The whole metabolism thing .....

KiwiinJapan

KiwiinJapan

New member
Hi guys!
New poster here. This year I've lost about 13 kgs and I've got 10 more to go. Pretty proud of myself so far!
Been through a lot of programs over the years as I am sure you all have too.*
This year, has been the best I have ever done. One of the things that has really worked for me is dismissing the whole concept of metabolism that is sort of drummed into us. I kind of bought into the whole metabolism speed thing for years and years and these were some of the beliefs that I was walking around with:
- missing a meal will damage my metabolism
- I must eat 5 to 6 meals a day to speed up the metabolism.
- steady state card will catebolize muscle and*will damage my metabolism
- I must train to lose weight and I must use weightlifting and/or hiit etc
- being hungry will damage my metabolism. It's better to eat anything than nothing.
- stopping training will stop my progress and*will slow down my metabolism

I am now having more success than ever with the following beliefs:
- its more about calories in verses out than anything else
- your NEAT trumps ( is way more important than) the concept of having a high or low metabolism
- being hungry is fine and often necessary when maintaining a deficit.*
- not training is fine, it just means I have to eat less calories

Having said all that I also believe in a diet break every so often.

I am really interested to hear what people have found in their own lives with this concept, even if you have found the complete opposite to be true.*
 
KiwiinJapan said:
Hi guys!
New poster here. This year I've lost about 13 kgs and I've got 10 more to go. Pretty proud of myself so far!
Been through a lot of programs over the years as I am sure you all have too.*
This year, has been the best I have ever done. One of the things that has really worked for me is dismissing the whole concept of metabolism that is sort of drummed into us. I kind of bought into the whole metabolism speed thing for years and years and these were some of the beliefs that I was walking around with:
- missing a meal will damage my metabolism
- I must eat 5 to 6 meals a day to speed up the metabolism.
- steady state card will catebolize muscle and*will damage my metabolism
- I must train to lose weight and I must use weightlifting and/or hiit etc
- being hungry will damage my metabolism. It's better to eat anything than nothing.
- stopping training will stop my progress and*will slow down my metabolism

I am now having more success than ever with the following beliefs:
- its more about calories in verses out than anything else
- your NEAT trumps ( is way more important than) the concept of having a high or low metabolism
- being hungry is fine and often necessary when maintaining a deficit.*
- not training is fine, it just means I have to eat less calories

Having said all that I also believe in a diet break every so often.

I am really interested to hear what people have found in their own lives with this concept, even if you have found the complete opposite to be true.*
Click to expand...

I agree with all of this and do the same. It's all about calories rather than frequency or type of food. BTW, whats a NEAT?
 
Oh hi!
Sorry, I might have the terminology wrong. Umm but by NEAT I mean your non exercise activity levels e.g. how much you walk, stand, move about in your job etc.
 
Ok just looked it up on the net and the "T" stands for Thermogenesis. So NEAT = Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis.
 
KiwiinJapan said:
Hi guys!
New poster here. This year I've lost about 13 kgs and I've got 10 more to go. Pretty proud of myself so far!
Been through a lot of programs over the years as I am sure you all have too.*
This year, has been the best I have ever done. One of the things that has really worked for me is dismissing the whole concept of metabolism that is sort of drummed into us. I kind of bought into the whole metabolism speed thing for years and years and these were some of the beliefs that I was walking around with:
- missing a meal will damage my metabolism
- I must eat 5 to 6 meals a day to speed up the metabolism.
- steady state card will catebolize muscle and*will damage my metabolism
- I must train to lose weight and I must use weightlifting and/or hiit etc
- being hungry will damage my metabolism. It's better to eat anything than nothing.
- stopping training will stop my progress and*will slow down my metabolism

I am now having more success than ever with the following beliefs:
- its more about calories in verses out than anything else
- your NEAT trumps ( is way more important than) the concept of having a high or low metabolism
- being hungry is fine and often necessary when maintaining a deficit.*
- not training is fine, it just means I have to eat less calories

Having said all that I also believe in a diet break every so often.

I am really interested to hear what people have found in their own lives with this concept, even if you have found the complete opposite to be true.*
Click to expand...

Interesting that you bring that up! Because I've found that I can't expect to lose weight without feeling hunger at least once a day on most days of the week. Call me crazy but when I eat without being hungry I don't lose weight. Of course I don't stay hungry for hours; I just wait for the pangs to start before eating anything. In short, I listen to my body.

A question: What do you mean in your second point, about the NEAT? What is that?
 
Of course you're going to lose weight if you eat fewer calories. And I agree with you about hunger, the only times I've been able to lose weight without overcoming hunger at some points was when I was sick and didn't want to eat, or sometimes after my period I'm just not hungry for what I think are hormonal reasons.


I still would say you should exercise, at least weight lift because if you don't a higher proportion of that weight loss will be muscle loss. No one wants that.

Also, eating enough protein is important for the same reason. Your body needs protein to make new cells and the like, if you don't eat it it will come from your muscles.

That said, exercise is good for your health independently of weight loss. You should exercise even if you don't need to lose weight. It doesn't have to be HIIT, simple walking is enough to maintain cardiovascular health.

I feel really great right now because of exercise, I feel strong, I am flexible, I can walk fast and for long periods of time. Would I have lost weight without exercise? Sure. But I would have lost it slower and I wouldn't have the added benefits I got from exercise.


I think a person who can exercise hardcore such as running for 1 hour a day can lose weight a lot faster than someone who can't.
 
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Hi Shinsplinter,
NEAT is just your non exercise activity. Some studies have shown that people who do very intense workouts become way less active for the rest of the time. And you might guess "the rest of the time" is way more than your training time is probably ever going to be. So people can actually end up burning less calories over all if they allow their neat to go down. I usually don't like regurgitating info, but I have experienced this for myself. When I hiit or high intensity stuff, I am more likely to be tired and need to rest more than I otherwise would.
 
I agree that HIIT/weight lifting isn't necessary, but a full body strength training workout at least once every 5 days helps you maintain more muscle than you would otherwise so I'd say it's recommended but not required.

NEAT does have a pretty big effect though! It's why the whole 10,000 steps and pedometers have been shown to have a significant impact.
 
Hey biggest loser
Certain things may seem obvious to you but for someone like me who has struggled to lose weight for over 10 years the things I mention above were a big revelation and have made such a contribution to my success this year.

Certain things you say I still disagree with though. This might stem from different definitions of what exercise is e.g. I don't consider walking exercise.

I guess I'm just against the extremism that is so prevalent in most fatloss approaches.

I beginning to believe the whole build muscle thing is not what it is cracked up to be either. I mean I hear that you should lift weights to build or maintain muscle and eat plenty of protein. But I've also heard that it is impossible to build muscle in a caloric defecit. The best you can hope to do is maintain muscle. And even if it's about maintaining muscle, to achieve that, what ratio can be attributed to exercise and what to eating protein? Ive also heard that unless you doing something extreme like marathon running, it's not that easy to lose muscle.

Also when people say you need less calories after you lose weight, is that because your metabolism is slower or because you are no longer lugging around an extra 10kgs of organically attached dumbbells. Again since being heavier means you have to burn more calories in normal activity, how much of the lower caloric needs can be attributed to loss of muscle/lower metabolism and how much to less calorie expenditure due to a lighter body?

These things are all unclear and kind of further my belief that there are few absolutes in fatloss besides calories in verses calories out.

I now eat protein for one reason and it's not because a book told me that I should to build muscle. I eat it because through my own personal experience, it is waaaay easier to maintain a caloric deficit when there is plenty of protein in my diet due to its satiety.

By the way i could argue that it is not that you could lose more weight when you exercise. If you didn't exercise you would have to eat a little less. A defcit is a deficit and it doesn't matter how you achieve it. If I want to eat more I gotta exercise more. If I don't want to exercise I need to eat less.
 
I think it's still true that you can lose more weight if you exercise - at least from a practical sense. After all, I can't eat 0 calories, and eating 400 calories could be dangerous. So cutting out calories isn't always feasible (especially for small women!). Of course, there's no reason that the calories spent have to be from 'exercise' and not general activity, but either way - burning more calories during the day helps and can often help control your eating as well.

Also, I lost most of my weight without exercise and lost over 15 lbs of muscle. Blech. I'm slowly rebuilding, but it's a lot harder than it would have been to just maintain it.

And I think the less calories after you lose weight is a combination - if you weigh less, you need less calories. However, they have done studies that show that people who are naturally at a given weight and people who diet/exercise down to that weight have a different BMR. The people who were once heavier have a lower BMR. The jury is still out as to whether this is a result of dieting, or if this is the reason they were at a higher weight to begin with.
 
Interesting. I guess the jury is still out on a lot of things. It's interesting that you lost so much muscle. If you have then I guess I could have as well. I heard that it is easy to rebuild muscle to the levels you have once been but difficult to go beyond that. Are you finding it difficult to rebuild?

For my personality it is eAsier for me to focus on one thing. And I have come to the conclusion that focussing on calorie intake has the biggest pay off for weightloss. I should mention that I also walk a lot and have an active job though. Once I get to my ideal weight, I want to focus on building muscle.

I just feel like there are so many people saying you must do this and you must do that when you really don't. My mother has been having such a hard time and I strongly feel that she hasn't been able follow through because in some way or another she has bought into these extreme ideas. She really really wants to make it happen though.

Ps sorry for typos am typing from an iPhone!
 
It has been harder for me than I would like - I suspect I'm an outlier and the 'average' woman wouldn't lose as much as I did, and find it easier to regain. Apparently I have naturally low testosterone :p

I lost my weight without exercise and I certainly think it's better to have lost it and accept the muscle loss than to not lose the weight at all. I just wish I could magically regain the muscle a little easier :D I'm up about 5 lbs of muscle in the last year, although I haven't been making muscle building my main priority.

I'm certainly happier with my health at the lower weight despite the muscle loss. However, if it is possible to work in a strength training workout every 5 days or so I think it's worth it :D
 
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