Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Adrian on December 31, 2009 at 10:56am

Simply, Fred, dieting alone does not work! Your basal metabolic rate is related to your weight; the heavier you are, the higher your basal metabolic rate. Hence, if you lose 16kg, as you did, then your basal metabolic rate is then substantially lower, but your appetite is still the same, unless you make significant changes to the diet that you previously followed. Hence, your weight will go straight back up and, as you have found, it may actually end up higher than before. This is why it is called yo-yo dieting. There are two significant steps you can take to prevent this.

First, do not try to lose weight by dieting alone. Calculate your basal metabolic rate for your ideal weight and use the Harris equation to calculate the calorific intake commensurate with that weight and your lifestyle (www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ ). Eat the calories you need to sustain that ideal weight, using a healthy and diverse diet (I'll go into that in detail later); this educates your body to expect less, but the right amount to sustain your target rate, making it easier to maintain that diet after you have lost the weight.

Take exercise to burn off the calories to lose weight at a faster rate, but do not only do cardio workouts, as many trying to lose weight tend to do. Muscle tissue needs more calories to sustain it than the equivalent weight of fat. By doing weight/resistance exercise as well as cardio, then you will build muscle tissue (it also elevates your metabolic rate for the next 24 hours). This means that when you achieve the target weight/BMI/body fat percentage (however you are defining your target), then your basal metabolic rate will actually be higher than for the average person of that weight (like all measures, BMR is an average figure only). This gives you far greater scope to eat as you wish, within the definition of a healthy diet.

You should also realise that weight is not a perfect arbiter of health. Body fat percentage is a far better indicator that BMI or weight. A healthy adult male should be below 20% and a healthy female should be below 25%. Apparently slim people can have quite high body fat percentage. As well as the obvious dermal fat under the skin, the body can deposit significant amounts in the body cavity, around the organs. This is called visceral fat, and is even more of a threat to health than the abdominal fat in the belly.

A body fat monitor is the only practical way to measure this yourself, and many personal scales now incorporate them. Note the body fat reading varies significantly across the day due to variation in your hydration levels. You should measure it at the same time period each day, and the same relation to food and fluid intake, to get a realistic comparison. If you want to achieve a reasonably athletic look, without being freakily "ripped", then you should be aiming for 12-14% body fat, for a male.

The human body did not evolve to eat 3 meals a day. This was a response to industrial factory working practice. Even today, many physical agricultural workers eat 6 meals a day, and this is much closer to what our body naturally requires. I try to eat 3 "meals" (about 550-600 calories) and 3 small snacks (200-300 calories) per day, as this prevents peaking and troughing in your metabolic rate. It makes it easier to eat only what you need, as you do not feel as hungry, and it maintains a more constant burn of calories.

Try to eat more complex carbohydrates, especially wholegrains, and more fruit and vegetables in your diet. The increased fibre will make you feel full quicker and longer. Also complex carbohydrates are digested more slowly preventing the sugar peaks and troughs which trigger feelings of hunger. Also drink adequate water throughout the day. The body often mistakes dehydration for hunger.

Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, and carbohydrates. Variety ensures that you are ingesting a wide cross-section of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants which keep you healthy and able to lead the active life which helps prevent weight gain. A colourful diet (naturally, not through food additives!) is satisfying to the eye, and ensures that healthy diversity.

Furthermore, try to eat a high carbohydrate diet before mid afternoon, and a lower carbohydrate and higher protein diet after mid-afternoon. The protein repairs the damage caused by exercise and helps build new tissue. High carbohydrate intake later in the day may not be digested by the time you go to sleep, and will be preferentially deposited as fat. You should not eat a significant amount less than 4 hours before sleep. A small carbohdrate intake just before sleep, can help you sleep better, though, which is why traditionally people has a milky drink and a biscuit or toast before bedtime. Make sure it's only one, though!

Remember not to reduce fat intake too much; fats play a vital role in the health of the nervous system, and in the metabolism of some vitamins and anti-oxidants. make sure that the fat is primarily unsaturated (olive oil is good for you!) and include a source of omega oils with a good balance of omega 3 and omega 6.

There are a few tricks you can use to increase calorie burn during exercise. Have a caffeinated drink 20-30 minutes before exercising. This can increase your performance by 10-20%, and hence burn more calories (this is why athletes are banned from caffeine intake immediately prior to participation!). Eat a high protein, high calcium snack (low fat yoghurt or a protein bar!) or meal shortly after exercise. The protein speeds repair and recovery, and the calcium aids metabolism of fat deposits during the post-exercise elevation in metabolic rate.
Cross-training (a combination of weight/resistance exercise and cardio exercise) which maintains your pulse rate at about 70% of maximum will burn calories the most efficiently during exercise. Pure weight workouts have the greatest impact in post-exercise metabolic elevation.

Tricks to do with eating are to use a smaller plate, tricking your brain into thinking it is getting more than it is. Spicy foods elevate metabolic rate slightly. Drink water chilled; the heat used to bring the water to body temperature is replaced by burning calories from food.

I weighed 98 kg some years ago, and my body fat was over 35%. I now weigh 72kg and my body fat is 11.5%. Being a scientist I read a great deal about the science of exercise and weight control before I lost that weight. That's why I'm such a geek about it!

Permalink Reply by Misty: Baytheist Living! on December 31, 2009 at 12:17pm

GREAT Reply!
Thanks for all the information!
Keep it coming.

Permalink Reply by Adrian on December 31, 2009 at 12:29pm

Happy to answer anyone's questions if I can. I'm not a qualified expert or physician, but I am an well read, scientific, amateur, who has done it myself. I'll try to get an up-to date photo some time, as my profile pic is me at about 82kg, if I remember right.,

Permalink Reply by Fred Werther on December 31, 2009 at 11:51am

Wow, you are a real expert. Thanks for caring about me.

Take exercise Heheheh you don't know me. my excercise is to walk from my bed into the kitchen and the Fridge and take out something good there to eat.

No way I will do anything more. Over my dead body. Yes I have an indoor excercise bike to sit on while I look at TV but it is in the corner looking very unused and will be there too.

I take a look at your link later now it is last day of the year here. So

Permalink Reply by Adrian on December 31, 2009 at 12:23pm

Human bodies NEED exercise. You can not expect to be healthy without it. Even if you are a healthy weight, then you will be liable to osteoporosis in later life without a reasonable level of exercise. Exercise also helps with mental health and guards against many degenerative diseases. Once you start exercise, then the endorphin release will stimulate you to do more.

There are many, many forms of exercise; it is simply a case of finding the one that you enjoy. Give some of them a try. Remember gym work is the most boring exercise there is. Hill-walking is both cardio and resistance exercise, as is chopping firewood. Cross-country skiing is one of the best workouts you can do! There are hundreds of options out there. Try looking at health and exercise magazine websites for ideas. Men's Health and Men's Fitness in the UK are both pretty good (google them for their web addresses). There are almost certainly several in your own country.

Always get a medical examination from a physician before trying to lose weight. Start exercise slowly, and with proper muscle stretching (check a fitness website for instructions) before and after to minimise injury risk; there is nothing more de-motivating than injury!. Only increase the intensity and endurance of exercise by 10% per week at most; this also reduces injury risk. You should lose weight very rapidly in the first 4-6 weeks, but progress will slow after that. This is due to the initial release of retained fluids, and then the reduced BMR as weight is lost. Aim for a sustained weight loss of 0.4-0.7kg per week over the longer term (2950-5150 calorie deficit per week).

If you don't exercise, then you will always yo-yo between weight extremes after dieting. And I used to think just like you! That first step is the hardest, but you have to take it if you want any lasting result. If there was an easy way to achieve permanent weight loss don't you think someone would have found it by now, and made their fortune?

Permalink Reply by Fred Werther on December 31, 2009 at 12:35pm

Have you read up on the Health Guru? who think he and his grown up daughter will have 30% longer life by eating some 25% less than optimal for their BMI? They eat so little that they feel constant hunger and are freezing?

They made interviews in some documentary on Transhumanism?

he was somewhere between 75 to 85? years old and expected to live well pass hundred?

Permalink Reply by B. on December 31, 2009 at 3:03pm

What does that have to do with anything? You still need to exercise.

Why would anyone want to live long if they're going to feel constant hunger and are freezing? That sucks.

Permalink Reply by Fred Werther on December 31, 2009 at 3:14pm

Yes I need to move my body more but I am too depressed to do it.

and that "Professor" that hoped to live longer seems to get the science wrong too? or maybe to starve is not same as this text?

Anorectic persons seems to get high on starving but it seems dangerous. Too easy to get caught up in it and get dependent on it.

calorie-restrictive-eating-for-longer life?

Permalink Reply by Adrian on December 31, 2009 at 11:45pm

One of the best treatments for depression is exercise!

Permalink Reply by Fred Werther on January 1, 2010 at 5:05am

Maybe it is but I rather trust that one of the best treatments is to be active in doing things. "Behavioral Activation Therapy" which includes physical exercise but can also be like making food or making bread or doing crafts like knitting whatever that works for the person being depressed.

If you knee hurts and your hip hurts and get worse every time you do physical exercise and you get very depressed by the pain and that you don't get better then that physical exercise is not of help. It makes that person only worse in their depression. Believe me I have tried to walk and run since 1985 and it fails me. I only end up totally imobilized for months due to the pain.

Physical exercise only works for people who benefit from it.

Permalink Reply by B. on January 1, 2010 at 5:36am

Physical exercise works for all living things, period. You don't have to run to be fit, there are other ways (many many many other ways) to be physically active. A knee or hip injury, or even just knee "pain" is no reason to refrain from strengthening your body.

99% certain a lot of your joint pain can be resolved by a) losing weight, so your body doesn't have to suffer so much and b) strengthening the muscles that surround weak joints.

You do realize the link you posted is AGAINST calorie restriction as a method to achieve a longer life, right? Did you even read the article?

You're either motivated or you're not. Period. If your knee hurts, work your arms. If it's too hard to run, go swimming. There is a way, and the only thing stopping you from physical activity is yourself.

PS. Knitting and cooking are not physical activity.

PPS. Physical activity is a great way to reduce & prevent -- and in some cases treat -- depression.

Permalink Reply by Misty: Baytheist Living! on January 1, 2010 at 3:29pm

Calorie restriction diet is based on the idea that eating produces free radicals, so the less you eat, the less free radicals you'll have building up.
Frankly, I'm going to be a fat, happy old person and die at a reasonable age.
I don't plan on living long enough to need my adult diapers changed.

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