related. I ride my bike between 2-8 hours a day. All the time. Everywhere I go. If I were to stop riding my bike for several days I would drop 3-5 lbs in no time. According to this "eat more" logic, by not…

Doesn't it seem like the simplest solution would just be to eat less food? When I went from 2300 calories a day to 1700 calories a day I got grumpy, headaches, sleepless, agitated and all sorts of other stuff. Then I got used to it. If you can't work out more than I would just eat less.

I've always thought it weird that people get stressed about social contacts. People seem to imagine these invisible walls around themselves and then get upset when someone walks right through them. If you want to be alone than don't go out in public. If you go out in public you are no longer alone.

I know it sucks to hear it but there is no pill that makes people gain weight regardless of what they eat or we would just send that, rather than bags of food, to impoverished nations. When I started MFP I was eyeballing 1700 calories of clean food that turned out to be 2300 calories once I got a food scale and started…

So a lot of it is just a mind game. I started three months ago at 275 lbs smoking two and a half packs a day and getting up out of my chair to refill my soda or eat more food. Today I went for a 7.5 hour 100 mile bike ride and am down to 231 lbs. There is never a point where it's just easy. You get used to how hard it is.…

Eventually you'll find that the entire multibillion dollar weight loss industry is just a scam looking for folks that really want to believe that a pill, potion or spell is going to make them lose some weight. None of the stuff is regulated at all so the same magic pill can be sold as a weight loss supplement, energy…

So since no one else actually mentioned it, the only thing that likely happened is you gave your muscles a good rest and so they stopped retaining all the water they were using to repair themselves. I exercise everyday for long hours. If I stop all together I will drop a few pound of water weight over a short period of…

Rest assured, with plenty of weight to lose you are not going to be starving anytime soon. Most people take a few weeks to adjust to a new diet as good food is often more filling than the junk we all used to eat. Since you are wanting to lose weight, I would not go to any heroic lengths to eat more food since your appetite…

Eating more food can potentially improve performance but it doesn't help you lose weight. To be honest, you are probably just running into the same wall many people run into, where they lose for a while based on guesstimates of their food and as they get closer to their goal their guesses no longer create a deficit so they…

I would just ignore the starting weight loss and average things out over a few weeks. Most weight lost or gained when starting a new diet or fitness program is just water weight and has little bearing on actual fat loss.

You are a cheery and upbeat sort of fellow aren't you? Accepting friend requests? Need someone to encourage me on long bike rides after smoking for years. I ride my bike 3-5 hours a day. Haven't had any problems yet but evidently it's net even exercise.

So I mostly just eat when hungry. Lots of people hate that idea around here but I figure it worked for all of our ancestors over millions of years so I'm good with risking it while still trying to lose some weight. There is an eventual transition point though where you need to become more sensitive to how you are fueling…

Most things are going to be pretty hard on the knees if you don't work into them slowly. My vote it to get a bicycle and ride it around. A lot of big folks like to sit on the nice comfy recumbent bikes at the gym but from personal experience that's a pretty big waste of time. I could barely stand an hour on a gym bike but…

Yes, as long as you weigh and measure your food and properly account for exercise you'll lose weight just fine. The thing that is PAINFULLY easy to overlook is that the number on the scale does not represent the fat you have lost in any given period of time but instead a combination of a little fat and much more water…

You are not starving. You will not starve until you lose most of your excess body fat and your body has to start eating organs to survive. Most likely, before that happens, you'll find your appetite increases. When in doubt google images for "Ethiopian Famine" and check the mirror to establish if you are starving or not.…

You probably only lost a pound or two, most of the initial gains and loses are just water weight shifting around as your body adjusts to new food and exercise. The more you look at the scale the more drastic the changes and eventual heartbreaks will be. Just eat the right amount of food, log everything and don't stare at…

I don't buy the whole starvation mode thing (or the books of people who want to tell me how to avoid it). Clearly a person's metabolism is going to slow down when they eat less food - but the idea that you are going to "trick" the body is just silly and counter-productive to the reality that moving more and eating less is…

I remind myself that there is no such thing as a plateau and just move on. Either I am eating / exercising at maintenance or I'm not. If you aren't losing weight, barring muscle gain, water retention or simply being impatient, than you need to eat less or move more to lose weight.

I exercise to eat unhealthy every day. I plan my bike rides to fast food joints so I can grub up along the way. It probably isn't ideal for someone with your goals in life but for me it works. Don't really see the point of getting all healthy and living forever if I can't enjoy the glutenous pleasures of life at least…

Alright, so a month isn't a terribly long sample time for a scientific measure of weight loss. Nothing I have read suggests that any form of birth control is going to make you immune from the old standard of eat less move more to lose weight. I'm sure it might for a while nudge your metabolic rate down a smidge and…

I've been eating 1700-1900 calories a day and "burning" 1000-3000 a day for a month or so. I haven't died yet but am still waiting. According to MFP wisdom all sorts of bad things happen if you eat a reasonable diet and exercise a lot but strangely no one has ever quantified this with any sort of actual science. I would be…