Even though I've only lost ~12-15 lbs so far, one of the major improvements in my life was that the random pain I'd have in my left knee and ankle seems to have completely disappeared. If only for that, it is worth it.

Serious congrats to everyone itt (especially YTF) who has lost weight.


As far as the MFP activity logging: Skip it.

If you really want to adjust your burn calories, then learn your BMR and the various multiplies for activity levels.
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-ca...dict-equation/

And go from there.

I stopped the MFP logging for food too because it doesn't work for Asian style eat. Now I mostly use it to check the calories of new types of food. For example: frozen yogurt is almost as undiety as ice cream

Quiznos is ridiculously high in calories. A large Prime Rib and Peppercorn sub is 1320 calories. Holy crap! That's basically equivalent to a Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese plus fries.

I think I've only had three days out of the last 35 where I've gone over my goal but today was by far the worst, almost 700 calories over.

The problem with that is that it's very hard to gauge your own activity levels. Two days a week I work 12.5-13.5 hours, two others I work 6.5-7.5 hours, and the only activity I get up to outside my house on my days off is walking to do errands. I do end up walking quite a bit since I don't drive and generally eschew public transportation, but I really don't have much of a frame of reference to how much more or less exercise I am getting than a person who works a 9-5 desk job and has an exercise regimen.

I lost 4 pounds so far in around 5 weeks. Within my goal of 0.5-1 lbs/week, yay! 158 pounds now. Two to three more months until I get to my target weight, at this rate.

Having an exercise regimen does not really change your activity level that much. Working out just does not burn that many calories. Being active all day burns a lot. Up and down, walking to and fro, running errands, cleaning the house, and cooking is more important than sitting at a desk all day and then going to run 30 minutes and lift for an hour.
But on days you work, do a more active multiplier and on off days where you mostly do light walking, do a less active multiplier. You don't have to stick to the predetermined levels, either. 1.2 is for sedentary. On days you walk around but are mostly sitting and recovering, go for 1.25 or 1.28. Days you work and are on your feet all night: 1.45 - 1.55 for the day.
Your calorie burn will never be static, and it's the same with your bmr.

Shouldn't you be trying to gain 0.5-1 lbs/week?

Still logging. Down 24.8 pounds since I started on June 23rd. If it weren't for beer I would really be crushing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

This talk is by a professor of medicine at UCSF, if you actually want to learn the science behind why people do and do not lose weight it is totally worth the time. Basically a lot of what we think about diet came from studies that have been shown to have mistakes (i.e. the idea that a high fat diet on average will cause weight gain). It is mostly designed for a general audience, but there is a little biochem in there that isn't too bad.

Basically the only thing mechanism we know of that accounts for all the factors in the modern rise of obesity is a substantial increase in the consumption of fructose (in the forms of high fructose corn syrup and sucrose), everything else we think about with things like most fats turns out to be correlated to this rather than causative in its own right.

I know the talk is long but if you actually care about understand why your diet will or won't fail it is crucial that you understand what is going on when you consume different foods. The main take away is that a calorie is not a calorie, and that your body metabolizes different macronutrients in very very different ways. To give a simplified intuition, glucose can be metabolized by just about every cell in your body, whereas fructose can only really be metabolized through the liver. Clearly eating a calorie of glucose will have a different dietary effect than eating a calorie of fructose.

Wouldn't that depend on his height? And his goals?

Grunching the video but from your write-up:

Fructose and glucose bond on a 1:1 ratio into a long chain that is metabolized differently and much more readily. That is why honey ****s up a fructose intolerant person and table sugar doesn't. Free fructose (fructose in excess of glucose) is bad for lots of people but that has more to do with gastrointestinal issues than weight loss.

Off to the video to see wtf fructose malabsorbtion has to do with weight loss.

fructose doesn't stimulate leptin response like other macronutrients, so way less satiation means you eat more of it.

Im about 15 minutes in to the video. As professional lectures go it is watchable.

By macronutrients I assume you mean carbohydrates. Speaking from personal experience, I could buy that. Fructose intolerance ftw?

Are we going to address free fructose vs. bonded fructose, e.g. sucrose, or is it just that all fructose = bad?

I think the discussion might be interesting enough to break it down without forcing readers of this thread to watch a 90 minute lecture on youtube.

Sure, he might be a dwarf. That is possible.

He might be a she also. So that's another possibility.

Or maybe he dreams of being the size of a housecat.

I'll preface this by saying that, while I work in biology, I am not a nutrition/biochem expert and my background is in math and engineering. If I use some words incorrectly bio people can correct me, but I will try to do my best to stay on the correct path.

Towards the end he gets into the difference between free fructose and bonded, basically goes down to how pretty much all natural fructose comes packaged with a ton of fiber, which counteracts the lack of leptin due to the slow digestion time. For those tuning in, basically fiber takes a while for your body to digest so you feel full longer.

Another issue he addresses is that we have basically been systematically removing fiber from many foods, especially fast foods. Fiber makes cooking times longer and tends to make food more perishable. It is way easier to store fiberless food in a freezer for months. This is why you get the ****s after eating fast food, it gets digested super quickly.

This is why that paleolithic diet is effective. Not because uncooked food is somehow better for you, just that if you eat pretty much anything that is unprocessed it is going to retain a lot of fiber and naturally have relatively low concentrations of fructose. This seems to be getting kind of lengthy so I'll stop here, but hopefully this discussion can continue and it will help people.

Most flavored yogurt is just as bad as ice cream.

weighed 245.5 today, down 3 more lbs

"Looks like someone we know."

Thanks. My calculated BMR is 1989, so I'll shoot for 2200-2400 on non work or short days and 3000 on heavy work days.

None of this is correct. Stop making stuff up. You did much better when you just quoted people who know what they are talking about.

NB: bodyrecomposition.com for facts. Energy balance article.

It is all wrong. Read the wiki about him.

Or read the extensive scientific discussions where he is raped by laypeople since he just made all this **** up.

I hope this discussion will continue and you will stop referencing youtubes videos as primary research. It is comically dumb.

Cycling calories is meh. If I read correctly you're interested in LBM preservation? If so, cycling calories on the basis of strength training is more important rather than energy expenditure (which is meh). Also keep in mind those equations aren't meant for individuals.

Again, I'm not an expert. I was shown this video by a post-doc in neuroscience and also by an PhD/MD student, so if you think they are wrong then please actually provide some sources other than "read his wiki". I'm not saying he's right, but telling me "he is raped by laypeople" is the least compelling argument imaginable.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/482027a.html

I don't like arguments from authority, but I know how hard it is to get anything into Nature, so I don't really give a rats ass what laypeople say. I'm totally willing to read a scientific rebuttal in a peer reviewed journal if you want to post one, but until then don't use a vacuous argument to call out his supposedly vacuous argument.

The arguments I see state that sugar is metabolized as a quick source of energy, which he mentions in the talk. I agree he casts things in a fairly one dimensional light, but no one is saying "lol you're wrong, guzzle that high fructose corn syrup!".

Wikipedia is an annotated and referenced document.

lol pop science.

BTW 5 of the 6 references are scientific publications. The other is a meta-review. I would quote your post for the comical embarassment. (and the stupidity of your "post-doc in neuroscience and a PhD/MD student") But I don't care.

Well, I'm convinced. Mods, delete all my posts, for I have been bested by my clear intellectual and moral superior! Again, I'm not saying he is totally right or that I am even qualified to say that. The point is to have an intellectual discussion. If you disagree, show the arguments! Or at least link to them, but making blanket statements doesn't help anyone. I would love for someone with more knowledge than me to explain why he is full of ****, but you are just being an annoying troll.