Weight Loss Thread

Scoresby said:

To help with the low back, get some shoes with a bit of a heel to them (similar to weightlifting shoes) or add something like a 1/2" versalift. This reduces the dorsiflexion requirement of the ankle in a deep squat which, when you run out of mobility gets made up with lumbar flexion. Not saying it will 100% fix pain there, but it will for sure reduce the amount of flexion your low back sees.

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I actually had a pricey set of weight lifting shoes my wifes gym person suggested when I was joining her for some workouts a few years ago. Certainly too odd to wear around but I did keep them in a closet somewhere. I have laughably poor stretchability, like despite only being 200 6'1", I struggle to get much past my knees trying to touch my toes. Been that way pretty much since boot camp almost. Always feel pretty beat up after crawling around under my truck for an oil change etc.

ToeMissile said:

This is a pretty interesting conversation so far.

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Too long for me to watch, but the first 10 minutes gives a good idea I suppose.

I still feel like a ~decade~ from now the US is going to have an epidemic of gastrointestinal cancer or some other equally, if not worse, problem that has resulted from continued Ozempic and similar, use. I just have ZERO faith that there are no repercussions to that shit.

Daidraco said:

Too long for me to watch, but the first 10 minutes gives a good idea I suppose.

I still feel like a ~decade~ from now the US is going to have an epidemic of gastrointestinal cancer or some other equally, if not worse, problem that has resulted from continued Ozempic and similar, use. I just have ZERO faith that there are no repercussions to that shit.

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That's ok, the people taking ozempic for vanity seem to somehow be the shittiest people anyways

Needing drugs manage hunger.. Just increasing fasting time between meal and eating less carbs, hunger will go down.

Cutlery said:

You don't need a drug to lose weight, but you might need some help (get an app) and then, just be fucking accountable for your behaviors.

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Not trying to one-up, Cutlery , just testifying that you're right. I've been logging food and counting calories and macros religiously for the last couple months. Baseline now sub-1700 calories a day (plus as much as 600 in exercise adjustments, depending on the day). Sigh... Hard to argue with the results, though. The trend on my three-week rolling average is 1.4 lbs / wk, which is within tolerance of the 1.5 lbs I was shooting for.

The multi-day upward spikes are eating out with the wife, which even when I don't overeat always fucks me for a while with bulk and water retention. The intra-day fluctuations still surprise me. I went to sleep last night at 187 still heavy from Saturday night, woke up at 185, drank some coffee for the first time in forever, took two massive shits and worked out and then weighed 180, lol.

This is all down from 205 a year ago. I fucked around for six months and lost 10 lbs without being super religious, plateaued at 195, then got serious in June.

Captain Suave said:

Not trying to one-up, Cutlery , just testifying that you're right. I've been logging food and counting calories and macros religiously for the last couple months. Baseline now sub-1700 calories a day (plus as much as 600 in exercise adjustments, depending on the day). Sigh... Hard to argue with the results, though. The trend on my three-week rolling average is 1.4 lbs / wk, which is within tolerance of the 1.5 lbs I was shooting for.

The multi-day upward spikes are eating out with the wife, which even when I don't overeat always fucks me for a while with bulk and water retention. The intra-day fluctuations still surprise me. I woke up at 185 today still heavy from Saturday night, drank some coffee for the first time in forever, took two massive shits and worked out and then weighed 180, lol.

This is all down from 205 a year ago. I fucked around for six months and lost 10 lbs without being super religious, plateaued at 195, then got serious in June.

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I'd be concerned to be strictly in calories deficit every single day for multiple months, is it even possible to maintain muscle mass under such conditions?

We're no longer young, gaining muscles at our age is getting hard, so any weight loss strategy (unless you're really obese) should try to include muscles gain or at least try to spare them as much as possible.

Gurgeh said:

I'd be concerned to be strictly in calories deficit every single day for multiple months, is it even possible to maintain muscle mass under such conditions?

We're no longer young, gaining muscles at our age is getting hard, so any weight loss strategy (unless you're really obese) should try to include muscles gain or at least try to spare them as much as possible.

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It's essentially impossible to fully preserve muscle mass during weight loss. If you're eating enough calories to maintain all your muscle, you're keeping weight stable at best. If you have good protein intake and work out, weight comes off in a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of fat:lean. Maybe less if you weight train like a beast and eat nothing but chicken, but that's not what I'm doing. I'm getting about 0.6 g/lbs/day of protein, which is a little short of "optimal" but achieves 90% of the intended effect. I could stand to lift more, but my knees and hips are injured such that they prevent me from doing squat/deadlift, etc. I've already had eight surgeries and this is the best it gets.

I'm much more concerned about dropping my (initial) 30 lbs of excess fat in the interest of joint and cardiac health than I am about muscle. I'm not losing any noticeable amount of strength, which is good enough for me. I feel better than I have in years. My blood pressure is down 20 points, cholesterol is falling, and from swimming my resting heart rate is 48 and VO2 Max is way, way up. I'm also getting markedly more of the right kind of attention from the wife, which is another motivating metric.

I'm going to keep this up until I have abs, probably ~170 lbs. I'll stabilize for a month or two and then see what gainz I can get while maintaining leanness.

My strategy was initially to minimize calories in, worked great, lost 50 pounds down to 24 bmi. Then I switched to maximizing calories out, it's been very noticeably improving my body shape and general health/mood, though I'm now at 25.5 bmi. Now my goal is to stay under 26 bmi while maintaining over 1000 calories out from activities.

Now I wish I switched a little earlier.

Gurgeh said:

My strategy was initially to minimize calories in, worked great, lost 50 pounds down to 24 bmi. Then I switched to maximizing calories out, it's been very noticeably improving my body shape and general health/mood.

Now I wish I switched a little earlier.

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I've proven repeatedly as an adult that I can trivially out-eat any level of exercise. I was a very serious martial artist from 20-35 (see knee and hip injuries) and there was essentially no relationship whatsoever between my energy expenditure and weight. For me it's all about food discipline.

Exercise is great and there are many reasons I try to do a lot of it, but for me weight control isn't one.

Captain Suave said:

I've proven repeatedly as an adult that I can trivially out-eat any level of exercise. I was a very serious martial artist from 20-35 (see knee and hip injuries) and there was essentially no relationship whatsoever between my energy expenditure and weight. For me it's all about food discipline.

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It’s been the same for me, my fix is fasting when it gets out of control.

The issue is that once under 26 bmi, all studies point that to improve healthspan and lifespan you need to increase muscle mass and vo2 max, and it seems there is no realistic amount of natural increase of them that isn’t beneficial.

After trying a lot of things in the last 4 years, maximizing calories out, eating actual food, low carbs, with a fast and feast strategy is really working great for me.

And I believe it’s not a surprise it's basicaly emulating the lifestyle of hunter gatherers.

I've been doing intermittent fasting for awhile now (16:8). I don't know if I believe in all the voodoo magic around it, but what I do know is forcing myself to stop eating at 8pm is what stops me from engorging on bad stuff at night. I found through doing this that the snacking later at night was killing me.

Gurgeh said:

It’s been the same for me, my fix is fasting when it gets out of control.

The issue is that once under 26 bmi, all studies point that to improve healthspan and lifespan you need to increase muscle mass and vo2 max, and it seems there is no realistic amount of natural increase of them that isn’t beneficial.

After trying a lot of things in the last 4 years, maximizing calories out, eating actual food, low carbs, with a fast and feast strategy is really working great for me.

And I believe it’s not a surprise it's basicaly emulating the lifestyle of hunter gatherers.

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Same - I've cut out almost all processed foods. I meal prep each week and make everything from scratch. I've added several physical activities/hobbies like climbing 2 days a week, 3-4 days of cardio and at 44 I'm in the best shape of my life.

Noodleface said:

I've been doing intermittent fasting for awhile now (16:8). I don't know if I believe in all the voodoo magic around it, but what I do know is forcing myself to stop eating at 8pm is what stops me from engorging on bad stuff at night. I found through doing this that the snacking later at night was killing me.

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Because there is no voodoo too it. Its a useful tool to help people not overeat and keep calories in check but you can still also overeat during you feeding window. Theres a lot of information that shows fasting vs non fasting has the same results when calories are equal.

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Animosity said:

Because there is no voodoo too it. Its a useful tool to help people not overeat and keep calories in check but you can still also overeat during you feeding window. Theres a lot of information that shows fasting vs non fasting has the same results when calories are equal.

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If you're strictly talking about eating exactly the same and just looking at the weight, you're right.

But there are various stuff triggered by fasting, it’s demonstrably false that it’s the same. If I go low carb but not keto on 18/6 there will be traces of ketones in my piss that there aren’t when î’m earing the same but not doing IF. It’s something that is documented and that you can easily verify by yourself.

I would also say that the fact that you're less hungry when doing IF and running a calories deficit is in itself a quite significant différence.

A bunch of stuff are happening when you fast, and it’s likely that it’s a good idea for these things to occasionnaly happen, running on ketone, autophagy,...

Gurgeh said:

I would also say that the fact that you're less hungry when doing IF and running a calories deficit is in itself a quite significant différence.

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YMMV, but that's objectively untrue for me. I tried a four-hour eating window for a while and I feel pretty much linearly hungrier the longer I go without eating. (I'm sure that stops after multiple days when the body decides it's actually starving, but fuck that.)

Gurgeh said:

it’s likely that it’s a good idea for these things to occasionnaly happen, running on ketone, autophagy,...

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Layne Norton did a review of the research on autophagy a while back and found that it occurs in direct proportion to your caloric intake. Fasting will indeed accelerate it when you're not eating, but less happens after your inevitably larger meals and over time you get exactly the same total.

Edit:

Nothing directed at you by the title or his relatively aggressive tone.