maillemaker Member

This. Your diary is not open so we cannot see what you are eating. But if you were not losing weight before, eating more by adding meals is not going to improve the situation. If all food choices are equally easy to make you may find it difficult to stick to non-calorie-dense or compelling-to-eat foods. In other words if…

I don't know why you would say this. The same ways of weight loss apply to everyone. Eat less than you burn.

Thanks. I've used that site before for calculating calories for my current weight but never predicting a future caloric intake. Looks like I'd be at about 1767-1871 calories maintenance if I got to 180 pounds. 2079 if I'd never been obese.

What you call an "excuse machine" I call showing the science behind why most weight loss attempts fail, so that people can understand why they are struggling and take steps to mitigate the issues that make it a struggle. I have no idea. http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=2993&bhcp=20…

Because to me it is critically important to understand the problem being tackled, and to be realistic about the possibility of success for any particular course of action. It is important to understand what is happening so that you can take steps to mitigate problems that lead to failure. For many people, it seems the body…

Obviously not all cold is related to weight loss. However, sensitivity to cold is a known response to the metabolic response related to reduction in body fat loss, and I experience it every time I am experiencing weight loss. I am not normally a cold person - most normally my wife calls me a "furnace". But not when I am…

For most people, (everyone who has been studied so far (over 50), but scientists will not say "everyone"), if you have been obese for "some period of time" (it is not clear what that period of time is, but it results in more and larger fat cells which remain so even after weight loss) when you lose body fat and as a result…

OK I thought we were talking about being satisfied with Wendy's Singles and now we are up to 1000+ meals. Whatevevs mr. flip-flop. I've always heard you typically you take your weight and multiply by 10 to get your maintenance calories. My goal weight is 150. So about 1500 calories. Factor in the permanent metabolic…

It's a solid video. She kind of glosses over the additional metabolic reduction that happens when you lose body fat beyond what happens just from, of course, being lighter. But other than that, it sounds pretty good to me. The "adaptive thermogenesis" that she speaks of is basically a result of leptin hormone levels…

So just because you're satisfied with Demolition Man portions means that we all are? Please read more thoroughly. I said maintenance level would be a few handfuls of nuts. About 1200-1500 calories.

I'm in about the same boat. Diet almost always trumps exercise. As the saying goes, "You can't outrun a fork." You can sweat your butt off on the exercise bike for an hour and maybe burn 200 calories. It's far less effort to cut out 200 calories, especially when you are obese. Exercise makes you healthy, but diet is where…

Exactly. There's burgers, and then there's burgers. A burger to me is a Little Bacon Cheesburger "All The Way" from Five Guys. That's 783 calories. Can you eat it? Of course you can. It's about half my daily allotment of calories. So yeah, you can eat it - if you want to eat nothing else for half the day. The sad reality…

Last year I lost and regained 30 pounds. I have done this countless times in my life. It happens. This time I'm having ago with drugs.

Yup, there are several weight loss medicines designed to block the uptake of fats in the digestive system. The problem is since you block their uptake they have to pass out the other end. Most people find the social consequences so dire they simply end up cutting out the fats from their diet anyway, thus negating what the…

I personally only worry about calories. I don't worry about macros.

The sensitivity to cold is a result of the body's defense mechanisms trying to return to the previous body fat levels. It's likely permanent in at least some people, probably most. It's a result of your skeletal muscles becoming about 20% more efficient to reduce metabolism in an effort to conserve energy and so restore…

I'd recommend using the MFP goal finder. Plug in your current statistics and tell it how much weight you want to lose each week and it will tell you how many calories you get to eat every day. I'm betting 1500+. 2 pounds a week is the maximum you can expect and you have to be 50+ pounds overweight to expect that. How much…

I never hit 2 pounds a week, despite having MFP set to that goal. Most likely due to inaccurate logging, I guess. Over a 6 month period of 30 pound weight loss I averaged 1.2 pounds per week on my best run so far.

Hi. 1800 is a fine calorie load. As is 2100 at your weight. 2 pounds a week is a healthy goal to shoot for. More than that can be too aggressive, though people who are very overweight sometimes find they lose weight faster initially. I am also on phentermine and Topomax also. Phentermine is a stimulant and appetite…

I applaud your enthusiasm! :wink: But the man can actually deplete his sperm reserves. When I was in college my roomies and I tried to make money donating at a sperm bank. We were only allowed to donate once every 3 days. They told us some people made enough money to have to fill out W2s!!! We were like, "Wow, they are…

Yup, like I said, been there, done that. Be aware there are *tons* of people here who will tell you that there is no such thing as a food addiction since you aren't living in a gutter or committing crimes for food. I have many times opened a sleeve of cookies and not stopped until I had eaten the entire sleeve of cookies.…

Wish I had a solution for you, but I don't. I'm in the same boat as you, though generally I binge because of hunger. Once hunger breaks me, I'm in a mode of "screw it, let's do this". I'm now tackling the problem with appetite suppressant drugs. Basically you're dealing with a behavioral addiction, similar to gambling.…

We used the "carpet bombing" approach. My wife started taking her temperature to chart her ovulation and on the right week we were busy. So we got ours pretty easily. :)

Personally, I wouldn't even worry about the exercise to start with. Willpower is going to be a critical issue. You may find it too hard to sustain the effort of dieting and exercising. And you will get far more bang for your buck from dieting than you will from exercising. You can peddle your buns off on the exercise bike…

Generally speaking, if you're not losing weight, you are eating too many calories.

This. I wouldn't worry so much about the exercise. The 80%-20% mentioned above is good but if you can only tackle one thing at a time focus on calories first. It is far easier to not eat 350 calories a day than to burn off 350 calories a day. "Junk food" is only important to avoid in that "junk food" tends to be calorie…

Your doctor is right. When you lose body fat, it causes, among other unknown effects, a drop in leptin, which triggers, defensive mechanisms to try and defend fat stores, at least in some people. The only known mechanism that resets the hormonal and neural responsivity is bariatric surgery. Surgery also has the best…

I love my scale! It helps me stay focused. I just got one of those Withings wifi scales and it automatically transmits my weight, and body fat percentage to here for tracking. Good stuff.

"Hey man! Don't bother me with those medical journals! Go run or something!" lulz. Love the science denialists.

Sorry, bro, the science backs me up. See the article I cited immediately above. Weight loss triggers a cascade of physiological changes, including decreased metabolism, hunger, sensitivity to cold, delayed satiation, decreased perception of the amount of food eaten, and more. And these effects may be permanent. What I'm…