I have seen on the web site in several places that when someone is having trouble loosing they are being advised to eat more???
I don't understand this. You have to burn more calaries then you eat in order to loose.
The less taken in and the more burned the more you loose.
Can someone please explain? My doctor explained that it is like a car. If you put 10 gallons of gas(food) in every day and only drive two miles you are going to have an over abundance of gas (fat) However if you put 10 gallons in and drive 100 miles you are going to have a deficit, and lose weight.
Kathy
If you body has too little fuel it starts storing fat to save for later. So no matter how much you burn you body wont let it go because it thinks it needs it. But if you eat lots of fuel in smaller meals throughout the day you body KNOWS it is going to get enough again sooner and be more willing to let the extra go.
This doesn't mean to eat 3000 calories a day and sit around. This means you need to eat enough for your body to live off. And if you are exercising you need to eat even more so you body has enough energy. I was eating an average of 1300 a day and exercising for at least an hour and I was losing nothing. I started eating a bit more and stopped exercising and I started dropping weight. My body was storing it because I was LITERALLY starving myself. You body needs calories (engery) and fat in order to function.
I don't know how much you are eating but I remember you once posted in our planning thread and we left you responses but you never came back. You might want to try and dig that thread up.
If you body has too little fuel it starts storing fat to save for later. So no matter how much you burn you body wont let it go because it thinks it needs it.
Not true. The real question is how big a caloric deficit can you maintain while still remaining active and functional. Although starvation mode (which shuts down reproduction, aging and other processes to conserve energy) does occur in thin individuals I have never seen any evidence of it in overweight people. My testosterone levels remain high even on a 1,000 Cal/day diet, and my weight loss was never more rapid. Our bodies store fat in the good times and burn it in the lean ones.
1-2#/week seems to be a pretty reasonable pace to lose weight, so aiming for a deficit of 500-1,000 cal/day seems like a nice target.
It is possible for a prolonged reduced caloric intake to slow your overall metabolism because it's generally known that your metabolic processes operate at the expense of the ingested energy. I like to call it the intrinsic "caveman" mechanism; Obviously you can't lose weight until you disappear completely. A constant caloric deficit isn't going to let you continue losing weight at a consistent rate- it has to stop eventually at a point where the body will operate with whatever you are feeding it. So if you eat less and your metabolic processes slow, the body will not lose weight as you mightve experienced as you just started dieting. However, giving it a tad bit more nutrients and calories may speed up your metabolism slightly, or at least let your body know that you have more available energy to expend.
It's funny because its somewhat counterintuitive to the "less food, lose weight" idea but you must realize that the body relies on this mechanism for survival. Even in hibernating animals, some which do not eat for a whole 2 seasons, they need this sort of mechanism to slow their body down so they cannot lose more weight and survive a little bit longer on their remaining body mass. I have a turtle that hasn't eaten in 10 months! She's still alive and wake, but most of the time sleeps. (Thats her way of saving her remaining body mass and slowing her metabolism)
Fair enough. I just find in myself that when I eat 1300 a day and exercise I don't lose a thing, not even an ounce. As soon as I bump that up to like 1600 a day, I lose 1.5-3 pounds a week (or have been for the last couple weeks). Unless it just finally caught up with me, I just found it harder to lose on 1300 a day.
And remember you have to eat whatever you can stick with. What is it, your body needs 10 calories per pounds to maintain your weight. And you are supposed to aim 200-300 lower then that and aim to burn 200-300 a day thru exercise? I could be totally wrong.
I also remember you saying you weren't eating breakfast and that is the MOST important meal of the day. It get's your body going!
I shared this in another thread and I wont get into all the details here, but my grandmother is currently dieing because she starved herself to death. So please don't be afraid to eat. Let me tell you how painfull it is to watch my gramma die because she starved herself for too long. So PLEASE EAT! Maybe you have changed your habits since your post in that thread, and maybe I misunderstood but I got the impression you were starving yourself.
Obviously you can't lose weight until you disappear completely.
Well like I said in my above thread, my gramma is dying because of starvation. In January she was in the hospital and weighed about 90 pounds. They let her go home and within 3 months she dropped down to 84 pounds. She is back in the hospital and they believe she is now under 80 pounds. She was not a small framed women, you can see all her bones almost breaking out of her skin. She has starved her body for so long she can't eat much more then a few monthfuls of food before she is full. I believe that she will lose weight until she disappears. I don't even understand how she can still be losing weight, she doesn't have anything left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A constant caloric deficit isn't going to let you continue losing weight at a consistent rate- it has to stop eventually at a point where the body will operate with whatever you are feeding it. So if you eat less and your metabolic processes slow, the body will not lose weight. However, giving it a tad bit more nutrients and calories may speed up your metabolism slightly, or at least let your body know that you have more available energy to expend.
Once you get used to consuming less, you can still maintain your old activity levels. Initially when I severely cut my calories, I was weak and lethargic, but once your body adjusts to running on fat (ketone bodies) you get back up to your old energy levels.
If you look at the forum member Ultraclyde's blog, you can see that he lost weight at a steady predicatable rate on a severely restrictive diet until he got down to ~12% bodyfat. At that point "Calorie Restriction" mode kicked in and started shutting down his weight loss. For those of us with alot of weight to lose I wouldn't worry about eating "too little".
Quote:
I also remember you saying you weren't eating breakfast and that is the MOST important meal of the day. It get's your body going!
It is only important if your body is expecting it. Otherwise, you just make do burning fat.
I am getting serious again about my diet by logging EVERYTHING I eat on fitday. So far I am averaging about 2,500 Cal/day and burning about 4,800 Cal/day. Breakfast is coffee and oatmeal and dinner is water.
Yes, but I also see a lot of people posting their calorie and exercise goals, and unless they are a lot shorter than I imagine they could be, they are working on something more like a 4-5lb/week loss rate. And, maybe just coincidentally, they often seem to not be losing any weight. (This is a 100% unscientific reveiw of "Some Posts I remember".)
One thing I do notice, is that when I don't eat enough, I don't have as much energy to truly bring a lot of effort to my workouts, and that can't be good. Then again, that's just my scientific self-survey, and we all know how relieable they are.
I have seen on the web site in several places that when someone is having trouble loosing they are being advised to eat more???
I don't understand this. You have to burn more calaries then you eat in order to loose.
The less taken in and the more burned the more you loose.
Can someone please explain? My doctor explained that it is like a car. If you put 10 gallons of gas(food) in every day and only drive two miles you are going to have an over abundance of gas (fat) However if you put 10 gallons in and drive 100 miles you are going to have a deficit, and lose weight.
Kathy
Kathy, that is one horrible analogy.
First off, when you burn fuel, the result is, you get more miles out of it. When you ingest food, you get more energy out of it, but in the form of fat or mechanical operations? You only get miles out of fuel, and you do not "reserve" fuel as a different form other than fuel. The fuel you use to power your car is the same type of fuel you will have "in abundance" after you drive. However, is the food you eat the same as the energy stored in you (muscle, fat etc) or even the energy in the form of mechanical walking, working etc?
If I ate an apple, is it the same apple that's inside of me? Can I reserve this inside of me to use for later IN THE EXACT SAME FORM it was before I digested it?
Also, a car burns fuel proportionally to factors such as how much you accelerate in speed, etc. Your body is a multifactorial biological structure. It is not a car. You can simple reduce your calories and see the change on the scale UP TO AN EXTENT. We don't operate like cars. Cars are very controlled machines. Our metabolism is controlled but can change at any point based on how the overall system is functioning.
Once you get used to consuming less, you can still maintain your old activity levels. Initially when I severely cut my calories, I was weak and lethargic, but once your body adjusts to running on fat (ketone bodies) you get back up to your old energy levels.
If you look at the forum member Ultraclyde's blog, you can see that he lost weight at a steady predicatable rate on a severely restrictive diet until he got down to ~12% bodyfat. At that point "Calorie Restriction" mode kicked in and started shutting down his weight loss. For those of us with alot of weight to lose I wouldn't worry about eating "too little".
When I mean a consistent rate, I mean a line with a slope of 1 with no end and no beginning. You don't lose 2 lbs each week guaranteed if you decreased your intake by 7000 calories each week. I don't know of a person that loses 2 lbs the first week, then 2 lbs the 2nd week, and on and on and on forever going down 2 lbs each week without stopping the weight loss. You can keep your metabolism up by exercising but the point was discuss her reason for added fuel.
Yes, but I also see a lot of people posting their calorie and exercise goals, and unless they are a lot shorter than I imagine they could be, they are working on something more like a 4-5lb/week loss rate. And, maybe just coincidentally, they often seem to not be losing any weight. (This is a 100% unscientific reveiw of "Some Posts I remember".)
I was burning OVER DOUBLE what I was eating, and losing nothing.
Well like I said in my above thread, my gramma is dying because of starvation. In January she was in the hospital and weighed about 90 pounds. They let her go home and within 3 months she dropped down to 84 pounds. She is back in the hospital and they believe she is now under 80 pounds. She was not a small framed women, you can see all her bones almost breaking out of her skin. She has starved her body for so long she can't eat much more then a few monthfuls of food before she is full. I believe that she will lose weight until she disappears. I don't even understand how she can still be losing weight, she doesn't have anything left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She can't get 0 lbs. (That's what I meant by disappearing; I was really literal)
eat more to loose?
) 
