Weight loss - An unproven name in field of health

[danielpatrik]

Hi Friends,

I am new to this discussion forum and I am strugling since 5 years for weight loss.

I do all the physical activities and the diet is also very maintained then too ,  I am not able to control my weight. I am now worried with my increasing age so could be please guide me some measures to sort out this issues.

I am a reader of various health sites and I am very much confused which sites offers the best responses the best remedies and tips for this issue.

Please feel free to share your views.

Regards,

[Esya]

Weight loss is very simple and because of that very challenging at the same time:

Weight change = (calories in) - (calories burned)

So there are two parts that contribute to your weight change as you already pointed out, activities and diet. It is very hard to get precise numbers for the calories (for both eaten and burned). What you can say though is that if your weight is increasing it means you are eating more calories than you are burning and when you are losing weight you are burning more calories than you are eating. So if you see your weight increasing you have two options: eat less and/or move more.

Therefore I strongly recommend to log your food and drinks if they contain calories. That way you learn what food and drinks are high in calories and what is low in calories. You can see how many calories you have on an average day (average over a week for example) and make little adjustments here and there, but that you know change the calories. Healthy foods can still be very high in calories, like nuts and oils, while others hardly contain any, like vegetables.

Now for your calories burned part. There are two parts here, your BMR (the calories you burn while doing nothing at all, just being alive and breathing) and your active calories. You can try to establish your BMR using free calories calculators online, but remember those are all estimations and might be slightly off. Then there are your active calories burned, FitBit is a great tool to track both for you. The app will also estimate your BMR and add the two parts together to show you the calories burned.

So for a few weeks (say 3 weeks (4 weeks for women)) you log your food and do your activities. You have numbers on paper (in the app) for how much you ate and for how much you burned. Substract these two and what you get is called your calories deficit (or surplus, but hopefully a deficit).

If you keep weighing yourself on a regular basis, you know your weight at the start of those 3 weeks and at the end. This is your weight change.

You might find that a calories deficit reported in the app might not translate into weight loss for you. Now do not get discouraged. You have the data from those 3 weeks. If your weight is not going down, increase your deficit by lowering the amount of calories you eat and/or increase your amount of calories burned to increase the calories deficit. Once again you want to use this new plan for 3 weeks and weight yourself. See how the scales changed and adjust again if needed. The reason to do this only every 3 weeks, is because otherwise it will be very hard to understand what change has what impact on the scale (weight does not always react immediately). Therefore, try to make a change every 3 weeks only and stick to it.

As you can see, this is where the challenge is. It means planning your diet and your work outs in order to get to the calories deficit you planned for. But this will become easier with time.

 Few tips and tricks:

- Log every bite, lick and taste and your drinks

- Try not to eat below your BMR, even if that means losing weight more slow. Eating below your BMR for a longer period should not be done without a doctor

- Once you reach your goal weight, keep the same focus and apply the same tactics as you had to lose it, you just work with a different calories balance (or you risk gaining it all back unfortunately)

[Mukluk4]

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wrote:

Weight loss is very simple and because of that very challenging at the same time:

Weight change = (calories in) - (calories burned)

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I wish **ahem** was that simple.  You also need to account for stress, sleep debt, and hereditary markers.

In addition to logging calories and and out you need to at a minimum include (1) sleep - average 7 hours or more a week. and  (2) stress levels - family, job, etc.

[GershonSurge]

There is only ONE way of eating that has been scientifically proven to prevent, arrest and reverse heart disease. This was done back in 1974 by Dr. Dean Ornish and in many peer reviewed studies since then. There are many other big names in nutrition doing the same thing. Dr. Esselstyne, Dr. McDougall, Dr. Neal Bernard, Dr. Colin Campbell. 

The same way of eating that cures hear disease prevents, arrest or cures most degenerative diseases. Even cancer in about 80% of the cases. 

I suggest watching "Forks over Knives" on Netflix. Then go to www.drmcdougall.com and ask the same question there.

[Julia_G]

The simple message that

calories in minus calories out < 0 = weight loss

calories in minus calories out > 0 = weight gain

ignores the growing evidence that not all calories are created equal.  Yes, if you consistently consume fewer calories than you burn, then, over time, you will lose weight.  But the story is not nearly that simple, and which calories you consume can very much make a difference in how you are burning them.

Meanwhile, on these matters, I only really trust the Harvard Health Letter.  If they say it's true, it's true!

[danielpatrik]

Thanks for your reply could you please share some sites which provides vital information as bookmark page for future references

[Esya]

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wrote: @Julia_G

The simple message that

calories in minus calories out < 0 = weight loss

calories in minus calories out > 0 = weight gain

ignores the growing evidence that not all calories are created equal.  Yes, if you consistently consume fewer calories than you burn, then, over time, you will lose weight.  But the story is not nearly that simple, and which calories you consume can very much make a difference in how you are burning them.

Meanwhile, on these matters, I only really trust the Harvard Health Letter.  If they say it's true, it's true!

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First you say you don't agree to then agree that indeed if you do it consistently it works. I nowhere said there is not more to our health or that stress and sleep don't have an impact (from @Mukluk4 post). The impact sleep and stress can have are the hormones changing our metabolism (once again part of what I did mention, the calories burned), eating more or being less active. And yes, it can really get in the way unfortunately.

I feel I should not have put that equation in. It is not so much that I want to state that equation is exactly on point for every situation. I just use it to illustrate a good starting point to start your weight loss journey and it does show the two biggest factors that contribute to weight loss and that we can more easily change. I strongly believe in using the scales as the judge to check if you are on the right track and then use those two factors to correct where needed until you find your balance.

Also, I am nowhere stating that there is not more to living healthy and for me weight is only a part of it.

I hope this makes my post a bit more clear.

[Mukluk4]

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wrote:

The same way of eating that cures hear disease prevents, arrest or cures most degenerative diseases. Even cancer in about 80% of the cases. 

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That's a bit of a stretch to say, considering the amount of unknowns in the genetic and medical fields.

[MagsOnTheBeach]

I've been reading a lot over the past year and it seems that for sustained weight loss you have to really monitor your food - count calories, portions, size, it doesn't matter, you just have to decide on the amount and be consistent.  Fresh foods over packaged and restaurant foods.  It looks like the most highly rated diets have a  lot of fresh vegetables, some fruits, some grains, beans, nuts and protein.    

For me I have:

2-3 servings of dairy

1-3 servings of beans, nuts and seeds

6-8oz of lean protein

2-3 servings of fats

2 servings of whole grains, starchy veg

Unlimited non-starchy veg

limited sweets.

This works for me - I know it works because I log what I eat. When I stop logging, I eat more and gain.  I also find WHAT I eat matters a LOT.  I can't just eat 1400 calories of bread - there has to be a balance - the calories have to be good calories - variety, fresh and home cooked.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say diet is maintained or what all the physical activities refers to - but I walk/jog/run 10-14,000 steps a day and 2times a week I do kettlebells.

[Julia_G]

@Esya, what I agree with is that if you consistently starve people they will lose weight.  There is no argument about that, and it has been proven over and over in times of famine and war.

What I don't agree with is the notion that you can offer as weight loss advice the simple, and I would say facile, statement about calories in vs calories out.  Because, as I said (in a simplistic way) not all calories are equal.  To put it more correctly, one's metabolism will respond differently to different sorts of calories (so yes, the equation is still the same calories out minus calories in, but suddenly the calories out gets skewed... because you burn some calories differently from other calories...)

I am not talking about health -- that's obvious and undisputed.  I am talking about actual weight loss.  I can pretty well guarantee you that if you calculate a calorie deficit, if you decide to consume all your calories in donuts you will not only be less healthy, you will also lose weight differently (and probably significantly more slowly, if at all) than if you choose to consume your calories in meat and vegetables.  (Even without ketosis.)

Interesting new research, for example, suggests that our bodies respond to zero calorie diet drinks in almost exactly the same way they do to calorie filled sugary ones, and diet drinks (and other food full of artificial sweeteners may be detrimental to weight loss -- again, I am not talking about health, I am talking about weight loss).

Another extreme example (and this a real life one):  when I was a teenager I spent the weekend with a friend.  Her mother was morbidly obese and was "on a diet".  It turned out that the thing my friend's mother cared most about was gin and tonic, so when we had dinner, she had her calories in gin and tonic.  Her calorie deficit suggested she should lose weight and yet she was still quite fat.  (I don't know what happened long term, because I never went back!). Of course she wasn't healthy, but that isn't my point!

I don't mean to "have a go" at you, but I DO think the simple equation is both misleading and can be discouraging to people who want to lose weight.  I agree that stuff about nutrition can be really controversial (and also full of nonsense, food fads, nutrition fads, miracle cures etc  -- that's why I only believe the Harvard Health Letter, because I know they rigourously review everything they publish) 

Calories as a measurement of food energy is a 19th century concept.  I am not saying it is entirely wrong (see my staements above -- it really is possible for me to disagree with you and also accept that part of what you say is true) but I think scientists have, and diet advisors should have, moved on, just a little from this -- again, not about health, but also about weight loss.  It is complicated!

From my personal, wholly unscientific, totally anecdotal experience, I agree with @MagsOnTheBeach.  My body just likes to hang on to bread calories and yet is happy to slough off avocado ones...  On the calorie theory I was terrified of avocados (check them out -- they are really "fattening"). Now I eat a whole one almost every day and maintain a consistent 21 BMI.  But if I eat my avocado in a sandwich between two slices of bread?  My scale knows about it.  

Back to my premise: all calories are not created equal!

[WavyDavey]

I don't see the big issue with weight management being largely "calories in and calories out". Things like hormones, stress or how we metabolize a particular food are (hidden) in the "calories out" part of the equation. 

It's not possible to accurately measure calories out because of so many factors involved, but we can take estimations, and use a weight scale to confirm and adjust our plan as necessary. That process, at least for me, is mostly dancing around calories in and out.

@danielpatrik, what specific exercise program(s) are you doing? I would suggest that resistance strength training done 3 times per week, and HIIT performed 3-4 times a week will produce some weight loss.

[Julia_G]

@WavyDavey, my point is that what you eat is also an uncertain element in the calories IN part of the equation.  A donut calorie really is not the same as a carrot calorie.  Evidence suggests that the body simply does not see it the same way, even if physics says it "ought" to.

BOTH sides of the equation are very approximate, and it definitely is not simple.

So basically, although it might be a first VERY ROUGH calculation, I agree, we need to take estimates. make experiments and see how we go.  

Having said that, I accept that many people do seem to find logging calories helpful, although I think the most likely reason for this is that it encourages them to eat mindfully.

[Esya]

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@Julia_Gwrote:

BOTH sides of the equation are very approximate, and it definitely is not simple.

So basically, although it might be a first VERY ROUGH calculation, I agree, we need to take estimates. make experiments and see how we go. 

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This is also what I am saying. Both sides are an estimation. But the judge is the scale. If the scale is going up, your best bet is to lower your calories in and/or up your calories burned until you find that balancing point where you start losing weight. Nowhere I am meaning to say this equation will be exact in that if you log calories in and calories burned it will translate into weight loss if the number is negative on paper. What I am trying to say is that it is a good starting point and if the scale is still not moving you play with those two numbers until it starts moving (ideally every 3 or 4 weeks, so you can see what kind of impact a change makes). Because it might look like a calories deficit on paper, while in practice it is not as you cannot exactly determine calories burned and calories in. This includes all different kind of reasons like sleep, stress, tastes and little licks of food not being logged, drinks not being logged, how different foods burn etc. etc. It is basically all hidden in there.

[Julia_G]

So, I think we have come to a consensus on this: 

Begin with the principle that in order to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume, but be aware that your burn rate may not be average, and also may differ day to day, and be aware that just because a certain food packet claims a certain number of calories, your body may consume it differently, especially in context with other foods you may be eating throughout the day.

Check in regularly with your tape measure, your mirror, your scale, and your clothes.

[emili]

@danielpatrik do you see how complicated something so simple is? Weight loss is a self guided science experiment. You keep trying until you find the right formula for you. The one thing everyone agrees on is to lose weight you must be in a caloric deficit. The other thing everyone agrees on is that those calories are made up of good choices- good protein, good macro and micro nutrients, good carb, etc.

If you keep a food log of your caloric intake and weigh yourself regularly you will see what the right number of calories is for you and what those calories are made up of. If you don't see a change, you need to adjust, if you stall, you need to adjust and so on you go until you get to goal. Then come back and we can offer you many different views on how to maintain your new healthy weight.. which is actually the hard part.. Good luck in your endeavor..

This is the blog that I read most often because I agree with his point of view.. he isn't for everyone..https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/start-here/

[danielpatrik]

I just visited many of the health sites during these days  which provides information on weight loss and remedies for it and they too provide vital information's regarding this. health portals like healthline, webmd, zovon and mediline provides vital information's on this topic but I am bit confused which of these portals provides most accurate and can be followed on a regular basis. Anyone can guide which of these portals are best for the regular reading on daily basis. 

I am also doing an regular exercise for almost 2 hours and I have loosen 2 kg of weight in few weeks. I thinks its a good achievement for now.

Regards

[danielpatrik]

Dear @Esya,

You have jotted down the weight loss journey so wonderfully well. Yes, i have started maintaining my calorie intake and activity log. Its still time to figure out how well my current activities and calorie intake goes. Thank you for this piece of advice.

Regards,

Daniel