| I'm gonna but in some cents. I've studied this stuff a lot, and had my own personal struggle with weight after some bad food poisoning messed up my digestion.
Here are some hard fast facts that can hopefully help those looking to slim.
Weight gain is largely an equation (there is more to it later, but we start here). Counting calories is the most effective way to loose weight in a dieting situation. That being said, how you are getting those calories definately matters more than how many.
If you are not building muscle AT ALL, and just doing diet alone, you must must must reduce your complex carb and sugar intake dramatically and limit it only to naturally occuring and simple sources. Think like a caveman and eat like one too. Cavemen couldn't make twinkies or hotdogs, nor could they get ice cream or sausage.
Each meal should be about 60% protien, 30% carb and 10% fat. You should limit your total caloric intake to be less than your basal metabolic rate, or plain and simple you will gain.
Now the addendum to my first statement. If you are treating steak as your 60% protien, mashed potatoes as your 30% carb and smothering it in butter as your 10% fat, you will probably gain. Your body has a mechanism that evaluates WHAT you eat and then tries to categories the enzymes and acids necessry to break those things down.
The more complicated it has to think the less effective it is, and so more material passes through unproperly digested. Also, your spleen/pancreas system work together to breakdown and absorb nutrients and energy from the food you eat. If they cannot do it effectively (because you are eating shit, or putting stuff they don't like in) again most of what you eat will just pass through and be harsh on the system.
When it gives up entirely, it just says "fuck it" and converts as much as possible into sugar, and then fat to be stored and figured out later. turning all that food into sugar over works your digestive system (can weaken your spleen/panc, and contribute to diabetes) and makes you feel hungry again to fast because it never felt like it got the right things.
for instance, if you eat nothing but salads, drown in fat free dressing, you will get fat. three reasons:
1) all that cold watery greens makes your spleen/panc angry and they won't digest all of it - you will eventually get stinky gassy much pouring out of your ass and you will feel like shit.
2) Fat free dressing is loaded with chemicals that trick your body into thinking the things that should be turned to fat, are not actually fat. The side effect is that ANYTHING that is healthy fat gets ignored too, and instead it gives up and just starts turning everything into fat instead.
3) Your body wants variety. When it gets nothing but the same shit over and over again, it starts dropping it's matabolism and assumes you are conserving. It starts to get very stingy with the few nutrients it does get and just plain ignoring others. Again, your body NEEDS VARIETY.
So if you are lumpy couch potato with a basal met rate of 2000 cals, you can absolutely loose weight dieting, but only if you do it right, calculated, and with attention to cleansing and giving your body what it's been missing for so long.
Working out like a madman will also win you no favors if again all you do is eat shit. Your muscles will break down, and when they need nutrients to build back up and you feed them McDonalds, they just say "fuck that shit" and pull excess carbs from your liver, and protien from other muscles and whatever healthy fats they can grab from the shit you just ate. The result is redistribution and you end up progressing very very very slowly and not really loosing anything. In fact, you will have much higher than normal recovery times and you basal met will stay roughly the same. FAIL.
The most effective way to go about it, is to slowly shift into both. Start increasing your daily activity and stary including light weight training while also changing diet and lifestyle habits to be more healthy and appropriate.
A healthy diet, with healthy foods containing lots of fruits and veggies (and TONS of variety of them) should be about 60% carb, 25% protien and 15% fat. From all healthy sources.
For instance, a bowl of old fashioned whole SPAM, some organic pro-biotic plain yogurt, and some berries. Or a Tuna salad sandwhich on natural whole grain (not store packaged doughey fake-o bread), a hand full of almonds and an apple. dinner say some some roasted chicken, w/roasted veggies and a small salad from earthy greens like romain/spinach and a light dressing of olive oil, lemon, seasoning and a drip of vinegar.
Think CLEAN and BLAND. believe me, once you try it and get over the first few days you feel AMAZING and wonder how you ever ate massively over salted, over seasoned and chemically infused garbage.
With proper nutrition, any workout gains will be exponential by comparison to brute force attempts followed by shit on a plate. I spent years trying to loose weight by gyming 3-4 days a week and eating small portions of whatever I wanted. I gained about 30 lbs of fat and only about 15lbs of muscle.
Eating this way I lost 20lbs of fat and gained 8lbs of muscle in 2 months and had 50%+ improvement on all my exercise plateaus. I am now approaching ideal physical genetic capability and almost to my target body weight. And I feel AWESOME by comparison. A sedintary lifestyle full of fast food, sugary junk, and store bought pre-made garbage is the fast track to a miserable life full of health problems. _________________ "Would it be wrong to join sexaholics anonymous to pick-up chicks?" "...yes, and stop eating that baby."
-Psych3r-
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