I have always been a “big lad” my weight tends to go between 100-110kgs, and this really does not change even with extreme amounts of dieting or exercise. Whilst i have friends who are 9 stone, who rarely exercise, who eat take away constantly and drink alcohol to excess, their BMI deeming them underweight, whilst mine deems me obese.

One year ago I used phrased like “deemed me obese” or “technically obese”. Then I woke up and realized obese is obese.

I have simply lived to learn with being a big lad, i am happy when i go to the doctors and they tell me my blood pressure is normal, and that my heart is healthy

I thought that a year ago too. Then one day my blood pressure was right at the top of normal and losing weight suddenly seemed like a very good idea. 6 months later my blood pressure was ‘Ideal’.

We can go decades being overweight and get away with it in the same way that people smoke and get away with it for years. Some people get away with it forever. …but not all of us.

I’m glad I lost weight. I have more energy, feel terrific, sleep better, rarely feel tired. 12 months ago I though I was fit but fat. I wasn’t: I was a wreck, I just didn’t know how much better things could be.

That’s me, of course, YMMV, but you’re saying the same things I said for years.

Obesity is second leading cause of preventable death behind smoking and all it takes to fix it is a few changes of habit.

PS: Exercise is overrated as a fat burning mechanism. I just worked off 500 calories, it half killed me. Substituting Cauliflower Rice for Rice in my tea tonight will save me that and I won’t even notice. Exercise helps blood pressure though.

The trouble is though at 5’10”, even when i was down to about 14% body fat and could run a mountain marathon or had come back from 8 months in Iraq, i was still technically obese when it came to BMI, and that was in my 20’s, now i am in my 40’s it is even more difficult.

I have had months of calorie counting, using myfitnesspal logging every calorie in and then counting every calorie supposedly burnt on Garmin (i know these are wholly inaccurate), my diet on the whole is fairly good, during January, not a drop of alcohol, every meal was home cooked- bar one, small bowl of porridge cooked from jumbo oats or 2 boiled eggs for breakfast, 2 apples mid morning, lunch when at work is chicken breast, broccoli, half cup full of brown rice and a splash of sweet chill sauce, an hour on turbo or weights and a half decent sized home cooked meal. Not a ib of movement in weight!

I have spent 7 months driving from Portsmouth to Cape Town through Africa, even then the only time i lost weight was when i had the “Tajine Two-Step”.

I am not really “fat”, but always carry about a stone around my middle that i struggle to get rid of that last bit.

@outofbreath /\ That.

It is really is not just simply a case of calories in/ calories out.

Unless you have a medical reason, it really is. You just need to find the point where the difference happens. As Mr Instagram, James Smith says, unless you’re a solar panel & converting solar rays into energy, if you’re not losing weight, you’re eating too much Vs your relative output.

Obviously peoples outputs vary, as you have stated – we all know that person who can eat everything in sight & never change weight. Hell, I was that person 15 years ago. We also all know that person who just has to look in the general direction of food to put weight on too. Their diets should reflect their output accordingly.

I have had months of calorie counting, using myfitnesspal logging every calorie in and then counting every calorie supposedly burnt on Garmin (i know these are wholly inaccurate), my diet on the whole is fairly good, during January, not a drop of alcohol, every meal was home cooked- bar one, small bowl of porridge cooked from jumbo oats or 2 boiled eggs for breakfast, 2 apples mid morning, lunch when at work is chicken breast, broccoli, half cup full of brown rice and a splash of sweet chill sauce, an hour on turbo or weights and a half decent sized home cooked meal. Not a ib of movement in weight!

It’s really simple. Eat less.

It is really is not just simply a case of calories in/ calories out.

In terms of losing weight, it really is. You may want to change “simple” for “straightforward” or “uncomplicated” as plenty of people seem to think that “simple” is always a synonym for “easy” but to try and deny basic thermodynamics is foolish.

Whilst i have friends who are 9 stone, who rarely exercise, who eat take away constantly and drink alcohol to excess, their BMI deeming them underweight, whilst mine deems me obese.

Honestly, so what? You think it’s “unfair” that other people get to stay thin whilst having a crap diet? Who cares if it isn’t fair, it has no bearing whatsoever on YOU being overweight. Stop comparing yourself in this way and focus on what you want to do.

It is really is not just simply a case of calories in/ calories out.

I think to be a bit more accurate it should be calories absorbed rather than calories in should it not? I don’t imagine that we process at 100% efficiency and that helps explain the funny things like your body going into a starvation mode where it processes more efficiently as well as lowering your BMR

The trouble is though at 5’10”, even when i was down to about 14% body fat and could run a mountain marathon or had come back from 8 months in Iraq, i was still technically obese when it came to BMI, and that was in my 20’s, now i am in my 40’s it is even more difficult.

It’s just possible you’re one of the people for whom the BMI calculation doesn’t really work for various reasons. There are other (better) measures, google “waist circumference”.

Again, I spent a lot of years assuming my weight had a large component of muscle. In my case I realize now I was just kidding myself.

Age: I’m 46 BTW, and I got my wake-up call at 45 and lost 3 stone in 6 months, just by changing habits. (Habits I don’t miss, at all.)

.

I think to be a bit more accurate it should be calories absorbed rather than calories in should it not? I don’t imagine that we process at 100% efficiency and that helps explain the funny things like your body going into a starvation mode where it processes more efficiently as well as lowering your BMR

True, but why complicate it? ‘Calories in-Calories out’ works fine. I know roughly what I eat, my watch tells me roughly what I burn. Why add an extra (infinitely complicated) factor?

it is is not simply calories in/ calories

On the losing side of the equation it is. If you’re in deficit you *will* lose weight.

I’m sure that on the gaining side it might not be so simple because your body can only store so much so quickly, but for the purposes of this conversation we really don’t care about the “credit” side we only care about the ‘deficit’ side and that’s pretty simple. If you’re short on calories your body starts to burn fat and muscle.

Calories in/ calories out doesn’t work though in isolation though does it?

If i subject you to increased cortisol levels, then you’d have a different outcome, or reduced sleep.

if you consumed 1000 calories via cooked, low fibre, high sugar, compared to 100 calories via raw, high fibre low-Gi foods, then result would be different.

If i gave my Type 1 daughter too much insulin, it wouldn’t matter what she ate, she’d be skinny- it is the basis of dia-bulimia.

A 20 year and a 50 year old with comparable calories in and who cycled the same amount, would have different results, as would a man compared to a woman.

The issue is that it is far from being, just calories in and calories out.

Some of the least healthy people i have met and been underweight, or of a “Normal” weight, i am not saying being overweight is a good thing, just that it is not as simple as some above state.

Calories in/ calories out doesn’t work though in isolation though does it?

It really does. If you stop eating you lose weight and ultimately die. Everything else is detail and can be ignored.

Take me: A year ago I ate less. I lost weight. My blood pressure reduced. Given all the factors you’ve listed above, what should I have done differently?

Calories in/ calories out doesn’t work though in isolation though does it?

Again, unless you have an underlying medical reason, then yeah, it does.

If you burn more than you eat, you lose weight.

I’m not fat I’m just not as efficient at burning food as you.

Forget the label calorie and it’s spurious measure of how much energy a human can extract from food. You get more energy than you expend… you get fat, it is that simple.

So by your reckoning two identical people of the same weight, same age and eating comparable calories for the last five years.

Both reduce their calorie intake by 500 calories a day.

Both cycle for 2 hours at 14 miles an a day.

They will both lose the exact same amount?

As stated, there are more factors to it, you subject one to 8 hours sleep and one to 4.

You subject one to obtaining half of his calories from alcohol and most of his calories after 9pm at night etc, whilst the other does not drink and stops eating after 7pm

It is not purely the maths of calories in/ calories out, they’re are other factors at play.

So by your reckoning two identical people of the same weight, same age and eating comparable calories for the last five years.

Both reduce their calorie intake by 500 calories a day.

Both cycle for 2 hours at 14 miles an a day.

They will both lose the exact same amount?

Well if they are actually IDENTICAL then yes 😉

So external factors inflicted on them would have no bearing at all?

hormones/ sleep/ stress/ type of food consumed/ when those calories were consumed etc.

it is simply calories in/ calories out and all the attached articles on this thread are baloney?

So by your reckoning two identical people of the same weight, same age and eating comparable calories for the last five years.

Both reduce their calorie intake by 500 calories a day.

Both cycle for 2 hours at 14 miles an a day.

They will both lose the exact same amount?

As stated, there are more factors to it, you subject one to 8 hours sleep and one to 4.

You subject one to obtaining half of his calories from alcohol and most of his calories after 9pm at night etc, whilst the other does not drink and stops eating after 7pm

It is not purely the maths of calories in/ calories out, they’re are other factors at play.

At an individual level, none of that matters.

Not losing weight? Eat less. Repeat until you lose weight.

On a slightly more serious note, from how you have framed the question then no, but that’s at last in part because you haven’t framed the question very well. If you take two basically similar people and put them into an overall energy deficit (taking into account ALL energy outputs i.e. including the unabsorbed energy in their shit) of 500 calories then yes they would lose weight. There would be a mixture of lean and fat loss but they would still lose weight.

Eating at different times makes no difference note getting enough sleep makes no difference given the way you have framed the question.

Not getting enough sleep isn’t helpful in terms of losing weight because you end up making “bad” decisions in terms of what you choose to eat but if you eat the same thing then you’ll lose weight.

So by your reckoning two identical people of the same weight, same age and eating comparable calories for the last five years.

Both reduce their calorie intake by 500 calories a day.

Both cycle for 2 hours at 14 miles an a day.

They will both lose the exact same amount?

As stated, there are more factors to it, you subject one to 8 hours sleep and one to 4.

You subject one to obtaining half of his calories from alcohol and most of his calories after 9pm at night etc, whilst the other does not drink and stops eating after 7pm

It is not purely the maths of calories in/ calories out, they’re are other factors at play.

You’re selectively ignoring most of the points people are (repeatedly) making, I can only assume to justify your overweight position.

We all burn at different rates. For me to maintain my current weight, my TDEE could be 1900 calories a day. Therefore if I want to lose weight, I have to eat less than that. By some minor miracle of science, when I do, I lose weight.

You could be the same weight, height & age as me, but your metabolism could run considerably higher than mine. Therefore you might need to eat 2500 calories a day to stay the same weight. The same principle applies though. If you eat less, you lose weight.

Equally, it could run slower & you might be one of the unfortunate ones who only needs 1500 calories a day to maintain. Therefore losing weight is ‘harder’ as you arn’t eating as much in the first place, because your body is more efficient with what it has.

You can complicate it as much as you want to ‘prove’ your point. If you eat a balanced diet, get a sensible amount of sleep, don’t have any underlying medical conditions to hamper your process, if you consistently eat under your TDEE, you will lose weight. In that sense, yes it is simple. It’s you that’s making it complicated.

hormones/ sleep/ stress/ type of food consumed/ when those calories were consumed etc.

Explain the thermodynamic of why you think any of that makes a difference.

So by your reckoning two identical people of the same weight, same age and eating comparable calories for the last five years.

Both reduce their calorie intake by 500 calories a day.

Both cycle for 2 hours at 14 miles an a day.

They will both lose the exact same amount?

As stated, there are more factors to it, you subject one to 8 hours sleep and one to 4.

You subject one to obtaining half of his calories from alcohol and most of his calories after 9pm at night etc, whilst the other does not drink and stops eating after 7pm

It is not purely the maths of calories in/ calories out, they’re are other factors at play.

I’m not two people. I’m one person. None of the above has any relevance whatsoever to losing weight or how someone loses weight.

As stated though, i am happy with my lot, i have been at a calorific loss for weeks on end and as stated i always lose a certain percentage of weight, but it always plateaus, i am always left with that last little bit i cannot shift.

I am not grossly overweight, it is just that frustration of really struggling to always lose that last bit, despite strict calorie control or large amounts of exercise, i have really mixed it up too, slow fasted rides, HIIT sessions, weight training etc. As stated i have played rugby at an international level, but was never “skinny”

I am not trying to justify being overweight, i am happy, but what i fail to understand if it purely down to calorific excess, is how someone of 9 stone can for decades have a calorific intake greater than mine, yet gain no weight, if it is purely sums and no genetic input? Between us it has become a running joke, i have sat there in an all you can eat Chinese after Tour of Flanders as he ate his 6th plate of food, and i was feeling ill/full after my first.

Right i’m off home to eat pies and twiddle my sausage thumbs…

hold on , there is obese and there is BMI obese.

contrary to what ive said above its possible to be perfectly healthy and BMI obese …. its a one size fits all (but not very well) catch all. It is good at catching those that are sedentary and obese.

its possible to be fit and heavy ( rather than fat) Im thinking rugby players , Track sprinters – both bike and running …..

But you would deviate to other measurement methods in this case.

It really does. If you stop eating you lose weight and ultimately die. Everything else is detail and can be ignored.

Plenty to suggest fasting works. That’s not the same as calories in vs calories out though.

Have a look at some papers on The Exercise Paradox (one in New Scientist a couple of weeks ago).

i have been at a calorific loss for weeks on end and as stated i always lose a certain percentage of weight, but it always plateaus

Have you factored in your lower BMR into the equation?

At an individual level, none of that matters.

Not losing weight? Eat less. Repeat until you lose weight.

That ignores all the other factors that would (and do) cause that attitude to fail. So technically correct, but utterly useless. Like Microsoft product documentation used to be.

what i fail to understand if it purely down to calorific excess, is how someone of 9 stone can for decades have a calorific intake greater than mine, yet gain no weight, if it is purely sums and no genetic input?

I knew a bloke who was 6ft tall, 9 stone and had a 28″ weight. He was desperate to put on weight because he was fairly self conscious about it, so he ate as much as he could all the time, did weights, the lot, but never gained anything.

He definitely had a calorie surplus, so why was he still so skinny?

Let’s ask another question – how does the excess food actually get converted into fat? How does lipogenesis actually work? What controls it?

That ignores all the other factors that would (and do) cause that attitude to fail. So technically correct, but utterly useless. Like Microsoft product documentation used to be.

The only thing that can cause ‘eating less’ to not work is, well, not eating less.

The only thing that can cause ‘eating less’ to not work is, well, not eating less.

In your simple world. But people aren’t machines are they? At some point, eating less will become simply too difficult to manage alongside the riding you want to do and the job you have to do. Won’t it?

sitting on the couch stuffing 9 pizzas into your face will undo all the previous good work & then some

It actually can work. From experience. If you lose say 1.5kg on a good week you cannot put that all back on in a day.

Ultimately, you can’t out-train a bad diet

But I don’t have a bad diet, I have a pretty normal diet (or I would if I wasn’t making an effort).

The problem I have is that the feedback mechanisms that maintain weight are very strong for me. And I think yo-yoing makes it worse as it strengthens the feedback.

If I reduce calories too much I can’t ride cos I get too tired. If I continue to try I get so run down I can’t function or concentrate on my job, and my BMR slows down to the point I get cold. And yes, mentally it becomes incredibly difficult. Both the hunger, the desire for good food and the misery of constant crap joyless bike rides.

I do think the only sure-fire way for me is LOADS of base riding. Which comes with challenges itself, because if I ride just a bit too fast then I’m in the hole again and I have to eat to maintain the ability to do it.

At some point, eating less will become simply too difficult to manage alongside the riding you want to do and the job you have to do. Won’t it?

Depends how much you want to lose weight really.

Weight loss isn’t necessarily easy, but it is simple!

Weight loss isn’t necessarily easy, but it is simple!

Bit pointless suggesting an approach that could end up being impossibly difficult don’t you think?

Are you suggesting that everyone thin has been through this level of self denial?

Losing 1.5 kilos a week
Maths check.
So a deficit of 1650 calories each and every day.

That’s almost as much as I EAT when not training.

Are you suggesting that everyone thin has been through this level of self denial?

Not at all. I’m suggesting that if people want to lose weight they need to eat less, that’s all.

He definitely had a calorie surplus, so why was he still so skinny?

He might have had a calorie surplus in his gob but he didnt absorb enough to have a metabolic surplus or he has a crazy high BMR. From an evolutionary perspective he must be right at the far end of the distribution as he’d be the first to go in a famine!

Bit pointless suggesting an approach that could end up being impossibly difficult don’t you think?

What approach do you suggest?

The point is molly, you are suggesting that there is a genetic reason why you might find cutting calories difficult. One that involves the perceived need for food when you are dieting/exercising. The problem is that neither you nor anyone else on here is able to tell if this is a reflection of your psychological relationship with food or some sort of inherent genetic problem. What you call ‘impossible hunger’ might just be ‘feeling a bit peckish’ to another person. Whenever I’ve lost weight I have felt hungry doing it. I just get on with it.

Not losing weight? Eat less. Repeat until you lose weight.

That ignores all the other factors that would (and do) cause that attitude to fail. So technically correct, but utterly useless.

I’ve just lost 3 stone by eating (a lot) less and moving (a little bit) more.

What should I have done instead of that useless approach?

What approach do you suggest?

If I had the answers I wouldn’t be fat, would I?

Whenever I’ve lost weight I have felt hungry doing it. I just get on with it.

Damn, if only I’d though of that! You must feel so proud of yourself!

We’ve established that in some people the feedback loops are stronger than in others. That may be neurological (the gut is full of neurons that may affect mood), gut biome related (gut bacteria affect mental state); but don’t call it ‘perception’ because that insinuates that it’s me being weak and feeble. If you found weight loss simple then I guarantee you never found it as hard as me. I’ve managed it before but simple it never was.

As for genetic problem – let’s just clear this up. My body, whilst not looking particularly impressive is quite a remarkable piece of kit. I don’t get injured, I don’t break bones, I responds to training well, I have enough ultimate endurance to have never found its limits. It is genetically pretty good for which I am always thankful. But one 9f the things that works very well is the feedback loop that regulates weight. Because as far as my body is concerned weight loss is a bad thing. My only issue is that I chose the wrong sport.

What you call ‘impossible hunger’ might just be ‘feeling a bit peckish’ to another person

That’s basically my point, isn’t it?

Looks like you need to get better at feeling hungry…

Impossible hunger does sound rather extreme. What happens if you have no immediate access to food?

Watch your back though. Your brainstem is probably the holy grail of appetite research, and they may try to sneak it off you while you’re distracted by staring into the fridge. 🙂