What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

[white belt]

i've done that before, but it stops working after a while. then i'll be sitting around looking at the clock waiting for my next carb snack, ever more desperately. it's not s good way of life for me.

then only way i can achieve weight loss stability with no hunger or suffering is via no sugar /no starches.

once i lose the weight it's easy to maintain weight with some carbs-- e.g. before the pandemic i'd come home from an intense bike ride and have a beer, and no problem. i'd eat bread on weekends too. but day in/day out starches mess with my insulin and promote hunger. starch is very moreish.

Weight loss stability is an oxymoron to me. Weight loss is a temporary process and is by nature not "stable" because you are pushing your body out of homeostasis. It also extremely unlikely that a person is going to be able to lose weight without any hunger unless they are perhaps very high body fat to begin with.

I realized I already posted about some of this stuff earlier in the thread here: viewtopic.php?p=214918#p214918

Tracking food isn't about coming up with an edict for what you eat each day. More like an iterative process where you are continuously tracking results and tweaking things. Calorie (or macronutrient) totals will vary across individuals even with the same size and activity level due to genetics, hormones, and all sorts of other reasons. But you are only comparing results against yourself and you can adjust your caloric intake and composition each week if need be. For example, say you are trying to lose weight and you spend a week tracking calories but the scale stays the same. Here is what you would ask yourself:

-Did I adhere to my diet? If not, then I need to work on adherence (behavioral change, food composition change, etc).
-Did I get good quality sleep?
-Were my calories scaled to my activity level?
-Did I have any other stressors/outside factors that might affect things?

If the answer to the first 3 questions is yes and question 4 is no, then you need to drop daily caloric (or macronutrient) intake going into the next week. Personally I prefer to track macronutrients rather than calories because it gives a more complete picture.

I think the appeal with tracking food is it eliminates the unknown about how you are gaining weight. If the scale is moving the wrong direction, then just reassess those 4 questions at the end of the week. It also tells you exactly what to eat, which eliminates the unknown associated with portion control. I personally found the decision-tree nature quite easy to follow and took the onus off me for having to expend mental energy with decision making, but I understand that personality type may play a role in this as well.

Now, I believe adhering to a plan is easier for some than others. However, given that most users on here have achieved some sort of intellectual/academic/career success by adhering to some kind of plan, I don't think it's an insurmountable task.

[white belt]

Since most people in ERE land are quite analytical and evidence-based, I highly recommend reading the RP Diet Book: https://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Diet ... B07NKTD9MS

The book delves into what the body of scientific literature says so far about nutrition principles and diet principles. Think of it as a foundational text that one can use to better evaluate the claims of other diets. I think one issue we're getting into in this thread is arguing about tactics before having a common understanding of strategy.

[Alphaville]

@Alphaville

I experience the same phenomenon. Just a few weeks ago, I reduced my calories to 1600 a day and measured everything for a week. I lost a good deal of weight/fat in short order but it was not worth the struggle of feeling hungry 24/7...which should be expected of a diet but yeah I was as well psychologically obsessed with food. I also really struggled to fall asleep and stay asleep. I also lose my sex drive...It was pretty much hell lol.

I don't get these issues though when I am more protein/fat heavy with a similar caloric intake. I also experience much less hunger. The diet will get boring long-term though. Meat is also just expensive....so I'm at a crossroads with trying to reconcile dieting with lower food spending.

yeah, it's not an easy thing to eat cheaply and well.

for me also it's not solely a matter of spending but also a bit of environmental impact etc.

e.g. i could get cheap pink sludge from brazil but do i approve of their environmental depredation? hell no. same thing with $1 frankenchickens or cheap eggs from factory farms or abused cow milk or the cheapest tuna, etc.

but it's possible to effect some reductions, at least at the margins to begin with, and iterate from there. i try to shop for quality not just price and i'm doing some substitutions to reduce impact.

eg. today's lunch was supplemented by a scoop of nooch, which provides protein, vitamins, etc. and 1 oz peanuts which adds protein and good fats. i couldn't eat that alone, but it helps me reduce, say, the quantities of egg and cheese, and skip the bacon altogether, while meeting nutritional targets.

this vegan/vegetarian substitution into a classic keto/carnivore plan is a bit of a research project for me, which is why it's consuming some time/brainpower at the moment. i expect to get it into autopilot eventually.... but for a while it requires some thinking.

i should add also, it' s not a "trick" for consuming fewer calories, as it's not lies; it's just getting to fewer calories through a different biochemical pathway, which runs on different hormones and is more favorable for weight loss for my my genetic makeup. [eta see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377015/ ]

today's lunch was a scramble of 2 eggs, 1 oz shredded cheese, 1 cup spinach, 1 dose of nooch. then black coffee and 1 oz peanuts, for a total of approx 34g protein (my target is 30 per meal), some fats i didn't bother counting today, plently of vitamin b/lecithin/choline/etc , and very little/no starch (minimal in peanuts, maybe 2-3 net carbs).

best of all it was satisfying, gentle on my stomach, nutritionaly dense, didn't make me sleepy... and it should be windless later on

[Western Red Cedar]

Another vote for intermittent fasting. I found that waiting to eat until at least noon, and possibly a couple hours later, really helped. A large, healthy midday meal and another around 6:30 did the trick for me. Cutting out any processed food and regular weight lifting was also great. If possible, I would try to lift while fasting in the late morning to burn additional calories.

I found this useful

https://youtu.be/wJ0QXCTqjUs

Key is really finding something you can stick too.

I like this method too because I could fit in to ERE style food spending.

This video and some of his other videos helped me set up a system. He's all about long-term nutrition and lifestyle changes rather than a diet. I think that is the best way to think about it.

[the_platypus]

To add another data point,

I went whole food, plant based (vegan) starting in Jan. of 2020. I don't portion control, count calories, or restrict my meal times. I allow sweets and occasional vegan restaurants. Actually, that year, because of the pandemic and laziness, I significantly decreased my exercise.

I still lost 15 pounds (from 170 -> 155). Muscle mass is still good despite the lazy exercise routine. Now I look much more "trim," especially in the back/hips/pecs.

It's all about that fiber, lol.

[Alphaville]

It's all about that fiber, lol.

luckeee

all i achieve with mega-fiber is 25 farts per hour

im talking high on the richter scale

welcome to the thunderdome

[the_platypus]

Oh believe me, I have those days too, LOL. Best thing then is just plenty of water to keep the pipes flowing.

[Alphaville]

o man! if i added too much water it would be a cataclysmic mudslide