Weight Loss Thread

Captain Suave said:

The fact that you can type this with a straight face is exactly what we meant saying that people are wired differently and that it's not just mentality or commitment. That experience is about as alien to me as if you said you had wings, even when I was in good shape for years at a time. If I wanted to gain weight I'd just have to stop constantly working to be conservative about food.

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Well, the discipline/mentality comes in to play, despite these differences. If I get a little hungry an hour or two before dinner I can just wait it out, maybe have a cup of coffee or something, instead of finding a 1000 calorie 'snack' to tide me over just because I can. It's not hard for me to do this, and I admit it is probably pretty hard for some people to do this, but that's mentality/discipline at work. It's just the two sides of the same coin. You have to be disciplined to be conservative about food if you want to lean out, I have to be disciplined about consuming more food if I want to bulk up.

That's why I related it to quitting smoking. The first couple times I half-heartedly considered quitting because I was sick of spending $300 a month on cigs, my heart wasn't really in it and within a month i'd say screw it and go back. When I finally decided I was done, I wore the patches for a couple days just in case so I wouldn't spaz out on people at work, and then we had a week vacation so I just went cold turkey through that with no issues and none since (couple years now). I think the same can happen to people with weight loss (or anything else). When you're really 100% in on it, it becomes way less difficult to stay on track IMO.

Forget which threads had more discussion on supplementation, like being i thought mag to go with a d3 supplement.

My diet is not the greatest and i don't see changing much, just what it is. Not a whale so maybe wrong thread. But i feel like I've had better energy overall well feeling that i attribute a bit to bring better about taking a adult multi vitamin. Normally eat just about no fruit, limited veg. Basically meat taters and carbs.

More for my wife maybe who was put on calcium supplement by her dr, but this seemed like maybe a decent little combo pill to add to the vitamin?

I'm not normally mr supplement at all, I've wasted bottles of vitamins i just forget to take for years etc.

zombiewizardhawk said:

Is the weight coming off at a reasonable pace? You'll definitely have to start toning the workouts down a little the leaner you get. Could always try going slightly up in calories for a week or two if it starts to be a problem (not bulking calories but close to what you'd be maintaining at once the cut is done) and that'd give you a feel for what it's gonna be like maintaining it once you're there, too.

I think a big part of it is the mentality and habits formed. When you get used to eating snacks constantly, it's hard to break that habit (just like all habits, really) unless you're 100% dedicated mentally. Same thing applies to smoking or anything else. People all the time just decide "nah, i'm done" and never smoke again or have cravings or anything. I think the same thing happens with weight loss/fitness, people just decide to do it and coast right through. The struggles come for the ones who aren't fully committed so then they're constantly thinking about whatever they're giving up, wishing they had it because they still want it deep down.

I'm in the struggle to eat enough to gain weight category, myself. Partly lifestyle and other reasons but also partly because I have to hard force myself to eat extra meals when i'm not hungry to even get close to enough calories to gain.

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I'm not sure I know what a reasonable pace is, but I think its coming off steadily. I also feel like if I step in the wrong direction, I can feel it. Probably all in my head, but stopped at a bar Friday night thats closing down tomorrow, and had four mich ultras. Yesterday morning I just felt bloated and just drag-ass. I guess Im officially a light weight in mind and body.

The thing I'm concerned about is dropping muscle while I chase this little belt of fat around my waist. I "think" my bench has went down, as a lower weight felt like a PR for some reason. Unsure if its just mental or energy related. Altogether, like I said earlier - shits just foreign to me and Im fumbling through it. Im at a loose 36" waist right now, at 6'1 for reference. Havent weighed myself in the last couple weeks in order to not get discouraged - but my two month old gym shorts need to be tied now.

Cutlery said:

I think it's more genetics

My grandfather used to ask if I had hollow legs with how much I'd eat when I was a kid. Took until I was about 35 before my metabolism dropped enough to make a difference.

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I dont agree that its genetics at all. You just dont see very many fat kids with both skinny parents. Even if the kid is fat, you can look at who is spending time with the child and theyre usually obese. Meaning - look at the baby sitter, or look at the grandparents. That "sounds" like genetics, but I feel like most people pick up their basic behaviors as a child and it sticks with them through life. Who are they picking up their basic behaviors from? The adults that are around them often, supporting their eating habits. "LOOK AT MY GROWING BOY!" "LOOK AT THOSE BIG OL' CHEEKS!" etc.

Another side of this triangle is that some people start off skinny as kids, and get fatter as an adult - simply because they, and this sounds insane to me, never learned the difference in the signs of hunger and the signs of thirst. I'm not sure I ever understood how this one works, but if your body is telling you that you're thirsty and you grab a Soda - that's not really solving the problem. So you grab another soda in half and hour, and repeat this process.. I guess until your blood pressure is high? Or you're lethargic from the sugar highs? So you eat more on top of all the calories that you just drank? Its all convoluted mess of shit that I dont think was a problem until the last century or so. Imagine being in a poverty/broken family, and all that was available to eat was just a mountain of birthday cake. Fucking hell in that scenario, too.

The last side of the triangle is a mental or physical health event in the person's life that caused them to find solace and fulfillment within food. This one is pretty straightforward as its easy to see that trying to keep that same feeling would have a person eating all the time. Or, say they broke their leg when they were 2 and was basically forced to stay put for a long length of time, which would cause mental anguish. How they handled that mental anguish would be relative to their care taker and how they saw fit to handle it. A "You're always fucking hungry - just take the whole can of Spaghettio's and leave me alone!" kind of parent probably isnt the best example of a parent in this scenario.

- I personally think most people have a mix of all three sides that vary in their intensity versus the rest. The story about breaking the leg at 2 is me. Fast forward a bit later, and I was drinking soda all the time. That or Kool-Aid mixed with an inordinate amount of Sugar. Then by the time I was 5 or 6, my parents divorced and I felt like my world was ending every time I turned around, moving here, moving there etc.

Something I despise is seeing people that are well aware of their weight, know theyre eating something unhealthy, and do it anyway. Following it up with something else thats equally calorie dense if not worse. I've come to realize that I dont really hate those people, but hate the fact that that used to be me. Kind of a self loathing kind of thing and I think that feeds my desire to stay motivated, moving forward now.

"Reasonable Pace" is generally around 0.5-1% of body weight per week (on average, some weeks will be under, some over, some no change at all); up to 2% if you were morbidly obese (~100+ pounds to lose), but you aren't.

Edaw said:

View attachment 539702 View attachment 539703

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Daidraco said:

The adults that are around them often, supporting their eating habits. "LOOK AT MY GROWING BOY!" "LOOK AT THOSE BIG OL' CHEEKS!" etc.

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"He's gone' be just like his dear ol' pappi'! Eat up boy!"

Edaw said:

They're twins. Have you ever seen fat twins in real life? They are all over the place.

It's a combination of factors but genetics does the heavy lifting, without question.

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I'm not in total opposition to your viewpoint. I recognize that there are people out there that are predisposed to have an actual medical condition that causes the weight gain, or they cant metabolize something as well as others can. But we're talking less than 1% of the population if we're looking at conditions individually, instead of the "bad words hurt my feelings google filter." By this same assessment, we can also assume that there are just as many "genetic" predispositions that would cause someone to be severely skinny. If your goal was to just prove that there is a possibility of genetics, Ill agree with you.

But for the large part of the American culture, I'm not foolish enough to believe that and think its overwhelmingly a cope used to avoid the choices they dont like in life. Just like all those people taking Wagove or w/e tf those drugs are called - theyre still eating the same shit, and they'll blow up like a whale as soon as they stop taking the drug. Probably with a dose of cancer.

You linking a picture of two fat twins, as if that is supposed to support your argument can just as well support my argument that their care takers/parents supported their weight gain. I'm looking at Arnold's kids - where one is a fat momma's boy, and the other is with his pops and is a healthy, buff dude. Both genetically, very similar. I'm looking at my brother and I when we were growing up, as we were the same as Arnold's kids. I'm looking at my neighbors who are fat, who have fat kids. Im looking at their neighbor, who is skinny, married to a skinny wife, with a skinny kid.

Daidraco said:

The thing I'm concerned about is dropping muscle while I chase this little belt of fat around my waist.

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The current best recommendation to minimize muscle loss seems to be to hit each body part in the gym 2x a week and eat 0.5-1g protein per pound of bodyweight each day.

Edaw said:

Increased breeding across... racial lines has exacerbated the problem.

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Oh GTFO. This is the grownup forum.

Edaw said:

Overweight & Obesity Statistics - NIDDK

Trends in overweight, obesity, and severe obesity for children, adolescents, and adults.

www.niddk.nih.gov

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Hispanic is an ethnicity, not race. This data just says tacos and southern food are unhealthy.

Edaw said:

They're twins. Have you ever seen fat twins in real life? They are all over the place.

It's a combination of factors but genetics does the heavy lifting, without question.

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Come on, it's not genetics when obesity didn’t exist 70 years ago and now it's 30% of the population...

Edaw said:

They're twins. Have you ever seen fat twins in real life? They are all over the place.

It's a combination of factors but genetics does the heavy lifting, without question.

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Mostly wrong. Genetics play a part but the reality is it's because the kids follow a nearly identical lifestyle in most cases to the parents. It's the same reason why diseases like cancer etc aren't actually genetic. It's just the kids eating and doing similar things to the parents causing the same diseases. Genetics are just a predisposition.

My experience with managing body comp, in a nutshell, comes down to consistency and an important corollary of that which is sustainability.

By consistency....

SLEEP. It is sometimes overlooked, but sleep is one of the more important components of regulatory processes in the body and you are fighting uphill if you don't focus on good sleep hygiene. This can be as simple or as complex as you like, but you get a lot of bank for your buck by avoiding coffee late in the day, limit alcohol (also because of the caloric implications) as this interrupts REM and deep sleep, and set aside a reasonable budget in your day to attain 7hrs of sleep. If you have difficulty here, spend time understanding why (I had to get a CPAP at one point because I was too heavy and had an insanely high number of interruptions a night).

EXERCISE. Pick a workout plan and stick to it for at least a 4 weeks, but perhaps no more than a 12 week block (maybe a bit longer if you truly have never worked out). Spend time with moderate intensity weight training as a focus, interspersed with 60m of zone 2 cardio, and topped of with low intensity moving (a walking pad while watching TV is great here). Build on your lifting by adding volume then weight, keeping the intensity moderate and working up to high as the weeks go on. This does a few things, but most prominently it helps you avoid injury and helps you manage fatigue. If you go HAM early in a program, even if you are fairly conditioned, a novel stimulus can fuck you up enough to make the next workout not so great. I'm looking specifically as a cut here, so this assumes you are in a calorie deficit, and pushing yourself extremely hard here almost certainly will lead to burnout or injury if you keep at it (which is the idea, consistency remember?).

Same thing for cardio. Assuming jogging is your poison. Start easy and work your way up to 30m of steady state (i.e. you can talk) jogging. For me, this is a paltry 4.5mph. If you look up some of the most elite marathon runners in the world though, you'll find they have off-days where they will go on a slow run that is around this pace. You and I, are not olympic marathon runners. At 211lbs though, I can run for 30m keeping my HR below 140bpm. I intentionally avoid pushing myself for much longer as I primarily focus on weightlifting and your workouts really can only hope to accomplish so much (if you run for an hour, just on the principle of time, you aren't going to be doing much lifting that day). You will not be burning a ton of calories with your runs, but you will be gaining some work capacity which helps you push harder on weight training and will note your resting heart rate and HRV improves. If you choose to do more endurance focused work, I would recommend holding off until after you reach a target weight simply because the load on your joints is not favorable there and again, you'll be asking for an overuse injury.

DIET. This is actually easier than it seems provided you have a regular rotation of foods you eat that cycle week-to-week and are roughly balanced calorically. Calorie calculators are OK to start with, but I have found just consistently weighing myself (same clothes, same conditions...i.e. first thing in the morning after a piss, wearing boxers) and following a weekly average to be quite helpful. I shoot for a weight change of 0.5% - 0.75% loss per week (as someone noted earlier, as much as 1% is probably OK...I lean for less to avoid muscle loss) on a cut and around 0.5% per week on a bulk. After a few weeks of weighing, I'll assess whether I'm at vs the target and make small adjustments to the intake. Usually a calorie calculator will get you close, but you may find you are losing too much or too little and need to change your plan a bit. The 0.5-1g of protein target is good, I do tend to go a bit closer to 1g when I'm cutting. Try to keep at least 50g of, preferably healthy, fats and a few cups of green veggies. I fill the rest with things like oatmeal, sweet potatoes, brown rice, and to a lesser extent, fruit.

At the end of each lifting cycle, take a few weeks off and add a few hundred calories back into your diet (check the scale...the idea is to find the intake that keeps you neutral). If you had been dieting for a long time (12-16 weeks), stay at this maintenance level a few months and let your body get comfortable here and psychologically recover. Do not go off the rails with your eating, but you can have a meal a few times a week you have been craving and provided you keep the portion sizes reasonable it isn't going to be the end of the world. You often will see the scale rise a little during this time also; mostly during the first week. This is largely water as you likely have just added a decent portion of carbs back to your diet and maybe a bit more sodium as well. As a general rule of thumb, if you see the scale bounce more than a pound a day, unless you ran a marathon or ate a few pizzas the day before, it is water (150 calories per mile * 26.2 miles = 3,930 calories, or just over a lb off).

I use a sleep tracker on my phone's health app along with the "Stress" app, which is really just a relative indicator of HRV (a proxy for stress). If you notice your sleep is consistently going to shit, or HRV is tending up, or you have added some weight without changing your diet you likely are retaining water due to elevated cortisol levels and need to back off a bit and recover. You also may notice your workouts get kinda meh and you can't push yourself any harder. If that consitently happens or you just kinda start feeling like shit...time to deload and reset.

Pick some time you are ready to go again, meaning your work and personal life allows for a focused workout and diet effort and go for another weight loss block. If you can't get a clear path ahead to make an honest effort, then just stick at maintenance calories and try to keep your activity up to avoid a rebound. I have used this method to go from 247 ~35% bf to 172 ~10% bf and also have been powerlifting the past 5 years and am now 211 ~17% bf.