Skinny but overweight

[DJWolfpack]

I am a thin, middle aged man, up until I was 40 I could always eat whatever I wanted without gaining weight and in somecases I would loose weight.  I also have a nervous stomach that is calmed down by fat or sugary foods.  stress from work causes me to eat late in the evening and sometimes I feel like I have low blood surgar first thing in the morning after I eat breakfast.  I want to loose some weight but Ive never really done this before.  Suggestions on how to do this without falling asleep at work?   im 6'-2" and 180 but 3 years ago I was 6'-2" and 160.  It would be nice to loose this beer gut and get back to 170?

[Dominique · Accepted solution]

First of all, you’d be normal weight at both 180 (BMI: 23.1) and 160 (BMI: 20.5), so you’re not currently overweight, but overfat. Your stomach is mostly on the receiving end of what you send it its way through your throat. Most of the stuff related to eating behaviours actually takes place in the brain. If you are more interested in this, I can recommend listening to two podcasts with Stephan Guyenet (author of The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat😞 Overeating, Fat Mass Regulation & Energy Homeostasis and The Neuroscience of Overeating & Regulation of Calorie Balance.

You will need to improve your nutrition (favour minimally processed food, eat enough protein and veggies, adjust your carb intake to your activity level) and engage in regular physical exercise (both cardio and resistance training).

Have a look at Finalist #3 in Precision Nutrition’s contest for best transformation in 2017: 

The guy’s weight went from 188 to 147 lb. Just to give you an idea of what it may take to go from beer belly to ripped six-pack. Such a transformation definitely requires a lot of work and effort.

[DJWolfpack]

Thanks for the response.  Yes, overfat is a better analysis.  I work too much which makes eating at the right times hard, it stresses out my stomach and then I often eat fatty foods late in the evening.  I don't think I need to look like the ripped guy in the picture but I would like to figure some sort of happy medium where I weigh a little less and my stomach is less fatty.  I will listen to the podcasts.  In the mean time can someone help with the Calorie and Food Logging App?  Below are 3 Screen Shots, the first two are from today and show that I have not yet eaten anything and have 2275 calories left, the second shows 0 cals in, 441 cals out and 2275 cals left for the day.  The third and last photo is from yesterday at the end of the day and shows 2451 cals in, 3284 cals out and 333 cals left for the day.  How is the Cals Left for the day figured out because it is certainly not 3284 - 2451 = 833???  so how does the app end up with 333 left??  If Im going to loose weight I need to know if Im eating less calories!  Thanks!

[Dominique]

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@DJWolfpack wrote:

I work too much which makes eating at the right times hard, it stresses out my stomach and then I often eat fatty foods late in the evening.

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Actually, nutrient timing (what you eat and when, how many meals a day you eat etc.) only plays a minor role in weight loss. Check the nutritional priorities in this other topic: what matters most for diet success is calorie balance; macronutrients come second and nutrient timing is a distant third. So regardless of the constraints imposed by your work and your life on when you can eat, if you get calories and macronutrients right, you will likely have 80% of the job done.

[Baltoscott]

@DJWolfpack — calories left for the day will change throughout the day as your tracker detects exercise.

Agreeing with @Dominique that meal timing is not very important for weight loss.  But it really sounds like you need to get on an eating schedule.  You probably binge on fatty food at night because you don’t eat good nutritious food at regular times throughout the day.  If you can manage to eat 3 or 4 regular meals at more or less the same time every day you hungar pangs will start to associate with meal times and it will be easier to resist junk after a long stressful day at work.

[DJWolfpack]

BaltoScott!

Yes, I think you got it spot on as the right answer.  I just need to bring more "snacks" to the office like nut bars, apples, etc. and then set a reminder to eat them and make eating on a schedule a priority.  I think that will help alot.  It will take some effort to plan this out ahead of time but with a 4 day work week coming up it will make for a good opportunity to make it happen.

[DJWolfpack]

so im down about 10 pounds now for the year and my muscle mass is up about 0.5%  So Id call that a win.  my breakfast is typically egg whites, a protien shake and some turkey,  sometimes I have a mid morning snack, lunch is various but lower on carbs, sometimes ill have an afternoon snack of nuts and then eavening meal.  I am not eating much fruit since it is carb heavy and at my physical yesterday my cholesterol was up about 30 points compared to last year - im still in an ok range but I ate way worse last year (from a fat and meat standpoint) probably ate slightly more fruit but I know I typically ate 1-3 whole eggs every morning so why is my cholesterol so high now?

[Baltoscott]

Glad to hear your weight loss and body fat are trending in a good direction.  Regarding cholesterol, I’ve always wished I could take that test five days in a row and average the results.  Your ‘true’ measure might be somewhere in between this year and last year.  I found this article and apparently the reading can vary a lot depending on many factors over the days prior to the test.  Unfortunately, you probably cannot get a comparison test so soon after that one unless you pay for it yourself or if the reading was high enough to support a statin prescription.

Since I can’t get a cholesteral test five days in a row I bought a home BP monitor and use it and weigh myself daily.  The trends from those two measures, plus my resting HR as calculated by FitBit are pretty good proxies for my general health.