1. by eating less you are going to lose weight
2. It's no going to be easy
2. It's no going to be easy
For the purposes of weight loss, exercise is absolutely overrated, especially the low intensity cardiovascular type that most individuals trying to lose weight engage in. The actual number of calories burned for the mental effort/discipline is garbage and that effort would be better spent on better dietary discipline.
High intensity training and weightlifting have better results due to increasing metabolic rate for a long period after the activity, but the key to weight loss is diet.
1. Cut out sugar and most other carbs (potato,bread,pasta,biscuits,fruit, etc), not counting fiber as a carb). Have a modest amount of protein and as much fat as you want. There are multiple diets such as Keto and Paleo that play with ratio of fats protein and carbs, but they all amount to pretty much the same thing--cutting out sugars and carbs as much as possible.
2. Eat as much as fills you up of everything else.
3. Body learns it needs to use fat for its energy.
4. Get to target weight, reintroduce yourself to carbs in moderation and leave sugar for special occasions.
The hardest part is sugar withdrawls for the first couple of weeks. There's also possible problems with a lazy bile duct due to the body not being used to a high fat diet, but can be dealt with by taking a modest dose bile supplements for a period of time.
Other than that, pretty damn easy. Compared to giving up cigarettes or coffee of which I've done both, it's a walk in the park.
> 2. It's no(t) going to be easy
> Not at all
Self righteous nonsense.
It does matter. I would suggest, that it would be compelling to stop with the deterministic statements that are equivocations to fit your own narrative. What "less" means or what "starvation" means, is information that would be helpful. Given the multiple vectors that compose the general term "nutrition", we can be sure that less intake is more effective for losing weight. Then going on to say "pretty damn easy" is insulting. Most people aren't informed enough to make measured political decisions (many state initiative cycles in the US have shocking consequences), choosing what to eat and how much is an impracticable behavior.
Good points. When you're on a high carb diet you can feel like you're starving when you're not, because of the speed at which the energy is dumped after eating. Actual starvation is when you don't get enough calories over long enough time so that your body starts to feed on its own fat, and then muscle, and then you die. But that takes a while to kick in.
> Given the multiple vectors that compose the general term "nutrition", we can be sure that less intake is more effective for losing weight.
Firstly, nutrition: Like the article says, the guy kept up his nutrition by taking vitamins, yeast, and electrolytes. A food can be highly energy dense and have little nutritional value. Nutrition is important. One can have good nutrition and be overweight, and one can be overweight and have bad nutrition. Nutrition is a very broad subject that has little to do with straight up calories, energy, and fat burning/storage.
Secondly, let's say you're a regular sedentary American. The amount of calories your body needs will be surprisingly little. It may even feel disturbingly little.
So lets say you eat just enough to meet your body's requirements (which is different for everyone, depending on genes and activity). If you don't exercise and still eat lots of carbs and sugar, this will seem like a shockingly small amount and you will feel like you are periodically starving after your body has burned the carbs into energy, but you won't actually be starving, because it takes a decent amount of time for your body to flick over to fat burning mode. So you go through this bumpy starvation feeling diet, where you only feel satiated a short while after eating.
And still you body won't burn fat, because it's still sporadically getting enough calories from carbs, but your energy levels will be all fucked up because carbs are so easily turned into energy. You will feel high when you eat, and fucking exhausted when all that energy is burned up.
Actual starvation is when you don't get enough calories for long enough that your body is forced burn its own fat.
This feels fucking awful. It's hard. It sucks.
However, by eliminating carbs but keeping fat in your diet you can get your body to switch into fat burning mode without feeling like you're starving. So now, lets say you have a good meal, and you feel full. Maybe you've had too much. Whatever. What happens when you've burned all that energy? Instead of your body panicking and feeling like its starving, it's already in fat burning mode, so it simply goes to its own reserves without panicking. You won't get that 2pm sleepy feeling of lacking energy because your body will be happily start burning its own fat.
Over time your weight will come down. Combined with modest fasting (skipping breakfast for example) you will lose weight even quicker, and you won't feel like you're starving because your body will not have to wait for you to stop feeding in carbs before it switches over to fat.
> Then going on to say "pretty damn easy" is insulting. Most people aren't informed enough to make measured political decisions (many state initiative cycles in the US have shocking consequences), choosing what to eat and how much is an impracticable behavior.
Which is why we are having this dialogue I guess.
You do not need to starve yourself for your body to use energy stored in fat cells. You need your body to use up its immediate stores of glycogen, after which it will use fat or protein. With a caloric target set for a lower goal weight, the carbs you eat will be used up quicker, so your body will then go for the fat (and possibly protein). You therefore can eat carbs, burn fat, and lose weight.
It should not be understated that the best way to speed this process is with light cardio and resistance training, as it speeds up glycogen use and builds muscle, which increases rate of energy use. At no time do you need to remove carbs for this to work.
It's funny that you end your comment with "a walk in the park", because my experience suggests that walk in the park may help more than eliminating carbs.
Even with ketosis (a real thing), 99% of its dietary weight loss effectiveness is because fat is filling.
This is pretty easy to disprove. It's not at all that fat is more filling.
Once your body starts to burn it's own fat you no longer feel like you're starving. Anyone whose fasted could tell you that, never mind been on keto.
The starving feeling comes from the period in between where your body is waiting for more carbs before finally switching to fat burning mode.
So it's not that fat is filling. Carbs are filling, too. It's just that when carbs are burned, there's nothing to replace them with, but when the fat you've consumed has gone through your system, and your body is already in Ketosis, it doesn't feel bad because there's weeks and months worth of food already on your body to burn.
If I eat a meal comprised of fat and protein (2 fried eggs with some cheese, for example), I'll feel sated and won't feel hungry again for up to 5 hours.
On the other hand, it I eat a bowl of pasta, I'll feel very full immediately after eating, but am guaranteed to feel hungry again in ~2h.
I firmly believe that fat and protein are more "filling" than than carbs, and many people have shared similar anecdotes.
Carbs are not bad for you in moderation, but if your body is drowned in them you can easily develop blood sugar problems, especially if you're predisposed to it. Otherwise, if you're highly active and aren't constantly eating more calories than you burn then of course you will have a healthy weight.
I'm not being anti carb or anything. It's just waaaaaay easier to cut them out, lose a bunch of weight, then reintroduce them in moderation, than to try and burn off an excess of calories each day via intense exercise.
"Eat as much as fills you up of everything else."
. . . that sentence should never be a part of it.