to think eat less, move more isn't as simple as it sounds

[starshaker]

People say to lose weight you need to use more calories than you eat. This is obvious. However metabolism plays a big part too. How do you know how much calories you actually burn so you can work out how many to eat? Ive never been slim and yes, i probably need to exercise more but i have so much other stuff going on that getting the chance to isnt that simple.

So AIBU in thinking that its not as simple as what people say

amimagic It's not easy, and I don't think any one the thread has said it is, just that it is simple.

Leptin indeed is the hormone secreted by fat, and your body uses the levels as part of what hunger is, so if the amount drops because you've lost some fat, your body becomes hungry to make up for it to return it to the level. So to eat to hunger when overweight means it can take a long time to lose, so if you're overweight then a little hunger is probably necessary (or exercise more which can interupt some of the hunger signalling too)

Agreed.
Its simple but requires focus.

If I swim a mile in 40 minutes I burn off the same amount of calories as are in one chop chip muffin that takes 4 minutes to eat.

You HAVE to be aware of exactly what you are eating over a period of a month (so meals out can be offset by salads another day)
and be honest with yourself
and accept that snacking was invented by the food industry to sell more product - human bodies do not need to eat every two hours.

Most non western societies eat one large meal at the end of the day.
And food accounts for over 10% of their income (or time finding it)

PostBellum - re "no one is suggesting that you can't get something from nothing (1st law of thermodynamics) but it is actually the 2nd law about entropy or dissipation which is more relevant here!!!! Each of the many chemical reactions in the body end up dissipating energy."

You have completely misunderstood (1) what I was saying (2) laws of thermodynamics, and (3) the meaning of "dissipation" as in that definition you have just Googled. And you obviously don't know the meaning of the word "entropy".

2nd law talks about transfer of energy (hence the term "dissipation") from a high-energy environment/person/object to a low-energy one. As in, hot food taken outside the oven eventually cools down. It has nothing to do with the process of getting energy from the food we eat. (Unless you are referring to your mouth heating up because of hot soup )

1st law talks about conservation of energy. It doesn't just mean "You can't get something from nothing". It means that the energy you put into a system (food & drinks) equals the energy that is spent (calories you spend) plus the energy that is saved (weight/fat).

Therefore, if you eat less calories than you spend, you will lose weight. There is no other way.

Eat no carbohydrates if you like, for whatever reason. Perfectly fine with me. Just don't tell people that losing weight isn't as simple as calculating calories in vs calories out, because it actually is.

Thanks Fred that makes sense.

As you lose weight, does your body "re-programme" itself?

Cote D'Azure it makes me happy to read your post because the whole food science stuff has just got so complicated over the last few years, it just ends up confusing me.

I really like the thought that, yes, it is that simple (not easy though!)

amimagic - I was a size 14-16. Then I started a program at a sports hospital here, where I was followed by a doctor, a dietician, and a trainer (they had an in-house gym). In three months, I lost 10 kgs and went down to size 10. That was 3 years ago, and I haven't put on any weight.

I went into 1st meeting with the dietician saying "I can stop eating carbs, no problem" and she said, "No, actually, you will eat a bit of bread, pasta, potatoes, rice etc with every meal". So I did. And I lost loads of weight. And I kept that weight off.

You should eat without depriving yourself, but being careful with the amounts you eat. She showed me that I don't actually have to eat a plate of pasta, and I don't have to have pesto sauce on it when I'm perfectly fine with a simple tomato sauce. That half of my plate should be salad or vegetables, because eating is also about volume - filling your stomach - but that I should put only a tiny bit of olive oil on the salad. That a quarter of my plate should be protein - a steak, one egg, a chicken breast. That the remaining quarter should be carbohydrates (slow sugars) like rice, pasta, 1 slice of bread and that will keep me from raiding the cookie jar later in the day.

You also have to exercise. It is not even just the calorie in/calorie out calculation. Cardio exercises increase your metabolism. I run for about half an hour, twice a week. It is not much but I can feel the effects - for the rest of the day, I breathe differently and I stand differently. And my tummy goes in.

Anyway, that is my two euro-centimes.

Moving more when you are morbidly obese IS difficult. However I finally did it. I was morbidly obese when I started the NHS C25K programme in August. I hadn't ran at all in the 20+ years since leaving school and even at school I avoided it at all costs. I completed the programme in October (even inspired DH to do it as well, along with two of my cousins, and some friends), now absolutely LOVE going for a run, and am only 1lb above the overweight category (I WILL get to a 'normal' bmi!). It is totally possiible. Not easy, but possible.

CoteDAzur, love the fact that you think you must be the only person that can understand thermodynamics & that I must have had to google the definition!

The problem with the calories in calories out definition for weightloss is that it leaves so much real understanding out.

For example, you wouldn't just say that an alcoholic is someone who drinks too much. Yes, that is a definition, but it doesn't answer the question why?

So, it is all very well to say that weight loss is as simple as eating less calories, but that doesn't some to work for the majority of people. If you examine the science behind what actually makes people store fat, rather than use it for energy, you start to understand that it is because our modern diets constantly stimulate the release of insulin, which is the primary fat storage hormone. What is it in our modern diets that stimulates insulin? - carbohydrates & sugar. So cut down on carbohydrates & sugar and you stop sending out the fat storage hormone insulin & you lose weight. You can still eat low carb foods, you don't have to count calories, you don't have to be hungry and you will lose weight.

Also you do not have to exercise to lose weight. Do you remember in the olden days people used to talk about "working up an appetite" by going out & chopping logs or doing heavy physical labour. Exercise stimulates the body's natural desire to eat, because it wants to replace expended energy. I am not saying that exercise isn't a very good thing - because I think it is - but I don't see the connection with weight loss, I see a connection with physical well-being.

Weightloss is very simple, but it is not about cutting calories, it is about cutting our sugar & carbohydrate.

PostBellumBugsy - you make some INCREDIBLY valid points. To be honest, if it was as simple as calorie deficit then I would have lost my weight decades ago. What I have done is come to terms with the fact that I have an eating disorder and THAT is why I got the way I did. It is only through dealing with that (which includes the whole 'why' issue) that I have done what I've done.

Yes, I do believe that ANYONE can lose weight and that includes the fact that ANYONE can move more. BUT - and this is a big but - some people might need more help dealing with why they got overweight in the first place.

As for your comment on sugar and carbs - I've had no sugar (as in cakes, puddings, chocolate, sweets, etc) or white flour since May when I started losing weight. Sugar especially is a product with addictive properties.

PostBellum - You had no idea about what I said re 1st law of thermodynamics and that was sadly obvious in your last post. That you thought the word "dissipate" in that definition of 2nd law could possibly apply to the chemical reactions that take place in the body while we turn food into energy plainly shows just how far you were from understanding it.

If you know better now, I'm happy for you.

Anyway, as I said before, if you want to eat things in a certain order or completely omit certain food groups, feel free to do so. But know that you don't have to stop eating complex carbohydrates (pasta, bread, rice, etc) to lose weight. In fact, no dietician with a real degree will recommend cutting out these carbohydrates.

What I have said is true: Energy in = energy used + energy stored. There is no other way. If you use more energy than you take in, you will have to use from your reserves. That means weight loss.

Therefore, calorie deficit will result in weight loss. Unless you are living in a parallel universe where 1st law of thermodynamics doesn't work.

Yes it WILL result in weight loss but that doesn't make it easy unfortunately :(

In the space of nine months I have lost 5.5 stone and I did no excerise at all (due to disability I can't) so it definately has a lot to do with the type of food you eat regardless if you exercise or not.

CoteDAzur I'm not an expert in thermodynamics, so will bow to your superior knowledge.

Maybe, I don't need to be. Perhaps they are just not that relevant. I agree that if you are getting fatter, you?re taking in more calories than you?re using BUT the question is why?. There is another way of looking at this issue, in that you don't get fat because you?re overeating. You overeat because you?ve developed a disorder in the way your fat tissue is regulated.

How about this for a question anyway: If you consume about 2,700 calories a day, which is typical when averaging men and women together, that?s a million calories a year, or ten million calories over a decade. Over the course of a decade, you?re eating roughly ten tons of food. How accurately do you have to match calories-in to calories-out so that you don?t gain more than 20 pounds over the course of a decade? If you were to gain 20 pounds every decade, you?ll go from being lean in your 20s to obese in your 40s, which is what happens to so many of us do. And the answer is: 20 calories a day. If you take in an extra 20 calories a day and put it into your fat tissue, you will gain 20 pounds every decade. Nobody can match that kind of precision. 20 calories is a few bites of an apple, half a biscuit, a couple of bites of toast. Are you really suggesting that the laws of thermodynamics govern us so tightly that we have to be that precise about measuring our calories?

Scientists have known since the early 1960s that insulin is the primary hormone that regulates your fat tissue. This is not controversial?you can refer to an endocrinology textbook and look up what makes a fat cell fat and you will see all the ways insulin does it. What stimulates insulin more than anything else? Sugar & carbohydrates. Then you come back to your point that people get fat because people eat too much and exercise too little and there seems to be a complete disconnect between the fundamental science and the cause of human obesity.

I see obesity as a hormonal disorder and not just as a result of being a lazy lump that can't control their calorie in / calorie out consumption & expenditure.

Willow - No it's not easy, but it is not that hard, either.

Sometimes all it takes is for a knowledgeable outsider (proper dietician, not know-all strangers on the internet like myself ) to look at what you eat and change it a little. Plus cardio - boost your metabolism, spend energy, and tone up as you lose weight.

I thought I ate very little and was quite measured about my food intake. For breakfast, I would have a pain au chocolat and coffee. Dietician said it's better to eat two slices of bread with a bit of Nutella on it, if I so like that sort of thing. But I also like soft cheese on bread for breakfast, so since that day (3 years ago) I've been alternating different types of cheese on bread with Nutella on bread once 10 days or so.

I've also been told by a trainer guy (not dietician, obviously) that I should have fish and asparagus for breakfast and no bread. I have friends who train with him and have followed his advice. Until they got sick of it, went back to eating "normally" and put on all that weight back and more.

The trick is to actually change the way you eat (with less fat, sugar, and complex carbohydrates) but eating everything in moderation so you can do it in the long term without frustration, misery, and malnutrition.

It's not just about WHAT you eat though. For a lot of people it's the WHY that needs to be addressed. This is what makes it so hard.

"How accurately do you have to match calories-in to calories-out so that you don?t gain more than 20 pounds over the course of a decade?"

That is a strange question. Nobody is going to plan their calorie intake for the coming decade.

What people normally do is start eating less & moving more when they put on a few pounds or feel tight in their clothes.

multitask - Of course you can lose weight without exercising. Look at the malnourished people in famine-stricken parts of the world.

Exercise is important because it increases your metabolism and spends energy so you spend more energy (even when you are not exercising). Also, it tones you up so skin & flesh doesn't sag when you lose weight. And it makes you feel good

I see obesity as a hormonal disorder and not just as a result of being a lazy lump that can't control their calorie in / calorie out consumption & expenditure.

Didn't people have hormones in the past then?

Obesity is at an all time high and is continuing to rise at an alarming pace.

More than a third of Primary school children are obese/overweight...surely they're not all hormonal disorders?

Could it be the case that modern diets (which are so heavily influenced by the massive clout of the food industry) contain so much sugar, which has created an increase in the number of people with hormonal disorders? Even so-called healthy foods can contain vast amounts of sugar.

I'm with PostBellum on this. Sceptics may like to read the work of Gary Taubes or John Briffa before being so dismissive.

The low fat drive may have increased problems because a lot of manufacturers compensated for the loss of flavour /mouthfeel from removing the fat by increasing the sugar content of low-fat foods.

I find sugar addictive and know if I start eating sweet stuff the cravings will increase on a daily basis. I have to make a conscious effort to avoid sweet stuff for a couple of days to break the cycle.

Why would I get diet advice from an Aerospace Engineer and Journalist at least Briffa is a medical type. Although I am amused to read his oh so very sensible critism of Rebecca Adlington's diet. It rather shows how the whole thing is bollocks if he pulls one of the fittest people in the country apart because their diet is "bad".

Its simply a matter of cutting back on high energy foods when your pants start getting tight. We're on more homemade veg soups atm after Christmas because my jeans are snug. Nothing wooly about how veg causes you to loose weight, just the knowledge that filling and hearty soups have fewer calories than our usual fare without feeling too deprived.

All this stuff about carbs/insulin etc may he relevant, but only if you stick to the calories in less than calories out.

You can lose weight eating nothing but refined white sugar as long as you consume less calories than you use.

Equally, if you follow a super duper low carb diet but consume more calories than you use you will gain.

Losing weight is simply calories in vs calories out. There can be no argument about that

Losing weight healthily is where everyone really starts arguing are Carbs good or bad? Can you have too much protein? Cardio or weights?

"Its simply a matter of cutting back on high energy foods when your pants start getting tight"

Why should anyone take diet advice from you either MrsHoarder?

These books are well researched and referenced, a fact you would find out if you read them for yourself. I don't think you have reason to dismiss it as bollocks for the reasons you have given.

But, y'know, believe what you like. Hope you lose that Christmas weight easily!

High performance athletes famously can cope with much higher carb loads than regular people - even regular fit people. Briffa sort of alludes to this, but it isn't really spelled out very well.

Sounds like a crap diet to me as well. I'd get fat on it. Unless she's eating a bushel of vegetables with dinner she doesn't mention, the only veg in the whole thing are a few slices of tomato in the lunchtime sandwich. If she gets her five a day it sounds like most of it is fruit.