= calories ha, I know it seems obvious, but 90% can't figure it out. Leading up to my separation in 2018 I lost about 25 pounds just from stress, no appetite, and then dating again. Since then I got a steady girlfriend and got my appetite back. It then leveled off and even started inching up again. don't laugh at the obvious, but counting calories is the #1 thing you can do! it isn't as much about what you eat, but how much. it isn't as much about how much you exercise, that just allows you to eat more. my local concierge doctor got a nutritionalist, so I gave her a try. I've always been OK about nutrition and knew the basics as competitive swimmer and triathlete, but she did teach me a lot. The best thing is using an app like Lose It. You simply enter target weight and when, also your data, it then tells you how many calories a day. You count all calories and if you exercise it gives you the appropriate bonus. Although I was half way educated with nutrition, being on the app has REALLY helped me stick to my targets. It has been pretty easy as just cutting back sugars, carbs, and portion control makes the biggest difference.
I love Lose It. It finally taught me to cut out beer. My favorite brews are something like more than 200 calories for 12 ounces. I’ve dropped over 20 pounds in the past few months by that move alone! Matt
Yep, straight spirits with no mixers are the most efficient in terms of alcohol/calories. Alcohol itself has calories, though, as well as other adverse effects on one's diet so unfortunately there's no free lunch on offer.
My new summer drink is lemon Deep Eddy with sugar-free lemonade. I make them progressively weaker as the night goes on so I’m actually hydrating by the end of the evening! Matt
yep, Lose It was very educational to me how bad beer is. Most 200+ calories, if you want to drink you learn certain whiskies much better.
good idea, I drink Simply Lemonade Light which is pretty low calories, you could add Vodka and be pretty good.
I don’t use all the features, I don’t want to waste more than a minute a day. I just enter calories, workouts auto loaded from Garmin watch, then I monitor if I’m headed +/-. Last night I was a little under so splurged in Orange Chicken. Image Unavailable, Please Login I burn about 2,400 without a workout, my allowance is 1,950 without workout, so negative 500 calories a day is about 1-2 pounds a week. My daily workouts burn 300-1,000 a day, so that is all bonus calories. If I’m less than 3,500 over for the week then that means I’m holding steady. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I track everything in MyFitnessPal. I’m at about a 300 calorie daily deficit. My goal is to attain 10% body fat. No way I could accomplish this without tracking my macros. FWIW, I’m doing 40/40/20 on my macros.
CICO (or Calories In, Calories Out) Can't fight the laws of thermogenesis. But I think people should not confuse losing weight with being healthy overall. Because you can eat only Twinkies all day long, but be in a calorie deficit, and lose weight, but be about as healthy as a cadaver. Or you could eat fruits and vegetables, wild caught salmon, nuts and olive oil all day, but be in a calorie surplus, and gain weight, but still have healthy markers (like cholesterol, lipids, etc.)
I think way too much importance has been put into what you eat than how much. I think Coronavirus is a perfect example, statistically would you be better off at a healthy weight eating whatever or 50 pounds over eating veggies? You then get into the argument what constitutes a healthy diet? complex carbs vs. simple? animal protein vs. vegetables? I'm not talking about smokers or drinkers, but is there really a significant difference between a vegan and someone who has a typical American diet without going overweight. I think the #1 thing is not to be overweight, your body starts ****ing up when it has more fat and more calorie intake than it needs.
Calories in VS calories out matter most indeed, yet that's only part of the story. Yes, you can lose weight whilst only eating twinkies vs oatmeal, but that does not paint the complete picture. This argument was fueled with the whole If It Fits Your Macros movement that always refers to a few studies that have indeed shown similar results when someone ate whatever they wanted vs a ‘clean and healthy’ diet when it comes to weight loss. I love it when people like to quote studies but don’t read beyond simple conclusions. What everyone ‘forgets’ is that we do not want weight loss. We want fat loss. With virtually all diets we tend to not only loose fat, but we also use muscle mass. That muscle mass doesn’t only come from your Arnold jealous making biceps, but also from your intestines, hearts, lungs aka the more important muscles! We could get into an argument here about what healthy is or not, but that typically tends to spiral into a nearly political discussion…! What science has fortunately shown us without question that muscle loss on a diet can be tampered by eating sufficient protein. What sufficient is, is based on your activity level and goals. For weight lifters wanting to build / keep muscle we generally use 2 gram of protein per lean body mass. Non lifters can get away with 1 – 1.5gr of protein per lean body mass. To make dieting even easier and make it more of a life style changes, here is a simply guideline. Start eating your meals in the following order – proteins – veggies – fruits – carbs. The protein and vegies will fill you up; increase satiety so you simply eat less carbs which are easier to over eat on. Another benefit is that research has shown that insulin spikes way more if you start a meal with carbs aka the traditional brad basket. It makes a tremendous difference if your appetizer is a carpaccio vs bread and butter! Another hack is trying not to drink your calories. Meaning never opt for regular Coke or fruit juices, but opt for Diet Coke and real fruit. It’s a simple hack but few people see those are easy calories you hardly miss flavor wise, but can easy make up for a few hundred. Now I do not say to skip your wine/spirits all together; I know I will have my Scotch/rum/win in the weekend, but making beer or coke your drink of choice will quickly add a 1000 calories or more per week! Good luck!
Good points Maximus. I think the old Atkins type protein advice really woke people up. I have a few more general points. Any diet losing 10-20 pounds in a couple weeks isn't weight loss, that is called dehydration and it isn't longterm or sustainable. Along those lines most diets aren't sustainable. That's one reason I focus more on calories over what you eat. I'm not talking about eating really bad for your calories, I'm talking about not eating like a rabbit that won't be sustainable longterm. Structured diet might be good to reach your goal weight, but you MUST then find a diet, exercise, and lifestyle that maintains for life without effort. You will never be successful by doing the yo-yo or not getting to a "no brainer" easy lifestyle change vs. something structured and not fun you have to think about. Most bad calories are stupid calories. Why drink several sugar drinks when you can drink only a couple sugar free. Why eat a huge desert or a bunch of candy bars when you can have a few bites and still get 90% of the enjoyment. Why eat a huge 16 oz ribeye when you can have a 6-8 oz filet. There are just so many dumb calories with sugars, fats, and portion control.
Actually there is an amazing study that was posted on Reddit about someone not eating for an entire week. This gentleman did a ton of daily bloodwork and had a detailed physical before and after. It was never done before with such scrutiny. This experiment was also one of the first real proof of the implications of Intermitted Fasting. Long story short, fasting for long periods of time aka doing a crash diet which is the same. Had a detrimental efect on this person's health markers. In fact depsite the massive weightloss from the gentleman ALL of his biomarkers went UP! He became extremely unhealthy as he did not loose that much fat, nearly all of the weight was not only water but skeletal and organ muscle. Even his cholesterol went up due to the freeing of body fat. Healthy weightloss is generally 1-3 pounds per week; not more depending on startying body weight. Slow and steady wins the race. It's a marathon not a sprint as everyone will gas out in the end and bounce back when the loss is too fast. A diet is virtually never sustainable; it's a lifestyle change. If that is too difficult for most people (which it is) the small changes over time that do start to add up. Not going full rabbit mode on Day one. Start with cutting soft drinks/calories from drinks as that's an easy one. Next step is refined carbs. And make sure you find healthy food you love and eat it as much as you can! I love lean meats and veggies. So my daily eats are indeed a ton (2 pounds daily) of veggies and leaner meats. At Dinner I absolutely load up 2 plates with as much food (veggies) as I can. Fills me up and I never have a sense of starving. When I do want to eat something unhealthy like cake or ice cream, I plan it. Meaning I plan to have a carrot cake on Saturday evening and I make a mental note of it early in the week. That 'goal' few days ahead will make me stick to the diet the days before as I know a 'reward' is just in a few days. Keeps me sane and gives a true sense of reward. When you don't plan these cheats, things go ofcourse pretty fast for 99% of all people. All of our dauily lioves are filled with distractions when it comes to food. If we would cave in to each desire we'd all be 400 pounds. As with daily temptations it's easy to say "well, I didn't have anything unhealthy today so let's joing my friends in a few beers/ice cream/McD or whatever." Probelm is, when you don't plan these things you woill face the same temptations the day after and the next day. By planning these things you keep yourself in check. Over time the urge to eat cake or pig out will decrease as you will crave healthier stuff which you can eat more off and more often.
Most adults don't eat anough protein and we actually need more when we age. Our protein retention goes down with age and thus we lose more muscle. Which will cause even more muscle loss. Muscle loss is one the major factors that drives aging and the health issues that come with it.
Great post. I’ve made significant changes in the way I approach nutrition and the way I look has drastically changed (and nobody would have previously called me overweight by any stretch). You’ve got to track your food intake if you intend to achieve specific goals. Like you mentioned, just a few hundred calories can throw you way off. I watch several body builders on YouTube and have learned most of what I know by following them (mostly natural, not the pros).
As long as you keep in mind that what you see on Youtube from thase guys is generally not what they actually do..... I would use their advices as guidelines. It's with the majority in the range of high protein, high veggies and adjusted carbs. Also keep in mind that PED's completely change the way your body handles calorie intake. DRASTICALLY. A vast majority of Intstagram Fitness Influencers are on a boat load of PED's and should never give out any advice whatsoever....... Tracking your food intake is a great way to get a better relationship with food. It can be challenging, but once you get started it becomes second nature and you make better choices automatically. And when that does happen you don't see it as a diet and tend to enjoy food and thus life more. and that's what it's all about. Healthy enjoyment.
ref: https://www.usada.org/athletes/substances/effects-of-performance-enhancing-drugs/ (I had no idea what "PED" referred to...others reading might not either so added to chat)
Yes. Well aware of all that. Jeff Nippard is a well known natural bodybuilder who provides a lot of science backed information and someone I’ve learned a lot from. Like you said though, there are so many out there using PEDs and you really can’t base your training/nutrition on what they do - like almost any IFBB pro. Lol.
Good post. I've dived into long term fasting and found it works for me. Difficult to do beyond 2 days . I've also read it can be detrimental to organs and heart so I will not go longer than 2 days in a week. When in the losing weight mode it's easier to make healthier choices because of all the work that went into losing it. Calorie counting (watching) is a must , it's amazing how fast a meal's count can add up.
You can drop ~10 lb per month but 5 per week isn't sustainable. Overall you guys are singing my song. That is EXACTLY how to lose weight. Count the calories and it teaches you what you can, and shouldn't, eat that much of (like toast with your butter or ice cream). I too went to whisky neat and water between; as a bonus, it is less hangover prone that way. As a general rule of thumb, the more dense the food the higher the calorie content and a serving of meat is about the size of a deck of cards. Two other hints, almonds (or your nut of preference) are your friend because just a few can buy you an hour or two before you are hungry again, and watermelon is your friend since you can't eat enough to actually care. From there it is all about just doing it.
Aplogies, guess to lazy to type out Performance Enhancing Drugs. What USDA lists are the scientific known effects and side effects. What is commonly used by athletes is something else…..
