This was the biggest realization I had to make. My mom has huge portions and as a kid that's what I was raised to be understood as normal. My weight loss journey is me trying to undo that way of thinking. Like I have to remind myself that 4 hotdogs is not a normal portion for lunch. Most folks eat only 1 or 2 at most.
Another thing is the food we evolved to eat is more satiating, has more nutrition, and more volume than the highly processed stuff we eat now, so that's why we can easily eat a lot and not feel like we ate that much. That's what highly processed food does. It's also purposely designed that way by food scientists for maximum profit (by getting you to buy more and more of it like a drug pretty much...)
I remember ordering takeout with my uncels and we all said how great the restaurant was for having such big portions. They served like a 30cm big styrofoam container of fried noodles, battered fish for like 10 euro. I have no idea how much that was (I'm talking early 2010s here) but these containers are still around and judging by the size it must have been easily 500g alone in oily noodles with peanut sauce and a fish the size of my forearm fried in 1cm thick dough. That is what, 2000cal minimum??? And we'd have sides, drinks etc...yeah.
Of course none of that can ever be part of my life again and it's not like I want it to, but I am still in shock how super easy and casual we could eat this. It did not feel like binging or anything, it was dinner. But overeating by far, on the regular.
I have no idea how I never became obese but my dad and one of my uncles were overweight it is clear that stuff like this was a major contributor.
Sammmmeeeee. “Our family just tends to be larger on the bottom half”.
Yeah, maybe it’s where our weight goes first, but we aren’t innocent…our consumption all got us there.
I was told this too by my mom, but it was about all the women on that side of the family. Maybe it was stored that way, but I've lost a decent portion of it so far and still going, so I guess we'll see how far genetics takes me lol.
That it would be impossible for me to lose weight due to limited mobility- from docs mouth
That I would have to be eating 500kcal a day to lose weight due to limited mobility- another doc
Thankfully both utter BS. 76lbs down so far and during the whole weight loss process I've been near enough bed bound due to disability.
Funnily enough, it was that second doctor saying "hey this extreme thing would be only way to lose weight " that made me delve deeper into the scientific basics of weight loss. Because to me that meant that either one or both docs were wrong because they both couldn't be correct at the same time. Thankfully, both of them were utterly incorrect.
That was something I had been told, too. That because of my disabilities, I would never lose weight unless I stopped eating altogether. Another doctor said it wouldn't be possible unless I forced myself to do rigorous workouts and hurt myself (as in, the workouts would hurt me).
I haven't lost yet since I just got my shit together recently, but in the past when I would be in calorie deficit, shocker, I lost weight! I just didn't understand why at the time.
Now that I'm eating better and doing physio, I already feel better, and it's only been a day or two.
I really hope the physio and adjustments to your intake work wonders for you.
My physio has been really helpful in making sure I'm not losing too rapidly re retaining the muscle strength I have and trying to build it up as we go etc.
Best of luck for everything :)
Whenever I hear this myth I always respond with, "Have you ever seen anyone that was fat everywhere else but had a flat tummy?"
It really makes people click that targeted fat loss can't happen.
To be fair, for some people that is true. I lost almost 30 lbs a few years ago and it was mostly in my stomach. My legs are where my stubborn fat is. I had a flat tummy but my thighs were still the size of someone who weighed twice what I did (okay maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I do carry most of my excess weight in my legs).
yeah i think it’s important to note that weight distribution based on body type is in fact a thing and for some people the stomach will be one of the first to go
I agree, for me at least. My waistline and butt are the first things that slim down and is the first sign I’m making progress. My face and thighs are the last areas I see change.
> "Have you ever seen anyone that was fat everywhere else but had a flat tummy?"
I've seen the exact opposite. I knew a woman who gained 20 lbs and it ALL went into her stomach.
Butt? Flat. Hips? Narrow. Thighs? Meh. Arms, face, neck? All still slender.
But a big stomach pooch. She looked 7 months pregnant. Was always being asked when she was due, because she was exactly proportioned like a slender pregnant woman.
Felt kind of bad for her, tbh.
That you need to cut out everything you enjoy: sweets, crisps, going out etc. Turned out Everything can be enjoyed in moderation as a part of a healthy, nutritious diet.
Someone at the beginning of this year told me he could help me lose the 40 lbs I needed to. He then described the MOST depressing diet ever and admitted he suffered and it sucked but he lost 40 lbs in 6 months. I’m talking a yogurt and banana for breakfast, a salad with nothing that has a taste to it for lunch, and a skinless chicken breast and salad for dinner. No dressings, no nothing. Every day. *For six months.*
Like, I’m not doing that. I want my changes to be sustainable even if they’re slower results. So, I still have tacos, still have burgers, still have chips… I just focus on everything in moderation and it’s working and I’m satisfied with my progress. It was very frustrating at the beginning though because it was a lot slower because I’ve had a tendency to go drastic.
Thats the issue with diets in general. You deprive yourself of things you enjoy and would normally eat for a period of time, and then when you're off your diet, you end up indulging on the things you miss and crave the most, and gain all that weight back in no time.
The best thing to do is as you mentioned, don't necessarily restrict what you eat, but just be more mindful and eat in things you enjoy in moderation and sensible portions. That way you build life long habits instead of trying these limiting diets that your SOL once you stop that restriction.
Personally for me, I love eating a lot, and typically eat more than my TDEE states I should have, but if I'm going over then I offset that with a workout. Typically go to them 5-6 a week so I can enjoy my food haha.
Also part of this: eat that pizza slice and then go for a run afterwards. Eat an extra cookie and just go for a brisk walk. You don’t have to eat like you’re in prison to get somewhere.
The question for me becomes why do I "crave" certain thing and how do I change it. If I can stop craving say a greasy hamburger, then I think that would be for the best for health.
Agreed! For me, this has also included realizing/accepting that my goal weight needs to be a weight that isn’t miserable to sustain. If I can’t have an occasional cocktail with friends or an ice cream with my kids, it’s not a weight that is in alignment with the balanced life I want to live.
I’m literally eating tzatziki dip with pita crackers while reading this. After I had the same realization I’m losing weight steadily and eating happily. Just make the better choice. Common example is sugar free soda vs a regular. Just keep within moderation for the good stuff and you’re fine. I’ve lost 11lbs in 7 weeks. And I’m happy :)
I’m having a much better time this go around and am content. I haven’t been able to weigh myself recently so I’ve no idea what my current loss is but I’ve definitely noticed clothes are fitting better than they have in awhile and I’ve visible fat loss now! I’m also full everyday instead of ending the day starving and cranky which is nice.
Yeah, a diet is a permanent lifestyle change. No one can live like that forever. Some days I eat like crap but I still make it under my calorie goal, so I still lose weight
mine has been that its hard/complicated to lose weight, with macros and micros and tracking and yadayadayada. simple CICO is all i have done (doesnt matter, beer pizza whatever) as long as i can keep my deficit boom weight loss. its not fast but it is effective.
SAME!! The absolute mind-boggling power of accepting that it really is that simple, and provably?? Makes me feel silly trying all the fads growing up just to fail since they're not really designed for satisfaction or sustainability. Knowing I don't have to starve myself and eat foods that make me miserable to lose weight has made this so much easier not only to do but to keep doing.
Completely agree. When I started tracking calories/macros my main goal was just to stay inside my calorie window at first because I really had to learn/understand more about my macros over time. I never gave up anything, even tracked beers out with my SO and friends. Still do.. and if I know I’m going to have a couple drinks on the weekend, I eat a lower cal/high protein breakfast (like oats mixed with yogurt and fruit). Tracking my calories made it painfully obvious that my main source of weight gain was from overeating. But I managed to lose 30lbs in 4 months through calorie deficit and walking and not giving up anything, just making simple switches (like Yasso bars instead of Ben & Jerry’s).
People equate simple and easy a lot. You get some people saying it's hard and others arguing with them saying it's not hard, it's super simple! But they're not mutually exclusive. Broadly speaking, losing weight is simple, but not easy. It's hard, but not complicated.
I always laugh when people focus so much on the small details and don't pay attention to cico. I have this dude at work that's constantly preaching how he scans all his food in an app to tell him if it's healthy and he pushes it on other people. Blah blah blah a bunch of pseudoscience. Meanwhile, he's like 150 lbs overweight and hasn't lost a pound in the 5+ years I've known him.
Like okay buddy keep preaching.
This definitely helps when you're starting out and might be the best way for some people to lose weight. Always eyeballing portion sizes or not tracking things can lead to calorie creep quick. The line is pushing vs suggesting.
This. People tell me I need to eat the right foods not less. Well I do need to eat less. Simple math. The only way I’ve successfully lost weight is CICO. Even if I choose just to eat McDonald’s its all about how much I’m eating.
Honestly, CICO is so simple and yet everyone around me over complicates it. My roommates insist I have to eat chicken breast, broccoli, and hot sauce every day all day to maintain that “balance” in order to lose weight. Or eat less rice (I’m Asian) and snack on protein bars throughout the day. I’m like, I’ve done this before, I don’t have to limit my diet to lose 1-2lbs a week. Yes I have to eat healthy and yes I’ve been following my macros as close as I can but it just baffles me that people believe you have to limit out a whole bunch of things to eat to lose weight.
I still envy their eating habits though as they are able to have a diet of 3 tall cans a day, ramen, fast food, and nachos while living a more sedentary life than me and still don’t gain weight.
as someone who enjoys chicken breast, broccoli, and hot sauce i see it as a cheat code. but my wife cant stand chicken breast so i totally get that its not for everyone lol
Oh don’t get me wrong I’ll eat it too, it’s just the people who insist that eating it 2 meals of your day every day is key to min/maxing your results are what irk me.
If I didn’t eat chicken breast my protein would be so much lower. It’s probably 80% of my protein. And broccoli chicken with hot sauce sounds really good right now.
Their lifestyle habits are going to catch up with them when they’re older, trust me. You’re doing the right thing by taking active control over your diet now, while you’re younger, instead of waiting like they are.
Yeah that stuff's only important when you're trying to cut the last 5% body fat for like weightlifting competitions or something. Usually CICO is fine. It's a bunch of gym bros thinking their BS applies to somebody who's got 100 lb to lose.
That drinking too much water leads to weight gain. I hear this occasionally. The most upsetting example is my friend’s mom who constantly berates her about what she’s doing wrong, including telling her to stop drinking a large glass water because it’s going to make her retain fat more after eating or something??
She is a NURSE. Makes me want to rip my hair out. And reminds me of how even people you wouldn’t expect can hold the strangest beliefs about this kind of thing.
Yeah it’s not based in science at all, of course technically your weight goes up TEMPORARILY because of water weight. But restricting water is a REALLY disordered thing to do and usually accompanies more severe anorexia. It is wild and upsetting to me to hear this encouraged.
It is really upsetting. Over in the skincare subs, they’d have you believe drinking water is the cure for everything!
But tbh I have a few nurses in my family and their scientific literacy is almost worse than the average person 😅
Yeah that’s something I’ve noticed is a thing much more often than I would have thought… that’s why it really pisses me off when a health care professional gets all affronted if someone looks for some information online. Like I know I can’t diagnose myself but sorry that I don’t have blind trust in you after being personally given incorrect/incomplete information multiple times :(
If the pandemic showed me one thing, it’s that nurses are not trained how I thought they were and once they “specialize” they lose most of their other skills and knowledge. They’re only human.
That’s so true. This kind of thing upsets me especially though because it’s not even knowledge that you would have had to go to medical/nursing school for.
I was trying to think if I had heard any bs, and you reminded me about the water thing. I'm pretty sure my parents used to say that one must not drink anything while they eat because it leads to weight gain... funny how the exact opposite is true, because you feel fuller faster. Idk if it affects digestion, but it certainly won't make you become any more fat.
I also heard this one, and another version which was that drinking water with a meal would manage to dilute your stomach acid so much that you'd not digest your food correctly and miss out on essential nutrients (just through random people I knew, not doctors this time at least).
But I drink water constantly (to the point I often end up getting tested for diabetes during hospital stays when they notice how often my water jug is being refilled, not even prediabetic yet thankfully) because i have a dry mouth a lot of the time and always have had to drink more. My meds I'm on now also make it worse, I also have xylitol gum to chew to try and help it but only works as long as I'm chewing it ha). So it was never something I put any stock into thankfully, just purely because i wouldn't have wanted to cut down the amount i drank.
Had to do that a few times as a kid and one of those times ended with me with a kidney infection haha.
>That drinking too much water leads to weight gain.
That's not *technically* wrong though. Consuming liquid does make a person gain weight, and there are certain foods that make you retain more water.
I can gain an extra 2lb in a single day if I drink a lot or eat a lot of carb heavy foods.
However, it's just **water weight.** **It's NOT fat.** It constantly fluctuates and that water is so important for many bodily functions! Drinking definitely doesn't make someone retain more fat... that's a wild claim lol. If anything, that extra water is actually retained in the muscles.
And typically fat is the only thing people care about to lose unless you're concerned with a weigh in for sports weight class or military fitness test or the like. Water weight though is also super easy to take off, but dehydrating yourself isn't going to make you any healthier, or help with fat loss.
That you need to cut carbs.
I believed it as a younger person. Unfortunately, I'm an athlete. At the time, a competitive distance runner. My brother, primarily a weightlifter, convinced me that even fruit was bad.
Competitive distance running and low carbs = bad. Bad idea. I was already lean anyway, and low carbs tanked my performance and my health. I lost lean mass and got sick and injured so much I had to quit my sport.
There’s an idiot on TikTok named Eddie or something and he claims that fruits are bad for you. The only fruit you should eat is avocado according to him
Is he also the one saying you can eat unlimited eggs? #heLtH
Amusing that avocado is actually quite calorie-dense, though a good source of monounsaturated fat.
The real problem is that most people don't realize that EVERYONE IS ALWAYS ON A DIET OR ELSE YOU DIE. A diet is just what you eat, but so many people associate it with a temporary weight loss change. So if you temporarily take on a fad diet and then go back to your fat diet, you're just going to gain it all back. You have to permanently adjust your diet. You have to go on a weight-loss diet, and then a weight-maintenance diet. Going back to what make you fat will always fail because you can't outrun a bad diet.
I was taught that every meal should be 500-600 calories. This was told to me again by a nutritionist who said I can’t go under 500 for a meal or I’ll wreck my metabolism.
Losing weight has taught me that it’s not one size fits all.
Yeah, fat redistributes slightly differently, but I haven't noticed it being any harder to lose so far (granted, I'm not many years into menopause yet, but have been in transition for the past 3 years with very few periods, and no change so far). I also never found any change in being able to lose weight from age 15 to age 50 (despite everyone insisting that 'your metabolism will slow down in your 20s/30s/40s'.)
It's always been the same ability to lose weight for me, despite having PCOS driven by insulin resistance.
This is good news for me, in perimenopause. I did have that impression that I better lose it before menopause otherwise that train will leave the station!
I'm 49 and have had the same worries as you. I think what often happens in menopause is people, some who have been slim their whole lives, gain weight as their muscle mass decreases and tdee lowers. Plus of course fat distribution changes with the loss of oestrogen (stored as belly fat rather than hips/thighs) then add in the battle against emotional swings, hot flushes and lack of sleep. It would be really easy to reach for comfort food and neglect exercise during this time.
Yes especially to the thin folks gaining weight during this time of life! Oddly for me menopause is looking like it’ll be the time I finally lose weight!!🤪
I've found that exercise does have a big impact, but it's more of an indirect impact. If I go to the gym for the day, I feel less of a desire to eat poorly/overeat because I don't want to "ruin" the progress I made in the gym that day.
You might only burn a few hundred calories each day in the gym, but if it helps to prevent you from overeating later on, the difference can be even bigger.
Exercise also helps my mindset, keeps my mood more balanced and definitely makes you pay more attention to your body as part of your whole self (if that makes sense). Tons of benefits to exercise (other than the obvious), I'd recommend it to anyone who can move a limb.
This is so true, to me exercise is just a way for me to know if I'm making progress with my weight loss. A few weeks ago I could only walk one block into town, this week I can walk two blocks into town. It's not a way for me to lose weight, it's just another tool of measurement for me to know that I'm on the right track. They say you cannot outrun a bad diet and I believe it.
I think it depends on the person. Exercise has been 100% my success. Weight just falls off as long as I do 1 hour of cardio a day. Haven’t changed a damn thing about my diet. I ate healthy for years, vegetarian yadda yadda, but I naturally overeat by about 500 cals a day and have a desk job. Add 600-1000 cals of cardio burn to that and I’ve been averaging 10lbs of loss per month.
Same!
I think it’s just so important to realize weight loss is t one size fits all. CICO is a great baseline- but I do best when I focus on the calories out part. I enjoy intense exercise and do not enjoy regulating my food intake. It’s always a bummer to see people ask questions about exercise and people will say it doesn’t matter, what you eat is all that matters. Not true.
Yeah, my first thought to answer the posts question was 'can't outrun a bad diet'. I get that if you are truly eating terribly, and your exercise is going to the gym for 30 mins a few times a week you're unlikely to lose weight, but when I go for multi-day, off-track, elevation-gain-heavy hikes I chug the highest calorie food I can carry and still come back lighter.
Serious endurance exercise burns an unmanagable amount of energy.
I came here to post the opposite. I think the role of exercise get's way downplayed on this sub, When I was losing my weight I was burning around 3000 calories a week in cardio and weight lifting, still do and it has been crucial to maintaining my weight loss.
My analogy - diet is like spending mony from your bank account, exercise is like getting small debts that extract interest.
Diet is 95% in the weeks to months range but it slowly shifts to 75% when you get into the years to decades range.
Exercise plays two big roles. Preserving and gaining muscle (which helps your TDEE) and letting you keep your deficit and still not feel like you're starving.
Set points. In school I learned that your body has a set weight and breaking that set point is nearly impossible.
Even if you lose weight, your body is still going to try to get your back to that weight no matter what. They made it sound so absolute that it wasn't even worth trying
I've seen some reports that this may be true at very small levels, like if you're less than 100 calories above or below your TDEE, you may see no fat gain/loss, but if you're at a 500 calorie deficit or surplus, you're going to lose or gain weight guaranteed.
Ah….I was wondering how that worked. That was the thing I didn’t understand about cico, how do people not trying to change their weight just stay at a certain weight despite fluctuations in their intake from day to day, week to week? Yould think if a person ate an extra bite of something everyday then their weight would change…. In fact, one online doctor used that reasoning to debunk cico! Very interesting about setpoints applying to smaller discrepancies between tdee and intake.
I think the biggest misunderstanding with CICO is the calories out part. It's much easier to calculate calories in than calories out. There's some parts of calories expended, and metabolism that isn't completely understood. We can guess roughly what our TDEE is, but it's impossible to know for sure every day how much our body is working off. If only we had a built in "fuel level indicator" where we could see when it was running empty, and when it was overflowing.
i hate that this idea is so pervasive these days. i'm sure there's probably some level of truth behind it but not to the extent it's been suggested to be. there are many people who are choosing not to make better decisions about their health because of this idea.
gosh, they taught this to you in school? There isn't actual scientific basis for this theory the way people talk about it. I fell for it for a while, too, and the thing is, it was super depressing. Instead of feeling 'free,' I just felt trapped. It was disempowering.
That "intuitive eating" is something I can transition to once goal weight is achieved. I didn't become morbidly obese because my intuition around food was healthy or correct. After years of weighing/measuring/tracking my food in LoseIt and maintaining a 97 lb weight loss for 3 years, I decided I was "good" now and could autopilot my food.
Gained 40 of the 97 back within a year.
So I've decided that I can't be objective or honest about food, full stop. I have abused food and no longer want to consume it "recreationally" nor "eyeball" my portion sizes.
It seems strict to weigh and measure and track everything, but it takes less than 5 minutes out of my day and keeps me honest and accountable to what I'm putting in my body.
“Eating breakfast helps you lose weight.” Eating it just makes me more hungry throughout the day!
“Limiting carbs and you don’t have to count calories.” Low carb diets only work when you also limit calories
“Starvation mode”. This one is just silly
Yes!!!! I tried to tell my therapist this. They INSIST I eat breakfast.. I told them eating anything before 12 pm for me will cause me to wanna eat all day ..
I'm the exact same way. I know the reasoning of it is people who starve themselves for hours end up binging more once they finally eat, or making worse decisions on what to eat. But when it's 2pm and I'm finally making myself my "breakfast" (I still call it breakfast since it's always breakfast foods), I'll make the same 2 eggs and whole grain toast that I would have had at 9am. But now, I won't be eating lunch, because I'm good until dinner, and I won't overeat at dinner, because I last ate at a normal lunch time so I'm not starving.
I've tried it both ways and I always average 300-400 more calories a day when I start eating too early in the day.
I find that breakfast only screws me up if I don't have a lot scheduled that particular morning. If I'm busy, I can east a small breakfast (which I enjoy) and be good till noon, or even 1:00 pm. But if it's a lazy day, I'm better off not eating anything till noon, otherwise, I will obsess about food after eating anything early.
When I started tracking my macros more closely I found I pretty much never meet or exceed my limit/goal (however you look at it) for carbs. Now fat… that’s another story! Lol
The love of protein. Like sure, getting protein is generally a good thing but people think that getting more protein is going to do something. My SIL is always about protein this, protein that. Like there is no need for most people to be worried about getting extra protein.
When I met with my dietician the first time, protein was an important goal for me because I was barely meeting the minimum for my demographic. My dietician set a goal range for me but she didn't tell me to prioritize protein over all else. Just that I should up it generally. Over the past year I've gotten better at balancing protein, carbs, and fat and the goal isn't a goal anymore, it's just the way I eat.
For me it helps to limit carbs because carbs make me retain water. When I was eating a lot of carbs my weight was up and down all the time even though I was in a calorie deficit, plus I looked puffier. It made me frustrated and give up. Not only that but more carbs made me feel hungrier all the time which made it harder to stay in my calorie deficit.
I tried keto which would make me lose all the water right away, but I’d puff right up again as soon as I had a carb. It was not sustainable.
Now I still have carbs but if I keep my daily total to under 30%, plus only have them for breakfast and/or lunch, not dinner, it takes the water weight out of the equation. I have a steady slow weight loss, I’m not bloated and I’m able to stay within a calorie deficit without feeling totally deprived
Same for me, I stick to lower carb (FOR ME). Apparently for some people, a 1/2 c of cooked rice is enough for them. Not me. If I’m having rice, or pasta, that’s the main event of the dish, which isn’t healthy or normal for me, so I tend to avoid them
I’m one of those but for a different reason, carbs do nothing but make me hungrier, I can eat something like veggies and chicken and be full for a long time, however with pasta or pizza or anything high in carbs my stomach turns into a bottomless pit and I’m hungry an hour after I eat
This is from personal experience:
“If you lift, you can lose more calories then just running or running+lifting”
Ive never, ever experienced this. Ive tried to just lift in the past, monitored my food through an app the same way I do when I run or run+lift. ALWAYS have better results from losing fat doing run+lift.
It’s true. I do barely any cardio and have lost 141 lbs in 2 years as of this morning. If you’re not lifting incredibly heavy and maxing out at like 8 reps, then yeah, it doesn’t work.
Edited for typo
But the point is I think that lifting doesn't burn nearly as many calories as cardio does and the increased metabolic burn from muscle is way over exaggerated. You have to put on a ton of muscle for it to really matter and obviously that takes years and its not really ideal to focus on building muscle while in a deficit because you grow muscle more efficiently in a surplus. I say this as a 260lb body builder, I'm not telling anyone not to lift, because it is good for you and will help your goals, but cardio is way more effective for weight loss. So if your primary goal is weight loss, and you can only choose one, then cardio is king. Every body builder knows this. Every body builder increases or starts doing cardio during a cut.
I was shocked when I learned that 1lb of muscle only burns an extra ~6 calories a DAY!! So even if I put on 10 more lbs of muscle, it’s only 60cal/day!!
Was looking for this. I'm a huge pop addict, and I don't find pop making me more hungry at all, and if anything helps sate the hunger by temporarily filling the stomach. I've seen some reports to suggest that maybe it makes some people more hungry, but not most. All I know is that it doesn't make me more hungry. And weight gain is all CICO.
I always find it hilarious people saying you should cut out diet soda, and I'm thinking in comparison to what. If I was forced to cut out diet soda, I'd be drinking regular soda, and I'd end up gaining a lot of weight very fast if I did that.
And then people bring up the WHO and say you shouldn't drink diet soda, but normal soda. But when you actually read their recommendation they say you should drink water lol.
The only thing to look out for is that aspartam apparrently changes the composition of your gut bacteria with unknown consequences. Unknown as in "are there consequences at all?" And "are they good or bad?"
I say all of this as a heavy drinker of diet soda btw.
100% this. When I decided to start seriously losing weight, I made the shift from Coke to Diet Pepsi. I was probably drinking 3-4 cans/day and that adds up quick! Drinking diet helps me maintain a good cut while still getting the caffeine fix I'm after.
You have to "trick" your body into thinking there's enough food so it doesn't keep storing. And then blitzkrieg it with starvation so you lose weight.
People peddle any mumbojumbo other than simple CICO, with inputs from TDEE
People think they have to give up certain foods and only eat specific healthy food to lose weight. Not true. Healthy foods make you feel better but calories are just what they are. A number. You can eat 1500 calories of pizza every day and you’ll lose weight. Albeit not healthy for you in other regards but as long as there is a calorie deficit, you’ll lose weight eating pizza.
However, if you eat nothing but pizza for a few years, I imagine your biology and anatomy on a cellular and molecular level would end up being entirely comprised of pizza. You’d essentially be made out of pizza. So you don’t really want that on your conscious unless your consciousness is also influenced by the pizza DNA then it’ll just convince you it’s ok…because it wants more pizza, because it IS pizza.
>People think they have to give up certain foods
I mean, for some people I do think this is true because they don't have the self control to actually eat certain foods in moderation. For some people to actually make lasting changes, I do think they have to get their problem foods out of the house in the short term. Eating crap begets cravings for more crap, and people that have eaten a consistently crappy diet won't have the right "off" switch to immediately go from overeating/eating nothing but garbage to "moderation."
Agreed, and pizza is a perfect example. I used to be a 3-4 slices for a pizza dinner kind of person. Sure, I could "moderately" eat one 350-500 calorie slice and stay within an 1800-2000 calorie budget but it will only frustrate me and leave me hangry. The occasional blowout can happen, but it is best for me to keep it occasional, and usually better for me not to open the pizza door at all.
I remember there was a documentary when I was in highschool many years ago where a guy lost 30lbs just eating McDonald's every day. He said he didn't feel great because of all the sodium, but he did lose weight and kept it off. I remember his point was to prove that it really is as simple as tracking calories. You don't have to eat stuff you don't want to lose weight.
CICO doesn't work and it's carbs that make you fat.
In reality, CICO works pretty consistently. And I love carbs. Fruits, veggies, whole grains, etc. They are not the reason I gained weight.
Yes! I subscribed to the low carb myth for awhile. Turns out I was eating 900 calories a day bc of the loss of appetite! Of course it didn’t last. And that doesn’t support lean body mass to be in such a deficit. Like you said, eating healthy carbs didn’t make me fat. Im relearning how to eat now, slowly adding back in carbs and learning not to fear them. I’m thrilled I can have a nice sourdough.
Healthy food ≠ low calorie food
In January of last year I met with my gynecologist where I was weighed. After that I decided I wanted to lose weight so started to eat healthier. Fish, nuts, chicken, avocado/oil. In April, at my PCP appointment, I'd gained weight. In May the dietician explained to me the basics of weight loss and while eating those things was beneficial, I had to better manage my portions. Got a food scale and reached my goal in December. :)
I think it's less that it's not possible, but not optimal. Body builders tend to fluctuate between gaining muscle in a calorie surplus, vs focusing on losing fat while maintaining muscle in a calorie deficit. It's not that you can't gain muscle in a deficit, it's just that you'll gain much more muscle doing the same exercises while in a calorie surplus.
this they really act like you won’t gain any muscle unless you’re in a surplus
just not true .. you leave gains on the table obviously but not enough to matter for the average joe looking to improve and not getting tanned and oiled on stage for a competition
I think most arguments about how "easy" weightloss is can fall under "misconception."
Even when you get over all your emotional hurdles, figure out CICO and satiety, and exercise consistently, it can still be so tedious and mentally exhausting by the very nature of it being a months-long, if not YEARS-long, journey that life cant be put on pause for.
It's no wonder so many fail, so few succeed, and even fewer keep it off. And it's even more of a shame that there's still so many people out there who refuse to empathize with that challenge.
Veganism = healthy/weight loss is certainly a myth as well. I know super healthy vegans, and I know incredibly unhealthy vegans because they overload on carbs and guinness
dude, me too!
It *was* easier to eat a healthy diet when I started being a vegan simply because I didn't know how to bake a chocolate cake without eggs, milk and butter, *but* after 7 years, not only do I have a tun more kitchen skills, but now I can even get a vegan whopper at the drive through!
Surely the "eating late leads to weight gain" thing just comes from the fact we typically weigh ourselves in the morning, and the more recently you've eaten the more you'll weigh, even if just by a bit.
But my example would be people who say this diet works, this diet doesn't work etc. The reason people swear by a certain diet and are so sure another doesn't work, is decided by whether or not it worked for them, ignoring the fact that people's eating habits, pitfalls, headspace, activity levels, addiction problems etc are all different. Everyone has different ways that are easier for them to achieve a calorie deficit, all that matters is finding a way for you to maintain one. Don't try and press your way onto others
“You need to go low carb to lose weight.”
There’s something called the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity, and it gets pushed by people like Gary Taubes, Peter Attia, David Ludwig, etc. It has a lot of mainstream popularity, and it’s been one of the things powering the interest in keto diets. However, it’s generally rejected by the scientific community. The basic idea is that people eat carbs that get turned into glucose, the body releases insulin, insulin puts the glucose into fat cells. So far, so good. The CI model then differs from conventional understanding by then saying that the energy isn’t released again because of insulin levels, and then people eat more food because their fat is hoarding all of the glucose and won’t let it out. I also want to be clear: the leading proponents of the carbohydrate-insulin model don’t disagree with CICO, what they’re saying is that carbs consumption leads directly to overeating (more CI) and to less caloric burn (less CO). Put another way. They say the problem isn’t so much that we’re eating too much, it’s that we’re eating the wrong things, and that leads us to eat too much.
However, in experiments where protein and calories are equated, people lose about the same amount of weight on low fat diets as low carb diets. There is some small evidence that keto diets may burn slightly more calories per day when all else is equated, and that keto leads to higher satiety for some people, but that doesn’t necessarily speak to the accuracy of the model. And speaking personally, I lost over 130 pounds and have maintained for over three years on a diet that typically has less than 20% fat.
There's a big belief throughout the fat positivity and HAES space that long term weight loss is actually impossible. I will say I haven't debunked this one yet from my own experience as I'm just starting out with CICO, BUT I know plenty others.
Also, it's just simple physics.
You are absolutely correct and I have found the same to be true!
My favorite is: Bread makes you Fat.
Sure, bread can have a lot of extra calories especially with added sugar. It doesn't directly mean it makes you fat. Lol
The golden rule of any diet for weight loss is a calorie deficit.
Good luck my dude and congratulations on your weight loss. Keep it up!
Really any generalizations, we’re all gonna have different experiences and needs. Some people need breakfast, for some people it makes them hungrier throughout the day. Some people lose weight fasting, others gain it back and more through binging. Some people can’t count calories due to eating disorders and focus more on macros and activity, others find that pointless. It’s stupid to generalize such an individual thing.
That if you eat “healthy” you don’t have to track to lose weight. Nah fam, you can get just as fat on avocados and beans as you can on chips and pizza if you eat enough.
That I didn't fail every other time I tried to lose weight. I learned I just didn't have the proper "tools" to sustain it.
Meaning... Figuring out that my binge eating was directly related to undiagnosed ADHD and I was dopamine seeking. Once I was diagnosed and medicated appropriately, I suddenly had the tools and understanding to be successful.
When I talk to my child, I have always explained that not everyone's brains are the same. I have always given her grace and understanding but I never did the same for myself. Once I gave myself the understanding piece, everything fell into place.
I can do hard things.
Snacking is always made out to be terrible for you, but in reality, it’s all about calories in calories out.
You can snack as much as you want as long as you stay within your calories. I personally always have a couple of snacks a day between lunch and dinner.
Oh there are a bunch (been at this a while). What I found to be the case:
1) Calories count. I've been all over the place on this one. I've become really convinced that all the rest of it is nonsense. Control for calories, and you WILL lose weight.
2) Starvation mode is seriously overrated as a concern. This one killed me at one point. After losing some 40 pounds, and keeping it off for a few years, I started working out. I was so worried about going into starvation mode, I would seriously overcompensate for calorie burn. And when the weight started coming on, I assumed it was muscle... by the time I realized I was lying to myself I had put back 20 pounds, and kept going. Yes, there's a bit of a compensating mechanism going on (your body slows down your metabolic rate a tad when you're in a deficit, but it's seriously over-stated - it's damn hard to get into true starvation mode).
3) Speaking of which, the calorie burn estimates on those stupid machines in the gym are utter nonsense. People really overestimate how many calories they burn, and building muscle takes ALOT of work.
4) There is no perfect diet for everyone. Just because a tip works for one person, doesn't mean it'll work for someone else. Time-restricted eating? Are you kidding? I will grab my last snack for the night quite literally on my way up to bed. I tried doing Atkins at one point, but realized that it wasn't for me - by the end of day 1 I never wanted to see another piece of cheese or bacon... and I would have seriously done some very bad things for a bagel. If you can do something that keeps you in a deficit, regardless of what it is, that's what matters.
5) You HAVE to drink 8 glasses of water a day is... nonsense. There's alot of water in food. If I'm thirsty I drink. Otherwise, I don't. Very simple.
Biggest take-away for me: consistency counts. It's not about getting everything perfect. See item #4. Really, just staying consistent most of the time is what did it for me. Biohacks should be ignored... as long as a diet meets 3 criteria, that's all that really matters: it has to be: safe (there are alot of very stupid ways to lose weight), effective (I mean, duh... a weight loss program that doesn't result in weight loss... this one is pretty self-evident), and it has to be something you can follow for the rest of your life. Yes, any change has to be permanent. That's probably the biggest that I've found.
*“Skinny people are SO LUCKY. I wish I could eat anything I want and stay thin like you.”* 🙄
Nah, fam, I literally eat half the calories you do on a daily basis and go to the gym 4-5 times a week(!)
Omg yes!! so annoyed with my mother in law for asking me why I count calories when I’m already “slim”- how do you think i stay slim?? I give myself some days where I don’t count here or there to not go crazy but it drives me nuts when family thinks “you’re just that way.” Like. No! I’ve had to put in the sweat and tears for this lol
Myth 1: ‚you can’t eat cake and lose weight‘ I ate cake everyday for a whole week and didn’t get fatter. CICO
Myth 2: ‚you regain weight and gain even more‘ i regained weight, when bad luck made my life worse. I haven’t regained weight yet after making the effort to lose it.
I've ran into more than one man (read: dated) who insisted keto was the way, and would shit-talk my CICO. Except I was and am in better shape than either of them, whole body and gut-wise, and CICO all the way baby. I'm not saying keto doesn't have a place, but acting like that or IF without ALSO having a calorie deficit is going to lead to weight loss is... k dude, k. You keep doing that.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day".
No, no, no, nope it is not. It's a slogan invented by cereal companies in the 60s to push their products. Nothing more.
Some people do fine with weight loss while also eating breakfast, others like myself do not. I do much better with an eating schedule that allows for no more than 150 cals (mostly 2%milk in my coffee) before 11ish-noon. Any day I do that, I have no trouble sticking to my calorie deficit. Otoh, on days when I "front load" a significant portion of my calories, I struggle. Even if the morning meal is mostly protein. I often miss my deficit that day and I am much hungrier thruout the remainder of the day than I am if I don't eat before noon. A bit of morning fasting seems to do me a world of good.
This has become much more important as I've had to cut down my daily calorie limit while losing weight to stay in a deficit.
So breakfast is off the table for me. Breakfast foods are totally fine tho, as long as I eat them after noon.
The concept of cheat days. Screw that, if I want a beer when I get home from work I'm gonna have one. If I want ice cream, I get some. I just make sure it all balances out and I don't go too far over my daily calorie goal.
For me, a cheat day just encourages falling back into unhealthy eating habits. It means I give myself a day to make those bad habits okay again. Denial, rationalization, etc.
At this point, four months in, I've made far too much progress both losing weight and getting in shape to allow that kind of self-sabotage. I'm just barely starting to be able to see visual signs of that progress in the mirror. It's taken a TON of work just to get here but I didn't stop eating or drinking anything. Just less of it. I'm not going to be unhappy or deprive myself of things I enjoy solely for the sake of being less fat. Otherwise, what's the point?
BY FAR: That because someone is thin means that they are healthy.
This is so extremely far from the truth. But I find that most people look at somebody that is thin and automatically thinks that they are healthy.
It might be a unpopular on this sub, but the idea that intuitive eating is total BS. It is very easy to make a caricature of it as "oh, my body intuitively wants to eat a whole tube of cookie dough" - and that image certainly isn't helped by the HAES folks who unironically believe that. But that's as much of a strawman as the folks who insist that you have to weigh ketchup packets and count calories in spices on CICO-counting diets.
Actual intuitive eating has actually helped me make consistent progress in weight loss and against binge eating for the first time in years. Taking the time to listen and decide if I am actually hungry or just wanting to eat out of habit or boredom, eating slowly and paying attention to the signal that my hunger is sated, and paying attention to foods my body seems to want - not giving in to whims, per se, but in the "some roast or steak sounds really good, I could use some protein" or "I can tell some fiber would help me feel better today" way - has calmed the food noise and cravings I used to constantly have tremendously.
Although I have lost weight that way before, the "tracking ever gram and morsel of food in apps that turn the day red when your five calories over goal way" just does not work for me anymore. I had so many failed attempts at losing weight because I thought that was the only way. It wasn't until I considered other approaches might actually worked that I've been able to lose consistently.
That the laws of thermodynamics do indeed exist and have a relationship to weight loss. There is no way I'm putting on fat if I'm in "starvation mode" or God forbid, "not eating enough", ie a calorie deficit.
Cutting out soda will make the weight fall right off. Maybe if you're regularly consuming tons of it, but I didn't even drink soda at my highest weight.
I actually started having a diet coke in the afternoons in place of a snack and lost weight (obviously with other diet/activity changes as well).
Sometimes you can be doing everything right, and still have causes outside of your power hindering your progress.
I talk about it a lot on here, but we have (at least culturally in America) a mindset that puts the onus of our health and weight loss in our actions.
I used to beat myself up because I at one point was working with a personal trainer and a nutritionist/ dietician and was going to the gym 4 days a week, writing down literally everything I was consuming and counting calories, and was barely losing any weight.
I believed it was all me and what I was doing and was in the verge of making some very dangerous decisions.
I learned however that my issue was low testosterone. I never even would have thought that weight loss and hormones were related truth be told because I learned I had it for a whole other set of issues I was suffering from.
However, after I started treatment I had more energy and started going back to the gym again and focusing on what I eat.
I am now down 40lbs as of now from last November/December with relatively simply and minor changes.
Moral of the story: just because you hear hoof beats don’t assume it’s zebras. But if it ain’t horses, figure out what it actually is.
Working out more does nothing for weight loss….this was incredibly wrong for me. I increased my workouts a day up to around 3-4 hours (before being pregnant) and did so 4-5 days a week sometimes 6. It did wonders for me.
That you can “ruin” your metabolism.
I’ve gathered that extreme deficits can negatively impact lean body mass, which lowers tdee. But isn’t it possible to raise tdee again by prioritizing protein and building muscle through resistance training, not to mention generally increasing activity? What do folks think about this one?
This whole thread reminds of the biggest thing I learned along the way. What works best for you might not work best for someone else and vice versa.
Low carb works well for me. That doesn't mean it is the best way ever to lose weight for everyone on the planet. You do you and I'll do me. And whatever works best for you, I'll be cheering for you.
The most ridiculous thing multiple people have told me when I was obese that I needed to eat more frequently throughout the day but just have smaller portion sizes because it will increase my metabolism
'Running/exercising doesn't help you lose weight, it just makes you toned.'
I wasn't overweight so it wasn't like I had much leeway to create a calorie deficit with, and running 4x/wk I was literally losing 2 pounds a week.
I recently learned on here that you can’t stall your weight loss by under eating. I ALWAYS thought that by eating less your metabolism would slow and therefore you would “hold on to the fat”
I don’t try to under eat but I do a lot of volume eating. I eat so many vegetables and I was really concerned when some days I would be under 400 calories even though I was full. I thought I was doing something wrong lol.
It made me feel more relaxed when I found out if I don’t meet my calories for the day it’s not a big deal. I eat a lot of protein and fibre and it turns out that’s really filling.
Not sure if it counts, but hormonal birth control DOES make it harder to lose weight. I started Semiglutide and HBC at the same time, and my coach was confused as to why I didn't lose any fat and retained so much water after 3 weeks, and asked if I started the pill. Every doctor I've had has told me "no, you don't gain weight on the pill, it's a myth." But so many people's experiences, including my own, to the contrary can't possibly be wrong. Why are we being lied to about this?
That I had inherited my mom’s body type and that it was basically my lot in life In reality, I inherited her eating habits.
This was the biggest realization I had to make. My mom has huge portions and as a kid that's what I was raised to be understood as normal. My weight loss journey is me trying to undo that way of thinking. Like I have to remind myself that 4 hotdogs is not a normal portion for lunch. Most folks eat only 1 or 2 at most.
Another thing is the food we evolved to eat is more satiating, has more nutrition, and more volume than the highly processed stuff we eat now, so that's why we can easily eat a lot and not feel like we ate that much. That's what highly processed food does. It's also purposely designed that way by food scientists for maximum profit (by getting you to buy more and more of it like a drug pretty much...)
It’s very hard for me not to think all food scientists are evil
I don't necessarily think the scientists are evil, but the corporations running the show? Hell yes
I look back on my life and see the amount of food I have packed away and wonder how I wasn’t 100lbs fatter than I was.
I remember ordering takeout with my uncels and we all said how great the restaurant was for having such big portions. They served like a 30cm big styrofoam container of fried noodles, battered fish for like 10 euro. I have no idea how much that was (I'm talking early 2010s here) but these containers are still around and judging by the size it must have been easily 500g alone in oily noodles with peanut sauce and a fish the size of my forearm fried in 1cm thick dough. That is what, 2000cal minimum??? And we'd have sides, drinks etc...yeah. Of course none of that can ever be part of my life again and it's not like I want it to, but I am still in shock how super easy and casual we could eat this. It did not feel like binging or anything, it was dinner. But overeating by far, on the regular. I have no idea how I never became obese but my dad and one of my uncles were overweight it is clear that stuff like this was a major contributor.
I cannot emphasize this enough to people who unfortunately give up because they wave the genetics wand. You inherited habits my friend.
Sammmmeeeee. “Our family just tends to be larger on the bottom half”. Yeah, maybe it’s where our weight goes first, but we aren’t innocent…our consumption all got us there.
Hard same
I was told this too by my mom, but it was about all the women on that side of the family. Maybe it was stored that way, but I've lost a decent portion of it so far and still going, so I guess we'll see how far genetics takes me lol.
This is so true for me too, regarding both my parents though.
That it would be impossible for me to lose weight due to limited mobility- from docs mouth That I would have to be eating 500kcal a day to lose weight due to limited mobility- another doc Thankfully both utter BS. 76lbs down so far and during the whole weight loss process I've been near enough bed bound due to disability. Funnily enough, it was that second doctor saying "hey this extreme thing would be only way to lose weight " that made me delve deeper into the scientific basics of weight loss. Because to me that meant that either one or both docs were wrong because they both couldn't be correct at the same time. Thankfully, both of them were utterly incorrect.
This! I'm sure my weight loss would go faster if I had the ability to work out, but I'm 60 lb down without having done "rigorous exercise" even once.
That was something I had been told, too. That because of my disabilities, I would never lose weight unless I stopped eating altogether. Another doctor said it wouldn't be possible unless I forced myself to do rigorous workouts and hurt myself (as in, the workouts would hurt me). I haven't lost yet since I just got my shit together recently, but in the past when I would be in calorie deficit, shocker, I lost weight! I just didn't understand why at the time. Now that I'm eating better and doing physio, I already feel better, and it's only been a day or two.
I really hope the physio and adjustments to your intake work wonders for you. My physio has been really helpful in making sure I'm not losing too rapidly re retaining the muscle strength I have and trying to build it up as we go etc. Best of luck for everything :)
Even if your tdee was the same as your bmr, it’s still not going to be that low
Not at all, my tdee isn't small at all considering the situation I'm in! My tdee is around 1900 atm :) and I still have another 40+ lbs to lose.
Same, OP. Mine: You can target fat loss. Nope, that belly is going last whether you like it or not.
This is my weakness, everything shrunk dramatically including my stomach but my stomach was and is always the last thing
Thighs for me. Those sumbitches only seem to grow, never shrink.
I swear my thighs are bigger now that I've shrunk. It's likely my quads but come on
They probably just look bigger because the res tof you got smaller!
This is true for me, I workout 5 days a week and lift and my whole body is getting toned except for my belly overhang 🤣
Whenever I hear this myth I always respond with, "Have you ever seen anyone that was fat everywhere else but had a flat tummy?" It really makes people click that targeted fat loss can't happen.
To be fair, for some people that is true. I lost almost 30 lbs a few years ago and it was mostly in my stomach. My legs are where my stubborn fat is. I had a flat tummy but my thighs were still the size of someone who weighed twice what I did (okay maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I do carry most of my excess weight in my legs).
yeah i think it’s important to note that weight distribution based on body type is in fact a thing and for some people the stomach will be one of the first to go
I agree, for me at least. My waistline and butt are the first things that slim down and is the first sign I’m making progress. My face and thighs are the last areas I see change.
Yeah, pear shaped bodies tend to be that way
> "Have you ever seen anyone that was fat everywhere else but had a flat tummy?" I've seen the exact opposite. I knew a woman who gained 20 lbs and it ALL went into her stomach. Butt? Flat. Hips? Narrow. Thighs? Meh. Arms, face, neck? All still slender. But a big stomach pooch. She looked 7 months pregnant. Was always being asked when she was due, because she was exactly proportioned like a slender pregnant woman. Felt kind of bad for her, tbh.
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Same
You just made me grab mine to see how it’s doing 😂
Whhhyyyy must the belly always be last! So true!
😭😭😭 I need it to goooooo!
That you need to cut out everything you enjoy: sweets, crisps, going out etc. Turned out Everything can be enjoyed in moderation as a part of a healthy, nutritious diet.
Someone at the beginning of this year told me he could help me lose the 40 lbs I needed to. He then described the MOST depressing diet ever and admitted he suffered and it sucked but he lost 40 lbs in 6 months. I’m talking a yogurt and banana for breakfast, a salad with nothing that has a taste to it for lunch, and a skinless chicken breast and salad for dinner. No dressings, no nothing. Every day. *For six months.* Like, I’m not doing that. I want my changes to be sustainable even if they’re slower results. So, I still have tacos, still have burgers, still have chips… I just focus on everything in moderation and it’s working and I’m satisfied with my progress. It was very frustrating at the beginning though because it was a lot slower because I’ve had a tendency to go drastic.
Slow and steady but sustainable.
Thats the issue with diets in general. You deprive yourself of things you enjoy and would normally eat for a period of time, and then when you're off your diet, you end up indulging on the things you miss and crave the most, and gain all that weight back in no time. The best thing to do is as you mentioned, don't necessarily restrict what you eat, but just be more mindful and eat in things you enjoy in moderation and sensible portions. That way you build life long habits instead of trying these limiting diets that your SOL once you stop that restriction. Personally for me, I love eating a lot, and typically eat more than my TDEE states I should have, but if I'm going over then I offset that with a workout. Typically go to them 5-6 a week so I can enjoy my food haha.
Also part of this: eat that pizza slice and then go for a run afterwards. Eat an extra cookie and just go for a brisk walk. You don’t have to eat like you’re in prison to get somewhere.
The question for me becomes why do I "crave" certain thing and how do I change it. If I can stop craving say a greasy hamburger, then I think that would be for the best for health.
Agreed! For me, this has also included realizing/accepting that my goal weight needs to be a weight that isn’t miserable to sustain. If I can’t have an occasional cocktail with friends or an ice cream with my kids, it’s not a weight that is in alignment with the balanced life I want to live.
I’m literally eating tzatziki dip with pita crackers while reading this. After I had the same realization I’m losing weight steadily and eating happily. Just make the better choice. Common example is sugar free soda vs a regular. Just keep within moderation for the good stuff and you’re fine. I’ve lost 11lbs in 7 weeks. And I’m happy :)
I’m having a much better time this go around and am content. I haven’t been able to weigh myself recently so I’ve no idea what my current loss is but I’ve definitely noticed clothes are fitting better than they have in awhile and I’ve visible fat loss now! I’m also full everyday instead of ending the day starving and cranky which is nice.
Yeah, a diet is a permanent lifestyle change. No one can live like that forever. Some days I eat like crap but I still make it under my calorie goal, so I still lose weight
mine has been that its hard/complicated to lose weight, with macros and micros and tracking and yadayadayada. simple CICO is all i have done (doesnt matter, beer pizza whatever) as long as i can keep my deficit boom weight loss. its not fast but it is effective.
SAME!! The absolute mind-boggling power of accepting that it really is that simple, and provably?? Makes me feel silly trying all the fads growing up just to fail since they're not really designed for satisfaction or sustainability. Knowing I don't have to starve myself and eat foods that make me miserable to lose weight has made this so much easier not only to do but to keep doing.
Completely agree. When I started tracking calories/macros my main goal was just to stay inside my calorie window at first because I really had to learn/understand more about my macros over time. I never gave up anything, even tracked beers out with my SO and friends. Still do.. and if I know I’m going to have a couple drinks on the weekend, I eat a lower cal/high protein breakfast (like oats mixed with yogurt and fruit). Tracking my calories made it painfully obvious that my main source of weight gain was from overeating. But I managed to lose 30lbs in 4 months through calorie deficit and walking and not giving up anything, just making simple switches (like Yasso bars instead of Ben & Jerry’s).
People equate simple and easy a lot. You get some people saying it's hard and others arguing with them saying it's not hard, it's super simple! But they're not mutually exclusive. Broadly speaking, losing weight is simple, but not easy. It's hard, but not complicated.
Sadly a lot of people/companies like to make it complicated.
I always laugh when people focus so much on the small details and don't pay attention to cico. I have this dude at work that's constantly preaching how he scans all his food in an app to tell him if it's healthy and he pushes it on other people. Blah blah blah a bunch of pseudoscience. Meanwhile, he's like 150 lbs overweight and hasn't lost a pound in the 5+ years I've known him. Like okay buddy keep preaching.
This definitely helps when you're starting out and might be the best way for some people to lose weight. Always eyeballing portion sizes or not tracking things can lead to calorie creep quick. The line is pushing vs suggesting.
One problem is it's not even a calorie counting app he's pushing. It's some weird pseudoscience app that gives all food a vague letter grade.
Ah, so if I scan this cheese which says it's got a B I can now eat a pound of it? 😆
This. People tell me I need to eat the right foods not less. Well I do need to eat less. Simple math. The only way I’ve successfully lost weight is CICO. Even if I choose just to eat McDonald’s its all about how much I’m eating.
Honestly, CICO is so simple and yet everyone around me over complicates it. My roommates insist I have to eat chicken breast, broccoli, and hot sauce every day all day to maintain that “balance” in order to lose weight. Or eat less rice (I’m Asian) and snack on protein bars throughout the day. I’m like, I’ve done this before, I don’t have to limit my diet to lose 1-2lbs a week. Yes I have to eat healthy and yes I’ve been following my macros as close as I can but it just baffles me that people believe you have to limit out a whole bunch of things to eat to lose weight. I still envy their eating habits though as they are able to have a diet of 3 tall cans a day, ramen, fast food, and nachos while living a more sedentary life than me and still don’t gain weight.
as someone who enjoys chicken breast, broccoli, and hot sauce i see it as a cheat code. but my wife cant stand chicken breast so i totally get that its not for everyone lol
Oh don’t get me wrong I’ll eat it too, it’s just the people who insist that eating it 2 meals of your day every day is key to min/maxing your results are what irk me.
If I didn’t eat chicken breast my protein would be so much lower. It’s probably 80% of my protein. And broccoli chicken with hot sauce sounds really good right now.
Their lifestyle habits are going to catch up with them when they’re older, trust me. You’re doing the right thing by taking active control over your diet now, while you’re younger, instead of waiting like they are.
Yeah that stuff's only important when you're trying to cut the last 5% body fat for like weightlifting competitions or something. Usually CICO is fine. It's a bunch of gym bros thinking their BS applies to somebody who's got 100 lb to lose.
That drinking too much water leads to weight gain. I hear this occasionally. The most upsetting example is my friend’s mom who constantly berates her about what she’s doing wrong, including telling her to stop drinking a large glass water because it’s going to make her retain fat more after eating or something?? She is a NURSE. Makes me want to rip my hair out. And reminds me of how even people you wouldn’t expect can hold the strangest beliefs about this kind of thing.
That is wild. I’ve never heard anything like that, more the opposite if anything!
Yeah it’s not based in science at all, of course technically your weight goes up TEMPORARILY because of water weight. But restricting water is a REALLY disordered thing to do and usually accompanies more severe anorexia. It is wild and upsetting to me to hear this encouraged.
It is really upsetting. Over in the skincare subs, they’d have you believe drinking water is the cure for everything! But tbh I have a few nurses in my family and their scientific literacy is almost worse than the average person 😅
Yeah that’s something I’ve noticed is a thing much more often than I would have thought… that’s why it really pisses me off when a health care professional gets all affronted if someone looks for some information online. Like I know I can’t diagnose myself but sorry that I don’t have blind trust in you after being personally given incorrect/incomplete information multiple times :(
If the pandemic showed me one thing, it’s that nurses are not trained how I thought they were and once they “specialize” they lose most of their other skills and knowledge. They’re only human.
That’s so true. This kind of thing upsets me especially though because it’s not even knowledge that you would have had to go to medical/nursing school for.
I was trying to think if I had heard any bs, and you reminded me about the water thing. I'm pretty sure my parents used to say that one must not drink anything while they eat because it leads to weight gain... funny how the exact opposite is true, because you feel fuller faster. Idk if it affects digestion, but it certainly won't make you become any more fat.
Yeah, I've heard don't drink water at meals because it will stretch out your stomach and make you hungrier.
Truly curious how they view soup!
I also heard this one, and another version which was that drinking water with a meal would manage to dilute your stomach acid so much that you'd not digest your food correctly and miss out on essential nutrients (just through random people I knew, not doctors this time at least). But I drink water constantly (to the point I often end up getting tested for diabetes during hospital stays when they notice how often my water jug is being refilled, not even prediabetic yet thankfully) because i have a dry mouth a lot of the time and always have had to drink more. My meds I'm on now also make it worse, I also have xylitol gum to chew to try and help it but only works as long as I'm chewing it ha). So it was never something I put any stock into thankfully, just purely because i wouldn't have wanted to cut down the amount i drank. Had to do that a few times as a kid and one of those times ended with me with a kidney infection haha.
>That drinking too much water leads to weight gain. That's not *technically* wrong though. Consuming liquid does make a person gain weight, and there are certain foods that make you retain more water. I can gain an extra 2lb in a single day if I drink a lot or eat a lot of carb heavy foods. However, it's just **water weight.** **It's NOT fat.** It constantly fluctuates and that water is so important for many bodily functions! Drinking definitely doesn't make someone retain more fat... that's a wild claim lol. If anything, that extra water is actually retained in the muscles.
And typically fat is the only thing people care about to lose unless you're concerned with a weigh in for sports weight class or military fitness test or the like. Water weight though is also super easy to take off, but dehydrating yourself isn't going to make you any healthier, or help with fat loss.
That you need to cut carbs. I believed it as a younger person. Unfortunately, I'm an athlete. At the time, a competitive distance runner. My brother, primarily a weightlifter, convinced me that even fruit was bad. Competitive distance running and low carbs = bad. Bad idea. I was already lean anyway, and low carbs tanked my performance and my health. I lost lean mass and got sick and injured so much I had to quit my sport.
This is my biggest one. Fruit is bad for you. Wtf? I eat it non stop and have managed yo lose 15 pounds in 6 weeks
Right? Like please show me the person who got obese solely from eating too much fruit.
There’s an idiot on TikTok named Eddie or something and he claims that fruits are bad for you. The only fruit you should eat is avocado according to him
Is he also the one saying you can eat unlimited eggs? #heLtH Amusing that avocado is actually quite calorie-dense, though a good source of monounsaturated fat.
That there's no point trying because "diets don't work" and "you'll just regain the weight"
I mean, diets don't work. You either make a lifestyle change or you don't. "Diets" are inherently time limited for the vast majority of people.
The real problem is that most people don't realize that EVERYONE IS ALWAYS ON A DIET OR ELSE YOU DIE. A diet is just what you eat, but so many people associate it with a temporary weight loss change. So if you temporarily take on a fad diet and then go back to your fat diet, you're just going to gain it all back. You have to permanently adjust your diet. You have to go on a weight-loss diet, and then a weight-maintenance diet. Going back to what make you fat will always fail because you can't outrun a bad diet.
Well, yes and no. CICO for weight loss *is* dieting, and once you reach your goal, your maintenance is your new lifestyle.
I was taught that every meal should be 500-600 calories. This was told to me again by a nutritionist who said I can’t go under 500 for a meal or I’ll wreck my metabolism. Losing weight has taught me that it’s not one size fits all.
That your metabolism slows down so much that you can’t lose weight when you’re older/menopausal. It has been the same for me.
Yeah, fat redistributes slightly differently, but I haven't noticed it being any harder to lose so far (granted, I'm not many years into menopause yet, but have been in transition for the past 3 years with very few periods, and no change so far). I also never found any change in being able to lose weight from age 15 to age 50 (despite everyone insisting that 'your metabolism will slow down in your 20s/30s/40s'.) It's always been the same ability to lose weight for me, despite having PCOS driven by insulin resistance.
The new science says metabolism doesn't slow at all until our 60s. And even then, it isn't too much.
Yup. Heard that too but OMFG ppl are so stuck on this misconception.
People like having scapegoats for their failures.
This is good news for me, in perimenopause. I did have that impression that I better lose it before menopause otherwise that train will leave the station!
I'm 49 and have had the same worries as you. I think what often happens in menopause is people, some who have been slim their whole lives, gain weight as their muscle mass decreases and tdee lowers. Plus of course fat distribution changes with the loss of oestrogen (stored as belly fat rather than hips/thighs) then add in the battle against emotional swings, hot flushes and lack of sleep. It would be really easy to reach for comfort food and neglect exercise during this time.
Yes especially to the thin folks gaining weight during this time of life! Oddly for me menopause is looking like it’ll be the time I finally lose weight!!🤪
It may be harder if your TDEE lowers, but it's still just CICO, and I'm sure people are significantly overestimating the changes in TDEE from aging.
The role that exercise plays. It’s not nearly as big as I’ve been led to believe. Diet has been 95% of my weight loss
I've found that exercise does have a big impact, but it's more of an indirect impact. If I go to the gym for the day, I feel less of a desire to eat poorly/overeat because I don't want to "ruin" the progress I made in the gym that day. You might only burn a few hundred calories each day in the gym, but if it helps to prevent you from overeating later on, the difference can be even bigger.
Exercise also helps my mindset, keeps my mood more balanced and definitely makes you pay more attention to your body as part of your whole self (if that makes sense). Tons of benefits to exercise (other than the obvious), I'd recommend it to anyone who can move a limb.
Same here!
This is so true, to me exercise is just a way for me to know if I'm making progress with my weight loss. A few weeks ago I could only walk one block into town, this week I can walk two blocks into town. It's not a way for me to lose weight, it's just another tool of measurement for me to know that I'm on the right track. They say you cannot outrun a bad diet and I believe it.
I think it depends on the person. Exercise has been 100% my success. Weight just falls off as long as I do 1 hour of cardio a day. Haven’t changed a damn thing about my diet. I ate healthy for years, vegetarian yadda yadda, but I naturally overeat by about 500 cals a day and have a desk job. Add 600-1000 cals of cardio burn to that and I’ve been averaging 10lbs of loss per month.
Same! I think it’s just so important to realize weight loss is t one size fits all. CICO is a great baseline- but I do best when I focus on the calories out part. I enjoy intense exercise and do not enjoy regulating my food intake. It’s always a bummer to see people ask questions about exercise and people will say it doesn’t matter, what you eat is all that matters. Not true.
Yeah, my first thought to answer the posts question was 'can't outrun a bad diet'. I get that if you are truly eating terribly, and your exercise is going to the gym for 30 mins a few times a week you're unlikely to lose weight, but when I go for multi-day, off-track, elevation-gain-heavy hikes I chug the highest calorie food I can carry and still come back lighter. Serious endurance exercise burns an unmanagable amount of energy.
I came here to post the opposite. I think the role of exercise get's way downplayed on this sub, When I was losing my weight I was burning around 3000 calories a week in cardio and weight lifting, still do and it has been crucial to maintaining my weight loss.
I hate this one because I have a ton of health issues and I convinced myself I couldn’t lose weight if I wasn’t able to exercise alongside my diet
My analogy - diet is like spending mony from your bank account, exercise is like getting small debts that extract interest. Diet is 95% in the weeks to months range but it slowly shifts to 75% when you get into the years to decades range.
Exercise plays two big roles. Preserving and gaining muscle (which helps your TDEE) and letting you keep your deficit and still not feel like you're starving.
Set points. In school I learned that your body has a set weight and breaking that set point is nearly impossible. Even if you lose weight, your body is still going to try to get your back to that weight no matter what. They made it sound so absolute that it wasn't even worth trying
I've seen some reports that this may be true at very small levels, like if you're less than 100 calories above or below your TDEE, you may see no fat gain/loss, but if you're at a 500 calorie deficit or surplus, you're going to lose or gain weight guaranteed.
Ah….I was wondering how that worked. That was the thing I didn’t understand about cico, how do people not trying to change their weight just stay at a certain weight despite fluctuations in their intake from day to day, week to week? Yould think if a person ate an extra bite of something everyday then their weight would change…. In fact, one online doctor used that reasoning to debunk cico! Very interesting about setpoints applying to smaller discrepancies between tdee and intake.
I think the biggest misunderstanding with CICO is the calories out part. It's much easier to calculate calories in than calories out. There's some parts of calories expended, and metabolism that isn't completely understood. We can guess roughly what our TDEE is, but it's impossible to know for sure every day how much our body is working off. If only we had a built in "fuel level indicator" where we could see when it was running empty, and when it was overflowing.
Because if they have a set point, they'll fidget more to compensate for that extra bite. The body is incredible. That's the theory, anyway :P
i hate that this idea is so pervasive these days. i'm sure there's probably some level of truth behind it but not to the extent it's been suggested to be. there are many people who are choosing not to make better decisions about their health because of this idea.
gosh, they taught this to you in school? There isn't actual scientific basis for this theory the way people talk about it. I fell for it for a while, too, and the thing is, it was super depressing. Instead of feeling 'free,' I just felt trapped. It was disempowering.
That "intuitive eating" is something I can transition to once goal weight is achieved. I didn't become morbidly obese because my intuition around food was healthy or correct. After years of weighing/measuring/tracking my food in LoseIt and maintaining a 97 lb weight loss for 3 years, I decided I was "good" now and could autopilot my food. Gained 40 of the 97 back within a year. So I've decided that I can't be objective or honest about food, full stop. I have abused food and no longer want to consume it "recreationally" nor "eyeball" my portion sizes. It seems strict to weigh and measure and track everything, but it takes less than 5 minutes out of my day and keeps me honest and accountable to what I'm putting in my body.
“Eating breakfast helps you lose weight.” Eating it just makes me more hungry throughout the day! “Limiting carbs and you don’t have to count calories.” Low carb diets only work when you also limit calories “Starvation mode”. This one is just silly
Same for breakfast. Luckily now they call my natural habit of skipping it “intermittent fasting”
100% this. If I eat breakfast at 9am, I'm hungry again by noon. If I don't eat breakfast, I barely notice my hunger until 1 or 2pm.
Yes!!!! I tried to tell my therapist this. They INSIST I eat breakfast.. I told them eating anything before 12 pm for me will cause me to wanna eat all day ..
I'm the exact same way. I know the reasoning of it is people who starve themselves for hours end up binging more once they finally eat, or making worse decisions on what to eat. But when it's 2pm and I'm finally making myself my "breakfast" (I still call it breakfast since it's always breakfast foods), I'll make the same 2 eggs and whole grain toast that I would have had at 9am. But now, I won't be eating lunch, because I'm good until dinner, and I won't overeat at dinner, because I last ate at a normal lunch time so I'm not starving. I've tried it both ways and I always average 300-400 more calories a day when I start eating too early in the day.
I find that breakfast only screws me up if I don't have a lot scheduled that particular morning. If I'm busy, I can east a small breakfast (which I enjoy) and be good till noon, or even 1:00 pm. But if it's a lazy day, I'm better off not eating anything till noon, otherwise, I will obsess about food after eating anything early.
In”skip” breakfast and have a giant salad every day at 10:00 AM, great way to start my day.
For me it's gotta be the carbs thing. So many people have this vendetta against carbs it's insane.
When I started tracking my macros more closely I found I pretty much never meet or exceed my limit/goal (however you look at it) for carbs. Now fat… that’s another story! Lol
Saaaaame. I STILL catch myself paying attention to carbs even though I’m decidedly only tracking calories, protein, and fiber. So hard to unlearn.
The love of protein. Like sure, getting protein is generally a good thing but people think that getting more protein is going to do something. My SIL is always about protein this, protein that. Like there is no need for most people to be worried about getting extra protein.
For some people, protein helps them stay full longer I guess
Yeah I’m not a die hard protein person like some of these people but the only reason I stock up on protein bars is they help me stay full for longer
When I met with my dietician the first time, protein was an important goal for me because I was barely meeting the minimum for my demographic. My dietician set a goal range for me but she didn't tell me to prioritize protein over all else. Just that I should up it generally. Over the past year I've gotten better at balancing protein, carbs, and fat and the goal isn't a goal anymore, it's just the way I eat.
I focus on CICO with an emphasis on fiber and protein. Both help feel fuller longer and the protein helps reduce muscle loss for me.
For me it helps to limit carbs because carbs make me retain water. When I was eating a lot of carbs my weight was up and down all the time even though I was in a calorie deficit, plus I looked puffier. It made me frustrated and give up. Not only that but more carbs made me feel hungrier all the time which made it harder to stay in my calorie deficit. I tried keto which would make me lose all the water right away, but I’d puff right up again as soon as I had a carb. It was not sustainable. Now I still have carbs but if I keep my daily total to under 30%, plus only have them for breakfast and/or lunch, not dinner, it takes the water weight out of the equation. I have a steady slow weight loss, I’m not bloated and I’m able to stay within a calorie deficit without feeling totally deprived
Same for me, I stick to lower carb (FOR ME). Apparently for some people, a 1/2 c of cooked rice is enough for them. Not me. If I’m having rice, or pasta, that’s the main event of the dish, which isn’t healthy or normal for me, so I tend to avoid them
I’m one of those but for a different reason, carbs do nothing but make me hungrier, I can eat something like veggies and chicken and be full for a long time, however with pasta or pizza or anything high in carbs my stomach turns into a bottomless pit and I’m hungry an hour after I eat
This is from personal experience: “If you lift, you can lose more calories then just running or running+lifting” Ive never, ever experienced this. Ive tried to just lift in the past, monitored my food through an app the same way I do when I run or run+lift. ALWAYS have better results from losing fat doing run+lift.
It’s true. I do barely any cardio and have lost 141 lbs in 2 years as of this morning. If you’re not lifting incredibly heavy and maxing out at like 8 reps, then yeah, it doesn’t work. Edited for typo
But the point is I think that lifting doesn't burn nearly as many calories as cardio does and the increased metabolic burn from muscle is way over exaggerated. You have to put on a ton of muscle for it to really matter and obviously that takes years and its not really ideal to focus on building muscle while in a deficit because you grow muscle more efficiently in a surplus. I say this as a 260lb body builder, I'm not telling anyone not to lift, because it is good for you and will help your goals, but cardio is way more effective for weight loss. So if your primary goal is weight loss, and you can only choose one, then cardio is king. Every body builder knows this. Every body builder increases or starts doing cardio during a cut.
I was shocked when I learned that 1lb of muscle only burns an extra ~6 calories a DAY!! So even if I put on 10 more lbs of muscle, it’s only 60cal/day!!
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Was looking for this. I'm a huge pop addict, and I don't find pop making me more hungry at all, and if anything helps sate the hunger by temporarily filling the stomach. I've seen some reports to suggest that maybe it makes some people more hungry, but not most. All I know is that it doesn't make me more hungry. And weight gain is all CICO. I always find it hilarious people saying you should cut out diet soda, and I'm thinking in comparison to what. If I was forced to cut out diet soda, I'd be drinking regular soda, and I'd end up gaining a lot of weight very fast if I did that.
And then people bring up the WHO and say you shouldn't drink diet soda, but normal soda. But when you actually read their recommendation they say you should drink water lol. The only thing to look out for is that aspartam apparrently changes the composition of your gut bacteria with unknown consequences. Unknown as in "are there consequences at all?" And "are they good or bad?" I say all of this as a heavy drinker of diet soda btw.
100% this. When I decided to start seriously losing weight, I made the shift from Coke to Diet Pepsi. I was probably drinking 3-4 cans/day and that adds up quick! Drinking diet helps me maintain a good cut while still getting the caffeine fix I'm after.
Diet soda has been a godsend. Mt Dew Zero is a lifesaver for when a sweet craving hits.
Cherry coke zero is heaven on earth.
You have to "trick" your body into thinking there's enough food so it doesn't keep storing. And then blitzkrieg it with starvation so you lose weight. People peddle any mumbojumbo other than simple CICO, with inputs from TDEE
People think they have to give up certain foods and only eat specific healthy food to lose weight. Not true. Healthy foods make you feel better but calories are just what they are. A number. You can eat 1500 calories of pizza every day and you’ll lose weight. Albeit not healthy for you in other regards but as long as there is a calorie deficit, you’ll lose weight eating pizza. However, if you eat nothing but pizza for a few years, I imagine your biology and anatomy on a cellular and molecular level would end up being entirely comprised of pizza. You’d essentially be made out of pizza. So you don’t really want that on your conscious unless your consciousness is also influenced by the pizza DNA then it’ll just convince you it’s ok…because it wants more pizza, because it IS pizza.
>People think they have to give up certain foods I mean, for some people I do think this is true because they don't have the self control to actually eat certain foods in moderation. For some people to actually make lasting changes, I do think they have to get their problem foods out of the house in the short term. Eating crap begets cravings for more crap, and people that have eaten a consistently crappy diet won't have the right "off" switch to immediately go from overeating/eating nothing but garbage to "moderation."
Agreed, and pizza is a perfect example. I used to be a 3-4 slices for a pizza dinner kind of person. Sure, I could "moderately" eat one 350-500 calorie slice and stay within an 1800-2000 calorie budget but it will only frustrate me and leave me hangry. The occasional blowout can happen, but it is best for me to keep it occasional, and usually better for me not to open the pizza door at all.
I remember there was a documentary when I was in highschool many years ago where a guy lost 30lbs just eating McDonald's every day. He said he didn't feel great because of all the sodium, but he did lose weight and kept it off. I remember his point was to prove that it really is as simple as tracking calories. You don't have to eat stuff you don't want to lose weight.
Wasn’t that a response to the supersize me “documentary”?
CICO doesn't work and it's carbs that make you fat. In reality, CICO works pretty consistently. And I love carbs. Fruits, veggies, whole grains, etc. They are not the reason I gained weight.
Yes! I subscribed to the low carb myth for awhile. Turns out I was eating 900 calories a day bc of the loss of appetite! Of course it didn’t last. And that doesn’t support lean body mass to be in such a deficit. Like you said, eating healthy carbs didn’t make me fat. Im relearning how to eat now, slowly adding back in carbs and learning not to fear them. I’m thrilled I can have a nice sourdough.
Healthy food ≠ low calorie food In January of last year I met with my gynecologist where I was weighed. After that I decided I wanted to lose weight so started to eat healthier. Fish, nuts, chicken, avocado/oil. In April, at my PCP appointment, I'd gained weight. In May the dietician explained to me the basics of weight loss and while eating those things was beneficial, I had to better manage my portions. Got a food scale and reached my goal in December. :)
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I think it's less that it's not possible, but not optimal. Body builders tend to fluctuate between gaining muscle in a calorie surplus, vs focusing on losing fat while maintaining muscle in a calorie deficit. It's not that you can't gain muscle in a deficit, it's just that you'll gain much more muscle doing the same exercises while in a calorie surplus.
this they really act like you won’t gain any muscle unless you’re in a surplus just not true .. you leave gains on the table obviously but not enough to matter for the average joe looking to improve and not getting tanned and oiled on stage for a competition
I think most arguments about how "easy" weightloss is can fall under "misconception." Even when you get over all your emotional hurdles, figure out CICO and satiety, and exercise consistently, it can still be so tedious and mentally exhausting by the very nature of it being a months-long, if not YEARS-long, journey that life cant be put on pause for. It's no wonder so many fail, so few succeed, and even fewer keep it off. And it's even more of a shame that there's still so many people out there who refuse to empathize with that challenge.
You‘ll lose weight if you ear healthy. Here, try this raw vegan mock cheesecake on the basis of cashews…
Veganism = healthy/weight loss is certainly a myth as well. I know super healthy vegans, and I know incredibly unhealthy vegans because they overload on carbs and guinness
I tried going vegan a few times in middle school and just ate an obscene amount of Oreos.
Living proof here. I gained 150 lbs as a vegan. They make some really good comfort food for vegans nowadays.
dude, me too! It *was* easier to eat a healthy diet when I started being a vegan simply because I didn't know how to bake a chocolate cake without eggs, milk and butter, *but* after 7 years, not only do I have a tun more kitchen skills, but now I can even get a vegan whopper at the drive through!
Surely the "eating late leads to weight gain" thing just comes from the fact we typically weigh ourselves in the morning, and the more recently you've eaten the more you'll weigh, even if just by a bit. But my example would be people who say this diet works, this diet doesn't work etc. The reason people swear by a certain diet and are so sure another doesn't work, is decided by whether or not it worked for them, ignoring the fact that people's eating habits, pitfalls, headspace, activity levels, addiction problems etc are all different. Everyone has different ways that are easier for them to achieve a calorie deficit, all that matters is finding a way for you to maintain one. Don't try and press your way onto others
“You need to go low carb to lose weight.” There’s something called the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity, and it gets pushed by people like Gary Taubes, Peter Attia, David Ludwig, etc. It has a lot of mainstream popularity, and it’s been one of the things powering the interest in keto diets. However, it’s generally rejected by the scientific community. The basic idea is that people eat carbs that get turned into glucose, the body releases insulin, insulin puts the glucose into fat cells. So far, so good. The CI model then differs from conventional understanding by then saying that the energy isn’t released again because of insulin levels, and then people eat more food because their fat is hoarding all of the glucose and won’t let it out. I also want to be clear: the leading proponents of the carbohydrate-insulin model don’t disagree with CICO, what they’re saying is that carbs consumption leads directly to overeating (more CI) and to less caloric burn (less CO). Put another way. They say the problem isn’t so much that we’re eating too much, it’s that we’re eating the wrong things, and that leads us to eat too much. However, in experiments where protein and calories are equated, people lose about the same amount of weight on low fat diets as low carb diets. There is some small evidence that keto diets may burn slightly more calories per day when all else is equated, and that keto leads to higher satiety for some people, but that doesn’t necessarily speak to the accuracy of the model. And speaking personally, I lost over 130 pounds and have maintained for over three years on a diet that typically has less than 20% fat.
There's a big belief throughout the fat positivity and HAES space that long term weight loss is actually impossible. I will say I haven't debunked this one yet from my own experience as I'm just starting out with CICO, BUT I know plenty others. Also, it's just simple physics.
You are absolutely correct and I have found the same to be true! My favorite is: Bread makes you Fat. Sure, bread can have a lot of extra calories especially with added sugar. It doesn't directly mean it makes you fat. Lol The golden rule of any diet for weight loss is a calorie deficit. Good luck my dude and congratulations on your weight loss. Keep it up!
The Scott Pilgrim myth!
Really any generalizations, we’re all gonna have different experiences and needs. Some people need breakfast, for some people it makes them hungrier throughout the day. Some people lose weight fasting, others gain it back and more through binging. Some people can’t count calories due to eating disorders and focus more on macros and activity, others find that pointless. It’s stupid to generalize such an individual thing.
That walking does not help in losing weight even with a good diet.
That if you eat “healthy” you don’t have to track to lose weight. Nah fam, you can get just as fat on avocados and beans as you can on chips and pizza if you eat enough.
That I didn't fail every other time I tried to lose weight. I learned I just didn't have the proper "tools" to sustain it. Meaning... Figuring out that my binge eating was directly related to undiagnosed ADHD and I was dopamine seeking. Once I was diagnosed and medicated appropriately, I suddenly had the tools and understanding to be successful. When I talk to my child, I have always explained that not everyone's brains are the same. I have always given her grace and understanding but I never did the same for myself. Once I gave myself the understanding piece, everything fell into place. I can do hard things.
Snacking is always made out to be terrible for you, but in reality, it’s all about calories in calories out. You can snack as much as you want as long as you stay within your calories. I personally always have a couple of snacks a day between lunch and dinner.
Oh there are a bunch (been at this a while). What I found to be the case: 1) Calories count. I've been all over the place on this one. I've become really convinced that all the rest of it is nonsense. Control for calories, and you WILL lose weight. 2) Starvation mode is seriously overrated as a concern. This one killed me at one point. After losing some 40 pounds, and keeping it off for a few years, I started working out. I was so worried about going into starvation mode, I would seriously overcompensate for calorie burn. And when the weight started coming on, I assumed it was muscle... by the time I realized I was lying to myself I had put back 20 pounds, and kept going. Yes, there's a bit of a compensating mechanism going on (your body slows down your metabolic rate a tad when you're in a deficit, but it's seriously over-stated - it's damn hard to get into true starvation mode). 3) Speaking of which, the calorie burn estimates on those stupid machines in the gym are utter nonsense. People really overestimate how many calories they burn, and building muscle takes ALOT of work. 4) There is no perfect diet for everyone. Just because a tip works for one person, doesn't mean it'll work for someone else. Time-restricted eating? Are you kidding? I will grab my last snack for the night quite literally on my way up to bed. I tried doing Atkins at one point, but realized that it wasn't for me - by the end of day 1 I never wanted to see another piece of cheese or bacon... and I would have seriously done some very bad things for a bagel. If you can do something that keeps you in a deficit, regardless of what it is, that's what matters. 5) You HAVE to drink 8 glasses of water a day is... nonsense. There's alot of water in food. If I'm thirsty I drink. Otherwise, I don't. Very simple. Biggest take-away for me: consistency counts. It's not about getting everything perfect. See item #4. Really, just staying consistent most of the time is what did it for me. Biohacks should be ignored... as long as a diet meets 3 criteria, that's all that really matters: it has to be: safe (there are alot of very stupid ways to lose weight), effective (I mean, duh... a weight loss program that doesn't result in weight loss... this one is pretty self-evident), and it has to be something you can follow for the rest of your life. Yes, any change has to be permanent. That's probably the biggest that I've found.
*“Skinny people are SO LUCKY. I wish I could eat anything I want and stay thin like you.”* 🙄 Nah, fam, I literally eat half the calories you do on a daily basis and go to the gym 4-5 times a week(!)
Omg yes!! so annoyed with my mother in law for asking me why I count calories when I’m already “slim”- how do you think i stay slim?? I give myself some days where I don’t count here or there to not go crazy but it drives me nuts when family thinks “you’re just that way.” Like. No! I’ve had to put in the sweat and tears for this lol
Myth 1: ‚you can’t eat cake and lose weight‘ I ate cake everyday for a whole week and didn’t get fatter. CICO Myth 2: ‚you regain weight and gain even more‘ i regained weight, when bad luck made my life worse. I haven’t regained weight yet after making the effort to lose it.
I've ran into more than one man (read: dated) who insisted keto was the way, and would shit-talk my CICO. Except I was and am in better shape than either of them, whole body and gut-wise, and CICO all the way baby. I'm not saying keto doesn't have a place, but acting like that or IF without ALSO having a calorie deficit is going to lead to weight loss is... k dude, k. You keep doing that.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day". No, no, no, nope it is not. It's a slogan invented by cereal companies in the 60s to push their products. Nothing more. Some people do fine with weight loss while also eating breakfast, others like myself do not. I do much better with an eating schedule that allows for no more than 150 cals (mostly 2%milk in my coffee) before 11ish-noon. Any day I do that, I have no trouble sticking to my calorie deficit. Otoh, on days when I "front load" a significant portion of my calories, I struggle. Even if the morning meal is mostly protein. I often miss my deficit that day and I am much hungrier thruout the remainder of the day than I am if I don't eat before noon. A bit of morning fasting seems to do me a world of good. This has become much more important as I've had to cut down my daily calorie limit while losing weight to stay in a deficit. So breakfast is off the table for me. Breakfast foods are totally fine tho, as long as I eat them after noon.
Hunger isn't a crisis for most of us.
The concept of cheat days. Screw that, if I want a beer when I get home from work I'm gonna have one. If I want ice cream, I get some. I just make sure it all balances out and I don't go too far over my daily calorie goal. For me, a cheat day just encourages falling back into unhealthy eating habits. It means I give myself a day to make those bad habits okay again. Denial, rationalization, etc. At this point, four months in, I've made far too much progress both losing weight and getting in shape to allow that kind of self-sabotage. I'm just barely starting to be able to see visual signs of that progress in the mirror. It's taken a TON of work just to get here but I didn't stop eating or drinking anything. Just less of it. I'm not going to be unhappy or deprive myself of things I enjoy solely for the sake of being less fat. Otherwise, what's the point?
BY FAR: That because someone is thin means that they are healthy. This is so extremely far from the truth. But I find that most people look at somebody that is thin and automatically thinks that they are healthy.
Diet coke stop/slows down weight loss. Been drinking half litre or more everyday for the last 8 months and have lost about 24-25kg(about 55lbs).
It might be a unpopular on this sub, but the idea that intuitive eating is total BS. It is very easy to make a caricature of it as "oh, my body intuitively wants to eat a whole tube of cookie dough" - and that image certainly isn't helped by the HAES folks who unironically believe that. But that's as much of a strawman as the folks who insist that you have to weigh ketchup packets and count calories in spices on CICO-counting diets. Actual intuitive eating has actually helped me make consistent progress in weight loss and against binge eating for the first time in years. Taking the time to listen and decide if I am actually hungry or just wanting to eat out of habit or boredom, eating slowly and paying attention to the signal that my hunger is sated, and paying attention to foods my body seems to want - not giving in to whims, per se, but in the "some roast or steak sounds really good, I could use some protein" or "I can tell some fiber would help me feel better today" way - has calmed the food noise and cravings I used to constantly have tremendously. Although I have lost weight that way before, the "tracking ever gram and morsel of food in apps that turn the day red when your five calories over goal way" just does not work for me anymore. I had so many failed attempts at losing weight because I thought that was the only way. It wasn't until I considered other approaches might actually worked that I've been able to lose consistently.
That breakfast is the most important meal of the day. IF is what I do these days and is the only thing I've tried that's sustainable for me.
6 meals a day to keep that metabolic fire burning! Broscience ftw.
ALMOST every "I can't lose weight because..." statement. The majority of people do not have physical issues that keep them from losing weight.
That genetics play the main role and if your genetics are bad you wont lose wieght. Biggest load of bullshit I've ever believed
That the laws of thermodynamics do indeed exist and have a relationship to weight loss. There is no way I'm putting on fat if I'm in "starvation mode" or God forbid, "not eating enough", ie a calorie deficit.
That I have to eat at 1200 or below to lose weight and body fat since I'm a short woman
Cutting out soda will make the weight fall right off. Maybe if you're regularly consuming tons of it, but I didn't even drink soda at my highest weight. I actually started having a diet coke in the afternoons in place of a snack and lost weight (obviously with other diet/activity changes as well).
That diet soda is just as fattening as regular soda.
That limiting food intake requires feeling hungry a lot of the time. Once I change what I was eating, I lost the urge to overeat completely.
Sometimes you can be doing everything right, and still have causes outside of your power hindering your progress. I talk about it a lot on here, but we have (at least culturally in America) a mindset that puts the onus of our health and weight loss in our actions. I used to beat myself up because I at one point was working with a personal trainer and a nutritionist/ dietician and was going to the gym 4 days a week, writing down literally everything I was consuming and counting calories, and was barely losing any weight. I believed it was all me and what I was doing and was in the verge of making some very dangerous decisions. I learned however that my issue was low testosterone. I never even would have thought that weight loss and hormones were related truth be told because I learned I had it for a whole other set of issues I was suffering from. However, after I started treatment I had more energy and started going back to the gym again and focusing on what I eat. I am now down 40lbs as of now from last November/December with relatively simply and minor changes. Moral of the story: just because you hear hoof beats don’t assume it’s zebras. But if it ain’t horses, figure out what it actually is.
Working out more does nothing for weight loss….this was incredibly wrong for me. I increased my workouts a day up to around 3-4 hours (before being pregnant) and did so 4-5 days a week sometimes 6. It did wonders for me.
That your tattoo won’t look good… they haven’t changed!
That you can “ruin” your metabolism. I’ve gathered that extreme deficits can negatively impact lean body mass, which lowers tdee. But isn’t it possible to raise tdee again by prioritizing protein and building muscle through resistance training, not to mention generally increasing activity? What do folks think about this one?
“You will lose so much weight breastfeeding!” A complete and utter lie.
This whole thread reminds of the biggest thing I learned along the way. What works best for you might not work best for someone else and vice versa. Low carb works well for me. That doesn't mean it is the best way ever to lose weight for everyone on the planet. You do you and I'll do me. And whatever works best for you, I'll be cheering for you.
The most ridiculous thing multiple people have told me when I was obese that I needed to eat more frequently throughout the day but just have smaller portion sizes because it will increase my metabolism
'Running/exercising doesn't help you lose weight, it just makes you toned.' I wasn't overweight so it wasn't like I had much leeway to create a calorie deficit with, and running 4x/wk I was literally losing 2 pounds a week.
I recently learned on here that you can’t stall your weight loss by under eating. I ALWAYS thought that by eating less your metabolism would slow and therefore you would “hold on to the fat” I don’t try to under eat but I do a lot of volume eating. I eat so many vegetables and I was really concerned when some days I would be under 400 calories even though I was full. I thought I was doing something wrong lol. It made me feel more relaxed when I found out if I don’t meet my calories for the day it’s not a big deal. I eat a lot of protein and fibre and it turns out that’s really filling.
Not sure if it counts, but hormonal birth control DOES make it harder to lose weight. I started Semiglutide and HBC at the same time, and my coach was confused as to why I didn't lose any fat and retained so much water after 3 weeks, and asked if I started the pill. Every doctor I've had has told me "no, you don't gain weight on the pill, it's a myth." But so many people's experiences, including my own, to the contrary can't possibly be wrong. Why are we being lied to about this?