Who else is on a diet?

[ValPal]

Originally Posted by tomarin

In your opinion, how much of one's weight is due to genes and how much is due to lifestyle? In Gina Kolata's book "Rethinking Thin" she makes what I think is a strong argument that our body has a genetically-based concept of its "ideal weight" which it defends vigorously, and that this explains why it's so hard to lose weight and then maintain that weight. This corresponds to my experiences.

In my opinion and experience, the vast majority one's health issues are due to lifestyle, in particular diet and exercise. Genes simply dictate what problems one is more likely to have as they stress their body.

To give a readily available example, Dr. John McDougall in his books talks about how he started to understand the connection between lifestyle and health. He learned from doing and internship on Hawaii, involving three generations of people from a particular ethnic group, where the older generation were healthier than the younger generation. The older generation had few chronic diseases, yet the younger generation had plenty. If genes had anything to do with it, all generations should have the same problems...nothing of the sort.

As far as weight resetting goes, I believe it is more due to habit than anything else. I have way more experience with this than I care to tell. There a dozens of reasons for this, including not buying new clothes (i.e., settling back into one's clothes until the start feeling uncomfortable) to getting the bounce back from unsustainably starving themselves. I eat at a sustainable rate, and when I diet to lose weight, then go back to my previous sustainable diet, I don't gain any weight.

[BigFig1]

Originally Posted by tomarin

Do you find that as you exercize you lose weight?

I do as long as my diet is in tune with my exercise. Here's the issue, there are 2 ways to go about losing weigh(measuring weight)t:
1= body fat % - this can be determined by any qualified personal trainer at your gym (make sure they use skin fold caliper)
2= scale weight (step on a scale)
The problem with scale weight is that it is not an accurate measurement of how much of your body is fat, and how much is muscle.
For example I could be on a great diet for 4 week. And at week one I weighted 190 pounds, only using the scale. From week 1 to 4 I followed and great diet, with the allowed occasional cheat meal. I trained with weights 5 to 6 times per week for one hour. And did a cardio workout once a day 5-6 times per week. Then after 4 weeks I get on the scale and it says 192 I say, "What the HECK this should have gone down, and I look better in the mirror than I did 4 weeks ago". Thats because odds are that you body fat went down but your lean muscle increased, but you cant figure that out on a scale.
Then you get off the scale thinking mentally that you gained more fat. Even though you dont realize that you achieved a goal. That is why body fat % is so important. Scale really does not mean much at all compared to body fat %.

[tomarin]

Originally Posted by BigFig1

I do as long as my diet is in tune with my exercise. Here's the issue, there are 2 ways to go about losing weigh(measuring weight)t:
1= body fat % - this can be determined by any qualified personal trainer at your gym (make sure they use skin fold caliper)
2= scale weight (step on a scale)

(edited by Tomarin)

In my case I had a strange experience last summer when I got really into cycling (I had a case of plantar fashiitis that sidelined my normal exercise, running, for quite a while). I was cycling hard every morning for an hour and going on multiple-hour rides on the weekend and naturally expected to lose a lot of weight (I'm always about ten pounds heavier than I'd like to be) but instead the opposite happened, because the cycling gave me an insatiable appetite, and incidentally made food taste better than it ever has before. So I didn't end up losing weight or slimming down, but if anything gaining some and bulking up.

On the flip side, I had an experience two years ago where I decided to restrict calories to lose weight and it worked like a charm (although, I couldn't push it down below a certain point, and maintaining the weight loss involved a lot of discipline, and my weight was always threatening to go up if I ate "normally," that is, to my fill). My problem is that I'm more or less an exercise addict and find that I cannot work out without properly "fueling" my workouts by eating more substantially than I did while on this diet, which involved a piece of fruit for breakfast, soup for lunch and a moderate meal for dinner.

So I'm caught in a catch-22. I can be fit and happy but a little overweight, or I can be thin and unhappy and not fit. But not both.

[BigFig1]

Originally Posted by tomarin

(edited by Tomarin)

In my case I had a strange experience last summer when I got really into cycling (I had a case of plantar fashiitis that sidelined my normal exercise, running, for quite a while). I was cycling hard every morning for an hour and going on multiple-hour rides on the weekend and naturally expected to lose a lot of weight (I'm always about ten pounds heavier than I'd like to be) but instead the opposite happened, because the cycling gave me an insatiable appetite, and incidentally made food taste better than it ever has before. So I didn't end up losing weight or slimming down, but if anything gaining some and bulking up.

On the flip side, I had an experience two years ago where I decided to restrict calories to lose weight and it worked like a charm (although, I couldn't push it down below a certain point, and maintaining the weight loss involved a lot of discipline, and my weight was always threatening to go up if I ate "normally," that is, to my fill). My problem is that I'm more or less an exercise addict and find that I cannot work out without properly "fueling" my workouts by eating more substantially than I did while on this diet, which involved a piece of fruit for breakfast, soup for lunch and a moderate meal for dinner.

So I'm caught in a catch-22. I can be fit and happy but a little overweight, or I can be thin and unhappy and not fit. But not both.

Hi Tomarian,
If you want PM me or add me as friend and I will be happy to discuss more.

[AdesteFideles]

Me!

I'm on a low-carb diet to balance out the result of lots of pizza and Chinese food.