Weight Loss Thread

McCheese_sl said:

Nothing wrong with raw broccoli. Dip it in some ranch and it's damn delicious.

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Nah, dip that shit in hummus. So good.

Dip it in nothing, this is the weight loss thread, more ranch is not the answer to the problem.

Deathwing_sl said:

You should definitely cook leafy green vegetables before eating them. You don't possess digestive powers to break the cell walls and release the nutrients. Caveat: food processor *might* suffice. It might act the same way cows do to grass by chewing the shit out of it.

Honestly, you shouldn't advocate raw or cooked. You should advocate knowledge and proper cooking. Steamed or boiled broccoli, besides tasting pretty bland, has a very narrow window where it's cooked but not overcooked. Not as much cellulose in broccoli compared to leafy greens, so the point where cooking helps the nutritional value is very hard to achieve with those methods. Overcook and the nutrients break down into foul smelling compounds. So instead of eating your broccoli raw(which is gross), roast it. Dress it lightly in some olive oil and salt and roast it low until the flourettes start to brown. This will make it really hard to overcook since roasting is slow with the side benefit of making it taste really good.


Nate, are your parents British?

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If it is in a blended drink like a shake, raw greens are broken down enough to digest, yes. I'm not factoring in taste.

That is way to much protein Nate. Even the "recommended" amount on most bodybuilding websites, 1g per pound of lean body weight, is way to much. No study has ever found anything over .8 grams of protein per pound of lean body weight to make any difference at all and even that amount was for top athletes, professional bodybuilders, etc. Something in the .6 grams of protein per pound of lean body weight range is the most you need to consume as a guy who is doing an hour of working out a day. If you're consuming 200-300 grams of protein per day that could be anywhere from 2-3 times as much as you could ever need. Which is bad for your kidneys, among other issues excess protein consumption can cause.

Is that why I poop little nuggets sometimes? Ugh. The worst, feel like I need to pass a massive shit and a little guinea pig shit pellet pops out.

I keep seeing people talk about losing weight and not exercising, and it doesn't make sense to me. I don't even understand why you would want to do that.

Cause they're lazy fucks? What's not to understand?

I don't buy it. I think people are either scared or uneducated on it. Or maybe how they're raised. Some people view physical activity as a sort of punishment.

I find it motivating. It is really demotivating to realize "hey I've lost a ton of weight, and I am STILL fat!" But working out kind of fills that motivational gap, You see yourself getting stronger, you see women (or men) looking at you, you put that extra weight on, etc. Without that I don't know that I would be doing as well as I think I am now.

I actually like Nate's fitness plan. I prefer 2 days of weights, 1 day of cardio, which is half the amount of exercise, and I prefer a more varied diet, but otherwise it's not bad.

Ossoi_sl said:

Plenty of reason to keep protein high when trying to lose weight

a) Keeps you full for longer
b) Low/No carb is the fastest way to lose weight, if you're reducing carbs from your diet you need to increase protein to compensate.

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Your body can break protein down into sugar via gluconeogensis, so if you are on a high protein diet with low carbs and aren't in ketosis from eating the correct amount of fat (at least twice as many grams of fat as protein for nutritional ketosis), you're actually on a high carb diet nutritonally. "Low carb" is misleading, those diets are all supposed to be high fat, medium protein, low carb. Which, again, leaves zero benefit to excess protein consumption. Curiously dietary fiber does not count towards your carb limit for ketogenic diets, so if you're actually having issues feeling hungry in ketosis, which is unusual to say the least, you can just eat some high fiber foods that are otherwise carb free and you don't get to potentially screw up your kidneys.

Ossoi_sl said:

Plenty of reason to keep protein high when trying to lose weight

a) Keeps you full for longer
b) Low/No carb is the fastest way to lose weight, if you're reducing carbs from your diet you need to increase protein to compensate.

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Pretty much this. I don't count calories, and I sure as fuck don't starve myself. When I'm hungry, I eat, I just pick a high protein / low carb option.

About it being bad for my kidneys... Once I'm closer to where I want to be, I'll probably relax on the diet a bit. For the time being, and mostly due to the limitations work imposes on my food selections, it's going to have to do.

No my parents aren't British. Also, I should note I have started straying from my exercise plan a bit. What I posted was what I was doing when I started. For the last week or so, I do the pushup part of the plan every day, and I tend to exercise for about 45 minutes rather than half an hour so I can fit more sets in. I would say I do around 200 pushups a day. Also, I now use a 25 lbs. barbell for curl sets and a shoulder exercise.

So you're on a high carb, excess protein diet then. This is the kind of thing you should know, especially before recommending it to others. Your body is running on pure sugar that it breaks the protein down into because you aren't giving it enough normal carbs and unless you are eating a ton of fat (which you clearly aren't) your body is not in ketosis. Regardless of where the sugar comes from it can cause the same issues of insulin resistance, type 1 diabetes, etc. There is literally no benefit and a lot of potential harm to eating that much protein.

The Master_sl said:

So you're on a high carb, excess protein diet then. This is the kind of thing you should know, especially before recommending it to others. Your body is running on pure sugar that it breaks the protein down into because you aren't giving it enough normal carbs and unless you are eating a ton of fat (which you clearly aren't) your body is not in ketosis. Regardless of where the sugar comes from it can cause the same issues of insulin resistance, type 1 diabetes, etc. There is literally no benefit and a lot of potential harm to eating that much protein.

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While this is correct, you start to run into problems when you consume protein greater than about 30-35% of your daily calorie intake. For me, someone who consumes about 2,500 calories a day, you would need to consume about 750 grams of protein to be at a serious risk level.

Also, the types of effects you describe are most applicable for people who aren't exercising in combination with a high protein diet, have pre-existing kidney disease, and who stay on such a diet for longer than 6 months.

Also, I eat 2 pieces of whole wheat toast ever morning. I eat a steak for dinner. I eat a large potato for dinner. I eat a large serving of broccoli for dinner. I eat apples throughout the day. I get carbs, fat, and fiber from these sources.

A low carb diet is typically considered less than 20-30 net carbs a day. I get way more than that. The protein bars alone have about 13 net carbs per bar.

Wow... is that math wrong. Protein has 4 calories per gram. 2500*.35 is 875, divide by 4 is 218.75. So if you consume more than 218.75 grams of protein per day, you are (by your own numbers) at a serious risk level. You're consuming 200-300 grams per day.

So, again, excess protein consumption has no benefits and carries some real risks. Most people actually eat more protein than they really need to and suffer no ill effects. But that is not a small amount over basic nutritional requirements. That is an excess amount of protein that could seriously impact your liver and kidney function. I'm glad you're only doing it short term, but I'm appalled you so ignorantly recommended it to other people.

My point in bringing up low carb diets is that if you eat to much protein, you aren't on a low carb diet, no matter what else you're eating. This was a correction of Ossoi's idea that eating a lot of protein is part of a low carb diet. It isn't.

I won't pretend to understand why you divide your calorie count by 4 before doing the 35% calculation, so I won't argue with that. However, if you think I'm at a high risk of getting diabetes, I will laugh in your face and then run laps around you.

The Master_sl said:

Wow... is that math wrong. Protein has 4 calories per gram. 2500*.35 is 875, divide by 4 is 218.75. So if you consume more than 218.75 grams of protein per day, you are (by your own numbers) at a serious risk level. You're consuming 200-300 grams per day.

So, again, excess protein consumption has no benefits and carries some real risks. Most people actually eat more protein than they really need to and suffer no ill effects. But that is not a small amount over basic nutritional requirements. That is an excess amount of protein that could seriously impact your liver and kidney function. I'm glad you're only doing it short term, but I'm appalled you so ignorantly recommended it to other people.

My point in bringing up low carb diets is that if you eat to much protein, you aren't on a low carb diet, no matter what else you're eating. This was a correction of Ossoi's idea that eating a lot of protein is part of a low carb diet. It isn't.

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Nonsense. Unless you have some sort of existing medical condition that affects your liver or kidneys there is absolutely no risk to them with eating any amount of protein, let alone a "serious" one.

And a "low carb" diet is just that... a carbs make up a "smaller" (exact amounts differ) % of your Calories than an non low-carb diet. Whether the difference is taken up by fat or protein is incidental, it could be either. Usually it is fat that makes up the bulk of the difference because perfectly lean protein is rarer, usually more expensive, and also usually pretty tasteless... so people tend to eat protein that comes with fat.

chaos_sl said:

I keep seeing people talk about losing weight and not exercising, and it doesn't make sense to me. I don't even understand why you would want to do that.

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Caveat, I think everyone should "exercise", it is really good for you and we all should do it. The thing is though, exercise doesn't really help you lose weight, at least not directly and its overall impact is minimal compared to your diet.

Most of your Calorie expenditure comes from your normal daily metabolic activity, exercise has little impact on overall Calorie expenditure unless you train a ton, way more than most people do. Exercisedoesmake you bigger in a good way, mostly by putting on muscle, and this raises your BMR... but notthatmuch. It also tends to make you hungrier in the long term... so it is a bit of a wash there as well.

Again, exercise is great, physical activity is great, it makes you healthier and happier in general, and everyone should do it.

nate_sl said:

I won't pretend to understand why you divide your calorie count by 4 before doing the 35% calculation, so I won't argue with that. However, if you think I'm at a high risk of getting diabetes, I will laugh in your face and then run laps around you.

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Because protein has 4 calories per gram. If protein is making up 35% of your calories then you have to calculate that. 200 grams of protein is 800 calories. 750 grams of protein (the number you used incorrectly) would be 3,000 calories of protein.

@Denaut: The dangers of eating too much protein, as I noted, are mostly overblown because most people do eat to much. Many very healthy people buy into the myth of one gram per pound of lean body weight and are fine, even though the extra protein is pointless. But we're talking about up to double that level of excess protein and, yes, it can cause health issues. In the short term it will generally only happen if you already have a liver or kidney issue, but the long term even if you started out fine, there is a real risk.

No. See earlier post. If you eat excess protein but do not eat enough fat to go into ketosis your body will turn the protein into sugar, a carbohydrate, via gluconeogenesis. If your body is consuming sugar in the frankly enormous quantities that breaking down protein gives you, you are not on a low carb diet, even if you eat zero actual carbs. A ketogenic diet requires roughly twice as many grams of fat as protein or you'll never enter ketosis, your body will live off the sugar gotten from breaking down the protein rather than using ketones. This is basic biology here. Well, basic college biology.