Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

[suomalainen]

I dunno. It's not a method of weight loss, it's just a fact of thermodynamics. I see the statement of "if calories in > calories out, you will gain weight, and vice versa" is just a restatement of the laws of physics as applied to "living organisms". Your body can't choose to ignore the physics of energy intake / expenditure any more than it can ignore the physics of gravity or blunt force trauma. Some may say "well, that's fine and all but the statement doesn't therefore contain any useful information", and fair enough. My claim that it's useful is limited to the idea that it's useful to me.

The second step in analyzing why someone didn't lose weight when they say they "tried calories in / calories out and it didn't work for me" is not to examine why they defied the laws of physics, but to examine the body systems / mechanisms involved in taking calories in or expending calories out. On the in side, perhaps the body's hunger messaging mechanisms proved too much in relation to whatever method (diet) was tried. Perhaps the method wasn't sustainable for the person's dietary preferences, be they taste or cost or whatever. I did keto for 3 or 4 months and lost something like 20 pounds, but I gained it all back when I stopped keto because I found the diet too boring, and I just couldn't do it any more. In other words, the feelings generated by the method(s) proved "impossible" to manage.

On the out side, perhaps the body reacts to lower food intake and/or increased energy requirements of the attempted method (movement) by feeling lethargic or tired. The body is trying to get you to move less through various hormonal mechanisms. Perhaps a certain level of movement, be it non-exercise like walking or exercise like weights or cardio, is beyond what a body's preferences are. This may or may not be tied into short term mechanisms that can be changed, or they may or may not be tied into long term mechanisms / dna-coded preferences that cannot be changed.

To me, this distinction is very important. It removed what was, to me, a mystification of the process. Now, I'm able to see that it's not that I'm doing it "wrong" by not tapping into some mystical method that would "trick" the body into losing weight or whatever. It's just that the energy equation has been imbalanced in the wrong direction. Now, the focus is on my feelings. How do I address my feelings of hunger? How do I address my cravings for certain foods the consumption of which I know I can't easily control? How do I address my feelings of lethargy and "I don't want to go exercise?" These are much more real and addressable questions than the hocus pocus nutrition and exercise bullshit I've been sold for decades. And I know that I can do things even if I don't feel like doing them. The question is how long can I muscle through those feelings and would such an approach be sustainable? The answer is probably not. So I need to find ways to either avoid them or manage them or both in a way that's sustainable to me. YMWV since your dietary and movement preferences vary from mine.

EDIT: and I use the word "diet" here loosely and broadly to include all methods used to induce caloric restriction, be it food-group-defined diets from keto to vegan to mediterranean, etc. or time-defined diets like intermittent fasting and its various iterations or volumetric restriction like gastric bypass surgery or whatever else may be out there that I haven't taken notice of. I guess I'd loop ozempic into the mix too, as it's a hormonal intervention that makes you feel less hungry and thereby induces lower caloric intake.

[7Wannabe5]

I used to be able to construct a spread-sheet, multiply my body-weight in lbs. X 12, and count kcals in food/out overt exercise, and my weight would drop in almost exact alignment. These-a-days, I am struggling to make this previously successful tactic work for me. Likely due to the fact that my basal/background metabolism has greatly reduced due to age/menopause/inactivity-due-to-being-ill-with-Crohn's disease/loss of muscle. Possibly due to side-effects of the drug I am currently taking for Crohn's disease. Therefore, there do exist situations in which it might be advisable to focus on gaining strength/muscle/vigor towards increasing basal/background metabolism prior or in priority to attempting to achieve kcals-in/kcals-out fat loss. Also, the quality of the food you eat, in terms of the amount of fiber included in your diet will alter the kcals in calculation for the same reason that taking laxatives "works" for anorexics. Strong diuretics, such as spironolactone will often result in weight loss beyond just the water lost. Prednisone like drugs will typically result in weight gain. Similarly, ingesting caffeine will tend towards raising your basal metabolism. Thermodynamics are a given, but your digestive system is not a sealed laboratory calorimeter.

[suomalainen]

Agreed. I'm not suggesting that counting calories as a method works for the various vagaries you noted, in addition to labels just plain not being accurate. It's just been helpful for me to focus on the specifics of the inputs into the calories in (or useful calories absorbed, if you prefer) side of the equation and the specifics of the inputs into the calories out side of the equation. And then further as to the mechanisms of the various inputs to the extent some of those can be teased out, i.e., do spiro and prednisone impact hunger? or perhaps metabolism making one run hot / cold? or jitteriness vs lethargy? or other mechanism? This is helpful to me because it has explanatory power whereas before the stuff I was exposed to (sold) was hand-waving magic (trust me and also give me money) with no logic or explanatory power. As you may have guessed, I like to be able to understand how things work, even if at a basic level. I don't need to be a phd to understand the basics of food ingestion -> digestion into usable glucose -> oxidation -> exhalation (and urination). And it's been interesting to start learning the layers / complexities on top of that. The body is truly an amazing machine.

Also, agreed as to your and @ego's point as well that diets can be optimized for different desired results. Weight/muscle gain requires a different diet than weight/fat loss requires a different diet than pregnancy requires a different diet than athletic competition requires a different diet than sedentary lifestyle requires a different diet than [insert value here] and so on.

[2Birds1Stone]

Reading your last update gives me the warm and fuzzies. Glad that my ramblings over the years have helped folks in some way.

Now, onto the discussion around diet, training, and hoopla.

I 90% agree with you, and I've both walked the walk (going from morbidly obese to competing at a high level in drug free BBing) and worked in this field for ~5 years helping hundreds of individuals manipulate body composition for sports, physique competitions and general health and well being.

The #1 nutrition plan is the one that you're going to stick to.......calorie is king.....but there are some serious caveats that many people don't understand which can lead to some misunderstanding, whether about their own lack of progress, or trying to correlate changes they make in their nutrition/activity levels and perceived results.

The first one being, weight loss and fat loss are not the same thing. If you take an untrained individual and they suddenly start resistance training correctly they can and will gain muscle (and lean body mass*) while potentially losing fat.

*there's even a difference between muscle and lean body mass! When you're training properly and your nutrition is on point, you're going to hold more glycogen and water in the right places....meaning you muscle will be fuller than someone who is not training, but this isn't actual muscle tissue gain.

So someone who starts cutting calories but training properly, could potentially lose fat, gain muscle, and not see much or any progress on the scale. The opposite is true as well.....

Weight can fluctuate dramatically based on so many factors besides caloric intake, including sodium levels, inflammation, stress from training, fiber intake, food volume, etc.

The human body is EXTREMELY adaptable. If you take a 300 lb male who is sitting in front of the couch all day, and get them walking 10k steps a day, that alone could be the catalyst to get the weight falling off of them, as someone that size would burn a serious amount of calories by walking 5 miles. There are diminishing returns on any type of cario/training, at least from a calorie burning standpoint. As you walk more, and lose weight, you get a lot more efficient at it, eventually you may need to walk 30k steps a day to burn the same amount of calories as you initially burned from 10k steps a day.

This is why a variety of movement is important, it keeps the body from adapting too quickly and also provides a more balanced stress level on all of your joints, muscles, connective tissue etc.

There are metabolic conditions, medications, health conditions, etc that can and do lead to some wonky data when it comes to tracking calories/exercise vs. weight and body fat levels.....this post isn't trying to touch on all of them.

So, to surmise***......diet is key, calorie is king, thermodynamics are real and there's no way around them, there are some best practices but hardly a one size fits all approach.

Get into a caloric deficit (no matter how small), move more, move in various ways, be consistent and the progress will come.

***there is also something that is rarely talked about, it's easy to obsess over body image, weight, and it's a slippery slope. I developed a severe binge eating/body dysmorphia issue due to cutting down to unhealthy body fat levels (4-5% as a male) for the purpose of physique competition, and it may have been even less healthy than being 300 lbs, so if you start seeing these patterns, get some professional help.

[suomalainen]

Thanks, @2b1s. Agree there's so many intricacies. I'm just now starting to sort through the bullshit, so my observations are really limited to just a normal, relatively healthy guy who's a bit pudgy and kinda tired of trying to figure out how to not be so pudgy, and my a-ha moment borders on "well, duh", but, you know, you gotta start somewhere. I'm not obsessing too much about the scale, but I would like to get from my current 240 down to about 200 and see where I'm at. I'm not sure what that means for me health / body fat % wise if I'm doing some modest lifting, but I can't imagine I'd be too low at 6'2" 200lbs. Definitely too high now!

And yes, your journal has been great. Both because of your flexible (and, to me, courageous!) approach to getting to FI (and balancing your and your dw's different starting points), but also because you seem to have managed the freedom-to so well and have great story-telling to boot! Lots to learn from you and the handful of other retirees who have kept up your journals. I may be missing some, but even the handful I read have given me lots to think about / prepare for "the other side". In theory, I'll be there in 4 years, with who knows how many "1 more years" to follow as I try to balance my desires for my own life with my desires to keep the money fire-hose going for the benefit of my loved ones.

[white belt]

Agree there's so many intricacies. I'm just now starting to sort through the bullshit, so my observations are really limited to just a normal, relatively healthy guy who's a bit pudgy and kinda tired of trying to figure out how to not be so pudgy, and my a-ha moment borders on "well, duh", but, you know, you gotta start somewhere. I'm not obsessing too much about the scale, but I would like to get from my current 240 down to about 200 and see where I'm at. I'm not sure what that means for me health / body fat % wise if I'm doing some modest lifting, but I can't imagine I'd be too low at 6'2" 200lbs. Definitely too high now!

I've written about it before how I think Renaissance Periodization provides one of the most complete guides based on the body of scientific literature related to diet/fitness: viewtopic.php?p=214918#p214918

The biggest issue I see with your plan to go from 240 down to 200 is if you try do it in one fat loss phase. Best practice is to not exceed 10% of BW in weight loss without having a maintenance period to reset all sorts of physiological/psychological markers. So basically if one wants to follow best practices, you would do something like lose weight down to ~220 lbs over a 10-12 week period (.5-1% a week). Then you would do a maintenance period for about that same amount of time until your physiology and psychology return to normal. Then you would do another fat loss phase followed by another (indefinite?) maintenance phase. Most people screw this up because they try to prolong a (by design) unsustainable fat loss phase forever.

[suomalainen]

Ah, interesting. Yes, need to noodle on how best to structure this for me. With work and family stressors and travel and school vacation schedules and all the rest, it's really hard to get into a consistent groove. So far, all I know I want to do is to make sure I don't eat when I feel "not hungry", i.e., trying to avoid eating until I feel "full", because if I do that, it generally means I'm eating for emotional reasons rather than for fuel.

[Hristo Botev]

Great update Suo; thanks for sharing.

I've mentioned before that DW is a clinical dietitian, and she "figured out" food a long, long time ago; not just the science of it, but what a healthy relationship with food looks like. It's all second nature to her. She came to mind a lot when I was reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, about how you can habituate yourself in a particular virtue (here, temperance/moderation) to the point that it manifests itself in your very character--as in, temperance for DW when it comes to food is not something she DOES so much as it is something she IS. My notes from the relevant book:chapter of NE (3:11) are as follows:

"The moderate person does not take pleasure in those things particularly pleasant to a licentious person--he is disgusted by them--and generally does not take pleasure in things he ought not or to any thing in an excessive degree; though he will long for (in a measured way) pleasures generally conducive to good physical and mental well being."

That is DW wrt food to a T; and it's an utter mystery to me, as I have always had an unhealthy relationship wrt food. To be clear, DW thinks about food, and the pleasure it brings, all the time; she's not at all deficient when it comes to the category of pleasure/pain to which moderation is the golden mean and licentiousness the excess/vice. Indeed, if I remember correctly, Aristotle didn't even have a word for the deficiency wrt to the pleasure/pain category, as he said something like it is so infrequently encountered in humans to be insensible. Though I guess some sort of extreme asceticism would be the deficiency, and DW is certainly not that. She just is the every definition of moderation when it comes to food.

Anyway, when it comes to things like weight loss and healthy eating, it strikes me that the solution lies in exercising the moderation muscle and habituating virtue at a general level more so than getting into the weeds of various diets, intermittent fasting, calorie counting apps, etc. etc.

That said, I don't really know how one goes about exercising that particular muscle.

[delay]

I dunno. It's not a method of weight loss, it's just a fact of thermodynamics. I see the statement of "if calories in > calories out, you will gain weight, and vice versa" is just a restatement of the laws of physics as applied to "living organisms". Your body can't choose to ignore the physics of energy intake / expenditure any more than it can ignore the physics of gravity or blunt force trauma. Some may say "well, that's fine and all but the statement doesn't therefore contain any useful information", and fair enough. My claim that it's useful is limited to the idea that it's useful to me.

Thanks for your reply. Imagine two situations. First case: you eat sugary cookies, and your intestines work on them for a few days. Second case: you eat sugary cookies and your body removes them as quickly as it can in the form of diarrhea. How would the law of conservation of calories hold in these cases?

I did keto for 3 or 4 months and lost something like 20 pounds, but I gained it all back when I stopped keto

I have yet to find a single person who stabilized his weight after a keto diet. When I tried keto myself, I lost 40 (?) pounds and got back to my original weight a few months later. This was similar to other diets I've tried. You can starve yourself with a diet, but you can't keep it up.

Last year I tried intermittent fasting and that works well. Instead of fighting my body I listen to it. What I fight is my mind's urge to rationalise sugar highs.

Anyway, when it comes to things like weight loss and healthy eating, it strikes me that the solution lies in exercising the moderation muscle and habituating virtue at a general level more so than getting into the weeds of various diets, intermittent fasting, calorie counting apps, etc. etc.

That sounds right! Like how you imagine yourself at a destination and the required change in behavior will come by itself.

[suomalainen]

Thanks for your reply. Imagine two situations. First case: you eat sugary cookies, and your intestines work on them for a few days. Second case: you eat sugary cookies and your body removes them as quickly as it can in the form of diarrhea. How would the law of conservation of calories hold in these cases?

Well, by definition, calories in would still equal calories out. You'd just absorb some of them and shit the rest out. An unabsorbed calorie out is still a calorie out. As I said before, CI/CO is not really all that earth-shattering of an observation. It's just that I was finally able to see the distinction between the principle and the methods. Every single method is just a way to implement the principle, focusing on one or more pathways. So arguing about methods is really just arguing preferences (i.e., not all that useful), rather than arguing about Truth (i.e., whether thermodynamics applies to humans at all times and in all cases).

As to intermittent fasting, I think this is a way to exercise the "moderation muscle" for people for whom it's not natural, like me as opposed to @hristo's dw. It provides clear boundaries, a "red line", etc. Maybe it's tied into psychology as well in that you remove decision fatigue or some similar thing. So, yeah, I mean, in principle, it's still just constricting the CI part of the equation, but that particular pathway may avoid some of the more challenging parts of the psychology of food consumption. At least here in the modern (1st) world where food is abundant, cheap and delicious.

I've done intermittent fasting before and it just doesn't work for me consistently. Something seems to always come up. So I'm working on the psychological aspect of it - to let go when I break a streak. To realize that even if CI>CO one day, that doesn't mean I have get upset or annoyed or disappointed and rage eat the next day to punish myself. I can just let it be an off day. The pattern over a month or 6 months matters way more than any single day. I suppose in this way, my current approach (my 74th time trying to lose weight!) is to eat when and what I want to eat, but to allow myself to get hungry before I eat again. Partly, this is just to listen to my body, without any particular goal in mind. I'm just trying to get a feel for when I stress eat vs when I eat for fuel. I dunno. We'll see. If I don't drop weight and keep it off, I may have to choose something more formalistic.

[delay]

You'd just absorb some of them and shit the rest out.

If the body can choose to shit some out, why would it not have more choices?

Whatever the benefits of the calorie theory, my experience says it's not useful for losing weight. I've never met anyone who lost weight using a diet or by exercising more.

(my 74th time trying to lose weight!)

I'm not quite up to my 74th try, I've lost 40 pounds around 10 times before I landed on intermittent fasting. I'm now stable for a year at a healthy weight. Intermittent fasting for me is eating between 14:00 and 20:00 on five days of the week. I also started eating whole food at the same time: vegetables, fruits, meat, milk, nuts, and so on. I try to reduce processed foods (= food with an ingredient list.) I drink beer on two or three days a week, for me alcohol is no obstacle to weight loss.

[suomalainen]

Given the other deleterious effects of diarrhea, it doesn't seem to be a positive-value long-term strategy.

Edit: and to the extent of your body having more choices, it does. Hormones affecting hunger levels, activity levels, stress levels, etc., all contribute to weight and health in general. But your body doesn't have a choice to disobey the laws of physics. CI/CO (calories in can be "calories absorbed into your bloodstream", if you prefer) is just a restatement of thermodynamics applied to living things. Agree it's not generally "useful" in that it doesn't tell you anything about what to do, but it was a useful insight for me.