If you are reading this, then consider yourself lucky. I’m about to solve all of the world’s problems with this simple article. World peace. A cure for AIDS. Global warming. Tupac’s whereabouts. Where Bin Laden got his growth hormone injections. It’s all here.
Well okay, maybe not. But I do find that sometimes the very simple things that I take for granted often have the strongest impact on 180D readers. Today, we go with the simple of the simple. How fast should you lose weight?
My mom and I have been talking about this recently. I’m visiting her for several weeks in Nashville and it’s been on my mind, as my mom is a 96.3-degree 40-year dieter wanting to lose weight (and she gets that look of hopelessness when I tell her how long it will take to get a substantial amount of fat off of her body). Hence me writing about it. My mom repeated the standard mantra that most people hear ? that ?healthy? weight loss is about 2 pounds a week.
2 pounds a week? Holy Schnikies! That’s insane!
I actually like math, and we’ll use some math to scrutinize this?
A pound of fat is a storage depot of approximately 3,500 calories. So, to lose 2 pounds of fat in a week, you would need to have an energy deficit of 7,000 calories ? which is 1,000 calories per day!!! Yikes! I virtually can guarantee that if you are running at a 1,000 calorie-per-day deficit you are going to be in for some real trouble, and a fierce activation of your famine response ? not to mention running into some severe hunger and cravings. You might get away with this for a few weeks but there will be hell to pay unless you are an extreme rarity.
To run a calorie deficit that large, you are going to have to pursue the time-tested failed strategy of ?intentional? weight loss. It’s certainly not going to be something that your body regulates and achieves spontaneously without physiological revolt or noticeable discomfort ? something that I argue is the only way to lose weight sustainably and permanently.
To lose weight eating to appetite and doing reasonable quantities of physical activity, you are not going to run a deficit of more than a few hundred calories per day without noticing. Let’s say an absolute maximum of 500 calories per day. At a deficit like this, you are only losing a maximum of 1 pound per week of actual body fat.
Let’s not forget though that a quart/liter of water weighs a buttload (a frequently-referenced unit of measurement used here ? get to know it). A change in water levels in the body by 4-5 pounds can happen in a matter of hours. In high school wrestling we would often shed 10 pounds of weight overnight by sweating like crazy and not eating or drinking anything. Mmmm, healthy.
Let’s also not forget that a pound of muscle only contains 600 calories, so a deficit of 600 calories is plenty to make you lose a pound ? but you are losing muscle, not fat. This is hypothetical of course. The relative amounts of fat and muscle that you lose in any energy deficit depends highly on your age, gender, metabolic rate, type and quantity of physical activity, and more.
I think what is most common is that people induce a daily calorie deficit of 1,000 calories per day or so through diet, exercise, or a combination of the two. During the first week when metabolic rate is its highest, they lose the most total weight and the highest ratio of fat to muscle tissue. They lose 2-3 pounds and most of that is fat. As the weeks continue and metabolic rate starts to come to a screeching halt they being losing less fat, a little more muscle by percentages, and less overall weight. Eventually they lose no weight at all or even gain weight from increased water retention (water retention increases as metabolic rate falls).
So speaking strictly about fat loss, not ?weight loss,? the absolute maximum rate of sustainable fat loss one can achieve without doing more than a few hours of exercise per week is only about one pound weekly. Of course, there have been many times in my life where I lost a pound of fat per day doing rigorous backpacking ? sometimes over 20 miles per day carrying 50 pounds on my back. But that is quite a different scenario, and came with quick weight rebound and an overall worse body composition in my collective experiences with it.
This rate of fat loss is so slow that, if you are monitoring your weight on a scale, you are almost guaranteed to feel like it is taking too long. You will also be thrown off by subtle changes in water levels and muscle mass ? perhaps thinking that you are not losing fat when indeed you are, or vice versa. In fact, it’s not uncommon at all for a male or female with a long dieting history to gain tremendous amounts of fat-free body mass while gaining no fat at all or even losing fat.
This is often welcomed by men, whose steroid-enhanced superstar physique idols weigh far more than an average male, but horrifying for women who may not understand that some of the world’s leanest women are, like very lean men ? quite heavy for their height due to increased muscle mass. Take for instance Batty (left), who is a very lean and athletic real woman at 175 pounds who issues a formidable challenge to the currently idolized and out-of-reach-to-normal-women body image in her excellent WOMEN?S BODY IMAGE POST.
But know that men and women alike often gain weight while getting leaner as I did years ago with my first experiments with ?ETF-ing? (eating the food). Most will find that their ?ideal body weight,? from a health and metabolism perspective, is considerably higher than they’ve led themselves to believe. The good news I guess is that you may need to lose far less weight than you think to achieve your supposed ideal body composition.
So yeah, no major earth-shattering revelations here, but know that if you have more than 20 pounds of excess and unwanted fat on your body, plan on taking somewhere between 6-12 months or longer to get it off, with an absolute maximum rate of fat loss at about 50 pounds per year, if you hope to keep it off and not have your health and metabolism negatively impacted in the process. Throw away your scale. Scale weight is more or less irrelevant and the scale itself, if you weigh yourself more than once per month or so, can play some serious head games with you ? such as getting irrationally emotional when you gain a pound one week, and drastically switching courses into the anorexic strategy for trimming off excess baggage.
All this equates to not realizing that you are dieting or losing weight because you experience no nagging hunger, no cravings, no freezing cold hands and feet and loss of sex drive, or any other negative symptoms. If you do, or if you catch yourself losing weight faster than 5 pounds per month, you need to eat more ? perhaps even intentionally regain a?couple pounds briefly before making even the slightest attempt at marching further, which is a strategy that has more or less become universal in the bodybuilding/fitness competitor world (and is gaining credibility amongst real obesity researchers as well, such as Amanda Sainsbury-Salis who I hope to write about soon).
With a process so comfortable and unnoticeable, it’s no different from living your normal life. You just happen to be losing fat as you do it at a pace that’s almost undetectable to anyone who sees you on a daily basis. Sure, dieting with hunger and lightheadedness and irritability and unwanted exercise is not something that you want to take a whole year. I can’t even make it for three weeks doing that. But when it’s unnoticeable, comfortable, and enjoyable ? who cares how long it takes?
And as a last tidbit on the topic of the best rate of fat loss ? as you approach a level that is very lean ? lean enough to see your abdominal muscles for example, your ability to lose body fat without losing lean tissue and suffer adverse metabolic consequences becomes greatly diminished. Leanness gurus like Martin Berkhan and Clarence Bass both agree that the maximum rate of fat loss is no more than 2 pounds per month, and ideally even less than that, when trying to go from normal to freakishly lean. Something to keep in mind at least ? that is, the less fat you carry the slower you need to lose it.
But in general, the harder you ‘try? to lose weight, the greater the magnitude of your failure to keep any fat that you lose off of your body. Sure, you can get some exercise, eat lots of low-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables, avoid intentionally overeating or eating when you are not hungry? but push too hard and you will experience an equal and opposite reaction from your body as a best case scenario.
More of this type of stuff to come over the summer, when losing fat is its easiest and most welcomed by your body.
How to RAISE YOUR METABOLISM.
Excellent.
I decided to up the effort to lose all the belly and butt fat I gained w/ ETFing. I'm way bigger than I've ever been, waist and weight wise. Bigger than my hubby, and that's embarrassing.
On the other hand, many health things are better. I've made the list before. I don't regret ETF (too much).
Still, I'm getting lazier, cuz it' hard to carry around 50 extra lbs (and 30 of that after a kidney infection and fluoride-based antibiotics – my weight set point jumped up that much in a month! I was perfectly stable before… The body trying to protect itself from toxins?). It's time to move. At all. Period. I got in the habit of watching TV when I was sick, which I never really did before.
I refuse to be hungry though. I refuse to count calories. All I'm doing is moving more, on purpose, forcing my muscles to go a little past tired. I have no idea if it's working yet (yay day 4), so this is a timely reminder that I'm doing the right thing, metabolically speaking.
And yes, some of that weight is boob-age (real tissue, not just fat). A cup to C cup, jeez. I couldn't figure out why all my shirts were dirty… I realized I wasn't used to having so much in front of me!
On a side note, I refuse to do gelatin – two months in a row I upped gelatin a la Peat, 2 months in a row I had cold sores like never more. Next two months, no gelatin, no cold sores. Just in case anybody else has that issue.
Pretty spot on here Matt. Women especially need to take notes! I've shed lbs much faster than this tons of times, but I pretty much consider myself a professional dieter at this point (and I'm male).
Whenever I hear someone (usually a women) tell me she/he's "only losing 1-2 lbs a week" I say, "FANTASTIC! 2lbs is amazing, but 1 is great. Anything more than that is unrealistic or water" If course this goes in one ear and out the other! Way too many magazines at the grocery store checkout stand giving ridiculous claims in bright pink bold writing. Our little voices easily get drown out :(
Oh, and sleep makes a big difference in my body composition. My sleep patterns change often as hubby works graves and then not – totally makes a difference in my waistline!
I have friends who are getting up at 4 to exercize for two hours every day, and I think ugh, the sleep would do you more good. Who wants to put that much effort into not gaining weight (and not looking like an athlete, even for all that effort). I swear, I was with a group of women the other day and I had nothing to say. "Ooh, I like the soy crunch from Costco" says one. Another talks about her super-light salad dressing with veggie oil and only 10 calories. The next talks about jogging 10 miles every morning. Etc. But I say nothing cuz I weigh so much more than a year ago…
Thanks for that link to the body image article.
Where's the post you wrote on body image? The one where you talked about the blond women in Aspen and how you should never go for a guy who loves you for your looks…
Thanks Grok. I understand this well as I have had Bruce Lee abs at 165 and have been soft at 155. I have been chunky at 175 and ripped and muscular at 180. And I'm not all that far away from being ripped at 200. Weight is meaningless when it comes to leanness. But I think people just want to lose it as fast as possible because the strategies they are using are agonizing torture. I can't blame them. The key here is to lose fat with the least amount of effort, which is usually very slowly – sometimes unnoticeably so.
It's like making $25,000 a year to do absolutely nothing vs. working 70 hours a week doing something you hate to make $200,000 and praying for the day you get to retire. I'll take that $25,000 any day of the week over sacrificing my whole life to get to the point where I can retire from doing what I hate every day.
Hawaii Girl-
I think you'll pull it off just fine now that your diet and lifestyle are supportive of exercise and your body has healed in many ways. You may lose a few and then stabilize for a while, and then lose a few more…
If you notice starvation symptoms kicking in that doesn't mean you should say "ah screw exercise" and then overfeed every ounce back onto your belly. Be patient. Let it sit for a while. Let your body get comfortable at a new weight and allow your body temperature to come back up. Sometimes a single day of refeeding is enough to get you out of starvation mode and prepare you for another 4-5 pounds of effortless fat loss. Be strategic and smart and try to keep your emotions about your body fat as neutral as is humanly possible.
Great mention on the gelatin. Gelatin and broth/stock in general has always given me some stomach problems so I don't worship it as the be-all end-all even if the reasons for consuming it are compelling.
"More of this type of stuff to come.."
Hurry!!!
Also- question.
Can anyone give me some advice on antidepressants? I feel that I am in desperate need to go back on Lexapro for anxiety (I'm creating an ulcer from being chronically nervous, debilitating stomach pain nightly) and depression (the tiniest tasks seem insurmountable) but I am afraid of 1) weight gain – I can't take any more… and 2) that they will cause some sort of damage to my brain/body.
Please don't give me the "think positive, do breathing" kind of stuff… I do everything I can to reduce it, and it would be much worse if I didn't exercise, do yoga, practice slow breathing, etc.
Thanks for any advice.
Kash-
It's definitely of vital importance to overcome body image obsession. "Trying" to lose weight out of pure vanity almost always fails, and those with the self-loathing mentality often just find something else to hate about themselves if they do lose all the weight. Or they despise others that are fat after they've lost the weight, as a reflection of their inner war with themselves.
But it sucks seeing your own mother not be able to get around, play sports, enjoy her favorite activities and stuff – all because she is weighted down with 100 pounds of blubber that's hanging around doing nothing for her (presumably, but many have hypothesized that fat is protective against our polluted world, and is not a straight-up malfunction on behalf of the body).
If she doesn't get some of that off, she's not going to have the functionality that she could very well have as she enters her late 60's and 70's. It truly is getting in the way of her living life.
To drug or not to drug-
I would create a channel for anxiety dissipation, not suppression. What helps lab rats in stressful situations is to have something to bite and attack, or run their little rat asses off on a hamster wheel. Try hard, aggressive exercise, not peaceful exercise.
And try eating a higher ratio of carbohdyrates to protein, more calories, and more total carbohydrates. Fruit is the best for this because it has the highest carb to protein ratio of all foods, whereas grains have more of a 5:1 carb to protein ratio. Norephinephrine often causes this anxiety, and eating often of carby stuff without too much protein seems to be the most reliable way to stifle it.
Play around with it. There's no question that diet and lifestyle manipulation can and will have far-reaching effects on it (and that SSRI's and other drugs suck and are fattening).
This is about my third time here. I really like the blog. I agree with you here. People still want that quick fix but this can lead to a dangerous road.
People limit their carb intake to lose a lot of weight up front. I personally wish people would start to focus on their overall health.
P.S. The black background is hard on the eyes… is there any chance that you will make it white?
Case in point. I have the perfect example for you Matt. I have an overweight family relation who has totally tanked his metabolism through years of stress, sleep loss, and dieting. For about the last two years he has been trying to lose weight by restricting calories too much, which only tanked his metabolism further. I would be surprised if he ate more than 500 calories on a given day and still manages to maintain his weight. Interestingly though, he is never hungry. Just tired and feels like crap all the time.
That's interesting what you say about fat being protective of our polluted world.
My mom eats very little but can't lose weight, which she needs to do.
The worst of it started when I was 15 cause I was a pretty bad kid that just got worse. It's not all my fault, but her body is not adapted to the stress that comes from this sort of life.
There's an insulin-cortisol connection. Chronically high insulin results in the inability to burn fat right? Well if she's worrying non-stop about everything then no wonder she can't lose fat.
If I could run a parallel life, I'd be curious to see what would happen to her if I married a lawyer, had kids and moved into a house in the suburbs. I'm almost willing to bet she would lose weight. But that ain't happening, ever, so we'll never know.
I love how you love your mommy :-)
So what IS the strategy for that slow, sustained weight loss?
I tried a month of RRARF last July (although I wasn't able to really rest mentally though I got a good amount of sleep). Since then I've continued to eat to appetite or maybe a bit beyond (which is pretty much what I've always done, no intentional dieting here), added more potatoes to my diet and reduced PUFAs to almost nothing besides pork and the occasional potato chip binge.
I've gained a lot of weight–well, we don't even have a scale but I've had to buy all new clothes except t-shirts/sweaters and even the new pants I bought a few months ago are getting tight now (very distressing).
I haven't been taking my temp regularly so I don't know what my gains have been there. I have noticed that my menstrual cramps don't seem as bad as they used to be, and I think my sleep is better most of the time than it has been in the past.
Anyway, I'd like to improve my body composition. I don't care about weight at all, and honestly I think I would look ok if I didn't lose much fat either but just had a more solid base of muscle underneath. But it would be nice to fit back into my old clothes.
My plan, once I rest up from the school year (I'm a teacher), is to continue eating to appetite, emphasize starch and fruit and do some body-weight exercise when I feel like I have the energy for it–maybe start with once a week and work up to 2 to 3 times/wk.
Any suggestions, anyone?
Matt,
I think this article is very misleading. you seem to give the impression that it is much easier to gain muscle than it is to lose fat. This is NOT true. It is the exact opposite of the truth. It is much easier for the body to shed fat than it is to add muscle, about 1000 times easier.
I have lost fat healthily MUCH faster than you are stating with no negative health consequences and no rebound weight gain at all.
You stated, "it’s not uncommon at all for a male or female with a long dieting history to gain tremendous amounts of fat-free body mass while gaining no fat at all or even losing fat."
What are you referring to here when you say "fat-free body mass"? If you are referring to muscle, then this is not true. Almost nobody, especially middle aged females lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. There could possibly be a few pound muscle gain in someone who is completely untrained starts to exercise, but it wont be much.
If you are just claiming that people can gain pounds of water weight and glycogen, and gain weight this way, then you are right, but not muscle tissue.
How much muscle do you think someone can gain, and at what rate? Especially while losing fat?
That's why I have set habit formation goals for myself and will asses results on my birthday in four months. I know just weeks of data is useless.
To Drug or not,
Do not listen to people on the internet that tell you that all medication is bad all the time. Your symptoms sound pretty severe, and diet may not be sufficient to cure you. You should find the best mental health doctor that you can and follow his advice.
Don't listen to people who tell you that everything can be cured by diet alone. There is no reason to believe this is true. When you are doing it on your own and have no experience treating this condition. Even the ayurvedic and TCM practitioners used herbs and medicines, so do tribal societies and wild animals.
Rachelle,
You stated,"My plan, once I rest up from the school year (I'm a teacher), is to continue eating to appetite, emphasize starch and fruit and do some body-weight exercise when I feel like I have the energy for it–maybe start with once a week and work up to 2 to 3 times/wk."
I doubt this plan will work much at all. At least i know that if i did it like this I would have zero results, especially if my goal is to gain muscle. It won't happen by doing some body weight exercises a few times a week. If i did this I would lose muscle and gain fat.
Yeah, that sounds about right. I am a long-term weight loss maintainer (weighing in at about 60lb less than I did 12 years ago) and when I've lost successfully, it's been at the rate of a pound or less a week. I lost my weight in stages over 2 years with some bouncing back up, and I still fluctuate by 10lbs or more every couple of years.
If I feel like I need to lose some weight, I lose a lot easier when I eat "a lot" (well, a lot compared to weight watchers starvation type diets anyway) — 2000 calories of food or so, with enough exercise added in to make sure I have a deficit. I get a lot hungrier and more miserable maintaining a deficit by eating little and moving little. If I eat lots and move lots I lose weight slowly but without pain. I've found your RRARF guide really helpful in picking the types of food that I should eat to keep feeling "even" and not hungry when I'm running a deficit.
Oh look! JT is disagreeing with everybody!
And he's so muscular he would be in worse shape doing body weight exercises!
Matt wrote:
"It's like making $25,000 a year to do absolutely nothing vs. working 70 hours a week doing something you hate to make $200,00 and praying for the day you get to retire. I'll take that $25,000 any day of the week over sacrificing my whole life to get to the point where I can retire from doing what I hate every day."
Sooo true for me too. When I say things like that to people they think I'm nuts! But funny thing is…
They have to force themselves to wake up with an alarm clock in the morning to force themselves to go to work–wishing it was Friday. I wake up (without an alarm) every morning excited to start the day–doing things I enjoy and would do without pay (which I gladly do often too). I wouldn't trade that for any amount of money.
And little do people know how much of an impact that would have on their body composition–as well as their quality of life.
Matt,
Sorry to hear that about your mom. I really hope she finds her happy place :-)
Well, I gained about 25 pounds of fat from trying RRARF over a period of 4-5 months (no increase in body temp). I want it gone so now I'm going to defy your weight loss warnings and see what happens ;).
Currently doing 2-3x a week of resistance training + some light ocean swimming 3-5x times a week and eating a little less. Losing weight at about 2 pounds per week. Eating eggs, avocado, fish, some dairy, fruits, vegetables, grains. Feel pretty good so far, we'll see if I soon start to fall apart as predicted.
@ to drug or not to drug:
While meds can be helpful in extreme cases please find a good health care provider who will support you in doing Amino Acid Therapy.
Read "the Way Up From Down" by Priscilla Slagel MD (It is an oldie but a goodie and now online for free http://www.thewayup.com/upfrmdwn.htm )
I agree you need more than foods to correct the brain chemistry and Priscilla's program can do just that! (she is a shrink by the way)
I learned about her work 20 some odd years ago and have used it with clients suffering depression, drug and alcohol addiction and clients with anxiety, which I healed my self of on this program.
Keep us posted on your journey, may it be filled with hope!
@primal toad:
Just hit the "color scheme" of choice to the right of the blog post title :)
or you can always use "readability" see: https://www.readability.com I use it for reading long post or while on distracting flashy sites (it removes all the "crap").
Happy Reading :)
It is true that it is best not to lose more than 2 lbs. a week because more than that is likely just water weight or, worse, lean tissue loss. Taking it slow and steady is the right way to go!
I think it should be mandatory to know this. This is basic maths. My GF should definitely understand it. Then she would know why Idon't congratulate her on losing 2 pounds (I mean 1kg) as it doesn't tell me how much fat she actually lost).
Martin V.
JT "I have lost fat healthily MUCH faster than you are stating with no negative health consequences and no rebound weight gain at all."
me too. 2 lbs a week for 2-3 months with virtually no resistance exercise looking more muscular by the end of it. macronutrient/calorie cycling and spike meals/days.
i never followed a set plan either. if i was really hungry 10pm at night i'd eat ice cream and sweets and whatever else and then back to potatoes and fish. my body has its own plan. i've never resisted my hunger and never lost muscle and easily lost fat with a little tweaking
also gained a lot of muscle with bodyweight exercises. all about leverage, check out gymnasts
Maybe you should write a blog. Its been a year since you wrote this, if you are still reading, hows it going?
Yeah, I HIGHLY doubt I will lose muscle mass as I don't do any exercise now except walking the dog.
And since you don't give any alternate suggestion, JT, I will continue along my plan which I have been thinking about over the year as I read different things and consider what my body needs and what I can do without wearing myself out.
Actually, based on your previous posts I assume you will tell me I need to get a personal trainer. Since there's no way I can afford that and the closest gym is at least 30 minutes away I will do without it as have many people who are much healthier than me. If any of them would like to give advice I'll gladly listen.
Glad to hear you're planning to write about Dr. Amanda soon. I really think she's on to something. I also like her because she seems like such a sweet, genuine person. I appreciate that sort of thing in a weight loss researcher :)
Snip – "What helps lab rats in stressful situations is to have something to bite and attack, or run their little rat asses off on a hamster wheel. Try hard, aggressive exercise, not peaceful exercise."
Signing up for fencing classes later this summer! I realized that was the only sport I've tried where I entered "the zone". It makes me amazingly giggly (happy) to poke other people and hear the beep "reward". The bouting swords are tipped with a sensor that lets out a beep whenever there is a good hit. Three beeps and you win!
This is v. strange for me because I am a non-violent person by theory – but in practice, I need to get out the aggression in some sort of competitive way.
I really want to learn English Quarterstaff. :D
Kirk,
Of course I disagree with the muscle mag claims! Do you actually believe that people are going to lose over 20 pounds of fat and gain 20 pounds of muscle at the same time? Or even greater amounts?
i never said that bodyweight exercises are bad. The reason I would lose muscle and gain fat with her plan is because the volume, intensity, and frequency is too low.
Terpol,
I agree with you. I think bodyweight exercises and gymnastics are great and i think most people could get great results if they did it right. I spent long periods of time doing bodyweight exercises.
Rachelle,
I didnt say you would lose muscle mass. You might gain a TINY amount, but not much. Doing it whenever you feel like it a couple times a week is just not enough volume to get results.
Someone could get in shape doing nothing but bodyweight exercises. I would just need to increase the volume and intensity in order to cause my body to adapt to the demands by increasing muscle and losing fat.
I don't think everyone needs a personal trainer, but I definitely think you should follow a structured plan designed by someone who know what they are doing. This would be the minimum. Of course I think everyone should consult an experienced professional whenever possible, in any field.
Did you hear about Heidi Montag? You know, the girl who transformed herself into a Barbie doll. She works out 14 hours a day, apparently. I wonder how much she eats to go with that kind of ridiculous activity. Sounds like eating disorder issues.
Hi Matt and friends ?
I tried to post this question a few days ago and sadly it disappeared into some kind of internet ?black hole?.
First, let me say how much I enjoy this blog and all of your other writings, etc. I’ve read all of the eBooks (and will probably be reading them all again over the next few months) and keep up with everything quite regularly. I guess you can say I consider myself a bit of a closet ?Stoner?, preferring to read, but not comment.
So, how does the Evans and Strang method of fat loss fit in with the information in this post? Do you know anyone who has tried to eat according to the formula they devised for their study? Have they had success?
I’m curious to try it (once I get my temps up consistently via RRARF). I feel like I could be a perfect candidate for it based on the demographic of the participants in their study way back when. I’m a mid-30s female with over 100 pounds of fat to lose.
Of course, I don’t want to do anything to hurt myself. But since it seems that you felt their study and methods were viable, at least in the short-term, do you still recommend someone like me try it (at least if the metabolism appears to be pretty well healed)? How would that fit in with the views on rapid weight-loss in this post?
@JT: "You should find the best mental health doctor that you can and follow his advice." Thanks. Sometimes you really do post smart stuff. You should write more often about things which you are good at.
@To drug or not: Advice on anti-depressants is really hard to give. All I can say is that it is usually a trade-off. You accept some side-effects for relief from your main symptoms. A good doctor will explain everything to you you have to consider. If the doctor has a quick look at you and doesn't even make the impression of listening to you go to the next doctor. And by all means reach out to people you can talk to in person. Online forums are a nice thing but IMO friends are people you can touch.
I wish you the best.
Matt, why are you repeating the archaic "calories in, calories out" mantra? You know it's much more complicated than that. Fat storage is governed by hormones, not simple arithmetic. I know you know this, but for the benefit of those who don't know (or if you've forgotten, which I'm starting to believe), here's an easy way to understand it…
http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2011/01/27/fat-mice-and-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/
Great post, Matt. I think I need parts of this tattooed to my forehead so I don't forget. It's HARD to be patient!!! I think the reason people don't want to think about dieting for a year is not only because it's so miserable, but also because they want results long before that.
Rachelle, have you read Matt's previous posts on Al Sears' PACE program? That could be a good way to do those bodyweight exercises.
Right now I'm RRARFing again to get my temps back up, but soon I'll be up-ing the exercise again. And I'm looking forward to it! Eating all these carbs is giving me lots of energy; I love it!!!
Thanks Matt, and everyone else for the advice. I am going to see a psychiatrist and talk about options and my worries. In the meantime, I'm going to try all the homeopathic & diet-related strategies I can! Wisely, of course.
I think Matt should create an iPhone/ Smartphone app that reminds those of us who are susceptible to doing dumb weight-loss related things that it TAKES TIME! and that it's counterproductive to rush the process.
To drug or not to drug: you can do a lot with homeopathic stuff, and supplements, too. You may want to try Stress B Complex and Magnesium (make sure you get an absorbable form of magnesium or do the epsom or magnesium flake foot baths). I've found both incredibly helpful for anxiety. Maybe they will be enough to avoid meds, worth a shot.
Also, not sure if you are seeing a psychologist but that can really help, too, to find the emotional roots of your psychology.
I think it depends from where you come from. When you're obese, you can lose more than when you're slightly overweight.
To Drug or Not to Drug: I will utter 180 slight heresy here, based on N=1.
I have Asperger's Syndrome which carries with it tendencies towards depression and OCD thought riffs. [Darn that COMT ValMet Gene!] Anyhow, the best way I have found to minimize those traits above is to take Cod Liver Oil for a few days in a row. Or every other day. The best brand I found is plain liquid (not capsule) Twinlab. Two teaspoons every other day keeps the brain happy!
You can read up about the Vit. A and Autism connection by googling Dr. Mary Megson. Certainly has helped me. I should also add that since adding in raw (grass fed) dairy and gf meat, I have had to use less CLO – just a maintenance dose whenever I notice things getting too weird in the head (maybe once a week).
Veiled Glory
That's very interesting. Thank you for that information. I don't have Asperger's, but am plagued with "OCD thought riffs." For the past couple of months I have stopped taking cod liver oil (due to the influence of Ray Peat's stance on PUFA's) and am not eating any vitamin A rich foods. I have in fact noticed a marked increase in these thoughts/tendencies. As these patterns tend to occur in cycles, I didn't think too much about it. I'll have to start back up on my cod liver oil to see if this has an effect. Also interesting about the liquid version as opposed to the capsules.
KT – Yes, give it a try! Twinlabs is cheap. I have tried the fermented CLO and higher priced stuff, but the cheap seems to keep me happy, literally! I keep the open bottle in the fridge and measure doseages with a small shot glass (actually an Anchor teaspoon/tablespoon measurement cup – looks like a shot glass). The capsules just don't seem to have the "umph".
It may take a week to build up – do 1.5 tsps/daily, then back off to 2 tsps every other day and see how you do. You will notice the thought riffs diminish after three days or so.
Matt said: "all because she is weighted down with 100 pounds of blubber that's hanging around doing nothing for her (presumably, but many have hypothesized that fat is protective against our polluted world, and is not a straight-up malfunction on behalf of the body). "
Oh, the horror.
Sometimes I touch my belly fat and it doesn't even register as being a part of me. It feels like an unwanted passenger. I really wish I could kick it out of my car.
The Health At Every Size movement encourages people to work toward their best health regardless of body size. I hope people don't see adopting a HAES attitude as a sentence to stay fat and never change, rather it gives us fatties the self esteem and self respect to pursue our best health and love our fat bodies in the meantime as they take a healthy shape.
The desire to lose too much weight too fast is riddled with body hatred, a wish to make ourselves disappear quickly so we don't have to feel "disgusting". It's a head game to overcome this for sure.
FYI waking temp was 98.2 today and I'm able to do some Qi gong first thing in the morning. Healing slowly so this time it will last!
TSigns-
Evans and Strang assured that the subjects were losing fat and only fat. Consuming 400-ish calories per day the subjects lost between 150 to 300 grams of fat per day. That's roughly 2.3 to 4.6 pounds per week – the maximum rate of fat loss without doing lots of exercise. Females tended to be closer to the 2.3 pounds per week range, which slowed as they got progressively leaner.
I think Terpol lost fat the best way possible, which also happens to be perfectly aligned with the theories and practices of Dr. Sainsbury-Salis who I mentioned in the post.
According to Sainsbury-Salis, the famine response is something that is triggered when your body senses you are losing weight, and surfaces with a big surge of hunger and reduced energy. If you meet this by eating exactly what sounds most satisfying until you are nicely full, you can reset your ability to continue losing weight. In other words, these "re-feeds" give you a clean slate to start with.
It's worth mentioning that in Evans and Strang's study, those with hypothyroidism failed on their program – so having a healthy metabolic rate is a pre-requisite for starting any weight loss attempt, which is why I stress that body temperature needs to be restored as a first step before anyone can go forward with body recomposition goals.
Terpol did exactly what I would recommend to anyone. Eat just enough to satisfy your appetite of plain, totally non-stimulating foods with enough carbs for energy and protein for muscle maintenance. Continue until you notice a sudden spike in hunger – usually happens after 5-10 pounds. Then eat whatever you are craving. This could be one meal, one day, or several days – before the hunger fades. You may gain back a pound or two. But you should be able to re-stabilize and be able to commence another few weeks of eating non-stimulating foods. "Interval fat loss" would be a good phrase to describe it.
In Terpol's case it was just fish and potatoes, mostly potatoes. But making it somewhat monotonous really helps, and has a mysterious ability to keep your body from triggering its famine response. I think it's just because you are not wanting to eat more of it. Not eating when you want to eat triggers famine physiology. Eating when you don't want to eat tends to trigger the opposite. The excitement of that food, in large part, determines whether or not you gain or lose weight eating to appetite.
Like Sainsbury-Salis says, it's up to each individual to determine how much "fun" food they can eat without gaining weight (or halting weight loss).
But don't go thinking that plain Jane diets, because they are kinda boring and non-stimulating, are torturous. They're not. I love them actually. My life revolves around things besides food. I look to other things in life for pleasure and gratification. Eating falls into the background, and more rewarding forms of entertainment spill into the foreground.
Lisa-
That's great news.
HAES is a great movement. You can be healthy and have a lot of fat on your body. There's no question about it. And most people do the most harm to their health and their waistlines when they are trying to get that fat off.
But there is no one on earth that, if walking up a big hill with 100 pounds on their back, who wouldn't want to take that heavy backpack off. Even when someone has a great self-image, like a Marilyn Wann for example, and is perfectly healthy… it's hard to still not want to be light, springy, agile, sleek, and free of extra weight. It just feels good.
Hell, after years of living in Hawaii, I still can't even stand wearing socks.
Thanks for the response, Matt! Now that you mention it a ‘step-down? approach to fat loss sounds like an excellent idea. After all, I stepped up gradually to the weight I am now.
Like most long-time dieters, I relish the idea of a sprint to the finish for weight-loss. But that seems to just end in running off the rails anyway. At least if I approach it as a well-managed on and off program, listening to my body and respecting its needs, I could be much more successful and also happier.
Right now, I’m concentrating on getting the temps up. But I’ll definitely plan to implement this approach when the time seems right.
I've one question: is it true that fructose lowers free fatty acids by reducing stress hormones? this is one of the reasons why ray peat has so much love for sugar.
To Drug, in case you're still reading!
I never had weight gain with SSRIs, as it happens. If you feel you'd do best on one, maybe your doc can help you try a different one to see if it upsets your system less?
ALSO! I'm not on anything at present, just sort of letting the freak flag fly (anxiety, OCD, other things here and there). For general health reasons (getting old, worried about imminent death, also hadn't found this site yet) I went on the supplement plan advocated by the Perfect Health Diet (the supplement recommendations are on their web site). And DANG. Something is kicking my mental health issues in the butt. I suspect it's the copper and selenium, but that's just a guess. It's also helped a lot with my compulsive eating/food obsessions. Might be useful for your anxiety?
Also! My son (ADHD, OCD, Aspergers, we're not sure) has started True Hope vitamins, which were developed for bipolar, but are being tested (by Real Scientists!) for ADHD with some promising results, and some ADHD folks who also have OCD also found relief. True Hope is high in copper and selenium, which makes me go hmmmm…(Also A… and lots of other things…) Anyway, my son is doing well on them (not perfect mind you! But he had a tic that is gone, so that's good, and is calmer).
He is also on the Feingold Diet, which eliminates high salicylate foods and food additives. You can learn about low salacylate diets through a Google search. People who are salicylate sensitve can have all sorts of messed up symptoms from salicylate buildup, including anxiety, OCD, etc.
This is just all FWIW. Anxiety is a bitch, and it stinks if you add in fear of weight gain on the recommended treatment, so I am sending you tons of prayers and positive thoughts.
Steph,
Thanks for the advice! I also have OCD tendencies so I will look into those vitamins. I suppose it can't hurt, and if it helps it will save me lots of money on medication!
I appreciate the positive thoughts as well :)
And then there are those times in life when someone shouldn't be trying to lose weight, even if they would like to lose 100 pounds!
I know this woman who weights 285. She has cancer. For the past year, she was barely able to eat anything, could hardly keep water down sometimes, and did not lose ANY weight, according to her. Amazing.
So a short time ago, she was given 2 months to live. Then they up'ed it to 6 months because she was responding well to treatment. Now they say 2 years. So what is she doing about eating? Well, most of the time she is too queasy to eat, but when she can, LOW CARB. It is enough to make my head explode.
I am pretty sure that all that aspartame and sugar free crap is not going to help with the cancer. And her body needs every calorie it can get. Today so far she has eaten 1 egg and one strawberry and an Ensure shake. But she has assured us that it was all LOW CARB.
I want to shake this person silly and say that if her body tells her it wants to eat chocolate ice cream 6 times a day, this is exactly what she should be doing.
What kind of ungodly hold does this low carb nonsense hold over people??? I just don't get it! It would be one thing if it worked, but it doesn't!
Matt, I'm happy to say that I've lost 2 dress sizes and I'm an American size M or small. I've only been doing yoga and just walking a bit, eating when I'm hungry and not eating when I'm not (duh!)
I still have some fat around the lower body that I would like to lose.I will be in India all summer and am planning to eat like my ancestors- vegetarian,lots of dairy, high carb and eat what I like without telling myself that I will get fat if I eat something. My health is a lot better, no niggling aches and pains and more importantly my mood is a lot improved. Skin is breaking out a little but I'm hoping that with more rest over the summer that will improve as well.
Thank you for taking all the guilt away from eating.
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I know you don't generally recommend specific plans; but within the body of self care, re-feeds, intuition etc; what plans are least damaging for weight loss? The RRARF plan lets me maintain, but I need to lose 20 lbs minimum and 30 lbs really.
I want to do it in as healthy a way as possible and am not going back to low carb. Would carb cycling be okay though?
What do you think about South Beach? The first and second phase are moderate carb, but the maintenance section is basically how I eat now.
Any specific plans you can recommend?
Losing weight should never come as a torture, but then again it is for most people who are overweight. I have watched the show Ruby in Lifestyle Network and that is one big,fat lady. Her family is with her,cheering her up when she sheds a few pounds and trying to nudge her and reminding her that they are there to help her along the way. They too have to share the same food as she does ,so whatever the doctor’s no no to Ruby the family wouldn’t eat it too. You see,that is one good example of boosting the morale of an overweight person,not by tormenting the person by saying that she is so fat that she wont even fit in the front door. And lastly, if you to have a plan on how you have to loose weight without starving yourself to death. It also good to get enrolled in a gym that has an up to date gym management program. It would always be a great help for you because it did well for me.
What a GREAT article!!. You’ve got MAD skills!. It was funny and informative!. Most I already knew but getting confirmation was nice. Also, I think it’s really important for more people to learn just how long it takes to lose weight…THE RIGHT WAY!!. I think unrealistic expectations are what KILLS most dieters. Thanks for the great article!!