Author Topic: The last "diet" you'll ever need  (Read 8348 times)

Sparafusile

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The last "diet" you'll ever need
« on: March 01, 2012, 07:21:34 AM »
Before I get into the meat and potatoes, let me dispel some common misconceptions:

We eat so poorly, in general, that we're all going to become obese and develop diabetes.
This is just not true. As anyone that has gone to more than one high school reunion will attest, people don't become fat and overweight overnight. To bastardize one of my favorite actors (Samuel L. Jackson) in one of my favorite movies (Formula 51): "Fat don't just happen. Fat takes time. Fat takes effort." It's the slow accumulation of excess calories over several years that makes people overweight. You can eat the healthiest food in the world and still become obese. Or you can eat the least healthy food and die of starvation. In this sense, it's not what you eat, but how much.

I need to go on a diet to lose weight.
This concept is so wrong it's frightening. By stating that you plan to go on a diet implies that at some point in the future you plan to go off the diet. What many people have found after trying the latest, greatest fab diet is that they will loose weight for a while, get bored and go off the diet, then rebound and actually end up heavier than they were before starting. After trying this a few times the person will not only have stressed their body, but actually been counter productive to their goal.



From now on when you want to lose weight don't think "diet" think "lifestyle change". I know those words can seem scary. You're probably thinking I'll ask you to eat raw broccoli and fish for the rest of your life, but nothing can be further from the truth. The truth is, you probably eat fairly healthy food right now. For example, I eat hamburgers, steak and potatoes, chicken and rice, tossed salad, some occasional fast food, etc. On the weekends I'll enjoy some alcoholic beverages with my friends and I'll even drink a coke when I can get my hand on one. Yet, most people that see me think I'm super fit and some say I'm too skinny.

So how do I do it? What is the "diet" I'm using to stay lean and mean? What should you eat to lose weight? The answer is simple - eat exactly what you eat right now, just eat less of it. The perfect diet, the diet that doesn't have you making sacrifices, skipping meals, or drinking nasty shakes can be summed up thus:

  • After you sit down to dinner and fill your plate with food and before you start eating, take one third of the food on your plate and put it back in the serving dish. Eat what is left.

Tada! Simple, easy to remember, and you still get to eat everything you normally would. After you perform this exercise for a couple months it will become natural to you and you wont even have to think about it. You have just executed a "lifestyle change". I bet you'll find it's less painful that you first thought.

So what's the trick? The trick is that you'll be consuming fewer calories than you expend on day-to-day activity. For every 3,500 extra calories you eat, you'll gain one pound of fat. If you eat 100 calories more than you need every day you will have gained 10 pounds by the end of the year. So what does 100 calories look like?

  • Half a glazed doughnut is 100 calories
  • A very small handful of Doritos is 100 calories
  • About a tablespoon of butter is 100 calories
  • Half a glass of whole milk is 100 calories
  • An entire head of raw broccoli is 100 calories
  • One and a half large eggs are 100 calories
  • Half a McDonald's cheeseburger is 100 calories

Cut any one of those things out of your daily routine without changing anything else will remove 10lbs from your frame by the end of the year. Cut any one of those things out of each meal of every day and you'll loose 30lbs a year!
« Last Edit: March 01, 2012, 09:29:20 AM by Sparafusile »

velocistar237

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2012, 07:37:59 AM »
I agree with this, wholeheartedly, but you've just opened a can of worms. People have very strong opinions about diet because body image and the struggle with achieving and maintaining a good weight can cause some very strong emotions. Also, it's very hard to validate the claims that some diets make, but that doesn't keep people from defending those very strong opinions. My personal belief is that some calories might be worse than others, and a low-carb diet might help, but those are second-order effects. It will take a couple more decades before we finally sort out this problem, and even then, there will still be fads.

Here are some of my favorite links.

"The Physics Diet" - This is by a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley about the basic physics of weight loss. He points out that diets work well to the extent that they make calories-in less than calories-out, that is, the best diet for someone is the one that helps them manage dieting hunger.

"The Physics of Gluttony" - A follow-up to the above article. This one talks about the common misconception that exercise can increase metabolism.

"Why is it So Easy to Regain Weight?" - James Krieger discusses a study about how people who lose weight involuntarily become less active, which can cause them to regain weight. The solution is to enforce an increase in activity throughout the day using a pedometer.

"The 50 Calorie Per Pound of Muscle Myth" - Krieger again with a discussion about whether increasing muscle increases your metabolism.

kolorado

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2012, 08:27:53 AM »
Lots of valid points here. I've always wondered about the work involved to gain weight as well. My hubby and I watch The Biggest Loser and we have to wonder how many hours aday a person would have to eat to become 500lbs. I'm not even suer if i have an accurate understanding of what 6000 daily calories looks like and how long it would take to consume.
I've been slim my entire life. My mother has battled with her weight ever since she started having children. She has been on many diets over the years but remains overweight. Interestingly enough, she is losing weight now and not dieting. She and my dad are actively downsizing from their home to live in an RV full time when my dad retires in a few months. The act of paring down to the essentials carries over into other areas of your life even without conscious effort.
I've been "on a diet" once in my life. After my second baby was weaned I neglected to remove the additional 150-300 daily calories needed for milk production from my diet. As a result I gained 11lbs in 8 months. I really didn't notice it until my clothes became too tight. Too cheap to buy new clothes, I decided to lose weight instead. I ate anything I wanted just so long as my calories for the day were between 1300-1600. I lost 17lbs in 3 months.
And these experiences lead me to the conclusion that weight maintenance, excluding genetic factors anyway, is mostly about the hunger impulse and a person's response to it. Some people have stronger impulses, triggers that provoke feelings of hunger. These could be real or emotional although I don't doubt the "feeling" feels real at the time. It becomes trained behavior to respond with hunger pangs and food to certain triggers. And since it's trained behavior, training can also fix the problem.
Willpower in the general populace is somewhat lacking so the majority of people should get professional help in their retraining. Recruits don't train themselves for a good reason. 

Sparafusile

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2012, 08:52:58 AM »
I'm not even suer if i have an accurate understanding of what 6000 daily calories looks like and how long it would take to consume.

There was an interesting British show on TV called "Supersize vs. Superskinny" that showed just that in the beginning. They would dump the food a obese person eats in a given day into a clear tube and compare it to food a anorexic person would eat in the same way. These are two extremes, but it really hit home how big the difference is.

my calories for the day were between 1300-1600

It's important to not that this may have worked for you, but for a lot of other people this would be a starvation diet and cause lots of problems. In my case, I'm a 6'3" 215lb male that needs almost twice that a day just to maintain my weight. I'm very active as well so that plays a big role in how much I eat.

Bakari

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2012, 10:16:18 AM »
Everything you said is accurate, but you are leaving out a really important factor: hunger.

If a person is eating low-nutrient high-calorie foods, and then they cut out 30% of their calories, their body is going to crave more food more and more.  Nobody wants to feel hungry all the time, for the rest of their life, and that is pretty understandable.
The reason fad diets like Atkins, South Beach, and Paleo works for so many people where straight calorie restriction fails is that carbs - especially simple carbs like starches and sugar - do almost nothing to satiate hunger, while protein and fats (both essential nutrients, unlike carbs) do satiate hunger.

I think a key component of making the lifestyle change of consuming fewer calories is finding as many tricks as possible to allow you to do it with out feeling hungry.  I compiled a good number of those tricks last year when I was doing research to help my partner with her attempt to lose fat: http://neapolitanblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/be-healthy-part-2-sub-section-fat.html

Guitarist

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2012, 10:45:45 AM »
In my case, I've found that it is a good idea to no go for seconds.
Eating at home was the norm growing up and my mom is a great cook.
The food was healthy, I just always had to have seconds; and being German, it is an insult not to finish your plate.
I won't blame my younger self, he was enjoying some very good food and getting the nurtients he needed, just a bit more then needed. But as an adult, I have the willpower and choice to control what I put into my body.

Pass on seconds.

Sparafusile

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2012, 10:56:44 AM »
hunger

I have several points:

First, drink some water. Not only does it satiate hunger, most people don't drink enough of it.

Second, hunger isn't necessarily a bad thing, as you mentioned in your article.

Third, hunger quite often is a psychological graving rather than a physiological need. Exercise some willpower to overcome it.

Lastly, as you lose weight you will require fewer calories to maintain your current weight. Eventually, you will lose enough weight that the amount you are eating after a lifestyle change will be just enough to maintain you current level of exercise and weight. In other words, your body will adapt and you wont be hungry. It just may take a while.

kolorado

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #7 on: March 01, 2012, 11:08:44 AM »
Quote from: Sparafusile
my calories for the day were between 1300-1600
It's important to not that this may have worked for you, but for a lot of other people this would be a starvation diet and cause lots of problems. In my case, I'm a 6'3" 215lb male that needs almost twice that a day just to maintain my weight. I'm very active as well so that plays a big role in how much I eat.

Oh absolutely true! I wasn't suggesting anyone follow my calorie goal for weight loss. Everyone needs to do their own math on what deficit would create a 1-3 lb a week weight loss and use that as their calorie goal. There are calculators online to help with finding those numbers.
In my case I was cutting out that superfluous 150-300 daily calories that I no longer needed as a nursing mother plus another 150-450 calories. My caloric need is very low because, as I said, I'm already slim. I tend to lose weight much faster than the pure math of it would suggest. I did exercise regularly(20-30 minutes a day walking or yoga)but that supposedly only burns about 60 calories for me.
Creating a calorie deficit and exercise burn of 500 every day will result in the loss of 1 lb every week. That was my aim. I lost 1.3lbs a week and near the end I actually backpedaled with a string of high calorie days to stop the weight loss. Everyone should have my problems, right? ;)
It really only amounted to lowering carbs, fats and sugar. No deprivation or starvation at all. Well, I did miss cookies. ;) I think that was the only thing that was strictly off limits for me because I cannot seem to stop myself from going back for one more until I've eaten a dozen.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2012, 12:23:23 PM by Sparafusile »

Dave

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2012, 02:56:48 PM »
Love the two physics links up-thread. I keep trying to tell people about physics and weight loss, but not being a pro physicist I don't put it as well as that.

I did lose a lot of weight through exercise, notwithstanding that it may be a time-consuming way of doing so - biking to work, hard, for an hour each day, every day (35 miles round trip) and after a while people started asking me if I'd been ill. I haven't tried to calculate "excess breaths" but it would be interesting...

mm1970

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Re: The last "diet" you'll ever need
« Reply #9 on: March 04, 2012, 07:57:40 AM »
I read a really good book called "Refuse to Regain" by Dr. Barbara Berkeley, an obesity doctor.  She's worked with obese patients who have lost weight and kept it off for years, and has come up with some rules.

I can't remember all of them.  But one that I do really remember is limiting/eliminating starch.  When you've gotten obese by eating too many starches (sugar, friench fries, etc), your body permanently changes the way it reacts to them.  It is just too sensitive after that.  People who are able to maintain weight loss are generally those who have cut them way back or given them up entirely.

The way someone who was formerly overweight (FOW) vs. never overweight (NOW) metabolizes various foods is different.  It was fascinating.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!