Why no weight loss?

[Glover Fan]

I have skimmed but I spotted your breakfast and instantly I saw failure. Bread is just pointless carbs, you want some porridge or healthy cereal in the morning.

Toast for me is a treat. Saturdays for breakfast and maybe at a cafe stop.

 

[Fiona N]

... instantly I saw failure. Bread is just pointless carbs, you want some porridge or healthy cereal in the morning...

What b*****ks

Maybe if you eat supermarket sliced white plastic but there's plenty of good bread out there - even in the supermarkets nowadays - at least as good as porridge or cereal (I assume by 'healthy cereal' you mean some sugar packed junk like fruit muesli ) - wholegrain bread is great, as is rye bread, pumpernickel, etc., breads made with non-traditional grains like spelt and triticale can be higher in protein than wheat too - or nut bread - yum. I love porridge in the winter as much as the next cyclists but let's not get stupid here - oats and cereal are carbs - just as empty or not as bread can be - it's all about the quality. I somehow doubt there's much nutrition in those sachets of instant, presweetened finely ground porridge that are all some people have time for on a morning.

 

[ColinJ]

What b*****ks

Ho ho!

It's amazing how faddy the nutrition business is. If you look at the advice over the past 50 years and watch how it went one way then the other, then back again ...

Eggs = good, then a bit bad, then very bad, then good again ...

Coffee = bad, then good, then okay ...

Alcohol = bad, very bad, okay in small doses, good in small doses ...

Bread = staple diet, okay, bad, will kill you within 14.7 ms ...

Salt = essential, killer, okay(ish) ...

Red meat ...

Fish ...

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Ho ho!

It's amazing how faddy the nutrition business is. If you look at the advice over the past 50 years and watch how it went one way then the other, then back again ...

Eggs = good, then a bit bad, then very bad, then good again ...

Coffee = bad, then good, then okay ...

Alcohol = bad, very bad, okay in small doses, good in small doses ...

Bread = staple diet, okay, bad, will kill you within 14.7 ms ...

Salt = essential, killer, okay(ish) ...

Red meat ...

Fish ...

If we followed food advice to the letter we would die I am sure. I am a firm believer in all things in moderation.

 

[Fiona N]

Ho ho!

It's amazing how faddy the nutrition business is. If you look at the advice over the past 50 years and watch how it went one way then the other, then back again ...

Eggs = good, then a bit bad, then very bad, then good again ...

Coffee = bad, then good, then okay ...

Alcohol = bad, very bad, okay in small doses, good in small doses ...

Bread = staple diet, okay, bad, will kill you within 14.7 ms ...

Salt = essential, killer, okay(ish) ...

Red meat ...

Fish ...mercury then, probably radioactivity now

 

[ColinJ]

If we followed food advice to the letter we would die I am sure. I am a firm believer in all things in moderation.

My motto is usually "Too much is not enough!" but I'm changing it to "All things in moderation, including moderation itself!"

 

[MacB]

Liked the formula AFS, gives me a static daily requirement of about 1900 cals which is about right.

I am curious as to what exactly people mean about too little intake and the body going in to starvation mode. My first reaction is the body can only do so much to prevent weight loss by slowing metabolism etc.

 

[lulubel]

I am curious as to what exactly people mean about too little intake and the body going in to starvation mode. My first reaction is the body can only do so much to prevent weight loss by slowing metabolism etc.

Starvation mode is the body's defence against famine.

To state the, probably, blindingly obvious here, we envolved in an environment were food supplies were far less predictable than popping down to Tesco. Survival of the fittest meant that those who were naturally best suited to a fluctuating food supply were most likely to survive and pass on their genes. What that means for us today is that our bodies are very good at storing energy in the form of fat, and also very good at making that fat energy last as long as possible through times of famine. Short periods of low food supply aren't usually a problem, probably because our ancestors were used to this, so their bodies would start out by using the fat stores, but if the shortage went on for too long, what we now call starvation mode would start to kick in, as an attempt to make the fat stores last as long as possible.

It obviously is possible to reach dangerously low weights. Anorexics consuming 500 calories or less a day become desperately thin because the body simply can't manage on that and has to use its fat stores (as well as cannibalising all its muscle), but for most of us eating more sensible amounts of food, the body can cope just fine. It gets very efficient at using less energy to perform the same tasks, and also forces us to slow down by making any activity very hard work. (It also has longer term effects because, once a body that has become very efficient in its energy use, getting it to become less efficient again is time consuming, tricky and generally results in temporary weight gain.)

This is why I try to follow a structured approach to weight loss that anticipates and plans for the body's attempts to hold onto its fat stores. The first way is to cut calories more drastically at first, and gradually increase them as goal weight approaches. The second is to alternate between higher and lower calories every few weeks (which is what I'm doing at the moment to get back to my "cycling weight" of 8 stone). Both of these approaches avoid letting the famine warnings take over because there's a regular increase in food intake, and make losing weight much less of a demoralising struggle.

 

[Glover Fan]

I personally think starvation mode is a load of rubbish. I've had a diet of about 1000 calories a day before to shift weight fast and it worked. Not just for a few days, but up to a month.

Ok this isn't a recommended diet, but makes me think the starvation mode theory is dubious at best.

I can understand the bodies reluctance to shed fat, but you can hardly defy the laws of energy production and I think we are possibly giving the human body more credit than its due in this instance.

 

[ColinJ]

I personally think starvation mode is a load of rubbish. I've had a diet of about 1000 calories a day before to shift weight fast and it worked. Not just for a few days, but up to a month.

Ok this isn't a recommended diet, but makes me think the starvation mode theory is dubious at best.

I can understand the bodies reluctance to shed fat, but you can hardly defy the laws of energy production and I think we are possibly giving the human body more credit than its due in this instance.

I'm cynical about a lot of things but the idea of 'starvation mode' makes perfect sense to me. I believe in evolution and evolutionary principles suggest that if there are two groups of people in a famine, then ones with a starvation mode would be the ones who tended to survive. Over repeated periods of famine, the people who couldn't cope with famines would be weeded out.

How would it work? Slowed down metabolisms!

If muscles need more energy to keep running than fat (which I believe they do) then people who use up all their fat first but maintained their muscles would need more each day on average to survive. The people who were effectively digesting their own muscles would be sparing some of their fat reserves for use later in the famine and also lowering their energy requirements at the same time.

(Having said all of that ... A bunch of lethargic people in starvation mode would eventually die in a long famine whereas those who stayed active and strong longer might have the strength to walk to somewhere outside the famine zone! Perhaps people who live in places that have frequent short famines will be good at surviving them, and people who live in far-flung countries that don't have many famines are the descendants of the fit ones who fled? )

 

[MacB]

ok, so I get the idea behind starvation mode but is there an order the body uses stores in? ie would it use fat before other stuff or use up muscle first, and how does that work?

 

[lulubel]

I personally think starvation mode is a load of rubbish. I've had a diet of about 1000 calories a day before to shift weight fast and it worked. Not just for a few days, but up to a month.

A month isn't a long time to be on a low calorie intake. And even if you have a requirement of 3000 calories a day to maintain your weight, a 2000 calorie a day deficit only represents a loss of about a stone over that month.

Also, you haven't mentioned what your weight was when you started that diet. Generally, the heavier you are, and the more fat you are carrying, the easier it is to lose weight, and the less likely it is that your weight loss will slow due to your body holding onto fat. It generally occurs in people who are already at a relatively low weight, which was why I brought it up in this thread.

I've been a member of a calorie counting and weightloss site for the last few years (haven't been trying to lose weight all that time, but like the community there), and I've lost count of the number of times people have posted about their weight loss stopping or slowing on low calorie diets, and they have solved the problem by increasing their calorie intake.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

My motto is usually "Too much is not enough!" but I'm changing it to "All things in moderation, including moderation itself!"

I like it

 

[Angelfishsolo]

ok, so I get the idea behind starvation mode but is there an order the body uses stores in? ie would it use fat before other stuff or use up muscle first, and how does that work?

Different stores are used by doing different exercise. Slow exercise burns fat whilst intensive exeercise used Glycogen I think.

 

[lulubel]

ok, so I get the idea behind starvation mode but is there an order the body uses stores in? ie would it use fat before other stuff or use up muscle first, and how does that work?

The first thing your body will use is the most easily available energy, which comes from your glycogen stores.

However, totally emptying your glycogen stores isn't its goal because low glycogen means a serious loss of energy, and you might need a sudden burst of energy to survive. So, it will also take energy from another source, and this can either be fat or muscle.

Where it takes it from will depend on how much fat you have on your body, how much you are using your muscles, and whether you are taking in the right amount of food for your needs. Basically, it varies. Once your body reaches a certain tipping point in fat levels, which probably varies from person to person, it will stop using fat and choose muscle as its first preference. Hence the need to exercise and use the muscles (the body won't consume muscles that it uses regularly) and keep food intake at a reasonable level that doesn't trigger fat hoarding.