So, how did you accurately find out what your starting TDEE is to know how to cut 3500 calories per month? Using an online TDEE isn't going to be able to figure a TDEE that is accurate enough to consider +/- 115 calories per day.

You would have to keep tabs on your BMR and add in your exercise as you go. Even if you go to a lab to measure your BMR, how do you keep track of how many calories you burned during an exercise routine, or taking a shiit, or taking a shower, or the EPOC of the exercise you did that day?

Then you'd have to consider the thermic effect of food and how digesting protein results in 30x more energy used than digesting the same amount of calories for fat. Just the TEF could throw your figures off by well more than the 115 calories you need to cut.

Even if you had all that monitored and measured in labs, then you'd have to make sure you consume the exact same calories and exercise etc., each day to ensure you keep a 115-230 (staying between 1-2 pounds per month) deficit each day. The other option is to recalculate all that each day and keep a running total to ensure at the end of each month you averaged a daily 115 calorie deficit for the month.

Okay, so most none of that is practical or possible, so why not keep track of every calorie you consume and exercise/intensity you do each day and log that daily for the month? Do you know how many months it would take to get that down to being accurate to within 3500 calories per month for a baseline? Water weight fluctuation can easily be 5 pounds from one day to the next.

That's not even to address the fact that most people can't accurately count calories to where their day is accurate enough to have 115 calories cut or added to be actual each day.

Most nothing you mentioned contains science. See my post above.

Discipline is always the key and if you don't have that, then yes, everything will be hard.

But if you were serious about a long term plan and trying to stick to it step one would be a Food log and calorie counter app, to help you stay on track.

You can have cheat days and even weeks as long as you bring it back to the average over time. That is the great thing about doing it over years is you can have short binge sessions (vacations or Holidays) that do not really affect the daily average over 3-5 years that much if you are disciplined the rest of the time.

Again if you currently eating in a way that has you 100 lbs overweight but you have stabilized there and no longer gaining, then removing one coke a day from that daily diet but keeping everything else basically the same will see you drop about a lb/mth.

thx but I will go with these guys but make it even easier as I am giving it a month and not 1-2 weeks.

That's fine and dandy, but you should read my post #601 and actually learn something.

I'm well aware of all the points you make but you are making it over complex in a way that makes it sound almost impossible to start or do.

I will admit I make it sound too easy, as there will be many factors that may play in for the non diligent.

But i also stand by, if you treat this weight management as a marathon and not a sprint, where instant results are not the goal then you can figure it all out on the fly as you go and keep making very small adjustments as you go.

First step, get a really good scale and weigh yourself morning and night. Something often called 'shaming' now (or scale nazi) in the obese acceptance community. Paying attention to your weight fluctuations daily means you can make tiny adjustments weekly instead of much bigger ones monthly or yearly.

Then adjust for diet as you go.

That is exactly what I do as I feel i am at my ideal weight at 205lbs and my weight fluctuates 3 lbs around that +/- very easily.

if not paying attention when too active I can easily drop to 195lb and start getting comments about 'how i need to eat' and 'am too thin' harkening back to my childhood trauma, lol. But even more so to the other end I easily climb above 210 and up to 215 which starts to get uncomfortable for me.

So as soon as I get outside my 3lb tolerance i make the most tiny incremental of changes (more or less calories, alcohol in the evenings (I miss my wine), etc) and I within days I am back to my ideal range.

When I go away on vacation, I am not looking at a scale nor do I care what i gain. I am all about the experiences and food, etc. I can easily put on 10 lbs in a 10 day vacation. I do not take it off by dieting and simply return to my usual home diet, and those added lbs slowly drop off as I eat the calories for a 205lb frame not a 215lb one. So my body reverts back.

No, trying to cut 115 calories per day for a person 100 pounds overweight (I think that was the figure you mentioned) is making something overly complex.

This is why most advise a 500-1000 calorie deficit while adding in exercise because you will learn a lot within the first two weeks (should you cut more/less) and actually be able to measure weight loss each week thereafter, which motivates people to stay on track. With your 115 calorie deficit, it would take months just to figure out if there is a trend happening and where it is headed.

Like usual, your idealism is making you speak a bunch of nonsense: "Hey, just eat one slice of bread less each day and remove another slice every year and in 5 years, you'll have lost 60 pounds without ever feeling hungry or getting stretch marks!"

I love that you read what i said and feel you cannot win by just quoting what i actually said and you feel you need to distort and lie about it to have ground where you can be right.

I accept your concession.

I also do not care about this in my path. It is not a factor... "With your 115 calorie deficit, it would take months just to figure out if there is a trend happening and where it is headed."... but i would contest it, if as i actually said the person was already of a basically stable weight. Not really gaining or losing based on their consumption. Then any adjustments should show up sooner with a good scale.

Because I know my weight based on my current diet, i can instantly identify shifts in my weight and make small adjustments.

I quoted everything you said.

But yeah, let's find a 220 pound person whose weight never fluctuates. Okay, then.

You can do what you want; I'm just saying you're doling out terrible advice for others.

Lol at you being able to "instantly identify shits" in your weight when water weight can fluctuate easily up to 5 pounds per day based on several criteria that is not simple to determine or measure.

LOL

Yeah. Or you could just intentionally eat a little less each day and see what happens.

The thing about physics is, it's the study of something that exists and your detailed knowledge of it isn't a factor of how it works.

There has to be a point where you're not eating enough calories to maintain your current weight. You just have to hit that point more days than not and when you don't hit it, don't miss by much.

Calculators are for after that 60 pounds of fat come off and you want to start looking fit. Now you're just a fat pos who wants to live a little longer and feel better.

Ah, yes, just eat 115 fewer calories each day by feel.

Ah, yes, no need to have detailed knowledge of physics when erecting a 20-story building. It just exists and that's good enough.

Yes, well, LDO. How are you going to determine exactly how many calories that is so that a 115 calorie difference daily will make the difference? You're 5'8" 180, so it doesn't seem you've found yours.


What calculators, TDEE? TDEE will be far more useful at 60 pounds overweight than at ripped. Should be obvious why.

Not by feel. You have to be smart enough to eat a little less than you normally do every day. 115 is just the number you need to meet QP's goal but as I said, it would have to be more. So you're looking at maybe 300 a day.

Obviously if you're trying to lose 60 pounds you're going to err on the side of eating less but his suggestion is to eat minimally less for a very long time.

You're not building a 20 story building. You're eating a little less each day.
But the Egyptians didn't read physics books before they built the pyramids, they used trial and error.

I'm 5'8" and 180 pounds at 15 - 16% body fat.
Do you think I'm particularly out of shape based on your knowledge of physics and your analysis of free internet calculator outputs ?

I shoot for 14% so I am a bit puffy I suppose. But I'm old and don't gaf.

Also I haven't been doing QP's diet. I merely said it's a very good idea. I also said no one would take his advice. And here you are proving my point.

It's obvious you've never lost a significant amount of weight in a healthy way.

The more lean you are the more important tracking nutrients and calories becomes.

Do you know why ?

LoL is a 'diet' snob. That is the nicest way i can say it. It is the reason he and i fought over 'Plant Based' as he obviously was not aware of the emerging use and initially took a position that i was 'wrong' in stating it, and then after pages of argument, and the evidence I gave that proved for fact I was right, he conceded without conceding. The guy mocks Vegans generally as being laughably unknowledgeable.

So understand that when talking with him, that he just does not accept anyone but he has valid views on this topic.

If he merely said about my post, 'you know in theory and at a high level that may sound good, but things always tend to be more complex than that', i would have said 'sure, I was not providing a blueprint of success but just a broad outline'.

Instead he feels the need to mock it while laying out a complexity as the only path to success that would have most people refuse to ever try.

We all know the failure rate of get the thin quick YoYo diets. Lots of upfront success with very little long term because putting your body into starvation for X period of time, teaches you nothing about what type of calorie intake is needed to maintain that weight after you reach it.

And worse, you just shocked your body with something that has been hard wired into us for thousands of years which is the 'Feast and Famine' impulse which tells us to over eat, to create vast stores of fat as we never know when the next famine cycle will hit. That was the reality for much of evolving society. You were better to store up (rubenesque = health) because that got your thru the tough times that always came.

Problem today is those famine cycles never come. Weird to call that a problem but for weight loss it is as our bodies have evolved to deal with a problem that no longer exists, generally in the West. You do a rush diet and you are telling your body 'famine is back, gear up the fat storage for when it ends'.

So yes for those so motivated to go on LoL exploration of knowledge on this topic and really dive into every element, I am sure the percent of long term successful weight loss would be higher in his group.

The problem is 99% of society is just never going to consider his route. And most of them are going to have extreme fad diets pushed their way that cause them more long term problems than successes.

As I said, the vast majority of people just incrementally gain very small amounts of weight over time by just eating a tiny increment more daily than their body requires. Less than a 1lb per month, which means for the vast majority of 3+ soda people a day, had you just been able to get them to drink one less, they would have arrested their weight gain. That would cause no troubling hunger pangs or other issues if you otherwise leave their diet untouched.

it is just most people do not believe it can be something like that and so they don't try and LoL would be the first one to laugh at them if they said 'you know, I am just going to try and cut out 1 soda or X... and see if i can stop and reverse some of my weight gain'. He would laugh at them as foolish for even thinking to try because they were not going into a much complex examination and process.

Snobs... gonna snob.

Did u ever had the need to lose any weight for real ?
One of the major failure of people losing weight is that they can’t hold it .
Why ?
Because they go too hard and make an impossible regime to sustain .

The best way to have sustainable weight loss is to take baby step .
Yes it’s take longer but u face your whole life ahead of you so that it takes couple month more who cares .

It’s the same thing with physical training .
They start full body program and go train 2 hours training session like mad and after 3 month they quit .

I guess it’s the constant seeking immediate result / reward of our society today that make such bad decision/ discipline with crappy strategy to reach attainable results …

The best results are those that u can actually keep and build from there as u get better .

Fwiw I think u should be more careful in your wording .
Losing weight as nothing to do with eating less , it’s to take less calories (eating healthier ).
Might be splitting hair but there is imo a major distinction that can confuse people .

U can eat as much u want as long u lowered your calories Intake .

to continue the nitpick line you seem to be assuming 'eating less' in his post is exclusive to 'food' when it could mean 'calories'.

Also it may be impossible to 'too each as much as want' while still eating less calories, just saying.

Better be safe then sorry

U can eat 40 carrots (good luck with that !) or 2 chocolate bar .
I guarantee 2 chocolate bars are much easier to eat and I could eat something else afterwards easily .
Not 40 carrots .

Oh yeah. But if you eat 2 chocolate bars a day and you cut that down to 1 bar a day for a couple of months you're going to see some movement.

At some point you do need to learn which foods are calorie dense and which are bulky so you can stay on point, but at first....just eat a little less. JFC !!!

LOL

Sorry. To me getting started is the hardest part. Once you have skin in the game you get motivated. But telling a guy who has 60 or 80 pounds to drop to look at online calculators just stupid to me.

Calculators aren't his problem. The fact that he eats too much is. May as well attack the problem at it's root.

Yeah, he thinks jazz is better than the blues because it's more complex.

When you aren't very good at something you tend to erect barriers to entry.

You do realize that being "smart enough" to eat 115 fewer calories and being "smart enough" to eat 300 fewer calories are quite different and the person that aims for 300 will likely eat in a deficit than the person that is aiming for 115 calories?



You have to know how much you're eating (baseline) to be able to eat a little less. If the only thing you eat each day is 3 entire boxes of pasta, then it's pretty simple to make it 3 boxes minus a handful.

You're not 15%. Was that a DEXA or hydrostatic measurement or some dinosaur GP with a set of calipers or worse? What is your 1RM on the big compound lifts?

The point is if it's possible to lose weight without feeling any hunger whatsoever due to cutting 115 calories a day, then you wouldn't be overweight.

Ah, but it's not simple to just cut just 115 calories daily. For most people, they can't even count a day's calories and be within +/- 500 calories. You need to weigh every single piece of food by the gram and not rely on serving sizes on a package.

Of course you missed the point.

I said the online calculators are more useful if you need to lose a lot of weight. It's more useful because a TDEE calculator is grossly inaccurate therefore a person trying to lose a lot of weight doesn't need to be super accurate with his or her TDEE calculations - a ballpark will do to accomplish the general objective.

This is why I went to a lab to have my VO2 max measured, for example. An online VO2 calculator is not going to be sufficient at certain levels, just like an online TDEE calculator is not going to be useful for a highly active and lean person.



I'm not a diet snob. As I've mentioned in the vegan thread here and in H&F, my diet works best for me and the sport I compete in. That doesn't mean it's the best diet for others. It doesn't mean that it's not, either.




Who is talking about crash or starvation diets? I mentioned no such thing.

My way? I didn't mention my way. I just went over the practical limitations of trying to cut 115 calories each day on average.


No. I burn a shitload of calories during workouts and have to consume calories during workouts. But I did help my brother to lose 80 pounds. That was 20 or so years ago and he is still fit.

Who said anything about immediate results? You guys think a person eating 5000 calories a day cutting back to 4500 calories a day is a crash diet? Lmao.

I didn't tell anyone to use online calculators. I asked how did you measure what your TDEE is and how did you find that number. Ya kind of have to know it in order to know what your baseline is, particularly if the goal is to cut only 115 calories each day.

As usual, fat people are experts at diet and exercise and those of us who are fit don't know what we're talking about.

I never said jazz is better than blues because it's more complex. That is your assumption because I called Keith Richards a shitty guitar player. That is because you're a shitty guitar player. A good blues player would be Robben Ford.

no one talking about 5k calories, that is body builder on steroids trying to compete...

its all fine too aim at losing 1-2 pounds a week, as long its consistent.
it do not take much to achieve this.
And u give the chance of you psychologically and body wise to adapt and keep that journey.

What? 3-5K calories is what your average obese person eats daily.

Cutting 500-1000 NET calories per day below maintenance will lead to 1-2 pounds of weight lost per week on average. You were just saying that this is too much of a calorie restriction to be sustainable.

3k or 5k is massive difference bud....
And again it depends what they eat.
if they eat 10 chocolate bars (5k calories) yes ok its possible but i doubt someone eating that is only obese but more morbid obese .
what is your definition of obese ?

lol are u nutz , cutting 500-1k calories only 1-2 pound per week?