[Closed] Doing well with weight loss but need to know how it ends

geetee - up until a point there's some good stuff in here from everybody: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/race-weight

The book is good as well as it explains a lot of what you are asking. Include much on satiety, basically cured by eating a high fruit, veg protien and wholemeal content - aka "clean" food.

geetee1972- it is realistic to get to below 90kg. The way I look at it is this - there are 9000kcal in 1Kg of fat. A couple of hours of cycling burns off roughly 1500kcal and half and hours run burns off 500kcal. So you need to reduce your calorie intake and increase your exercise dramtically and for a long time to lose the kind of weight you're trying to lose, but it is possible.

You're also trying to get your stomach to shrink back to a size that is more appropriate to your desired weight. The only reason you feel hungry is because your stomach isnt getting stretched so you dont feel full.

I'm trying to lose 20kg to take me from 93kg to 73kg. I've lost 5kg in a fortnight through not eating junk and exercising hard every day for at least an hour. It's hard work, but I feel fantastic for it. I do appreciate that others will not be able to tolerate my extreme approach. I'm 1.86m.

Alright fella.

I think experience shows that your not going to be able to continue to restrict your intake to 1800 calories - it smacks a bit of crash dieting. To get to and sustain a lower weight you need to change the way you eat in general.

There have been about a billion threads on this on here and there are many things you can try: paleo, iDave, fasting, whatever, but you need to find something that works for you and by that I men something that fits easily into you and your family's lifestyles.

FWIW, I'm 1.85m and have dropped from (checks sad little spreadsheet) 91.5kg to 84kg since late October. That's with very little 'dieting', the way I do it is:

- Mon, Weds, Fri: Coffee when I get up, muesli at work about 2 hrs after getting up, sarnie and apple kind of thing for lunch, something decent for dinner. No snacks, no booze
- Tues, Thurs: on the bike for about an hour before work, no breakfast, otherwise as above
- Weekends: whatever I want to eat/drink. hopefully a decent ride or two.

It works as there's little difference between it and what I was doing before, there's little willpower needed (and there's some pseudo-science about functioning/trainign on an empty stomach)

- Does your base metabolic rate require less calories the less you weigh?

Yes.

How realistic is it to get down to below 90kg given that even when I was training five times a week for two hours a time and I was in my 20s I was heavier than this?

sub 90kg at 1.83m tall sound perfectly realistic. But i'd be tempted to make it a long term goal. Get yourself down to something that you're reasonably happy with then look to slowing the diet down a bit so that the last couple of kilo's are lost over a matter of months. This should help you adjust to a healthy and sustainable eating pattern.

1,500 kcal per day is not very much at all, especially if you are doing any exercise (riding?) be sure to add a bit on to make up for extra calories burnt during exercise.

How realistic is it to get down to below 90kg

very. Unless you keep telling yourself otherwise. How much of the muscle you had back then do you still have? Get a few measurements/guesstimates of your body-fat percentage and see what sort of lean weight you could be looking at then set your goal appropriately.

do you eat clean ?

clean food generally has less calories than heavily processed food.

cans of coke , chocolate, crisps and beer ..... all contribute heavily.

im 1.87 and when racing and eating uber clean i was as low as 68kg.

currently 80kg right now.

its not a diet its a lifestyle.

I hear the comments about lifestyle not diet. That resonates and makes a lot of sense.

Trail Rat, we do generally eat clean, although not quite as clean as we used to since we now have two Rug Rats and full time jobs! There are a few corners being cut, but in general it's still pretty good (those things you mention rarely if ever feature).

Regarding getting under 92kg, yes, this is something of a mental block for me from a logical perspective, but the point made about not carrying as much muscle as I did before is a good one and helps me realise that the parameters I'm using are not as extreme as I think they are.

Back then I was doing Karate training five times a week and, much as I miss it now, I was pretty ripped and muscular. It's all a distant memory now sadly!

INH - good to hear from you. I like your anecdotes as they give some crumb of comfort. Some days it feels like it's not so much a diet, more just not eating and snacking on the rubbish.

Thanks everyone; all really helpful comments and insights.

if your not karate'ing which imo would give you a good all over workout and you need all the muscle you carried for it - then thats a good reason for not getitng below 92.

if your not doing it now and just cycling then youll find your upperbody shrinks to accomodate it.

your body generally is an amaizingly adaptive machine and its alarming how quick it can adapt once it realises your just going to beat it into submission till it does.

does anyone think that the body comes to weight that it is happy with?
and no matter what you do, short of starvation, weightloss stops.
i have gone from 23 stone to 18ish stone since march last year.
no matter what i do, i cant get under 18 stone. is this my kinda default weight?

Does your base metabolic rate require less calories the less you weigh?

In terms of nutrition, ask yourself if you'd eat this if you were a wild animal. If not, it's not food

eat less, move more. eat something that's been sitting on the kitchen side for a few days, I had a stomach bug last week and dropped 11 or 12 pounds in just a few hours 😥

How realistic is it to get down to below 90kg

Impossible to tell.

Get your body fat measured, that's your starting point. Failing that, post up some pictures of your torso 🙂

does anyone think that the body comes to weight that it is happy with?

Yes, the body resists losing fat more the more you lose, cos it wants to preserve some. How much depends on a complex set of like 20 hormones that are all at different levels and sensitivities in different people.

ask yourself if you'd eat this if you were a wild animal

If I were a wild animal I'd eat whatever the hell I could stuff down my face, and die at the age of 35 probably.

"does anyone think that the body comes to weight that it is happy with?
and no matter what you do, short of starvation, weightloss stops.
i have gone from 23 stone to 18ish stone since march last year.
no matter what i do, i cant get under 18 stone. is this my kinda default weight? "

thats not possible if there is a calorie deficit.

remember the calorie deficit numbers will be different to when you weighed 23 stone .....

thats not possible if there is a calorie deficit.

Calories in vs calories out. The thing is that calories out is not fixed. BMR can vary, as can your ability to exercise.

So as you eat less and move more, you find it harder and harder to exercise and not eat. Eventually you'd feel really run down all the time and be useless on the bike.

It may technically be possible for ton to be 8st but it sure as hell won't be desirable.

it requires more effort to track thats for sure but its not impossible - thats why good pro cyclists have people to track it for them 😉

if your moving more you need to eat more. the idea is to maintain a deficit. you cant eat at your BMR and do 100 miles a day.....well you can ....just dont expect to feel good tomorrow....

there was how ever a time where i was doing 500km a weekend over summer and strugling to keep weight on. - couldnt physically cram the calories down my neck in the form on good food.

under 90kg.....

lets imagine your lean body mass is 88kg and as you currently tip the scales at 102, you are carrying 14kg of fat, 14% BF give or take a gnats wotnot..

now have a look at some pics
http://www.builtlean.com/2012/09/24/body-fat-percentage-men-women/

and see if you are above or below that 14% mark - if you are pretty much on the money, you are going to really struggle to get to 90kg, never mind below, barring a lot of muscle wastage.

there was how ever a time where i was doing 500km a weekend over summer and strugling to keep weight on. - couldnt physically cram the calories down my neck in the form on good food.

Yeah but we are all pretty different. It's almost like comparing people to dogs to horses to birds, just a bit less severe 🙂

thats not possible if there is a calorie deficit.

remember the calorie deficit numbers will be different to when you weighed 23 stone .....

today i have eaten,
a 3 egg omlette with a small tin of mackeral
1 pot of tomato soup

not many calories at all..... 🙂

and see if you are above or below that 14% mark - if you are pretty much on the money, you are going to really struggle to get to 90kg, never mind below, barring a lot of muscle wastage.

Soobilas that's pretty interesting. I guess that when I weighed 92kg then I was probably somewhere between 12 and 15% body fat. I never had a six pack, at least not as well defined as in those pictures, but I wasn't far off.

I must now be somewhere around 25%.

"a 3 egg omlette with a small tin of mackeral
1 pot of tomato soup

not many calories at all"

good lord

i said deficit not starvation.

dont you find your self lacking energy and motivation at that intake.

I must now be somewhere around 25%.

It should also be fairly easy for most people (blokes) to get down to 9-10% [b]but[/b] you will probably have to make a special effort with regards to eating and exercising. The "Racing Weight" book mentioned above makes what IMO is a good point in that [i]all[/i] athletes should be resistance (weight) training as this will change their body composition (i.e. more muscle, less fat) but not necessarily their weight. However the more muscle you have the easier it is to get lean (very simply because you will be expending more calories when you exercise).

good lord

i said deficit not starvation.

that is the kind of diet i have stuck to for the last 10 month to lose the weight.
do you reckon i need to be eating a bit more?

By the way those pictures seem to be of people who have been in the gym. If you are cyclist your upper body probably will never look like that, so it's a bit misleading.

The Four Hour Body also contains pictures like that but shows several people at the same bf percentage, they look quite different.

The "Racing Weight" book mentioned above makes what IMO is a good point in that all athletes should be resistance (weight) training

I may have to read this.. I have no idea what to do in the gym on those machines.

do you reckon i need to be eating a bit more?

If you get stuck, eating more might allow you to exercise harder and therefore lose more weight. It did for me, but I guess that might not work for you!

IME you can get down to 14-16% quite easily with a clean-ish diet and exercise.

The GI of the calories you eat is very important, as we've discussed on here a lot.

Ton - is that all you're eating? Or are you having bread with stuff? It's the little bits that folk dont realise they're eating that boosts the calorie count.

ive never had a 6 pack - but i have been below 10% BF.

BUT i litterally had veins sticking out my thighs, calves and arms

looked like a junky - but boy could i climb.

ton it depends how you feel , even at my weight if i only ate that i would be lethargic and unable to exercise - if you cannot exercise then not eating is only going to get your so far before you plateau.

George, i have eggs for breakfast in some form.
soup for lunch, or chickpeas with tuna.
and chicken, fish or lean meat with veg or salad for tea.

no bread or rice or pasta or buns or biscuits or dairy or fruit........god i hate this diet 😐

If you don't do it already (and are up to it) I think some resistance training would definitely help. Not only will you burn calories whilst doing it but it will increase your BMR. Changing your routine might also give your body a kick up the arse!

Also IMO the worst thing you can do (if you are active) is not eat enough.

"Also IMO the worst thing you can do (if you are active) is not eat enough."

is where i was going with that.

agressive diets are for those that cannot be active.

if your active you need to feed the engine in order to keep being active.

cut the fuel too much , the engine cuts out and you end up trapped in a cant be active , cant burn fuel cycle.

ton - Member
George, i have eggs for breakfast in some form.
soup for lunch, or chickpeas with tuna.
and chicken, fish or lean meat with veg or salad for tea.

no bread or rice or pasta or buns or biscuits or dairy or fruit........god i hate this diet

Yeah that sounds like a fun lifestyle.

[i]Yeah that sounds like a fun lifestyle.[/i]

So, bread, biscuits, buns, etc are lifestyle defining, [i]Fun[/i] ?.

Zilog, Trail rat.
Are you running caloric deficits though ?.
(genuine Q)

[b]geetee1972[/b] - Member
.... it's really hard and I never feel satisfied after meals. I'm hoping it gets easier!

[b]ton[/b] - Member
.... god i hate this diet

You need to find a way to lose/maintain weight [b][i]and[/i][/b] eat satisfying meals. If not, this time next year all that weight will be back on.

Higgo.

I think Ton may be having a bit of a laugh.
Ton has achieved significant weight loss and he's had to do that mostly through diet as high intensity exercise has not been an option.
So in Ton, we see evidence that significant weight loss is possible through changes in diet.
Though ideally, its a combo of both diet and exercise. Obviously.

I'm just curious about peoples views / experiences on caloric deficit / balance.

Zilog, Trail rat.
Are you running caloric deficits though ?.
(genuine Q)

I will try my hardest to do it for a solid week or two though. After iDave-ing at the start of last year I eased off when I reached my then target weight and approx 15% BF. Have maintained till now without trouble and without counting calories, so probably calorie neutral.

However since start of Jan I've decided to try to get down to approx 10% BF and have been losing weight gradually. My lifts have been increasing slowly too which is my crude method of determining that I'm losing fat not muscle mass. This and the fact that I'm sticking quite strictly to clean eating and also eating low-carb during the week leads me to assume that I am indeed in a calorie deficit but as you say it would be interesting to know for sure.

At 2k cals a day on my commute i hope so 😉

I dont actively try these days as im not racing and just riding for pleasure how ever i dont eat too badly when im in the uk although i dropped over a stone eating tuna bread cheese and mars bars for 1 month.

Zilog

Ime if you train hard below 10% you seem to pick up every illness going

Ended up sticking between 10-12% but as molgrips says everyones different.

although i dropped over a stone eating tuna bread cheese and mars bars for 1 month.

Links to that [s]diet[/s] lifestyle please 8)

Its called buy a ticket to turkmenistan and see if you can stomach the local food .... It was either eat that or poop my self thin.

I'm sure it's covered elsewhere on this forum but the intermittent calorie restriction is working well in our house. Easier to sustain if you know you can have a bit of what you fancy tomorrow.

Zilog

Ime if you train hard below 10% you seem to pick up every illness going

Ended up sticking between 10-12% but as molgrips says everyones different.

Ton - how does your diet affect your cholesterol levels?

George, had a blood test a month or so ago after i came off the warfarin.
cholesterol is fine as is my bp.

today i signed up to MFP and logged my food(a fairly typical day i might add , nothing special) and exercise....how ever i dont believe i have that deficit - im fairly sure i still have some of my overly efficient body left over from endurance racing 😉

[img] [/img]

dont know what im having for evening meal yet so left it blank but ill bet if ton did the same his deficit would be huge and keeping his energy sapped.

[i]Ime if you train hard below 10% you seem to pick up every illness going[/i]

[i]I have heard people say this anecdotally before although I'm sure it can't be true as most pro athletes must be under 10% surely? Is there any link between fat mass and immune function? I would have thought as long as you get enough vitamins/minerals/calories you would be OK?[/i]

According to the reading I've done. High quantities of high intensity Cardio work [b]can[/b] suppress immune system function. I have also seen reports of people on high-ish levels of cardio exercise, contracting infections and having to rely on A/Bs to recover.
Draw your own conclusions, but anecdotal remarks such as Trail rat's seem to fall in (for me) with the suggestion that high quantities of cardio exercise may down regulate immune response and so leave the subject more prone to contracting colds, etc.

EDIT:
[i]had a blood test a month or so ago [b]after i came off the warfarin[/b].
cholesterol is fine as is my bp.[/i]
8)
Way to go, Ton.

trail rat, what is the website? i am gonna do it to see what it tells me.
just to let you know, my energy is not sapped, i am just struggling to lose my last stone in weight.
breakfast this morning was 1 slice of flax bread toast with 2 poached eggs.

Trail Rat.

How on earth is your daily caloric allocation, 3500 calories ?.
😯

I note that the low fat yoghurt is 16g sugar, 2g fat. If you're running such a cal deicit, then surely a full fat yoghurt would be ok ?.
Just saying like.
🙂

mrs did the shopping i just take from the fridge ....

MFP tells me its 3500 by me telling it i cycle to and from work and my height and weight - which is why i dont believe i have such a deficit - but i thought it was interesting anyhoo....

how ever - if im honest , now ive seen that im likely to up my calorie intake a fair bit.

also shows how much of a pikey i am with all my aldi shopping :d - my evening meal is huge though - easily double a normal sized meal so that will counteract alot of it.

500 cal in just snacks!!!

all day grazing - tis the way forward keep the metabolism firing

[i]all day grazing - tis the way forward keep the metabolism firing[/i]

Theres certainly those for whom that seems to work.
Not for me though.

depends what your grazing on surely and what your level of activity is - of course grazing wont work if your sedentary and the snacking takes you out of deficit.

i mean i have colleagues here who wonder why they are fat when they see me eating the amount i eat.

their method of all day grazing is on cakes and digestive biscuits.

followed by a stogey overcooked MSG infested lunch from the canteen that leaves you hungry again about 30 minutes later.

[i]depends what your grazing on surely and what your level of activity is - of course grazing wont work if your sedentary and the snacking takes you out of deficit.

i mean i have colleagues here who wonder why they are fat when they see me eating the amount i eat.

their method of all day grazing is on cakes and digestive biscuits.

followed by a stogey overcooked MSG infested lunch from the canteen that leaves you hungry again about 30 minutes later.[/i]

Bingo !. I couldn't agree more with the first line of that post.
I am chained to a desk, hourly paid. So the [i]incentive[/i] is to stay here and work a solid 10-12 hours. Very little physical movement.

As for the [i]What to snack on[/i] or even to eat at your main meals.
Thats something I have given considerable thought to. However, I don't really get hungry between meals, anymore. So the whole grazing thing is passing me by.
I'm not knocking it. If it works for you, carry on.
🙂

Yes, I see it in many offices, when snack / treats are offered around the office. Its usually mini flapjacks, cakes, sweets, etc.
And theres no shortage of chubbers.

i may be repeating stuff, but...

although active i was a big kid and all my adult life was around 15 1/2 (sumer weight) to just below 17st. i too said i was big boned, that it was metabolism etc etc.

long and short, and this will be stating the obviuos, realised a few years back that there is no excuse. its diet, booze and excercise that affects me. get at least two right and i'm ok'ish. finding one day that i was out of breath putting on new wesuit boots i weighed myself and found i was 16st10. shocker that! my weight for the last 3 years since learning this has been around 13st, 12.4 lowest 13.10 highest. last weight in on sat 12st10.

no diet, but i have changed the way i eat quite a bit - and i did'nt really eat badly to begin with. idave diet is the base but i'm not religious with it. i find i cannot eat that much at all without piling on weight, no bread at all in the week.

47 in a few weeks, determined to get under 12st because i've never managed it yet and ideally aiming for 11.4st. can't see any reason why i can't do it.

myfitnesspal - had a disaster with that last night.
I logged my day and was a little shocked to discover at 10pm that i was over 400cals short. So i raided the fridge and put together a pitta with sausages and blue cheese, mmmmm.
then i realise that while ive got my weight/height right, ive put myself in as a woman, changing that and i required a further 300cals, then i notice that the afternoons banana and peanut butter snack had apparently 100g of peanut butter - adjusting that back down and i finish my first day 770cals down. grrr

I've been using myfitnesspal, and it's been quite usefull to show that in general my meals are quiet healty, ballanced and well with in correct calorie bounds. BUT wine and post wine snacking has horrible consiquences...........!!

I'm 4 weeks in and 4 kilos down 🙂

Same situation here as for michaelbowden.

Been using MFP for 4 weeks, and have dropped from 197 to 187lbs. I also find my normal diet is very healthy for the main part, and the things that bump it up are crisps and alcohol on the weekends. Although by very nature of logging what you eat, you tend to eat slightly less than you would normally!

Don't have much problem meeting (but not exceeding) the daily target it sets, but I do halve the calorie estimates it gives for exercise as they seem quite high sometimes. eg: 130 calories for walking at 2.5mph for 30min..

trail rat......this is my page off MFP
have a look and see what you think............i reckon i can afford a huge mahoosive tea. 😆

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/20ston

cant see it - added you as a friend , wonder if that'll help.

im not by any means staying go crazy but there are limits as to what the body can take and if you dont feed it it will start being reluctant to give up its stored energy.

im not by any means staying go crazy but there are limits as to what the body can take and if you dont feed it it will start being reluctant to give up its stored energy.

The MFP site gives you a warning that if you eat too few calories you risk your body going into 'starvation mode' where it will try to store everything as fat to protect itself

Hi Ton, Thanks for the friend accept - but your profile is still coming up as private. Have a look under "My Home - Settings - Profile Privacy Settings" on the MFP webpage.
DA

dave_aber, is it showing now?

a few questions, if i do not eat the amount shown, then i go into calorie deficit?
and this can have a adverse effect on my weightloss by making my body hold on to excess weight?

Still showing as private.

Can you view my profile?

As for the "starvation mode" thing - I've read that on the MFP site, but I've honestly no idea if that's bad science or not.

So far my weight loss has been stop-start, seeming to stall at various points. Maybe this is me over-ding the under-eating (!) and starvation mode setting in. I've not really analysed it too closely TBH. Seems to start off again when I make a good effort on the extra exercise for a few days in a row.

I don't think one or two days of a slight calorie deficit will kick start your body into panicking and firing up the [i]starvation[/i] mode.
imo.

Hence why the odd day or two a week of low caloric intake, the Horizon TV fasting thing, seems to be working for some folk on here.

Caveat: I do know how much the fasting bods have to lose, in the first place.

yes one of two days will be fine - but a lifestyle based around fasting with a huge deficit is not good for you and is more the starvation thing that me and MFP are on about.

the intermittant fasting thing has ground in purely dropping weight. For me performance during the loss is more important than the loss.

[i]For me performance during the loss is more important than the loss.[/i]

Ah !, right. With you then. I'm not so race/performance focused.
I just want to stay in shape. Different goals with paths to those goals which have some things in common.
Good to chat with folk though who have different experiences and results via various methods.

🙂

the intermittant fasting thing has ground in purely dropping weight. For me performance during the loss is more important than the loss.

I don't need to loose fat but am trying to build some upper body muscle and general core strength up. I decided to put my average day into MFP yesterday and was shocked to discover I normally eat over 4000 calories a day 😮 And I didnt include the recovery shake after training last night. Even after training calories were deducted I was still 1600 calories over what I should be eating?

I've been doing this since June(ish) last year and loosing weight fat, I'm about 12%

Cut back on my riding recently as well and substituted with more resistance training had made little difference to fat retention.

One very useful thing I have noticed is that according to MFT im 200 down on the Carb intake.

I have read and this makes me think that it really is what your eating and when (read glycogenic response to food) and not just calories in V's calories out, but I'm interesed to hear what you guys think.

Here's yesterdays page;

[url= https://www.evernote.com/shard/s241/sh/bdfc7fff-b508-4e84-ac8e-9ef7b5aab248/2b5ce271682ab116fd7c73d5534bc366 ]Link[/url]

i started on the MFP thing yesterday. when i went to bed last night, i had 901 calories left to use, but my fat intake (fron 2 tins of mackeral and 1 scotch egg) was over by 17 and my protein was over by 15.

how does that work?

i started on the MFP thing yesterday. when i went to bed last night, i had 901 calories left to use, but my fat intake (fron 2 tins of mackeral and 1 scotch egg) was over by 17 and my protein was over by 15.

how does that work?

MFP system based on needing more carbs that iDiet.

Each weight loss system will have different parameters for intake of carbs, fats and protein. I reckon that you need to pick one method (that has a credible record of success) and stick with it. Mix and match will often lead to dilemmas such as this.

i think you are right mate.
idiet it is then..... 😀

It is possible to have a custom ratio in MFP for fat/protein/carbs. IMO you need a bit of experimentation to find what is right for you personally, also it depends on your activity level.

Thought I would update; it's only been two months but things are going really well.

I'm now down to 97.5 kg as of this morning. The rate of weight loss is slowing down, but it's actually getting easier to achieve for the most part.

I can now easily imagine being just under 90kg; there is no longer a mental block. I can also imagine being 85kg although I am not specifically 'aiming' for that just yet.

To get to 90kg I have 95kg as an interim goal before I start again for sub 90kg.

The calorie intake is steady at between 1500 and 1700; mostly I'm taking in the lower limit with the upper limit being the days I am exercising.

I do occasionally get cravings, either to just eat a whole other portion of something yummy when it's there or otherwise to go crazy and have a curry or something. And in truth, every now and then I've done just that, but it's been maybe three times since Jan.

The thing that has really helped with motivation is weighing myself religiously every morning and getting excited about the weigh in prospect, seeing the weight come off. I know they say you shouldn't do it every day, but I've been able to see the change between each day and that's been exciting.

I've also really noticed the difference on the bike. I've always chased having a light bike and have always felt the benefit of that, but lordy it's nothing compared to the benefit of having lost weight.

I've been on the 5/2 diet for a month, and lost 7 lbs. I am also trying to reshape my upper body, as cycling has been my main form of exercise for many years. An exercise routine called Shred I got from my wife is looking good, and by god I can feel it!!

So on the other five days, about how many calories are you consuming?

I've no idea, really. I try not to gorge all day on cream cakes, but I've had full roast dinner, curry,pizza - whatever I fancy really.

It says eat "normally".

It says eat "normally".

I read that also (hadn't heard of it before) but I wondered what normal meant. For me at least, normal was likely around 2500-2700 calories a day, which is quite a bit more than the 2000 I think is recommended.

I'm consuming between 10,500 and 11,700 calories a week. The 5/2 assumed total would be 11,200, based on 2000 a day five times a week and 600 a day for the remaining two days.

It's hardly surprising then that your rate of weight loss is about the same as mine (3kg a month)

I guess it just goes to show that there's nothing more complicated about it than calories in, calories out.

I've posted before, but will do again. The 5:2 works for me because of my lifestyle, business travel, client meals, etc. I did mfp calories counting for 2 months after Christmas trying to maintain 1500 cals / day and no doubt it was working - but damned difficult to calorie count when in a restaurant in Holland and sitting with your smartphone out trying to guess portion size and how much butter went in the sauce.

So I'm about 6 weeks into the 5:2 plan. Weights still coming off at a rate of 1-2 lbs per week (total 2 stone off in total approx now). Mfp was very useful for teaching me in 2 months which foods are really calories rich and which are filling but calories lean, etc. So my non-fast days are much closer to the 2000-2500 they should be, the odd day / meal out will certainly be more and some will be less, and the 600 cal fast days are easy.

I don't know if the supposed health benefits of intermittent fasting work or not, but as a lifestyle change that's easy to manage and works for me, I'm more than happy with how its working.

PS; looking at the sample pics of men and women at different body fat levels from earlier in the thread - I'd like to be a woman 'cos at 25% body fat I'd look well curvy and fit.

I guess it just goes to show that there's nothing more complicated about it than calories in, calories out.

Calories in/calories out MAY work, but it has a lot of problems, because it IS a lot more complicated than that 🙂

OP, glad you're feeling good about getting the weight off. I've re-read the thread and a few points come to mind.

From your original post:
[i]I've actually [b]done this all once before[/b], up at 110kg, then down to 99kg. That was three years ago [b]and the weight came back on[/b][/i]

[i]Both times success has come through reducing intake to between 1500 and 1800 calories per day.[/i]

[i]I'm managing to limit intake to 1500 [b]but it's really hard and I never feel satisfied after meals.[/b] I'm hoping it gets easier![/i]

That looks to me to indicate [i]yoyoing[/i] and that caloric restriction is a) not sustainable. b) not satiating.

So it confuses me that you believe:
[i]I guess it just goes to show that there's nothing more complicated about it than calories in, calories out.[/i]

As has been discussed on this forum, many times before. There is some merit to being selective with regard to which foods you source your calories from. However, for balance I will acknowledge that there are folk of these ere parts who swear by caloric restriction, albeit that they may be in the earlier stages of employing such a strategy.
To me, the prospect of living a whole life time, in caloric restriction would be a recipe for constant misery and is kind of hinted at here:
[i]I'm managing to limit intake to 1500 but it's really hard and [b]I never feel satisfied after meals.[/b][/i]

But, for now, you seem to be achieving the weight loss you desire, so just see how you get along.
🙂

I guess the point I am making today, versus two months ago, is that the restricted calorie intake is actually getting easier and easier to sustain.

I see this process as not being wholly unlike admitting you're an alcoholic. That's not to trivialise that condition at all; actually far from it. I guess I am a calorie addict and I always will be.

But I'm sat here now, having had three slices of toast for breakfast, a single chicken sandwich with just butter, no mayo for lunch, a very small bowl of pasta and Bolognese sauce and some strawberries and I feel just fine. I'm not hungry; far from it I feel perfectly satiated.