Weight Loss Thread

Kovaks_sl said:

So I since my wife started having kids over the past 2 years I have gotten fat as fuck and it is time to seriously drop some of the weight. I am using lose it again but n in the past I have mostly used it to bulk and was wondering if anyone knows what nutrient breakdown I should be aiming for to lose fat most efficiently.

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Protein+Fats+Veg on days you don't train.

2 meals as above pre workout, and one Protein+Carbs+Veg meal postworkout.

simple.

Yep, do this if you want to look like a hungry skeleton . Excellent example of overcomplicating basic stuff.

Or you could just eat the same things, just in lesser amounts and look like me.
not so fat anymore - Album on Imgur

Khane_sl said:

I think weighing yourself every morning is a surefire way to make yourself crazy. Weight fluctuates every day just based on if you drank a lot of water and ate a lot of salt the day before. You could be down one day and up the next even if you're sticking to your routine hardcore. I wouldn't recommend weighing yourself more than once a week.

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Can confirm, this is driving me nuts. I went from concentrating on a weekly rotation of tracking to "just to see" in the middle to weighing every day. I am trying to at least get back to the "just to see" category. Really, I envy anyone who can turn weight loss into a 'background' activity and just have it happen along with the rest of their life. I definitely fixate.

Get rid of your scale so you can't weight yourself anymore.

*Edit* I think people who have always been thin/fit are able to ignore scale numbers more easily than former fatties. I think former fatties always have that subconscious fear of ballooning up again, so they feel the need to keep closer track of hard numbers to make sure that doesn't happen. I was like that for a while, but eventually I stopped counting calories, stopped weighing food, and then stopped weighing myself. Now it's just clothes, mirror, and physical abilities (lift numbers, energy, etc.) that lets me measure my fitness.

I don't own a scale, don't care about weight. I only care about what the mirror says. (I am the fairest of them all.)

If you aren't an athlete or in a competition things like weight and bf% are meaningless. The only thing that matters is if you like the way you look. If you don't, workout and diet accordingly.

Foggy_sl said:

I don't own a scale, don't care about weight. I only care about what the mirror says. (I am the fairest of them all.)

If you aren't an athlete or in a competition things like weight and bf% are meaningless. The only thing that matters is if you like the way you look. If you don't, workout and diet accordingly.

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Your thin privilege is triggering me, shitlord.

Khane_sl said:

How is that better since you can see the same trends either way?

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What happens if for whatever reason you're bloated as shit on that day? I can literally fluctuate 10 pounds overnight. My weight is typically ~190 currently. I weighed in at 202 yesterday. 198 today. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be 194-196.

This was after a long weekend of drinking and eating like shit.

Weighing yourself daily seems to be a pretty good way to understand your body and how it responds to food/exercise. it has helped me over the last month.

mkopec_sl said:

Sure it does, dude, like was said its to track trends. Is my weight going up? Or is it going down. Chances are your mirror will not show you the 2-5 lbs you gained all over your body. So yeah, dont live by the scale, use it as a tool to see trends, thats all. I dont really care how much I weigh as well, its how I look and I get it. But to say its useless is kind of asinine.

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That is a fair point.

Itlan_sl said:

What happens if for whatever reason you're bloated as shit on that day? I can literally fluctuate 10 pounds overnight. My weight is typically ~190 currently. I weighed in at 202 yesterday. 198 today. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be 194-196.

This was after a long weekend of drinking and eating like shit.

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When I was visiting a friend, there was a scale in the apartment so I used it when I arrived Friday night. Weighed again after the weekend full of binge eating and drinking (just hammered all night Friday, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning). Lost ~10 pounds. Hurray dehydration.

Thanks for the advice, before the kids and between the 1st and 2nd I would lift alot and alternate in cardio so wasn't as worried about my diet unless I wanted to add muscle. With two kids and one at 2 months I pretty much find no time to work out, day is go to work, get home and either cook or play with older one, put older one to bed hold little one till he goes to sleep and either pass out or clean up. Ballooned up from 235-240 to 300 at 6'4"

Itlan_sl said:

What happens if for whatever reason you're bloated as shit on that day? I can literally fluctuate 10 pounds overnight. My weight is typically ~190 currently. I weighed in at 202 yesterday. 198 today. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be 194-196.

This was after a long weekend of drinking and eating like shit.

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You're arguing against yourself here.

You can more easily see a trend with more data points.

DickTrickle_sl said:

You can more easily see a trend with more data points.

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And you can more easily make yourself think you're failing every morning. But we are on a forum full of min maxers. People who are already in shape and have willpower and drive can weigh themselves every day with no problem.

People who are overweight and clearly have issues with willpower and could get easily discouraged might not want to do that to themselves.

Khane_sl said:

People who are overweight and clearly have issues with willpower and could get easily discouraged might not want to do that to themselves.

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Spot on.

Okay shitlord; your repeated mention of data points is extremely problematic. f you're going to discuss data collection please spoiler it and add trigger warnings; this is supposed to be a safe place.

Khane_sl said:

You're arguing against yourself here.

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Fair enough, the point still stands -- weight can fluctuate dramatically, so why only weigh yourself on one day?

The easiest way to factor out those fluctuations is to look at overall trends over the course of two weeks. If nothing changes, or it trends in the opposite direction at the end of those two weeks, you need to make adjustments.

If I were to weigh myself every week, and for whatever reason I was holding a ton of water while eating a deficit and see that I gained 4 pounds, I'll panic and drop my calories when I don't need to. If I look at the average over those two weeks, I can see "Oh, I must be holding water or need to take a really big shit."

Hope you get what I'm saying... but maybe you're right in that it doesn't apply to an obese or overweight person trying to just lose fat. Idk.

When ever my guts are telling me I am in for a particularity epic shit I like do a quick before and after. Personal best is just under 4lbs. =)

Random tangent:

Scales. They can generate numbers. It's important to understand the scale's measurement error and how time of day, diet, activity, etc. can affect the numbers it generates. Just because it generates a number does not necessarily make it valid. That said, I measure myself every work day, but I understand the signal to noise relationship behind the numbers the scale generates.

That said, after 3 years of swimming, 1 year of swimming medleys, and plateauing on my weight loss, I found that yoga (vinyasa flow) has ushered in a new period of weight loss. Cross-training, even in something weird, seems to have some efficacy. I want to add lat/shoulder free-weight day at the gym, but I refuse to sacrifice any of my swim days.

Yea, whenever you get into a pattern your body doesn't have to struggle to deliver. You have to continue to challenge it.

I stopped using my scale. It was really discouraging when I wanted to lose weight and while my performance improved my weight wouldn't. My weight has dropped quite a bit since I stopped using the scale regularly, but I rely on how my clothing fits now. I've dropped two pants sizes in two years. I miss biking to work, it was so easy to burn calories in the normal course of my day. Exercising to achieve fitness is difficult for me psychologically.