i know people who have, the benefit of having worked with quite a few eating disorder clients over the past 10 years is i’ve seen and closely monitored lots of peoples weights whilst knowing pretty much exactly what they’ve eaten and their exercise level!

you can live entirely on sugar

you dont need to prove it, or argue it, you dont need to be informed, or experienced, just interested in your gut feeling (geddit)

I’ve gone from 139kg to 87kg in the last 20 months. For me exercise has been the most important. When I was exercising well I ate less calories as a result of not wanting to undo the good work. When I wasn’t exercising I found it very difficult to lose weight by diet alone even if I was having less calories than I should have been to lose weight.

when i say entirely on sugar, there will of course be other physical effects of such a limited diet, but that’s not what the threads about. it’s not an online version of that bit in ‘supersize vs superskinny’ where doctor bodyimage and hair issues shows the skinny person photos of illness’ in a darkened room to scare them 😆

but it would probably help clarify, for those looking for the smallest section of what i wrote to argue with… when i said ‘entirely on sugar’ i’m not talking about spoonfuls of cane sugar, i’m talking about choccy bars and sugary drinks. something i’ve seen people survive on for a long time!

either way you can live entirely on sugar and if your burning more than you’re eating you will lose weight… equally you can eat 3000kcals of veg and beans and if you’re only using 600 of them kcals a day, you’ll put on weight.

Second part sounds a reasonable assumption: 3000cal in, 600 out leading to weight gain.
First part sound’s pretty unbelievable.
The only studies I’ve seen where a sugar diet has been tested resulted in people putting on weight even when calorie intake was severely restricted to just 1200 calories per day. Their weight increased.
I’d be interested in any results you’ve seen where people have been able to lose weight on a sugar diet ( even a loose “sugar diet” of choccy bars and fizzy pop), whatever the calories out and in.

but that’s not what the threads about

What do you think about weight loss,
is it driven by diet (for the pedants lets say 90%)
or exercise (90%)
or both (50/50)

i can’t show you studies as releasing patient data would be against confidentiality, but most recently i looked after a chap of lived on chocolate and sugary drinks, totalling about 700-1000kcals a day, he was anorexic and controlled his eating incredibly strictly, with a sugary diet like that it meant his BMR was higher than he was consuming and even with relatively little activity he either maintained being underweight or lost weight. it was only once we imporoved his diet and included a wider range of foods, despite still sticking rigidly to his self-imposed kcal limit he put on weight.

EDIT – for more examples of such people you could indeed try and find some episodes of supersize vs superskinny online 😛

I’d say weight loss is driven by attitude.
If desire for weight loss is greater than desire for cake, weight loss is achieved, and vice versa.

As a side note, everyone I’ve ever met who had a “gland problem” that made them fat also spent an abnormally high percentage of their time stuffing their mouths with cake.

how is that wrong?

Well it depends what you mean by “use” doesn’t it?

A certain amount of calories go into your mouth. Some of it is not processed by your gut. Your body will put some of it into your muscles and liver as glycogen, and put some of it as fat stores. Some of that fat and glycogen goes on keeping your cells alive, some of it goes on the exercise you do. Which type of fuel depends on what exercise you do. Now if you run down your glycogen stores it affects your body and your brain, which affects the actions you take. Those actions affect the state of your body, which then affects the exercise you do and how you feel.

So there’s a shitload of variables and they are all controlled by a dozen or more hormones. Each of us has different sensitivity to those hormones based on genetics, lifestyle and maybe even upbringing.

So it’s complicated.

If you want evidence of how ‘wrong’ or at least severely incomplete your statement is, look for a thin person who eats loads. There are plenty around.

If you want evidence of how ‘wrong’ or at least severely incomplete your statement is, look for a thin person who eats loads. There are plenty around.

there sure are, but considering your detailed post explaining in brief the various ways the body deals with what goes in, something i didn’t neglect to mention, but chose not to elaborate on…. you’ve forgotten i clearly mentioned BMR the thing that causes thin people who eat lots to stay thin. i used the word ‘individual’ several times as to encompass such variables specifically as i knew you’d bring up the point that everyone’s different.

Well clearly, but the original assertion was the simple calories in vs calories out thing.

The question is, calories in and out are massive variables only loosely linked to what you eat and the exercise you do.

The question is, calories in and out are massive variables only loosely linked to what you eat and the exercise you do.

that’s not a question, tis a statement. something i haven’t argued with. i merely stated that although it’s as simple as:

the original assertion was the simple calories in vs calories out thing.

there are lots of variables based on the individual that will influence this, but when it comes down to it you can’t hide from the calories our vs calories in factor as for the general population, apart from those with illnesses that effect BMR or the way in which the body processes nutrients… it holds true.

we’re saying the same thing molly, but it appears that you’ve decided to jump on what i’ve said and accuse me of being wrong. cheers!

Q;
What do you think about weight loss,
is it driven by diet (for the pedants lets say 90%)
or exercise (90%)
or both (50/50)

Yes.

so back to the OP…. change of diet (not short term/fad diet) for long term weight loss, exercise to influence weight loss and/or muscle size and definition. poor diet will limit the effects of exercise but poor exercise wont be detrimental to the effects of a healthy diet.

Well this morning I bust through my intermediate target of 95 kilos. I’m aiming overall at 90. But via mid targets of 95 & 92.5 to allow that feeling of accomplishment, and to re-assess if 90 still seems a sensible target. At the start I was at the lowest point of a pretty constant sin wave between three belt notches going back about 13/14 yrs, and weighed 100kg, so I knew that getting rid of the stuff I’d had for around half my life was really going to take a while.

My stratergy has been based around experience and finding what works for me. No spud etc in the evening – fill up on veg, make a big batch of soup from chicken stock with carrots, leaks bits of chicken and a healthy quota of country soup mix, lentals/pulses grain etc. Its these which make the soup stodgy and stop me being hungry afterward (usually). Also soup can be heated pretty quickly after getting in, so less impotus to snack while waiting for main meal (i’m terrible for this, especially when doing a roast as I pick the fatty bits off while doing the gravy).

Porridge for breakfast, and a cheese sandwich for lunch with lots of salad. So I’m not cutting out nice things cheese/ whole milk etc. But I’m also not having pizza curry, not drinking much etc, and NOT SNACKING. But this would work until I seem to hit a barrier that I just don’t break through 98kg was on, as was 96.5. I might dip down to it, but would then just hover regardless of diet.

A few intensive rides (14 mile of road and track busting a gut, or less bust a gut but well paced constant ride 30 milers both with a fair few climbs) can help me punch through that barrier, and then even if my body corrects and I go back up for a couple of days, a few more days of sensible eating will see me drop back down and keep going to the next one.

Best rule: don’t hoover

this is my problem, I am the family food hoover. Have been since I was a child. Always hungry. Always have been. Always will be. And people will always goad me into just finishing things that are left to save them having to shove it in the fridge/bin it. And I hate waste…

we’re saying the same thing molly, but it appears that you’ve decided to jump on what i’ve said and accuse me of being wrong. cheers!

Alright then, how about “unhelpfully over-simplistic for exercising people”..?

either way you can live entirely on sugar and if your burning more than you’re eating you will lose weight … even massively restricting the calorie intake to between 700 and 1000 a day you can still maintain weight.

It might be simple Molly, but it’s true. Same as not doing a lot of exersize and eating sweeties and cake, right? 😆

Well there’s true, and there’s useful.

The answer to world hunger, as any fool knows, is to create lots of food and distribute it to those who need it. Poor? Just earn more and spend less. Easy. Wan’t to end war? Just get people to stop fighting.

This stuff is just sooo simple, isn’t it?

unhelpfully over-simplistic for exercising people

i believe the OP was asking a simplistic question.

so despite you accusing me of being wrong, then changing that to being unhelpful and too simplistic, despite not going into much greater detail yourself, or going into that detail at all to begin with when saying it’s wrong…. it’s somehow me that’s being the bad guy here?

cheers again molly!

people will always goad me into just finishing things that are left to save them having to shove it in the fridge/bin it.

this happens to me all the time, especially when at the inlaws, which is pretty frequent. as the youngest male (apart from the kids) round the table I always get double helpings even when I say no thanks. this combined with my immense displeasure of leaving any food on the plate really annoys me.

double helpings even when I say no thanks.

Yup. “Oh, yes, Unklehomer will want all this crackling as well there we go, and You can fit another sausage in can’t you. We’ve got some cream left just finish that off ” and its on your plate befote you can say anything.

*not all from the same course obviously, that would be weird.

sounds delicious! i had 8 sausages with my dinner yesterday! nomnomnom

ok, a quick count and some assumptions about what your answers really mean…… shows only really one person claiming the 90% exercise option,
from a forum of people who actually do some exercise.

i know if i ask around my office, (15pers, 13 overweight/inactive) the answer will be reversed and that 13 people will assure me that its exercise (or lack of) and not diet.

I think this is worth repeating tho.

take a bow Jamie1991

I’ve gone from 139kg to 87kg in the last 20 months

in anyones eyes, and by whatever means that is good going.

I missed that one, Bloody well done Jamie. That must have taken real discipline and continued commitment.

13 people will assure me that its exercise (or lack of) and not diet.

Will they perchance be partaking of some form of snack while the tell you this. Will bits of that snack fly past your head as they do? 🙂

it’s somehow me that’s being the bad guy here?

Not at all, I hope you didn’t think that by disagreeing with you I am calling you a bad guy…?

My first post answered the OP’s question.. then I took issue with the calories in/out thing.

I quite strongly believe that saying ‘it’s that simple’ harms people’s chances of successful weight loss. There’s much more going on, and people need to understand that. I don’t want to baffle anyone with science but I do think there are more helpful ways of dealing with it. For the general public.

And for the record I am not talking about the morbidly obese, that’s a whole different issue imo.

This morning I put some double cream on my museli – made it taste yummy!
Prob best not to make a habit of that!

DrP

Exercise plays a big part but the part it plays diminishes with age IME

Diet. Basal metabolic rate accounts for far more calories than most people’s exercise. You can’t cheat the laws of thermodynamics, I’m afraid. The sad thing is the variability in calories needed to maintain BMR. For some, like me it’s a lot of calories, for others it is far less. Variability in food intake is much lower than BMR, so some people will have a propensity to gain weight. Exercise is a weak covariate of body weight.

That and eat a big breakfast.

You can’t cheat the laws of thermodynamics

Clearly, but just as obviously we’re not simple heat engines.

diet more so than exercise. It’s easier not to eat the pie & ice cream than it is to burn off the excess calories that it contains.

most people eat far too much carbohydrate and sugar than their bodies require and the excess energy consumed is stored as fat – simple as that.

Not entirely, but food intake changes on a timescale of hours, and weight on a timescale of days to weeks. Therefore, over the longer term, everyone eats sufficient calories to weigh what they do. Want to weigh less? Eat the right number of calories for YOUR body to weigh that weight. Indefinitely. The cruel fact is that this calories are very person-specific, and satiety may no be reached, Hence some people are heavier, despite the same calorie input.

But.. eating sugars makes your pancreas produce insulin, and this forces your body to lay down fat, irrespective of how much exercise you do later in the day.

If you have sugary stuff at lunch then your blood sugar will be low at hometime and you won’t be able to work as hard on the commute home.

It’s been shown that if you eat the same amount of calories with high carb or high fat, you will lose more weight if you eat the high fat.

Where does that leave the simple calories in/out equation?

If you have sugary stuff at lunch then your blood sugar will be low at hometime and you won’t be able to work as hard on the commute home.

Steak sandwich today for me but ………. I normally sleep on my way home, will I be able to sleep as hard?

I eat a lot, and generally a lot of the wrong stuff. High sugar, high starch content. Plenty of chocolate and white things, sweets, soft drinks.

I’m skinny though because I ride a lot and I ride very hard. Every commute is a time trial, every recreational ride is a hilly death march. (or another time trial). I should be the fastest man on earth but genetics clearly dealt me a painful blow in that respect. (that’s my excuse)

Anyway, 100% exercise for me. I bet if I dieted a little bit as well I’d be very lean.

edit: exercise is easy for me because I deserve to be punished all the time through pain, dieting is hard because I’m weak.

It’s been shown that if you eat the same amount of calories with high carb or high fat, you will lose more weight if you eat the high fat.

Where does that leave the simple calories in/out equation?

but you’re still losing weight, just different amounts…. so the thermo law still applies no? 😕

Oh yeah.. forgot about timing of eating.

Insulin stimulates your cells to burn more glycogen and less fat. So if you eat sugary things before a ride (3 hours or so) then chances are you won’t burn as much fat as you ride. You’ll burn more glycogen during the ride, your blood sugar will end up lower which will make you want to eat sugary things, and feel like crap if you don’t.

I’ve been eating plenty of junk this week but only after exercise, of which I’ve done a fair amount. As I sit here my belt is on a tighter hole than it was on Monday.

but you’re still losing weight, just different amounts…. so the thermo law still applies no?

No, not really. A calorie is a measure of energy, so the same amount of energy in and out should result in the SAME amount of weight loss if the simple formula was sufficient – but studies show that it doesn’t. Your body handles calories from fat and carbs differently both at the time you eat them and when you are exercising.

I’m skinny though

Have you ever been fat? Would you be actually properly fat if you just sat around?

As a side note, everyone I’ve ever met who had a “gland problem” that made them fat also spent an abnormally high percentage of their time stuffing their mouths with cake.

Well, you obviously haven’t met me! And I’m not getting drawn into an argument about how **** useless the GPs I’ve encountered are concerning a thyroid disorder. But, please, don’t automatically assume that a fat person eats rubbish all day.

A calorie is a measure of energy

indeed, you dont need to tell me that dude….

so the same amount of energy in and out should result in the SAME amount of weight loss if the simple formula was sufficient – but studies show that it doesn’t. Your body handles calories from fat and carbs differently both at the time you eat them and when you are exercising.

we’ve already mentioned the body handling the types of nutrients differently, nobody denying that! So are you saying that the law of thermodynamics is wrong? if studies have shown its wrong then it’s wrong and we can stop going on about it….

concerning a thyroid disorder. But, please, don’t automatically assume that a fat person eats rubbish all day.

i hope that nobody on here is silly enough to assume that ALL overweight people are only overweight because of an addiction to mr kipling’s treats….

however, diet can go a long way to managing the weight loss/gain cased by the changing BMR of people suffering from thyroid disorders, its difficult when the meds aren’t at the right level for the individual, but once they’re stabilised, adjusting diet can be used to manage weight gain…. more effectively that weight loss in my experience.