This Obesity Thing

” I know a bloke, 5’11 9 stone, he can’t put weight on no matter what he eats “

I knew several of those.

But I also saw what they referred to as “a lot of food”.

It wasn’t.

I tend to find it tricky to gain weight (which I wanted to do, to help weightlifting efforts).

I think you’re just weak-minded and pathetic TBH. 😉

What would happen if only ate Bananas and Cheese then?

miketually – Member
Why not give it a try?

Been at it for an hour, fell a bit weird, but nothing has happened.

So finally we all accept that to lose weight you have to have an energy imbalance/ eat the “right foods”

In principal* 🙂 But you don’t want to just lose weight. You want to lose body fat.So the “right” foods bit is particularly important.

*due to human physiology the energy consumed is variable and so the inbalance will change with time and or diet

But what are the right foods? I posted a question on this a few hours back but seems to have been skipped in arguments about straw men.

Before i did 5:2 I tried MFP based calorie counting, to stick to about 1500cals/day. In order to eat enough to fill yourself up, that generally means low sugar intake, high lean protein, lots of vegetable (not much fruit) and in general low fat. Sugar and refined carbs didn’t leave me full for long enough, and are also far more calorie dense, so i didn’t eat them often / very much of them.

Now I’m allowed a ‘full’ calorie intake on normal days i still tend to eat broadly the same, because I can then have good sized meals and still have some spare space that i tend to use for a few carbs as well. Is there a recommendation that i should be more inclined to include more fats rather than more carbs? And if so what sort of fats are considered good?

[edit] give me an example of a daily meal plan that you think would be ideal for say 2400cals and optimised with appropriate protein / good carbs / good fats, etc.

Oh and whilst I’m in full rant. – Air travel, people should be charged by their all up weight, thereby facilitating those of us that work on keeping their weight in check, more baggage allowance for sporting equipment.
/Rant

Rant fail: airlines estimate each passenger at 100kg, so there’s really no need to start weighing the passengers as overall they’re a teeny part of the take off weight

Oh and whilst I’m in full rant. – Air travel, people should be charged by their all up weight, thereby facilitating those of us that work on keeping their weight in check, more baggage allowance for sporting equipment.
/Rant

Rant fail: airlines estimate each passenger at 100kg, so there’s really no need to start weighing the passengers as overall they’re a teeny part of the take off weight

Really? So why the high charges for baggage?

And all that proves is I’m being overcharged for my svelte 70kgs..

theotherjony
I can’t answer your question fully because I don’t focus on calories ( I don’t have the inclination to work out my calories consumed and I don’t know how many calories I use on any given day or week with any accuracy)

My focus is simply around lowering carb intake, eliminating processed food and avoiding sugar. Thereby reducing insulin spikes and ensuring my body is not trying to store excess sugars

So yesterday as a very typical day

Breakfast Bacon and egg ( no of rashes and eggs not really an issue within reason) Plus green tea plus black coffee no sugar

Lunch Chicken, plus vegetable and salad.

Dinner. 2 fillets of salmon grilled with lemon, plus green beens, mange toute and cauliflower rice (flavoured and with peas added)

Water and green tea through the day evening and black coffee

Other days would be similar but variations- maybe home made chilli (with left overs for lunch) Brown rice a couple of times a week

Portion sizes would be a moderately full plate but not seconds.

The above generates a reasonable level of excess fat loss- say 1.5kg a week down to a point where body fat level is more than acceptable but without any noticeable feelings of being hungry and with enough carb intake ( through vegetables mainly) to allow me to train 6 days a week easily.

Not sure that helps

Either the ‘laws of physics’ are wrong, or you are.

Nope. It’s your model that’s wrong.

You are saying change in fat = calories eaten – exercise done.

It’s actually moe like this:

fat stored = calorie eaten – calories pooed out – (work done in exercise * body efficiency(as a function of intensity)) – base metabolic energy consumption – energy cost of digesting food – energy cost of recovery from exercise(as a function of energy expended and intensity and anabolic hormones present which is in turn a function of lots of things including your age) + fat stored by insulin + fat stored by action of whatever that other fat storing hormone is I forget

I probably forgot some stuff and don’t know about more stuff. So you can see that if you hold most of those constant you can indeed achieve a negative fat delta. But most of you have no idea what all those other value might be. I certainly don’t.

negative fat delta

🙂

So finally we all accept that to lose weight you have to have an energy imbalance

Nobody has ever argued otherwise (apart from possibly molgrips but he’s special

I haven’t argued that. What I am trying to point out is that you do not know what the energy in really is, or what the energy out is.

And saying silly eat less is not always very helpful, because eating too little can have other negative side effects.

@sugarnaut: I hope you find some inner peace x

So, does this mean I must stop having honey on my porridge? No sweet stuff at all? No raisins or sultanas, dried figs, yummy dates (I ate a whole pack last year, gave me the sh1ts something chronic) or apples, or any fruit? (I get that cake and biscuits are bad, but I don’t eat them often as I don’t tolerate wheat very well). Chocolate, ye gods, I LOVE chocolate but I guess that’s off the menu too. 🙁

Why on earth did I start reading this thread?

How depressing.

Don’t start on the cheese, it does things to people 😯

I like cheese

Me too, just not by the kilo

Karinofnine – Member

So, does this mean I must stop having honey on my porridge? No sweet stuff at all? No raisins or sultanas, dried figs, yummy dates (I ate a whole pack last year, gave me the sh1ts something chronic) or apples, or any fruit? (I get that cake and biscuits are bad, but I don’t eat them often as I don’t tolerate wheat very well). Chocolate, ye gods, I LOVE chocolate but I guess that’s off the menu too.

Why on earth did I start reading this thread?

How depressing

Apples have a lower sugar content than many other fruits. Bananas are particularly carb dense- its about 25-30g of carbs for a medium banana.
If you need to sweeten your porridge then berries ( raspberries say would be a bit better) You will lose fat more quickly if you avoid them and feel less hungry ( in all probability). But its your choice as to whether you consume in moderation and perhaps slow fat loss slightly.
It also depends when as well. A banana 2 hours into a ride will be a good source of carbs (you will have depleted your glyclogen store)A banana before you ride would be bad

Don’t see why the chap sat on the floor next to the vending machine needs directions to the plaggy bag with Cheez-IT in??

Cheers mike_ww. Not totally dissimilar to me, for example I had two poached eggs on a bagel this am, quality (ie not cheap shit, but equally not home made) spicy veg and bean soup plus a whole meal roll plus about 60g of Roquefort for lunch, and a scotch egg (guilty :oops:) and cauliflower rice with peas and sweetcorn and a bit of passata with fishcakes for tea.

According to mfp that’s about 2200 cals so leaves a bit for milk in tea and coffee, but how’s the mix for content?

Cheers mike_ww. Not totally dissimilar to me, for example I had two poached eggs on a bagel this am, quality (ie not cheap shit, but equally not home made) spicy veg and bean soup plus a whole meal roll plus about 60g of Roquefort for lunch, and a scotch egg (guilty :oops:) and cauliflower rice with peas and sweetcorn and a bit of passata with fishcakes for tea.

According to mfp that’s about 2200 cals so leaves a bit for milk in tea and coffee, but how’s the mix for content?

I am not a nutritionist. However its worth considering that the bagel will have about 50g of carbs so 1/3 of what you might be aiming for as your target daily intake( depending upon activity levels). Bacon has zero and will leave you feeling satisfied for longer. You could always try poached eggs on bacon and see what you think. That would be a gain of 350g of carbs over the week!You have another 25g of carbs in the wholemeal roll so switching that out for a side salad say with some chicken would be better. But look its not a bad diet or mix and if it works for you that’s great

Not that I know what mine is, but I thought the RDA for carbs was 300 grams?

Poached eggs on bacon sounds better, tbh, but doesn’t fit my (ill conceived?) notion of low fat. Need to learn more about this. It’s not that 5:2 hasn’t worked, in fact I can see myself on 5:2 or a mod thereof for ever, but if I can improve my diet on the normal days as well, even better.

Worth doing the research. Low fat is increasingly thought to be a bad thing ( government guidelines introduced the notion of low fat and high carbs in the 1980’s and is part of the reason for the current problem)
Actual carb intake varies but 150 g would be an average moderate carb intake target. Steady state ( ie not targetiing fat loss) an athlete would require somewhere between 3-5g of carbs per day per KG of body mass.

GDA for carbs from official sources is set at the 300g piemonster mentions

Interstingly The GDAs were set by a collaboration of UK government, consumer organisations and the food industry, overseen by the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD).

You have to question IMO how good some of these recommendations are (given their agendas) and on what research they are actually based

Couple of interesting articles here from a very well respected nutritionist

Letter to the minister[/url]

and on training and utilising fat stores

utilising fat stores

So instead of porridge with mixed in banana and raisins, I should have bacon and poached eggs? Awesome! I’ll try it !

Cool, MikeWW’s link is basically exactly the same conclusions as I’ve drawn 🙂

I’m not trying to lose weight. I’ll probably stick with the porridge and honey, I like it and it helps me go to the toilet. I don’t eat meat so bacon’s out. I take painkillers a lot in the winter so often I just can’t face any food. At those times I can usually manage porridge. I don’t eat ready meals, pies, pasties, packets, jars etc. Make most of what I eat from scratch. Do eat veg, raw roasted or boiled. Nuts, lots of oily fish, proper butter (not that chemical collision known as low fat spread – which tastes revolting anyway). I fry or roast in Olive Oil. Most of what I eat is organic.

About fat, really fat, people ie Big Body Squad. I feel: yuk! Gods! Yuk! Then I feel: oh, what a shame, something bad must have happened to you. And then: bloody hell! There are people dying of starvation in parts of this world and look at you. I try to be sympathetic but not very successfully, perhaps as someone who has overcome so much by myself, I do have a bit of a ‘Come on, get on top of this’ attitude to others. Having said that I am kind and helpful and if I was in a situation where my help was needed I would give it (but not to reach for a bar of chocolate).

Thanks for sharing that sugernaut. Sorry to hear of your problems and I hope things gets better for you, and I agree with ton that you should get some help if you’re not getting it already.

It’s no problem. I read a couple of pages of the thread and thought I would highlight the fact that for some people it’s more complicated than it should be. It’s strange, I tend to feel like a prisoner trapped in my own life, and I’m not sure how I got here. It seems impossible to make a permanent change for the better.

I have tried/am trying to get help on the NHS, whether they can actually provide proper help remains to be seen. Unfortunately I cannot afford “private” help, although I imagine that would be ideal.

It’s strange to say, but I can’t remember the last day where I have not been in a battle with myself. It’s rare that I can eat a meal without panicking or purging or binge eating till I’m ill. It’s strange that this becomes normality if done for long enough. I guess some people just become to exhausted to carry on, admit defeat and become another “number” of obese people.

I’m not sure how, as a nation, we’re going to get thinner. But I think bigger changes need to be made on a societal level, rather than just telling people to eat healthly or do more exercise.

Hi Sugarnaut. This book was recommended to me ‘Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy’ by Dr David Burns. Widely available online for a few pounds. I thought “Oh yeah, another self-help book hmmm?”. But I bought it anyway, and in the face of a severe depressive/agoraphobic episode, I put two fingers up to the black dog, and worked my way through the book. It made a HUGE difference.

On the basis that it’s only a few quid, and won’t do you any harm, why not try it?

Good luck x

I’m 7lb less Obese than I was at the start of the year 🙂

Thanks to all on this and other threads for keeping me focused. I must admit, i’m still going to try this less carby breakfast in an hour 🙂

Tell you what…. I don’t actually care if the breakfast ‘works’ or not for today…. it WAS LOVELY… and totally great.

Interstingly The GDAs were set by a collaboration of UK government, consumer organisations and the food industry, overseen by the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD).

Have you checked to see if the research your working from hasn’t been sponsored by Danepak? 🙂

LOL
I have been pretty fortunate most of my life and have never had a weight issue and have been very healthy. However at 51 and after a lot of overseas travel and a broken collar bone last October ( that I am still on the mend from) I found with my slowing (with age ) metabolism that I was starting to put fat on.
I wanted to lose the excess but for me I needed to understand the science behind what I was trying to do. As I researched things I was astounded my the amount of conflicting advice and how much misleading information there was. But if you dig deep enough it all starts to make sense and the link (letter to the minister) from Barry Murray encapsulates things really well. IMO what really surprised me was how startling the impact of less sugar ( which is sugar plus carbs (as carbs are converted to sugar)) has. No cravings, very few times I’m hungry and even then very manageable.But you do need to understand when your body needs carbs as well.
I honestly think that with the right government advice and some (significant) changes in legislation some big changes to obesity levels could be achieved.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/13/sugar-how-to-give-up-11-easy-steps

I’m gonna watch this with interest, I think….

Dispatches next Monday – 8pm on C4; Are you addicted to sugar?

http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/crsrkk/dispatches–are-you-addicted-to-sugar-channel-4-dispatches

IMO what really surprised me was how startling the impact of less sugar ( which is sugar plus carbs (as carbs are converted to sugar)) has. No cravings, very few times I’m hungry and even then very manageable.But you do need to understand when your body needs carbs as well.

It’s this bit which i sort of get, but i sort of don’t (and as we know, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing)

Aren’t all vegetables essentially carbohydrate sources too? And so then you get into the high vs low GI types of carbohydrates, because from my understanding it’s not carbs that are particularly the issue as the wrong sorts of carbs and the impact they have on your insulin response. So I know that (in general) root vegetables such as potatos, carrots, etc. supposedly have a bigger impact in the insulin response / fat storing mechanisms, but broccoli and cauliflower have much less impact?

tgheotherjony
You are absolutely right on allcounts. But it is the lower carb density ( for want of a better expression) that limits the impact. Potatoes ideally need to be avoided because of the high carb content. You are also right that other root vegetables have a higher carb content than those above ground ( brocolli and cauliflower are both great) but they are still low compared to other food stuffs. I was talking for fat loss of around 150g of carbs a day which is very sustainable. If someone wanted to lose fat more quickly ( and it gets harder and you have to be far more careful with hydration) then you would lower carb input to say 50g a day.( essentially you move far closer to an Atkins type diet)

It seems impossible to make a permanent change for the better.

It might seem impossible now but things can and do change. I’ve been in a position before where I felt there was no way out.

I have tried/am trying to get help on the NHS, whether they can actually provide proper help remains to be seen. Unfortunately I cannot afford “private” help, although I imagine that would be ideal.

Sadly, the NHS is quite limited in what it can provide for people in your situation. I was lucky enough to be able to afford private help through family assistance. There must be some charities that could help though?

Aren’t all vegetables essentially carbohydrate sources too? And so then you get into the high vs low GI types of carbohydrates, because from my understanding it’s not carbs that are particularly the issue as the wrong sorts of carbs and the impact they have on your insulin response. So I know that (in general) root vegetables such as potatos, carrots, etc. supposedly have a bigger impact in the insulin response / fat storing mechanisms, but broccoli and cauliflower have much less impact?

Spot on. The actual figure you need to look at is the glycaemic LOAD. When they test GI they test the amount of the thing that contains 100g of carbs, I think (or something like that). So roast parsnips come out high, cos you need to eat a load of them to get 100g of carbs. However a normal serving doens’t contain that many carbs.

Ideally we’d calculate the insulin index of foods which shows you how a food afffects your insulin levels. This is the basis of the iDave diet and the one in the Four Hour Body. I think there’s only a few published lists with not many foods in:

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/66/5/1264.full.pdf
http://www.mendosa.com/insulin_index.htm

When they test GI they test the amount of the thing that contains 100g of carbs, I think (or something like that).

I should point out, that’s GL which normalises the index to 100g of carbs (not including fibre). GI doesn’t, which is its big failing. GI was a great first attempt to classify carb food sources, hugely important step – but has been bettered by GL. GL still isn’t perfect IMO, but it is much better.

Either way, you’re right – GL is the better index.

The glycemic index estimates how much each gram of available carbohydrate (total carbohydrate minus fiber) in a food raises a person’s blood glucose level following consumption of the food, relative to consumption of pure glucose.[1] Glucose has a glycemic index of 100.
A practical limitation of the glycemic index is that it does not take into account the amount of carbohydrate actually consumed. A related measure, the glycemic load, factors this in by multiplying the glycemic index of the food in question by the carbohydrate content of the actual serving.