The True Definition of Calories i.e. "Why what you believe is extremist BS" page 44

[Glockin Grok]

Wow Choco. Have you begun to see the light?

He always has despite rattling the forums (a good thing) end of the day the take away lesson is just "being primal " may have gotten that first 70the lbs off you but you may need to track calories more diligently to loose that last 25. There is nothing new here.

Also i think we can all agree their are many factors many are unmeasureable to determine how many calories each body burns in a day.

[denise]

very, very interesting. I haven't been on the forums for - well, months cos I got a mixture of confused and discouraged by contradictory and dogmatic (sometimes even downright argumentative and rude) posts. This seems to be a "middle way". maybe I'll have a look around and see how much the landscape has changed

[ChocoTaco369]

And Stacy's experience - I hoped so much that it will o-la-la gonna happen to me! OMG, I willjust eat my fill of good foods, lift heavy and YUP-YUP! I will add muscle and lose fat!!!! Nope. Never happened. Added bunch of fat, lifts not up. Stacy I am not.

Because Staci has a healthy metabolism.

Leida, every post I've ever seen from you on this forum is about the newest way you're going to starve yourself. You'll eventually fail, break down and try to "fix yourself", which will last a week when your weight goes up 2 lbs. Then you go onto the next starvation diet. You can't get the body you want because you refuse to let yourself be healthy. You're starving yourself fat and weak.

You are ravenously hungry because you are on the Auschwitz diet plan. You don't eat enough to get the nutrition you need. Your body is in constant fear of starving to death, so any fleeting moment you have a caloric surplus, it is stored as fat. Even though you don't eat a high carb diet, you're a sugar burner because you refuse to let your body be comfortable enough to burn its stored fat. You're constantly stressed and your blood glucose isn't stable because you burn muscle tissue as energy (glucose) and not adipose tissue.

You need to get fat. Because it's the only way you'll get thin. You need to seriously get rid of your scale, because it's your biggest downfall. You will never succeed if you check your weight daily because you will not hold to a plan. You need to take the next YEAR and just eat normally. And you shouldn't weigh yourself once. Go an entire 365 days without knowing what your weight or inches are. Just fucking do it. And don't go hungry once. Don't IF, don't count calories/carbs/grams of fat, etc. Don't rinse your ground beef. Don't use the little lines on the butter sleeve to measure out how much you should be using to sear meat in. You'll probably gain 10-20 lbs. And you need to. The ONLY way you'll ever lose your body fat is if you spend a really, really long time not being hungry. It's the only way your body will figure out that it doesn't NEED to carry body fat. You've done nothing but tell it to hold onto fat and burn up your muscles for years.

The proof - you can't build muscle. No shit your lifts aren't going up. Your body is burning muscle as fuel because you're constantly starving it. You need to overeat to build muscle mass, and you need to have the hormonal signals to tell your body to store excess calories as lean tissue and not adipose tissue. You can't do that if you're starving because fat storage is far more important to survival than lean muscle.

Stop dieting. Stop weighing. Stop measuring. Just eat a lot of food and get fat. And stay fat for a really long time. If you don't, you will never exceed. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You are by definition insane. You need to try something new because you are clearly doing it wrong.

[ChocoTaco369]

Wow Choco. Have you begun to see the light?

There is a line drawn in the sand that separates hormones and calories. And it's not a fine line. It's the size of the Great Wall of China. You have too many preconceived notions, and they've forced you to never actually read one of my posts.

[Lawyerchick12]

90% failure rate is the number quoted for diet failure, i.e. how many people overall regain weight after losing it. The mechanics is very simple. They restrict calories, they lose weight. It gets hard, they start eating more food, they regain.

yeah, I was bulking up at 1800-2200 cals a day and gained 12 lbs in two months. No leveling off occurred. In fact, no leveling off ever occurred for me after I've lost my pg weight. It was 3 years ago. I have to continue to restrict calories and live in a trying to lose weight mode and experience hard core hunger to just maintaining. Every time it becomes unbearable, I gain some (most I gained was 12 lbs in those two months. Took 6+ month and 6 weeks of UD to take it off). Is that long-term enough for you?

Do you think people would chose to suffer and restrict IF they could do it the other way by eating more? Do you think we haven't read those articles, and haven't TRIED? Those anecdotal cases of women ho started eating more and prospered are out there, but I have never met anyone in two or three communities for whom it actually worked. Look at Paula's story - she was cutting and cutting calories DOWN.

And Stacy's experience - I hoped so much that it will o-la-la gonna happen to me! OMG, I willjust eat my fill of good foods, lift heavy and YUP-YUP! I will add muscle and lose fat!!!! Nope. Never happened. Added bunch of fat, lifts not up. Stacy I am not.

If you are ready and willing to take months of weight gain, look like crap after looking Okay, not fit in your clothes, hoping that miracles are gonna happen for you and you gonna transform 8 months down the road... good luck! In my experience, miracles ain't gonna happen. In all likelihood, one will just get fatter and fatter and fatter. It's only genetically programmed after all.

The only way is to get the low, and hold on to it for dear life kicking one's ass every time pounds start coming up again, if you are capable off. Never-ever let more than 1 months of steady gains with no drops, 'cause that's the road back to Square 1. Well, unless you decided that's that it, you want to descend into fat life for good. I thought i did, but size 8 pants feeling too tight is making me reconsider right now (and that's after picking up a pair of comfy Size 2 last Saturday for god's sake). That, and that fact that letting my guard down and being a fool will now send me on a romantic vacation with my husband looking like a pregnant sow, when I could have looked much better if I did not give up. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID.

I kind of agree and disagree with some points you made. Unless there IS sound data to suggest the whole reverse dieting, I call hog wash on it as well because like you, I tried the whole increase your calories to level off your metabolism and like you, I continuously gained weight.

I am very petite as well and don't suscribe to the calorie restriction and suffering while doing it as you have stressed in your post. In fact, if I really disciplined myself and not be gluttonous, there is no reason I should feel like I am suffering BECAUSE that is what MY body is happy with. I can easily keep within 900-1100 range at 5 feet tall roughly and be full and feel great even when I am not eating 100 percent primal.

I mean, if you are like me, and you are short and LOVE food, then yea, I can see what you mean by suffering and feeling deprived because you want to eat like your much taller friends or partners. Speaking from a health perspective though and even body signal wise, you can very much strive on that amount of calories if you are small. What I am saying is "restriction" IMO to say 1000 calories a day, for an inactive tiny person, need not come with suffering body or health wise but definitely entails disciplining the mind.....speaking from personal experience of course!

[emmie]

I would like to second the comments of Lawyerchick.

I'm 5'2", but 71 years old. After a lifetime of morbid obesity, in recent years, I've lost about 200 lbs and current am at a 'normal' weight. But to maintain that weight, I cannot eat over 1,100 cal. My "problem" is that while my body is totally satisifed at that calorie level, my 'mind' wants to eat like that obese person. So I know that maintaining my weight entails disciplining the mind. That has definitely been my experience during the year that I've been maintaining my current weight.

[ChocoTaco369]

I don't think you really need to eat the same thing all the time but I agree with careful tracking.

I agree with you - in general. Most people won't have to do something like that. But I was speaking solely to the people that are so metabolically dysregulated they can't fit into the proper "calorie counting" paradigm. For the people who have TDEE's so severely different than the typical equations estimate, the only real way to find out their maintenance is to be very consistent in what they eat so they can tightly control the portions. If there is too much variety, you're not going to be able to monitor things closely enough.

I mean how accurate is Fitday, really? If you buy two different pork loins, they can vary wildly vs the predetermined Fitday value. What if one pig was 10% fatter than the other? What if the butcher trimmed one loin much better than the other? That's why I like eggs and cottage cheese for weight control. They are very consistent. Something like a ribeye steak can vary wildly where one 20oz well-marbled, grain-fed steak could have far more calories than a tougher, leaner, poorly marbled grass-fed ribeye of the same weight.

[Leida]

I am from Calgary

I have not been able to lose that extra fat in 3 years. I was always one of those chubby gals, and, yes, I always had to curb my appetite, which was always high, particulary when I am active, first my mom did it, then I had to do it myself. Trust me, Choco, there were months in my life when I ate whatever I wanted, and every time I ended up fat, even freezing to death in the oilfields of Alberta running with the men with pipes in a highly stressful grind. On the other hand, when my mom and I went to the sea shore on the most boring vacation of my life, and ate sparely, mostly vegetarian (lots of fruit), and swam and hiked all day, and if you know my mom, well, you would not complain about hunger either! I was actually down to 110 lbs, and it was wonderful. Now, I am not going to go vegetarian, but i know that external food limit coupled with exercise is the way to go. I love lifting - I see huge improvements in my muscle definition. But fat gotta go. Which means that I must perfect the push-the-plate-away in addition to a squat and deadlift. It is as simple as Calories In...wait, is not that what you were suggesting?!

Yes, I want to be Size 4, and I know how to get there (all I have to do is to keep my cals on 1300-1500 average intake). I only fail because I allow myself to view food as one of the life's few enjoyments and put that comfort and pleasure above achieving beauty goals. I know that I lead a boring and happy average life. I know that my health is fine. I understand that I am already about 10 to 15 lbs below what my average 'twin' might have been, but it doesn't mean I like the idea of accepting the fact that I must forever confront the mirror with a sigh of disappointment. If I worked my way from 150 to 120 lbs, there gotta be a way to work my way to normal fat percentage.

I do not believe that this way is in gaining weight first, to do some healing. I do not believe anything is wrong with my metabolism, thyroid or hormones. I am an aging woman, who has to accept that she needs to eat less than she wishes to eat and avoid sweet "nothings", that's all. It's not that hard, lost of people do it, and even enjoy it. Someone told me she feels better when she eats less, lighter, happier. The Soothing Yourself without Food book makes a point that as Westerners we just bulk at the notion of suffering... while we need to work on the techniques to overcome, rather than avoid it. Less self-pity, self-gratification and more commitment to goals, rather than trying something that the lifetime of experience tells me is a fallacy.

[Lawyerchick12]

and also to contribute to what Leida just posted, there is also the disciplining of the mind to eat less, if variety is your thing. Like me for example, I had some indian mutton soup for lunch (trying to remember to name), I really feel like trying new foods IS one of life's greatest pleasures...for me, so I have been disciplining myself to get to a point where I can have the portions of what i love without pigging out and consequently gaining weight

[labmonkey]

Leida, may I ask how tall you are?

I think 1300-1500 is doable if you are 5'4 or lower. Absolutely doable and easy. I've done it for many years and I felt great. Now after having a baby, and being in my late 30s, it's harder to get motivated to eat that low. I'd have to track for a while and hit the leaner meats. Bor-ring.... but also tough since I look pretty decent with the muscle I've built up and the fact that hubby can't keep his hand off If that's not a good for my self esteem I don't know what is. lol