The True Definition of Calories i.e. "Why what you believe is extremist BS" page 28

[Leida]

I'm not trying to direct this reply to you, but I've been reading various threads across the forum, I've been seeing A LOT of posts just like this one. "No I can't eat as much fat as I want because I tried it for a week and it just makes me fatter! No ________ doesn't work for me because I tried it last month and I got fatter!" It's posts like this that makes me skeptical of some people's dedication and patience when it comes to certain weight loss methods. Fluctuations on the scale are not a direct indication of body fat loss or gain, nor is the scale a representation of your body composition.

My long-term experience shows that the scale fluctuations might actually be the only trackable reliable variable in the sea of unknowns when combined with the measurements and tracking of the strength (weight lifted in the gym). You cannot be certain of your BMR; you cannot be certain of your BF%; you cannot be certain what food is actually good or bad for you; you cannot be certain how much calories you are eating; and you cannot be certain how much you burn by what type of excersise.

However, if your weight goes up day after day; you have a stool every day, and, particularly more than once, and your waistline is getting larger while your lifts are lower or stalling; well, you are over-eating and not gaining new muscule.

I also want to emphasize that people do have different mechanism of satiation, and fat is not universally satiating. Volume, fibre, starches and protein are the other variable in feeling full. It also may change in the same person. I believe that self-experimentation and changing when things are not working (>4 weeks) is important. Faith is good, but we all need positive results.

There are also people whose appetite goes up when they become active, and those who have stable level of appetite independent of the level of activity.

The responses to macros, specific foods, caloric intake and activity levels are very individual. The body structure is individual.

Also, I believe that as person loses weight, appetite and hunger pangs heighten. The experience of someone who is 200 lbs and losing fats and comfortably will be very different when they are at 135 lbs a year later, and their caloric intake has dwindled, their fat cells are screaming to be re-fed, and the athletic ceiling has been reached, hence the intensity of the training cannot be increased by much. That process is likely responsible for weight re-gain that most people who've lost weight experience. I know that I have been fighting this for the past 3 years. And I had only been overweight for ~ 3 years of my life, during pregnancy and afterwards - anyone reading this, take the weight off as soon as you can, do not let it linger! (Sigh) Unfortunately, the only sure way of being consistently lean is probably never getting fat in the first place.

You can be very healthy on small amounts of food. I imagine it is somewhat genetically driven.... and truth be told, I have trouble imagining that at any time until the past maybe 100 years that people had access to 2000 or more calories a day consisently.

And those who did, often proved unable to control their appetite internally and ended up as a notorious historic glutton. King Henry is one of your best examples, and if you look at the historic dresses of the court ladies, even with the corsets they are not exactly made for slender actresses showcasing them on TV nowadays.

External restriction of the calories, the simple lack of food is what keeps people in great shape. Our ideal Ancient Greek athletes came from the environment where the food shortage was so bad that the 60 y.os would take poison at the family feast to lessen the burden, and children were selectively abandoned to death if the family could not feed them by the father's decision.

It's ironic, but yes, a beautiful body as processed by a human mind (and save for Rubence and three of his friends nobody else sincerely considered rolls of fat attractive), is only possible for someone who either has the strength of will to not eat their fill or genetically lower appetite or lives in an environment where the food is in short supply (good food or bad food).

[sbhikes]

I can lose weight easily if the calorie deficit is from extreme physical exertion. If it's a calorie deficit while I sit at work, my body adjusts to lose no weight at all and drive me crazy with hunger. I can actually eat a calorie surplus sitting at my job all day and do okay so long as it's lower carb primal fare. At this point, now that I'm not fat anymore, the most effective loss comes from extreme exercise. And not weight lifting. That does nothing for weight loss for me. Might tone me, but doesn't make me thinner.

[Leida]

Sbhikes, weightlifting does not lead to fast fat loss 9or any fat loss, unless you start adding power element to it), but it also doesn't shred muscle. Your extreme mountain hiking is as good as lifting for you, I am pretty sure, with the load it places on the big muscle groups; it is compound and it is progressive.

Again, this is very individual, but my loses on cardio and boot camps were fast, but I appeared emaciated, not to mention I was physically sick. I also was hitting the athletic ceiling fast as I am not exactly a track and field star.

because I am also no strength star, it took me forever to see lifting results as well. Three years into lifting, I am finally starting to enjoy the results. I am starting to look tighter, and I like it. I do lack discipline it takes to take off the last of the fat through strict dieting, but if I did not, I would enjoy the body I want in a year or two.

I am fairly certain that ideal regimen is the starve and feast cycle with copious lean proteins, a carb load, lifting in cycles, a sprint and as much moving slowly as one can get UNLESS a person has a lifestyle of leaisure and can spend most of the day outdoors, moving about and, yes, forgetting about food.

I saw your post about pemmican, and this is one f the effective ways of calorie restriction - restricting the food choices severely to 1 to 3 items.

[Lawyerchick12]

Maybe for you 1,000 isn't an appropriate deficit, but for many petite women it unfortunately is. You can hold whatever opinion you want, it doesn't change that fact.

I spent months tracking my calories to get a handle on what my maintenance ACTUALLY was, instead of what an online calculator estimated it SHOULD BE. And while I know metabolism isn't static, mine has always been very low. At my most active (walking 1+hrs/day plus 3 days of heavy lifting), I could maintain around 1,400. A 20% deficit would have put me around 1,120 calories/day. With less activity, it likely is more like 1,000 or less.

THIS is infact the sad truth for many of us petites.

[Leida]

A lot of methabolic calculators use an older formula for estimating your BMR. It was rounding up, resulting in up to 20% error. If you are using a calculator, try making sure that you are using Mifflin for BMR. That one is brutal, but it is empirical, and far more accurate for women. While older equation was giving me 1350 or so BMI, my Mifflin was 1250 or so... And, as Choco mentioned, the correct results come up with choosing sedentary level of lifestyle, because most folk make an error of counting their activity twice - in the activity level and then adding it up again as workouts.

[sbhikes]

My backpack was probably around 20lbs, so it's hard to call that heavy lifting. But extreme terror while kicking steps up a steep snowfield, no ice axe, might count. As would the horrible loose boulders to climb down going on for miles on the other side. The major loss I got from this was off my belly, thank goodness.

[otzi]

I spent a lot of time reading bodybuilder forums, like T-Nation, last winter. These guys go through bulking and cutting phases to get ready for competitions. Guess how they do it--they eat 500 calories a day less until they lose 1 pound a week. If they don't lose one pound, they cut another 500 calories until they meet their BF% goals. Opposite for bulking up.

When they don't meet their goals when cutting, the first advice they get is "make sure you are eating clean", which is basically no sugar and refined grain. They also have a term 'Dirty Bulking' in which they bulk up super fast by eating ice cream, pizza, beer, candy bars, etc... You read lots of times these guys getting in trouble after a dirty bulk and then not being able to give up the junk food to maintain their new higher weight--they get fatter and have a hard time cutting.

There are some crazy supplements out there, some illegal, that do the bulking and cutting for you, independant of diet. So people with broken metabolisms--people that either can't gain or can't lose may have hormonal problems that mimic these metabolism enhancing drugs.

[jimhensen]

I spent a lot of time reading bodybuilder forums, like T-Nation, last winter. These guys go through bulking and cutting phases to get ready for competitions. Guess how they do it--they eat 500 calories a day less until they lose 1 pound a week. If they don't lose one pound, they cut another 500 calories until they meet their BF% goals. Opposite for bulking up.

When they don't meet their goals when cutting, the first advice they get is "make sure you are eating clean", which is basically no sugar and refined grain. They also have a term 'Dirty Bulking' in which they bulk up super fast by eating ice cream, pizza, beer, candy bars, etc... You read lots of times these guys getting in trouble after a dirty bulk and then not being able to give up the junk food to maintain their new higher weight--they get fatter and have a hard time cutting.

There are some crazy supplements out there, some illegal, that do the bulking and cutting for you, independant of diet. So people with broken metabolisms--people that either can't gain or can't lose may have hormonal problems that mimic these metabolism enhancing drugs.

The "make sure you are eating clean" community are mocked incessantly by people in the know. They are known as "cleantards." Eating clean has nothing to do with losing weight.

[stumprrp]

I know all about the dirty bulking, i did it for years before i started backloading and paleo eating. As far as strength gains yes, if you want to get big and strong quick it works. However the fat gain is unecessary and i learned this after this past "cut" with major fat loss and strength GAIN. After this 28 page thread i still feel that you can shift macros around to suit that particular days training with NO regard to calories and lose fat. I did it. Took a while, but 25 pounds down in about 6 months.

For the average joe, this probably wont work unless you do some from of vigerous exercise. I always tell people that ask me how to lose weight to "eat less, move more, avoid processed foods".

Thats really all it takes, worked for me at 15 years old.

[StackingPlates]

The "make sure you are eating clean" community are mocked incessantly by people in the know. They are known as "cleantards." Eating clean has nothing to do with losing weight.

Eating clean is washing food.