magma169

I am not exactly disagreeing, but my curiosity has peaked. Its probably humanly impossible to consume 20k kcal of melted butter in a day but assuming someone was able to do that what proof do you have that fat in those quantities would NOT raise your insulin ? Fat does not raise insulin......much (at reasonable quantities), but at these excessive quantities I am more prone to believe that things would be different. Ofcourse, I ought to admit that I do believe that calories count. I just dont think they count THAT much. If you are eating the right foods, your body will be able to auto-regulate and stop you on its own from overeating. I am not saying its hard to track calories, I am saying its hard to accurately track calories. By "accurately" I mean, to very good precision, not a ballpark. Your hypothetical "spreadsheet" assumes that the "sample" (i.e. your body) stays the same when really....it is not, for a variety of reasons (stress, activity levels, age). In short, there are many variables that come into play that to get a really accurate result would require you to be a....robot or perform biological tests regularly. By the way, I am not an advocate of any of those so-called "diet experts with no research credentials". I listen to a lot of things and then dig deeper on my own.

this is a highly controversial post, for me. Highly theoetical to say the least, due to simply being very very hard to actually track everything down from how your body handles calories (which btw are estimations, +/- 10%) to how many calories you are burning (assuming you are exercising or remain active). Also, there is a lot of debate currently on the whole "calories in vs out". For instance, Jonathan Bailor has a found a lot of evidence that supports that as long as consuming a food does not cause an insulin rise, then it will not cause weight gain as much as you may eat of it. So, in summary, I do agree more with the person stating that we are complicated. We are. We are not machines and food/diet science is a field that requires a lot more in-depth research.

I was listening to a talk by Gary Taubes a few months back, and he was saying that experiments where you put people in a controlled facility in order to monitor exactly activity and food intake are very expensive. So I am on the same boat about your first comment. Not to mention that the funding body has the power to influence the findings of the study. In the same talk, Gary was saying that (I think) the USDA (or one of these huge goverment organisations for diet and health etc) will not fund/publish your research unless the results are in line with the guidelines they are promoting. Let me also say that, as a researcher myself, I think its VERY easy to misnterpret the results of a study, if you dont carefully read the actual paper. Even a small word can make a big difference but people throw synonyms and "summarize" findings like its nothing, then end up spreading false information. In short, its really tedious but if you really want to find out if sth is true or not, read the paper yourself. I honestly cannot say I have ever experienced anything different in the way my mouth tastes. Even bad breath (which is sth people are afraid about when in ketosis), does not seem to affect me (or maybe not to the extent that I become aware of it). The way I know I am in ketosis (or in a keto-like state) is 1) I feel tired from almost everything 2) my joints are cold and I generally feel colder 3) i do not seem able to hold water in me (so frequent trips to the men's room).

It really depends on how you define success. All these "plans" are certainly not sustainable so in all honesty I dont even know if a keto diet is really worth pursuing (unless you are looking for a quick fix). So let me add a few things, since you also mentioned IF: 1) I have read multiple studies that have found that low-fat is just as effective as low-carb in weight loss. And really, if you are looking to simply lose weight all that matters is caloric restriction. But like I said above a low-carb diet may result in greater FAT loss (not just weight loss) and it will be easier to follow for a while due to the "less" cravings. 2) IF is basically a form of "indirect" caloric restriction. Eat-stop-eat, 16-8, 5/2, these all work because they create a massive caloric deficit by basically skipping meals. Apparently people swear by the fact that there's an increase in metabolism during IF, and maybe they are right. The body is a complicated machine. I did take a look at the article you linked btw. And I kind of disagree ... I am pretty sure that the people that were not losing weight were simply practicing IF in the wrong way. Its easy to fall in the loop of "hey since I didnt eat for 24 hours, I can eat a lot more over the next 24 hours" or sth similar. In the end of the day though, it all comes down to the number of calories you eat over the day. Having said that, I am following 16-8 for the past 6 months somewhat unconsciously, because I dont like eating at night, and I can tell you that it does help. Yes, certainly, when I am low-carbing, I really just stop having any expections whatsoever regarding physical condition, strength/stamina gains etc. You simply do what you can to maintain whatever muscle you have and to keep losing fat.

^ I agree with the above poster. Loose skin problems are generally due to rapid weight loss; simply put the body does not have the chance to keep up with the amount of fat lost. Theoretically, if you lose weight over a long period of time, slow and steadily, your body should adapt. Also you are still very young so I do not think that you will have such problems. On a sidenote, fat /= loose skin. Dont mistake excess fat for loose skin (a friend of mine thought that was the case). Skin is very thin (pinch the top of your palm) - anything largely thicker than that is most likely fat tissue.

I have experimented with keto-like diets a lot. However, maybe not for prolonged periods of time and certainly NOT in the way that it is recommended. Let me add that I am fat-phobic (i just made up that term). So usually, keto diets are defined as limited amount of carbs, "limited" being a rather vague term, depending on your physical activity. In general anything below 50gr is considered to be low-carb. If you are working out, that number can obviously increase up to 100g. Having said that, I find that I can easily go into ketosis after 3-4 days on around 50g of carbs while maintaining a rather demanding exercise regime. Usually, I start with less than 100 for a few days and then drop to 50 or below (I used to include fiber in the 50g, the last 6 months I subtract it; So i cruise around 62-70 gr of carbs with around 18-20g of fiber, which is not a lot at all). Anyway, initially losing water weight is rapid and you feel lighter. After you get into ketosis, things get somewhat nasty. Until your body adjusts (usually a week or so for me), you feel tired all the time. After completing my workout, the rest of the day I found it daunting to go up stairs. Your body adjusts but honestly speaking, I never really managed to wake up one day duirng a low carb diet and NOT feel tired. Plus, low-carb diets are really not sustainable in the long-term. Eventually, you will be craving for pasta, rice and starchy carbs. Note however, that you will be getting less cravings initially. To the point where you could just go with one meal a day. Technically, you are meant to replace part of those carbs you avoid with healthy fats. I never do that. I go into keto, and consume lean meats and vegetables. And a bit of dairy and olive oil. I usually manage to lose A LOT of weight in less than two months but I am not certain if its because of the reduction in calories or because of the reduction in carbs. However, reduction in carbs does seem to cause a slightly higher waist size reduction. I have read a lot about becoming fat-adapted. It makes sense, but truth be told, I have no idea if I managed to ever become fat-adapted. If you carb-cycle though, you do end becoming very very carb-efficient. In other words, if you keep your carb intake low for a week, then eat a lot of carbs on the 7th day, you will find the surge of energy to be unbelievable. Actually, instead of going full keto, I find it a lot more sustainable to just carb-cycle every 4 days or so. And there you have it, from a person (probably) as confused as you

Thank you for your reply and the advice ! I will start tracking where it becomes stable, and keep it at that level for about a week. It will still be hard to calculate how much the base is because of my daily exercise regime but I will try..... Believe me, I eat as clean as a person can eat, about 95% of the time. Chicken breast, brocolli, tuna, spinach, a tiny bit of olive oil, a tiny bit of cottage cheese. I dont take supplements, pills, diet products etc. Maybe a multi every now and then. Whats really screwing me over, I reckon, are days that I fall off the wagon and then end up gulping all kind of junk food for a couple of days. I guess if things are done correctly, and you dont lose muscle, you will eventually see the scale moving down slowly. Its just annoying, because you would wish things were going faster (proportionaly with the amount of effort one puts). I am in fact lifting weights; every day after cardio and BW, I spend about 30 min doing sets of ONE compound exercise (deadlift, clean/snatch/press, bench press, squat) and then ONE of the smaller muscle groups (triceps, biceps traps). In the end, I suppose the scale isnt very reliable, so I decided to simply stop measuring myself. I find it adds pressure and stresses me out moreso than it helps. I suspect that its better to measure yourself (regularly) once you are mainting your weight rather than when trying to drop some. I am not really focusing on losing weight, I actually want to drop my waist size a couple of inches. Usually, dropping sizes comes with weight loss so I was checking the scale or measuring my waist, in an attempt to motivate myself but its irritating when you dont see changes. Plus measuring your waist is also somewhat hard (although I read some tips on how to be consistent with those measurements which I will start implementing).

I think you ll find that most people are following a fractional Paleo diet, say 80-90%, rather than 200%. As RainCloak said above, Paleo is useful because it basically cuts out processed junk food. For simple weight loss, calories in vs calories out is the iron rule.....BUT for fat loss vs muscle loss and for overall better aesthetic results, macronutrients do play a significant role as well as micronutrients since I have the feeling they will affect how your body handles the macros. Going back to your scepticism about Paleo's main argument i.e. eat like a caveman cause that is what we were designed to eat, I must admit that from a purely objective and scientific point of view its most likely rubbish. We are NOT the same species as we once were, our organisms have evolved to be able to handle grains and other "processed" foods far better than what Mark Sisson and other Paleo advocates would like us to believe. I mean the Ancient Greeks were eating bread/grains/cheese etc and they were lean.... and that was over 5000 yrs ago....... Like I said, a Paleo diet works primarily because of psychological reasons and because it "accidentally" forces you to cut down calories which you would otherwise add in the form of junk food.

As the title suggests, how do people know how many calories they burn daily ? So, I know there are online tools that let you calculate a BMR (based on a age, height) , then they add a number of calories based on your job-lifestyle and how active you are throughtout the day. I am 27, 5'7.5'', at 68 kg (32'' waist size). I do 40-min cardio everyday, put at least 10,000 steps everyday as I walk everywhere (without counting going up stairs every 20 min to pee cause my office is on the first floor), plus 40-min strength training (which includes about 15-min bodyweight circuits). EVERY day. Lets try this out. >>>> http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/calories-burned = 2836 kcal (using a sedentary lifestyle, to play it safe, and only putting 40-min of 5mph running as daily exercise). Guess what, I am 98% certain that I can't eat more than 1500 kcal (MAX) a day without seeing the scale go up. So I am wondering how are people that are doing A LOT less exercise than me and that are less active in general, are able to eat ample amounts of food without gaining weight ?! Also let me add that I have been diet crushing, yo-yo dieting etc for a number of years. And that I have not actually tried to consistently eat 2,800 kcal to see whether my body will eventually cope with that number of calories. Now, two questions come in mind: 1) How do people know how many calories they burn in their typical day (or how did you find out )? If you simply tested it out, by say consuming 2000+ calories everyday werent you afraid you will end up gaining weight ? I mean, as soon as you start eating a bit more, the scale jumps 1-2 kg ! 2) I am aware that metabolic damage could be a scenario here, but I am not convinced. I have never dieted for more than 6-9 weeks, and I think I read somewhere that starvation mode requires a much more severe caloric restriction than ~800-1200 kcal to initiate. I could be wrong though. At the moment, I am eating about 1100+ kcal but it gets increasingly hard with all this exercise to keep this up. And truth be told I am not losing weight very fast either....... Thoughts ? Opinions ?

Hi all, I have been a member for over a year but not really active in the forums, during this time. Anyway, I was having a (recurring) discussion with a friend about supplements and he was claiming that people who use supplements are basically "cheating" in getting more results faster than people who cover all their nutritional needs from food alone. This is something I was not completely opposed to. I have heard that creatine will allow you to hold more muscle than what your body could naturally develop, but I thought the same cannot be said about whey/casein protein shakes. However, there may be a basis in his reasoning because the body will abosrb more efficiently the protein from the powder than what it would from a can of tuna (since the food will have to be first broken down into its constituents and then be absorbed). At the same time, its significantly harder to keep eating large quantities of tuna/chicken rather than gulping down drinks thus allowing for a more comfortable covering of your daily protein needs. So I was just wondering what do people think about this, whether they agree or not about the above and whether taking supplements should be indeed considered a "shortcut". In the end is it true that, without the help of supplements, the process of building a ripped, muscular body will take A LOT longer when compared to the opposite scenario ? By the way, I am not trying to insult people who choose to take supps. Its a free country we live in Also, for the record, I am not taking anything.

the OP talks about burning calories. stating that its easier to simply not eat is simply stating the obvious. as for the rest, its hard to argue otherwise. Obviously I am not implying that you should do 45 min of squats, like I have mentioned above, the proper way to incorporate them is in a BW circuit or in split sets. Having said that.... I am not exactly certain as to how accurate those tools that supposedly measure the calories you burn by doing an exercise are. It is my impression that the studies conducted that yield these results are based on the heart rate and the VO2 output of certain....subjects. However, as each individual's physical condition is different, the calories expended might actually differ between a person at peak condition at 135 lbs and a person who has never exercised at the same weight. Also consider that those tools fail to account about one very important aspect of continuous exercsise - the fact that it gets harder with time, therefore you actually spend more energy as you maintain the same pace as when you started. Its not a linear relationship. Here's an example: CalorieLab says that "Jogging, general" burns 105 kcal in 15 min and it burns 420 kcal per hour (so it simply multiplies 105 x 4). This is not true. Continuous running for an hour is harder than 4 15-min sessions. First of all your body will have to spend time to go up to the same heart in each ever session therefore you will not spend the same calories. Therefore, do take these with a grain of salt. Its a lot more complicated. Even the kcal in the product labels has a +/- 10% uncertainty. Meaning that a Mars bar may actually range from 270 kcal to 330 kcal (assuming the label states 300 kcal). I do agree about the outrunning the fork and the last two sentences though. Nice way of putting it too

.......actually I don't quite agree on that second point. Bodyweight squats in high reps burn serious calories, and they have their place in sports training. I know that football coaches incorporate fast BW squats as they increase the stamina/ muscular endurance of the player's legs. Obviously after a certain level you need to make variations of each exercise, cause your body will adapt but in my opinion BW circuits (like the ones you mentioned in a post above) are a great way to keep fit and lose fat. Additionally, you can pair these with muscle building barbell training to increase your strength. So sth like 3-4 cycles of bw squats, pushups, pullups and leg raises + 3-4 sets of barbell squats with progressively increasing weight is optimal in my opinion.

okay first off, thank you everybody for the support. at the moment i have managed to stay away from sweets (and sugar in general) for the entire of the past week. actually it has been since the 13th of may that i havent had anything that you would call a "sweet" from donuts and other sweet bakery stuff to chocolate etc. However like i have said in an earlier post i had a second relapse and that was on the saturday 17th where i basically bought loads of bread products (rolls, tortillas etc) and i kinda had them on their own. Strictly speaking, there is some amount of sugar in those but at the same time they dont actually count as sweets. having said that though, i did go over the 1600 kcal mark that day so it wasnt really successful. anyway......to the point. so, i think yesterday was the last week of the challenge and thus it requires a summing up. i didnt take strict measurements back then, but i remember i started the challenge 3 weeks ago at a weight of 71kg. measuring this morning i am still at that weight. ofcourse i should say that i did gain over the 3 weeks (74kg) and then dropped it (71, today). so no improvement here. my waist measurement has gone slightly down though, from 34 inches to about 33.5. so thats a plus. exercise has been consistent. its 50-60 minutes usually, plus 20 min walking from and to my offcise desk so that is almost always more than 70 min. so i think can check that box pretty confidently. apart from a couple of relapses (i think 3) i would say that i didnt cross the 1600 mark in this time frame. however i did realise that my metabolism is actually quite slow and that to lose weight everyday i need to not go over the 1200 mark everyday (exercise not included). so i will probably stick with that number next time, even if it sounds kinda low. all in all, i think it was a successful challenge, being my first too but only around 70% successful. in general over 3 weeks i had managed to see lots more improvement in the past. i attribute the failure to less of a strong will this time. my mind was not set out to achieve the goals i had set, at least not as much as in the past. still, i may have given up a lot earlier if it wasnt for thi thread to kinda make me feel accountable. i m still not certain about participating in the next challenge, as i still dont feel very determined. but we'll see, this might change. again thanks to everyone for the support and for taking the time to write in this thread. i am happy i am accepted in this community of awesome people

i know ! it doesnt have the same effect on me as sweets but I can totally have LOADS of bread, especially since most breads have a substantial amount of added sugar in them. so i m currently abstaining from that too :>( *must ....not.....look....pictures* other than that, awesome Guzzi is awesome ! i wouldnt worry too much about not having done much exercise this week, diet is more important actually