The Weight Loss Support Group - 2017

[jtbo]

I haven't seen any loss during this week, hopefully there is some for tomorrow.

I can find three possible reasons:
-BMR adaptation
-failing diet
-scales lie horribly
-too strained

So horribly tired all the time, I tried resting days, eating more, nothing did help.

Turned into pizza that I had good experiences in past and it has done something better, but it could also be that I'm less strained, so next week's menu is going to have two pizzas a day and breakfast with 200 grams of carbs, so totals would be around:
300 grams of carbs
90 grams of fat
100 grams of protein
something around 2500 calories, while burning around 3500-4000 calories a day in a average for the week.

With new diet B9, magnesium and Potassium are very slightly under recommended, B9 being worst, also I'm getting close to 11 grams of salt, so I need to sweat bit over 1 hour very hard or 2 hours with not so horribly sweating.

1 hour of vigorous sweating is 5 grams of salt lost, that is sweating 1.8 litres, not many of us can achieve that, but half from that is much more likely. Danger of too low salt is horrible migraines, reason why exercise induces migraines is getting low on salt, at least works so for me.

If I'm putting out lot of sweat and eating only recommended amount of salt/sodium, then migraines are guaranteed to happen, however I haven't seen studies made from this and maybe that is why my doctor likes to argue against me on this. So, I just sweat it off

 

[jtbo]

I had around 12% 400 calorie deficit for last week, which was lot less than 1000 calories that I did aim for, there is not statistically meaningful weight change to direction or another, but pizza is working better and last few days I have seen weight loss, before that I saw actually small gain, so it is worth to keep going and just try to push bit more deficit.

 

[Winchester]

I am back in as of this morning. Rick and I both have blood work coming up around the end of June for cholesterol and such. Mine's usually pretty good and I'd like to keep it that way. Rick's is usually just a wee bit on the high side. So until we both have our blood work done, we're going to be trying more to watch what we eat.

And meanwhile, I could stand to lose a few pounds....but then I can always stand to lose a few pounds.

 

[arouetta]

This weight loss thing is for the birds. Maybe that's why they don't weigh much.

After accidentally losing weight, I got a calorie tracker and am now trying to lose weight. It's a little frustrating though. The calorie tracker has me weighing daily and it's really weird that I gained 2 pounds in one day, held it for two days, and then dropped two pounds the following day. And if I weigh myself a second time later on due to an abrupt overnight change, then there are days that I gain during the day, up to 4 pounds, and then there are days that I lose during the day, about a pound or two. I can't figure out what this fluctuation is all about.

Plus someone said that you lose weight just breathing, so I did an internet search for how much you burn just sitting there. Every calculator gave a different answer despite being given the same information. One said I would burn 1900 calories a day, another said I would burn only 1100 a day. How do I know what to aim for?

And I have to kiss goodbye to a lot of good food. Goodbye trail mix. Goodbye berries. Goodbye bread. I've got a package of raw walnuts, I can only eat them if they are replacing a meal since such a tiny amount has a ton of calories. Same with beef jerky. And actual junk food can only be considered if I burned a decent amount of calories at work, 1600+, and my end of the day calorie count is still in the three digits. Otherwise I'm going to gain that two pounds overnight again, and I want to go down not up.

This is like really, really frustrating, and weight loss focused forums don't offer any real support.

They say it'll come off at the same rate you put it on. So why isn't it? 20+ years ago I was put on a medicine known for serious weight gain and gained 100 lbs in only 3 months, and I got off it a year and a half ago. Why won't the weight come off fast? I'm only averaging 12 lbs a month, not 33.

Any encouraging words?

 

[jtbo]

This weight loss thing is for the birds. Maybe that's why they don't weigh much.

After accidentally losing weight, I got a calorie tracker and am now trying to lose weight. It's a little frustrating though. The calorie tracker has me weighing daily and it's really weird that I gained 2 pounds in one day, held it for two days, and then dropped two pounds the following day. And if I weigh myself a second time later on due to an abrupt overnight change, then there are days that I gain during the day, up to 4 pounds, and then there are days that I lose during the day, about a pound or two. I can't figure out what this fluctuation is all about.

Plus someone said that you lose weight just breathing, so I did an internet search for how much you burn just sitting there. Every calculator gave a different answer despite being given the same information. One said I would burn 1900 calories a day, another said I would burn only 1100 a day. How do I know what to aim for?

And I have to kiss goodbye to a lot of good food. Goodbye trail mix. Goodbye berries. Goodbye bread. I've got a package of raw walnuts, I can only eat them if they are replacing a meal since such a tiny amount has a ton of calories. Same with beef jerky. And actual junk food can only be considered if I burned a decent amount of calories at work, 1600+, and my end of the day calorie count is still in the three digits. Otherwise I'm going to gain that two pounds overnight again, and I want to go down not up.

This is like really, really frustrating, and weight loss focused forums don't offer any real support.

They say it'll come off at the same rate you put it on. So why isn't it? 20+ years ago I was put on a medicine known for serious weight gain and gained 100 lbs in only 3 months, and I got off it a year and a half ago. Why won't the weight come off fast? I'm only averaging 12 lbs a month, not 33.

Any encouraging words?

Well, your weight changes probably more than 2 pounds during the day, it goes up and down, depends for example how well hydrated you are, also how much stuff you have in you, how long it is from last visit for a bathroom, was it big or small one, anything within +/- 2 pounds can be just variation.

Eating too much does not show immediately, it does not necessarily show up even next day, but day after that it shows up, same for weight loss by exercise, it depends of course how much one eats and how much fat cells gets replaced by water etc. It takes time for that water to disappear and weight loss actually show up.

Also your scale is not precision instrument, at least mine is not, move it half inch and you can gain or loose that 2 pounds, lean bit more forwards or backwards, have feet positioned differently and there can be that 2 pounds again.
I have had many different scales, current one has 4 sensors one in each corner and none has given me any accuracy in readings.

So I weight myself every morning, I try to weight also at evenings, I write up that every day to my spreadsheet, only way to know what is happening.

Statistically meaningful data requires enough records to overcome variability (noise) of the data, so after one week I can't necessarily tell where my weight is going, but after two weeks a trend starts to form up, that is 14 or more measurements.

Now that all also depends from your weight, 120 pound person experiences naturally less changes in weight than 300 pound person (like me), because it is always certain percentage of change, so amount of pounds changing will be different from person to person.

Same goes with calories, more you weight, more you will burn.

I think best is to have several formulas to calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is calories you burn in coma, any more alive and you burn more.

I use three from scientific papers and average those:
Harris-Benedict formula
Mifflin-St Jeor formula
Katch-McArdle formula

Trouble is for those I think it is needed to know what is fat percentage of body and it can be tricky to get right, calculating is possible from Body Mass Index (BMI), but it will not be very accurate, hydration, muscle mass etc varies. Even fat percentage measurements by electrodes you see in scales or gym equipment, are off because different level of hydration.

For me currently BMR is 2080 and I'm around 300 pound male with roughly 30% fat percentage (sadly). Maintenance calories is what I burn for a day doing pretty much nothing and not gaining or losing weight, that is 2496 currently.
However I exercise so I have to calculate calorie needs daily to match for what amount of calories I have been burning or I will burn muscle really fast.

Also I have found out that I need to burn around 3500 to 4000 calories a day to have balanced diet with 1000 calorie deficit. Skip good amount of protein and have more deficit than your fat can release and you loose muscle fast.

You can get maximum of 69 calories for each kilogram of fat during 24 hours and safe number is 25 calories for pound of fat. Again body fat percentage is needed to know for any good estimate of how much deficit one can have.

So I have 32.5kg of fat and from that around 21kg I estimate usable fat (essential fat is not usable), with safe margins that gives me maximum of around 1770 calories a day I can get from fat, for each hour that is bit over 73 calories.

That means that I have to have at least 310 calorie a day (BMR - 1770=310), but as I need over 100 grams of protein, all kinds of vitamins etc. I can't get those from 310 calories, with limited budget I have found out that I have to eat close to 2500 calories to get all the vitamins and proper amount of protein, with unlimited budget I would go to lean meat which costs about 3 times more and have calories reduced by at least 30% for me it is more realistic to move more, eaten fat is easy to burn off, carbs even easier and sweating helps to manage amount of sodium too.


By breathing your lungs burn energy and exhale water, that is why breathing does reduce weight during the day, but as you have to breathe anyway, it really does not matter how much that is, but staying alive as whole is that BMR and you will burn more calories every day than your BMR.

There are of course then generalizations which try to give simple answer and can be disastrous to one's health, like for example our local health offices 1800 calories a day and 4 grams of salt per day which might apply to some, but certainly are way off for quite many, even dangerous, you can't have generic rule about these, they change so much depending what one does during the day, what size person is and so on.

For daily calories you can really calculate only BMR from giving your measurements, anything beyond that is best to check with heart rate monitor that preferably uses belt and it has to be some reliable brand, which unfortunate is not going to be very cheap, between cheap and quality one there can be 1000 calories a day difference.
However you can estimate calories, I think I posted about some sites year ago or so, but how to find it might be hard, but there are sites which list different activities and how much they burn calories for an hour, site has to have weight input to have any reliability though.

It is better to eat bit too much than too little and you can get good results by just cutting down a bit of amount you eat every week until you start seeing consistently lower weight, then just keep at it.

It might be a book again, but I can't figure out any way to make it shorter, there is a lot of things to consider and study to really know how things work.



At the end, for many (most?) people it is about to eat enough and walk 1 hour a day or something to allow room for eating enough, but weight everything you eat and do know how many calories you really get, have at least 1 gram for 1kg of body weight of complete proteins every day.
Just swinging arms while watching TV is good for few hundred calories or so.

Problem of extreme deficit is that body thinks it is starving, also body can consume muscle (even heart!) bone, etc. to satisfy protein needs, protein is not getting stored, so you need it daily and when loosing weight or exercising you need more of it.

 

[jtbo]

Only 1.3 kilogram (2.86 pounds) loss during last week, but it is a loss and I take it gladly, waist measurement has decreased 1cm so that is indication that weight loss is close to real.

25 weeks at this rate which would be bit over 6 months, I'm not sure if pace stays the same, but if it does, then at December I might be at my goal, but more likely it will not be happening until next summer.

 

[Winchester]

I lost four pounds last week....weighted myself yesterday morning, but never logged in here. I averaged about 19% daily protein for the week; I need to do better with protein.

I started back on the treadmill this week (yesterday), so that should help.

 

[jtbo]

For me to get recommended amount of protein for weight loss, I would need to eat well over 2000 calories a day even at recovery days, 1280 calories for absolute minimum for as high protein diet as is safe recommendation (25% it is not recommended to go over).

But it is rather confusing, official sources dumb fold information so that it is hard to get much out from it, some sources don't even mention about dangers of too much protein, which is severe concern.

I have been averaging around 100 grams a day for this month so far, it is not bad, but tingling in muscles tells me that could be higher.

Then there is amount, interval etc. to consider. Some good info was here:
A review of issues of dietary protein intake in humans. - PubMed - NCBI

My theoretical maximum weight loss is around 3.8 pounds a week, that is loss of fat, if I loose more, something else has to be what is being lost, that is with 32.2kg of fat, less fat of course slows things down and there are other things limiting so 20% safe margin needs to be applied to that, so realistically maximum for me would be 3 pounds a week, if I could just keep balanced diet and it would require very much activity to keep headroom for calories that are needed to be eaten with available foods.

With 1.3kg lost last week I got close to my maximum safe range, but it was certainly not all from fat as deficit predicted only 0.5kg which is bit over pound, so 0.8kg had to be hydration change or something else.

I'm trying to loose more from fat with current week, but it is not too easy to get diet working with me, low carbs are not too much of fun, but only way I managed to get diet to greater deficit.

 

[jtbo]

Somehow I managed to get bit dehydrated, so today's numbers are bit lower than normal.

107.1 to 104.6kg that is 2.5kg loss in a week and from beginning of month that is 8.8kg or 19.36 pounds.

In reality I can believe half of that being real weight loss, rest being scale and water weight fluctuations.

However I know I have lost more than 6cm (2.36 inches) from waist, I did not measure waist for first week so 6cm is from 2nd week on, 6-8cm and 6-8kg (13.2 to 17.6 pounds) total weight loss is then perhaps realistic estimate that was lost during the month.

Properly made pizza is really incredible at keeping hunger away while loosing weight, with bit of dark full grain pasta it is really helping a lot, but amount you need to eat in grams is quite small.

Full grain tortilla wrap as a base, small amount of ketchup as a sauce, 100g of 10% ground beef and 60-70 grams cheese, one tomato sliced on top after taking out from oven. Just two of those for whole day, first one at the morning with small amount of orange juice.
After exercise small amount of boiled pasta and it is magic food.

I'm still taking multivitamin pill and magnesium pill to make sure I get everything I need, but I haven't figured out anything better, fast to make, fast to eat, taste is good and most importantly gives everything I need.

That is 1800-2200 calories, depending from amount of orange juice and pasta, so for me that is good for up to 4000 calorie days for maximum, need to eat more for harder days, but as an average my days are around 3600 calories, so with 2000 calories I'm already at 1600 calorie deficit.

 

[jtbo]

104.6kg to 102.6kg so loss of 2kg (4.4 pounds) last week, not really best week, but weight is still coming down.

I would need to workout more, but future does not hold much for me, so it is hard to find motivation.

 

[arouetta]

Ugh, my weight stabilized about two or three weeks ago. I guess I hit the dreaded starvation mode.

Some sources said to break out of it was to increase calorie intake to be around BMR for a couple of weeks so I'm trying it. I'm having problems getting all the protein they recommended during the diet break, meat is just making me feel a little ill just looking at it and I'm craving carbs like there's no tomorrow. Also on the long days at work or the days I walk over the entire area more than I pace around while staying in one area I can't eat enough to compensate for those calories on top of meeting the BMR. Short of devouring an entire chocolate cake I can't see how to eat 1600 calories (approx BMR) plus the 1600-2000 (approx) I burn during a busy work day. And seeing how I can't even remember the last time I bought a candy bar, mentally I'm dealing with a bit of feeling deprived.

I hit my first goal 3 weeks ago, but I'm still 20 pounds away from the next goal and 55 or 60 pounds away from my final goal. Kinda frustrating that until a few weeks ago 12 pounds a month was entirely reasonable for me and now I'm stuck bouncing around a 3 pound variance.

 

[jtbo]

With little or no exercising but with maximum possible deficit weight is not dropping much at all, but with exercising even small deficit seems to cause weight loss.

That is my finding at least, eating 700 calories or so a day is not going to work for me, it is better to eat 2000 calories and exercise so that deficit is same amount of calories.

 

[arouetta]

I've lost one pound more than the variance I've been bouncing around. I hope it's the start to weight loss starting again. A shirt looked baggy today, so I took my measurements again. I've lost an inch around the hips, half an inch around the bra band and an inch around the bust during the same time I've been bouncing around the same three pounds. Unfortunately my waistline is being most stubborn and I didn't change size there.

 

[jtbo]

102.6 to 101.9kg so loss of 0.7kg while having very high deficit of 61%, but also very inactive week.

Most of that is also change in hydration level.

So I think that there is no point going beyond that 20-25% deficit, eating more gives clearly better results.

 

[jtbo]

Have we forgotten our group?

Last Monday my weight was 97.8kg that is over a month from Jun 12th which is last post.

There is problem with my weight loss, this is from 2015 to 18th of July 2017, my disaster, problem can be seen in last logged month, flat lining graph, no real weight change.

We can examine issue with more detail from following image:


As you can see (if you click the image) there is 51% deficit, which is quite bit more than recommended, also very poor eating at beginning of month as well as end of previous month.

To fix this issue I decided to eat at least what is my energy consumption for few days and see if fat burning resumes. Also I try to do some light exercise more and avoid those harder sessions for now, hopefully something changes.

What is insane is that I have actually gained weight while having huge deficit!

This has not happened before as can be seen from first graph in this post.

This is bit of an update from previous image, I did check numbers a bit, my salt intake seems bit high, would need to sweat more to compensate. Also too much sugar and bad grease, but far better than most.
Oh yes, I have added sweat calculation also, to get more accurate salt/sodium recommendation. One has to weight him/herself before and after exercise / sweating to get weight in kg to be put into sweat input box, so it is bit of work at the beginning but soon one gets used to it and can estimate it quite well.


Weight increase is thanks to healthcare, they don't fix anything, they just try to wore you out and accept the problem despite you knowing what is the fix to problem.

I need to translate some bits and make thing upload worthy as I promised to send tool to one student, so maybe you can have tool also, it is just bit of work to use in it's current state, especially making new recipes takes time and effort, but if I get to know what is needed there I might type it in.

 

[foxxycat]

I have been plugging along-watching what I eat-bringing veggies n fruit to work instead of chips==unfortunately the chips still win sometimes but I still eat the veggies-I found nawing on cauliflower and celery seem to help with my urge to always munch. I haven't lost though-still not back to gym-I am though doing 30 min of low impact aerobics at lunch=I am trying to get my endurance back up to an hour or two like it was a few months ago-the first few days were hard-but it's getting eaiser=I hope to be back next week and see how it goes-foot pain has decreased with the added metal inserts-if I don't wear them then the pain is back-so we shall see.

JTBo I am so sorry they are treating you like crap.

Also it's not uncommon to gain weight from withholding calories-our body goes into starvation mode and holds onto every calorie.

Look into keto. That's what I have been following-add more fats and less sugars=keeps me full longer and ignore the cravings for sweets and chips.

I add butter to all my hot meals no matter what it is-oil to my salads=it seems to help.

 

[jtbo]

Only reason for cravings is that something is missing from diet, I don't have cravings, despite I have not been following my plan very well, it still works enough to not have cravings.

All those diets and recommendations are overly simplifying things, it is not single thing, it is whole picture that has to be correct.

I have read a lot about starvation mode being a myth, there is BMR adaptation though, which is probably what some claim to be starvation mode. To keep BMR adaptation in check, sometimes one has to eat enough to not be on deficit.

I have been nearly 2 months constantly on 50% deficit, with many consequent days deficit has been close to 70%, my theory is that this has caused BMR adaptation to take place and to overcome this I need to have 0% deficit for short time to get BMR adaptation to zero itself.

Grease is bad, that is reason why my arthritis vein is acting up, in long term grease really is bad, also it causes skin to be very greasy and red spots appear etc. For me limit is around 60 grams grease in a day, anything more and it is bad for me, too little is also bad, skin becomes dry, one has to find sweetspot it is individual thing.

Grease is bad also in there that it adds calories and a lot of them, but there is no room for calories when doing weight loss, you have to get all those vitamins and other stuff to keep cravings away, to stay healthy and to have energy, sugar or grease is almost the same, grease/fat is just slower bad.

For short term, higher fat diet is fine, but do it long and it builds up in veins, it does not feel, it does not show up, but after tens of years close to 50 years of age it starts showing up and there is not much to do for it then.

There are different fats, saturated fats are the problem, those are in cheese, butter etc. everything that tastes good is loaded with saturated fats.

So be really really careful with any wonder diet, for me there is no substitute to calculating what I get from food I eat, it has been really revealing and I wish I would of known all this 20 years ago.

 

[foxxycat]

I will disagree with your views on fats-the entire world thinks low fat is the way to loose weight-when in actuality it's why we have a hard time loosing weight. You need veggies. since many veggies have little calories then it's best to have half your food on the plate from veggies. The fats helps your body with energy. I just think it makes more sense now-each person is individual. There's different types of fats. there's animal fats and plant fats. The diet I am talking about is more geared to healthy fats like olive oil and coconut oil. those are good fats. Some people have to watch cholesterol which I think the medical community made up that myth so people would go on medications but that's my view on it-I think everything in moderation. When I eat more meat and less chips-I feel better. The trick is a middle ground.

Olive oil has been known to be good for the body. The body still needs cholesterol to function. Fats are important.

 

[jtbo]

I will disagree with your views on fats-the entire world thinks low fat is the way to loose weight-when in actuality it's why we have a hard time loosing weight. You need veggies. since many veggies have little calories then it's best to have half your food on the plate from veggies. The fats helps your body with energy. I just think it makes more sense now-each person is individual. There's different types of fats. there's animal fats and plant fats. The diet I am talking about is more geared to healthy fats like olive oil and coconut oil. those are good fats. Some people have to watch cholesterol which I think the medical community made up that myth so people would go on medications but that's my view on it-I think everything in moderation. When I eat more meat and less chips-I feel better. The trick is a middle ground.

Olive oil has been known to be good for the body. The body still needs cholesterol to function. Fats are important.

Not entire world here, most people here seem to think low carb is only way to go, it is like a religion and they don't understand difference of saturated and better fats either.

Doctors then think only low fat is good and again it is like religion while nobody even mentioning different kind of fats, it's truly horrible how little information and knowledge there is about nutrition, even among so called professionals.

Too much or too little anything is bad, most important thing is to have all vitamins and nutrients, it does not matter so much if there is 30 grams or 90 grams of fat, or something between those two, as long as saturated fats are low.

However for my acne for life, it seems to be best to stay below 60 grams of total fat, for well being staying around 40 grams at minimum seems to be best, quite challenging when burning more energy.

It really does not matter if diet is high fat or high carb, as long as protein is 1.3g/kg of body weight or more and all the vitamins and nutrients are there.

Any diet with belief of certain grams of fat, carb, protein or set amount of calories is not going to be optimal.

Problem is that without all the nutrients or lack of protein you get hungry and it becomes really hard to stick with the diet.

Also if deficit is too great, it actually slows down weight loss, it is better to try to aim 30% energy deficit (at max) and to get all nutrients.
That works best, especially in long term as there is energy to keep going, no cravings and body has enough energy for not to start BMR adaptation.

I don't believe any so called diet where they boast about high or low something or set calorie targets by calories etc. Those can't work, people are different and lot more variables are needed to be taken account for.

For example, this month I have had as daily average:
264 grams carbs
55 grams of fat
121 grams of protein

Last 7 days energy deficit has been 28% and I have had two near zero deficit days in last 11 days, this has sped up my weight loss a lot now. Earlier my eating was quite bad so that energy deficit for last month was 44% with hardly any weight loss.

During last 7 days I have lost 4.6 pounds which is better than whole last month.

Eating more of course did cause weight to go up for short time, despite I knew I should of been at deficit, but because of BMR adaptation weight did increase at first, however after BMR adaptation ended weight has been dropping at very fast rate again.

Exercise does help with metabolism so it does boost BMR a bit as body needs to adapt muscles etc. to higher activity level, so swinging light weights for hour or so is going to help also, but nothing is as good as proper diet, long duration exercise does help though!

 

[foxxycat]

it makes sense. you are correct jtbo . There's plant based fats and animal fats. A combo of both is good. Low sat is good but they now find eggs to be better than they thought. all I know is my gramps lived to be 91. He ate 2 eggs each morning and drank a couple sniffers of whiskey every night-never had issues other than the typical older folks stuff. So I look at it if my gramps and pops live to be ripe old age then maybe it won't be so bad. cancer does run in my family on the female side unfortunately but I don't let it stifle me. We just lost a healthy mid 50s male to heart attack a few days ago here at work-he was a gym nut and ate good food. never junk food..and still died of heart attack..so I am saying to hell with it. Going to try for more fats n proteins and lower the carbs. I eat way too many carbs. So a few days last week I ate eggs bacon a couple times a day and voila I was NOT HUNGRY or cravings...so gonna try that.