Help losing a bit of weight.

[Leptons]

bonkbonk said:

Skip to the bottom if you don't fancy all these paragraphs!

This is quite a commonly held theory but there's no real science behind it.

In fact, if you look at the body's hormonal levels throughout the day, the morning is the worst time you can put food in, particularly carbohydrate. As you wake up you have high cortisol levels and low insulin levels meaning your body metabolises fat faster; this is good. When you then chuck in some carbs and release a surge of insulin this results in vastly cut fat metabolisation and prompts the body to start creating fat cells. This is obviously undesirable!

The answer is that breakfast is not at all "the most important meal of the day" and that you should consider skipping it or at the very least confining it to being predominantly protein-based while saving most of your carbohydrate for the evenings when cortisol is lower and the insulin spike can help you sleep.

For what it's worth, on a personal note I find that starting the day fasted or semi-fasted makes me feel a lot more alert throughout the morning than starting with, for example, a bowl of cereal or porridge. I've also managed to reduce and maintain a reasonable amount of body-fat while eating almost all of my carbohydrate at night!

It's worth bearing in mind that the usual 80/20 rule applies. It's all well and good managing your meal timings but it'll do you no good if you're eating 1000 more calories than you require to "tick over". Equally, if you're eating at "scientifically unsound" times of the day, but you're still in a sensible deficit, the chances are that you're still going to be losing weight!

Short Version:

- Don't bother with breakfast
- Carbs in the evening are fine and even beneficial
- If you eat less than you use you'll probably be okay
- This is easiest to achieve if you cut out sugary stuff!

This.

Eat your calories between 12.30pm and 8.30pm. You won't die. Come back and report in 2 months.

[Hoofy]

Leptons said:

bonkbonk said:

Skip to the bottom if you don't fancy all these paragraphs!

This is quite a commonly held theory but there's no real science behind it.

In fact, if you look at the body's hormonal levels throughout the day, the morning is the worst time you can put food in, particularly carbohydrate. As you wake up you have high cortisol levels and low insulin levels meaning your body metabolises fat faster; this is good. When you then chuck in some carbs and release a surge of insulin this results in vastly cut fat metabolisation and prompts the body to start creating fat cells. This is obviously undesirable!

The answer is that breakfast is not at all "the most important meal of the day" and that you should consider skipping it or at the very least confining it to being predominantly protein-based while saving most of your carbohydrate for the evenings when cortisol is lower and the insulin spike can help you sleep.

For what it's worth, on a personal note I find that starting the day fasted or semi-fasted makes me feel a lot more alert throughout the morning than starting with, for example, a bowl of cereal or porridge. I've also managed to reduce and maintain a reasonable amount of body-fat while eating almost all of my carbohydrate at night!

It's worth bearing in mind that the usual 80/20 rule applies. It's all well and good managing your meal timings but it'll do you no good if you're eating 1000 more calories than you require to "tick over". Equally, if you're eating at "scientifically unsound" times of the day, but you're still in a sensible deficit, the chances are that you're still going to be losing weight!

Short Version:

- Don't bother with breakfast
- Carbs in the evening are fine and even beneficial
- If you eat less than you use you'll probably be okay
- This is easiest to achieve if you cut out sugary stuff!

This.

Eat your calories between 12.30pm and 8.30pm. You won't die. Come back and report in 2 months.

You're not a gremlin. You can eat after midnight.

[otolith]

Hoofy said:

There was a great post on MFP about how everyone was a unique snowflake but not too dissimilar really. So you are a unique snowflake just like your Mummy tells you but like everyone else, if you eat lots, you will put on weight.

Yep. As far as I can see, most of the complication people add about when and what to eat is about either controlling hunger or feeling/performing better during exercise. Essentially how to eat a calorie deficit without feeling miserable about it.

[Hoofy]

otolith said:

Yep. As far as I can see, most of the complication people add about when and what to eat is about either controlling hunger or feeling/performing better during exercise. Essentially how to eat a calorie deficit without feeling miserable about it.

Yeah, that's why I spread my eating throughout the day. I can resist food earlier in the day. Come evening, I'm peckish. I see a lot of newbies complaining about hunger pangs later in the evening so I tell them to save some calorie allowances (1-300) for their post-dinner snack. Whether they want to down a beer or eat feta salad is up to them. There is so much bullst about, much of it from commercial organisations (including PTers who are in it for the money, too).

I call it Moscience - most of it is the sort of st spread amongst hobby dieting mothers outside school gates who are permanently overweight, zigzagging upwards with their weight.

Edited by Hoofy on Friday 7th September 10:10

[Some Gump]

Op, get yourself on ebay, buy a mountain bike. Ride every other day, first week is crap, but it gets better.
I lost a stone in the first 6weeks, average 20 miles per ride, doing as many hills as i can without being sick.
Started at 14 st 11' now just under 14 st, and i actualy enjoy the excersise. Theres an app called strava that lets you track your performance too, quite motivating.

[Hoofy]

Some Gump said:

Op, get yourself on ebay, buy a mountain bike. Ride every other day, first week is crap, but it gets better.
I lost a stone in the first 6weeks, average 20 miles per ride, doing as many hills as i can without being sick.
Started at 14 st 11' now just under 14 st, and i actualy enjoy the excersise. Theres an app called strava that lets you track your performance too, quite motivating.

How many miles do you do a week these days? Am interested in your experiences.

[otolith]

Hoofy said:

Yeah, that's why I spread my eating throughout the day. I can resist food earlier in the day. Come evening, I'm peckish. I see a lot of newbies complaining about hunger pangs later in the evening so I tell them to save some calorie allowances (1-300) for their post-dinner snack.

Yes, I'm the same. If I could only eat once a day, it would be late at night, I can't go to bed hungry or sit around the house in the evening hungry without foraging.

My main strategy for feeling full is high protein foods and enormous quantities of veg. It's only really once you start weighing everything and adding up the calories that you get an idea of what's good value. You can pile your plate high with broccoli, cabbage, kale, green beans, spring greens, etc, you feel as if you've eaten a big meal and there's sod all in it.

[Leptons]

Hoofy said:

You're not a gremlin. You can eat after midnight.

Of course, but that means not eating at lunchtime to be fasted for 16 hours. Personally, I find that unpleasant.

[Some Gump]

Hoofy said:

How many miles do you do a week these days? Am interested in your experiences.

Generally, i've kept the distance fairly similar, and just got a lot faster! Early days i stopped a lot, and averaged maybe 8 or 9 mph. Now, i don't have to stop, and average just under 12.

I'm also searching out hillier routes. I want my chin back, and so i use that as motivation to e.g aim for somewhere high, and not let the hill win. The hill always wins eventually, but e.g challenge from 3 saturdays ago was the cat and fiddle inn without using the little cog at the front. Hurt like hell, but very satisfying. Next time, i have to beat that time, or do it with 2 or fewer stops (3 stops last time / 50 mins macc lights to the pub).

Last 3 weeks have been

100miles (but overdid it by having 2 big weekend rides, won't be doing that again!)
60 including some epic hillage offroad
20 so far this week, but tomorow is big ride day, and work kyboshed my tuesday night ride. Route planned for tomorrow of 40, so Should still get 60 in this week.

Things i would do differently?
1 get equipped for things before they happen to you - snapping a chain 15 miles from home is a total arse pain.
You need:
Pump, repair kit, levers, pref. Spare inner tube. Chain tool and missing link jobbie. Get a camel bak, 500 ml of water doesn't cut it when you're sweating like a beast and only half way up some evil hill - it gives you an excuse to give up and that makes things harder. Also, get glasses of some sort. The best bit of a huge hill is coming down again - but flies fookin wreak at 28mph. I'm also convinced that being unable to see is dangerous in some shape or form.

2 get strava right from the off. I've been using it for 2 weeks, and can already see i'm faster now than before (only just slightly, but thats not the point). It also saves clicking about endlessly on veloroutes to see if the hills were as tall as they felt. I just wish now that i could see the improvements from my first weeks - i had to stop 3 times on alderley edge hill the first time. Now, i get to the top and accelerate. It would be a nice ego boost to know how much faster i get each week.

3 learn about energy / nutrition, even if it's just a little bit. On my first cat and fiddle challenge, the first 8 miles (to get to macclesfield) felt horrible. I'd had a huge bowl of alpen just before i left, i thought that was good energy? I now know that i should have eaten at least an hour before starting, then i'd have been much happier - the hill was less horrible than the smaller hills on an empty stomach. Likewise, the occasional cerial bar / wine gum can make sure you don't get that lead legs feeling.

4 set your bike up properley. If your seat is really low, you're making life hard for yourself. I ended up going too high, with pointy toes - it felt better. I was advised to lower it an inch, et voila, no achey calves the next morning

[otolith]

Cycling is good. We dusted the bikes off at the end of August after not using them for a couple of months and we've been doing lots of miles at the weekends. My mrs has started cycling into work three days a week, and I've been going in with her and meeting her in the evenings (I work from home). MapMyTracks says that in the last two weeks I've cycled about 365 miles and burnt about 17,000 calories. Not entirely convinced of the calorie calculation, to be honest, but it's certainly burnt a few.

[Some Gump]

fk me ragged. 365 miles in 2 weeks? You can't be in our fat club, sorry

[otolith]

Some Gump said:

fk me ragged. 365 miles in 2 weeks? You can't be in our fat club, sorry

My arse has been in tatters

I really need those rest days when the wife drives in to work. Sore bum, sore knees, aching legs, which just about clears up by the time I have to get on the bike again. But, I have a holiday at the end of October, and a (perhaps unrealistic) objective to hit 11 1/2 stone by the time we go.

So starting point was 181.4 pounds and 25.1% body fat on August 26th, target weight is 161 pounds which (if the bioelectrical impedence nonsense in my scales is at all reliable, and it probably isn't) would be about 15% body fat. After one week, I was on target at 178.4 pounds. Target for this Sunday is 176 pounds, currently hovering around 175/176.

It's been a fairly long drag, I've already lost about 3 stone over the last 16 months, I'm just trying to speed things up a bit

[Some Gump]

Well fair play to you oth, 3 stone is a fantastic loss! I had presumed you were one of those bird like lycra men, hoofing it up all of the hills. I spose you can be in our fat club, after all

[Cheib]

Leptons said:

bonkbonk said:

Skip to the bottom if you don't fancy all these paragraphs!

This is quite a commonly held theory but there's no real science behind it.

In fact, if you look at the body's hormonal levels throughout the day, the morning is the worst time you can put food in, particularly carbohydrate. As you wake up you have high cortisol levels and low insulin levels meaning your body metabolises fat faster; this is good. When you then chuck in some carbs and release a surge of insulin this results in vastly cut fat metabolisation and prompts the body to start creating fat cells. This is obviously undesirable!

The answer is that breakfast is not at all "the most important meal of the day" and that you should consider skipping it or at the very least confining it to being predominantly protein-based while saving most of your carbohydrate for the evenings when cortisol is lower and the insulin spike can help you sleep.

For what it's worth, on a personal note I find that starting the day fasted or semi-fasted makes me feel a lot more alert throughout the morning than starting with, for example, a bowl of cereal or porridge. I've also managed to reduce and maintain a reasonable amount of body-fat while eating almost all of my carbohydrate at night!

It's worth bearing in mind that the usual 80/20 rule applies. It's all well and good managing your meal timings but it'll do you no good if you're eating 1000 more calories than you require to "tick over". Equally, if you're eating at "scientifically unsound" times of the day, but you're still in a sensible deficit, the chances are that you're still going to be losing weight!

Short Version:

- Don't bother with breakfast
- Carbs in the evening are fine and even beneficial
- If you eat less than you use you'll probably be okay
- This is easiest to achieve if you cut out sugary stuff!

This.

Eat your calories between 12.30pm and 8.30pm. You won't die. Come back and report in 2 months.

You can eat whatever time of day you want...it's about three things....calorie deficit, type of calories and eating regualrly rather than one or two big meals a day.

[otolith]

No, still got a spare tyre to dispose of yet. Possibly some kind of rotund flightless bird...

[bonkbonk]

Cheib said:

You can eat whatever time of day you want...it's about three things....calorie deficit, type of calories and eating regualrly rather than one or two big meals a day.

I completely agree that a calorie deficit is fundamentally the most important part of losing fat but not so much with the rest of your post.

Timing when you eat is important both from a fat loss point of view, as (semi-)detailed in my previous post, but also from a "well-being" point of view. Shedding fat is shedding fat, but if you have a choice between feeling horrible and feeling great while doing it then most would rather go for the latter!

Managing your insulin response and associated levels of hunger, drowsiness and satiety through meal-timing is one way of helping with this.

As for eating regularly rather than "two big meals a day". There isn't any real scientific backing for this and, particularly on a calorie deficit, it's a sure fire way of making yourself feel hungry all day and encouraging snacking.

[Hoofy]

otolith said:

Yes, I'm the same. If I could only eat once a day, it would be late at night, I can't go to bed hungry or sit around the house in the evening hungry without foraging.

My main strategy for feeling full is high protein foods and enormous quantities of veg. It's only really once you start weighing everything and adding up the calories that you get an idea of what's good value. You can pile your plate high with broccoli, cabbage, kale, green beans, spring greens, etc, you feel as if you've eaten a big meal and there's sod all in it.

Aye. I've been eating that style twice a week just for a change from salad. Scarily low in calories so I end up finding food just to increase the intake to my goal.

[Hoofy]

Leptons said:

Hoofy said:

You're not a gremlin. You can eat after midnight.

Of course, but that means not eating at lunchtime to be fasted for 16 hours. Personally, I find that unpleasant.

Ah, didn't realise you meant for him to fast. Fair enough. I thought you were suggesting that it was bad to eat after X o'clock.

[Hoofy]

Thanks for the replies on biking. Big miles really is the way to go, it seems.

[Cheib]

bonkbonk said:

Cheib said:

You can eat whatever time of day you want...it's about three things....calorie deficit, type of calories and eating regualrly rather than one or two big meals a day.

I completely agree that a calorie deficit is fundamentally the most important part of losing fat but not so much with the rest of your post.

Timing when you eat is important both from a fat loss point of view, as (semi-)detailed in my previous post, but also from a "well-being" point of view. Shedding fat is shedding fat, but if you have a choice between feeling horrible and feeling great while doing it then most would rather go for the latter!

Managing your insulin response and associated levels of hunger, drowsiness and satiety through meal-timing is one way of helping with this.

As for eating regularly rather than "two big meals a day". There isn't any real scientific backing for this and, particularly on a calorie deficit, it's a sure fire way of making yourself feel hungry all day and encouraging snacking.

I suppose what I meant by eating regularly was having three meals a day with something healthy in between....that's what I have been advised to do by a dietician ( I was referred to her by one of the best Gastroenterologists in the country so I assume she's good !). I am not really on a calorie deficit diet (I am not calorie counting at all) but am just eating healthily/sensibly....and not eating "bad" snacks at all. If I eat anything between meals it's fruit, maybe a tiny amount of nuts or some fat free yoghurt. One thing I have definitely noticed is that by eating "good" carbs and also by cutting out unnecessary sugars (i.e. honey and raisins in porridge) it's made an absolutely massive difference to how quickly I feel hungry. I normally have an oat based cereal for breakfast (porridge or oatbix) and have noticed that if I don't have fruit mid morning I definitely start to feel lethargic.....much more so than if were to have a say some white toast....BUT I would feel hungry much quicker if I had white toast.. I guess that is because the white bread gets digested/broken down much more quickly?

The dietician also said that the whole perception about eating late in the day is pretty much an urban myth.....but what she did say is that by eating late and get overly hungry and thus eat more when you do come to eat then it's obviously worse.