poll: What's the best way to lose weight and keep it off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have done #1 and #2. Number 1 worked, but wasn't sustainably. Number 2 worked, too, and changed my life. I don't think about the calories I consume, but I don't gain anymore and I'm still losing........with strength training!

Agreed on 2 working without calorie counting. I eat large amounts of fat now but very little sugar or bread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2.

Calorie in/calories out is only half the story, if that much. The hormones in your body affect your metabolism, whether and how you store fat, whether and how you have strong cravings. Read Gary Taubes.

This has been studied ad nauseum in the lab. Calories in/ calories out is exactly 100% of the story.

That is precisely NOT what the science shows. You can get people to gain weigh on a starvation diet.

Please link to your sources. I'll start. In the Minnesota Semi-starvation Study, participants lost 25% of bodyweight.

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/6/1347.full

I didn't say people couldn't lose weight by starving, I said you could get them to gain weight on the same diet, and you can, if you adjust their hormones.

For example, artificial sweetners affect your hormonal response to food and cause gain:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/12/04/saccharin-aspartame-dangers.aspx

The same is true of products like olestra:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21688890

Eating a ton of sugar causes many hormonal changes that differ from the same number of calories in meat or vegetables:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lustig-md/sugar-toxic_b_2759564.html

We know you change your insulin levels by what you eat.
Changes in insulin levels will affect how strongly you crave more food and whether your body stores calories as fat:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7014326

The point is that food affects your hormones and your hormones affect what your body does with calories and cravings, which in the end will affect what you eat next.

Lustig has been pretty thoroughly debunked, but I'll give you that what you eat impact what you want to eat next. That has nothing to do with calories in/ calories out. Nothing I saw in those links suggested that you could get people to gain weight on a starvatIon diet. Where is that?

[Anonymous]

Both..duh! Shouldn't be an either/or proposition. And exercise while you're at it. Do you want to just lose some weight or be healthy and fit, as well?

[Anonymous]

I have lost 20 pounds since New Year's. I do both. I follow a South Beach diet-type eating plan, but I also track points on weightwatchers to make sure I'm not eating too much.

Exercise is great, and keeps me motivated, but I think it's a tiny part of losing weight. Case in point -- I've been injured and my workouts have dramatically dropped off in the last 3-4 weeks, but I have still continued to lose weight (like .5 or 1 pound a week). I'm pretty much at my ideal weight now, and just trying to make sure I maintain.

[Anonymous]

I haven't seen Lustig debunked by a serious source. I'd be curious to read it.

[Anonymous]

Note that I don't possess the knowledge of chemistry to truly follow the arguments about sucrose and fructose are broken down by the body, but I found this convincing...

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/

[Anonymous]

My husband lost a lot of weight and has kept it off using #1.

I have lost a bunch of weight using #2.

Our personalities, priorities, time, and reasons for being overweight in the first place are different, and so are our solutions. Try each, and see which works best for you.

[Anonymous]

I had to radically change my diet because of a serious health issue. I wasn't trying to lose weight (didn't calorie count or anything) but have lost 40 pounds because I have had to eat extremely healthy. For me it was both #1 and #2. I cannot consume the same level of calories just eating meat, veggies, and fruit because healthy foods are more filling. I believe that if you eat healthy, your calories will be lower. You aren't eating the calorie-dense, non-filling foods, like sweets and processed foods.

I think on the surface calories in/calories out seems right but it totally doesn't address how the body processes the food, right? So 100 calories of kale and sweet potatoes will be digested differently than 100 calories of cake, which likely triggers more hunger which leads to more calories...?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2.

Calorie in/calories out is only half the story, if that much. The hormones in your body affect your metabolism, whether and how you store fat, whether and how you have strong cravings. Read Gary Taubes.

This has been studied ad nauseum in the lab. Calories in/ calories out is exactly 100% of the story.

Nope! http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gary Taubes critical reviews:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/05/16/thin-body-of-evidence-why-i-have-doubts-about-gary-taubess-why-we-get-fat/

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/why-we-get-fat/

http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake

So that author disagrees because he thinks Taubes' diet is "gross" and he weighs less than him? Not very scientific.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2.

Calorie in/calories out is only half the story, if that much. The hormones in your body affect your metabolism, whether and how you store fat, whether and how you have strong cravings. Read Gary Taubes.

This has been studied ad nauseum in the lab. Calories in/ calories out is exactly 100% of the story.

Nope! http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Um, that's about fat, not calories. It really is as simple as calories in, calories out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gary Taubes critical reviews:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/05/16/thin-body-of-evidence-why-i-have-doubts-about-gary-taubess-why-we-get-fat/

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/why-we-get-fat/

http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake

So that author disagrees because he thinks Taubes' diet is "gross" and he weighs less than him? Not very scientific.

Which of the three authors do you mean?

[Anonymous]

cut out lots of gluten and corn I lost 20lbs and just ate more of veggies and meat. Im keeping weight off

[Anonymous]

#1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2.

Calorie in/calories out is only half the story, if that much. The hormones in your body affect your metabolism, whether and how you store fat, whether and how you have strong cravings. Read Gary Taubes.

This has been studied ad nauseum in the lab. Calories in/ calories out is exactly 100% of the story.

Nope! http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Also, this is a pretty muddled article generally, but it supports the idea that it's as simple as calories in, calories out. It just suggests that people are obese because of the calories that they get from drinking tons of sugary beverages and eating tons of carbs. To quote:

"...this alternative hypothesis ... identifies the cause of obesity as precisely those refined carbohydrates at the base of the famous Food Guide Pyramid -- the pasta, rice and bread -- that we are told should be the staple of our healthy low-fat diet, and then on the sugar or corn syrup in the soft drinks, fruit juices and sports drinks that we have taken to consuming in quantity if for no other reason than that they are fat free and so appear intrinsically healthy."

The calories in pasta rice and bread can make you fat as surely as the calories in double cheeseburgers. I doubt that any rational adult is silly enough to believe that drinking thousands of calories of sugary beverages won't make you fat (as the article contends), but for anyone who is confused, let me clear it up: consume more calories than you burn, and you will get fat. Consume less and you will lose weight.

Certainly your food choices affect how much you will want to eat --- protein and veggies tend to make you feel full and provide good bang for the buck if you are maintaining a calorie deficit. And, carbs may be more readily converted to fat than protein (I've seen that argument, but I don't understand the chemistry enough to know if it's right).

Also, your food choices affect how successful you will be in losing weight. If you exercise, y our food choices will directly impact how effectively your body recovers from exercise. For example, if you are lifting, you need more protein (US RDA numbers are for sedentary adults and more recent work by folks like Lemon have shown that they are far less than optimal for adults who exercise heavily). As others suggested, if you work out a ton and run too high of a deficit, you will feel terrible and have trouble keeping it up, so you risk cheating and binging, which can quickly eliminate the calorie deficit that caused the binge.

The bottom line --- you can lose weight eating only twinkies or eating only fat and protein. Neither is a good idea --- both extremes would carry health risks and would be unpleasant, but the equation in terms of losing weight is the same.