Important information and tip for people who want to lose weight

[Enlightenment]

Getting at least ~7000 steps a day, every day. So from this J-shaped curve he mentioned, it seems like walking 7000 steps a day is a minimum which you can't make for up the next day, analogous to sleep. So it's actually better to get just 7k steps in every single day than doing like 1k, 13k, 1k, 13k... because for every additional calorie burn after about that 7000 steps a day, your appetite increases accordingly.

 

 

 

[The0Self]

Anything other than the following is taking the focus off the 99% and therefore potentially misleading, if I may say:

1. Adequate protein

2. Adequately intense AND frequent full body strength training using both pushing and pulling and also lower body dominant exercises. With heavy weight (insofar as it’s almost as far from endurance training as it can get).

3. Taking at least somewhat of a break from considering food and hunger to be of interest

 

However, that is interesting information! ?

Edited August 24, 2021 by The0Self

[Michael569]

4 hours ago, The0Self said:

Adequately intense AND frequent full body strength training using both pushing and pulling and also lower body dominant exercises

I don't know why but it sometimes feels like this part is being completely omitted in the endless "what's the best diet for weightloss" discussion. Get yo ass to the gym and sweat it off like there is no tomorrow  

[SQAAD]

Your body actually does make up for lost sleep by sleeping deeper the next day(s). As for weight loss , exercise is overrated. Unless you are Michael Phelps you won't be burning many calories. Most people realistically don't have the economic comfort to burn more than 500 calories exercising unless you're doing some type of construction work. 

Those 500 calories are easily negated by eating a double cheese burger on the way home back from work. So intake of food is the most important component of weight loss.

Exercise is great for health and i try to walk as much because our bodies were designed to constantly walk and not sit on a pc all day.

But my primary tool for weight loss tool is always calorie restriction.

Edited August 24, 2021 by SQAAD

[KennedyCarter]

Make sure you’re eating lots of fruits and nuts!! We are frugivores. I love youuu

[Ora]

You could also ramp up your metabolism. Take saturated fats 1-2tbsp a day. Drink coffee, lift weights, do red light therapy.

[Enlightenment]

On 24.08.2021 at 7:32 AM, The0Self said:

Adequately intense AND frequent full body strength training using both pushing and pulling and also lower body dominant exercises. With heavy weight (insofar as it’s almost as far from endurance training as it can get).

Training for hypertrophy/strength in the gym doesn't burn a lot of calories compared to cardio. Having more muscle on your frame increases your appetite adequately, so the overall effect of having more muscle which burns more calories at rest is small protection against obesity. I'm speaking from my own experience too btw

13 hours ago, SQAAD said:

As for weight loss , exercise is overrated

Yea it's overrated if you think just exercise is gonna make you lose a lot of weight. But it still does have a significant effect up to a point. 

13 hours ago, SQAAD said:

Most people realistically don't have the economic comfort to burn more than 500 calories exercising unless you're doing some type of construction work. 

Those 500 calories are easily negated by eating a double cheese burger on the way home back from work. So intake of food is the most important component of weight loss.

If you would burn 500 net calories every day from exercise and somehow your appetite wouldn't increase from it, that would be very significant. I only burn about 330 calories from exercise every day and even that allows me to maintain a lower body fat compared to not exercising at all. The problem is that as people exercise more than ~7000 steps I've mentioned, they just compensate for it by eating more because they're hungry.

13 hours ago, SQAAD said:

But my primary tool for weight loss tool is always calorie restriction.

Calorie restriction is the only way to lose weight. It can be achieved by eating less or exercising more or both

[The0Self]

6 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

Training for hypertrophy/strength in the gym doesn't burn a lot of calories compared to cardio. Having more muscle on your frame increases your appetite adequately, so the overall effect of having more muscle which burns more calories at rest is small protection against obesity. I'm speaking from my own experience too btw

This is a widespread misunderstanding. Training for hypertrophy/strength is what matters most in FAT loss, along with adequate protein and less calories. WEIGHT loss depends mostly on calories in/out, yes, but no one really wants that over FAT loss, and if they think they do, they're mistaken . One can add in cardio on top of the strength training, but it's totally optional. It takes a ton of cardio just to burn off a candy bar -- i.e. just don't eat the candy bar. In all seriousness though, please read the following with an open mind:

I do happen to be right about this. Hear me out though, I feel I may change your mind. What is the gas mileage of a large 8 cylinder turbocharged/forced-induction high performance engine compared to a 4 cylinder without much power? Exactly. Here's where even people who seem to know a lot about health get confused: they look at the daily calorie maintenance AT REST of +10 pounds of muscle, ~600 calories, and think "well that's not a lot, so gaining muscle won't really help one lose fat THAT much" -- however, the increased daily total caloric expenditure of +10lb muscle is a completely different number, and it is immense... way, WAY more than most people would guess... sometimes several thousand calories... this is because high performance muscle is extremely costly to maintain -- even leisurely cleaning your house becomes very metabolically inefficient -- kind of like using a high performance car as your daily driver.

And btw... This makes your 7000 steps insight even more useful -- kudos! Walking around with more muscle is incredibly inefficient and results in more calories burned... *** FAR more than if the SAME additional weight was from fat! And THAT is the part most people overlook or just aren't aware of! ***

*** Even on their non-training days, even just relatively-strong, trained people can have daily caloric needs in the 4000+ range... If they chose to eat a normal diet of only 2500 calories that day, they would in fact lose nearly half a pound of fat in one day without even training! And that's provided they hit the majority of their muscles in the past 48 hours (max time for the muscular adaptation window) -- otherwise even MORE weight would be lost, since while fat contains ~3500cal/lb, a pound of muscle tissue is only composed of ~650 calories... (All the more reason why weight loss is truly irrelevant... what people care about is fat loss.)

There are many other more technical reasons too, such as muscular adaptation windows and protein turnover -- you'll never want any muscle to go more than 48 hours without being overloaded -- that way, AT ALL TIMES, additional fuel has at least a chance to provide muscle growth and repair instead of fat gain, as adaptive net muscular hypertrophy never lasts more than 48 hours after adequate stimulus, unless drugs are used.

The cardio, while certainly useful, is of miniscule importance in relation to the big 3: proper (frequent and complete) strength training, adequate protein, and eating less calories. It's not like you've got to choose one or the other though  but it would serve anyone seeking fat loss to just get the big 3 in order first, and then maybe consider cardio. Most won't understand the importance and just won't do it, and in that case, yeah cardio might be their only saving grace, but they'd be a lot more successful it they sorted out the big 3 first.

Daily activities (such as the steps you noted) done with a bit more muscle mass is the key to effortlessly maintained fat loss and leanness. Again, sorry for sounding like a broken record, it's NOT because you're moving more weight, it's because you're having to use more energy-inefficient muscle mass (roughly analogous to the displacement of a high performance engine).

And btw this is also the mechanism behind rebound fat gain after such diets wherein a lot of cardio and less than ideal strength training was done -- the body has less muscle and therefore becomes more energy efficient, in some cases making fat gain virtually guaranteed.

Hope this helps. Just read it with an open mind.

Edited August 25, 2021 by The0Self

[Consilience]

43 minutes ago, The0Self said:

This is a misunderstanding. Training for hypertrophy/strength is what matters most in FAT loss, along with adequate protein and less calories. WEIGHT loss depends mostly on calories in/out, yes, but no one really wants that over FAT loss, and if they think they do, they're mistaken . One can add in cardio on top of the strength training, but it's totally optional. It takes a ton of cardio just to burn off a candy bar -- i.e. just don't eat the candy bar. In all seriousness though, please read the following with an open mind:

I do happen to be right about this. Hear me out though, I feel I may change your mind. What is the gas mileage of a large 8 cylinder turbocharged/forced-induction high performance engine compared to a 4 cylinder without much power? Exactly. Here's where even people who seem to know a lot about health get confused: they look at the daily calorie maintenance AT REST of +10 pounds of muscle, ~600 calories, and think "well that's not a lot, so gaining muscle won't really help one lose fat THAT much" -- however, the increased daily total caloric expenditure of +10lb muscle is a completely different number, and it is immense... way, WAY more than most people would guess... sometimes several thousand calories... this is because high performance muscle is extremely costly to maintain -- even leisurely cleaning your house becomes very metabolically inefficient -- kind of like a high performance engine.

And btw... This makes your 7000 steps insight even more useful -- kudos! Walking around with more muscle is incredibly inefficient and results in more calories burned... *** FAR more than if the SAME additional weight was from fat! And THAT is the part most people overlook or just aren't aware of! ***

*** Even on their non-training days, even just relatively-strong, trained people can have daily caloric needs in the 4000+ range... If they chose to eat a normal diet of only 2500 calories that day, they would in fact lose nearly half a pound of fat in one day without even training! And that's provided they hit the majority of their muscles in the past 48 hours (max time for the muscular adaptation window) -- otherwise even MORE weight would be lost, since while fat contains ~3500cal/lb, a pound of muscle tissue is only composed of ~650 calories... (All the more reason why weight loss is truly irrelevant... what people care about is fat loss.)

There are many other more technical reasons too, such as muscular adaptation windows and protein turnover -- you'll never want any muscle to go more than 48 hours without being overloaded -- that way, AT ALL TIMES, additional fuel has at least a chance to provide muscle growth and repair instead of fat gain, as muscular hypertrophy never lasts more than 48 hours after adequate stimulus, unless drugs are used.

The cardio, while certainly useful, is of miniscule importance in relation to the big 3: proper (frequent and complete) strength training, adequate protein, and eating less calories. It's not like you've got to choose one or the other though  but it would serve anyone seeking fat loss to just get the big 3 in order first, and then maybe consider cardio. Most won't understand the importance and just won't do it, and in that case, yeah cardio might be their only saving grace, but they'd be a lot more successful it they sorted out the big 3 first.

Daily activities (such as the steps you noted) done with a bit more muscle mass is the key. Again, it's not merely because you're moving with more weight, it's because you're having to use more energy-inefficient muscle mass (roughly analogous to the displacement of a high performance engine).

And btw this is also the mechanism behind rebound fat gain after such diets wherein a lot of cardio and less than ideal strength training was done -- the body has less muscle and therefore becomes more energy efficient, in some cases making fat gain virtually guaranteed.

Hope this helps. Just read it with an open mind.

So much this. 

Btw @Enlightenment Eric Helms and the coaching group he works with, 3DMJ, is one of the highest quality sources of information on the internet about building muscle and losing fat and all things bodybuilding without steroids. I'd highly, highly highly recommend even if you're not interested in bodybuilding.

[Enlightenment]

4 hours ago, Consilience said:

Eric Helms and the coaching group he works with, 3DMJ, is one of the highest quality sources of information on the internet about building muscle and losing fat and all things bodybuilding without steroids. I'd highly, highly highly recommend even if you're not interested in bodybuilding.

Eric Helms, Menno Henselmans, Mike Israetel, Layne Norton, Greg Nuckols... are guys I pretty much grew up with, they are great. There were times when I was obsessed with bodybuilding and was learning as much as I could about BB/powerlifting

@The0Self I would agree with almost everything you said, except...

Your absurd estimations of calories burned by muscle. Dude, I don't know from where you took those numbers but they are totally inaccurate, not even close. Have you ever been counting calories and watching your weight for more than 3 months?

4 hours ago, The0Self said:

they look at the daily calorie maintenance AT REST of +10 pounds of muscle, ~600 calories, and think "well that's not a lot, so gaining muscle won't really help one lose fat THAT much" -- however, the increased daily total caloric expenditure of +10lb muscle is a completely different number, and it is immense... way, WAY more than most people would guess... sometimes several thousand calories

Well, so there is no way that Mr. Olympia Chris Bumstead:

240 lbs monster, doing intense weight lifting AND cardio, would stop losing fat at two thousand-something calorie diet, right? I mean if your numbers are correct then he should be losing weight dangerously fast. Wrong, he stalled on his diet and had to literally lower his calories to 1800 to continue losing weight for competition.

 

 

https://www.verywellfit.com/how-many-calories-does-muscle-really-burn-1231074

"There is a longstanding myth that says that if you put on 5 pounds of muscle (which is a challenge, even for young men), you could burn an extra 250 calories a day at rest (i.e., one pound of muscle burns 50 calories). The problem with these numbers is that there aren't any real studies to back them up.

Dr. Cedric X. Bryant, the American Council on Exercise's chief science officer, says that research suggests that a pound of muscle only burns about six to seven calories a day. Obviously, that's a big difference from 50. However, it is still three times more calories than are burned by a pound of fat."

1lb of muscle = 6.5 calories     6.5x10=65  so 65 calories instead of your 600

4 hours ago, The0Self said:

*** Even on their non-training days, even just relatively-strong, trained people can have daily caloric needs in the 4000+ range... If they chose to eat a normal diet of only 2500 calories that day, they would in fact lose nearly half a pound of fat in one day without even training!

This is again just so incorrect. I don't know what your definition of relatively-strong trained person is but there is no way some average height relatively strong person will burn 4000+ calories in a day without training.

 

4 hours ago, The0Self said:

past 48 hours (max time for the muscular adaptation window)

It can last up to about 72 hours for beginners. But yea it quickly drops to 48 and as you get more advanced, probably will drop even more.

4 hours ago, The0Self said:

(All the more reason why weight loss is truly irrelevant... what people care about is fat loss.)

When I say weight loss I assume fat loss by default, not muscle loss of course. I think even people without much knowledge in fitness know that you should not lose muscle on a diet and weight loss is about losing fat. Muscle loss is not much of a concern unless you are eating less than 1.6g of protein per kg of body weight, or dieting to very low body fat %, or were lifting weights but stopped on a calorie deficit diet.

 

4 hours ago, The0Self said:

Daily activities (such as the steps you noted)

When I go out for an hour long walk to do about 7000 steps, I count it as cardio. By cardio, I don't mean just running, fast cycling etc. but also just walking.

 

BTW I know there are other things you have to do/care about to lose fat/maintain low body fat. I just posted this one thing about steps and hoped people will add this on top of other things like eating an adequate amount of protein, eating low-calorie-dense foods, potentially strictly counting calories...

Edited August 25, 2021 by Enlightenment

[The0Self]

7 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

Dr. Cedric X. Bryant, the American Council on Exercise's chief science officer, says that research suggests that a pound of muscle only burns about six to seven calories a day

Bro... If you had read what I wrote, you’d see I said exactly this. It was kinda the whole point man ? 

Maybe you just misread a small part what I wrote, no big deal — I said 600 cals per 10 (TEN) lb. exactly what you said. But... that’s for BMR only...

+6 calories a day per pound of muscle at rest. So +600cal per day for +10lb muscle. That’s at rest — the effect on BMR only. The increased daily caloric expenditure is utterly insane though! Several thousand calories per additional 10 lb of muscle, very much depending on how much movement is done throughout the day.

Most very strong intelligent lifters know this — it’s hard to miss when you’re living it. It’s not some theory I just came up with willy nilly. It’s just not known to everyone.

Edited August 26, 2021 by The0Self

[The0Self]

6 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

240 lbs monster, doing intense weight lifting AND cardio, would stop losing fat at two thousand-something calorie diet, right? I mean if your numbers are correct then he should be losing weight dangerously fast.

Of course not. When you get extremely lean the scale tips greatly towards preserving fat and muscle. And in natural bodybuilding there is greatly reduced muscle mass in late cut. There are no contradictions in what I wrote I can assure you.

Edited August 26, 2021 by The0Self

[The0Self]

6 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

BTW I know there are other things you have to do/care about to lose fat/maintain low body fat. I just posted this one thing about steps and hoped people will add this on top of other things like eating an adequate amount of protein, eating low-calorie-dense foods, potentially strictly counting calories...

That’s fair enough. I appreciated the 7000 steps insight as well. What I said still stands though.

[The0Self]

7 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

your definition of relatively-strong trained person is

Somewhere close to the following 1RM’s:

300 lb bench

400 squat

500 deadlift

Though the bench is less important as it uses a fraction of the muscle mass relative to the other 2.

I have the deadlift but not the other 2.

Maybe +100lb chin up and close to 200lb standing press as well, for further reference.

Maintenance for that will be absurdly high if they’re moving around a lot during the day — once a decent amount of muscle mass is accrued, activity throughout the day (as a whole) modifies the total caloric expenditure FAR more acutely than focused training sessions.

After losing, say, 25lb fat though, one might have lost up to 5lb of muscle (more if they didn’t do it right) — that provides a whole lot more metabolic efficiency... as in fat-loss will stall. Even 1-2lb of muscle loss will decrease maintenance calories by a nice chunk.

Edited August 26, 2021 by The0Self

[Enlightenment]

6 hours ago, The0Self said:

+6 calories a day per pound of muscle at rest. So +600cal per day for +10lb muscle. That’s at rest — the effect on BMR only.

Do the math again, you are adding one too many zero. 1 pound of muscle = 6cal

2 pounds of muscle = 12cal

5 pounds of muscle = 30cal

10 pounds of muscle = 60 calories!

Unless you mean exponential growth but that is even more ridiculous, as gaining 100 pounds (45kg) of muscle would add 60000 calories to your BMR . So again 1 pound of muscle adds about 6.5 calories to BMR and if we multiply that by 10 we get 65 calories, not 650 calories!

6 hours ago, The0Self said:

Several thousand calories per additional 10 lb of muscle, very much depending on how much movement is done throughout the day.

About a year ago, before I stopped lifting due to arthritis, at the age of 25 I had about 45lbs of muscle more than when I was 15 years old. So by your estimates, I should add at least 13500 calories to my total daily energy expenditure, just kind of moving around because of all these muscles. So let's say my TDEE at 15 was ~1900+13500=15400  Absurd.

I would get morbidly obese extremely quickly eating 15400 calories (leaving aside that it would be impossible for me to eat that much, but anyway). I hope nobody follows the advice of adding several thousand calories for 10 pounds of muscle built

6 hours ago, The0Self said:

Of course not. When you get extremely lean the scale tips greatly towards preserving fat and muscle. And in natural bodybuilding there is greatly reduced muscle mass in late cut. There are no contradictions in what I wrote I can assure you.

It doesn't make sense because metabolic adaptations simply do not occur to such extremes. Even people with hypothyroidism at best have a 15% reduced metabolic rate. Chris Bumstead would have to break the law of thermodynamics for his metabolism to slow down like 85%(?)

6 hours ago, The0Self said:

Somewhere close to the following 1RM’s:

300 lb bench

400 squat

500 deadlift

Not everybody has the genetics to achieve these numbers even with 20 years of intense training and proper dieting. On the other hand, someone with elite powerlifting genetics will have them while still being a complete beginner (for him). Andy Bolton squatted 484 lbs and deadlifted 572 lbs the very first time he tried the lifts. Genetic variability in how much muscle/how strong people can get is huge. 

[The0Self]

6 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

It doesn't make sense because metabolic adaptations simply do not occur to such extremes. Even people with hypothyroidism at best have a 15% reduced metabolic rate. Chris Bumstead would have to break the law of thermodynamics for his metabolism to slow down like 85%(?)

You’re still coming back to the same fundamental misunderstanding — I’m not talking about metabolic rate. As you said, that does not vary much. It’s the increased total caloric expenditure via movement throughout the day using more muscle mass which is very wasteful — NOT because of its weight, but because of the mass of energetic fibers constantly using energy as they move, even while moving leisurely. Get your deadlift up to 500 and you will find you have to eat so much, OR stay very still throughout the day, just to maintain that. Of course after a lot of even pure fat-weight loss, there will be less force acting on those muscles as well, causing total caloric expenditure to plummet — a phenomenon that is much more prominent the more muscle you have, and much less prominent the less you have.

 

And as far as the 60 calories  per 10lb — that’s fine; the entire point of mentioning it was to say muscle isn’t energetically costly while at rest, and that’s why people overlook just how energetically costly they are while in movement. I was mentioning the 600 entirely for the purpose of saying that 600 is negligible  — 60 makes the point even more strongly. And now that I remember I think you’re right about the 60, my bad, but again that makes the point — as to why it’s overlooked just how costly muscles are in the real world, rather than on paper in reference to the resting/RMR/BMR cost... people look at a small number like 6cals per day and then it very much hides the reality of the situation.

Edited August 26, 2021 by The0Self

[Charlotte]

'Important information and tip for people who want to lose weight'

 

Calorie deficit. All 'diets' have the same principle just different flavour. 

 

[Enlightenment]

8 hours ago, Charlotte said:

Calorie deficit. All 'diets' have the same principle just different flavour. 

Yes, but it's hard to adhere to a calorie deficit, because of appetite which if you don't satisfy - you suffer. Ultimately that's why we have an obesity epidemic. All it takes to get to 4% body fat as a male and 12% as a female is a calorie deficit, it's just that simple! Yet of course we all know appetite is our enemy. That's why people need to take steps to make calorie deficit easier to adhere to, like low calorie-dense foods, intermittent fasting, perhaps keto for some 

[Charlotte]

1 hour ago, Enlightenment said:

Yes, but it's hard to adhere to a calorie deficit, because of appetite which if you don't satisfy - you suffer. Ultimately that's why we have an obesity epidemic. All it takes to get to 4% body fat as a male and 12% as a female is a calorie deficit, it's just that simple! Yet of course we all know appetite is our enemy. That's why people need to take steps to make calorie deficit easier to adhere to, like low calorie-dense foods, intermittent fasting, perhaps keto for some 

Yeah I understand what you mean. Although I think that the obesity epidemic is much much more complex and multi faceted than what you say. 

When I say that simple, I mean the fundamentals of it. As compared to living is as simple as just breathing, shitting, and eating! It's obviously much more complex than that 

Yeah the different ways people can get into caloric deficit depends on which would suit them best for that time in their lives 

[Michael569]

2 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

Yes, but it's hard to adhere to a calorie deficit, because of appetite which if you don't satisfy - you suffer. Ultimately that's why we have an obesity epidemic

I agree that having an abundance of hyper-palatable foods sold cheap and wide makes this worse but the problem of obesity goes beyond lack of self-restriction. Obesity is a socio-economic problem. It often stems from lack of education, lack of financial resources, being born and raised in a family with poor eating habits and low levels of personal development over generations. Not to mention rising cost of education, fresh produce, housing etc. Basiclaly things that would pull these people out of the rut are becoming more and more unaffordable for them. 

At some point poor parents have to make a decision: do I let my kid go hungry or will he/she become obese by feeding them the poorest quality food (the cheapest food) like bread & sugar? With a lack of education, it is hard to make informed decisions about what is healthy and so the natural inclination is towards high calorie, rewarding foods that tend to be ridiculously cheap. Here in UK you can get a pound of fried chips (french fries) for 3 British  pounds for example (3000 calories in a single meal) - if you know where to look. 

I mean even look at this forum where you would assume most people have a higher rate of education and mostly decent upbringing and background. Even here the opinions on what to eat to be healthy are so incredibly diversified. And now imagine someone with 5 years of general education being raised in a family of two neurotic grown-up children of a parents, probably alcoholics, probably having at least 5 addictions each, who has to make critical decision on what information is correct and whatnot. Impossible. 

Then not to mention being born to already obese family means one is born with messed up microbiome, somewhat messed up genetic predisposition and is thrown down a slippery slope which takes an extreme amount of willpower and independence to get away from. In 90% cases it is impossible simply due to lack of positive examples and external help that these people never get. 

We could take this further but just wanted to reiterate that obesity is a deeper problem than just eating too much junk. That's a consequence of other, deeper underlying problems that have accumulated over generations of resource deprivation and social inequality.