What is the best way to lose weight?

[bobspud]

Man this weight loss thing winds me up! It's not ****ing rocket science people: calories in - calories out = weight gain/loss. Burn more than you eat and you'll lose weight. Eat more than you burn and you put it on. Eat enough and you'll get fat.

Personally I think people put way too much stock into dieting as a way of losing weight because they think it's easier (more convenient?) than exercise, but the truth is that drastic calorie deficit leaves you with less energy making you less active, and causes hunger craving making you more likely to snack. Yes cut down on the full-fat fizzy drinks, syrup-filled lattés, chips, sweets, beer, wine, spirits etc but don't stop them if it helps you live a happy life. Much easier to get off your arse and go for a run/cycle/swim/gym session and burn the calories off. You'll feel better for it.

I think you need to put men's health down and look a little more at the science. When you diet you are basically fighting your own instincts for survival and whatever you do to your body it will find a way to react that solves the stress. It's really easy to see that it is possible to tune your body to do amazing things with hardly any bulk stores. A perfect example are any of the African marathon runners that can weigh no more than a westerners 10 year old and yet run marathons with ease. Where do they hold that energy? The answer is they don't need it because they teach their body to hyper mile through the training.

The more aerobic exercise you do the more efficient your body becomes and as a result it will stop being stressed when you push it.

Adding muscle on the other hand WILL increase your metabolic rate however to get to the sort of increase you need to burn your fat arse off is beyond a few sessions in a gym per week and the last time I was putting enough effort in to improve my metabolism was serious gym time with Personal training and a whole raft of supplements. None of which help reduce fat or weight. It will however build muscles.

But -

What ever you think you know about you body now will eventually change when it turns on you and either learns how to store energy despite what you are doing to it or reduces the amount of energy you need. either one will end with the wonderful middle age spread.

Then the article is b***ocks quite frankly. Exercise increases your metabolic rate (how many calories you burn in a normal day), improves circulation, increases muscle mass etc. There is nothing bad about it unless you have some physical limitation which means you can't do certain exercises, but then there are usually alternatives. Swimming is a non-impact sport and only requires that you can avoid drowning yourself - after that, simply moving around in the pool will burn calories perfectly well regardless of your ability level.

Some more science for you... The order in which your body burns energy is sugars, muscle then fat. So if you belt off to the gym and put a blinder in your body will actually eat its own muscle before it gets to the fat which in turn reduces your metabolism because your are reducing muscle. Then you shove your post workout snack in and if you are not very careful, your body will say thanks I'd better store that.

It would be great if it was as easy as filling a petrol tank up at the start of the day but it's not and that's where the danger in processed foods and carbs start.

In a few decades time science will look back on this age and say Christ I'm amazed anyone survived to breed. Foods have been pumped up in calories and tastes to get us wanting more while we need less than ever to survive. You wouldn't cure and alcohol dependant person by saying just drink half the pint in front of you. Yet that's how we treat people with what is frankly food addiction problems.

[Old Greg]

Low-fat diets and exercise are pointless for losing weight, warns surgical expert*

Vote Brexit and starve to death.

[ZARDOZ]

Daily calorie restriction tends not to work long term but the 5:2 diet works and has lots of health benefits including the potential to reverse pre diabetes.

[SueEllen]

Daily calorie restriction tends not to work long term but the 5:2 diet works and has lots of health benefits including the potential to reverse pre diabetes.

5:2 diet is calorie restriction.

The reason it works is the same as daily calorie restriction.

Over time with both of them you are eating less.

The problem with both of them is will power.

Most people cannot cope eating a lot less daily if they are counting calories so will give up. There as other people can cope eating less two days a week.

In regards to turn around diabetes they both work as both depend on you cutting out refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, biscuits, crisps etc. In other words both rely on you not following the NHS dietary guidelines which has input from food manufacturers.

A simple way of eating less is to control your portion sizes, cut out the junk food and cook all your food from scratch. This means no crisps, biscuits, cakes, etc. plus sauces in a jar, takeaway meals, ready meals, pre-prepared food etc. In addition if you go off and do 1-2 hours exercise everyday you have less time to eat as you are otherwise occupied.

[unixman]

The problem with 'Calories' is that they are a false estimate of how much energy your body can extract from what you eat. We need a better marker for 'energy quality' to go with calories where carbs are almost 100% convertible and fat is around 40% convertible. When calculating the 'calories in' you work the carbs + alcohol first then add in the fat. That's what your body does.

On another note regarding the 'bag of crisps'. One of the chapters in Dr. Atkins book (called 'Dying for a pizza) shows just how 'class a' carbohydrates are , where the case study subject ends up dying of a heart attack because he could not give up pizzas even when told he would shortly die. It's worth mentioning that Dr. Atkins (a US citizen) was a cardiac surgeon who was losing significant income due to the fact that he could not operate on his patients because they were clinically obese, this was in the 60's and the situation is far worse now and about the same here now. So his motivation was some what different to the z-list celebs churning out fitness dvd's. His is also a Diet where this is how you will eat for the rest of your days, not a quick weight loss regime. Considering the book was written in the 60's you'd think it would have more traction, but again I'd have to point out the power of the 'food lobby'. It's about time there was some decent peer reviewed science done on this this as it's not simply 'calories in - energy out'.

Hasn't is been shown that people on the Atkins diet lose weight because, ultimately, they are consuming fewer calories ? The meat makes them feel full, so they stop eating sooner ...and consume fewer calories.

[unixman]

Best way to stay slim is to remember what you have eaten and drunk each day, and thus eat roughly the right ammount, and to excercise as much as your lifestyle allows.

Remembering what you have eaten is much easier if you don't eat between meals.

[bobspud]

Hasn't is been shown that people on the Atkins diet lose weight because, ultimately, they are consuming fewer calories ? The meat makes them feel full, so they stop eating sooner ...and consume fewer calories.

Yes despite the crap press that the diet got at the hands of the media the argument was that the human body is tuned to eat protein and veg. So it's easier to satiate an appetite when it gets what it wants. The diet never mentions fry ups and the crap that the morons touted it suggested the use of healthy protein in sensible portions.

The other important part is calorie absorbed vs consumed. A medium rare steak will provide the system far fewer calories than a highly processed overlooked burger. As the steak will need to be broken down while a burger is already minced.

But the thing that we all tend to forget is that when we exercise and diet. Is that when we inevitably stop the exercise we need to reduce the calories even further than the amount already reduced to lose weight in the first place.

[unixman]

Most amazing thing about old photographs now is not the old fashioned cars, the hairstyles, the clean streets, the heavy formal clothing. It is the fact that everybody - without exception - has an amazingly flat stomach.

And it's not just pictures from the 1930s I am talking about here. Your holiday snaps from the 70s too. Look at those people. Most of them did no excercise to speak of, never saw a gym, but young and old - completely slim. You almost forget that this is what normal human beings look like.

The media will sometimes joke about how terrible our diet was in the 70s. Oh really?

[minestrone]

yes, everyone was slim in the 70s, here is me in my prime...

[ZARDOZ]

5:2 diet is calorie restriction.

The reason it works is the same as daily calorie restriction.

Over time with both of them you are eating less.

The problem with both of them is will power.

Most people cannot cope eating a lot less daily if they are counting calories so will give up. There as other people can cope eating less two days a week.

In regards to turn around diabetes they both work as both depend on you cutting out refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, biscuits, crisps etc. In other words both rely on you not following the NHS dietary guidelines which has input from food manufacturers.

A simple way of eating less is to control your portion sizes, cut out the junk food and cook all your food from scratch. This means no crisps, biscuits, cakes, etc. plus sauces in a jar, takeaway meals, ready meals, pre-prepared food etc. In addition if you go off and do 1-2 hours exercise everyday you have less time to eat as you are otherwise occupied.

It's calorie restriction for just 2 days per week the other days a person can eat what they like. A small window of sacrifice then 5 days of normal eating. The medical benefits are well documented, see Dr Mosley et al re improvements in indicators of health. I tried it myself and dropped 2 stone fairly easily in 4 months without the usual drugery of day in day out dieting. After a while the fast days become easy and somewhat enjoyable. Moreover I had a takeaway every week!