re: Study of Biggest Losers finds that the body wants and will fight to be Fat

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I believe you. I have "people" with similar results....

777 is spot on with everything he posts, but I disagree with him on this particular item. Calories account for the thermodynamic process that goes on. They do not tell us much about the inner workings of the process/causality (hormonal and micro biome impact are likely the bigger players)

Best example of the "causality" that I am describing

Personally for me, I maintain 225 at 6'2'' I get around 8 to 10% body fat in the summer. I do this all by subtle manipulation of macro nutrients / Leangains approach and adding HIIT to baseline strength training in the summer. I train 3 days/week. I have a very entailed job/career and a family (multiple young children).

I do not feel the need to add the extra stress of calorie counting (google allostatic stress load and the work of Bruce McEwen to get a better understanding why). In many instance it is a prohibitive step for people and added stress torpedoes the process. If it your job to know/do this, great. If you are young and have ample free time to do this, great. If you are outsourcing this to a trainer, great. It is not required for results (compliance with counting calories is very poor in my experience with "people")

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no you are 100% right but this approach is way too complicated and doesn't apply to 99% of the population. I am a huge believer in hormone manipulation through the lean gains approach but even Martin Berkham acknowledges that overall calories absolutely matter. Their are tricks like carb cutoffs, carb back loading, keto, IF and other tricks that allow your to slightly break the laws of thermo but to think the normal dieter is going to do so consistently is being naive.

You and I use the same approach but in my experience it doesn't work for 99% of "normal" people. and like I said earlier, I absolutely hate telling people to weigh and track calories. In my opinion it becomes almost another eating disorder and I prefer normal people to focus on the quality of food similar to the Paleo approach robb wolf uses. Focusing on micronutritents and the quality of the food usually lends to unconsciously meeting your macro needs. The problem is most people have zero idea how much 4oz of meat is or a serving of veggies are. So in the end they overeat because that is what they are used to and they continue the cycle, albeit with just better quality food.

Also I notice people freak about the cost of food when focusing on quality. So the easiest and cheapest thing to do is tell them if it goes in their mouth, it gets measured and logged.

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I don't know why so many want to hate on the study.

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You don't know why skinny people tend to demonize anything empathetic? Think rich people, especially if wealth came easy, how much they empathize with the poor. "let them eat cake".

TBH, I was the same way with school. I make straight A's with just casual studying......"people making C's must not be even showing up to class" Certain things are just naturally easier for some over others...but how they treat others who things don't come easy for is an issue.

Calling someone who is having a difficult time with Chemistry a stupid lazy frick is the right approach??

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Got a decent hybrid bike in March and have been addicted to riding lately.

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good thing about bikes is you burn a lot of calories and don't realize it. Get an app like Strava or MapMyRide. Uses your phone's GPS to monitor your rides. You'll be surprised at how many calories you burn per hour. I did an hour on the bike yesterday and burned 563 calories (according to my training computer. It was a higher intensity ride).

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I get what you are saying my point was 100% of the bag of cookies in the reference contains things your body can't use. Where as the percentage of the banana that is bad for you (the fructose part) isn't all 110 calories. There is also Fiber and protein in the banana that contains calories that aren't bad for you.

Another example 100 calories of white bread vs 100 calories of broccoli. Same concept calorie in vs calorie shouldn't be the be all indicator. Then you have the same problem of people eating preservative/sodium bombs that are lean cuisine frozen dinners, and 100 calorie snack packs of chips when they would be better off eating a 200 calorie handful of almonds.

But for the most part it boils down to calories in calories out I agree. Still for real maintained success more work needs to be done on understanding what those calories are. Following the calories in calories out model will not stop you from eating crap food.

Here is the kicker though and the part that amazed me. When you actually eat nutrient rich good foods your hunger and desire to constantly eat virtually disappears on its own.

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Oh i agree with you that learning to eat nutritionally dense food is important for long term success I 100% agree with your approach and its how I advice people to do things but in the end many many people have lost weight with the if it fits your macros approach while having ice cream every night. Just like the DR that did the twinkie diet study. He ate nothing but twinkies for like 12 weeks just staying below TDEE and he lost both weight and Body fat.

Now your way will 100% work faster IMO and is much healthier long term and also will allow for much better body comp. But again their are competitors that follow the iifym approach all the way until the end. So although you and I agree the way you are talking about is the best way both short term and long term there are those that have success strictly by meeting their macros.

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are you comparing losing weight to learning chemistry?

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comparing only the attitude that someone has to another who has difficulty in something that comes easy to them.

Using the Chem/Calculus example is just for perspective.

I've found that IIFYM has been working for my weight gain.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am tracking my food and sometimes think I've eaten a lot more (in terms of calories) than I really have.

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i'll tell you one thing that annoys me if you say no to sweets, people take that shite PERSONALLY

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Soooo true. Sweets are my weakness as well. Hate when I go in the nurse's lounge and see someone brought cookies, donuts, etc.


And then get upset if you don't have any. I've tried to having a small portion to satisfy my sweet tooth and satisfy the person who brought it. But that always leads to me saying "screw it" and having a larger portion.

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no you are 100% right but this approach is way too complicated and doesn't apply to 99% of the population.

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Okay I get where you are at now. I agree I'm obsessive over my nutrition no and that might be daunting for most I am constantly researching foods and food combos that are better for what workout I'm doing etc. When i need to go protein heavy or carb heavy depending on if I'm running or lifting that day.

Admittedly thought I didn't start doing that till 2 months in after I started seeing noticeable results, so I can see what you mean about it being too much for people starting out.

Plus I had the added scare of thinking I had a heart attack at 36 which turned out to be a pulled muscle. Very good wake up call though I admit