I don’t mind if it’s aggressive
You really do mind. I think there was a report at the beginning of this year where they checked people who had been on extreme diets a year later and most had rebounded to heavier than before. The theory seems to be that the extreme diet lowers the basic burn rate of your body and then it stays lower for a long time after you go back to eating normally so you put on more weight than before. As others have said, the trick seems to be to change your standard behaviour to eat a little less normally rather than 'dieting' and going back to what you did before
Every time I have lost weight none of my food looked like salad all the time, still did it with bread, eggs, sausages, bacon, pasta, rice and all that. Just a bit less, as for snacking it’s easy to fix by not buying the crap, a bag of apples by my desk was a great substitute for when you feel hungry.
The other option is start every meal with half a plate of salad. By the time you've put some leaves, chopped a whole tomato and a bit of cucumber onto your plate it doesn't leave much space for the spag bol or whatever. Instant 50% reduction in calories (salad has none worth counting) but you still have a visibly full plate of food for your brain to see (and it's got more colours to it), and it takes longer to eat so your gut has time to process the fact that it's getting full which makes you less likely to want pudding.
Does anyone else find that after eating (especially a healthy meal) I don't feel full until an hour or 2 later. So when I don't get the carb/sugar endorphins release from a meal, I still feel hungry for that period until I realise that actually I am full. It is just that my brain is triggered by a carb response rather than by my stomach actually feeling full..
Does anyone else find that after eating (especially a healthy meal) I don’t feel full until an hour or 2 later. So when I don’t get the carb/sugar endorphins release from a meal, I still feel hungry for that period until I realise that actually I am full. It is just that my brain is triggered by a carb response rather than by my stomach actually feeling full..
Yes, there's loads of ways your digestive system sends reward signals to the brain saying it's full. From your tastebuds sensing carbs (you can get a measurable increase in performance just swilling some sugary water round in your mouth and spitting it out!), Your stomach can sense when it's stretched, your gut senses when there's food/nutrients.
So the bulkier and slower digesting the food, the longer it will convince the gut that it's full for.
I found this really difficult in the mornings, I used to be one of those people that would eat 4 (or more) weetabix, a massive bowl of porridge or cornflakes right to the rim of the bowl. Then I went through a few weeks of eating a 'portion' of porridge which is apparently 30-50g of oats (2 tablespoons) with milk! Once into the habit of going to work 'not full' I found I actually craved snacks less. Being 'full' is a fairly fleeting feeling, even after a big christmas dinner you're not 'full' anymore a couple of hours later even though your gut has enough nutrients for the rest of the week probably!
So not only is my breakfast now about 1/3 the size it was, I don't need a muffin and latte from the coffee shop mid morning! Still have a cafetiere and a biscuit though, I'm not a heathen!
*sigh*
Anyway, just to let you know, most squash including the standard Robinson's stuff has next to no sugar in it. It's sweetened with artificial sweeteners. So if you are including diet soft drinks, you can include squash.
*sigh*
Are you full? 🙂
Check this guy out, talks loads of sense :
I do get a bit fed up with the simplistic advice to 'move more, eat less' or Calories in calories out. There are a lot of other things at play in the body when it comes to eating and diet.
1. Two vital hormones play a big part in how much we eat is Grehlin and leptin. Grehlin is an appetite-increasing hormone. It essentially makes you hungry. ghrelin reduces fat utilization and is a vital component of the food reward cascade controlled by the brain’s pleasure-reward system. People with more fat tend to produce more Grehlin . Leptin is an appetite suppressant hormone. It notifies the brain that you have eaten enough and energy levels are sufficient. The effect of these hormones on hunger and satiety don't seem to be measured in many of these studies
2. The problem with calorie restriction is your body is clever at reducing it's basal metabolic rate meaning your metabolism slows down. By doing this the levels of grehlin increase if you're consistently under-eating. Also if you eat highly processed, calorie dense typically high sugar foods then this feedback system telling the brain you are full doesn't work as well. This is why the type of calorie is very important. It's easy to consume 1000's of calories of high glycemic carbohydrates but very hard to do this for fat and protein. Try eating 5000 - calories of fat. It's very very hard because of grehlin and leptin hormones
3. Insulin is the other very important hormone. It is the fat storage hormone. When there is lots of insulin in the body we store fat. At the same time this blocks fat utilisation. What people fail to recognise is most of these 'diets: intermittent fasting, idave, 4 hour body, atkins. They are target the insulin response to food not reduced calories. The lower amount of insulin in the body the more chance you have of burning fat. High insulin tells out body to store energy. Low insulin signals our body to use stored energy food
4. Calories are a unit of heat measurement in a controlled environment. The amount of energy require to raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. The body isn't a closed system. As I saw somewhere recently ' The calorie discussion is a physics definition rather than a biological one
So with this knowledge it seems very simple to me. Target eating via the insulin lowering model. Lowering insulin, we tell our bodies that there is no food coming in. Therefore, the body switches from burning the calories from food, to burning the calories from our body fat. Our body wants to burn 2000 calories, but it just gets them from body fat instead of food. Instead of restricting energy (calories), our body is switching fuel sources, from food to stored food (body fat). But this can only happen if we correct the underlying hormonal problem of excessive insulin.
The calories In Calories out model has shown to be a failure: https://idmprogram.com/evidence-caloric-restriction/
https://www.dietdoctor.com/obesity-solving-two-compartment-problem
Understanding Obestiy
Classic! 🙂
Write a list, including amounts, of all the snacks you eat per day.
Limit yourself to no more than half of it per day.
If you feel your current fitness can take it, try to do 30-60mins per day of intensive exercise.
Indeed ..Brilliant 🙂
I’m having a great deal of success with low carb high fat at the moment. Over 4 and half months I’ve dropped 15.5kg and that includes a good few “cheat weekends” where I’ve gone away for the weekend and had booze and loads of carbs.
I’d tried counting calories before, but failed to lose weight over the longer term, even when I was supposed to be in a defecit. It had worked initially but failed after 6 weeks or so.
i think you’ve got to find what works for you.
I’m having a great deal of success with low carb high fat at the moment. Over 4 and half months I’ve dropped 15.5kg
Amazing.. Good work.This is targetting the insulin response to food. I did the same about 4 years ago following idave's diet to get to a good racing weight. i dropped from 76 to 67 in 4 months. I previously tried lower calories and moving more - loads of running, cycling gym but it never made me lost fat/weight. I was very dubious about the high fat claims but once trying it and doing more reading about it is now makes complete sense once you understand the underlying scientific model
about 7 -8 months ago i gave up sugar and fruit for 3 months.. i actually got a bit of a 6 pack for the first time in my life. I've since tried to do it again but find it almost impossible to give it up again. sugar is so addictive
https://realmealrevolution.com/banting-diet-facts/
https://realmealrevolution.com/10-commandments-beginner-banting/
I’m with IHN (I skip breakfast 4-5 days a week) and trickydisco (I heard a really interesting radio programme called ‘not all calories are equal’, or something like that about 6 years ago). The premise that your body is a closed physical system is simply debunked by if you under eat you will cease to exist which plainly can’t happen (bones, tissue, etc, has a weight and won’t change that much if you under eat by 500 cals a day for the system/equation to be right you must lose weight (if you undereat...).
I did the idave diet about 6 years ago and lost over three stone, however i found it unsustainable and in the intervening time I put it all back on (and more) culminating in around April being the heaviest I’ve ever been. Concentrating on a new job meant I was working long hours and eating a lot (and I mean a lot) of shitty food. I’ve currently turned this around by cutting back my hours (the one year settling in period expired in May, it was never going to be sustainable) and (mainly) skipping breakfast... lunch is usually a pack of Nairn oatcakes and some cheese, a tub of hummus with carrot/pepper crudités or (if I go all out) tuna and chick pea salad. I usually have a bag of mixed nuts (or even peanuts) in the drawer and if I’m still/get hungry a small handful or two usually tides me over.
evening meals are more problematic. But by eating stuff that isn’t going to kick in with an insulin spike is the aim.
im not calorie counting, but I have sworn off ice cream (a MAJOR downfall) and chocolate/sweets/etc and I’ve lost knocking on 12 kg since my ‘peak’ 3-4 months ago.
i have increased my activity levels (just back from cycling across the highlands and back for instance) for which the weather has definitely helped.
IME, the long and short of it is, mental attitude is crucial (my state of mental mind didn’t help, although ironically, I kind of had an ‘existential crisis’ a month ago which I utilised to lose 4kg inc being ‘dry’ more because alcohol wasn’t a good idea), the eat less should really be eat properly (again, not ALL calories are equal, and, importantly don’t overeat) and, yes, increased activity definitely helps. I actually find exercise a bit of an appetite suppressant so it’s a bit of a virtuous cycle...
The idave diet tells me I can wobble as long as I don’t let it become a habit (although he recommended a day of eating whatever shit you liked iirc). I also think that the ‘fasting’ element helps you recalibrate what hunger actually is...
everybody is different though...
+1 for the 5/2 diet for me, other than when I was a runner it's the only way I've managed to loose weight - my wife is a bloody good cook and a feeder so I have to remind her what days I'm not eating much otherwise she gets upset.
The stress hormone (cortisol) also has a direct affect on weight gain and loss. So if you are unhappy and/or angry with your life, overworked or have serious worries. Then you will almost inevitably gain weight far easier (not just because you comfort eat).
@MSP: do you have sources for that? I’m not doubting it has an effect, it’s just that I’ve found (personally) that ‘extreme’ stress has the opposite effect... but at a lower level I’m with you all the way.
Agree metalheart, properly stressed my appetite is one of the first things to go.....
It's not about short term high stress levels, but the long term stress that modern life can bring. Stress is meant to be a short term safety mechanism, it pumps adrenalin, insulin and sugar into your bloodstream to prepare for "fight or flight" it is cortisol that controls that. When we have a low level long term increase in that action it messes with a lot of our biological systems.
I think I heard it discussed on a podcast, so with my listening habits it was probably either freakonomics, the infinite monkey cage or joe rogan.
I also heard another podcast with a researcher into gene expression, that was quite interesting, he was saying that they are getting fairly good at predicting what dietery changes are optimal for a person by looking at their gene sequences, although not quite good enough to really release to the general public. What was quite clear was that there is no one size fits all nutrition plan. Some might do well with high protein and fats, while others will respond better to having higher carb levels. At the moment all we can do to find out what works for us as an individual is trial and error.
And that probably works for stress as well, while maybe the majority reaction to stress would be to put on weight, others might respond differently due to their genetics.
Ah, okay, that kinda makes sense.
thanks for responding.
Join your local boxing club.
Don't eat rubbish.
That's it.
Im not sure that anybody is actually interested but this link summarises what I talking about up there:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-reasons-why-a-calorie-is-not-a-calorie#section7
For me, the biggest takeaway is this from the summary: “in many cases, simple changes in food selection can lead lead to the same or better results than restricting your calorie intake”
im finding this is the case for me...
Following on from this, is there an app that will combine the exercise from garmin/Strava with my food intake from samsung health/myfitness?
Just discovered that I wasn't looking hard enough at the my fitness pal app.
I have now linked Garmin Connect, Strava and Google Fit to it.
What a good piece of tech, cheers.
Astroturf can also help a calorie deficit.
It can also help with a forum membership surfeit. (-:
Some interesting research back in May around High GI foods and Metabolic damage and how the role of 2 important hormones in the guy interact with insulin resistance, adipose tissue subclinical inflammation, hepatic fat accumulation, and postprandial vascular responses.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043276018300468
In summary, high-GI carbohydrates differ from low-GI carbohydrates, specifically by releasing GIP. There is ample evidence for metabolically unfavorable effects of GIP regarding insulin sensitivity, fatty liver disease, subclinical inflammation, and promotion of diabetes and cardiovascular disease (Figure 4). The hormonal responses of the intestine to a sugar with low GI, which induces little release of GIP but greater amounts of GLP-1, result in metabolic improvements in healthy individuals and in people with impaired glucose metabolism or overt type 2 diabetes, providing strong evidence that GIP plays a central role in mediating the deleterious effects of high-GI foods, while reducing the release of GIP may explain much of the health benefits of low GI foods.
Essentially i't saying there is a hormone located in the intestine that induces insulin secretion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucagon-like_peptide-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_inhibitory_polypeptide
I know the core of this thread is a month old, but I fancy chipping in.
A few things I've learned in the last couple of years.
Ignore people who give you useful advice like "move more, eat less dummy" being over-weight isn't stupidity, you don't need to be Brian Cox to work out that if you consume 3000 calories a day in food and 'burn' 2000 you'll get fatter. It's a psychological problem that those types of people don't have. You might as well tell an Alcoholic "stop drinking dummy"
MFA is pretty good, if you can stick to it, but as above, real weight problems are psychological, frankly it stopped working for me as soon as a started adding calories back after riding - oh I burnt 1300 cals today, lets have a pie, I swear I'd let that ride compensate for snacks all week.
Tragically perhaps I go to Slimming World, since my boss left I think I'm now officially the only Man there. The 'plan' is made to seem complex, but it's simple really, you eat low density foods, there's a complex points system that allows for a few things, usually condiments for me. You go once a week, you step on the scale, and then there's a meeting you don't have to stay for, I really should - it's like AA, "Hi, I'm P-Jay and I'm a fatty" but I don't, I'm in a room with 40 others who seem to have all the time in the world to chat. I'm told I should accept it's an hour long and enjoy the rest, but I can't. It just takes too long.
It's not a fast fix, people do lose 3-4 lbs a week or more, but generally it's the 2lbs mark.You chip away at it.
Sadly like being an Alcoholic, I don't think you're ever cured. When depression and Anxiety were kicking my arse last year I stopped going for about a year, I put back on about half what I lost in the 6 months previous, which was a shame.
There's a system in place, once you reach your goal (it's usually about BMI normal but you set it yourself) you can keep going, as often as you like, for free - people tend to drop in once a month, occasionally if the weight creeps on at least it's not a surprise to them.
As above, the meetings are tragic, when I do stay I have to fight the urge to say "DUST!" every 5 mins. But it works.
I think I'm getting on quite well with the myfitnesspal thingy. It's linked to my Garmin and it's really got me thinking about the snacks I ingest.
So far I'm down from 78k to 77.1k if my crap scales are to be believed. Only another 4k's to go.
The challenge will be keeping up the food diary when I get down to something near my desired weight obviously.
I’ve lost 3 stone since Xmas through intermittent fasting and riding my local red trail.
Havin a ride before I eat seems to kill fat quicker.
I’ve lost 3 1/2 stone since last year.
It’s important to recognise what works for one doesn’t work for all.
What I did was to take up running. I only need 30 minutes to get a run in and run 5 days a week.
Exercise alone doesn’t shift weight but it provides a focus for me to eat well and as I shed weight the speed went up .
I’m out and about for work a lot and rarely at home so prepared meals do t really work for me.
Instead I use my fitness pal to monitor what I eat and it’s a really useful tool as I have a measure of exactly what calories I’m consuming whether I’m out in a restaurant, picking up a sandwich or early g at home.
It also gives you a macro showing carb/protein/fat and I quickly realised I was too dependent on carbs and not consuming enough proteins.
I’m never going to be able to follow a rigid diet and I can still allow myself a beer or a cake so my fitness pal works for me.
It is also connected to my Strava so I can trade extra run distance for calories.
I weigh myself a coupe of times a week. That way you get to notice normal weight fluctuations but quickly see if there isn’t an upward trend and can act on it quickly.
