First of all, congrats - that is amazing and really shows true commitment. As somebody that lost 30+ pounds (I am 5ft 65 and went from 205lbs to 172lbs), I definitely understand can sympathize with the work it takes.
For anyone else embarking on the journey, I would add a few things:
- When you are in caloric deficit and thus loosing weight, you can choose not to go to the gym, but you will lose muscle mass faster. If you want to maintain muscle mass as much as possible you are better off doing some weight lifting instead of running. You won't gain muscle mass, but you'll reduce the loss.
- Ghrelin is the hormone that you will need to control. It is what makes you hungry and ultimately ruins your diet. Funny enough, you control it by constantly eating low caloric foods. You want to eat a lot of veggies, fats (avocado will be your friend) and protein throughout the day in low amounts. Just stay under your target caloric intake.
- The most difficult part is not eating out. Meal preparation is key, and this takes time. When you eat out, you just don't know how people prepared the meal you are eating. Sadly, meals that you eat outside have a huge amount of oil and counting calories will be next to impossible most of the time. Even in the cases where a restaurant lists caloric numbers with their plates, you can be certain that the cook is less interested in your caloric intake and more in getting your order out the door. Six tablespoons of olive oil instead of the one you are counting and you are off for the day already. The best you can hope when eating out is maintaining weight.
- Your body is designed for homeostasis and will fight you back to get you to regain it (through Ghrelin, mood swings, etc). After loosing the target weight, increase your caloric intake to stabilize it. If you can keep your weight for a year, it will be easy to remain at that weight later on.
- If you are lifting weights at a decent intensity, as in squatting 80% of your bodyweight for an example, you WILL gain muscle mass if you are new to it despite a calorie deficit. Noob gains are a powerful thing. Most people just curl 5 lb dumbbells or do some other motion with a weight that is barely noticable.
- This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in the process. A calorie deficit as high as his is comparable to a crash diet, and is prone to result in a quick upswing in weight once the diet ends, as you will have been starving yourself.
> - This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in the process. A calorie deficit as high as his is comparable to a crash diet, and is prone to result in a quick upswing in weight once the diet ends, as you will have been starving yourself.
Funnily enough, that is not true. A meta-analysis of 29 studies on the topic [1] has shown that:
"Successful very-low-energy diets (VLEDs) were associated with significantly greater weight-loss maintenance than were successful hypoenergetic balanced diets (HBDs) at all years of follow-up. The percentage of individuals at 4 or 5 y of follow-up for VLEDs and HBDs were 55.4% and 79.7%, respectively. The results for VLEDs and HBDs, respectively, were as follows: weight-loss maintenance, 7.1 kg (95% CI: 6.1, 8.1 kg) and 2.0 (1.5, 2.5) kg; percentage weight-loss maintenance, 29% (25%, 33%) and 17% (13%, 22%); and reduced weight, 6.6% (5.7%, 7.5%) and 2.1% (1.6%, 2.7%)."
Having a plan of what do do/how to eat post-diet (and avoiding binging back to your original weight) is more important than the way you lost your weight. The muscle mass loss is also not as dramatic as people might think, since less time spent in caloric deficit (because of the aggressive dieting) means that more time can then be spent in an anabolic state, and the muscle lost during the dieting phase can be regained very fast. Bearded wonder, powerlifter and now science-person Greg Nuckols had a small blog post on the topic five years ago: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/a-bit-of-everything/
> "Successful very-low-energy diets (VLEDs) were associated with significantly greater weight-loss maintenance than were successful hypoenergetic balanced diets (HBDs) at all years of follow-up. The percentage of individuals at 4 or 5 y of follow-up for VLEDs and HBDs were 55.4% and 79.7%, respectively. The results for VLEDs and HBDs, respectively, were as follows: weight-loss maintenance, 7.1 kg (95% CI: 6.1, 8.1 kg) and 2.0 (1.5, 2.5) kg; percentage weight-loss maintenance, 29% (25%, 33%) and 17% (13%, 22%); and reduced weight, 6.6% (5.7%, 7.5%) and 2.1% (1.6%, 2.7%)."
That's a remarkable degree of loss to follow-up in the VLED group compared to the HBD group. Without further information, I would take great care in trying to interpret the results of the study - the 20% of VLED participants who did not show up could conceivably widen the confidence intervals, if not change the conclusions.
You are right, and in case you don't have access to it, I posted the paper at http://ge.tt/3d5wVJq2 for further detail. It's a fairly short meta analysis but they do point out its shortcomings.
My point wasn't that VLED are superior to HBD, but that the "VLED necessarily causes rebound to original weight" is a myth. It can work and has worked for many people, provided a behaviour change is performed after the end of the dieting period.
> - This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in the process.
It is not absolute that the "unhealthy" caloric deficit is daily basis. There are some researches[1] saying that you can lose fat mass while preserving (or even gaining) lean mass while fasting and doing workout.
> Most people just curl 5 lb dumbbells or do some other motion with a weight that is barely noticable.
Are you recommending this as an approach to avoid noob gains?
EDIT: Why the downvotes? I'm asking this as a legitimate question. The OP's tone sounds neutral and I can't tell if he is recommending low weight for muscle maintenance, or disparaging folks who do so for thinking they will gain muscle mass.
I mean to say that a lot of people will go to the gym to do "weight training" but will only use dumbells or machines, etc, at such low weights that the effort is mostly futile in terms of developing your muscles.
A good rule of thumb to go by is to use the maximum weight which you can successfully complete 8 - 12 repetitions of the motion without sacrificing good form (bad form will lead to injuries).
edit:
in response to a query of yours below, don't worry about accidently gaining strength if it is not your goal, it takes focused training to go up in strength. If you just want to maintain current muscle you just need to keep doing lifts with the weight you can manage 12 reps with. if you don't push to increase the weight from that point you will plateau at that point
Which one wouldn't, presumably, experience if only doing 5lb weights? I'm not making judgment on whether "noob gains" are good or bad, just trying to understand why the OP even made the comment about 5lb weights in the first place.
Lifting 5lb weights -- unless you're starting out not strong at all -- won't do much to increase strength. You know how, say, a crane can lift a 20,000-pound rock 10,000 times before it breaks, but lifting a 20-pound rock doesn't stress the crane one thousandth as much? Your muscles work the same way: lifting a 5-pound weight is not going to make you stronger at all. If you want to get stronger, you need to lift something your body thinks is heavy.
The post was in the context of dieting and maintaining muscle mass. If you don't care about increasing strength but you just want to maintain muscle mass while decreasing calorie count, could you do that by just exercising with small weights, or would that be approximately the same as not weight lifting at all?
Exercising with small weights just means you will burn through calories. To gain muscle mass you literally need to tear muscle fibers so your body rebuilds with stronger ones.
I would like to see this study on muscle gains supplemented by others showing the effects of these different exercise regiments on bone density and ligaments.
Losing muscle mass is something you should always try to avoid (tolerable calories deficit+right amount of proteins+exercise). Muscle mass is hard to gain and serves a purpose in everyday life.
The next step on the author's journey to a healthy lifestyle should be to focus on macros and on the kinds of food he eats too, since both have implications on his body composition and general health.
There are a few important things to consider with your first lifting efforts. Learn the big lifts. Deadlift, Squat, Overhead Press, (Benchpress, if you have an environment to do it). To min/max your workout, all you have to do is work the biggest muscles. That gains you the most benefit for the least amount of time. I would also point out there is a bit of a misconception about "noob gains". When starting out, and or, especially losing weight it definitely helps prevent the loss of muscle mass. But, and this is a big but, a huge amount of your initial gains in the amount of weight you can move around are not from gained muscle mass. They are from central nervous system (CNS) adaptation. Your muscles simply don't know how to fire at maximum intensity. Much of your first 6-12 months gains in terms of weight moved around are just CNS adaptation. Your body recruits more muscle fiber for activities. Folks can move a startlingly larger amount of weight without gaining virtually any amount of muscle. Once you have reached a local maximum for this sort of adaptation you start gaining more muscle mass. Of course, if you lift weights and eat at a surplus you do build some muscle mass, but not nearly as much as after a decent period of lifting. Finally, if you are eating in a calorie deficit you will not be adding muscle mass without a very carefully controlled diet that most fitness and diet novices don't have the knowledge and discipline to pull off. To actually live at a calorie deficit (lose body fat), preserve and or gain muscle mass, you have to move your calories around constantly (deficit weeks, surplus days with focused intense lifting, etc.). It is incredibly hard for someone just embarking on a fitness journey to adhere to a diet that includes surplus weeks in my experience. It just leads to a general lack of adherence and a slide back to old habits.
Also, 1000 calories (per day) is definitely at the edge, but not crazy (7k / week, about 2lbs per week). I would say that is at the limit of what is medically advisable, but not crazy. Especially if you are above 250 lbs, that is not a crazy percentage of your weight. If you have enough body fat to lose, aim for something like a 1% reduction in body fat (assuming you are around 200 lbs, start at a lower percentage if you are heavier, no more than 2lbs / week no matter what). Then every few weeks you have to crank the dial down. Fat burns some calories to maintain itself and your body adapts and tries a little harder to hang onto energy stores. Dialing down the calorie deficit over a 18-12 month period in a very controlled fashion almost assures you will never "stall out" over the long run. Final random tidbit to share, use weight trend, not actual weight, to measure progress. Without an extremely consistent diet the amount of water your body caries can vary by several pounds, but trending the weight over a 1-2 week period almost assures you will measure actual progress and not how much water your body is holding a given day.
> if you are eating in a calorie deficit you will not be adding muscle mass without a very carefully controlled diet that most fitness and diet novices don't have the knowledge and discipline to pull off
Do you happen to know any more resources to tackle this? I'm trying to gain muscle and lose body fat, and it's been difficult diet wise. I even think I'm not eating enough sometimes.
https://completehumanperformance.com is a good resource. I have used them in the past for ultra and nutrition coaching. They have very good people. Check through their articles and podcasts. They publish a ton of good stuff (aimed at selling you their services, of course!), but what they publish is (generally) great all on its own.
Healthy calorie deficit is depends on one's weight. There is a rule of thumb: it is considered healthy to lose about 1% of weight per week. This gives us 40% per year. This guy lost 41% in a bit less than 11 months and his progress is quite linear, so I beleive he is basically okay, maybe a little on the rough side, but far from the extreme fasting.
It’s interesting that you mention homeostasis, as this was actually something I used when I went on a big weight loss kick (70 lbs in five months) eight years ago. For what it’s worth I’m the same weight now as when I finished.
How I used homeostasis: I set myself a very rigid fixed diet and regimen - 1200kcal/day, almost all protein and green leaf vegetables, tiny portion of complex carbs (rice or potato), 45 minute run, 15 minutes of core training. Same routine, every day, same heart rate target (130) for the run.
The upshot was that my graph followed a really beautiful curve - to start with, weight fell off at a crazy rate - and as time went on it slowed, and slowed, and stopped. I then increased my calorific intake slowly over the same period I’d dieted for, while maintaining the regime.
I found the weight my body wants to be, which is pretty much smack in the middle of the healthy BMI range, 14% fat, and now maintain that without any real effort beyond noting when my weight starts to rise because I’ve been junking out on sugary crap, and cutting out the crap until I’m back to normal.
Agreed re: eating out - and the thing that had the biggest effect for me I think was cutting out booze. So many calories in a pint it’s not funny.
It also helps that most "lunch" places put calories up (at least near where I work). You can at least figure what the "best choices" are. Ordering ahead is neat trick!
That's the real kicker - be aware of what you're eatings calories. A Big Mac from McDonald's can be less calories than a 6" from Subway, depending on the choices you make as far as toppings. Just because it looks healthy doesn't mean it's a better choice for weight loss.
When I started dieting, I used to spend hours cooking every week. Now, I buy a rotisserie chicken from the store, buy a bag of veggies, pull the chicken and microwave the veggies.
That's my emergency meal for lunch and dinner. I'm on a low carb diet, usually only have carbs in the morning (oatmeal), and fruit throughout the day.
We start cooking at 12am for example, without know what exactly to do. Decide what to do is what consuming our time! After we start, only the most complex meal (traditional cooking) take more than 1 hour. When we wanna run, we run.
We try keto this few months and several of that things can be done faster than I expected:
I used to live on things I cooked in a frying pan.say, lightly fry some carrots on one side of the pan in a bit of oil while browning sliced chicken breast on the other side. Add some broccoli, add a bit of water and let the broccoli steam. While waiting for that to happen, add whatever spices you like. If you're avoiding carbs, use something other than carrots, and add some fats, e.g. nuts. Takes about 15 minutes, is pretty good.
In addition to being loaded with salt (despite the current trend of handwaving salt issues away, salt is a problem), they are often tenderized beyond recognition, have added preservatives, flavor enhancers, fat, and sugar. You might be OK with those things but it is absolutely not the same thing as a regular chicken you buy and cook yourself -- THOSE are the ones that contain just chicken.
How the chicken is processed depends on the supermarket. At many places you can just ask them what they do and they’ll be glad to tell you.
That said, brining chicken prior to roasting is very common. I do it myself and it is almost essential for free range chicken which tends to have more blood near the bones, brining helps mitigate that. The other stuff is more or less just spice rubs. YMMV, depending on your supermarket. Roast chicken tends to go fast so I would be surprised if they need to use preservatives.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with flavour enhancers. As for the other things, you are varying degrees of correct (for example, it is easy to eat too much salt but not if what you eat in a day is made by you otherwise). The sugar is obviously not ideal if you're going for low carb, but thankfully you can check this by reading the ingredients list and nutritional info. There are no mysterious things going on here.
Eating out isn't nearly as difficult as you're making it out to be. There are plenty of foods you can order where you can fairly accurately assess the calories, once you you get good at it. Once you weigh enough food you can start judging portion size, e.g., that looks like 200g of rice and 100g of pork. And you can taste how oily or how sweet something is.
You can definitely taste if a chef is adding 5 extra Tbsp of olive oil to 1 portion.
As long as you're weighing yourself and tracking calories, you'll know how accurate your estimates have been and you can adjust accordingly.
For restaurants that are listing calories, they might not always be accurate, but over time they should average out.
Also with fast food and fast casual restaurants, food assembly is so regulated, you be even more confident in the calorie count.
From my experience, eating it is even more difficult than was made out to be. Not if you are eating out alone - then you can to to whatever keto or vegan restaurant you choose. The issue is if you are eating out with others - which is usually the case. Then you are first faced with filtering out 90% of all restaurants, and getting everyone who had planned to go to accept that filtering.
If you're only worried about calorie counting (the method discussed in the article) most restaurants are going to have dishes for which you can fairly accurately estimate the calories (with some experience). Tricks like ordering dressing/sauce on the side can make it easier.
Fat has the highest calorie density of any ingredient with 9 calories per gram (sugar has 4). If you're really unsure, you can use that as an upper limit.
Not sure what you mean by latest history. It's been a thing on and off for years. [0] Like all things in the diet world it goes in and out of style in the constant churn of the diet industry.
As for why it's not in the article their focus was that whatever you do calories burned > calories eaten is the king and most diets are just ways to get people to restrict calorie intake without having to count.
For anyone else embarking on the journey, I would add a few things:
- When you are in caloric deficit and thus loosing weight, you can choose not to go to the gym, but you will lose muscle mass faster. If you want to maintain muscle mass as much as possible you are better off doing some weight lifting instead of running. You won't gain muscle mass, but you'll reduce the loss.
- Ghrelin is the hormone that you will need to control. It is what makes you hungry and ultimately ruins your diet. Funny enough, you control it by constantly eating low caloric foods. You want to eat a lot of veggies, fats (avocado will be your friend) and protein throughout the day in low amounts. Just stay under your target caloric intake.
- The most difficult part is not eating out. Meal preparation is key, and this takes time. When you eat out, you just don't know how people prepared the meal you are eating. Sadly, meals that you eat outside have a huge amount of oil and counting calories will be next to impossible most of the time. Even in the cases where a restaurant lists caloric numbers with their plates, you can be certain that the cook is less interested in your caloric intake and more in getting your order out the door. Six tablespoons of olive oil instead of the one you are counting and you are off for the day already. The best you can hope when eating out is maintaining weight.
- Your body is designed for homeostasis and will fight you back to get you to regain it (through Ghrelin, mood swings, etc). After loosing the target weight, increase your caloric intake to stabilize it. If you can keep your weight for a year, it will be easy to remain at that weight later on.
Good luck!