To Lose Weight, Eating Less Is Far More Important Than Exercising More
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
So I hope we'll have less "But it worked for me!" in this thread and more thought about something a bit more universal and averaged out.
One major problem with the standard BMI definitions is that any athlete in a sport that vaguely requires muscles will be classed as 'overweight' or 'obese'.
Although there may be some justification for this categorisation, these are people we normally consider at the peak of fitness.
One of the best things you can do for long-term health outcomes is to follow a strength training programme. For an average person, that may result in weight gain via muscle. This is not a bad thing.
1. This is not a "major" problem, because those people are a tiny minority.
2. This is not a problem with the BMI itself; it's a problem with the "healthy BMI range" interpretation of the BMI value. Obviously, this range does not apply to special populations, like muscular athletes or people with missing limbs.
The BMI concept is valuable because it expresses weight in a way that normalizes for height. The BMI value is only as useful as raw body mass, but at least generalizes to different heights.
A better tool than anything derived from body mass (such as BMI) is a tape measure around your waist: keep your waist circumference less than around 40% of your height. That's it. For instance if you're 68 inches tall, you should have a 27" or narrower waist.
For BMI, by the way, I use the improved BMI formula: 1.3 * mass / (height ^ 2.5). The standard BMI's power of two gives taller adults excessively high BMI values, and is more lenient on shorter people.
I'm kinda skeptical about this. As it happens, I am 68 inches tall and I do have a 27" waist. But I'm really skinny, and even then I feel a bit thicker in the middle than I used to - party l from some additional muscle, partly age (I'm 45 now). I'm very small-boned and have a slightly overactive thyroid, so while I do live a pretty healthy lifestyle I don't think my physique is a reasonable model for the general population.
The USMC calculator for body fat uses neck and waist circumference both, and by that I was (last time I measured) in decent shape for body fat percentage.
> One major problem with the standard BMI definitions is that any athlete in a sport that vaguely requires muscles will be classed as 'overweight' or 'obese'.
Oh, what a major problem it is for the vast majority of overweight people changing their diet and lifestyle. This really is the most important point they have to keep in mind: BMI don't apply to athletes who regularly train and practice. What a bummer.
/s
For what it's worth I used to wear EU M t-shirts a decade ago and I haven't put on weight. But the same M t-shirt sold these days is way slimmer than my old t-shirts.
The general rule that muscle strength is positive for health applies to non-athletes just as well.
The limitations of BMI are well known; if doctors and nutrition professionals keep on using BMI as an indicator, that's because it's an useful one.
We shouldn't assume other professionals are "dumb"; we shouldn't assume that we are a brilliant bunch, capable of seeing beyond an indicator, while doctors and nutrition professionals use them blindly.
Um... what? If doctors and professionals are using BMI blindly, that absolutely classifies their opinion as 'dumb'.
The fact is, 'boring' or not, the calculations for BMI most definitely give you skewed results because it doesn't consider muscle mass. As has already been pointed out, this classifies athletes as obese very easily.
This isn't just a 'woe is me' from athletes. It could have real-world implications.
1) What happens when they want to get life insurance, the company blindly calculates their BMI based on height/weight, and classifies them as obese? Tada: Higher premiums.
2) What happens when a self-conscious teenage girl who's very fit and active realizes she's 'overweight' without realizing it's muscle mass causing it? Agree or not, this scenario is a real one and could cause her to eat less, thus depriving her body of the nutrition that she needs.
3) While on the subject of kids... blindly following BMI rules and enforcing standards based on them, schools basically assume that every kid of overweight. As a parent with a child who fluctuates between normal and underweight, it baffles me that he's actively encouraged to eat low calorie meals.
The criticism of BMI is there precisely because it doesn't apply in a large portion of cases. The 'obesity epidemic' doesn't excuse it. It's irresponsible from a healthcare standpoint, and these people are being called out.
They aren't.
> The fact is, 'boring' or not, the calculations for BMI most definitely give you skewed results because it doesn't consider muscle mass.
They most definitely don't give you skewed results. How can the results be skewed if they are straightforward math from the body mass (independently of it being mostly lean or fat)?
Wrong interpretation of the values are what's problematic, not the "values". But, as I said above, professionals aren't using it blindly
> What happens when they want to get life insurance, the company blindly calculates their BMI based on height/weight, and classifies them as obese? Tada: Higher premiums.
Yeah, but this is not a problem with the indicator, nor the . It's a problem with (lack of) honesty.
> the criticism of BMI is there precisely because it doesn't apply in a large portion of cases.
My criticism of the criticistm of BMI is exactly because this is somewhat wrong, depending on what you define as a large portion. BMI applies to most people, and people who really should look at BMI for their job (i.e. doctors an nutrition professionals) are aware of its shortcomings.
> They aren't.
I see, I misread your original comment. The phrasing just threw me.
> How can the results be skewed if they are straightforward math from the body mass (independently of it being mostly lean or fat)?
That's splitting hairs. I think you knew I meant interpretation.
> this is not a problem with the indicator, nor the . It's a problem with (lack of) honesty.
In fact, it IS a problem with the indicator, because it's being used as basis for large decisions, and it has the backing of the medical industry in spite of it's limitations.
You conveniently skipped over the other issues I mentioned.
> people who really should look at BMI for their job (i.e. doctors an nutrition professionals) are aware of its shortcomings.
You yourself admit that it has shortcomings, but then defend it as what... 'better than nothing'? There are many examples if BMI being used incorrectly by those 'nutrition professionals', so it's hard to see your side of the argument.
No, I defend it as any other useful indicator (and there are publications on BMI usefulness), to be used by knowledgeable persons. You wouldn't blame "miles per gallon" as something bad because someone evaluated the SUV against the economy-class car standards, right?
A physician looking at a patient might decide to look at BMI, if the thinks it is adequate. A large institution (e.g. an university) might also use it to classify its population as a whole.
HN fucking sucks at these discussions. There's a strong resistance to the evidence base (exercise doesn't help with weight lose and may make things worse; lifestyle changes of eating different does work; still recommend exercise because of other important health benefits).
People seem to find it very hard to reason about dosages as well; so-and-so is "good for you" and so-and-so is "bad for you", again with the mysticism. Nothing is bad for you and everything is bad for you, all depending on the dose. And vice versa, foods that are supposedly good for you don't do shit if you don't dose it appropriately, and become bad for you if you overdose it.
But as you learned just from reading this headline, that counts as "exercising more" and he'd hardly lose weight! I'll take swimming, though, that really is effective calorie burning if you do it for long enough.
Just eat less and you will lose weight. I hope this is the universal answer you were seeking. "But it worked for me!" ;)
To loose weight, you must expend more energy than you absorb.
However, conversely to get fit, you will need to eat a balanced diet, with enough calories to replace damaged muscles.
However on the weight loss front here are the golden rules:
Some people exercise (exercise expends energy)
Some people reduce energy consumption (eat less, or eat less calorific food)
Some people combine both.
There are no other options.
Seriously, if you are on a diet and you are not loosing weight, its not because you are unlucky, its because you are still absorbing more energy than you are expending. Exercise more, or eat less.
There is some evidence that efficiency can be altered by eating patterns, however that's not enough to over come eating an extra 300calories a day.
Everything else, is literally junk science. The 4:2 only works if on arrogate you consume less calories. Atkins only works if you can't absorb the extra energy you have in fat and protein. Etc, etc, etc.
This part is the easy part. Weight in 90% of cases is a symptom of one's environment. Changing environment is devilishly difficult.
Besides, the main benefits of alternate-day fasting are meant to be health related, not explicitly weight-loss. Is it a main-stream weight-loss method?
Also muscles burn energy while you are sitting on your sofa. Increasing your muscles mass by weightlifting means you will burn more energy all the time. I think weightlifting is strongly overlooked for weight loss and especially for loosing fat when combined with intermittent fasting.
First, I'm talking about actual weight loss, not fat loss. They are two different goals.
Weightlifting causes muscle damage that needs repairing. This requires energy.
Intermittent fasting will cause longer repair times and if done incorrectly will cause muscle loss. (muscle bulk I assume is your end goal, as opposed to a specific need for a sport)
However the common way to gain muscles is to take protein powder laced with hormones, natural or otherwise. As a strategy for weight loss it is useless unless you exercise enough to burn off the extra calories consumed. This requires time and effort, both of which are difficult.
Loosing fat is not in its self weight loss.
however its based on the idea that if you have a reduced calorie intake you'll live longer. However:
a) its yet to be proved in humans (worms, flies and lemurs, yes.)[1]
b) to get the benefit we're talking about ~1800 calories a day. Having accidental done something like that for almost a year, I cannot stress how terrible your quality of life is.
[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v430/n7000/abs/nature02...
In response to your point b), presumably you mean the deficit is ~1800 kcals per fast day? Why was this so terrible?
There is at least one other way besides exercise to expend energy: cold exposure.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does-glo...
> 2) Some people reduce energy consumption (eat less, or eat less calorific food)
> 3) Some people combine both.
> There are no other options.
Exactly, I picked option 2 as I had been unsuccessful with both option 1 and 3.
However limiting food intake reduces not only the calories, but vitamins and micronutrients plus minerals. Also not exercising at all means muscle loss and not so much fat loss, which can have severe effects in 3-6 months. So regular exercises are must, swimming for example 3 times a week plus some brisk walk in the park twice a week will do miracles. Not to forget proper feeding is it is as much important as reducing calories intake and creating calories deficiency. If one can't balance his food to have proper vitamins and minerals, one should resort to food supplements at least for calcium, potassium, magnesium, vitamins C, B6, B12 and E if you want to keep you heart and liver healthy during the process. Know what you eat and do the numbers. I started with 39% body fat and 33% muscle.. Now I am 30% body fat and 35% muscle with a lot of cardio. A close friend of mine reduced his food intake and albeit he achieved serious weigh loss, that was on the expense of muscle and tissue, rather then fat loss..
Personally I achieved my loss with the help of numbers and constant measures - get a proper scale that can report body fat/muscle/tissue, cross check with calipers, get a fitness tracker to track daily steps and calories, track you food, exercise, calories and progress.. There are so many sites and applications to do so.. And really important - do a blood work each 3 months for you heart and liver. A few drops of blood can give you so much intel
Hope that helps
When you look at how various hormones (namely insulin) are affected by blood sugar & affect body composition, it seems you'd want to promote a method that bears that in mind.
That said, I think the focus should be on "eating better" not just "eating less."
Still find it hilarious how so many people still don't understand that a caloric deficit or surplus is the #1 thing to do when trying to cut or bulk.
Eating 1800kcal of white bread, salad and skinless chicken breast will leave you with a raging hunger. Sure, you have a caloric deficit but how sustainable is that going to be? On the other hand eating 1800kcal of salmon, bacon, vegetables and eggs is the same caloric deficit but (for most of us) with way less hunger involved.
But it is far from the only thing, which I think is the point being made by the post you replied to. If you take in your exact calorific requirement each day bot solely in the form of bacon and chips, you are going to be rather unhealthy. You may even gain weight partly because feeling bad makes you do less activity (so you should be eating less to account for that) and partly because the lack of certain nutrients in the balance (and over abundance of others) causes hormone and digestive changes which change the way your body uses those calories.
As you rightly point out the opposite is true too: more in than out will result in weight gain even if everything coming in is in a healthy balance, but there is more to being healthy than being in the recommended weight band for your height.
FYI: I'm no nutritionist, but I have completely changed my form in the last 18 months (dropping from ~15.5 stone to ~10.25 and now running 5K in the real world in ~24.5 minutes (22m27s is my PB on the treadmill, one of my regular routes in the great outdoors is 8K) from previously not being able to jog to the corner shop without being out of breath for the afternoon). All this change was achieved in a large part by monitoring and controlling my intake against activity, but I'm pretty sure changing diet balance and exercise has helped greatly.
I think people who work purely on calorie counting and ignore other factors are as deluded as those who think they can eat too much simply because what they are eating is in healthy ratios.
The "3000kcal" is just a placeholder, it means "1.5 times what you need".
It's a lot more complicated than that. Even if is caloric accounting is true in the sense that you could control weight gain/loss via caloric surpluses/deficits (pretty hard to deny) this does not account for why caloric surpluses are so common.
A daily surplus of just 100 calories per day (~4% of daily total) will earn you an extra kg every couple of months (7000 calories per kg), 5-6 per year. Being off by in your "calculations" by this much will take you from underweight to obese in a few years. How then, do the many people who don't fluctuate their weight wildly manage to balance out their caloric input/output without precisely measuring their food. In fact, even highly disciplined people who weigh and record every bite could be off by 100 calories just because of inaccuracies in labeling. If your lemons are more caloric than the average lemon, you're screwed.
In the context of intentional and highly disciplined rapid changes in body size (like dieters or body builders) the caloric accounting method works. Add/remove 500 calories per day to add/remove about a pound per week, all else equal.
It's obviously "true," but just as obviously is not a complete picture. The relevance is contextual and practical. IE, body builders and crash dieters should and do reference it. A parent trying to make sure their kids are healthy does not.
We don't really understand metabolism enough to have real science based answers to our questions. That's why I think all these accusations of "bro science" are silly. There is no alternative. Referencing caloric accounting is attractive because it can be lab tested and it works in a lab, but labs control for other factors (like apetite). That doesn't mean it's a complete picture. It's relevant only to the extent that you can mimic lab conditions in your life.
Just like caloric deficit is true when isolated, so are other ideas that get thrown around. Hyper-palatable processed foods. Sugar addiction. Carbs. Insulin responses and appetite. Glycemic indexes. Gut flora. The carb/insulin people are interested in how food affects appetite.
I'll give you an example just to demonstrate how little we know. Say you take a morbidly obese individual and have them lose 100kg of weight, they have a capacity to regain that weight in a very short period much faster than anyone who has never been obese. A regular person usually cannot gain 25kg in a year. Biggest losers do it regularly
The same is true of body builders (power lifters, rugby players, etc). If they lose their 25 kg of "excess" muscle, they will often be able to regain much faster than anyone starting from scratch. IE take two 75kg guys with 15% body fat. One was 90kg with 10% body fat 5 years ago. Have them both exercise and diet hard, racing to put on 10kg of muscle. Use trainers to "control" for experience as much as possible. The ex body builder will leave the other guy in the dust.
I've heard this called "cellular memory," "muscle memory" (which is already takes, so rude) and such. But naming it does not mean we understand it. We don't have any kind of understanding of how or why this works. We just don't know.
This is why diet debates, especially among HN-like intellectual crowds can be annoying. Everyone has their tidbit of "scientifically proven" knowledge, but the truth is that we're in the dark ages. It's like geology before plate tectonics or biology before darwinian evolution.
However, eating 3000kcal of "healthy food" is a lot harder than eating the same amount of "junk food", because "junk food" has a higher caloric density -- that is the very thing that makes the food "bad".
A person can easily eat 3000kcal of junk food in a day and still not be satisfied, while a person who eats as much healthy food as they can may still fall shy of 3000kcal.
If you do control for activity (incredibly hard), then there's no reason why it would be different. If you don't, there are plenty of reasons why it would.
Don't you think that there's more to human nutrition than "cut" or "bulk"?
I workout, I do my best to keep my nutrition in order, but I think cut/maintain/bulk are the wrong priorities. It's just the Internet fitness community thing; it's not wrong per se but implies a focus on what is less relevant.
The priority should be your health, and I always saw nutrition and health professionals advocating diversity. Focusing on calorie balance almost always overlooks this.
> 500 calories from Macdonalds is not the same as 500
> calories of fresh vegetables
>> It is a microsecond of thought experiment to find 500 McDonald's calories that are better for you than a specific 500 fresh vegetable calories.
Go for it. Take a whole second if you must.
> Go for it. Take a whole second if you must.
I give you the Ranch Snack Wrap® (Grilled), Artisan Grilled Chicken Filet, mostly because if you eat two of them, you're near the 500kcal (580) mark, macronutrient ratio breakdown by calorie being 25% protein, 33% carbs, 41% fat, which ain't bad at all. Sugar by weight is 2%, by macronutrient calorie breakdown is 6%.
Let's say you ate 7 of them(!?!?) to hit your daily intake, which would be dumb, but whatever: your salt intake is 2x RDA, and you're probably shorter than you'd like to be of fibre.
If you ate exclusively this item for your calorific intake for a month, you might find you were passing your poop a little uncomfortably towards the end, but you'd find yourself significantly more healthy than most of the Western world. Take a multivitamin once a week, and if you eat exclusively this for the rest of your natural life, your only real concern is going to be potentially raised blood pressure and you'll probably get haemorrhoids.
Now let us consider the humble rutabaga (or swede), a root vegetable, allowed by the NHS to count towards your five vegetables a day. At 86% carbs, and 10% protein, it's pretty unbalanced, but whatever. Oh, did I mention? It's 64% (SIXTY FOUR) sugar by calories. Try living off that for a week.
> How is that No True Scotsman in any way? Seriously?!
I should have said "500 calories of sugar-rich junk food will not affect your weight and health in the same way as 500 calories of protein. Doing calorie maths is pointless for any relevant overview of your diet."
It seems a bit pedantic to be bothered by me bashing MacDonalds.
Well, depending on your size, activity level and metabolism - maybe. Maybe not.
> Insulin is essential for muscle building.
Sure - post workout. If you get a massive insulin spike first thing in the morning (juice plus bagels and cereal), at the exact time where your body's hormone levels are optimal, you're not doing yourself any favors.
I'm not vilifying any hormones - but there are optimal times to take advantages of the benefits of specific ones (and optimal times to make sure they're not spiking all over the place).
Nutrient timing is completely irrelevant for normal people who want to lose weight, and only becomes relevant for bodybuilders with extremely low body fat levels, as well as athletes who train or compete multiple times a day, and even for them it is not one of the most important factors.
I'd love to see what sources you have that say otherwise.
I just said nutrient timing is not important; i.e. the exact moment when you eat things, or don't eat things, is not important, for most normal people.
And they are not "my sources"; I'm refering to the available scientific evidence, they are everyone's sources.
And, lastly, the idea that you need to "break down" muscle in order to build it up is not really correct, either. Muscle breakdown happens yes, but it happens whether you workout or not, working out just elevates muscle protein synthesis, thus both the breakdown and build up of muscle protein. But it's not like the breakdown causes the build up, and it's not like there can't be buildup without breakdown, it's not a very good analogy and it's not a really good illustration of the mechanics at work.
Eating 3000 kcal every day would make me shrivel away to skin and bones.
"thing to do when trying to cut or bulk"
Most adult males who lift enough weights to care about cutting and bulking are burning 3000+ kcals daily.
I very much doubt that. Most adult males that combine lifting 1 hour+ a day with a physically demanding job and who is otherwise highly active, maybe. That includes a very small proportion of people who "lift enough weights to care about cutting and bulking".
I've done power lifting for ten years. I'm 108kg, carry around far more muscle than the average man. I exercise hard 3+ times a week. That's enough that my lifts according to strstd.com are all in the "advanced" range - much more than that is a waste when doing power lifting unless you're aiming to compete internationally. Yet my daily calorie need is on average ~2300kcal because I have a sedentary office job.
Most guys I see that worry about cutting and bulking have no clue what they're doing, and end up getting fat and bloated when bulking, so I tend to discount what people think they need quite heavily. I gained most of my muscle early on with a diet that saw me on 1600kcal-1800kcal. It's just the last few years I've been able to increase my intake above that without adding too much fat (and if you think I'm super defined and low body fat, think again)
Yet you are much larger, and fitter, but only need 2300 to maintain. I used to have more than 25% of your total daily intake in my coffees! And I've never been fat fat.
It would be daft to assume the same thing couldn't happen with people.
Better is a relative term. Your better is not my better. How do you quantify better? Can you explain that to me?
Eat fewer calories than you need. Lose weight. Not rocket science. Sweat the other stuff later, and treat it like a separate issue, because it is.
Wouldn't disagree so strongly with you if you said "this is good. In addition to just figuring calories out, people should also eat better." Then I'd agree with you, but you're indignant and "amazed" like nobody understands the nuances of one value minus another, and if you're not making a salad, why even try. My entire life I've been overweight, and everybody has told me I need to eat "better," and I just started eating less of exactly what I ate before and it works. It's mysterious.
I learned to cook cheap, unprocessed, healthy food as a student, in order to save money. A big bag of potatoes doesn't cost much and can make the bulk portion of many meals. I currently cook a lot of beans in my pressure cooker - easy, cheap and healthy.
Admittedly, the preparation time increases, which may be a problem for lower income families, but I always see the cost argument as false.
The one thing I know for sure is that almost nobody who discusses this stuff on the Internet, particularly people who throw acronyms like TDEE and BMR around, have any clue what they're talking about and only you can listen to your own body. Weight loss and the Internet is a stupid, stupid place. I saw a thread once where people were sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jared from Subway was lying because there's no way such a diet could have ever worked. All he did was eat less. That's it. It's not hard. It worked. Look at him. But no, the Internet knows better.
Just stating that there's other things besides such strict calorie counting. On top of the fact that when practically put into play for people in real life, "calorie counting" feels restrictive, doesn't account for satiety (which then causes hunger & tends to lead to binges).
Re: better - tons of vegetables, high quality meats, low-sugar fruits, nuts and seeds. Carbs when-appropriate pre/post workout.
It doesn't matter if you count calories or not. What matters is that you achieve a caloric deficit. Any method that is applied successfully to achieve weight loss has resulted in a caloric deficit, whether or not that method was calorie counting.
If you eat exactly as many calories as you burn, you will never gain nor lose weight. If you consume more calories than you burn you will gain weight.
Starving your body does indeed make you lose weight, that's true. It's just not a healthy way to do it. Nor is it long term. Your body will more than compensate for it as it regains all the weight you lost as soon as you eat like a regular person.
http://healthyenough.net/calorie-counting/ http://breakingmuscle.com/endurance-sports/calorie-restricti...
Being in a caloric deficit is not starving yourself, it just means that over a period of time, usually a full day, you spent more energy than you consumed, and the difference is taken out of your energy storage, which is mostly adipose tissue. This is how fat loss happens.
Yes, there is. Sustained calorie deficit has a number of potential adverse effects. OTOH, if you are overweight, those detrimental effects may be justified by the expected long-term health benefits of weight loss.
Put up or shut up, this isn't productive.
I'm not against obtaining a calorie deficit because of more exercising or eating less sugar, I'm against having a calorie deficit diet by eating less, as the article suggests.
Hope I was more clear enough now.
Here's some more reading:
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-to-lose-fat-without-losin... http://www.livestrong.com/article/518807-negative-side-effec... http://www.acaloriecounter.com/diet/daily-calorie-intake-cal...
You did not link to scientific evidence, you linked to articles on the Internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experimen...
>> None of the claims you just made are correct.
Must be fun to be able to ignore everything everyone says unless they did a Phd on the subject, while never actually presenting any arguments yourself.
>>> Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis
>>> Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase
>>> There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject’s basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest), reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate.
Depending on the amount of calorie deficit, the symptoms may not be as sever, but they are there. I don't really understand why you can't accept basic science.
Call nutrition science if you like, but begin by admitting each experience may vary. We're not all built the same.
Days without eating is not normal in any sense of the word.
"According to Sahlins, ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well."
"Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, where as people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day.[26]"
I never said that. Eating 100 calories less a day is not starvation, duh. But that diet it's not really effective at losing weight, now is it?
I know it's hard to admit being wrong on the internet, but you have no argument here.
You don't need to starve yourself to suffer from those symptoms. Your metabolism slows because it literally doesn't have the same energy to work. Meaning you'll get fat very easily. This doesn't even need a scientific paper, it's just common sense.
If you read closer, the Minnesota experiment showed that when terminating a low calorie diet the body becomes primed to gain fat FIRST before anything else. And your metabolism slows, making it extremely hard to continuously lose weight.
And most importantly, it doesn't work long-term. You can't just lose the weight, you have to stay like that.
Finally, no medical organisation recommends it unless you have a valid medical reason to do so.
http://www.webmd.com/diet/low-calorie-diets
"For people who are overweight but not obese (BMI of 27-30), very low-calorie diets should be reserved for those who have weight-related medical problems and are under medical supervision."
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/very-low-calorie...
"Most people who want to lose weight do not need to eat a very low calorie diet."
You didn't answer my question about "better."
EDIT: You still didn't answer my question about quantifying "better."
Hence the advice to eat foods that make you feel full before you reach your desired calorie intake.
I'm sure this will get a bunch of "but calories in calories out" replies - nobody is doubting the laws of thermodynamics, but there is an world of difference being, say, 400kcal under your TDEE eating "better" foods versus junk, both in terms of your mental outlook, how your body will look at the end, and whether you will stick to the diet and therefore succeed at your weight loss goals.
How so (in terms of body composition)? Say TDEE = 3000 and one disregards macro/micros and eats at 2500 for 20 weeks opposed to one who ensures appropriate amounts.
What you are defending is fitness, what we are discussing is weight loss
If you are 580 pounds heavy, restricting the number of calories you consume is far more important than making sure x% of your calories are from fats/carbs/proteins.
The only bearing food choice has on this matter is how full you will feel, and that is matter of personal preference and a small bit of choosing more protein rich foods, but if you don't mind feeling hungry you can lose weight just as well on 3 snickers bars as 3 chicken breasts with rice.
see http://www.boredpanda.com/what-200-calories-look-like/ for a visualization of how healthier foods will make you feel more full. for example, 200 calories of M&Ms is 40 grams, the same number of calories from apples is 385 grams - almost 10 times as much physical stuff occupying your stomach
Say 100g compared to 200g for a 75kg 10% male, assuming identical AA profile. How is there a 'world of difference'?
I agree with those points, I was referencing this above. Especially the last sentence.
Nutrition professionals almost always advocate for diversity, but the Internet-wisdom thing is this approach. I guess it's just easier to do the simple math of in minus out (instead of actually trying to understand the nutrition of a complex organism).
The split thing could make one focus too much on macronutrients, possibly eating the same thing over and over to hit the desired macros, while overlooking micronutrients. Yet, if one followed the simplest nutritional advice (diversity) instead of Internet-wisdom, that would be addressed.
I found that as I was looking for ways to reduce what I ate, I ended up eating better.
Once I had lost the weight, someone asked me how I could still stay the same weight even though I was eating jelly babies. My response was that I am more conscious now of how much of something I eat and will adjust for it.
Quality of food is important, but an excess amount of quality macronutrients or micronutrients will result in excess adipose tissue.
Focus on eating at a deficit, with nutrient dense food.
You shouldn't just "eat less" you should "eat better", and that means eating an appropriate amount of healthy good.
Eating better is obviously preferable, but the reason most people fail their diet is because it is too hard for them to comply with it. This is where the "switch to diet soda" is so effective; people can actually do it.
In humans, we have a lot of evidence that shows that the source of calories does not matter, for fat loss. Long term health is another issue, of course.
IMHO, putting focus anywhere but on calories is doing oneself a very big disservice, except for some athletes and bodybuilders for whom other factors are important as well.
The acid in Diet Coke is real bad for your teeth, but fruit juice is more acidic and has more sugar than diet soda and yet you probably think it's healthy, right?
[0] - http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...
Muscle burns an inconsequential amount of energy -- 6-10 per pound depending on sources. So if you were somehow to gain 10 pounds of pure muscle, you'd have enough calories for a small apple per day (60 cal).
How fast can you gain 10 pounds of muscle? In an 18-week weight training programme, a group of men gained 4.6 pounds of muscle: http://jap.physiology.org/content/82/1/298 -- most of the gain in 8 weeks. So I would imagine increasing your lean mass by 10 pounds (just to be able to eat an extra apple a day) would be quite an effort.
One study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3139779/
So considering SOLELY weight loss, ignoring calory deficits from diet changes and focusing on building up muscle mass does not seem effective. Instead of building up muscle mass for a 60Cal deficit via BMR increase, take a 600 Cal deficit via diet and lose the weight in 1/10th the time.
Once again, everyone wants to boil complex, intricate body and mind mechanisms down to "do this, don't do that." It's absurd. These are sophisticated systems full of roll-on cause and effect, tolerances, etc. not a toaster.
This. From my anecdotal evidence, weight loss is largely a commitment issue. So when you spend as much time going to the gym and back as you spend exercising there, motivation to continue the effort can disappear despite the reward. So it's just best to find your own right balance between (what kind of/how much) effort and reward.
> weight loss is largely a commitment issue
I find that only implementing one change at a time conserves my willpower so that I'm more likely to succeed. I'll either up my exercise a couple weeks before I start cutting the calories or cut calories then wait a few weeks before introducing exercise.
Controlling what I eat, for me at least, is easier than upping my exercise levels.
Thing is one can never exercise enough to "burn off" the tremendous calorie intake most people are subject to. After all around 75-80% of energy expenditure occurs in the resting state, only 20-25% is ordinarily attributable to physical activity.
However I fully agree with the article that exercise is far from useless, certainly can contribute to well-being and has many indirect benefits that assist in long-term maintenance of decreased body fat content.
Of course none of this is really new, it's been established wisdom in obesity treatment circles for a long time. "Getting in shape" is hardly a trivial project as it requires commitment, determination, knowledge and support. Maintaining the benefit of hard won weight loss is not free, the price is eternal vigilance.
Curious, what does that entail?
Where indicated, medications can be prescribed to reduce appetite and satiety, perhaps increase metabolism in some instances. Probably obvious, but there are many other aspects to treatment of obesity, not the least of which is addressing other health conditions that contribute to excess adiposity.
There is substantial medical/science literature on all these topics, really not too hard to find using search engines of choice.
Edit: Or the variation: "Abs are made in the gym, revealed in the kitchen," which I always thought sounded kind of gruesome if you take it literally.
For larger muscle groups the body fat percentage matters much less.
It is possible to gain weight, and yet become more healthy. In addition, the metric most often used to work out whether are people are overweight, the BMI, is hopelessly inaccurate.
If you want to lose weight and be healthy - eat little and eat healthy.
If you want to lose weight and don't care too much for your health - eat little.
If you want to be healthy - eat healthy.
If you just don't care - eat whatever you like.
Calories --> Weight
Food quality & exercise --> health
One important factor that I've noticed (warning: anecdotal evidence approaching, be prepared to engage critical thinking) is that while exercise increases my appetite it doesn't seem to increase it as much as the extra I'm burning off. The difference isn't large but it is noticeable when watching closely and it seems to be relatively consistent: yes my body wants me to eat more when I exercise more, but it seems content with getting less extra in than the extra it has put out so if I just listened to my hunger I'd still slowly lose weight. This doesn't seem to be the case in periods when I do little or no exercise beyond my daily routine (walking to/from work and such) - I don't stop feeling hungry before I've eaten the right amount to stay at a stable weight.
Whilst I fully enjoy reading some of the opinions on SOD, the myriad of needless front-end frameworks, etc. - this really is not subjective at all. Calories in, calories out. You eat 5000cal of the most nutritious, well balanced meal & run 10km - you will still put on weight (given you're not a giant).
I'm not sure how this is so open to interpretation, it's rudimentary science at best.
Calories in/out does control weight but there more to it if you don't want to end up skinnyfat. If you think calories is all that matters, try a diet solely of dextrose (glucose) and see how you end up.
Most people know what they should be eating: why aren't they eating it? Why do some people find it so hard to avoid excess calories?
Or, is 2,000 calories of chocolate as satiating as 2,000 of carrot and potato?
Or how relevant is gut flora? (Some people have gut flora that helps them stay slim; other people have gut flora that help them stay fat); how easy is it for someone to change their gut flora?
Can anyone explain if there is a simple proportional link between "mass in/mass out" and "energy in/energy out" ?
Knowing that eating less will make you lose weight is not the same thing as overcoming feelings of hunger to actually eat less in practice.
BUT - they still bulk. They still put on the excess weight regardless of how clean they eat. Calories in, calories out.
> that is an entirely different discussion
> Throughout a bulking cycle they make (or ... they should
> make) a concerted effort to do a "clean bulk" - which is
> healthy, good food
The biggest problem in weight loss (beside the fact that you shouldn't do any dieting as this should be a lifestyle change), is how to maintain the weight once you reach the healthy goal.
I'm having a hard time figuring out how to keep the healthy weight and the best way for me is to exercise in addition to a strict cal limit. Exercise will increase your burning rate, and you have to figure how to balance it with your eating habits because you won't know how your body is burning while at rest for a while. This is the main issue, it is harder to maintain this fight than to lose weight on a simple low-cal limit.
I met a lot of folks who successfully lost weight but gained it back and lost it again, it took them 3-4 times in a row to figure out how to maintain their healthy weight. I'm already in my second battle against this. I found the best method is 16/8 fasting method, eat 8 hours and 16 hours fasting and I already am losing far more weight than anything else. This is so much easy to maintain even when I'm reaching my goal.
It's kind of like people winning the lottery and most of them just bankrupt themselves in a year. There's no real good educational program in US that teaches both kids and adult how to focus on what you eat and how to maintain the weight.
Although we're not talking about huge amounts, when having a precise dieting regime, even a few hundred calories of "good weight loss" matter.
Definitely nothing can save one from overeating, but that's why overeating itself it's a completely different matter.
To wrap up, while of course in this field little or nothing is definitely proven, definitely no, this is not obvious :-)
Yes it is. Changes in metabolism are a second-order effect, at most. There is only one first-order effect: fat = calories in - calories out. Once that equation is OK, one can go look at all the other factors - BMR, how macros are split, genetics, ...
And you have upper limit on your BMR - you have to maintain a steady temp. We just cannot dissipate much more than currently before cooking ourselves medium rare.
Maybe if you work sitting in an office and never go play outside or lift weights.
Try lifting bricks or digging ditches or cutting wood all day and that BMR is just the beginning. Or climb a nice mountain or go on a hard bike ride or get nice and ripped and keep those muscles up.
In the evolutionary environment where you were shaped everybody worked outdoors and sweated. If your BMR is most of your energy expenditure, you're not living the life you're adapted to.
[0] Basal metabolic rate -- the energy you'd expend on the couch watching teevee all day.
People living standard western lives don't have a lot of time for exercise, so diet is going to have a much bigger impact on their calorific balance. That's the whole point of TFA.
It would be great if we all had a better life-work balance and could climb more mountains, but that doesn't mean people can apply that advice to their lives right now. They can start doing some fork putdowns and head shakes.
The numbers may be off, but the concept is there - it takes energy to maintain the billions of cells that make up your body. Even if they're 'doing nothing', they still live and excrete, for example.
My trick? I slowly reduced the size of my portions and I limited myself to eating only when I felt hungry.
I didn't do any sort of strict calorie counting, I just tried to have a rough idea of how much food I was eating. Seriously. That's it. If you eat fewer calories, you will lose weight. It's that simple.
At no point did I starve myself or force myself to undergo harsh dietary conditions.
Here's the thing, I think a lot of people fail to lose weight because they try doing too many drastic changes all at once. This is REALLY difficult! But if you just do it really slowly... You don't even notice the change. Sure, the downside is that you won't see super fast changes, it'll take longer to manifest itself. On the other hand, this is probably the easiest possible way to lose weight, because it requires very little effort on your part (you just have to have enough self control to not stuff your face every day).
Just serve yourself a smaller portions than you'd normally consume, eat it, and wait a few minutes. Then if you still felt hungry, go get some more. Otherwise, you've had enough and you're satisfied.
At the beginning of this year I read an article that made me realize something. The article basically said "If you're fat, it means that you're eating like a fat person. You are a fat person." Maybe it seem stupid... But it's correct. If you're fat, it means that you have the eating habits and lifestyle of a fat person. Ask yourself, is that who you really want to be? For me the answer was "no".
You can even cheat with your portions! Every time I go to a ramen shop I disregard all limits and just eat to my heart's content. Although doubtless it won't work very well if you do that every day.
The more you exercise the more you push back heavy/unproductive meals in your schedule. You just know if you eat wrongly you won't be able to keep up with your own pace of execise.
Eating and execise seem deeply connected to me. Certainly it is hard to put this kind of thinking into a controlled randomized trial.
Exercise is more important that eating less. What a dumb suggestion.
While it is possible for an overweight person to not have any of the common health problems associated with being overweight, that is temporary. If you are overweight, you will develop those health problems, it's just a matter of time.
It's basically like smoking and cancer; not all smokers have cancer or get cancer, but there is no such thing as smoking in a healthy way, and if you do it, then the best way to get healthier and to prevent developing health problems in the future is to stop doing it.
Some people can be overweight without developing health problems for a long time, even for a decade or two, but it's just a matter of time. Reducing your bodyweight is easily the best way to improve your health, and to make sure you don't develop health problems in the future.
And, vice versa, many of the things we associate with bad health don't become health problems at all for people who stay lean. Food that we know to have strong correlations with bad health, like eating red meat, sodium, cholesterol, etc, are only really problematic if you also over eat.
Exercise is great, it's terrific, but not over eating is much more important. The saying is true, "you can't outrun a bad diet".
But there is a way to be overweight in a healthy. Basically everyone at the gym is overweight (officially anyway) because of their muscle mass.
>>> Exercise is great, it's terrific, but not over eating is much more important.
True. But there is a difference between over eating and under eating. I never said we should over eat, I just don't agree with under eating.
Im not sure what you mean by under eating, but eating fewer calories than you spend is the only way to lose fat, other than surgery.
Dictionary definition "above a weight considered normal or desirable."
The WHO definition "a BMI greater than or equal to 25 is overweight"
Not sure what definition you use, most gym-heads are technically overweight.
But discussing semantics is not the topic here.
BMI is a tool applied to populations, used on individuals it can be very inaccurate, which is why nobody does it outside of blogs and magazines.
You're wrong. The typical diagnostic method for overweight and obesity (BMI) does not differentiate between muscle and fat, because mechanisms that do are too expensive/complex for the use, but the term, in fact, does.
At their most basic, the words “overweight” and “obesity” are ways to describe having too much body fat. [0]
Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. [1]
[0] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesit...
But I do concede, overweight in that context does refer to excess fat.
I mean who wants to lose weight over six months only to be more likely for them to gain it back?
Also, looking at weight alone is misleading. All other factors being equal, a person burning 2500 kcal per day and consuming 2000 would be worse off than if they burn 3000 kcal and consume 2500. The latter case leads to better body composition (as in the ratio of body weight to fat) and better athletic qualities like strength and endurance.
People doing regular exercise also report being more energetic than their sluggish 0-cals-per-day counterparts. On top of that, prolonged dieting regardless of exercise may lead to depression and moving around tends to alleviate that.
Source: My Ph.D. in Broscience and Anecdotal Evidence :P
I have tried every possible generous interpretation of this that I can think of, but I just have to ask I guess: what's the idea behind this?
Not all exercise is created equal.
<SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION>
My Weight Loss Story 40kg in 40 Weeks Without Exercise where I went from 120kg to 80kg (79.6kg) / 265lb to 175lb.
This book was born out of the constant positive feedback and requests I received that my story needed to be shared with a wider audience.
</SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION>
EDIT 1: I wanted to do this as a Show HN when I published, but I've been a longtime lurker without commenting and without an account with my real name.
EDIT 2: I've read the article and the points raised are the same as what I noted when I lost my weight. Exercise can help, but you can lose the weight with diet alone.
Edit. Just to be clear, of course being slim and exercising is a better option. I am just saying that for health I would prioritize exercise over weight.
How is being overweight 'far better' for health or well being? (assuming you're talking about excess adipose tissue).
Please define 'function' and how excess adipose increases ones ability to walk, run and climb.
What do you define as 'overweight'? How did they 'look far more healthy' than slim people?
>I am just very skeptic of using weight as a measure of health or even as a universal goal. That said, being very overweight is a problem and being slim and doing exercise is a better option.
It's not weight per se it's excess adipose tissue. Any where past 20% for males and 30% BF for females will generally decrease performance to a significant extent.
But anyway: eat food, not too much, mostly plants ;)
For me it is shocking to watch the calories argument, and almost saying that you have to starve in order to lose weight.
40 years ago Americans, or most Europeans did not starve, and being overweight was rare. They ate lots of fat, for example with consumption of butter(calories) three times what it is today.
Traveling around the world I see people that eat well(I have eaten their food) and nobody is fat there. They cook their food though.
People in the Western world eat very badly. Most of their food is precooked, frozen and stored in plastic. That alone removes lots of necessary components of food, like vitamins or fiber, or degrade it making them not usable by the body.
So when the body needs essential components, and could not get it the normal way, it enters panic mode and craves for more food.
One of the most overweight people I have seen in my life were native Americans Indians in reserves and in Alaska or native people from Hawaii. They are so poor and eat so badly no matter how much they eat their body never says enough. People in Hawaii were known for being slender before colonization.
There are natural limitations on industrial food, and we are paying for it.
Industry instead of solving he problems(which is hard) has tricked be body into believing the food is totally ok, with things like artificial flavoring.
You know why? Your fat cells only start giving off their fat to the blood when your blood sugar level is too low, and when that happens, your brain gets a signal you should eat, thus you're hungry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/04/w...
The total body of scientific evidence is not really in such disarray as the reporting would have you believe.
However, your conclusion still hits the mark; eat well and exercise.
Timing on carbohydrates is important also. Eat them when you need them like around exercise, before work or in the morning. After your glucose storage is full extra energy will be stored as fat.
How well fat will burn depends mostly how good shape your metabolism is. If your metabolism is slow when you start dieting it will only get slower and you really have to starve yourself to lose weight.
Slowly increasing carbohydrates when not loosing weight and exercise is good way to speed up your metabolism so you are able to loose that fat after you gain some.
Cardio exercises are last resort at the end of the diet when your metabolism is really slow and you want to eat something.
So while eat less than you use is good starting point to loose weight. You can make it so much easier to your self with exercise and proper food.