What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Health, Fitness, Food, Insurance, Longevity, Diets,...
white belt
Posts: 1452
Joined: Sat May 21, 2011 12:15 am

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by 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.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Alphaville »

Lemur wrote:
Fri Mar 19, 2021 12:13 pm
@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 :lol:

Western Red Cedar
Posts: 1205
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by 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.
Lemur wrote:
Wed Mar 10, 2021 2:24 pm
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
Posts: 52
Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2020 12:03 am

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by 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.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Alphaville »

the_platypus wrote:
Fri Mar 19, 2021 9:37 pm

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 :D

the_platypus
Posts: 52
Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2020 12:03 am

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by the_platypus »

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

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Alphaville »

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

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Alphaville »

one big advantage of no starchless & no sweets meal habits is that they facilitate intermittent fasting and day long fasts. there is no shock to the system when lengthening the period between feedings.


eg yesterday had nothing but coffee and coconut milk during the day and it felt good and painless. finally in the evening a small dish of fish and labneh and veggies was a great way to end the day.

normally we're not eating before 11 or after 8, and that's now just routine instead of some special suffering or deprivation.

Dave
Posts: 545
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:42 pm

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Dave »

Alphaville wrote:
Fri Mar 19, 2021 11:57 am
my body does not permit me to reduce calories past a certain point while on a starch-heavy diet. i will wake up in the middle of the night to eat something. i will feel "faint" from hunger, obsess waiting for the next meal, etc.
Have you experimented using vegan protein powders?

Back on page 16 I said:

and, if necessary, consider 4) substituting some of your caloric intake for a protein powder, vegan if need be (I use Nutrakey VPro) to give a slight boost to your protein/calorie ratio. The downside of this is of course it's a processed food, has a higher plastic load (and other manufacturing environmental costs) than say bagged beans (but perhaps not as much as tofu on a plastic/protein basis), and it's something on the order of $4/lb of meat-equivalent protein, so not incredibly cheap, but not so bad considering that you aren't going to be taking so much of it (we're talking $1-3/day, nowhere near what clean keto people are going to be looking at).

YMMV, but the above has helped me. I think the biggest mental shift, at least for me, was realizing that grains/starches don't need to be an essential or significant part of eating plant-based. Option 4 is sort of the "last resort", but I have found it to be personally helpful at this stage in my journey, but hope to eventually no longer need it.


Curious if this is a tool if you tried messing around with? I'm still a fan of the Nutrakey VPros - great flavors, dissolve well, etc. I don't look at this as a huge dietary adjustment, just shifting the macros around a bit as I had some struggles like you before adding it. The extra protein makes a difference for my hunger/energy, which affects how many calories I eat, and ultimately is what has allowed me to sustain a very modest caloric deficit and thus get my body fat down without the past struggles.

Not suggesting this is a bullet proof solution for you, just something to consider testing before giving up on plant-based eating.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Alphaville »

Dave wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:29 pm
p
Not suggesting this is a bullet proof solution for you, just something to consider testing before giving up on plant-based eating.
yeah, thanks. not giving up on it, just temporarily on retreat from starches till i regain normal weigh. a year of daily starches during pandemic i had plenty of protein so that wasnt the issue: the issue was the starches and too much fiber.

plant protein is another matter of course. it's not a starch and not giving up on it. in fact im about to start an an experiment with soybean yogurt, since i already make milk yogurt. not sure what will happen but yeah.

as for energy sources during low carn, my main calories are vegan fats: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil. omega 3 gets supplemented with flax and chia.

i miss lentils hahha butnhave not gotten rid of them. i'll just eat them later, just more spaced out than i was eating them before.

i have a lot ofmwhey protein in stock but im curious about the plant powders. he,pnprotein powder did notmsit well with me after a ehile, but pea might do the trick.mmmm, peas! can't wait till i eat again,

Dave
Posts: 545
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:42 pm

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Dave »

@Alphaville

Right on, sounds like a plan. Adjust -> review, repeated until we find what works!

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Alphaville »

hah, sorry for the typos above, it was late and i was thumb-typing in the dark.

and yes, indeed, i will keep trying one way or another. olive and coconut already firmly planted as pillars. also i eat tons of greens, berries, summer squashes, citrus, etc.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Alphaville »

this was my sunday party breakfast:

but first, disclaimers:

-haven't been eating fresh meat on weekdays, so rather than buying "best value giant meats" i bought "small party meats"

-this isn't an everyday breakfast. this was just for sunday.

-i lose weight eating this way every day, but smaller

so:

-2 strips dry rubbed no sugar bacon
-2 pastured eggs fried on bacon grease
-1/2 tomato sautéed last in the pan
-green chile sauce
-diner style black coffee (tall and watery, but short brew + added hot water gives best flavor)
-1/2 cup rasberries (frozen) + 2oz organic cream

wow!

after this, no lunch today...

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Alphaville »

andyz wrote:
Mon May 31, 2021 12:17 pm
I keep on a healthy eating
can you make it any more vague? and when is the next spam dropping?

ertyu
Posts: 2893
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:31 am

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by ertyu »

Relevant podcast episode: https://youtu.be/GqPGXG5TlZw?t=361 How to Lose Fat with Science-Based Tools | Huberman Lab Podcast #21

Crusader
Posts: 342
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:16 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Crusader »

For me, the only thing that works is calorie counting (otherwise I overeat). Try to find some food that you like enough that you can eat on a regular basis without having to cheat and that's it. Simple but difficult to stick with. In my case, this means something like the following:

-> breakfast: oatmeal + kefir + cashews + ground flax seed
-> lunch: pasta/rice + chicken + vegetables (frozen) + some sauce (can be home made from ingredients like olives, roasted peppers, garlic, hot sauce, mustard...)
-> snack: protein shake (whey protein + milk + frozen fruit + optional almond butter + optional cocoa)
-> supper: scrambled eggs (optional cooked on olive oil) + hot sauce + toast (optional: butter or hummus spread)

scale according to taste and calorie goal

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Lemur »

Yeah I'm back to calorie counting as well. The non-calorie counting method wasn't working out. Just need to make sure one is filled up with protein/fiber to make it as satiating as possible. What also has helped me was using an actual app this time around instead of just my rolling calculator. This allows me to review and make better decisions.

suomalainen
Posts: 979
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by suomalainen »

A few recent reports I found interesting:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -calories/

tl;dr:
In 2021, after years of collaborative effort, we published the first comprehensive study investigating the effects of age and body size on daily energy expenditure. As expected, we found that metabolic rates increase with body size: bigger people burn more calories. In particular, fat-free mass (the muscles and other organs) is the single strongest predictor of daily energy expenditure.
...
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the stability of our metabolism through middle age. Daily energy expenditures hold remarkably steady from age 20 to 60. No middle age slowdown, no change with menopause. The weight gain so many of us experience in adulthood cannot be blamed on a declining metabolism. As a man in my 40s, I had sort of believed the folk wisdom that metabolism slowed as we aged. My body definitely feels different than it did 10 or 20 years ago. But like hunting some metabolic Sasquatch, when you actually look there’s nothing there. Same for the much touted metabolic differences between men and women. Women have lower daily energy expenditures on average, but that is only because women tend to be smaller and carry more of their weight as fat. Compare men and women with the same body weight and body fat percentage, and the metabolic difference disappears.
https://dupri.duke.edu/news-events/news ... -humanitys

tl;dr:
Pontzer and his colleagues have found that, despite their high activity levels, the Hadza don’t burn more energy per day than sedentary people in the U.S. and Europe.
...
Q: What’s the lesson the Hadza and other hunter-gatherers teach us about managing weight and staying healthy?

A: The Hadza stay incredibly fit and healthy throughout their lives, even into their older ages (60’s, 70’s, even 80’s). They don’t develop heart disease, diabetes, obesity, or the other diseases that we in the industrialized world are most likely to suffer from. They also have an incredibly active lifestyle, getting more physical activity in a typical day than most Americans get in a week.

My work with the Hadza showed that, surprisingly, even though they are so physically active, Hadza men and women burn the same number of calories each day as men and women in the U.S. and other industrialized countries. Instead of increasing the calories burned per day, the Hadza physical activity was changing the way they spend their calories — more on activity, less on other, unseen tasks in the body.

The takeaway for us here in the industrialized world is that we need to stay active to stay healthy, but we can’t count on exercise to increase our daily calorie burn. Our bodies adjust, keeping energy expenditure in a narrow range regardless of lifestyle. And that means that we need to focus on diet and the calories we consume in order to manage our weight. At the end of the day, our weight is a matter of calories eaten versus calories burned — and it’s really hard to change the calories we burn!
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/ ... betes.html

tl;dr:
The ketogenic diet is an ultra-low-carb, very high-fat diet that involves a drastic reduction in carbohydrate intake. The Mediterranean diet is a low-carb, moderately high-fat diet that emphasizes vegetables, legumes, fruits, whole grains, olive oil and fish.

Both diets received high marks in controlling blood glucose levels and aiding weight loss, but the ketogenic diet was lower in several nutrients, particularly fiber, and was more difficult for study participants to follow in the long run, according to findings published May 31 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
I found in interesting that basically you can't impact the "calories out" part of the equation over the long term. The body just adjusts its functioning to make room for exercising. Exercising, of course, has important health benefits; it just doesn't do anything directly for weight loss.

As to the "calories in" part of the equation - it seems that the psychology of the diet is more important than the composition of the diet. In other words, you have to be able to stick to it.
There’s no singular, natural human diet. Hunter-gatherers like the Hadza eat a diverse mix of plant and animal foods that varies day to day, month to month, and year to year. There’s even more dietary diversity when we look across populations. Humans are built to thrive on a wide variety of diets — just about everything is on the menu.

That said, the ultra-processed foods we’re inundated with in our modern industrialized world really are unnatural. There are no Twinkies to forage in the wild. Those foods are literally engineered to be overconsumed, with a mix of flavors that overwhelm our brain’s ability to regulate our appetites. Now, it is still possible to lose weight on a Twinkie diet (I’m not recommending it!), if you’re very strict about the calories eaten per day. But we need to be really careful about how we incorporate ultra-processed foods into our daily diets, because they are calorie bombs that drive us to overconsume. (from the duke article linked above)

theanimal
Posts: 2627
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:05 pm
Location: AK
Contact:

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by theanimal »

The book "Burn:New Science Reveals how Metabolism Shapes Your Body and Life " goes into that research regarding metabolic activity in more detail. I haven't checked, but I would figure the author is one of the author's of the paper to which you linked.

Humanofearth
Posts: 188
Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:32 am

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Humanofearth »

Count calories, adjust down on a biweekly basis until the scale moves.

High protein & fiber, don’t mix carbs & fat in large quantities as that’ll stimulate overeating. Most natural foods don’t mix carbs and fat, the few that do are very easy to overeat-avocado, durian, etc.

A simple, boring diet is very helpful. Cook.

Chicken breast, eggs, cucumbers, carrots, berries, popcorn and gelatin are my most filling foods per calorie though. <130kcal and I’m stuffed.

Post Reply