The Contradictory Feelings Thread

[Salmoneus]

As we discussed with Morrigan: situps do not reduce stomach fat. This is a myth.
The only way situps can reduce stomach fat is if they reduce overall fat and make you lose weight. But since they don't require much energy, you need to do a hell of a lot of them to reduce weight. [And losing any weight through exercise is extremely difficult, because the exercise makes you hungrier]. The "exercise X body part and you'll lose fat at X body part" is more or less the same sort of folk tale as "eat plants that look like X body part and you'll stop having dysfunctions in X body part".

Situps may increase your amount of stomach muscle. This may, if you do it enough and you don't have much fat over it, help your stomach look flatter and eventually may even make the outline of muscles visible to observers. However, it will not 'turn fat into muscle' or the like, and if you have a flabby stomach then it will remain flabby, because the muscles are hidden underneath the flab.

The only effective way to reduce stomach fat, other than surgically, is by eating slightly less food than required to sustain your current weight, for a prolonged period of time. Unless you're an olympic athlete, exercise will not noticeably directly help weight loss. Exercise is useful because a) it improves mood, encourages optimism and discipline and thus helps people persevere in losing weight; b) it improves fitness, which is good for your health (it may also increase your metabolism so you burn off food more quickly, though I think this is less certain); and c) it improves your muscles, which will make your stronger, which you may like, and may improve your appearance - but toned muscles will still be difficult to notice if they're covered in fat.
Situps and the like only really help the third of these, I think, although some people I suppose might find that they can be part of a routine that increases mental discipline.

But whether they're good or not - they do absolutely (no pun intended) nothing to reduce stomach fat.



[And now I'm feeling the lure of spelling reform, because I keep reading them as /saItVps/...]

[Drydic]

Slightly less ain't gonna cut it. Thanks for assuming things that were never stated, I've cut my food consumption by well over half as well (It was far above what is necessary/advisable, so don't give me any bullshit about not eating enough). I'm not going to take 6 years or whatever to lose this weight.

[Salmoneus]

It would, however, be irresponsible to point out what you're not mentioning, which is that:
a) dramatically reducing your intake, no matter how high it was before, has considerable health risks attached (eg a relative of mine recently had to had their gallbladder removed as a result); and more importantly perhaps
b) dramatically reducing your intake will very, very probably lead to weight gain. The odds of actually maintaining weight loss after an extreme diet are in the order of less than 1% (and the succesful are mostly those who didn't have much weight to lose in the first place), while the odds of gaining more weight than you started with are in the tens of percent, getting bigger quickly the more drastic the initial weight loss (for dieting in general, it's between 1/3 and 2/3, but it's higher with more extreme diets). More importantly, if you do maintain the weight lost, it will overwhelmingly only be a very small weight loss that you're able to actually maintain... whereas if you're in the (far larger) group that gains weight, the weight gain has a good chance of being very large. [And if the cycle repeats, with multiple bouts of extreme dieting, then the chances of escaping rapidly approach zero].

See, for instance, Korkkeila's study of Finnish twins - being put on a diet on average caused a weight gain of 10kg. Coakley found that the BEST predictor of weight gain over a 4-year period - better than smoking, reported eating habits, and physical activity levels - was whether people had experience of dieting. In particular, obesity is massively predicted by dieting. Stice's study of non-obese women, for instance, found that, controlling for starting weight, dieters were three times more likely to develop obesity over the next three years.
Medically speaking, dieting causes obesity. Plus, those who lose weight and regain it appear to have greater health problems than those who maintain a high weight throughout. And that doesn't even go into the mental health problems dieting can cause - and even ignoring the cognitive-behavioural and social consequences, there's the plain biological way that weight loss messes with your brain chemistry.

It is, of course, possible to lose weight by going on a severe diet, and then keep all or most of it off. It is also possible to win the lottery. Dieting is a sensible way of losing weight only to the extent that spending your spare income on lottery tickets is a sensible way of planning for your retirement. If the lottery is run by local mafia types with a record of coming round and smashing people's kneecaps off.


...but in any case, going back to what you originally said: doing situps won't reduce stomach muscle. If you want to do enough situps to add a major contribution to weightloss, chances are you'll do yourself an injury in the process.

[I do apologise if I've 'assumed' something in my earlier reply, but I'm not sure what that might be exactly]

[Drydic]

Well, now, you do seem to be making the assumption that I'll be going back to my previous level of food consumption ever. Unless I'm going to somehow gain weight while eating less than before and actually doing some exercise regularly (which I previously was not doing to any degree.)

I've known my previous habits weren't healthy or sustainable (if I wanted to be less than 300 pounds ever...) I'll just come out and note here that when I started keeping track ~2 weeks ago my weight was at 340 pounds. I'm now down to 327; before this, it was just a steady depressing climb upwards. But, of course, two weeks does not a trend make; this is why I'm keeping track, so I can see any trends that show up after say a month, two months, and longer periods as I reach them.

PS: I've also gotten much better about the quality and type of food that I am eating, which in and of itself will likely help somewhat.

[Radius Solis]

I'll just come out and note here that when I started keeping track ~2 weeks ago my weight was at 340 pounds. I'm now down to 327

Whoaaa there. I had been inclined to leave this whole topic be, but that is an unsafe rate of weight loss. You want it gone, I get that, and it's a good thing to want - but if you take it off at that rate you can cause some very serious metabolic and liver problems for yourself. (In general, they say 1-2 pounds per week is right around the limit on safe weight loss.)

It does come down to the balance sheet of calorie intake versus calorie expenditure, and permanent lifestyle changes work much better than temporary diets. But abrupt extreme changes (regardless of their permanence) can fuck up your body in ways you definitely do not want. Please, please take some time to do some research on healthy, safe, sustainable ways to lose weight.

[Pthagnar]

In fairness, I've heard of enough people who were very big to begin with noticing a rapid decrease, which quickly falls off to something more steady that that doesn't sound so alarming. Aiming to maintain that rate is probably going to lead to fuckups, though.

[Drydic]

Well now that I've gone through a nearly complete meltdown spiral (mostly IRL, though #isharia got a portion of it)...
My goal is to reach 180 pounds. Obviously, I was trying to do that at a relatively brisk pace. This wasn't entirely because I want it gone fast (though I admit I do), but because based on my past history of long term projects, I need to be making some sort of noticible progress to keep myself focused on what needs to be done to reach the goal, whatever that is. The timeframe for noticible progress, in my head, is more like a day or two; if it's weekly (such as being 327 pounds today and then 326/325 next Tuesday), it...well, in my 'hazier' moments, which occur daily with worse events at least once weekly, I'm liable to go "fuck it I'll never get this done why bother" and eat the proverbial pantry. For the past two weeks, I've been able to keep that demon under control with needing to keep to losing one pound (or a little less; there have been a few days I ended over where I started) daily. I'm scared as fuck I won't be able to stay in control without that constant reinforcement. And I felt incredible that I was actually, for pretty much the first time in my life, able to actually lose weight and exercise on a consistent basis.
I'm going to try my damnedest to keep up. I can't fail. But I don't know if I can succeed.

[Radius Solis]

Now that I have more time to reply...

The problem with massive self-denial is that staying in control of it is so hard. That's why most people don't get good mileage out of it for long, even if they have impressive early results.

But you're already started in, so don't just let go and devour the whole grocery store on the basis of some internet posts, okay? Try to start from where you are now and modify back towards sustainability, rather than giving up on the project. What I'd do at this point is try to evaluate what things you're missing eating the most, and begin re-adding them to your current diet one at a time, even if they're unhealthy. Maybe try to have them less often or in smaller portions instead of dumping them entirely - the difference can be made up with healthier foods if you find you can make that work - but with the goal of returning your diet to something that takes less of an iron will to keep up with. So long as that still results in a sufficient ratio of calories burned to calories eaten (compared to your old diet), weight will come off.

I've had that happen by accident, actually. A couple years ago my long-term stable weight of 195-200 started falling for a while, and I couldn't figure out why as I had made no recent changes. I even went to the doctor to have my thyroid checked, just in case - but after about six months it reached 175 and then stayed there. Only later did I put two and two together and realize that this had coincided with when I switched from regular coca-cola to coke zero - which worked out to a decrease of 600 calories per day, that I had never even thought about because I'd switched for the sake of my teeth, not my weight, and because I'd had no idea it had that many calories. Only that one little change lost me a pound a week until I reached the new equilibrium weight.

Sal is a little off the mark about the exercise: aside from certain disorders, any doctor will tell you that in the big picture weight is down to calories eaten vs. calories burned. Increasing the second number is just as valid as decreasing the first, and you do best of all when you attack both. He may be responding to the exercise level you're reporting though, for which, it's true that two miles of walking per day will only burn so many calories. (The other benefits he lists for doing it anyway are correct.)

[Drydic]

Now that I have more time to reply...

The problem with massive self-denial is that staying in control of it is so hard. That's why most people don't get good mileage out of it for long, even if they have impressive early results.

But you're already started in, so don't just let go and devour the whole grocery store on the basis of some internet posts, okay? Try to start from where you are now and modify back towards sustainability, rather than giving up on the project. What I'd do at this point is try to evaluate what things you're missing eating the most, and begin re-adding them to your current diet one at a time, even if they're unhealthy. Maybe try to have them less often or in smaller portions instead of dumping them entirely - the difference can be made up with healthier foods if you find you can make that work - but with the goal of returning your diet to something that takes less of an iron will to keep up with. So long as that still results in a sufficient ratio of calories burned to calories eaten (compared to your old diet), weight will come off.

That's the thing tho: I haven't actually excluded anything I'm really missing (that isn't purely comfort food with near zero value, at least...and I don't mind doing without that stuff). The entire list of changes I've made thus far has been stopping getting anything from fast food joints, reduction in portions of what I do eat, and a slight increase in eating the likes of carrots and salads. I haven't denied myself food when I've felt hungry, though I have denied myself eating just to be doing something, or when I was stressed (which of course is a classic time for overeating to occur).

Sal is a little off the mark about the exercise: aside from certain disorders, any doctor will tell you that in the big picture weight is down to calories eaten vs. calories burned. Increasing the second number is just as valid as decreasing the first, and you do best of all when you attack both. He may be responding to the exercise level you're reporting though, for which, it's true that two miles of walking per day will only burn so many calories. (The other benefits he lists for doing it anyway are correct.)

I'm coming from a classic couch potato (in my case a computer chair) level of activity, so those so many calories burnt are still quite a bit more than what I normally burn day in, day out. Most of my reduction in weight seems to have been from burning the calories off with the walking.

[Salmoneus]

Well, now, you do seem to be making the assumption that I'll be going back to my previous level of food consumption ever.

The problem is, this is like hearing someone say "it's OK that I'm trying heroin. Taking heroin for a couple of months probably won't hurt too much, and you're just assuming that I'm not going to give it up in a few months!"
Well yeah, you may be the one who really can give up heroin whenever they want. You may be the one who can crash diet now and never go back to a high level of food consumption. And you may also, while you're at it, be the one who wins the lottery. But in none of these three cases is it a sensible or prudent assumption to base your plans for the future on.

In particular, I'd really caution you to try to think differently about wanting rapid weight loss. Because it isn't going to happen. Or rather: weight loss on a given diet is not linear, and the same diet that gives you dangerously high rates of weight loss today will before long crawl down to a 'checking every few weeks to see if you've dropped a pound' pace. Each pound is harder to drop than the one before. To put it another way: to maintain the same rate of weight loss, you will have to adopt a more and more extreme diet as time goes on. This will do more and more physical damage - it will also do more and more mental damage. Extreme weight loss has direct biological effects on the brain, but the process of dieting also has a host of negative effects on the psychology. You've pinpointed what normally happens to people: they set up unrealistic expectations for weight loss, they confirm those expectations with initial successes, and then they get more and more depressed as they fail to repeat those successes. Along with the depression over not meeting their goals, they begin to self-recriminate, blaming themselves for failing to do what was all but impossible anyway. Eventually they reach a point where they decide they've failed, at which point the built-up psychological starvation goes into ravaging mode, they put on a heap of weight, they feel they're failures, they feel they can't ever lose the weight, and they eat more both because well why not and because it's comforting to them. And they start cycling back up toward a higher weight; and next time they need to set even more unrealistic goals to motivate them and convince them it won't be the same as last time. [A big part of this cycle is also that eating is a way of self-medicating for anxiety. More determination to lose weight results in more anxiety, which makes it harder to abstain from eating. As much as possible, try not to worry too much about losing weight. Reduce the psychological stakes, and set achievable and sustainable goals. You point out yourself that stress can be a trigger for overeating - a diet regime that involves high levels of stress (eg worrying about losing weight every few days) may trigger more overeating than it reduces]
So the problem is: you can't expect to keep losing a pound a day until you're a healthy weight. If you manage to do that, it's because you've got anorexia and then being overweight will be the least of your problems. So, rather than being really elated about losing a lot now and then crashing when you hit a wall later, it's probably best to begin thinking more sustainably about it from the beginning.

The problem is, weight loss is not a caloric problem. In terms of calories, it's very easy. The problem is that obesity is physically and psychologically addictive. And it's all very well saying that addiction can be dealt with by just deciding to give it up, and maybe sometimes it can be... but let's just say that that's not the mindset that leads to the most positive results.


Radius: while it's true that theoretically exercise is as important as consumption... it isn't. Changing your exercise level just messes with your metabolism and your hunger. Bouchard et al (1993) iirc calculate that you have to have maintained a regular exercise regime for at least two years before it even begins to result in weight loss. Ballor et al (1991) showed that exercise-based interventions yield extremely low results, working out two about two thirds of a pound every sixteen weeks. Likewise Donelly et al (2000) showed that exercise could produce healthy benefits, including weight loss at the 9 month point... but at a level only a fraction of what was actually considered medically beneficial. What's more, one of Donelly's regimes, based on daily low-intensity exercise, which best matches what most people do, had no effect on weight loss at all after 18 months - the body simply adapts to the new regime.

Theoretically, then, weight loss can be driven by exercise. In practice, this is much, much, much harder than doing it by reducing consumption. The psychological effects of exercise in encouraging lower consumption seem a lot more important than the actual physiological effects.

One thing that might be worth noting, though, is that Donelly did find that the other regime tested, involving high-intensity exercise a few times a week, was more effective in terms of maintainance, even though it actually 'burned' fewer calories than the low-intensity regime. It's not clear whether this is a physiological effect or a psychological one, or when exactly this effect kicks in. It's also worth noting that although aerobic and resistance exercise have similar direct effects on calory consumption, aerobic exercise seems much better at combatting depression, so is likely to be better at supporting a weight loss regime.

Of course, I'm not in any way saying not to exercise (at a sensible level). It probably does help, and even if it didn't it would still be good for you. I'm just saying, don't go looking for exercise to have a powerful short-term effect on your weight. It's probably better seen as part of transitioning to a healthier lifestyle. And I know everyone says it, but I'll say it again anyway: transitioning to a healthier lifestyle is key. If you manage that, you'll lose the weight, so you don't need to worry about how quickly you do it - after all, worrying about your weight is actually not part of a healthier lifestyle (the more you think about your weight, the more you want to eat). And if you don't manage to transition to a healthier lifestyle, it doesn't matter how much weight you lose because you'll just put it back on again in the long run.


-----

Anyway, sorry for preaching on the issue.

[Btw, if it's a possibility, you might want to consider talking to a therapist about this, if you aren't already. AIUI, therapeutic approaches to weight loss are still rather undeveloped, but studies are very promising, at least compared to to weight loss without therapy. It's also a good idea if possible to think about external environments - finding ways to get validation when you lose weight but also support when you're not losing weight as quickly as possible. At the very least, it's probably good to talk up-front with friends and family - you want them to encourage you without pressurising you, and reassure you without convincing you it's not worth it. Improved results can also be found with certain weight loss groups, because they give that external support framework (and because by providing social benefits they give a positive to sticking with the programme rather than just a negative to leaving). However, if the atmosphere is wrong these can be polarising - because when you fail to meet your goals, you may feel even more ashamed/guilty/depressed/etc when you feel others are relying on you. So again, you need support without too much pressure. [Also, for long-term members, these groups can themselves become addictive - you go for twenty years and they're essential to your social life so of course you have to be careful not to lose weight, or else you'll have no excuse to see your friends...]]

[Salmoneus]

Oh, and on the theme of encouraging: your last post says a lot of good things. It is important not to try to deny yourself too much, reducing frequency without cutting out pleasures altogether. Try as much as possible to think "is this a diet I can live with for the long term?" It's also very good to identify trigger times and to be aware of how you use eating to deal with negative stimuli like boredom or stress. It may be good to actually try to find alternative ways to respond - things to do when you've got nothing else to do, or things to do when you're stressed - so that you can active do those things rather than passively telling yourself 'I'm not going to eat, I'm not going to eat...'.

[Drydic]

Sal, try not making a bunch of assumptions about me (or anyone else for that matter), and you'll come off a lot less holier than thou. And yes, you are coming across as that; if I were any less determined to keep this level (of exercise...) going, you would have just talked me out of trying to lose any weight at all.

[Nortaneous]

In my experience, it's a lot easier to set a dietary pattern (wrt *what* you eat, not how much of it you eat) than it is to start an exercise routine or eat less.

The only problem is that the easier a particular pattern is to get into, the less useful it will be: vegetarianism turned out to be awful for me (I stopped growing about five years earlier than everyone else in my family, right after I started that), but you can say that you're a vegetarian without getting funny looks. Paleo, not so much -- and I don't know if there are any dietary benefits to paleo *specifically* or whether it's just that it bans the vast majority of things that are bad for you (soda and candy, sure, but if you can't eat wheat it's hard to eat burgers or donuts or sugar-filled cereal) -- so that ended up failing.

Part of the problem there was that some of the pro-paleo arguments undermined it: someone pointed out that if it's all about genetics, you should eat what your ancestors ate, so since my blood is [almost but not quite all] German I started eating wheat again. That plus the fucking holiday season (and family who expect me to be a very certain way and disapprove of anything I try to do outside the life script they have for me, which is 'live like a loser who spends too much time at the computer but go to some fucking classical music concerts and volunteer at some soup kitchens because You Still Need To Go Outside') and everything went to shit. Once I move out of here I'm picking it back up.

[Hallow XIII]

The secret is to not buy anything that can be eaten without preparation (bar things like apples and carrots). The problem with this approach is that a) Western food is big on such things (bread, cold cuts, cheeses, various plasticky convenience products and so on) and b) it requires that you spend a significant amount of time cooking every day and if you work long hours or have to commute for an extended amount of time that can significantly into the time you have for yourself.

Radius: that soft drinks are basically diabetes in a can has been known for a while now. The sugar-free version is probably not much better for you either. Water and tea are still the best drinks (incidentally, that is what I have always liked best about US restaurants: you can have unsweetened ice tea by the half-gallon. God bless America.)

[Radius Solis]

I'm coming from a classic couch potato (in my case a computer chair) level of activity, so those so many calories burnt are still quite a bit more than what I normally burn day in, day out. Most of my reduction in weight seems to have been from burning the calories off with the walking.

If you feel that way, then by all means, continue. Increased activity has many potential benefits and few downsides - and to the extent that your weight loss thus has resulted from it, it is unlikely to be unhealthy. You just scared me with your having lost almost a pound a day - by itself, that's a rate that suggested starvation dieting.

What you're saying now sounds far less bad than that 13-pound gap had implied. (That's a body mass change equivalent to having given birth to twins!) I would still reiterate that permanently keeping off weight requires permanently changing the lifestyle that had caused the weight, and so it remains important to find a dietary plan you can sustain without needing too much willpower.

[din]

Sal, though it's good to state the facts and give sound advice (I'm really happy you're trying to help busting some dieting myths), usually people need something else as well. Hard facts don't usually motivate people to start changing their lives, because it makes their goal look almost impossible to achieve.

It's like someone who discovered a new topic and is really enthusiastic about something they heard or read about. Say, somebody who found some information on noun cases and decides to wiki it. If an expert (who is glad to see someone taking interest in his field!) starts talking to them about all the intricacies of noun cases, and how you really can't talk about the definition of a particular case outside of the discussion of a particular language, the newcomer is overwhelmed and their spark gets extinguished by a big wave of information. You don't want to do that.

Being realistic is important, but framing things right is probably even more important. If I gave my students a giant lecture of what I would need to teach them for them to be able to master the subject, nobody would come to the second class. That's because they don't know how things relate to each other yet. Everything would seem like a big blurry mess. If you take things one step at a time (which you can do, because you've got a good idea of what things are supposed to look like), it becomes manageable, challenging and often actually fun.

Now, I'm not necessarily implying that Nessari has no clue about diet, nutrition and her own body, but I thought the above comparison would illustrate what you risk doing by how you wrote your advice.

[Torco]

dudes, dudes, dames, dames, easy!
Ness: I know its a bitch to have people second-guessing the choices you've made, choices you've sacrificed stuff for in order to achieve a goal. *however* keep in mind that you don't need to listen to anything said here, so we could be saying "lol situps are stupid and also you should eat 99,7% of your caloric needs" and you could -and should, if you continue to believe its a good idea- to continue to do 300 situps and eat pretty little.

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I *have* lost some 25 kilos [which I've by now regained, since I've chosen to privilege keeping stress as low as possible during a pretty stressful three years, but whatever] what exactly is the margin by which you are cutting your nutrition? I mean, even a 1000 kcal deficit <for a body which needs 2500 kcal, mind you> is quite sustainable, yielding something like one kilo per week of fatloss... HOWEVER its fucking hard to do so! you need to employ tools such as nutrition supplements <vitamins, for example>, you need to eat often and really really well <like, veggies, meat, no sweets, complex carbs and whatnot> and, most importantly, you need to keep up a vigorous exercise routine: whatever this means for a particular body, it will entail sweating and keeping one's body at around 160-180 heartbeats per minute unless you're older than I think you are. if that means walking with some jogging thrown in, cool. point is that, ime, maintaining a big kcal deficit is possible, but its remarkably hard and requires, besides discipline and sacrifice, a lot of knows: please don't take this the wrong way but if you were doing situps to burn stomach fat then you probably would do nicely with some more knows on the matter.

Sal: As for the relative effect sizes of diet and exercise, I think you're right but only partly so: from a kcal balancing perspective alone its much easier to eat 300kcal less than to do 300kcal worth of exercise, incredibly moreso with regards to pizza: not eating a pizza is easy, burning off some pizza is fucking hard. However, exercise does play a role in healthy weight loss: energy deficiency in nutrition tends to lower BMR, in some people moreso than others: its well attested that exercise, strenght-based in particular, raises one's BMR. Exercise also helps keep testosterone levels up, which is important for weight loss, and also muscle repairs are energetically expensive. More relevantly, however, it boosts thyroid function, which starvation inhibits <with good reason, evolutionarily> and insulin sensitivity <which is pretty sodding important as well, especially for us fatsos>. These are all important factors in weight loss, and so while exercise alone won't be really effective -unless one REALLY exercises- its still important!

[Izambri]

My induction cooker became self-aware at 22:24 CET on January 5th, 2014. In the ensuing panic and attempts to shut it down, InducCooker retaliated by boiling the chicken broth with an intensity of 9, causing it to overflow just a few seconds later. I returned fire and three hundred galets ended in the simmering holocaust. This was what has come to be known as "Induction Day".

[ol bofosh]

LOL

I imagine if I'd been there I'd have learnt a whole new string of Catalan swear words.

[Thry]

Hmmm I picture a lot of noises instead.

[Izambri]

No kidding. Cooking with that is like piloting the Enterprise.

[KathTheDragon]

Which one?

[Izambri]

Which one?

Anyone with enough buttons in the command table and a fancyristic design.

[Risla]

I am now back home from the LSA annual meeting. It was fantastic, and a lot of really good stuff happened. And now I'm sad it's over.

[Drydic]

I submitted my application to get into college today. Quote: "Check back on this page in 2-3 business days for an update on your application."


edit:oh god I'm already reopening the page to check it hasn't even been four hours ><