Argghh! Weight-loss does not make sense. (Page 3)

so it's been about a week and I've eaten anywhere from 2000-2300 per day. I'm weighing in at 276 last thursday and I WI tomorrow. I've added in all healthy stuff or shakes/cliff bars. I feel MUCH better with tons more energy, I'm just hoping that the scale agrees. Although I don't plan to see any change tomorrow, but I fully expect one next thursday keeping in line with the body takes 7-10 days to process theory (because i believe that too).

everyone, FINGERS CROSSED.

I've got about 90lbs I want gone yesterday.

Hee hee - back to the original issue eh? 

Here's my update - last I wrote I weighed in at 147 and was eating between 1200-1500 calories per day, and burning 300-500 calories per day but with no weight loss. 

I decided to up my caloric intake to see what would happen but for health reasons (bike accident) had to stop all training altogether so I maintained my caloric intake at around 1300 and it's been about two weeks and I'm down to 142 !!  NO EXERCISE!  It's only this week I've started going for an hours brisk walk a day. 

I limit my carbs but I do eat them - fruit, flatbreads etc but all before 2pm. 

So I'm thinking that before I mustn't have been eating enough and my body was just holding on to whatever I was putting in to it.  I'm going to try eating more when I am able to start training again and see what happens.  Will let you know!  Good luck Latrina

Dale, let's do a little reality check here. All the science, controlled experiments and research in the world don't mean jack for all the people who are attempting to apply them to reality and not seeing success. You have seen success with a certain model and that's great. I'm trying to assist the OP's friend who has attempted to apply that model without success. We can all sit around and argue about the reasons why that model doesn't work for her until we're blue in the face but that's not helping her.

So, to the OP (if you're still with us here), I'd love to see not only HOW MANY CALORIES your friend is eating but WHAT she's eating as well as the time of day, portions, etc. Perhaps I can analyze and tweak some of her food choices and help her find success as I have many others who have approached me and have not seen results simply tracking calories in/out.

back indeed Kim! lol

I haven't weighed in today (thursday), I was going to and my lovely DBF who thought he was helping hid/took/threw out my scale. So I'll just go by a new one today :D

anywho, it's been one week of eating more today (avg~2000-2200 per day) and I FEEL so much better in general. lots of energy and ready to tackle anything and everything my way. Having some great workouts and not coming home to fall asleep.

When I wi I will definetly post how my little experiement is going. Hopefully I'll have as much success as you Kim!

AND PLEASE STOP WITH THE REPORTS HERE AND PROVE THIS AND THAT. JUST AGREE TO DISAGREE AND CALL IT A DAY.

One really crappy thing that people don't take into account is that when attempting to lose weight one has gained, your body has a mechanism to try and hold onto that body weight through increase or decreases in various gut hormones.  The result: the calories that it would have taken you to maintain your body weight is proportionally lower than not dieting, meaning you have to take in fewer calories than the average, non-dieting person (the blue line) to maintain that lower weight.  Looks kinda like this, only the #s are made up for illustrative purposes:


Research shows this, but researchers so far don't know how long it takes for your body to readjust to the new weight or how to return you back to normalized caloric expenditure (other than replacing certain hormones experimentally, or bypass surgery).  It's certainly a factor in so many folks not being able to keep weight off and would suggest that you should be taking in proportionally fewer calories as you get your weight down, but equally importantly, increasing your lean muscle mass to help burn those calories could help more than dieting or aerobic activity alone.

Edited by running4beer 2009-06-15 10:48 AM

Low GI diets work not because of some magical effect, it's because people eat less calories while they're on them.  Take out a specific food group that people are allowed to eat (high GI carbs) and simply be elminating them from the diet, PEOPLE EAT LESS. 

So please post an actual journal article, not a hokie internet site which is loosely based on one. 

Hi there, if your prediction about her BMR, which I think most women is around that number, is correct, and you have a diet plan to accomodate her. So, in theory, she should be loosing weight right?

Ask her to write down all the food and drink from the moment she woke up, to the minute she went to bed. My suspicion is that, there are "some" items which are not listed in the plan yet being consumed. Tell her to do it for a week or two, and check her weight after that. This way you can calculate how much food she actually eats.

i;m going to go out on a limb here, and prob a few people off.

but for a lot of people struggling to lose weight, they have the math WAY off, and more often than not in more ways than one.

some of the common mistakes i see:

wildly overestimating calories burned during exercise- sorry, i dont buy that the ave cyclist was putting out 1000 cal per hour. no way in hell.

thinking they are eating way less than they are, yes, fruit has cal too.

eating during shorter workouts. unless you are missing meals or training A LOT, you dont need sports drink, Gel, or bars for shorter workouts (hour ish runs, under 2 on the bike, etc). for a lot of people that is a source of extra cal that does not get taken into account. yes you will burn it off during the workout, but those 200-300 you took in then need to be taken into account in your totals for the day.

if you sit down and do the math correctly, it is as simple as cal in and out. the part of that often gets abused is that depending on what you are eating, when, your working out, and your weight, the out part changes. the more active you are on a daily basis, the more your body will stay active/burning stuff at a higher rate, as you lose weight you need less to maintain, etc.



I'm also not really buying the no white carbs or eating at night (not from the same poster).

i am on a VERY tight month to month budget right now, and am eating almost exclusivly white rice for my carbs (part food pref, part cost), a lot of chicken, veggies as i can afford them, some fruit. my weight is staying the same or dropping AT THE SAME RATE as it did when i was living at school and then home and eating a lot more whole grains. BF % are staying around the same with both diets.

I eat at night a lot , as my last workout of the day is often in the later evening or night, and often go to bed right after a meal, has done nothing to change my weight loss, and in fact i tend to do better eating very litlte in the morning, full sized lunch, small snack, and full dinner (again this could be because i tend to get 2-3 workouts in between noon or so and 6-10pm).

On a final note, something that has helped me to keep post workout meals smaller is to take in a smaller amount of cal during mid distance workouts, as coming home not feeling trashed helps a lot with not feeling like a huge meal is needed after and helps me be ready for the next workout. i adjust accordingly and end up doing better taking in 100-200 in shorter workouts, but then not feeling like i need a meal after.