I'm not trying to one-up Gen's weight loss and health turnaround ... but I've lost 90 pounds in the last 14 months (30 pounds to go), so I feel I have gained a little bit of insight that might be helpful.

The one question I'm getting from co-workers most often is, "What should I eat to lose weight?"

Think about how silly that question sounds. You don't lose weight because of what you eat. You lose it because of what you DON'T eat. (Think of all the business Subway gained by making it sound like Fat-Ass Jared became Not-Quite-So-Fat-Ass Jared because he ate Subway subs. They capitalized brilliantly on the type of people who ask me that "what should I eat" question.)

Here's the answer I now give, without explanation, when I am asked, "What should I eat to lose weight?"

Me: "Less."

Less is a concept, incidentally, that we all had better get used to, in all facets of our lives in the coming years. Less everything.

Like Gen, I figure getting my health in order and staying out of hospitals and doctor's offices for the rest of my life is the best method available to STARVE THE BEAST. Health care is the biggest bankrupting beast around.

Stop feeding that beast. Get healthy and tell the health care industry to stuff it.

Incidentally, while I've enjoyed this thread, I felt like it was getting off point with all the talk about different recipes and various sweeteners and such. Don't let yourself be distracted by questions about "eating healthier foods" or "should I go organic" or "brown/white rice."

Just eat LESS and the rest will take care of itself.

The FDA full of it and corrupt?? You don't say!

Smales nails it.

Eat Less. Exercise More.

Eat less - exercise more.

For me it's much easier to eat less if I stay away from bad carbs. That's why that diet works for me.

The best thing I did was loose my weight. I got up to 230 at one point and decided I had become a fatass to be blunt. It hit me like a baseball bat.

2 year later struggling and working my butt off I got to 165 my high school weight. I did a HIIT routine virtually everyday for 30-45 minutes. I took out soda. I stopped fastfood. I went down to 1400--1800 calories a day in four meals. Got up to 4 miles running once a week and 3x 1 miles runs.

I came to the conclusion 165 was a bit low strength wise so now I am doing stronglifts 5x5... It works. No money needed just follow it from the bar up in terms of weight. Up 180 and strong, replaced bad fat with good and eat around 2300 calories a <4 meals> day. My mileage has dropped and running 4x 1.5 mile runs at the moment and doing bikram Yoga to negative flexibility loss. 29 and in better health than I have ever been.

This is all off 30 minutes a day working out..hard. Eating better and knowing what chemical do what. Hardest part trying to eat a salad a day..gets old.

Note: I still drink once a week..thats something I do to keep my sanity. I realize this kills gains.

I feel immeasureably better now then 230..i was starting to see some real mental health effects<anger problems> from holding that weight. It's not normal to weigh that much and work in a office all day.

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OK...I am a 5 time a day user of diet sodas.....

I hate drinking water. What should I replace the diet soda with. (oh yeah...I hate milk as well, unless it is with some oreos.

Google some images of bladder carcinomas. I'm a med student and I work with urologists most days in my job, and they unanimously say the #2 indication behind smoking for bladder cancer is long-term water consumption. My advice? Get over it. Buy a filter if you're paranoid. Ceteris parabis you'll probably lose some weight as well.

eeerrrrr,
People, exercise is only very loosely correlated with weight loss. If it contributes to losses it only does so a small amount and by varying degrees in different individuals. Almost everyone who maintains weight loss for a year or more ALSO changes their diet away from simple sugars. Of course there are a few exceptions here and there as we humans are a diverse bunch, but by far the most important factor influencing weight and BMI is simple sugar consumption.

For those who are already lean there may be a role for exercise in maintaining that leaness, but as for losing weight, sorry, the good scientific studies don't lend much support to the idea that moving more helps the pounds come off. It may also be that the shifting of habits to include more exercise helps people steer clear of the carbs, in which case it would (indirectly) aid in weight loss. But burning more calories in a brief period of exertion doesn't mean one will lose weight. Ever hear of "working up an appetite"? That saying cuts right to the heart of the issue. Our cultural dogma about fat and overweight would have you believe otherwise, but that doesn't mean the belief is founded on anything solid.

About five weeks ago I changed my relationship with food. It started when my wife decided to do one of her regular diets to shed a few pounds and she asked, "Why don't you just try logging what you eat? Calories only." So I took the bait, wanting to be a more supportive husband and partner in the endeavor.

She had just started using LoseIt.com to set her goal, track intake and progress. I also set up an account: 6'2" 220# 45 y.o. I set a goal of 30# by the end of April (about 2#/week).

I was immediately more vigilant about what I put in my former cake-hole, because I now have a calorie budget, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna blow it out on ****ty empty calorie garbage. The relationship had changed.

I got off my ass an started running...a 1/2 mile at first, but that quickly changed too. I now do a daily 5K tracking distance on different routes with an iPhone pedometer app.

My calorie budget started at about 1750 per day. I am now at 1560 and I rarely get close to it. I'm just not that hungry, and running gives me a big fat 550 calorie credit, so some days it looks like I ate almost nothing, but the log says otherwise.

Five weeks in I have dropped 18# and while I am eating more healthfully, which is also more expensive, I am eating a lot less, so my food budget is the same for infinitely better quality diet.

I'm with you Karl. I have taken off, and I am keeping it off.

Taking 5 cents worth of corn/wheat/soybeans and selling it to you processed in a box for $2.00+ is a big business.

If it hasn't been mentioned...


Must watch. Short version, Sugar is poison.

Also a study was done on the products of the Monsanto seeds we threaten other countries to buy. They fed the end product to Hamsters. By the third generation, they were not capable of breeding. Eugenics anyone?

I read somewhere you have to run for half a mile to burn off one chocolate chip cookie. It may be wrong, but It does have a ring of truth to it. I think that diet has more to do with weight than exercise. With that said exercise is important for good health. When I joined the service I weighted 183 lbs. when I goy out I weighed 183 lbs. 2 years later I weighed 220 lbs. I dropped all soda and white bread and now I am steady back at 183 lbs. I eat what ever I want except soda and white bread. Note I never had a sweet tooth, in fact I love hot sauce. I probably have 30 different types on the counter. I think that has a lot to do with it. The white bread was my problem. I could burn through a loaf in 1 day. As for soda I would drink it for a pick me up and all it did was weigh me down. I switched to water with lemon or lime or unsweet tea and I have never felt better.

Quote:

Google some images of bladder carcinomas. I'm a med student and I work with urologists most days in my job, and they unanimously say the #2 indication behind smoking for bladder cancer is long-term water consumption. My advice? Get over it. Buy a filter if you're paranoid. Ceteris parabis you'll probably lose some weight as well.

Long term water consumption or long term soda consumption?

"Posilac was banned from use in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all European Union countries. Doesn't it say something when most of the industrialized world bans a product???? Only in America are dumb enough to keep using it."

I'm always suspect of purely altruistic reasons behind any government action. Are the above governments somehow superior to all the others who haven't banned this ingredient yet? Are they more vigilant, flexible, proactive? Perhaps. Or, were they attempting to curtail imports of certain foods for the benifit of their own farmers? Such a motiviation would not surprise me in the least.

Sugar is not poison. That bull**** is being peddled based on very poor science.

Look i've stated on this site many, many times before, you can eat ANYTHING you like and lose weight, you just need your calories ingested to be below your calories consumed. Thats it.

The way i eat at the moment is 16 hours fasting, 8 hour eating window from 12pm. I typically eat 2 meals in that window (lunch and dinner), and occasionally a snack. Being able to eat nice 1000 calorie meals is awesome, and it is a lifestyle that i can keep up with no effort at all.

I just make sure i eat at least 100g of protein (i prefer closer to 150) to preserve muscle mass and i lift heavy weights 3 times a week. I still eat all the foods i love, no problems at all. My health markers are all excellent; i get regular blood tests to make sure.

The two best resources for nutrition are here:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/

http://alanaragon.com/

These guys know their stuff, they wade through basically every piece of nutritional research known to man to keep on top of it.

Karl is right about the FDA; their advice is downright dangerous. I have a poster up at work which recommends that adult males eat no more than 40g of fat a day. Thats insanely low and will actually cause health problems.

EDIT: oh on the topic of exercise, you run etc to get fit not to lose weight. You will burn more calories if you go out and do your yard work all day than if you go for a run. So rather than thinking you have to punish yourself, just get off the couch and move more.

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My calorie budget started at about 1750 per day. I am now at 1560 and I rarely get close to it. I'm just not that hungry, and running gives me a big fat 550 calorie credit, so some days it looks like I ate almost nothing, but the log says otherwise.

Five weeks in I have dropped 18# and while I am eating more healthfully, which is also more expensive, I am eating a lot less, so my food budget is the same for infinitely better quality diet.

Just on this, you are eating at a pretty massive calorie deficit. It works great in the short term but you will need to break it up with a week or two of normal eating at some point.

The mechanism isnt completely understood yet, but there is a degree of adaptation that the body uses when you have persistent large deficits, so at some point your weight loss will plateau. To get past it you have to go back to normal eating for a couple of weeks then start again, but with a lower deficit.

I hit such a plateau myself after losing nearly 70lbs. It was before i understood this issue, so it eventually led me to give up on the diet i was on. Even went i came off that diet and started eating too much i didnt gain weight for the first year or so as my body was happy to have the extra food.

A lot of people finding this when you buy one of those Bodymedia devices to measure calorie consumption. Their caloric requirements are way above what they though and they have success by actually eating a little more and resetting their eating patterns every few weeks.

Quote:

but as for losing weight, sorry, the good scientific studies don't lend much support to the idea that moving more helps the pounds come off.

You should try walking the Continental Divide Trail, your opinion may change slightly.

I agree that one needs to be cautious re statins, and that the modern Western diet is terrible. But heart disease is not a new thing:

Initial Genetic Analysis Reveals Iceman Ötzi Predisposed to Cardiovascular Disease
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2012) — In a paper appearing in Nature Communications, researchers report new findings about physiognomy, ethnic origin and predisposition towards illness of the world's oldest glacier mummy. . . Roughly 18 months ago, a team of scientists succeeded in decoding the full genome of Ötzi, the mummified Iceman, revealing his entire genetic make-up. . .
Ötzi was genetically predisposed to cardiovascular diseases, according to recent studies carried out by the team of scientists working with Albert Zink and Angela Graefen from Bolzano's EURAC Institute for Mummies . . . Not only was this genetic predisposition demonstrable in the 5,000-year-old ice mummy, there was also already a symptom in the form of arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. And yet, in his lifetime, Ötzi was not exposed to the risk factors which we consider today to be the significant triggers of cardiovascular disease. He was not overweight and no stranger to exercise.
"The evidence that such a genetic predisposition already existed in Ötzi's lifetime is of huge interest to us. It indicates that cardiovascular disease is by no means an illness chiefly associated with modern lifestyles. We are now eager to use these data to help us explore further how these diseases developed," says anthropologist Albert Zink with bioinformatics expert Andreas Keller.

Humans only need to be healthy long enough to reproduce. There are reasons to think that there are genetic trade-offs in re heart disease (I'll track that down for another post).

My father in law has practiced caloric restriction for many years, and is in amazing shape, mentally and physically, at age 87. He is a vegan, apart from eating wild salmon. There are a variety of ways to be healthy.

If you want to see proof of the difference between "real food" and "processed food" right before your eyes in very, very clear terms, take your family dog or cat off packaged food and feed them "real food" meals for a month (preferably raw for the meats, organ meats are great, but no need to go raw) and watch how much energy they have.

There is no "placebo effect" with animals, so what you see is the real thing. After you watch the transition you'll rethink what you put in your own mouth, I'm sure.

Hmmmm....raw...I haven't had tartar steak in sooo long.... [drooling]

The theory about exercise causing weight loss goes beyond the calories burned during the exercise itself.

First of all, there is an increase in metabolic rate that occurs during the exercise period itself that generally takes several hours following the exercise to return to "normal". The time required depends on the intensity of the exercise, i.e., for light exercise, the rate returns to "normal" much faster than for hard exercise.

Secondly, exercise tends over time to build muscle mass which consumes calories at a higher rate than an equivalent fat mass even when a person is sedentary.

For these two reasons alone, the calories burned due to exercise are much greater than a mere calories/minute of exercise calculation would indicate.

I agree Peterm99 about the long term positive metabolic effects that exercise can provide.

I exercise a lot and really enjoy it. Exercise has a multitude of positive health effects, including mental health. John Abramson in his book "Overdosed America" said that depression is really 'exercise deficiency syndrome'.

But Eddd was right in his post up the page that in the short term, exercise has been shown in studies to not increase weight loss. (Gary Taubes goes into that in his books). The reason is that we automatically eat more to compensate for the extra calories used. It's controlled by the primitive part of the brain, just like how much air you breathe.

The point is that if you eat the right foods you will set up your biochemistry to reach a healthy weight. Exercise is a huge boost to health and enjoyment of life, but it alone does not cause weight loss.

Peterm99,
I don't dispute what you write. Those observations do not in and of themselves mean that exercise leads to weight loss.

Kwerk,
Would hiking the AT be good enough? I gained 10 pounds that wasn't all muscle when I did that (too much mac and cheese because its light and cheap).

My point is we all come at this topic with our various biases. It is possible that exercise plays a minor role (more for some people, less for others) but it is a second or third order thing compared with cutting out sugar being a first order thing.

There is very little good dietary science out there. A lot of "studies" have been conducted, but most are garbage. Reading Taubes' books is a good place to start.

In regards to a soda replacement, I started mixing organic juice (your choice here) with sodium reduced club soda. YUMMY!!!!

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Long term water consumption or long term soda consumption?

Sorry, I worded my reply poorly. I should have said long-term water consumption below a certain daily level (around 1 cup, or 250mL from memory) was a risk factor for bladder carcinoma. The mechanisms aren't proven, but washing potential carcinogens out of your excretory system is the hypothesis. I make sure I drink plenty of water every day to give those nephrons a good workout and keep my urine fairly dilute (at the risk of straying into TMI territory!) Obviously more water wouldn't increase cancer risk. Although I'm sure there are some anti-vaccer Truthers out there who would argue that point.

"If you want to see proof of the difference between "real food" and "processed food" right before your eyes in very, very clear terms, take your family dog or cat off packaged food and feed them "real food" meals for a month ...."

YUP
Chimichanga is exactly right.
Did exactly that (to reduce inflamation in aging dogs) to my 4 high powered Field Dogs about 18 months ago. Amazing results. Ages 12-5 years old. The 12 and 10 year olds can hike with me at altitude (9,000-12,000) for a typical 15 mile day hike over very rough terrain....and both have orthopedic issues.
(....and I am NOT 45 myself, either!)

There is simply no doubt that the American Diet is killing people earlier than need be and casuing great distress and suffering in the aging process.

It is not even in question.
If you have lived long enough....like 60 yrs....and have photos or can find pictures of 50 years ago, you will see that people were SLIM and that was not from "diet and exercise"! Ha
It was the food, the way it was prepared and the way we ate.
Corn Fed Beef was rare to find---most beef had a strong gamey taste, raised on the farm and was a luxury, too.

Go to ANY Cardio Clinic and the very biggest and best have a huge kitchen and Program to teach people how to cook!
(Cooking ALL your food from raw basic ingredients ----like make your own mayo and salad dressings---takes time, requires focus and is an acquired skill that has been abandoned)
Most push vegetarian stuff (But at least it is REAL food!)as they are confused by many Studies and many Docs are just poor health Practitioners in their own person.

Be mindful, unless you are very lucky, it is difficult to get out of your 50's in the USA without a serious encounter with Mortality.
You young guys who think it is OK to eat the standard American Diet of boxed food, take out, occasional fast stuff, "Fat Free Cookies" and all the FAUX Food that you normally find in a Grocer or eat regularly at a Casual National Dining place.....well, just wait.

And read Labels---see if you can find almost ANYTHING without High Fructose Corn Syrup in it.
Sugar is addictive.
Why do you think it it is so plentiful in the crap that Corporate Agribusiness produces!?

The American Daily Diet is a very bad pathway.
It is not sustainable.
It is a result of Corporatisation, laziness, a belief that rich people eat this way and complicity with the same scoundrels at the Top.

Dead Man Walking

Breton