Category Archives: Weight Loss

P.D. Mangan posted a good article on the dangers of rapid weight loss. I agree with him that a max of 1–2 pounds a week is a reasonable weight-loss goal, and that a bit more than that is OK in the first week but highly inadvisable for the long run. Most folks do well if they settle into one pound a week.

From P.D.:

Slower Metabolism

A slower metabolism is another side effect of losing weight too quickly; since your body’s metabolism is essentially determining how much fuel you are needing to burn every day based on your activities and food intake, dropping calories out of your diet can considerably lower your metabolism. While this might not seem like a big deal, it is! A lower metabolism essentially causes your body to burn fewer calories each day than it typically would, and some research even shows up to a 23% decrease in calories that are burned each day. This doesn’t always go away when you stop losing weight quickly, either, your metabolism might take a while to get back on track and burning appropriately, which could affect your health and weight for a long time.

Muscle Loss

Lastly, your body could end up losing muscle as part of your quick weight loss routine. Granted, eliminating calories from your diet will have you lose weight, yes, but aside from a lot of that weight being water, some of it can also be muscle. A recent study done with people on a 500 calorie diet versus a 1250 calorie diet showed significant results; by the end of the trial, the participants on the 500 calorie diet lost six times more muscle than those on the 1250 calorie diet – an astounding loss in muscle in just a five-week span of time.

Source: Risks of Losing Weight Too Quickly – Rogue Health and Fitness

Steve Parker, M.D.

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Garlic Naan, a type of flat bread

All my life, I’ve loved bread.  As a kid I ate bread with every meal, mostly the commercial white- or brown loaves (called “government bread” in South Africa because the price was kept low by a combination of both subsidy and quota production).  The nearest equivalent today would be the Wonderbread/ Hostess/ generic breads found in supermarkets (U.K. equivalent:  Hovis/ Warburtons/ store brands).

Gradually as I got older and my taste buds matured, I discovered bakery breads, my taste for which became exacerbated by visits to Europe and exposure to wares of the boulangerie  and bäckerei… oy, my mouth waters just thinking  about the Viennese brötchen  I’d gobble down with my morning coffee.

All went well, until my doctor told me that I needed to change my diet (his exact words:  “If you don’t lose weight, you’re going to die, you fat bastard”).  There were other words related to my extreme paucity of exercise (“Get up off your fat ass and start exercising, too.”)

I know that diets don’t work;  only permanent changes in lifestyle and eating habits do.  And the only change that seems to work without being too much work is getting rid of the bad things which cause you to gain weight, chief offenders being starches (grains) and sugars.

Source: The Problem With Bread – Splendid Isolation

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Click the link below for her article at Kiss My Keto. The preamble:

Before we dive into the weight loss myths, it’s important to state the truth about weight loss.It’s not as simple as eating healthy and following an exercise program.

Of course, those can make a big difference, however, it doesn’t work that way for everyone.

There are so many factors that come into play when it comes to weight loss. Some of those factors include genetics, endocrine disorders, medications, insomnia, and cultural reasons.

This is why women with the polycystic ovarian syndrome may find it harder to lose weight than those who don’t have it.

So the next time you come across a trending weight loss tip, pause for a moment, and research about it to see if it’s even true. Secondly, analyze your current situation to see if this particular weight loss strategy will work for you.

Source: 21 Popular Weight Loss Myths Debunked! – Kiss My Keto

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Old-school preparation for exercise. Stretching actually doesn’t do any good for the average person

You’ll see the term “diet resistant” in the scientific abstract below. It refers to folks who are on a reduced-calorie diet who aren’t losing the weight they should, base on total calorie consumption. Long story short, they’re eating much more than the think and exercising less than they think.

BACKGROUND AND METHODS

Some obese subjects repeatedly fail to lose weight even though they report restricting their caloric intake to less than 1200 kcal per day. We studied two explanations for this apparent resistance to diet — low total energy expenditure and underreporting of caloric intake — in 224 consecutive obese subjects presenting for treatment. Group 1 consisted of nine women and one man with a history of diet resistance in whom we evaluated total energy expenditure and its main thermogenic components and actual energy intake for 14 days by indirect calorimetry and analysis of body composition. Group 2, subgroups of which served as controls in the various evaluations, consisted of 67 women and 13 men with no history of diet resistance.

RESULTS

Total energy expenditure and resting metabolic rate in the subjects with diet resistance (group 1) were within 5 percent of the predicted values for body composition, and there was no significant difference between groups 1 and 2 in the thermic effects of food and exercise. Low energy expenditure was thus excluded as a mechanism of self-reported diet resistance. In contrast, the subjects in group 1 underreported their actual food intake by an average (±SD) of 47±16 percent and overreported their physical activity by 51±75 percent. Although the subjects in group 1 had no distinct psychopathologic characteristics, they perceived a genetic cause for their obesity, used thyroid medication at a high frequency, and described their eating behavior as relatively normal (all P<0.05 as compared with group 2).

CONCLUSIONS

The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis. (N Engl J Med 1992; 327:1893–8.)

Source: Discrepancy between Self-Reported and Actual Caloric Intake and Exercise in Obese Subjects | NEJM

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No wonder they’re not having much success:

“Exercise, eating less, consuming more fruits and vegetables and drinking more water were the most common strategies. The least common were skipping meals and cutting down on fatty foods.”

Source: Nearly Half of Americans Battling to Lose Weight: CDC Data – Bloomberg Quint

Drinking more water? Come on, America, get serious.

Two diet books in one