Health / Food / Blood Pressure (merged)

Silvaire wrote:

When was the last time you saw a photo of fat concentration camp victims? Don’t eat and you will lose weight.

@Silvaire I’ve seen cases where the medicine some people take makes it impossible not to gain weight (listed in known side effects).

But outside that, in general, you have two ways to lose weight:
1. Eat slightly less, and less junk food. And for those it does not help
2. Count calories for everything you eat.

I’ve tried 1 to no avail, had to use method 2, and lost a third of my way, came from obesity to the middle of the normal wieght BMI.
Method 2 allows also to see when can you eat more, and what could that be – I could eat four meals & a dessert daily and still lose weight.
Plus it makes you think if you want to add that extra butter or not.

BUT! See above – if there are medical reason for a weight gain, it would be really hard to lose it.

If it were as simple as calories in minus calories out, our lives would be very different.

If somebody puts on 2kg per year, year after year, they will have a weight problem.
But that’s about 4,500 calories per year, or 25 calories per day.
Which is about one tenth of a “Big Mac” per day, or six minutes less walking each day.
It’s a little over 1% of the daily calorie flow.

Just from those numbers it is obvious that the body must be regulating weight extremely well.
So weight gain or loss has to happen despite the body’s built-in weight regulation, and it will be difficult.
I’m no medic but I guess there are lots of ways for the body to dump energy (or not): excreting calories, raising body temperature, starving the immune system…

So while “calories in minus calories out” is undoubtedly true, it’s not very helpful because it ignores all the complexity and then restates the problem in different words.

It’s like saying that aircraft crash because they hit the ground.

DavidS wrote:

Just from those numbers it is obvious that the body must be regulating weight extremely well.
So weight gain or loss has to happen despite the body’s built-in weight regulation, and it will be difficult.

This absolutely coincides with my own experience and I think this is the main reason why people who take off weight using diets e.t.c. are struggling so much.

What makes any sort of weight regulation so difficult, incidentally also for people who are chronically underweight, is that the body will try to maintain it’s current weight and regulate itself back to it. So weight regulation has to be a long term project otherwise you get the classic Jo-Jo effect.

Similarily, most people I know who go ballistic when they have gained a few pounds on vaccation for instance will find that just by going back to their normal workdays they will loose that gain or at least some of it within a week or two. Likewise, if you fall ill and loose a few pounds due to not eating at all, the weight lost will be back fairly quickly.

The examples quoted here prove that: As well as during food rationing and @Silvaire’s somewhat tasteless example of holocaust victims the process was not a couple of days or even weeks but a process which after the initial weight loss had years in which to consolidate the new level. Applied to weight loss which is not “to the test” this means, it will take a very long time until a new achieved weight has been programmed into the body so this is the new weight it will try to regulate itself back to.

And hopefully nobody will suggest throwing “fatsos” into a concentration camp to make them loose weight….even though some people who celebrate this may well think in such directions… militant vegans for instance or some of the more sadistic “nutrition counselors” who in many cases do a lot more damage by imposing their own religion onto people who are not suited to it.

DavidS wrote:

So while “calories in minus calories out” is undoubtedly true, it’s not very helpful because it ignores all the complexity and then restates the problem in different words.

True. Usually if newbies join weight loss fora, that is the first thing they get confronted with. We as pilots would falsely assume that the body works like an aircraft engine, less fuel in, less weight e.t.c. But that is a total misconception.

In my experience, dieting and with what foods to loose weight is highly individual. And the actual loss is not the challenge, anyone can do that by simply fasting a few days or weeks. It is keeping the new weight where most people fail miserably, because nobody tells them that once their diet is over, they have to build up their calory intake VERY slowly. It can take up to a year for a new weight to dial in.

DavidS wrote:

So while “calories in minus calories out” is undoubtedly true, it’s not very helpful because it ignores all the complexity and then restates the problem in different words.

Well, that was kind of my point (I was try to put through very badly) – it did work for me. I have a substantial calorie deficit daily (at least 15%) and with that I’m loosing a very small amount of weight (1kg a month?). Yes, it DOES work for me, but I know people for whom is does NOT work. And it while it works for me, just eating less did not help – until I started counting calories I did not understand where am I gaining the most of those. And yes, @Peter is right to a degree – plant-based food brings in fewer calores (100g of baby potatoes vs 100g of lean beef, for example) and it is more filling.

I can’t say I’ve excluded all the fats – I eat fish at least 5-6 days a few, counting dinner or breakfast, some comes with pork, etc.
And still eat the desserts regularly, but I have to see how big are the portions. :)

The problem is that everyone is different and has different metabolisms. There is just not a one size fits all type of weight or diet. IMO
the first big thing to answer is “Are you unhealthy at your weight?” If you are you have a problem, if not you do not. Are Sumo wrestlers unhealthy?
Secondly, “Are you happy at your weight?” There are many studies which show that being miserable makes a person more sedantry and likely therefore to gain weight.
Thirdly, eat until your hunger is satisfied and no more.
4th eat what you want to eat excepting things that will make you unhealthy for other reasons other than obesity. This often manifests itself by your body rejecting what you are eating eg drinking too much beer or soda can make you feel sick. The problem is that the body often rejects in other ways eg high cholestérol, dizziness, vertigo. You can easily become allergic to some foods later in life. Eg Fructose, gluten, lactose which you may be fine in small doses but a little too much can shock the system in such a way as to make face,legs, feet and tongue swell. The latter being very dangerous.
5th Do not snack. Better to be ready to eat a good meal with a bit of tummy rumbling than to attack the biscuits and chocolate bars.
6th From my observations, it is better to eat your main meal of the day at midday, that way you are not going to bed on a full stomach which can lead to sleep Apnée.
7th Don’t expect exercise to get rid of excess calories. It takes a lot of exercise to get rid of 100 calories. However, exercise can give one a feeling of well being and in some cases can be an appetite suppressant.
8th Best of all, laugh a lot. It helps in so many ways.
All this advice I have gleaned from active, happy people over 85 years old.

Useful basic rules.

What has worked in all cases that I have seen (random, small sample) was cutting out a) sweets incl. dessert b) salty snacks c) alcohol. No wheat improves the results, but the first three always have a lasting effect. And if you maintain it for a while, your taste changes, and the craving stops.

The key thing is either being in an environment (family, friends, colleagues) where the healthy choices are natural or adjusting your routines for a goal/desire as a strong trigger.
If it requires ongoing discipline, i.e. will power, humans are pretty likely to fail, sooner or later.

And BTW …sumo wrestlers are not healthy, only few of the good ones reach high age. Overweight always has undesired effects in the body.

arj1 wrote:

I have a substantial calorie deficit daily (at least 15%) and with that I’m loosing a very small amount of weight (1kg a month?).

That however has a lot more chance of success than radical diets.

arj1 wrote:

And it while it works for me, just eating less did not help – until I started counting calories I did not understand where am I gaining the most of those.

Again this highly depends on the individual. Also there are massive differences in calculating how much calories you actually should eat per day, which is the basis of any deficit calculation. Various calculators can give massively different base values which you have to test for yourself.

And another spanner in the works is that calories are not calories. If you have a, say, 1500 kcal daily allowance, the way you put it together may drastically alter the result. And I don’t even include the occasional “sin” of a piece of cake or similar into that.

Peter wrote:

Veg always works

You can eat all you want and you will never get fat (with some rare exceptions).

Sorry that is massively misleading. Not even Vegan nutrition will guarantee that and that particular thing has been proven to be a health hazard, particularly if imposed on children. There are LOTS of non-meat food items which are highly caloric and can cause massive weight gain. On top of that, many women in particular suffer from iron deficiency following ill advised vegetarian or vegan diet counseling not least because most of those also ban dairy products in addition to poh-pooing meats of all sorts.

If you talk of a “salad only” nutrition without any potatoes, rice, pasta, e.t.c. it may be closer to the truth regarding weight loss but this kind of rabbit food is exactly why a large majority of women suffer iron deficiency and osteoporosis in their old age.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

arj1 wrote: I have a substantial calorie deficit daily (at least 15%) and with that I’m loosing a very small amount of weight (1kg a month?).

That however has a lot more chance of success than radical diets.

Mooney_Driver, that was the point – you don’t diet, you change the way you eat. I’ve reduced calories a lot and then started adding things that I like to eat without exceeding my calorie allowance.

Although, I have to admit – if you have kids (we don’t), then it is much harder!
What also helped me – WFH. As I was able to experiment and define a right menu for myself.

arj1 wrote:

I’ve reduced calories a lot and then started adding things that I like to eat without exceeding my calorie allowance.

Yep that sounds like a very valid plan.

arj1 wrote:

Although, I have to admit – if you have kids (we don’t), then it is much harder!

We do have a kid. I am also married and wish to remain so. Yes, that does make it harder. The last two times I managed to reduce quite heftily was during times I was alone at home.

arj1 wrote:

What also helped me – WFH.

What is WFH?

One thing which helped me on vaccations when we still went to hotels: Buffets. Because I had the free choice of what to eat from a huge choice. I always found it very interesting that I NEVER, not once, picked up any weight during AI hotel vaccations but in 3 cases actually lost some. I suppose this should tell how important it is that you can actually eat what you know works for you.