We can control 1 and 2 but 3 can be a bit more tricky. I keep reading how people have “stalled” in their weight loss progress. If they have followed the same regimen in 1 and 2, the only thing that could be stalling their continued weight loss is 3. But I’m a firm believer that 3 is only a temporary problem. If you are doing 1 and 2 eventually the weight will drop, potentially precipitously. It would be interesting to hear why some people believe they have stalled, how long it lasted for them and what eventually happened.
I suppose it depends on how exact you are looking to get. I am not talking about exact measurements. I am talking about, say, what a Precor machine tells you, the number of calories you have burned based on your height, weight, age, etc. This holds true for other programs/apps that monitor this stuff.
If you’re looking to use calories as a measurement to loose weight, you probably want to be as exact as possible.
There would need to be a whole lot more to the “etc” for a machine to even come close to estimating. Also, is the machine telling you what you’re burning above and beyond your BMR, or is it including your BMR in its total so at the end of the day when you add the arbitrary number the machine spit out to the arbitrary number the online BMR calculator spit out, you’re number means…???
Agreed, they are all equally flawed.
I get it, we want to be able to put nutrition, and the key to weight loss, in a simple formula so that it’s easy to say “follow these simple steps, and it will work”. The problem is this is all controlled by hormones, and hormones have their own set of rules. They also don’t know what a calorie is.
I don’t accept the basic premise regarding these three variables. 1 and 2 are rather traditional notions of weight management, in the sense of “tried that, failed miserably” a.k.a., CICO. 3 is where a large number of variables come into play, most notably, metabolism, insulin, ketosis, and all the stuff I’ve been focusing on to actually lose weight and maintain weight loss.
I lost 30 lbs eating more calories on a daily basis than I have the last 4 years (when my weight started creeping up). Exercise the same (sporadic, low intensity).
So for n=1 2 and 3 didn’t change and my calories went up, weight down. But diet definitely changed!
I understand it doesn’t jive with conventional wisdom. You should have seen the look on the face of my co-worker when I told her I was losing weight by putting butter in my coffee every morning!!!
Until I found keto I outweighed my husband by a lot even though he is 6” taller than me, eats 50% more calories than me and was retired and sedentary. I spent my days climbing ladders and stairs in a chemical plant!
Not fair. He ate fast food cheeseburgers and fries EVERY DAY while I ate salads and still was thinner than me.
I was thin before I had kids and ate twice as
much with the same activity level.
Hormones. Or something we aren’t measuring because it doesn’t add up.
I knew it!!! my kids made me fat too… Sorry Janie, I couldn’t resist.
Well, there are a couple of things that can make a big difference. The 800lb gorilla in the room is of course diet. All of us here have experienced the power of ketosis. So we know that by limiting carbohydrates, we stop burning sugar and transition to a fat burning state. While we are all slightly different genetically, there is no doubt that the lower the number of carbohydrates you eat, the more ketones your body will produce.
As we become more fat adapted, your body will self regulate and your will become more efficient at producing and burning ketones. If you use urine test strips you may actually see your ketone levels drop to almost nothing as you may stop spilling ketones into your urine. This is why blood test strips are more effective in measuring ketone bodies, but I digress.
We know that the calories in, calories out (CICO) theory does not work. It sounds like a logical theory, but it does not take into account your basal metabolic rate (BMR). It was actually proved by Ancel Keyes in his starvation studies during the 1940’s that when you reduce caloric intake beyond a certain point on a continuous basis, your body responds by decreasing it’s BMR to make up for the caloric deficit so the weight loss stalls or stops. This is where intermittent fasting (IF) really shines. By only decreasing your caloric intake for 16 to 48 hours your body reacts to burning even more fat for energy because you have no calories coming in. However, this short fasting window does not give the body enough time to decrease your BMR before you eat again, a double win.
So is fasting a variation of CICO? Not really, because you are not concerned with counting calories, rather your focus is eating to satiety. Remember your body is still getting calories while fasting, it is just getting them from stored body fat and not from what you eat. This is why many people break the dreaded “stall” by doing some IF or 24 – 72 hour fasting.
Exercise. Personally, I believe exercise is more beneficial as a conditioning device, more so than as a weight loss device. I know I may get some flak from this, but here is my reasoning. Walking for 30 minutes on the treadmill burns approximately 150 – 200 calories depending on your speed and weight. While I’ll take that reduction in calories even if it is really quite small. The primary benefit however is not the burning of calories, but the increase in heart efficiency, stamina and or conditioning you gain from aerobic exercise. During aerobic exercise you burn the stored glucose that was in the muscle tissue, making more room for that little bit of glucose that was still circulating. The lean muscle mass that you will put on doing aerobic exercise may be small, but more muscle means that more glucose from the blood stream can be stored in the muscle so you have less circulating in the blood, which means you need less insulin.
Resistance training (weight lifting) not only makes you stronger, but like aerobic exercise burns stored glucose. The increase in muscle mass related to weight lifting helps with a couple things. The first is obviously physical appearance. If you have a rapid amount of weight loss, then you need to fill that loose skin with something and an increase in muscle size is one way to do it. I know pure vanity right? But as I mentioned more muscle mass helps to clear glucose from the blood stream while making you stronger so it is a win-win situation.
So the questions is…Do you need to exercise to lose weight? Uh…No. In some cases engaging in an exercise program may be detrimental at first. Telling someone who weighs 400 – 500 pounds to go out and walk for 30 – 60 minutes when they are short of breath just going to the bathroom is not a good idea. And we know for a fact, that exercise is not necessary in order to lose weight on a ketogenic diet. However, as someone who is obese begins to lose weight and has more energy and or confidence, they may want to start doing some light aerobics and work their way into and exercise program as they get stronger.
Your genetics are not a modifiable factor. No matter what you eat or how much you exercise, you will not get taller, you will not grow more hair (Dang!) and you cannot change your DNA. You can however make noticeable changes to your body through your diet (lose weight), and you can shape your body through aerobic and resistance training (increase lean muscle mass). What works extremely well for Janie, (amount of carbs, activity level etc…) may not work for me and vice versa.
Remember the human body is an amazing multi-fuel, survival machine. We are designed to survive through times of famine, and flourish in times of plenty. When you decrease calories for a pro-longed period your BMR decreases. However, fasting followed by a period of feasting, allows you to maintain your BMR while decreasing the amount of circulating insulin in your blood, while increasing your levels of human growth hormone (HGR). And yes it may or may not reduce the number of calories you eat (but of course we are not counting calories). So while you cannot change your genetic profile, you can definitely increase the effectiveness of your bodies ability to regulate insulin levels, burn fat more efficiently, and lose weight via ketosis.
So for me I am 5’9” and my weight has found a set point of around 170 – 180 pounds, and that works for me. I am concentrating on increasing my lean muscle mass, and I engage in both aerobic and resistance training, but only because I want too. I exercise not to lose weight, but because doing so make me feel better. If the exercise helps me lose weight, well then that is just a bonus I can live with.
Hi Todd, thanks for the comprehensive response. I agree with much of what you say. Where we might part ways is CICO. It is interesting to me to hear from some the emotional rejection of CICO. It would appear the body does adapt to lower calories and our burn rate may drop into survival mode, burning fewer calories but, perhaps illogically to some, I believe the road to being physically fit must run through calorie reduction and exercise. Yes, in theory, one can eat zero carbs, go into ketosis, and hang out on the couch and become thin but to what end, what purpose? Rather than remaining in ketosis and bringing our carbs to essentially zero I would argue you are much better off eating more carbs when being active and placing more emphasis on caloric intake than macro intake. The quality of the macros is more important than the percentage of macros.
Might work for some but didn’t work for me. I have an active job climbing around on equipment and lots of stairs, went to the gym regularly and ate a low fat, reduced calorie diet sponsored by a program through my work with a registered dietitian.
I used to be a snacker and ate small meals. So my 1200-1500 cal/day prescribed diet was spread out among 6 small meals or snacks. Nobody told me that was bad. Or I should eat my calories in 2 meals and skip breakfast.
I now know the constant stream of insulin prevented my body from accessing its fat stores and I was hungry all the time. I gave up after 4 months of misery and 10 lbs lost.
Four months on keto I was never hungry, losing at twice the rate, eating more calories (1800) and feeling great. My skin and hair have never looked better because of the extra fat in my diet. I love the food. Never cared for sweets so the only thing I had to give up was the bread, pasta, corn, potatoes, etc.
How would I be better off eating more carbs? I don’t understand.
In the New York Times in 2004, Marion Burros wrote “those who consume more calories than they expend in energy will gain weight. There is no getting around the laws of thermodynamics.” This is the old line in the sand “calories in equal calories out” way of thinking. However the research shows that the majority of people who attempt to burn more calories then they consume don’t lose weight, and those that do, lose only a little, and for only short periods of time.
If ‘calories in’ was the problem, then again why did not the participants in the Keyes starvation diet experiments lose considerably more weight when calories were severely restricted? After his experiments Keyes stated “eventually calorie balance is re-established at a new (low) plateau of body weight and the calorie deficit is zero.” So what Keyes determined was that as calories were decreased the bodies basal metabolic rate (BMR) decreased as well. So reducing calories was ineffective.
But, what happens when you take in more calories than you expend? Do you really get fat? Many people believe so, but the science proves that this is not the case. Just as Sims and Bouchard discovered in their over feeding experiments.
In the 1960’s, Ethan Sims an endocrinologist who conducted a series of over feeding studies failed to get either students and then later convicts to gain significant weight when he raised their caloric intake to greater than 4,000 calories a day. They initially gained a few pounds, but then their weight stabilized. He then fed them 5,000 calories a day, then 7,000 calories a day, and finally 10,000 calories a day for 7 ½ months, while they all maintained a sedentary lifestyle. What Sims found at the end of his study was 25% of the participants gained weight easily, while 75% did not. One participant gained less than 10 pounds after 30 weeks for forced gluttony. When his studies were concluded Sims determined that as humans we all have the ability to adapt our metabolism and energy expenditure in response to both over and under nutrition. Some of us just better than others. In other words we naturally adjust or BMR to met our current available energy (food).
In 1990 Claude Bouchard conducted a similar overfeeding study in which he over feed participants by 1,000 calories a day, everyday for 2 months. The amount of fat they gained ranged from 1lb to 9lbs respectively. Neither of the researchers could explain what happened to the extra calories in the participants that failed to gain almost no weight at all, while others gained weight easily.
What these studies tell us is that it is not the amount of ‘calories in’ (consumed) that is the issue, rather it is the composition of the calories we consume that makes a difference for those of us suffering from type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. It is the reduction in carbohydrates that causes us to shift from a state of burning glucose to one in which we burn fat that leads to the reduction of body weight. Study after study shows that when a low carbohydrate high fat (LCHF) diet is compared to a low fat high carbohydrate (LFHC) diet of equal caloric intake, the participants on the LCHF diet lose a substantially greater amount of weight than those on a LFHC diet.
So if the total amount of calories consumed are the same, but one group loses a substantially greater amount of weight during the experiment, then it is not the amount of the calories that matters, rather it is the composition of the calories that matters.
As for activity, I am right there with you, exercise cannot hurt and resistance training is great for developing more muscle mass which helps you to remove more glucose from the bloodstream (more muscle can store more glycogen). You are definitely correct when you sate the quality of the food we consume is important, but not sure if I agree if it is more important than the percentage consumed. Drs. Phinney and Volek have proven that fat adapted athletes on ketogeneic diets actually perform better, so there is no need to increase your net carbohydrates to more than 5% just because you want to be more active. In fact, in the two years that I have been in ketosis (two years this month) I feel better and stronger than ever on 5% net carbohydrates, 25% protein, and 70% fat, and I see no real need to add any more carbohydrates to my daily eating plan. BTW, I will be 56 this month, so as Carl and Richard would say I am planning to keep calm and keto on…
Funny that’s the same stance of the American Diabetic Association and they are doing a great job at helping diabetics reverse their diabetes and lose the weight. Hmm,or are they?
I don’t believe counting calories and trying to only eat so many of them helps anyone in the long run. Have you read Good Calories, Bad Calories? If you do you may understand why calories are not the answer to losing weight.
Couple of things. I agree studies have proven ketosis is effective in treating diabetes and epilepsy. However, I have read nowhere that HFLC proves it is more effective from a CICO perspective. From a satiety perspective, yes. In the end, one should do what enables them to sustain their goals of weight reduction.
I want to add currently my weight has stalled for the last two days despite continued exercise and calorie reduction. It will be very interesting to see what happens over the next week since I am weighing everything. I suspect that my body is attempting to account for the lowered caloric intake coupled with the continued exercise by retaining more water weight. This can probably go on for several days. I am very curious and will report back. Also, I have no dog in this fight, no emotional attachment to any particular outcome. I will just record the data.
Sorry Janie, I couldn’t resist.