General Health & Fitness - Stay/Get Back in Shape

duluoz said:
Orrrrr you could eat a balanced diet of minimally processed foods, drink plenty of water, get various forms of exercise, and get on with it.
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Not sure that's an either/or proposition. Kind of an underlying assumption on my part for most of your prescription. I think the only thing I'd quibble with is the proportion of types of exercise. If you want to boost metabolism, your focus should be on strength training in lieu of tons of aerobic activity.
 
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wmheel1287 said:
Yeah, but the bodies of those who have been morbidly obese for their entire lives work very differently. Every chart and calculation on earth says at my age, activity, height, etc, I should be consuming 3000+ calories a day just to maintain. If I ate 3000 calories a day every day, I would gain 2 pounds per week. Metaolic disorder is an irreversible bitch
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That is a tough one. My only thinking was more rest = more muscle growth

And more muscle growth leads to metabolic benefits

But how that applies to different metabolic disorders is beyond my understanding
 
Ddseddse said:
I'm going to lay out the theory of the case for "reverse dieting". I'm not sure if you've experimented with this at all, and tbh, I would call it just a theory and not a known scientific fact, so take this with a grain of salt.

The theory (as I understand it) goes, that your body has taken the inputs of restricted calories in and extreme calories out and decided that the sensible thing for long term survival in this situation based on these inputs is to dial it's metabolism way down. Hence the limit to the calories one can consume without gaining weight.

The prescription is to back way off the cardio (i.e. eliminate it, maybe a couple of brisk walks a week) and focus on heavy duty resistance training (strength and or hypertrophy) to build muscle mass. At the same time the body needs to feel like it's ok to build muscle mass, so the idea is to start a reverse diet. Maybe add 300 calories per day and then maybe adding 100 calories a few more times over the months incrementally over time (actual amounts will vary by individual, the amounts here are just examples). The scale WILL SHOW WEIGHT GAIN and that's precisely what you want. The vast majority of that weight should be muscle. It's OK to gain some small percentage of body fat at this stage, but Ideally body fat composition will be consistent or minimal as you continue to gain muscle mass.

The theory is that after about 6 months of adding calories (and muscle), you can start to take them back off again in 100 calorie increments again but stopping a new maintenance calories that is greater (i.e. maybe by those initial 300 calories) than they were before. The additional muscle burns more calories even at rest, and (or so the theory goes) the lack of an "I'm starving!" input gives permission for you body to crank it's metabolism up a notch.

I've seen good anecdotal evidence that this doing multiple rounds of reverse dieting has helped people go from a 1500 daily calories maintenance to a ripped 3000 calories maintenance. But who knows, maybe it only works for some people? I want to be careful I'm not trying to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs, because I think you may know a lot more about this stuff than I do, but I thought I'd lay it out t here in case anyone finds it interesting.
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Yep, have done it with my trainers. Did almost zero cardio for months other than walking the dogs and did strength training. I gained muscle but lost no fat. My current 2300 calories a day is a massive up from the 1900 I was at for a long time. I have a DEXA scan every 2 months. Im gaining weight but losing fat. I was up 2 pounds from 242 to 244 but that was a 5 pound fat loss and a 7 pound lean gain in those 2 months. In the last 14 months or so, I've lost about 46 pounds of fat while gaining about 27 pounds of lean tissue.

It just gets tougher and tougher. Trust me, its a LOT easier for me to go from 500 pounds to 400 pounds than from 250 to 240. Sounds insane, but true.

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duluoz said:
Orrrrr you could eat a balanced diet of minimally processed foods, drink plenty of water, get various forms of exercise, and get on with it.
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Yeah, id be willing to bet at this point that my diet, water, and exercise are in to top 5% of Americans. Those are indeed the essentials but that doesnt mean they will always work the same foe everyone.
 
I believe pretty strongly in CI:CO - namely that your weight will increase, decrease, stay the same based on your TDEE and how many calories you eat over time. I've engaged in reverse dieting before and I think the most beneficial aspect of reverse dieting is allowing your hunger hormones to adjust to the new macro levels. I don't think there is much to "metabolism" social media influenced concern. Things like fasting (whether it be long term water fasts or 18:86 intermittent fasting) or elimination diets like keto or chose your method of the month seem to offer the benefit of helping one reduce overall caloric intake rather than manipulating your metabolism which would in theory allow you to eat more calories.
 
wmheel1287 said:
its a LOT easier for me to go from 500 pounds to 400 pounds than from 250 to 240. Sounds insane, but true.
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It isn't that surprising. At 500 you are not only carrying more fat compared with 250, but you are carrying more water weight. There is also the issue of your TDEE being significantly higher at 500 than 250 (total daily energy expenditure - the amount of calories needed to maintain your current weight). My guess is the range you post here is somewhat hyperbolic, but it would be logical for it to be easier to lose more weight when a lot heavier than more weight when lighter.
 
p5mmr9 said:
It isn't that surprising. At 500 you are not only carrying more fat compared with 250, but you are carrying more water weight. There is also the issue of your TDEE being significantly higher at 500 than 250 (total daily energy expenditure - the amount of calories needed to maintain your current weight). My guess is the range you post here is somewhat hyperbolic, but it would be logical for it to be easier to lose more weight when a lot heavier than more weight when lighter.
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Not really that hyperbolic at all. I think I've been working between 250 and 240 for a lot longer time with a boat ton more focus and energy than I was from 500 to 400. I think I did that in 6 or 7 months. I'm 10 months into the 250 down to 240 battle.
 
p5mmr9 said:
I believe pretty strongly in CI:CO - namely that your weight will increase, decrease, stay the same based on your TDEE and how many calories you eat over time. I've engaged in reverse dieting before and I think the most beneficial aspect of reverse dieting is allowing your hunger hormones to adjust to the new macro levels. I don't think there is much to "metabolism" social media influenced concern. Things like fasting (whether it be long term water fasts or 18:86 intermittent fasting) or elimination diets like keto or chose your method of the month seem to offer the benefit of helping one reduce overall caloric intake rather than manipulating your metabolism which would in theory allow you to eat more calories.
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There is no doubt about calories in/calories out. However, the human body has an INSANE ability to adjust the caloric output requirement if it feels threatened with starvation. I have never met any nutritionist or doctor (and I have been through a lot) who deal with morbidly obese people who dont believe that the caloric needs of someone who has lost a lot of weight are drastically lower than their peers who never carried that weight.
 
p5mmr9 said:
It isn't that surprising. At 500 you are not only carrying more fat compared with 250, but you are carrying more water weight. There is also the issue of your TDEE being significantly higher at 500 than 250 (total daily energy expenditure - the amount of calories needed to maintain your current weight). My guess is the range you post here is somewhat hyperbolic, but it would be logical for it to be easier to lose more weight when a lot heavier than more weight when lighter.
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Just a small nit-pick, you're talking about BMR. TDEE = BMR + calories burned through activities.
 
wmheel1287 said:
There is no doubt about calories in/calories out. However, the human body has an INSANE ability to adjust the caloric output requirement if it feels threatened with starvation. I have never met any nutritionist or doctor (and I have been through a lot) who deal with morbidly obese people who dont believe that the caloric needs of someone who has lost a lot of weight are drastically lower than their peers who never carried that weight.
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There are certainly other factors when someone loses half their body weight. It’s an incredible accomplishment and it is beyond “conventional weight loss/gain.” My point is that it probably isn’t a nebulous “metabolism” mechanism and just likely means someone has more happening when decreasing weight so significantly. (Just spit balling, it could be excess skin and bone density causing actual body weight increases which throw CI:CO calculations off making it seem like you weigh more than you would if you went from 210 to 225. I’m not a doctor or an expert in the field - so you can take this with a grain of salt and definitely listen to your docs and not some “internet expert”)
 
wmheel1287 said:
Trust me, its a LOT easier for me to go from 500 pounds to 400 pounds than from 250 to 240. Sounds insane, but true.
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I quit drinking in May, I have lost 30-35 lbs. (I topped out around 230) without any other changes in my diet/exercise regimen. Granted, the exercise regimen wasn't much to speak of, mostly a bit of walking and daily pushups, situps and light yoga. No cardio to speak of and no weights (although I have been lifting weights off and on since before middle school). Was already on a pretty healthy diet, no sodas, very little processed food or sweets, pretty low carb in general except for raw fruits and vegetables (I have been juicing for decades). Kinda feels like I've leveled off weight-wise but we'll see. It's been very gradual...
 
wmheel1287 said:
Not really that hyperbolic at all. I think I've been working between 250 and 240 for a lot longer time with a boat ton more focus and energy than I was from 500 to 400. I think I did that in 6 or 7 months. I'm 10 months into the 250 down to 240 battle.
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It is typically easier when a very heavy person first starts and it gets harder, per pound, as one is more fit.

Mine was the same way. The first 50-60 pounds just fell off. Big easy changes made it happen. When I got down to 200, it for me twice as long to lose that last 20 pounds as it did to last the first 120.
 
It's official, I'm out of the "skim the cream" stage of getting back into lifting. Went from 3+ reps in reserve to roughly 2 on each of the lifts today. "Reps in reserve" is just a subjective guess on how many more reps you could have done before failure if you had kept going on your last set.

Importantly, "failure" here doesn't mean "couldn't complete the rep" as much as it means "couldn't complete the rep while still maintaining good form". RIR can be another hugely helpful tool to help you avoid injury, schedule rest, and inform your plans on how much weight to add to the bar. It's a good practice to log it along with your sets/rep/weight in your logbook.

3x5x205 Squat (2 RIR)
3x5x165 Bench (2 RIR)
1x5x255 Dead (2 RIR)
3x5x95 Press (2RIR)

On another note, I chose the Butthole Surfers for gym workout music for today. Was amazed at how well the music still stands up compared to a lot of other band of that era. If you're a lifter of a certain age, the Butthole Surfers makes good gym music. (And if your too young and/or never gave them a listen, ignore the silly name and give them a fair chance. Damned good music).



Interested in what everyone else's go to gym music is?
 
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