Fat Enders

[Mozart]

The point is that you do not need to produce enzymes to digest food, when they are already present.


That would be true conservation of energy, look it up.

[DavidW]

Well my friend, coming from a man as heavy as you, I tend to believe those healthy pseudoscienctists over you.

Nice try, but perhaps you can try being a gentleman now?

The point is that you do not need to produce enzymes to digest food, when they are already present.

No the point is that it's unimportant snake oil used to lure gullible people into their fad diet.  Which is really no different from any other fad diet in that respect.

That would be true conservation of energy, look it up.

A calorie is simply a unit of energy.  If we take in less energy than we burn, we will be forced to either burn less energy or consume stored energy.  What to you is "not important" is the fundamental concept behind dieting.

Take my advise, instead of getting all in a huff, look into this yourself.  You will discover that the intake of less calories is what underlies diets that work.  The rest is garbage.  Eating more of one type of food over another is not special in anyway except for being unbalanced.  You can lose weight from these diets simply because overall you are consuming less calories.

[prémont]

I went for a swim yesterday . . . .

Oh, yes, lots of water is an important constituent of a healthy diet. 

[prémont]

A calorie is simply a unit of energy.  If we take in less energy than we burn, we will be forced to either burn less energy or consume stored energy.  What to you is "not important" is the fundamental concept behind dieting.

You will discover that the intake of less calories is what underlies diets that work.  The rest is garbage.  Eating more of one type of food over another is not special in anyway except for being unbalanced.  You can lose weight from these diets simply because overall you are consuming less calories.

Yes, this is elementary, dr. W - or rather alimentary.

[DavidW]

Yes, this is elementary, dr. W - or rather alimentary.

Haha good one!

[Mozart]

I consume more calories now than when I was heavier, in the form of extra virgin olive oil. If calories alone lose weight, how did I lose weight by consuming about 500 calories of olive oil each day? I've slowly been eating better for the last 3 years, and what has worked for me is eating more raw foods.

Is it really such a fad to eat fruits and vegetables? I do not follow fads, I can detail to you over the past 3 years what has lead me to my current opinions and it wasn't a book. I began to read about raw foods only recently to try and explain to others why it worked for me and what they should do to feel healthier.

Again how is it a fad when I've lost 45 pounds now since Feb? I've never onced stopped to eat or counted a calorie, and I am sure I take more than 2000 calories a day.


** is 1 pound is equal to about 3500 calories it means I have limited my diet by 157500 since feb 20 which is 157 days? Unless I count wrong, from today. So by that I've either been eating or burning 1000 calories less a day every day for 157 days? I eat all day long! It's just not possible.

I missed 1 month its 184 days but still a good amount each day.

[DavidW]

Is it really such a fad to eat fruits and vegetables?

No that's not a fad, a fad diet is eating raw fruits and vegetables to the exclusion of all else, which is what you are doing.

I consume more calories now than when I was heavier

Again how is it a fad when I've lost 45 pounds now since Feb? I've never onced stopped to eat or counted a calorie, and I am sure I take more than 2000 calories a day.

If you've never counted a calorie, than how do you know that you have consumed more calories since you have started your diet?  And how can you be sure of how many calories you consume?

A fad is not synonymous with wrong, a fad is something that is very popular for awhile but then fizzles out.  The raw food diet is a good example of a fad.  Your weight loss can be attributed purely to consuming less calories or increasing your metabolic rate (usually through exercise).

What causes weight loss for you is that vegetables are significantly low caloric density foods, so you feel like you're eating alot by volume, but little by calories.  Even with all of that olive oil that you consume, it will not add up to alot unless you spend your entire day eating.

Trust me on this, just look at a bag of carrots, it will blow your mind how few calories they have.  You could spend hours eating that bag of carrots and you will have eaten calorie wise very little.

[DavidW]

** is 1 pound is equal to about 3500 calories it means I have limited my diet by 157500 since feb 20 which is 157 days? Unless I count wrong, from today. So by that I've either been eating or burning 1000 calories less a day every day for 157 days? I eat all day long! It's just not possible.

I missed 1 month its 184 days but still a good amount each day.

See my comment on eating carrots.

[Mozart]

No that's not a fad, a fad diet is eating raw fruits and vegetables to the exclusion of all else, which is what you are doing.

And nuts and seeds and i eat legumes

If you've never counted a calorie, than how do you know that you have consumed more calories since you have started your diet?  And how can you be sure of how many calories you consume? Cool

Simple logic, I was in school. Breakfast I ate raisin bran and yogurt, lunch pasta, dinner popcorn. EVERYDAY because I had like 15$ a week to spend on food. If the cereal has 300 the yogurt 100 the popcorn 400 the pasta 600, and I didn't eat tons of the stuff, so maybe I am even being generous, I took in under 1500 calories each day. I was certainly using the bathroom consistently with so much fiber, but I weighed 200 then and didn't lose weight. I did have a moustache then, but I doubt that would account for the 45 pounds of difference.


I don't eat only raw foods, just mostly raw foods. If eat fruit has 80 calories and I eat 10 in my smoothie, thats already 800. I used 1 cup of juice also. Then the olive oil, nuts, and sometimes I have other things, whole grain bread, rice beans and lentils ext...It depends on my wallet. When I've had less money (and sometimes I've had few dollars a week) I've eaten more bread rice wheat beans...and when I have money, then bring on the smoothies.

A carrot has few calories, but the body also uses less calories to digest it than a steak. A steak digests in 6 hrs and an apple in 1.

From such a scientific mind, if we are related to chimps, then shouldn't we sustain ourself from a diet similar to theirs? Once upon a time we were not civilized, and although I can only speculate, since we didn't always understand how to control fire, most of our food must have been eaten raw.

[Mozart]

See my comment on eating carrots.

If its a fad to only restrict food intake to raw, why does one experience detoxification symptoms when they make the switch? Since I've quit drinking milk i've not had a single booger. But that happened after a week of dripping like the niagra falls.

[DavidW]

Your fuzzy attempt at estimating your current calorie load is not convincing.  The truth is that you don't have that much of an idea regarding how much you currently eat calorie wise.  Your assertion that you eat more is speculation built around the intuition you have based on judging quantity of food per unit volume.  Guess which one I'm going to believe: conservation of energy or your fuzzy recollection of your diet (with no added information about your exercise regime).

And now you've thrown at me more of your pseudoscience bunk about raw food being the most natural for us.  And now you confuse either a milk allergy or a slight case of lactose intolerance with detoxing off of bad food.  None of this garbage warrants more of a response, when you want to learn the actual truth I think you can find the library for yourself.  And don't believe anything just because it was written in a book.  I think that's how you fell into this trap in the first place (not the weight loss, but the strange rationalization for your unusual diet).

You are obviously just being defensive, I was not trying to marginalize your weight loss, I just wanted to not let quack science go by without comment.  You can believe whatever you want, but you lost weight due to consuming less than you burn, it's common sense, it's physical law.  It is irrational to think otherwise.

And one last thing to consider, I have lost more weight than you have and I have done it without adopting any fad diets.  I'm not alone there, many people can and do lose weight without having to do strange things like eat only carbs, or eat only raw foods, or avoid sugars (it just goes on and on too, good grief!).

[Elgarian]

All the theories, fad or otherwise, don't really help me that much. The difficulty for me is primarily psychological. Obviously I could reduce my weight by eating only enough to merely survive, but then I'd be miserable. The real task is to combine ways of eating fewer calories without feeling unhappy about it. This is why the melon negative calorie idea looked attractive.

The problem seems to be how to balance the metabolic rate decrease that seems to occur when we eat less. So I eat less, lose some weight, but then the metabolic rate decreases and so my weight stabilises with the new intake. I try to push the metabolic rate up with exercise, but even so I get stuck. At the moment my daily calorie intake is between 1800 and 2000, and I get rid of 250 of those in a sweaty 40 minutes on the exercise bike. On those figures I should still be losing weight, but I'm not.

[DavidW]

I have heard that over eating problems are usually psychological.  One person described it as a way of tuning out the world.  If your daily calorie intake is around 1800-2000 with any form of light exercise I imagine you must be close to ideal weight.  How long have you been at the exercise bike?  You might be building muscle so that your weight isn't going down.

I actually heard on the radio this morning that preliminary research is showing that intervals exercising produces twice as much weight loss.  That is instead of using a steady rate you should alternate between slow and fast rates.  They gave an example of 12 seconds of slow, 8 seconds of real fast, 12 seconds of slow etc and when it was done for 10 minutes burned an average (over the course of the study) of 6 lbs, while another group doing steady rate for 40 minutes only burned an average of 3 lbs.

If it's true, that's what I call bang for the buck!

[karlhenning]

Oh, yes, lots of water is an important constituent of a healthy diet.  

(* chortle *)

Another swim today  

Edit :: typos

[Elgarian]

I have heard that over eating problems are usually psychological.  One person described it as a way of tuning out the world.

Yes most certainly, though in this case that's not quite what I meant. I was talking more about the psychological need to find a method of dieting that doesn't actually make life miserable.

If your daily calorie intake is around 1800-2000 with any form of light exercise I imagine you must be close to ideal weight.

If only! I'm definitely overweight, and need to lose at least another stone for all sorts of reasons - not just because I want to look trim. I suspect that some of the medications I take have an adverse effect on the metabolic rate.

How long have you been at the exercise bike?  You might be building muscle so that your weight isn't going down.

At least a year. I abandoned the muscle-building theory, sadly, some time ago ....

I actually heard on the radio this morning that preliminary research is showing that intervals exercising produces twice as much weight loss.

Sounds good in general, though not so good for me, with a cardiac condition. My exercise needs to be steady and never excessive.

[Harpo]

Lots of greens, spinach and kale.

Wheat germ.........

Quinoa is the best grain in the world, and its about 18% protein, and also a complete protein.

It's important to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, but I'm not sure they all have to be raw. We do eat quinoa sometimes and it is an amazing food. But I don't think I will try your smoothies--I like mine with fruit only.

[secondwind]

The difficulty for me is primarily psychological. Obviously I could reduce my weight by eating only enough to merely survive, but then I'd be miserable. The real task is to combine ways of eating fewer calories without feeling unhappy about it.

Well put.  I feel the same way.  I find that I do have to increase exercise and activity levels A LOT to lose weight.  Unfortunately, increasing activity levels makes me hungrier, too!  And I'm not willing to be hungry most of the time for the rest of my life, so I'm looking for a balance that will work. 

At this point, I'm trying to eat 4 times a day instead of 2 or 3, with smaller amounts (in terms of calories) at each meal.  I'm trying to stick to about 1600 calories a day, but I'm not completely fanatical about the calorie count.  Still, I'm pretty sure I can't eat all the chocolate I want and still lose weight (sorry, Mozart).  I am aiming for quality food, though--no junk, no sodas, no prepared food, only "good" fats, etc., which means I have to spend a lot more time in food prep and cooking. And since I'm preparing meals for my husband as well as myself, taste and variety are important (he'd rebel if he got nothing but smoothies!)  Yes, I eat cooked food.  Some raw fruits and vegetables, but not entirely. 

I was interested in what David W posted about interval training.  I may try to mix up my run a bit--instead of maintaining my turtle's pace the whole time (slow and steady wins the race, but maybe it doesn't melt the fat), I may do a few little sprints followed by a period of walking for recovery.  (I don't have any cardiac problems that limit my exercise--yet.) I experience these weight loss plateaus, too, and I'm eager to find things to get the fat burning going again.  Melons, smoothies, whatever!  Anyway, thanks for all the ideas and support. 

[karlhenning]

It's important to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, but I'm not sure they all have to be raw.

QFT

[secondwind]

Long time no hear, Fat Enders!  Are you all sitting around listening to classical music and reading great literature?  Or are you walking, running, swimming, and sweatin' to the oldies?  I'm visiting my mother in Florida, and forcing myself out into the heat to run or run/walk every morning to counteract the effects of key lime pie and lunch out with the ladies who lunch.  How about you?

[Dr. Dread]

*grumble*