Many thanks for the detailed post, I will try to pass this on to her, although she tends to not be terribly open minded about discussing diet, so it's a bit difficult but will do my best.
The whole thing about diet and exercise is it's a tough subject, because it's not completely understood, and the same thing doesn't work for everyone. Also, fitting in a 1 hour workout 6 days a week (plus typically a commute to & from gym, showering) on top of work, commuting, and family, is not easy.
Most of what you said seems logical, but this part seems a bit iffy to me: "Much better is to lower the intensity so that you can do 30-60 minutes of activity. This will spare the sugar in your body, while burning calories (from fat)." I mean, it's not a crazy idea, but it doesn't seem particularly logical to me either. Maybe it's scientifically well documented though, I have no idea. That's why personally I prefer going the low carb route - it's a very simple theory that makes complete sense to me, and the results for most (if not all) people that follow it (and don't cheat like my wife did, then claiming that it "doesn't work" for her) are pretty spectacular. However, the ability to eat that strict diet varies largely per person - it was great for me because I tend to like that kind of food, but for others it is psychologically difficult to maintain and depression and self-pity become very big problems.
I think your advice that 1200 calories is too low is very interesting, because she has been very strict at that level + exercise, so it seems apparent that her body has gone into some sort of an ultra-efficiency mode. (She's tried cheat days but with no effect....maybe there's a particular food she's eating that's a problem.) I hit the same wall on keto where I just couldn't lose anymore despite caloric restriction, but luckily I had already hit my goal weight by then.
Diet and exercise is actually very well understood, and the same thing will 'work' for everybody.
There just happens to be a lot of bullshit floating around.
For example your claim about the size of your wife's deficit... unless you tracked eveyr calorie she ate and she remained weight stable for weeks for you to get an average intake: you have no idea what her maintenance intake is and thus no idea how big of a deficit she is in. Caloric requirement calculators are bullshit, there's too much individual variation.
As for losing weight; it's pretty simple. Resistance train a few times a week, to maintain muscle mass, consume around 0.8-1g of protein per lb of LEAN mass, and be in a moderate deficit of a hundred or so calories, and continue to make adjustments my lowering food intake and/or increasing activity to keep the fat loss moving as your caloric maintenance changes to your lower body mass.
just an aside, there is no 'ultra efficiency mode' you comment here:
>I just couldn't lose anymore despite caloric restriction
is completely bogus, unless you're suggesting your body violates the law of conservation of energy
> Diet and exercise is actually very well understood, and the same thing will 'work' for everybody.
> just an aside, there is no 'ultra efficiency mode' you comment here:
Do you genuinely believe that metabolism doesn't vary across individuals, or for an individual over time? Do you think the bodies of all individuals have precisely the same ability to both absorb calories from ingested food, as well as produce motion with the exact same efficiency? Do you believe enzymes present in the digestive system have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the calories in / calories out calculations? Do you think every calorie you put into your body is converted into energy?
1 kg of fat is about 7700 calories. So if you are in deficit by 1100 calories per day, then you should lose about 1 kg of fat. Assuming that you have a base metabolism of 2000 calories per day (average for a male of average size), and say you did an hour of moderate aerobic exercise (like jogging) every day (600 calories per day), the with a diet of 1500 calories, you should find yourself losing about 1kg a week on average.
If you are not losing any weight with the above, then the potential explanations are:
- You are in ultra efficiency mode: In other words, you are burning only 900 calories a day.
- You are not running an hour a day.
- You are not eating 1500 calories a day.
Let's say you are 70 kg. It takes 1 calorie of energy to raise 1 kg of water by 1 degree. You are roughly 15 degrees above ambient temperature. Thus it takes 1050 calories to raise your temperature from ambient to body temperature. It is highly unlikely that your body will be able to maintain body temperature for an entire day on 900 calories.
Thus, the only other explanation are the other two.
Do you genuinely believe that metabolism doesn't vary across individuals, or for an individual over time?
It differs a bit. Therefore, the problem is to find out a particular individual's calorie requirements, which is achieved by carefully tracking calories and weight. I.e. if the weight is stable, we found this person's calorie requirements.
Do you think the bodies of all individuals have precisely the same ability to both absorb calories from ingested food, as well as produce motion with the exact same efficiency?
For weight loss purposes it is not so important. There is a top limit on energy to be absorbed, i.e 9 cal from a gram of fat. If a person only absorbs 8, good for him, but there is no way he will absorb 10.
Do you believe enzymes present in the digestive system have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the calories in / calories out calculations?
Again, there is a hard limit on how many calories can be extracted from a unit of food.
Do you think every calorie you put into your body is converted into energy?
For the purpose of weight loss, not so important. You digest only half of what you put in your body - good news, you can eat more and still lose weight. You digest everything - also no big deal. It's just that you cannot magically eat 1g of fat and suddednly gain 100g bodyweight from it.
You did a fairly decent job of discrediting your "the same thing will 'work' for everybody" statement.
"top limit on energy to be absorbed" is one of those interesting statements that sounds like an answer and proof of something, but actually isn't relevant and is a dodge of the question I actually asked. Of course there's an upper limit to what calories can be absorbed from food, you can't consume that which literally isn't there - the question is, is is the caloric content that is actually extracted the same for all people (which is a subset of the question does the same thing work for everybody).
You did a fairly decent job of discrediting your "the same thing will 'work' for everybody" statement.
My "same thing works for everybody" is, in other words, "every person has a number of calories N, eating under which he will lose weight". I think I stayed pretty consistent. And yes, N may vary over time, but it still exists.
the question is, is is the caloric content that is actually extracted the same for all people
I can only restate that yes, it is different and no, it is not very important if our goal is weight loss.
Suppose I extract 1500 calories from a meal, and you 1800 calories from the same meal. But the "thing that works for everyone" remains: you track your calories and weight, I track mine, maybe my weight is stable at 2000 calories per day, yours at 1700 calories per day. Then we just respectively start lowering our intake until we reach the desired rate of weight loss. Algorithm remains the same, we just plug in our own numbers.
which is a subset of the question does the same thing work for everybody
No, I can't see relevance.
For lack of better example, all homes are different, some may have only rectangular rooms, some have oddly shaped rooms etc. So kind of "everyone is different". And still, anyone can easily calculate the space in square meters, or at least achieve a very close approximation for all practical purposes. So it does "work for everybody".
My argument is that the calories in (eaten) / calories out (exercise) explanation, and the idea it is just that simple and if you're not losing weight you're cheating on your diet or lying about your exercise is wrong.
You seem comfortable with the idea that different individuals have differences in caloric uptake (Suppose I extract 1500 calories from a meal, and you 1800 calories from the same meal), but I don't think others are comfortable with that idea. And if it varies across individuals, why is it impossible to vary with one individual over time, or change drastically in a short period of time? Can the physiology of your body change to (for example) start extracting more calories from food than it normally does? It doesn't seem like that crazy of an idea to me, and if it can do this (as anecdotal evidence suggests), then it makes weight loss strategies much more complicated, and it makes the simple calculations no longer work under all scenarios.
This doesn't seem like a terribly controversial idea to me.
if you're not losing weight you're cheating on your diet or lying about your exercise
Not necessary lying. But I have read countless stories, where the TLDR; would be "I thought I was eating very little and very healthy but then I bought a kitchen scale and started weighing and logging everything and OMG was I wrong".
I was also sceptical about counting calories and never needed to do that and was at healthy weight. But recently started for some fitness reasons, and here's a personal anecdote for fun:
Greek salad is a very healthy meal, where olive oil, a very healthy oil, is used as a dressing. So I always just put "some" in it. With a scale, turned out that was 40g. That served 2 people, but still: almost 200 cal from just dressing from just one meal. Another thing I noticed was that olives and feta cheese were under 20% of the salad volume, but over 80% calories. So just by varying the amount of these I could bring the serving calorie content anywhere from ~100 cal (substituting olive oil with balsamic vinegar) to ~500 cal.
So I can see how people may honestly say "oh, but I eat nothing but salads and still can't lose".
why is it impossible to vary with one individual over time, or change drastically in a short period of time?
Because there is little to no evidence for that, and I'm talking about metabolic ward quality evidence.
Sure, if you're in calorie deficit, your metabolism will slow somewhat, but not drastically and not in a short period of time. Sure, some medication plays tricks with hormones that regulate hunger, but not so much with metabolism directly. I don't know about conditions where metabolism will drastically slow down in a short period of time. Even under water fasting it takes at least 72 hours of 0 calorie intake to notice a measurable change.
> Because there is little to no evidence for that, and I'm talking about metabolic ward quality evidence.
Do you happen to know (I don't) if "caloric uptake" specifically has been studied closely? Specifically:
* When you consume <x> calories, how many are extracted by the body and how many are excreted?
* Can this vary by food type?
* Can this vary across persons, and across time for the same person?
From personal experience I have witnessed what seems to be impossible, and my diet was so simplistic (sausage, bacon, spinach, multi-vitamins) that I couldn't have been making a mistake, yet I hit a plateau. The only logical explanation I can think of is a massive short term change in caloric extraction.
Do you happen to know (I don't) if "caloric uptake" specifically has been studied closely?
No - I also don't know. I haven't seen it mentioned, but I also haven't seen reports about the amount of calories absorbed by the body change for no reason at all. So I'm not completely discarding the possibility, but I would like to see some studies and at least an attempt of explaining what might cause it.
The only logical explanation I can think of is a massive short term change in caloric extraction.
I can come up with some more:
1. The water retention, or the so-called "woosh effect"
What’s going on? Back during my college days, one of my professors threw out the idea that after fat cells had been emptied of stored triglyceride, they would temporarily refill with water (glycerol attracts water, which might be part of the mechanism). So there would be no immediate change in size, body weight or appearance. Then, after some time frame, the water would get dropped, the fat cells would shrink. A weird way of looking at it might be that the fat loss suddenly becomes ‘apparent’.
Now this article is not rich with links to science, so take it with a grain of salt.
2. As you lose weight, your caloric requirements naturally go down. So to remain in deficit, you have, unfortunately, revise your targets down from time to time, otherwise you reach balance and stop losing.
3. Somewhat related is the decrease in NEAT - Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. In short, you tend to be less active when you are in caloric deficit, and may not consciously notice it. Sorry for the same source again, it happens that this guy writes a lot on the subject.
For example, say you put yourself through 500 calories of hard activity but, due to fatigue, you sit on the couch more later that night, burning 300 calories less than you expended before training. The supposed 500 calorie deficit you’re creating is really only 200 calories because your SPA/NEAT has adjusted itself. You might expect one pound per week fat loss but the deficit is actually less than half of that
The whole article is a very good summary on the mathematics of weight/fat loss.
You can't extract more calories from food than their are. Calories are measured by actually incinerating the food and measuring how much heat it gives off. That is literally how much energy there is. So if you eat 2000 calories of food energy, you can not (if you are obeying the laws of thermodynamics) gain more energy than that. You can only absorb less.
Similarly, as I said in a message above, there is a lower limit for how much energy your body must burn in order to maintain body temperature. You will find if you look at the rate at which corpses lose heat to ambient temperature that it is very, very close to what is listed on those base metabolic rate charts. Again, I have to stress this: you can not burn less than that without decreasing your temperature and dying. It is a physical impossibility.
There are obviously variations, of course, but they must (by physical necessity) be on the up side. So you can easily eat 3000 calories and not gain any fat, even though you don't exercise, if you have a thyroid problem, or if you have a digestive problem that causes food to shoot through you before you can process it.
On the other hand, you can not (due to the laws of physics) eat less than the number of calories required to maintain body temperature and not lose weight. This is conservation of energy. And as I said, the minimum amount of energy required to maintain your temperature is very close to those base metabolic rate charts.
Sure you can be off by 100 calories a day. You can't be off by 1000. It just isn't possible. So if you are in deficit for several hundred calories a day and you aren't losing weight it is necessarily because you have measured your exercise or diet incorrectly. As I stated several times, this usually occurs because companies outright lie about how many calories you can burn through exercise (and are often off by 1 or 2 binary orders of magnitude). It is also because people completely overlook high calorie foods, even if they are otherwise very careful.
> Similarly, as I said in a message above, there is a lower limit for how much energy your body must burn in order to maintain body temperature. You will find if you look at the rate at which corpses lose heat to ambient temperature that it is very, very close to what is listed on those base metabolic rate charts.
Do you happen to know a typical range for this? For caloric maintenance level, there is:
* Body temperature maintenance
* Operating bodily functions (pumping blood, breathing, etc)
* Basic "non-exercise" movements
For all of these, calories consumed (eaten) must take into consideration:
* caloric extraction (basically, net of calories remaining in excrement)
* caloric consumption efficiency (of those retained, how efficiently are they converted into heat & kinetic energy)
There are actually two sets of numbers for the first three points: actual literal calories required, and then the set that takes into account the last two points. How different are these numbers? I wonder, assuming this "weight plateau" while still in what is thought to be caloric deficit is actually real, could the general understanding of the last two points not be correct in all situations?
As discussed, it seems some people extract more calories from the same food (for whatever reason), although how true is that? The other alternative is that they have similar bodily behavior as someone with a thyroid problem (calories are uptaken (I think?) but not stored as fat - not sure how this works then, are they excreted?), but if on a strict diet, the body could change causing a plateau.
I don't think I'm doing a very good job of explaining myself.
A caloric deficit once achieved will work for everybody, but different people absorb calories differently - so, as was being discussed, the same thing (calories consumed per kg of body mass + exercise) will not work for everybody.
you keep harping on this 'absorbed calories' thing. and it's irrelevant to the discussion and not helping your argument. people have different caloric requirements doesn't mean that a some people magically can't turn body tissue into energy.
Nowhere did I state that metabolism doesn't vary across individuals.
On the contrary I think that individuals have vastly different caloric requirements.
None of this means that a caloric deficit and increased activity won't cause all individuals to lose weight, just that the absolute value will differ between individuals.
> Nowhere did I state that metabolism doesn't vary across individuals.
"the same thing will 'work' for everybody."
"just an aside, there is no 'ultra efficiency mode' you comment here: >I just couldn't lose anymore despite caloric restriction is completely bogus, unless you're suggesting your body violates the law of conservation of energy"
If metabolism can vary by individual, why is it impossible for the metabolism for one individual to change over time? Serious question, I honestly don't know.
> None of this means that a caloric deficit and increased activity won't cause all individuals to lose weight, just that the absolute value will differ between individuals.
Do you accept that the caloric value may vary in one person due to changes in gut flora? Or changes in metabolism?
Maintenance caloric requirements change as your body mass changes (and composition). It's pretty obvious that, for example, your maintenance requirement at 200 lbs will be different from your maintenance requirement at 150 lbs; you have less tissue to sustain.
Hopefully my previous answer will help you. Unless you can sustain nuclear reactions in your gut, you can't extract more energy from the food. It is not possible. You can easily extract less, though.
The calculations are simple because that's how they were designed to work. Going the other way (gaining weight) is actually where it is problematic (because not all of the food value is used -- although bodies are remarkably efficient).
The calorie value is an absolute upper bound. But some people have a gut flora that helps them extract more of those calories than the regular population. And some people have a gut flora that helps them not extract some of those calories.
And since gut flora can change over time a person eating 2000 might be maintaining weight one year but gaining weight the next year with no change in food intake.
I agree that people who say "I eat very little and I'm not losing weight" are mistaken.
> And since gut flora can change over time a person eating 2000 might be maintaining weight one year but gaining weight the next year with no change in food intake.
Finally a voice of reason.
Do you happen to know of any decent literature or particular keywords one might google to read up on this?
I just wanted to say that I generally agree with the above (was unsure whether to reply to the parent post or this one). My only real quibble is that I think the protein requirement is too high (even of lean mass). Possibly I'm a special case, but 0.6g per lb of lean mass has been enough for me to gain muscle.
The "ultra efficiency mode" is definitely one of the more unfortunate things to come out of the low carb camp, IMHO. generally speaking, unless you have a disease or physical disorder (like hyper thyroid) you are going to be burning/eliminating about 1400 - 2500 calories a day. It can be quite a bit higher for some diseases or disorders where you can't process food.
Running is a great exercise for counting calories because it expends a pretty predictable 80-110 calories per mile (depending on pace). Other exercises can be extremely variable (to the point where I have seen people overestimate the calories by factors of 3-5). Do not trust exercise machines for caloric output. Every single one I've seen is off by at least 50% (they flatter you so that you demand their machine).
But generally speaking, if you do aerobic exercise continually for 1 hour, you will burn 5-600 calories. If you eat 1600 calories, then you will have a balance of about 1000 calories, which will certainly be in deficit for the average person (if you are really small, then it might not be, but I suspect it will be even then).
So why do people hit plateaus?
- They vastly overestimate the calories burned from exercise.
- They vastly underestimate the calories eaten.
Mostly it is the latter. It is not hard at all to put 100 calories of butter on a slice of bread. It is dramatically easy to put 200 calories of salad dressing on a salad. It is easy to say, "I only had a muffin and a coffee for breakfast" without realizing that said muffin (with butter) and coffee (with cream and sugar) could easily be in the 500 calorie range. My friend used to go to subway for lunch and have a 6" salami sandwich, one of those small bags of chips, and a sweetened iced tea for lunch. He had no idea he was pushing 1000 calories for lunch (the muffin and coffee for breakfast, 6 inch subway sub for lunch and... sorry... maybe you can have half an apple for dinner).
So, it is quite easy to loose weight when you are 220 lbs and burning 2500 calories a day. But then when you get down to 170 lbs and are burning 1900 calories a day, suddenly that miscalculation for how much exercise you are doing, or the 300 extra calories you are eating, but didn't realize makes a massive difference. Similarly, if you have health issues (especially digestion) that cause you to eliminate food rather than digest it when you are heavier, it can make a dramatic difference later if you get healthier and start actually processing this food.
The overestimation of exercise is a bad one because it is often fuelled by industry lies. Go to a gym and someone will tell you that you are burning 1000 calories an hour lifting weights, or that adding a kg of muscle will increase your metabolism by 100 calories a day or some other such nonsense. My brother (who is otherwise a very intelligent person) once thought that he could burn 1600 calories an hour on a bicycle (possibly if he is in the Tour de France, but pushing 150 watts is more than most beginners can handle for an hour and results in 540 calories an hour). Stuff like that makes me fairly angry...
> The "ultra efficiency mode" is definitely one of the more unfortunate things to come out of the low carb camp, IMHO. generally speaking, unless you have a disease or physical disorder (like hyper thyroid) you are going to be burning/eliminating about 1400 - 2500 calories a day. It can be quite a bit higher for some diseases or disorders where you can't process food.
Do you know of any particular studies debunking the theory that resting metabolic rate does not and cannot change in an individual? Honest question, I don't know for certain - I "believe" it can and does, but my belief is based on anecdotal observation and logic.
You're conflating two different ideas. The idea that metabolic rate can't change for an individual (which it obviously can as it's based on that persons body mass, lean mass, age, etc [all of which can change] along with genetics) with the concept that there is a magical starvation mode wherein further reductions in calories won't produce any loss in weight (which is obviously false as people starve to death worldwide all the time).
Actually we are talking about a plateau despite maintaining an apparent deficit from an orally consumed calories perspective. Why does this plateau happen? Please don't be disingenuous and claim I am implying magic and that you can live without food, you know that isn't true.
If you're asking why weight loss slows down in a diet the answer should be pretty obvious. You continue to lower calories to keep yourself in a deficit, at a certain point your calories become very low and people have trouble with compliance.
Either that or the body enters a special high efficiency mode where it becomes a super efficient energy conservation machine all of a sudden?
The simplest solution is probably the correct one.
There are some definite possible advantages to HIIT. If you are careful to monitor your heart rate to keep a good level overall, then I think it has good potential. I used to run track when I was young (400 and 1500 meters) and we always trained this way.
Honestly, if you are training every day and being relatively careful with your diet, then you will pretty easily get down to a weight that the average North American would call "skinny". The main problems I've seen with people are not understanding what they are eating (Google tells me a single blueberry muffin is 377 calories -- that's practically a meal in itself!!!) or people who are fooling themselves about their exercise (unless you are a competitive athlete, the 5-600 calories per hour is about right -- if you are lifting weights, you can divide that by a fair amount).
The whole thing about diet and exercise is it's a tough subject, because it's not completely understood, and the same thing doesn't work for everyone. Also, fitting in a 1 hour workout 6 days a week (plus typically a commute to & from gym, showering) on top of work, commuting, and family, is not easy.
Most of what you said seems logical, but this part seems a bit iffy to me: "Much better is to lower the intensity so that you can do 30-60 minutes of activity. This will spare the sugar in your body, while burning calories (from fat)." I mean, it's not a crazy idea, but it doesn't seem particularly logical to me either. Maybe it's scientifically well documented though, I have no idea. That's why personally I prefer going the low carb route - it's a very simple theory that makes complete sense to me, and the results for most (if not all) people that follow it (and don't cheat like my wife did, then claiming that it "doesn't work" for her) are pretty spectacular. However, the ability to eat that strict diet varies largely per person - it was great for me because I tend to like that kind of food, but for others it is psychologically difficult to maintain and depression and self-pity become very big problems.
I think your advice that 1200 calories is too low is very interesting, because she has been very strict at that level + exercise, so it seems apparent that her body has gone into some sort of an ultra-efficiency mode. (She's tried cheat days but with no effect....maybe there's a particular food she's eating that's a problem.) I hit the same wall on keto where I just couldn't lose anymore despite caloric restriction, but luckily I had already hit my goal weight by then.
Lots to think about, thanks for the advice!