Fat loss confusion

[pipelineaudio]

I see so many conflicting sources of info out there. I have been trying to live by what I see on the JREF so often as: losing weight means calories out>calories in, but it doesn't seem to be that simple.

I was 125 pounds most of my life and 13 years ago a bad medical prescription jumped me to 340 pounds in just a few months. I got pretty serious about seeing critters out herping the desert southwest and before I knew it, as a side effect, I went down to 250 a few years ago.

At 250, I returned to my previous life of freestyle bmx and got down to about 225 pounds, size 48 waist

On the weeks that I could afford it, I was eating a LOT more, up to around 3500-4000 calories per day, and those weeks my waist size was going down but my weight staying the same or going up a bit.

I'm down to a size 32 waist now, but still have a big stomach and still weigh the same 225

I started trying to do the far less calories thing, but, though the weight doesn't go up, my waist gets bigger. I'm trying to stay at 1000 calories a day. I find myself riding as long, but not doing as much.

I read that I should replace my "bad" calories with protein so I got some of that protein powder stuff. According to those, I'm only supposed to get 150 calories worth a day from it, so I'm not sure what to do. I can't afford expensive food, especially not here in Hawaii, so I need smart, cheap stuff to eat and to know how much I can replace with the protein powder.

As fat as my stomach is and as heavy as I am, I've never been anywhere NEAR this strong in my life. I quit smoking and have more endurance than ever and my muscles are gigantic compared to what I'm used to and I can fling my bike around like it was made out of balsa wood. I don't want to lose this muscle, just the fat. In freestyle BMX, your knees don't care how big your waist is, only how much you weigh, and I don't like this disgusting giant stomach either.

What can/should I do?

 

[casebro]

Screw the powder. Eat MEAT. And veggies. Go low carb or Zone diet.

The way you dwell on the big gut makes me afraid you have a body image thing.

By the way, your waist is the biggest part, not where you wear your jeans. Healthiest is that your waist is 70% the size of your hips- largest girth of each. How tall are you? REAL waist girth?

eta: and that ought to get this next weight thread started.

 

[marplots]

See a doctor about liposuction.

 

[pipelineaudio]

I'm 5'9". Really long torso and really short legs. How do I measure my actual waist girth? Don't get me wrong, I'm more than thrilled to have lost more than a foot around the waist, but especially, on backwards tricks on my bike, I really want to be lighter. Thank the FSM for this trend of WAY bigger tires, at least I can run those and run them at really low pressures and still not taco a rim

 

[Ziggurat]

Garry Taubes plus Mark Rippetoe.

 

[Puppycow]

Garry Taubes plus Mark Rippetoe.

Garry Taubes wrote "Good Calories, Bad Calories", right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories

Taubes argues that the last few decades of dietary advice promoting low-fat diets has been consistently incorrect. Taubes contends that carbohydrates, specifically refined carbohydrates like white flour, sugar, and starches, contribute to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments. Taubes posits a causal link between carbohydrates and cancer, as well.[1]

Taubes points to biological, epidemiological, and anthropological evidence to back up his assertions. The human body secretes insulin in response to the consumption of carbohydrates in order to regulate blood sugar. This process, in turn, drives the body to store fat. Taubes elaborates by examining evidence of the effects of carbohydrates on tribes with a "traditional" diet high in meat or fat and low in carbohydrates. He finds that the introduction of refined carbohydrates in the diets in these cultures resulted in increased prominence of diseases of civilization like obesity and heart disease.

Reviews were mixed for Good Calories, Bad Calories. Physician Tony Miksanek, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, calls the book "well-researched" and opines that Taubes’s conclusions are "somewhat startling yet surprisingly convincing."[2] Journalism professor and food author Michael Pollan describes Good Calories, Bad Calories as "valuable" but believes that it "does not escape the confines of nutritionism."[3][4]

New York Times medical reporter Gina Kolata concluded that she was ultimately "not convinced" by Taubes’s arguments, writing that "the problem with a book like this one, which goes on and on in great detail […] is that it can be hard to know what has been left out."[5] Laura Vanderkam reviewed the book somewhat negatively in The American, the journal of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. Vanderkam believes that the biggest problem with the book is that Taubes "fashions himself a lonely dissident", causing him to be "so meticulous that at times the book is unreadably weighty."[6]

This would go against the conventional thinking that "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie", IOW calories from protein are equivalent to calories from carbs or from fat and it doesn't matter which ones you eat.

To the OP I would say, if you can't lose weight eating 1000 calories a day, something is wrong. Maybe try the low carb approach and see if it makes a difference for you.

 

[Loss Leader]

Screw the powder. Eat MEAT. And veggies. Go low carb or Zone diet.

Ultra low-carb seems to be the best clinically supported diet (now that the link between cholesterol and atherosclerosis has been questioned). However, most doctors and hospitals are still stuck advising low-fat and low-sodium.

 

[pipelineaudio]

On the 1000 calorie days I really don't think I ride as hard and the inches start coming back.

I guess my main question is, how do I lose fat without losing muscle? I can fast ok psychologically, I spent my adult life as a professional audio engineer, so a dollar a day food budget was a bit high. If its as simple as not eating till I like my fat content I can do that, I just don't want to lose the muscles I grew

 

[malicus]

Garry Taubes plus Mark Rippetoe.

Throw in some Jeff Volek and Peter Attia and you have a plethora of youtube vids to make an informed choice on the disparity between previous / current thinking.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The answer for how to lose weight is slowly. You shouldn't lose more than 1-2lbs a week. The two various ways of working out your calorie intake that I've seen, which give roughly the same results are:

1) use various websites to work out how many calories a person with your build and level of physical activity needs to maintain their weight, then eat 75% of that every day.

2) take your weight in pounds and multiply it by 10-12, and eat that many calories.

Of course neither of these are some kind of magical formula, but if you eat a varied and balanced diet with plenty of vegetables while doing these two things, then you should lose weight at a steady and healthy rate. And don't expect it to be linear. Only lower the amount of calories you're eating if you stay the same weight for three weeks in a row.

It sounds like you're already doing exercise, which is good. Doing both strength exercises and cariovascular exercises is better for weight loss than doing one or the other or neither. But exercise doesn't burn all that many calories in the grand scheme of things and eating the right amount is far more important than exercising.

1,000 calories a day seems like way too little to be healthy, unless you're incredibly short. You certainly shouldn't fast until you've lost all the weight you want to. This can be extremely unhealthy, and diets where you lose the weight too quickly often lead to the person putting the weight back on again once they reach their target weight.

And if you're gaining muscle, I would rely more on measuring your waist than on weighing yourself, as muscle is 4 times as dense as fat, and so weighs 4 times as much.

 

[The Don]

One of the problems about calories out > calories in is that in neither side of the equation is is easy to get an accurate figure.

Mrs Don has a Fitbit and a Microsoft Band, they give significantly different figures for calories burned +/- 20% both for activities and for basal metabolic rate. If she relied 100% on one of them she could easily be failing to undereat by the 500 or so calories a day she wants to in order to lose about 1lb a week.

It's difficult to judge accurately how many calories are being consumed. We're lucky we work from home most of the time and are in the position, should we want to, to cook from scratch (so we don't have to rely on the food manufacturers' figures being accurate) and to weigh everything. Not everyone is in that position (or that relentlessly analytical). One thing we have noticed is that making a not of *everything* you eat and drink makes you more aware of the unnecessary little bits and pieces of food and drink that you can sometimes consume without thinking.

 

[casebro]

I'm 5'9". Really long torso and really short legs. How do I measure my actual waist girth? Don't get me wrong, I'm more than thrilled to have lost more than a foot around the waist, but especially, on backwards tricks on my bike, I really want to be lighter. Thank the FSM for this trend of WAY bigger tires, at least I can run those and run them at really low pressures and still not taco a rim

Not hard. Shirt off, stand sidways to a mirror, measure around ,level, the part that sticks out farthest. Usually your navel.

 

[casebro]

And hey, what's with "...13 years ago a bad medical prescription jumped me to 340 pounds in just a few months." ???? Holy FSM, didn't the psychiatrist notice?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

You're 225 lb, in peak physical condition, in Hawaii?

You're doing fine. Do what you need for your own self-image, but don't worry about your fitness.

The only advice I have is that "calories in < calories out" is an overly simplistic and stupid idea. Diet is much more complicated than that. Find a baseline calorie count and aim a little below that. Don't go under 1500 calories, especially if you're active: you'll just starve yourself, feel like crap, and bounce back once you start eating again.

 

[Ziggurat]

On the 1000 calorie days I really don't think I ride as hard and the inches start coming back.

Well, yeah. You're telling your body that food is scarce. So it tries to conserve energy, and conserve fat.

I guess my main question is, how do I lose fat without losing muscle?

Eat lots of protein and lift weights. That's why I threw in Rippetoe. You need to be telling your body that the muscles are necessary (and giving it what it needs to keep that muscle), so you give it a stimulus that requires the use of all your muscles. Otherwise, you'll lose muscle when you go calorie deficient, because your body doesn't need it, no matter how much you want it. And no, cardio won't do that.

And if you're lifting weights, you can go calorie deficient on a lot more than 1000 calories a day.

 

[madurobob]

Yes - add weight lifting to your daily routine.

We know you cannot target where you lose fat. But, you can control where muscles are toned. Since you're concerned about belly, why not make sure you have a good core workout routine to target belly muscle toning? Side bends, crunches, leg lifts... that sort of thing.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yes - add weight lifting to your daily routine.

We know you cannot target where you lose fat. But, you can control where muscles are toned. Since you're concerned about belly, why not make sure you have a good core workout routine to target belly muscle toning? Side bends, crunches, leg lifts... that sort of thing.

You don't really want to lift weights daily, you want a recovery day between each workout (unless you're working different muscles each day, but that's inefficient). And you'll get a good core workout with just heavy squats and deadlifts. You contract the abdominal muscles hard (Valsalva maneuver) to help stabilize the back and keep it in extension. You can do that other stuff too, but it isn't really necessary.

 

[pipelineaudio]

And hey, what's with "...13 years ago a bad medical prescription jumped me to 340 pounds in just a few months." ???? Holy FSM, didn't the psychiatrist notice?

I could only get to the doctor if a bunch of money came in, so I didnt see them much. This was the early days of Paxil. I went in with some symptoms that turned out to be near septicemia case of tooth infections, but they thought it was anxiety. I followed up a few times at first and was told to keep trying it, it would get better. By the time I went to a dentist for another broken tooth and he saw all the abcesses, I was a blimp. Withdrawing from Paxil was no fun either! I'd rather quit smoking ten times, youch

 

[pipelineaudio]

Thanks! I like the weight lifting idea! I really like to try different ways of making my bike "invisible" to my intentions, so on this advice, I got a pair of mini dumbbells that weighed 35 pounds each, about ten pounds past my bike. I'm hoping in addition to the health, I'll be more able to control my bike and learn some new things that require holding it over my head in one hand, like footplants and stuff.

I tried lifting them the same way I'd be lifting my bike and also holding them in front of me and over my head. I bet psychologically I can stick to using the weights since it directly should affect my riding. Are there specific ways I should be using the weights in addition to what I tried tonight?

 

[Ziggurat]

Thanks! I like the weight lifting idea! I really like to try different ways of making my bike "invisible" to my intentions, so on this advice, I got a pair of mini dumbbells that weighed 35 pounds each, about ten pounds past my bike. I'm hoping in addition to the health, I'll be more able to control my bike and learn some new things that require holding it over my head in one hand, like footplants and stuff.

I tried lifting them the same way I'd be lifting my bike and also holding them in front of me and over my head. I bet psychologically I can stick to using the weights since it directly should affect my riding. Are there specific ways I should be using the weights in addition to what I tried tonight?

Do you have any access to barbells? I know gym memberships can be pricey, but local YMCA's often have the requisite equipment. Barbells are really the ideal, since you can keep loading them up in small increments. You could still do some light goblet squats with the dumbbells, but you won't be able to progress very far with just one set.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/02/09/intro-to-barbell-training-with-mark-rippetoe-video/