Weight Loss Thread

Caliane_sl said:

Trying to make a push to get weight down.

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It wasn't clear to me whether you were soliciting advice or just sharing your experience. In the case of the former, the best way to manage your weight is to manage how many calories you're eating. I don't know that everyone here would agree with me, but I think how many calories you get from each macro nutrient is also important (but not more important than raw calories in vs. calories out). Thebestway to manage what you eat is to log literally everything. With apps like myfitnesspal (I personally use My Macros Plus) the documentation burden is extremely minimal. A food scale is also very helpful/mandatory for many food items.

There's nothing wrong with running, especially if you enjoy it, but counting on any activity to manage your weight (for non-athletes, at least) never really works out. Running for 30 minutes is like 1 or 2 cookies worth of caloric expenditure. Cardio has the obvious benefit of cardiac health, but as far as weight loss is concerned, you'd be better off just eating less.

Best of luck getting down to your desired weight.

It helped me to think of logging as putting together a recipe. If you're new to baking/cooking you don't just throw shit together and expect good results; you diligently measure everything. Later, when you've been baking for a long time, you can eyeball it and have a pretty good idea of what the measurements are for items you use frequently.

I don't even think about measuring being extra effort anymore. This morning I put my bowl on the food scale, tared it, put 227 g of yogurt in the bowl, tare, 7g of honey, tare, 30g chia seeds, tare. Added a scoop of whey protein powder. Done. The measuring added only a few seconds of extra effort because I did all my prep on the scale. When I logged it in my phone it took less than a minute because My Macros Plus has a frequent food list (organized by meal). Since I eat the same yogurt meal (described above) a few times per week, the items were at the top of the list and I only needed to input how much I ate of each.

If I know I'll be going out to eat that day (team/work lunch, dinner with the wife, etc), I try to avoid carbs/fat for the other meals (since getting too much protein is pretty much never going to be the problem).

Anyway, I just wanted to say that measuring isn't bad at all after a few days of doing it and it becomes part of your routine.

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In other news, I'm down to 219 lbs and ~26% body fat for the first time since 2012 when I went all in on the paleo diet. My lean body mass has stayed consistent at ~161 lbs, though I would expect it to have gone up since my arms, pecs, and quads have gained significant tone and size. Does an increase in muscle size not necessarily mean an increase in weight? Since I'm just spitballing on my measurements, I'm not too worried about it, but I did find it curious.

Ah, I didn't realize it was that slow for gains. That explains it then since 1-2 lbs is well within the margin of error of my loose measurements.

Week one down, lost 15.6 lb, expect future weeks to be much less (water weight, etc). Feels good man! Thankfully I only have to do this thing for about a month to lose everything I want, then change my eating habits so I don't gain it back.

Nice, Noodle.

Aladain - As you said, much of that dramatic weight loss is from lowering your inflammation and not retaining as much water. Even with a dramatic caloric deficit, I wouldn't expect more than 3-4 lbs per week. Your body has a ceiling for how much stored fat it can convert to usable energy per day. If you're losing more weight than that, it's not just body fat that you're losing.