Reality check: Counting calories page 13

[iniQuity]

3) be careful get all the other stuff right before going for calorie restriction. Very true but I really do think I am pretty much there. Other that the minimal/infrequent indulgences mentioned, my whole life is one big Whole 30. My carbs are minimal, protein and veggies plentiful. I do have to consciously make myself eat enough fat (and may not succeed sometimes) but then I am still kind of "up in the air" about the argument made by some more hardcore paleo advocates that primitive humans' game would have been much leaner and therefor we Primal types are just kidding ourselves about the need for so much fat because we don't want to give up our bacon. I go back and forth on that question.

Way back when I very first was told about Paleo from a buddy at the Muaythai gym, I would e-mail him constantly asking about stuff. One day he e-mailed me this, bolding is mine:

"Iniquity,



So I was doing some thinking about the paleodiet that I’ve been following for the last month or so, and I am going to make some slight revisions to it. That being the case, its only right that I let you in on my modifications since I have been touting it to you as one of the greatest diets of all time.



Here’s what I have been doing: no grains or dairy, no processed (i.e. non-fruit related) sugars, minimal amounts of salt, lots of protein in the form of organic white meat, eggs, and wild-caught fish, lots of vegetables, lots of fruit, lots …LOTS of fat (almonds, almond butter, olive oil, pecans, walnuts, pistachios, avocados, fatty fish like salmon). Don’t get me wrong… I love this diet. I have tons of energy, I sleep great, my hair stopped falling out, my moods are stable, etc… and now, before I get into what I don’t like about it, I need to set the backdrop.

I started doing paleo because I couldn’t do muay thai anymore and didn’t want to put on weight. You know how I have a sick obsession with working out, how I would go to crossfit five days a week in the morning, run 8 miles, then go to muay thai five times a week at night. That being the case, I got used to having <4% body fat. Now that I’m not doing muay thai anymore and I’m only doing sprints once or twice a week, running long distance once a week, and doing the crossfit thing 4-5x a week, I’ve cut back on the number of calories being burned per day while simultaneously INCREASING the amount of fat I consume, so I naturally have put on ten pounds since starting paleo and am not as cut as I was. Granted, I’m at my natural body weight now and am putting on muscle from the crossfit resistance training, and you can still see all of my abs, but I want to look like I did when I was doing muay thai 5x a week again.

The only way I can realistically see that happening is if I cut out all the fat that I’ve been eating. From now on, I’ll just be eating lean meat, fish, vegetables, and some fruit with MAYBE a handful of nuts here and there (insert joke here). I did this modified form of the paleo diet when I first started training at njmt and IMMEDIATELY lost 30 pounds and was the most shredded human being on earth. I probably had 3% body fat at that time, and I was barely ever running. What happens is, in the absence of carbs, your body stops producing abundant amounts of insulin. Insulin is a hormone that tells your body to store fat and burn carbs for energy. In the absence of excess insulin, your body naturally feeds on fat for fuel. Right now, since I’m eating a ton of fat, I’m basically just burning through the fat that I’m taking in and not burning off any of the reserves that I’d previously stored. By cutting back on my fat intake, I’ll start tapping into my body fat reserves for energy and should see my weight come down and my body SERIOUSLY lean out, but since I’ll still be taking in significant amounts of protein, I’ll be able to maintain muscle mass and the vegetables I’ll be eating will satisfy my carb/vitamin&mineral requirements. If you’re trying to lean out, I just don’t want to give you the impression that eating as much fat as you want, healthy fat or not, will get you there because it most likely won’t, it will just keep you where you are now. If you want to lose weight and really slim out, I’d monitor the fat intake, but eat a good amount of protein (1g for every pound of your ideal body weight). In other words, if you want to weigh in at 160, eat 160g protein per day. Hope this helps. Hit me up with any questions cause I’m starting to become a serious expert on this stuff."

This was on January 28th, 2010 as I was JUST starting to dabble in Paleo/Primal (my buddy is more paleo, I haven't spoken to him in a few months but he's pretty conscious of nutrition and fitness, I would assume he's still there but I wonder if he revised his stance on fat... I should e-mail him. So I NEVER went "fat crazy" sure I do eat fat, but I never ate what I consider to be excess fat such as nut and nut butters, regular dairy butter, too many oils, etc.

Of course, keep in mind that he's male and for as long as I've known him (around 4-5 years) he's been a shredded machine addicted to working out (though intelligently) so of course once again what applies to him doesn't apply to you. He also was still just learning and he may have been swayed by CW mentality but on the surface his argument seems to make sense, if your carbs are low, but your fats too high, your body may not be burning your fat reserves.


I hope this doesn't add confusion to the subject at hand, but I thought it was relevant. If anybody disagrees with my friend, please speak up. First off, he was just starting out himself and probably still carried fat phobia around from years of hearing about it, however his explanation doesn't seem to imply that. I personally think he went overboard cutting out ALL the fat, but if you think about it, even eating lean meats he was getting some fat, and he mentions that it's a "modified" paleo diet, which combined with the excessive workouts that muaythai can be, it makes sense he would lean out. Whether it's safe or healthy is up for debate. He doesn't mention eating eggs, but I doubt he would give them up, so he would still get fat from eggs, avocados,etc... something to think about.

[batty]

*snippity*

this is something i've been pondering for months and have not postured anything in public because of that fear of looking like a jackass thing. so, we have all programmed our bodies to switch from carbs to fat as fuel by bombarding ourselves with fat. now, our bodies are running happily with fat as fuel, and we are now still bombarding ourselves with its preferred fuel source. with the bombardment of dietary fat, you're not giving your body the ability to tap into its reserves. right?

PHD actually touches on this here:

Perfect Health Diet » Perfect Health Diet: Weight Loss Version

and i think it was dragonfly who posted a link to something on the eades' blog about the same thing and i am not motivated enough to go hunting for it.

i'm kinda doing this right now on my BACO30, although i've never really been keen on slathering all my food in fat, anyway. we'll see what happens.

[moo]

I pretty much agree IniQuity and Batty. I wasn't someone who needed to lose weight per se, but I needed to do something about belly fat. When I stopped adding fats to everything is when I saw the most dramatic results. I still ate fat of course and IMO, plenty of it. Cooked eggs in bacon fat, added some avocado to a salad with grilled chicken. My results were simply much better and faster. I have no idea what % of fat I eat now but it used to be in the 60-70% range. I don't track or count so I have no idea. I just don't do what many do here like eating coconut oil off a spoon. egads, makes me cringe just thinking about it.

That is what is working for me to get rid of the belly fat. To maintain, perhaps that is where extra fat will come into play. Not to say I didn't see results when I was eating more % of fat, just saying that it was not as dramatic.

Also what I noticed along with losing 4" in my muffin top that my belly typically always feels very warm in comparison to the rest of my body.

I would guess I am in the 40-50% fat range and may track it for a week or two and see.

[bucharu]

Another Daily Burn user - free version and iPhone app.
(FWIW, I looked at some of the sample reports in the paid versions and wasn't impressed, so I created a couple of spreadsheets for my own trend analysis purposes. That is, to see what macronutrient quantities and/or proportions I'm consuming and how they relate to changes in body composition.)

[TheFastCat]

If you restrict dairy, sugar, all grains and bread (and all primal versions of bread), vastly limit fruit, primal "treats" (coconut macaroons etc), eat only when you are hungry, meal instead of graze, exercise fasted, exercise more, reduce your feeding window, reduce your carbs, increase your protein intake to increase satiation and fuel gluconeogenesis and fat burning, get plenty of good sleep, eat less than you think you need to eat, reduce your cortisol, stress,.... then it's easy to lose weight!

that's a lot of ifs though.

You probably have reached the point where you will need to up your weight loss effort or decide "meh not worth it." It might be a good time to experiment with Paleo or a Whole30 style challenge if you decide it is worth it.

how many carbs are you eating a day? (roughly)
how much meat are you eating a day?
how much dairy are you eating a day?
how many nuts do you eat?
do you eat to bare satiation or until you are full?

some things that would make an immediate impact to anyone for weight loss as far as I can imagine

-exercise fasted, in the morning - wait an hour at least before eating afterwards
-reduce carbs substantially (to only vegetables), eliminate dairy, alcohol
-build more muscle
-skew macros to favor protein, fat, carbs in that order

[Jenny]

I pretty much agree IniQuity and Batty.
...
I just don't do what many do here like eating coconut oil off a spoon. egads, makes me cringe just thinking about it.

I'd never paint myself as an expert on these fronts, but I've been thinking along these lines too. I mean, I'm not going LOW fat, but just not being as liberal in my use of added fat.

I had been going quite crazy with added fats back when I was pregnant because I was losing weight and at the time, didn't want to... but I have since dialed it back.

For example, I used to throw 1/4 cup of olive oil on my salads under the theory that that would make it easier to go longer between meals. But I found there's no discernable satiety difference for me between 1/4 cup of oil and 2 tablespoons (half the amount). What IS different is the calorie total for my salad, to the tune of 240 calories.

So if I can choose between two equally-satisfying salads and one is 240 calories fewer, why not go with that, right?

As another example, scrambled eggs really don't need tons and tons of butter to cook right and taste good.

Yet another example: I used to make my soup with bone marrow exclusively (which is almost all fat). But now I make it with approx. the same number of calories of ground beef subbed for some of the marrow. Health benefits of marrow aside, I find a soup with actual meat in it more satisfying than straight-up fatty broth. Same calories but more protein instead of fat, and it works for me.

Of course, even with some moderation of fats, this is still a high-fat diet in CW terms, and I'm sure the amount of fat in PB makes it easier overall to be satisfied with your food for the day. Fat is luxurious after all! I just figure it can't hurt to be aware of just how much extra fat we're adding.

My bet is that everybody has their own "magic balance" of how much fat in their diet improves satiety vs. adding so much that it affects their weight. Probably has a lot to do with individual metabolism, how carbed-up you are, amount of exercise to burn off extra calories, etc.

[batty]

@ Batty - Was it the intense training that finally turned things around for you (again, curious because my wife has struggled for years and intense strength training is the one thing she's always refused to try - mostly because she's convinced it will make her look like this). But I've seen her coming around a little bit more and more this past year as she web surfs for solutions and sees strength training come up again and again.

Just curious what you attribute your ultimate success to. You know. Besides the bacon. ;-)

P90X convinced me that i needed to lift weights. then i picked up the new rules of lifting for women. [i would suggest picking that up for her. the diet stuff is very CW but it does a good job of explaining why little pink weights and treadmills are crap for women, too] that convinced me that i needed to lift heavier. i have never been a type of female that worries about getting 'too bulky', so this may or may not work in my favor. your wife's fear and attitude is pretty typical amongst women. Even at the intensity that i lift, its hard to build muscle. i chalk my most recent muscle gain to also eating like a pig for the last couple of months. most women won't do that, either.

with or without excess fat, your body will not look healthy and fit without well trained muscle tissue.

[iniQuity]

this is something i've been pondering for months and have not postured anything in public because of that fear of looking like a jackass thing. so, we have all programmed our bodies to switch from carbs to fat as fuel by bombarding ourselves with fat. now, our bodies are running happily with fat as fuel, and we are now still bombarding ourselves with its preferred fuel source. with the bombardment of dietary fat, you're not giving your body the ability to tap into its reserves. right?

PHD actually touches on this here:

Perfect Health Diet » Perfect Health Diet: Weight Loss Version

and i think it was dragonfly who posted a link to something on the eades' blog about the same thing and i am not motivated enough to go hunting for it.

i'm kinda doing this right now on my BACO30, although i've never really been keen on slathering all my food in fat, anyway. we'll see what happens.

By reducing fat we also reduce calories. OH LAWD WHICH IS IT.

[carres1973]

I use Free Diet Plans at SparkPeople

I just started using this yesterday. Very eye-opening since it tracks more than just calories. That Cream of Wheat for breakfast...WOW!!! Funny though, I now see Cream of Wheat as a "treat" the same way I used to view donuts! I guess that is a good shift in thinking!

Carrie

[john_e_turner_ii]

This link is a great for a method to lose fat, and you can tweak it to fit how quickly you want to lose: Proven, Never-Fails, Step-By-Step Method For Blistering Fat Loss . The best part about this plan is it allows you high calorie days so you can plan around parties, business lunches/dinners, etc. It implements IF in a way that make sense.

For anyone I know personally, it is almost always too much food that is stalling their weight loss. Many people have no idea how much they are consuming, and they don't account for everything such as cream in coffee, snacks, gum, drinks, etc.

There are many PB followers that can eat all the primal food they want because their activity level negates the amount of caloric intake. However, for many of us who generally do some walking and weight training, we still have to watch what we eat, regardless of the carbs, nuts or dairy. Women have to be even more careful about how much they consume, especially if they want to have a lean, trim figure. A woman cannot eat like her husband and expect to weigh less than he does. It just cannot happen unless she is a professional athlete, which most are not.