Fat loss for females (Lyle McDonald)

[Dominique]

I’ve been walking 4-5 hours everyday lately (I’m currently on vacation) and I’ve been listening to various fitness-related podcasts during that time. Yesterday, I listened to a fascinating one on fat loss for females:

https://youtu.be/6846ZTBu08k

Obviously, the subject did not apply to me, but I knew Lyle McDonald via his articles and read one of his books (A Guide to Flexible Dieting), so I thought the podcast would be both educating and entertaining. And so it was. Warning: it’s quite long (1h11m), but never boring.

If there’s one thing I learned from it, it’s that I should refrain from offering weight loss advice to women based on my own experience: men and women just differ so much! And gee, we guys are having it really easy with fat loss!

[Bobbinyc]

Thank you for saying that men shouldn't offer advice to women based on their own experience

The world of dieting has some of the most opinionated, but least fact-based books around.  Few other fields could get away with not having a scientific basis for what they promote.  In my field, as in most, you would be sued out of existence, lose your license.  Yet, people with no research or proof, and no credentials, offer opinions as if fact.  And we, hoping for the magic pill, buy into it.  And then when it doesn't work, we blame ourselves and quickly buy into the next great thing to be promoted.  How sad, and sometimes dangerous.

[A_Lurker]

I've read some of Lyle's stuff before, and he's a pretty bright guy.  I ended up signing up for his newsletter on the off chance this comes out soon.  I know from being on his site before that he's not always the best at meeting deadlines (which he's honest about) but I'd be willing to plunk down some cash to see what he's figured out.  I didn't have enough time to listen to the entire interview (may do that later) but a lot of what Lyle is talking about is more about getting from maybe the just overweight into the regular range.  There aren't as many differences once you're into the obese category (where I am).  However, I've heard this concept before, that women's weight loss is different at lower weights as there are biological reasons our bodies want to hold on to more fat.

[Dominique]

Yes, he did mention in his interview that obese women could safely have large deficits just like men and he did indeed focus more on already lean women who wanted/needed to get even leaner (athletes, physique competitors etc.) and these are the ones having a really hard time (compared to men). He also talked about PCOS, the impact of birth control and several other topics affecting fat loss for females.

[A_Lurker]

Yes, women do tend to carry it differently than men.  Years ago I worked with a woman who was quite lean, but carried most of her excess weight in her hips.  In fact, although I'm obviously still quite obese I don't carry the bulk of it there, I carry my excess through the trunk (not necessarily better for health).  She was doing tons of cardio and trying to lose weight when another friend suggested she focus on building some muscle on her upper body.  Not sure if that was truly the answer, but as she put on some definition on her upper body she did appear less out of proportion.

Ah, to have those problems.... 

Oddly enough, even with a lot of weight to lose, I still feel that my body fights me every step of the way.  I was concerned last week that I was eating too much (really really high burn week for me).  I decided to cap my calories in at 2500, not matter what the burn was.  Friday and Saturday I burned 4654 and 3972 calories and ended up down 1.8 pounds for the week.  However, yesterday I really tried for a quiet day and ended up burning 3610.  All three days I stopped eating at 2500 calories.  This morning (overnight) I'm down another 1.8 pounds.  I know that it's water, but it still throws me when I see that.  I know more than I knew years ago and suspect it was water retention from muscle repair.  I carry enough extra weight that fluctuations aren't unusual, but not usually more than a pound here and there.  The last big jump I saw was known (extra food, alcohol, etc.).  No wonder it drives people nuts.

Anyway, I'm halfway into my next hour and I don't think I've done any steps.  That's my big change over the last couple of weekends.  I decided that any days that I'm home (today is a holiday weekend) I will make sure I'm doing 500 steps every hour.  Doesn't sound like a lot to some, but it's trying to break my natural tendency to lie outside with a book (or sit in the pool with a book).  I can usually (although not always) make myself more active at work, but even there I'm trying to pay more attention.