Weight Loss Thread

I got drunk playing Witcher 3 last night and was pissed I kept dying to some damn nightwraith boss so I came to take out my aggression on the internet. But honestly, I doubt there's any noticeable difference in your metabolic rate after such a short time frame and at such a slight deficit.

I was rebutting your comment that you have actually noticed a change in your metabolic rate

I am three weeks into my cut and I am not sure how I was ever happy living like this. I started eating at approximately 500 - 600 calories below TDEE like I used to and weight loss has been moving along as expected. But man, after experiencing the near boundless energy of being on a bulk, it is rough going. Strength has stalled, overall not as enthusiastic about working out, etc.

I think I am going to up my intake a bit and try and be content with slower weight loss. I only want to lose around 8 - 10 more lbs. before another bulk / recomp so turning 8 - 10 weeks into 12 - 16 seems acceptable to me. If I stick to it, I should hit goal of around 158 lbs. Julyish. This would allow me to compete safely in the lightweight division of BJJ without having to worry about going over the weight limit of 168 lbs while bulking again.

Also anxiously awaiting the release of the second edition of Overcoming Gravity. Progressing through body weight work outs and basic strength poses has been fun. I think I want to keep that trend going as it still saves a second gym membership and will be more fun in the summer when it can be done outdoors.

If you're into body weight stuff,neatstrength.comis a good site. I think it might have been posted in this thread a while ago? Anyway, I used the progression he has there for pistol squats and I've gotten pretty good at them now.

Khane_sl said:

I got drunk playing Witcher 3 last night and was pissed I kept dying to some damn nightwraith boss so I came to take out my aggression on the internet. But honestly, I doubt there's any noticeable difference in your metabolic rate after such a short time frame and at such a slight deficit.

I was rebutting your comment that you have actually noticed a change in your metabolic rate

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We cool, bro, we cool. If you'd just stated things like above, I'd have had no issue. Like I said, I doubt it's a significant difference in terms of actual calories, but it's been noticeable in terms of my body temperature, resting heart rate, and appetite.

Khane all you have to do to beat bosses in Witcher is press square a couple times then press X, repeat ad nauseum.

I know I can't really help out too much in this thread since I've always been naturally skinny but anecdotally I've always really only eaten twice a day and I'm fairly hungry pretty often. So I wake up pretty hungry and I don't really eat until lunch. At lunch I eat a pretty heavy meal. Its probably the biggest meal of the day usually. Then I get pretty hungry again and eat dinner around 6:30. And those are the only two meals of my day. I've eaten like that for as long as I can remember. So I've never really bought into the whole "body is in starvation mode its saving fats" idea for my body personally but I'm not saying its complete BS either since I'm playing on easy mode.

McCheese_sl said:

If you're into body weight stuff,neatstrength.comis a good site. I think it might have been posted in this thread a while ago? Anyway, I used the progression he has there for pistol squats and I've gotten pretty good at them now.

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This is great, thanks. I am always looking for progression reading. I would really like to get better at pistol squats. I am horrible at them now.

Tenks_sl said:

I know I can't really help out too much in this thread since I've always been naturally skinny but anecdotally I've always really only eaten twice a day and I'm fairly hungry pretty often. So I wake up pretty hungry and I don't really eat until lunch. At lunch I eat a pretty heavy meal. Its probably the biggest meal of the day usually. Then I get pretty hungry again and eat dinner around 6:30. And those are the only two meals of my day. I've eaten like that for as long as I can remember. So I've never really bought into the whole "body is in starvation mode its saving fats" idea for my body personally but I'm not saying its complete BS either since I'm playing on easy mode.

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Yeah, in reference to that stuff, starvation mode has been bunk forever. You're still eating twice a day, every day. Unless you consume like... zero carbs or something and are still at a deficit, the time of day you eat has little to do with how your metabolism reacts. The body is still turning the intake into glycogen/etc in order to fuel the body, regardless of when you consume it. Not to mention it takes hours to even get food into the non-stomach digestive track, so there's a lot of time between when you first eat something and when your body starts using it. It's the same concept as "don't eat before bed!" which again has nothing to do with how your metabolism handles things. However, being at a deficit for a solid month (even as "little" as 500-700 calories a day) will most likely start to have an impact. This can be attributed to weight loss in general changing the numbers normally as opposed to specific makeup of the food. Now, if you fast (no calories for 24-48 hours, depending on physical makeup) then your body does change how it handles things, which is definitely starvation to a degree.

There's either some huge inconsistencies in how they figure out kcals in that MSE deal or the numeric accuracy is pretty far off base. If they started at 157 and were somehow burning through 3k calories a day with 1500 intake, they would lose a pound every 3 days. That means 60~lbs lose over the course of the 6 months, and that's not what is being reported. So either the number they were fed is off (70 years ago, so possible/probable) or the amount of calories they were burning was way off. Probably both, given the time period. The concept that if you eat at a deficit before your exercise even starts for a long period of time is actual starvation/near starvation, and it definitely has shitloads of negative effects.

Layne Norton talks extensively about metabolic damage. It is a real thing, but I'm doubtful that you're experiencing it.

Dandai_sl said:

So my concern is I'm fucking up my metabolism by not eating enough, and I'll have to make even more drastic cuts once I plateau out. I'm definitely not feeling lethargic, and I'm seeing gains in my HIIT exercises, so I'm comfortable that I'm not doing anything too damaging. Right now I'm eating approximately between 1600-1800 kcal/day by just eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm satisfied. The problem (in my opinion) is I'm 245 lbs and 1800 kcal is a significant deficit, especially given the energy expenditure from my gym work. (As an aside, I honestly haven't changed my diet much except that I am no longer drinking soda; I was pounding down ~72 oz of Coke every day for years.)

What I'm gathering from you guys is what I'm worried about is broscience and my concerns are unfounded. That sound about right?

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Purely anecdotal, I went from 280 > 160 over the course of ~2 year. For that entire time, I was on Keto and eating ~1900 calories / day. My loss stayed pretty linear and I have not noticed any ill side effects. They may not be unfounded, but you would have to be really trying to damage metabolism.

Edit: falsifying information, took closer to 2 years.

Ubiquitrips_sl said:

Purely anecdotal, I went from 280 > 160 over the course of ~1 year. For that entire time, I was on Keto and eating ~1900 calories / day. My loss stayed pretty linear and I have not noticed any ill side effects. They may not be unfounded, but you would have to be really trying to damage metabolism.

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You're actually a pretty rare case of someone who has made a wholesale life change. Very few people ever do that.
1900 calories is restrictive but 1500-1600 is an entire new world of hurt. People worry about metabolic damage but miss the point of hormonal and mental changes that a 1500 calorie diet can produce in a grown man.

My dad just did this. Fat as fuck, jumped straight in to working out 5 times a week and eating like a teen age girl. He argued with me he wasn't hungry and had all this energy despite my warnings to cool it and take his time. He lost a bunch of weight in a short period, looked like shit and didn't last long. There are outliers in anything but overly restrictive calories and hardcore exercise catch up to people and extract their price.

Dude, if you're feeling satisfied and your workouts/exercises aren't suffering, why eat more? You're not damaging your body with the way you're currently eating. You're really overthinking things.

Dandai you were raiding Mythic in WoW right?

The min-maxing is strong here

Dandai_sl said:

Well I guess I need to figure out how to increase my intake to be more reasonable then. You have any food suggestions for increasing caloric intake for someone who feels satisfied with 1600 calories (3 meals of 4-500 calories plus a few cheese sticks)? More protein would probably make me hate eating so I'm thinking more fat.

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What McCheese said. If you are happy, content, have energy for workouts and life, I would just run with it. Or if you think you could work out harder / perform better when eating more, eat more. Assuming you enjoy the act of working out, etc.

Install a real-life DBM that spams alerts and shit pops up all over your vision when you're about to make an unhealthy decision

Tenks_sl said:

Install a real-life DBM that spams alerts and shit pops up all over your vision when you're about to make an unhealthy decision

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Hey you try tanking for a bunch of saturday morning dads and see how many addons you need