No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I quit beer when I was 40. Also sweets are too transitory a pleasure, if you can look at a dessert tray- 90% of enjoyment is visual. Skip them both.

Uh...no to all that shit.

TM

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I don't know what "CICO" means.* But I was just joking about being able to reduce food intake to counterbalance increased cocktail levels. When I drink I want to fucking EAT.

But on the substance, I think people with really fast metabolisms (like you and me) tend to give more weight to the calories in calories out model. I think it works very differently for different people. I think your body wants to be at a certain weight. And I read an article recently that said that your body will become more efficient at retaining weight the more you deprive it of calories in a drastic way, which is why people who go through The Biggest Loser type weight loss almost always fail and end up putting on more weight after the big and sudden weight loss.

I can keep all things equal when it comes to exercise and diet and eat a Reeses and add a couple of beers every day for a month and gain 2 pounds. I have a friend who would gain 20 pounds in a month if they did that.

TM

*Although spending 2 seconds thinking about it has helped me figure it out.

I hear you. Although if the person with a slow metabolism can accurately calculate his/her BMR, the formula will still work (not saying it'll be easy though). If you consistently eat in a caloric deficit, you are almost guaranteed to lose weight.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

if you can look at a dessert tray- 90% of enjoyment is visual.

You're nuts.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I hear you. Although if the person with a slow metabolism can accurately calculate his/her BMR, the formula will still work (not saying it'll be easy though). If you consistently eat in a caloric deficit, you are almost guaranteed to lose weight.

I don't disagree. I just think that eating at a caloric deficit has wildly different effects based on body type/metabolic rate. For someone whose body wants to be around 220, the effects of caloric deficit are much lower once they enter the 230 pound range and below.

When I gain 10 pounds, I can drop it fairly easily. When my friend gains 10 pounds, it is a colossal struggle for them to drop that same amount of weight. I can cut calories for a few weeks and be back where my body wants to be fairly easily. I have friends for whom it takes months to drop that amount of weight. And it's not that they cheat any more than I do.

If you look at genetics--or more generally, the body type that runs in a family--you can see there are people who will absolutely not be able to escape the body type they're born with without constant and extremely difficult work. It sucks, and thin people have a blind spot when it comes to this. I've been as guilty as they come about it. We constantly think it's about discipline and self-control when really, a fatty calorie for one person is just not the same as a fatty calorie for another.

TM

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

... I read an article recently that said that your body will become more efficient at retaining weight the more you deprive it of calories in a drastic way, which is why people who go through The Biggest Loser type weight loss almost always fail and end up putting on more weight after the big and sudden weight loss.

That article was incredible (hi Ty!) and the concept needs to be spread. Aunt Mabel really isn’t “cheating” on her diet; her body now wants to be 170 lbs. and she has a near-constant craving for biscuits made with grandma’s recipe.

Amazing stuff. Reading about the experiments researchers conducted on those poor conscientious objectors during WWII was disturbing and fascinating at the same time

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

This is mostly true. Exercise does burn calories and builds muscle which helps burn more calories (even while at rest). But doing just cardio won't help much. Putting those calorie counters on treadmills was the worst thing the exercise industry did to people. You absolutely have to do strength work.

I'm trying this keto diet thing right now, which is very interesting to me. I basically gave up dieting altogether and decided I would just eat halfway reasonably and continue to workout as hard as I've been the past few years. But a friend drops weight like it's nothing on it. And the wife dropped 7 pounds in a couple of weeks (that she doesn't need to lose, but that's a whole different argument). I've been doing it since Wednesday and have lost 4 pounds (most of it surely water weight). I'd like to see where it goes because another 6-8 pounds would reintroduce me to my abs.

But this idea of tricking your body into burning fat first instead of carbs fascinates me. And it's not like that awful Atkins diet. You can eat veggies. I've found that, even though I consider french fries and beer a vital section of foundation in the food pyramid, it's been very easy to manage so far. No sugar or carbs. But the fact the diet requires high fat levels makes up for it. And the veggies help balance out the richness. We'll see if I can keep it up. I really love beer and fries.

Also, you can have other types of alcohol, which has kept the shakes at bay.

TM

I have dropped about as much weight as Weed and RT over about the same period of time. I've been running a lot for the last year, and really enjoy it, and wouldn't give it up. But I really think the key to losing weight is changing one's diet, and to my mind that means changing one's habits permanently, not trying a special diet for a short period of time to get some results that will go away when one reverts to form. YMMV. This stuff is hard, and what works for one person may not for another. On the exercise vs. diet point, I would just say that it's really hard to burn enough calories to lose much weight and not also compensate by eating more.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Also, the idea that a cardio machine can give you an accurate measure of calories burned based only on how many steps or revolutions you have done (and maybe your heart rate), but without knowing your height, weight, gender, age, and resting and max heart rates is koo koo.

Why aren't calories burned a simple function of work performed -- a matter of weight multiplied by energy easily measured by the machine? Different bodies will be more and less efficiently in mobilizing to get this work done, but if you jump on a machine and expend (say) 500 calories of energy in moving its steps or pedals, why isn't that much easy to measure?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Why aren't calories burned a simple function of work performed -- a matter of weight multiplied by energy easily measured by the machine? Different bodies will be more and less efficiently in mobilizing to get this work done, but if you jump on a machine and expend (say) 500 calories of energy in moving its steps or pedals, why isn't that much easy to measure?

The angles etc. (relative height) factors into the work being done.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I have dropped about as much weight as Weed and RT over about the same period of time. I've been running a lot for the last year, and really enjoy it, and wouldn't give it up. But I really think the key to losing weight is changing one's diet, and to my mind that means changing one's habits permanently, not trying a special diet for a short period of time to get some results that will go away when one reverts to form. YMMV. This stuff is hard, and what works for one person may not for another. On the exercise vs. diet point, I would just say that it's really hard to burn enough calories to lose much weight and not also compensate by eating more.

Sometimes it feels like you want a debate where none exists.

Yes. Diet is key. It's the most important. I'd say 80-90% of any successful weight loss can be attributed to diet.

And just because diet is the most important doesn't mean that exercise is not important. And I added that people tend to think that it's all about building calories when, in fact, strength training is equally or even more important.

Yes. Fad diets (and diets in general) don't last. That's why they're called fads. However, for many people, getting down to a weight at which they can exercise regularly without giving up and reaching a weight at which they can change their diet permanently to something reasonable in order to maintain that weight or something close to it is a real goal.

For me (at least at this age), dropping 10 pounds quick takes a shock to my system because I am not an out-of-control eater and my body has moved into a place where 205 is where it wants to be. But once it's off, it takes real sloth to put it back on given the amount of exercise I get.

I posted about the keto thing because how your body works is very interesting to me--and the fact that a high fat diet can lead to dramatic weight loss is so counterintuitive to everything we've been taught about nutrition that I thought it might be interesting to others as well. The fact that I know a number of people who have used it to drop tons of weight very fast and maintain it once they get used to a very reduced-carb diet seems like information people may want to hear. I did.

The idea that your body burns carbs for energy first while storing fatty foods can be changed such that your body burns fat first and then is tricked into constantly burning fat (from intake and your fat stores) amazes me. Hell, once you've plateaued, you can then carb load and re-trick your body into doing it again to overcome that plateau. That's amazing.

I'm not trying to get you to do it. I'm not saying what works for you is wrong. I am just having a discussion about a topic that interests me.

TM

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Why aren't calories burned a simple function of work performed -- a matter of weight multiplied by energy easily measured by the machine? Different bodies will be more and less efficiently in mobilizing to get this work done, but if you jump on a machine and expend (say) 500 calories of energy in moving its steps or pedals, why isn't that much easy to measure?

The machine is not measuring how many calories you are expending. It is measuring, e.g., how many watts you produce, or what your MPH is. If I can hold 24 MPH on a spin bike for an 30 minutes without a major expenditure of effort, I am burning fewer calories than a person who needs to work really hard to hold that speed. Heavier people people burn more calories than lighter people do maintaining the same output (watts, MPH, however you are measuring it). Males and females burn calories differently. People who are the same weight but have different fat content and muscle masses burn calories differently. The treadmill has no idea how many calories it is taking you run X miles at Y MPH. It just knows that you did it and gives you a calorie burn based on something like what a typical 150 lb man would burn.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Sometimes it feels like you want a debate where none exists.

Wasn't trying to debate anyone, and I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I think this is a subject where it is true that both everyone is a little different, but people can pick up something from each other.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Yes. Diet is key. It's the most important. I'd say 80-90% of any successful weight loss can be attributed to diet.

TM

you also have people talking about how they lost 60 lbs. and people talking about how they stay within 10 pounds of where they want to be. not the same discussion.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

The machine is not measuring how many calories you are expending. It is measuring, e.g., how many watts you produce, or what your MPH is. If I can hold 24 MPH on a spin bike for an 30 minutes without a major expenditure of effort, I am burning fewer calories than a person who needs to work really hard to hold that speed. Heavier people people burn more calories than lighter people do maintaining the same output (watts, MPH, however you are measuring it). Males and females burn calories differently. People who are the same weight but have different fat content and muscle masses burn calories differently. The treadmill has no idea how many calories it is taking you run X miles at Y MPH. It just knows that you did it and gives you a calorie burn based on something like what a typical 150 lb man would burn.

I feel like maybe I am missing something, and it may be because I never took physics, but let me try again.

The machine can measure how many watts you produce. Wikipedia tells me a watt is a unit of power, a measure of energy transferred per unit time. So if the machine can measure watts and time, you can derive energy. Calories are a measure of energy. So the machine should be able to measure calories of work performed. It is true that bodies will differ in terms of how efficiently they can mobilize the body's resources to convert them to do work. It is also true that it takes more energy to move a bigger body, but if you can input weight and it can calculate watts, doesn't that address that issue?

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I feel like maybe I am missing something, and it may be because I never took physics, but let me try again.

The machine can measure how many watts you produce. Wikipedia tells me a watt is a unit of power, a measure of energy transferred per unit time. So if the machine can measure watts and time, you can derive energy. Calories are a measure of energy. So the machine should be able to measure calories of work performed. It is true that bodies will differ in terms of how efficiently they can mobilize the body's resources to convert them to do work. It is also true that it takes more energy to move a bigger body, but if you can input weight and it can calculate watts, doesn't that address that issue?

The simplest way to put is is, if my body can more efficiently produce an average of X watts for an hour than somebody else's body, then I will burn fewer calories in that hour even if the machine measures us as having produced the same watts.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

The simplest way to put is is, if my body can more efficiently produce an average of X watts for an hour than somebody else's body, then I will burn fewer calories in that hour even if the machine measures us as having produced the same watts.

Yes, that makes sense. But the machine should be able to accurately measure how much work you did, which is the minimum your body burned. If you could trust machines to get that right (which I'm not sure you can), then that number would be useful as a comparison for a single person across different workouts.