The 3 variables to weight loss/gain

[Brunneria]

Thank you.
Great post.

[Janie]

But I maintain, over the long haul, it works. Not precisely all the time, but it works.

You example was over 2 days. What do you consider “long haul”. Many of us followed CICO like Weight Watchers for months.

I had great success getting my pregnancy weight off using CICO while still in my 20’s. Second baby in my mid 30’s and a whole different ballgame. I went back to what worked before and couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t losing like I did before after months of 1200-1500 cal/day.

I initially lost then stalled and lost and gained the same 5 lbs over and over. Months, not 2 days. I was hungry all the time, snacked all day (within my calorie limit) because I believed eating more smaller meals was better for weight loss than all your calories in 2 meals.

Ironic is when not dieting I always skipped breakfast. But I believed the dietitians when they stressed the importance of breakfast. I would be starving by 10 am, whereas if I skipped breakfast I could make it to lunch a bit easier.

[gitanacv]

No question. You are right. I lift weights every other day as well. I am sure I have lost some muscle weight despite this, which is inevitable, because you cannot lose, if you are already somewhat fit, without losing some muscle.

[gitanacv]

I’m the same way. Sometimes eating prompts more desire to eat. Whereas if I IF I do better SOMETIMES.

[Baytowvin]

This sounds incredibly insulting to most people

Not to me. As a fat person, I’d have to value his opinion to be insulted.

[Madeleine]

Not to me. As a fat person, I’d have to value his opinion to be insulted.

ah, yes. There is that…

[Callisto]

You point out the generally agreed upon presumption that a calorie is a measure of energy. In a way, yes I agree with you. It is a measure of how much food you need to burn in a fire to raise the temperature of water 1 degree C. This is certainly a measure of “energy.” But what this has to do with how our body uses food is beyond me - I cannot see how anyone could have made the jump from thermal output to food energy… (I mean, I can see because the steps are apparent, but it makes no logical sense).*

^^^ Yes to this. This gets at a fundamental personal peeve of mine when it comes to some of those “experts” hypothesizing how complex biological systems operate.

If you are building a rocket, you can use the known laws of physics to predict every aspect of the behavior of that rocket with every minute change you make.

Complex biological systems are not rockets, though. They are infinitely more complicated and variable. The history of medicine is littered with terrible theories (already unproven or still in common use) that aren’t based on actual observation and experimentation of these complex systems. Rather they are made by applying rules we understand in other contexts to a system which is still in many ways a black box, without really questioning their precise applicability.

Biochemical processes all obey the laws of physics, certainly, but that is far from saying we can directly apply the laws of physics to complicated physiologic pathways and predict what an outcome will be, like a calculator spitting out an answer to an equation. It just doesn’t work.

I’m not saying this just about CICO either, I have to admit the tendency to make predictions about what should happen in the body vs. what we actually observe happening is one of the reasons I don’t follow Dr. Berg. I know he has some useful stuff to say, and I wouldn’t want to disrespect anyone’s interest in his work, but he does way too much unsubstantiated theorizing for my taste.

[gitanacv]

I beleive you are right about that, but I would argue (because I had been there myself) that those that are restricting calories usually restric the carbs and fat calories before restricting protein, to prevent the very thing you mentioned. But that’s those of them that know they will lose muscle mass, if not maintaining enough protein.

One of the most eye opening things I saw was data on how many calories are burned on a day you do exercise compared to a day you don’t do exercise. It’s been a while, so forgive me for not having the link to it, but the total calories burned difference was about 5%. I was sure I must have been wrong. I would have expected almost 10 times that much.

Let’s look at the actual numbers. My BMR is 1731 calories. My “activity” (not including exercise) is 744 calories. Let’s round up slightly and say without exercise I would be burning about 2500 calories a day. My exercise totals roughly 1800 calories. 5% of 2500 calories would only be 125 calories, so I’m not sure how they arrived at their numbers. 10X, as you expected, would be more in line with actual numbers.

[gitanacv]

Yes, our bodies are complex biological systems but, again, that does not mean CICO doesn’t apply. We all have idiosyncrasies. My sister, for example, has hypothyroidism. So it is much more difficult for her to lose weight. The question is, does she want to lose weight? Yes, she does. So rather than her simply abandon the notion that she can lose weight she restricts calories more than many have to, due to her condition, and yet she does not see as much progress as a healthy person. Does this discourage her? No, she just understands that she will either have to eat less or exercise more (or both) than most if she wants to lose weight.

We have all seen anorexic people. We have all seen obese people. I think we can agree that the anorexic person is not getting enough nutrients. Now, the obese person may not be consuming more nutrients/calories than the average, healthy person but is still overweight due to the inefficiencies of their body.

When I was younger I could eat large quantities of food and remain thin because I was so active, having sports practices sometimes two times a day. I also felt much more hungry in between meals. Now, I am not as hungry between meals but definitely have to be much more aware of how much I am eating or I will get overweight.

Sensitivities arise when people feel they are doing all they can to lose weight or at least not gain weight and see it not working. I can only imagine how frustrating that must be.

[MarkGossage]

My BMR is 1731 calories

That is an amazingly accurate figure… can I ask how you know down to the last calorie what your BMR is?

[Baytowvin]

Thanks @MarkGossage. I really wanted to ask that myself, but I know he doesn’t want to talk to me.

[Robert_Johnson]

Woe is me when the wit turns to face me

[Robert_Johnson]

But words can not hurt me. So I’m not worried. Besides, I love witty humor.

I’m also of the opinion, (paraphrasing) “a man ought not think too highly of himself”

[Baytowvin]

Agreed. I try to think pretty low of myself so that I’m usually pleased.

[Robert_Johnson]

Indeed. Self esteem is highly overrated.

[Robert_Johnson]

But in the Air Force, you had to learn (by osmosis really) to ‘toot your own horn’ in order to get anywhere.

[Baytowvin]

I’m in construction. Toot your own horn too much and you’re likely going to get a nail shot in your foot by someone.

[Robert_Johnson]

Well, what we (I anyway) ended up doing was keeping a little log book of my special accomplishments. It turns out, that your supervisor, who writes your annual report, doesn’t have the time to make a very nice one, no matter how well you’ve performed. So basically you write your own report, with facts to back it up. Keep a paper trail of yourself.

Once, while sitting in the break room, with probably 20 other people in there, my boss asked me to give him 5 bullet statements to use in my APR (annual prefiecency report). I broke out my little book, started reading from the current year. And everyone began laughing their asses off. I thought it was because they didn’t beleive I had done the things I had said. My boss, whom we called “Batman” (Msgt Battallio) looked pissed off at them and said, ok Gary, you name five things in 15 seconds, GO!” Everyone shut up. Was later I heard they were laughing because I was keeping a log. A few years later, it was the norm.

[gitanacv]

I use Cron-o-meter. And, as I said before, it can only make an estimation based on one’s specs.

[gitanacv]

One other thing worth noting, and I would imagine most of you guys who have been doing this for years are way ahead of me on this, and that is as you lose weight you have to work longer or harder to match the same numbers. So, for example, I swam today and entered my 61 minutes into Cron-o-meter and it gave me 765 calories. I thought what the heck, it usually gives me 807 calories for 61 minutes. Then it occurred to me it factored in my weight as being 185 instead of 190. So, the lighter you get the tougher it is to burn a high rate of calories. Bummer!