Scrutable

tenchboy wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 05, 2023 7:25 am

Give up bread full stop. Not just to lose weight but to be generally more fitterer.
This is not scientific advice, merely personal annecdote.
I've lived pretty much my whole adult life on toast and sandwhiches...

Well, yes, if there's a food which you eat all the time out of habit, cut it out and be more mindful of what you're actually eating. Like I said, keep a food diary.

When I started using the app I realized my calorie intake was about right but my macro breakdown was around 50-20-30 carbs-protein-fat. The program the trainer gave me turned out to be 40-30-30 and was just a bit of a modification of what I was already eating. The main extra features were a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack of a protein shake plus fruit, addition of a protein shake at breakfast, and cutting out carbs at dinner. To be honest there's probably nothing particularly bad about eating carbs before bed as long as the total amount during the day isn't too much, but you may as well cut them at dinner rather than lunch.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 04, 2023 9:19 pm

Otherwise just sub everything for legumes to up protein density. Chickpeas instead of rice, lentils instead of potatoes for thickening soup, beans instead of meat. They've still got a lot of carbs and can be used to make dough/batter/patties too. (otherwise whole grains don't duck). Combine with something dark green, some other veg and flavours.

Well yeah the problem with beans instead of meat is that they've still got a lot of carbs. Even fava beans which have 26g of protein per 100g have 58g of carbs. You'll never get to 40-30-30 that way.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 05, 2023 8:29 am

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 04, 2023 9:19 pm

Otherwise just sub everything for legumes to up protein density. Chickpeas instead of rice, lentils instead of potatoes for thickening soup, beans instead of meat. They've still got a lot of carbs and can be used to make dough/batter/patties too. (otherwise whole grains don't duck). Combine with something dark green, some other veg and flavours.

Well yeah the problem with beans instead of meat is that they've still got a lot of carbs. Even fava beans which have 26g of protein per 100g have 58g of carbs. You'll never get to 40-30-30 that way.

For that matter, the supermarket own-brand tofu I'm using in place of chicken has too much fat in it. I'll have to check if the the more expensive ones have significantly less.

Peas or spinach as a side dish instead of potatoes by the way.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 05, 2023 8:29 am

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 04, 2023 9:19 pm

Otherwise just sub everything for legumes to up protein density. Chickpeas instead of rice, lentils instead of potatoes for thickening soup, beans instead of meat. They've still got a lot of carbs and can be used to make dough/batter/patties too. (otherwise whole grains don't duck). Combine with something dark green, some other veg and flavours.

Well yeah the problem with beans instead of meat is that they've still got a lot of carbs. Even fava beans which have 26g of protein per 100g have 58g of carbs. You'll never get to 40-30-30 that way.

Yes, if you're doing a special bodybuilding diet then beans aren't gonna cut it as your sole protein source. Here I can easily get soy pieces that are 50% protein (by mass rather than calories), seitan that's 75%, and tofu is at least low carb. Meat substitutes like quorn also tend to be higher protein and lower fat than actual meat.

Something like spinach is 50% carbs to 40% protein by calories, so topping up with fatty protein like nuts or seeds can keep you at balance. I have done it according to MyFitnessPal before, but would require a bit of thought/planning to keep up (as I expect it would in a non-meat context). Plus that's the balance spread out over the whole day, rather than needing to be hit for each meal, AIUI.

That said, 40-30-30 is way over protein recommendations for people not actively trying to build muscle mass, which e.g. the EU reckon 0.83 g per kg body mass is fine https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/120209 and I think is very easy to hit veganly.

I'll be giving this a go properly soon and will post updates.

Also picked up a vegan protein shake thingy yesterday that's 17-19-64 by calories and cost 6€/500g which doesn't exactly break the bank. Just saw it's organic too so a cheaper option might be available if I did any work to look for one.

Maybe not that hard though.

Just had hummus and crackers for lunch, comes out at 45-30-25, without even trying (I thought it looked pretty carbsy, but they're wholemeal crackers with seeds on and my hummus has lots of olive oil and cumin seeds. Food diary FTW!). Suspect that'd be easily tweakable into the sweet spot.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 05, 2023 3:42 pm

Maybe not that hard though.

Just had hummus and crackers for lunch, comes out at 45-30-25, without even trying (I thought it looked pretty carbsy, but they're wholemeal crackers with seeds on and my hummus has lots of olive oil and cumin seeds. Food diary FTW!). Suspect that'd be easily tweakable into the sweet spot.

Are you doing this by weight or calories?

(My 'contribution' - I'm not even that close to overweight but - taking into account weight fluctuations - I weighed myself yesterday and I weighed as much as I did when I left London in 2019, which is the most I've weighed in my life. So, not worried about absolute weight other than the fact that my clothes are getting tighter, but the trajectory is wrong so I'm going to keep an eye on things for a bit. As I do most Januarys after December overindulgence. I'm also doing Dry January because I find it helpful to recalibrate a bit, and I'm also weaning myself off caffeine, so naturally I'm going to be absolutely insufferable for a while)

Sorry, that's carbs-fat-protein according to me scanning the products and quantities used into MyFitnessPal. Really is a handy tool for checking the macro balance of meals/days (by calories), even if you don't use it religiously. Being able to input your own recipes is pretty cool too.

(Calories vs mass looks to be another specificity where communication is important!)

Ah I see sorry! Heh I do actually have that app but haven't looked at it properly for ages. Well I don't think I'm going to focus on macro stuff religiously just yet until I at least get back into just eating bit less overall, and putting a bit of thought into what I eat generally before I start measuring. Also ive just done a big shop based on 'what stuff do i usually make out of these bits that ive already got lying around' so i'll have to work through all that first It is helpful to use recipes but I always end up having to tweak them a bit whenever I remake them!

Yeah fair enough, I also cba to input everything under normal circumstances. But it is handy (for me) to be able to check stuff as part of my "putting a bit of thought into it", e.g. I thought the hummus crackers thing would be way off but it's actually not. Tbh last time I used it religiously for a few weeks I found my normal diet was pretty close (but usually a bit under on protein, like most people's I expect).

Fortunately my recent shop includes a giant tub of hummus

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 05, 2023 3:13 pm

... That said, 40-30-30 is way over protein recommendations for people not actively trying to build muscle mass, which e.g. the EU reckon 0.83 g per kg body mass is fine https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/120209 and I think is very easy to hit veganly.

For me that would be about 50 g of protein, or 200 calories of it, or ~10% of my daily calories, which is half as much as you'd normally get with the default 50-20-30 split, and frankly I'd consider it a bare minimum. Especially for someone who's trying to lose weight via losing fat rather than losing muscle, keep the protein intake higher than that.

The Guardian regularly posts articles not understanding what protein is for, e.g.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... ch-protein
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/j ... -obsession
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/s ... gest-craze

in which the problem isn't usually too much protein but rather too much of everything.

data suggest that higher-protein diets that contain between 1.2 and 1.6 g protein · kg-1 · d-1 and potentially include meal-specific protein quantities of at least ∼25-30 g protein/meal provide improvements in appetite, body weight management, cardiometabolic risk factors, or all of these health outcomes

Last year my weight reached 90 kg. Got it down to 80 kg by not having biscuits with coffee and drinking less beer. Checked my weight this morning and found it was 82kg. Thought it would be worse after the seasonal indulgence.

this 20 minute video is probably just going to say that to burn fat you need to do fairly gentle exercise for a long time and that spot reduction is not a thing because higher intensity exercise burns more carbs but if it's too gentle you just won't particularly burn anything.
Just look at the second to last column on total fat burn rather than the ones on percentages and ignore the useless level of precision. Just do something sustainable which gets your heart rate up.

The quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is liposuction.

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:22 pm

The quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is liposuction.

Quadruple amputation beats lipo hands down.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:38 pm

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:22 pm

The quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is liposuction.

Quadruple amputation beats lipo hands down.

You should take that idea and run with it.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 5:47 pm

this 20 minute video is probably just going to say that to burn fat you need to do fairly gentle exercise for a long time and that spot reduction is not a thing because higher intensity exercise burns more carbs but if it's too gentle you just won't particularly burn anything.

Screenshot_20230107-185022-01.jpeg

Just look at the second to last column on total fat burn rather than the ones on percentages and ignore the useless level of precision. Just do something sustainable which gets your heart rate up.

Or, if burning calories is the main aim of your exercise, just sum the last two columns and do as much as you can at whatever intensity you can, and in a way you can keep up for more than a week without burning yourself out and quitting. A calorie is a calorie and the ratio of different energy pathways your body is using as fuel during your workout is irrelevant.

WFJ wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:45 pm

shpalman wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 5:47 pm

this 20 minute video is probably just going to say that to burn fat you need to do fairly gentle exercise for a long time and that spot reduction is not a thing because higher intensity exercise burns more carbs but if it's too gentle you just won't particularly burn anything.

Screenshot_20230107-185022-01.jpeg

Just look at the second to last column on total fat burn rather than the ones on percentages and ignore the useless level of precision. Just do something sustainable which gets your heart rate up.

Or, if burning calories is the main aim of your exercise, just sum the last two columns and do as much as you can at whatever intensity you can, and in a way you can keep up for more than a week without burning yourself out and quitting. A calorie is a calorie and the ratio of different energy pathways your body is using as fuel during your workout is irrelevant.

I think the aim of people in this thread would be to burn off some of their visceral fat rather than the glycogen stored in their liver, but then most people would benefit from better aerobic fitness and any calorie burned is a calorie you can eat without adding to the fat store.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 08, 2023 11:35 am

I think the aim of people in this thread would be to burn off some of their visceral fat rather than the glycogen stored in their liver, but then most people would benefit from better aerobic fitness and any calorie burned is a calorie you can eat without adding to the fat store.

Yes this is why energy pathways used during exercise are largely irrelevant for fat loss, although the concept of a fat burning zone can be useful for people performing hours-long endurance activities trying to avoid bonking by preserving glycogen stores.

For weight loss, if you burn more fat during activity you'll just burn more glycogen later, and vice versa. The only way the ratio of pathways can have an effect is if someone completely crashes their glycogen stores so they barely move afterwards and so reduce their later energy expenditure. But, even for someone cutting carbs during a diet, this is going to require at least 90+ minutes of running, pretty vigorous cycling, or similarly intense activity.

More intense activity will basically always result in more fat loss per unit time or distance run/cycled/etc even if slightly less fat was burned during the activity itself. Less intense activity can be performed more often, requires less recovery and produces less stresses on the body so is probably a better idea in most cases anyway. Personally, I think the best change in activity almost everyone could make if they want to lose weight, regardless of their current fitness and activity level, is to walk more. Once you factor in not needing to change clothes and shower you'll even burn more calories per minute than you would for shorter runs and other activities too.

Those are all good points.

I will reiterate what I originally wrote in this thread, which is that I personally reckon that a person should do the cardio exercise primarily for the fitness benefit, and lift weights or do other resistance exercise to change their body composition.

During the covid lockdown I quickly figured out that I had to eat a bit less to avoid gaining weight due to the lack of walking around and/or dancing, but I also did weights at home every day, and eventually when the weather warmed up I went running for 10-15 minutes at first, eventually extending to 30 minutes per day. And that put me in really good shape both visually and for when we were allowed to dance again.

Oh, and make sure you're getting enough sleep, and that it's in a room which is properly dark.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:38 pm

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:22 pm

The quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is liposuction.

Quadruple amputation beats lipo hands down.

Cremation.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 08, 2023 6:31 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:38 pm

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:22 pm

The quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is liposuction.

Quadruple amputation beats lipo hands down.

Cremation.

Well, that certainly burns fat.

Which is all fine in theory....

Today starts with me skipping breakfast - because I've been given antibiotics which need to be take 4x daily on empty stomach, and while I can have a later breakfast at the weekend, it doesn't really work at work.

I know this isn't the way you're supposed to diet, but life happens. It'll only be for a week.

I managed to bring fruit in for lunch but left the sandwich in the fridge (probably the effect of not having breakfast). we'll see how badly that goes.



WFIW my diet/exercise is generally pretty wholesome, it had all just got a bit off track in dec, I don't need to lose much, and then I'll reset to my normal trend. I don't own a car so walk a lot anyway, cycle to/from work every day and get out and about at weekends.
Given OtherHalf's allergies all meals are cooked from scratch - how well do those calorie apps do with such things? I'll only know the total quantities in a dish that may end up with 6 or so servings.