Absolutely do it. Eating food that not good for you (as in you yourself) is very draining. The main aim for everyone is to find tge foods that agree with them the most.
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Given up on crap food lately and just go for poached eggs in the morning, a few chicken fillet brown bread sandwiches to keep things ticking over and a hearty dinner (cottage pie, bit of pasta).
Not eaten it in a while.
I’d make a point of getting a few pints of Guinness on a Friday. Don’t think it’s that.
Cut the bread for 6 weeks and see how you feel.
Don’t mind that gluten free bread either. Substitute with brown rice or bulk up with salads and nuts.
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That’s part of my problem, I’m trying to bulk up. I thought I’d see how I get on with just getting rid of white bread for a while and just the brown bread. Only at that 2 days or so.
Bread for lunch and pasta (essentially bread) for dinner. There’s your problem. Cut down/out on bread especially, and carbs in general. Eat more veg and fruit.
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Get a nutribullet
It’s a gamechanger
Spinach berries natural yoghurt banana almond milk peanut butter nuts and chia and scoop of whey protein
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Where’s your greens?
Well bread won’t help you bulk up anyway only bloat you. I’d cut it out altogether and see how you feel after 6 weeks. Your cam reintroduce if there was no benefit.
The thing is bread is very convenient and when you drop it then meals need more planning. Chickpeas and the likes are great to bulk up meals.
If the wheat ain’t the problem them next stop is dairy.
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Id eat 2 apples a day. More veg needed.
Was waiting for someone to say that…
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What kind of brown bread? A lot of brown sliced bread is more or less the same as white pan.
My wife has started making “porridge bread”. Just porridge oats, few seeds and natural yoghurt essentially. Lovely tack and v simple. No grains in it.
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I’ll look more into that one. Whole grain bread.
Nothing wrong with a small bit of bread… Get more green veggies into you… Plus, a good sized bowl of porridge in the morning with nuts and seeds will help with bulk.
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When you say brown bread, do you mean brown loaf or a brown soda bread? Brown soda bread is possibly one of the reasons why we have such a high level of gluten intolerance in Ireland. It’s such a lazy way to make a ‘no knead’ bread, and the gluten hardly gets worked out. It ends up as a stodgy mess in your guts and can lead to bloating and lethargy.
On the other hand, if it’s shop bought brown loaf it is full of shitty additives. They use all sorts of short-cuts to bypass kneading, proving, knocking back, etc. Pure grade-A poison.
For a start, I’d be going for a hearty breakfast and making the meals progressively smaller as the day goes on (unless you are in some form of training).
A great place to start would be to detox, then slowly add back in foods that are regularly associated with intolerances (e.g. wheat, dairy, egg, etc.) while keeping a food diary.
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I don’t know mate - I’d be very wary of nutribullets, and other juicers / blenders. @somerandomperson should eat a balanced variety of raw and cooked foods (as not all raw foods are easily digested, or good for you - e.g. kale). The best habit to get into is cooking / preparing your own healthy meals tailored to yourself, rather than learning to short-cut. Once you’ve got that in check, then go wild with the nutribullet.
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I stole this from another forum I look in on - football365. They have a monster thread going there, helping fat lads sort themselves out. Basically, change the way you think about food.
As the title suggests, this thread is about FAT loss and not just WEIGHT loss. The methods I will suggest will help you lose FAT and not merely lose WEIGHT. If you have a particular need/urge to just lose bodyweight (with no thought to long term health) then I suggest amputating both your legs as the quickest method currently out there. I assume fat loss is what most people want. Most people are after a method to help them metabolise fatty tissue in order to decrease girth of various body parts and reveal aesthetically pleasing muscle tone underneath. Weight should not really matter, unless you have a ‘weigh in’ that you are working towards. We will use weight as a general barometer of progress but please understand that I am going to be vehement in encouraging FAT loss over WEIGHT loss.
Most people don’t want to lose just weight, they want to lose fat. The distinction needs to be made to clarify the effectiveness of different training methods.
Running 10km every day is pretty good for losing weight, but not great for losing fat. The weight you lose would initially be fat tissue and muscle tissue (from the upper body). But as you get mechanically and metabolically efficient in the action of running less energy is required. Soon enough, your body finds ‘ways’ of saving its fat stores (through respiratory efficiency and recovery). Add to that, the lean tissue decrease and you have a terrible combination for firstly shifting the last however many lbs of fat (that normally cover people’s abdomens) and secondly keeping that weight off when the routine falters.
If someone really only wanted to lose weight at the cost of any body tissue, then as I say above, amputation is the most effective method. If you want to keep all your limbs, then some kind of gastrointestinal virus would be pretty good.
I will bang on about this because many people will insist that long duration bouts of CV and a low calorie diet are ideal for weight loss. They are great for weight loss, in the same way my ridiculous amputation example is…weight is reduced with no discretion to what tissue is lost. I assume FAT loss is what most people are after…which of course equals weight loss. But weight loss does not necessarily equal fat loss.
Calories is a big topic when it comes to fat loss. I don’t want to open a can of worms by trying to debate the subject in this small section so I will try to be succinct with my writing. Calories, as a concept, are outdated and flawed. When food is given a caloric value it is merely an expression of the potential energy value that food could yield. It doesn’t take into account the biochemical response to that food, nor does it account for the efficiency in ‘releasing’ the energy it holds.
If you decide to work with a calories in v calories out concept you will more than likely fail. Before you start thinking of calories, you must think of quality of food. I go into this in more detail in the QUALITY method detailed below. Once you have a consistent approach to the quality of your food you can then - and only then - use calories as a reliable measure of food consumption. Calories are only really useful when they are self referenced. What I mean by this is if I eat 1000kcals of chicken on day 1, then eating 500kcals of chicken on day 2 represents a 50% energy deficit. If in a different scenario I ate 1000kcals of chicken on day 1, then 500kcals of coca cola on day 2 I couldn’t surmise a 50% energy deficit because chicken and coca cola are wholly different things, provoking wholly different reactions within the body. The difference therefore goes way beyond the caloric reduction.
An analogy if you may…Let’s look at calories consumed like the hours worked by all employees in a company. Company 1 (with a staff of 20) employs the right employees for the job and they all work in good conditions for 30 hours a week. 600 man hours per week. Company 2 (with a staff of 20) employs the cheapest labour possible regardless of experience and qualifications and pushes them all hard for 45 hours per week. 900 man hours per week. Is company 2 50% more profitable than company 1? Probably not. To simplify a complicated process of running a profitable business down to hours worked is as preposterous as it is to simplify the beautiful complexity of the human body down to calories in/out.
All things being equal, calories can provide a guide to how much you are eating, but so can portion size, meals per day, ‘bites’, or however else you choose to quantify how much you eat.
Weight lifting as a fat loss tool wrote:
- Weight training, notably big-chain compound movements, is seriously energy-intensive
- Weight training burns a lot of muscle glycogen (more than cardio), which will necessarily push your body into utilising more fat for energy (at all times)
- Weight training has a significant “afterglow” effect (in men, in women not so much) which keeps metabolic rate elevated for prolonged periods after training
- Weight training does not cause significant metabolic efficiency; i.e. it will not cause a reduction in your basal metabolic rate over time (NB: steady-state cardio is an absolute killer for this, it makes your body very efficient)
- Weight training preserves muscle mass by triggering certain hormones (notably growth hormone), meaning that greater fat stores are utilised when in negative energy balance (cardio has the opposite effect) - Note that if you are eating for fat loss, it’s not that you’re going to be “building muscle” (unless you’re a beginner, in which case a lot of the gain is simply greater fluid concentration and myogenic muscle tone), it’s that you’re preserving it under stress
- Weight training increases relative muscle insulin sensitivity (relative to fat that is), making your body more efficient at partitioning away from fat cells
- Weight training can increase the insulin-independent translocation of GLUT4 (glucose transport molecules); that is, your muscles become more effective at utilising energy even without the presence of insulin
… People who are trying to lose fat who aren’t resistance training are missing a ridiculously large point. Especially people who do a lot of cardio; which can be a pretty bad long-term choice if the only goal is to induce fat loss.
Here’s what normally happens when people try and cut carbs:
Day 1: Carbs out of the diet. Pissing like a racehorse. No discernible issues with energy (NOTE: since blood sugar and glycogen are still readily available).
Day 2: Feeling a bit flat and tired, but sticking with it. (NOTE: Blood sugar is low, glycogen is tapering down)
Day 3: Feeling really quite sucky now, but the scales say that there’s been a 6lb weight loss!! This diet is fucking amazing. 6lbs in 3 days!! If this is kept up, it’ll only take a few weeks to get my dream body!! (NOTE: Feeling sucky because the body hasn’t even got close to properly adapting to having no carbs. Weight loss is almost entirely water weight and is of course meaningless).
Day 4: Really fucking foul feeling now. No energy, mental lethargy. Had to sack off the workout because of total lack of energy. Crap. (NOTE: Same as day 4. Body has reached the gutter in terms of available energy. Would help if there was more dietary fat being eaten, but there probably isn’t enough).
Day 5: Same as day 4, but now the scales are saying I’ve put a lb back on. What the fuck?? This is bullshit. Fuck this, I’m having some carbs. My body clearly needs them and doesn’t respond to low carb very well. (NOTE: A 1lb fluctuation in weight is as meaningless as the initial 6lb loss. Body still hasn’t adapted to utilising fat for energy)
Day 6: What the absolute fuck?? I’m now a lb heavier than when I started. This has been a disaster. (NOTE: Water weight has gone back on. Body doesn’t know what the fuck is happening, other than carbs are back, so energy system has been “reset” fully to preferentially using glucose and not fatty acids for energy).
CONCLUSION PERSON DRAWS: Low carb dieting is shit for me. I had no energy, felt like total dogshit the whole time. My body just needs carbs to function. I can’t do it. Plus it didn’t work, I’m now heavier than when I started.
ACTUAL CONCLUSION TO DRAW: Person was ill-informed. Period of low energy and mental lethargy is entirely normal and just needs gritted teeth until the body fully switches its energy systems from glucose to fatty acids. After it does this (usually 10-14 days, but issues generally start to alleviate after a week), they’d have had more energy and felt better than before. Plus, they probably needed more fat in their diet. Also, all weight fluctuations in the time period (i.e. the initial water weight loss and its regain after carbs were had again) are almost entirely irrelevant.
Correct way to remove carbs from diet:
Day 1: Right. For the next 2 weeks, I’m going to eat a diet of 30% calories from protein and 70% calories from fat. I’m NOT going to under-eat, in going to make a concerted effort to eat a decent amount of calories every day. The focus of the next two weeks is priming the body for fat burning, NOT fat burning itself. I’m also not going to weigh myself, because that shit doesn’t matter for the next 2 weeks.
Days 2-6: That was a bit grim for a while, but am now feeling better and energy levels are coming back. I’m just glad I’m eating plenty of fat, that’s really helping.
Days 7-13: It’s been a good week. Feeling good, lots of energy.
Day 14: Weighed myself this morning. 8lbs down from day 1. I know most of this is water weight, but there’ll probably be some fat in there too. Plus I’m feeling good. I’m now comfortable that my body has adapted and now fatty acids are being metabolised preferentially to glucose. I am a fat burning machine!!
From this point on: I can have one day a week (starting today, on day 14) where I eat a significant amount of carbs in the later portion of the day, because this spike in insulin will be beneficial for fat burning (by spiking key hormones such as leptin and replenishing muscle glycogen), but the infrequency of such consumption will not throw my body out of its primed fat burning state (because it’s been too well adapted to using fatty acids). The rest of the week I will eat my diet of 30%-40% protein and 60%-70% fat. I can also start throwing in some lower calorie days without much hassle because my body will seamlessly use stored fat, as it has been primed to do. I’m NOT going to go perennially low carb, because the cyclical intake of carbs (and the resultant insulin spike) is a very important piece of the overall plan.
CONCLUSION PERSON DRAWS: I am amazing. I look amazing, I feel amazing, and I pity the people who eat cereal every day because they think it’s “healthy”. I pity fat Barbara from work, who asked me about my fat loss, but told me that she “couldn’t” remove carbs from her diet because “her body just needs them”. Can you believe that? A fat person with an undoubtedly screwed up metabolism saying that they need carbs?! If she knew the total irony of this statement, she’d shit in her fucking pants and it would run all down her fat legs, the ugly slag.
I find this approach very good.
Background:
Our bodies are designed to self regulate. You do not need to tell yourself to breathe, or go to sleep, or remember to use the toilet. It does it all for us. You start running, blood is sent to the muscles that need it and away from the tissues that don’t, heart rate increases, breathing rate increases, etc etc. It is an automatic process that millions of years of evolution has perfected. Why then do we believe that we need to consciously control our energy intake and output or else we get fat? If you give your body the nutrition it has evolved to use it will deal with the rest. The QUALITY method aims to avoid any metabolism disrupting foods and let the body’s innate processes take control of energy distribution.
Financial analogy: Using the QUALITY method means learning how to live within your means and building habits and discipline that allow you to stay in the black. You will not necessarily get super rich (super lean) but you will not encounter any financial issues like CCJs, overdrafts or maxed credit cards (cravings, tiredness or stimulant abuse). You know how much comes in each month and you know how much goes out. Money automatically goes into savings and things like holidays are paid for out of that. Unless something completely out of the ordinary happens you do not need to constantly check your bank statements to ensure funds are available.
All you need to do with the QUALITY method is avoid any processed food. Especially wheat. With every meal of the day you build it using some simple principles.
• Build every meal around a protein source like whey, poultry, meat or fish
• Ensure at least two meals of the day have a huge serving of non-starchy vegetables like spinach, broccoli and kale.
• Do not fear fat, use fat to make things more filling and boost your energy - whole eggs, red meat, oily fish, nuts, full fat dairy, oils, olives and avocado are all great sources of fat. Any meat produce should be sourced with consideration to the conditions in which animals are reared. I personally only eat grass fed beef and corn fed chickens for example. I always for organic where I can.
• Do not fear carbohydrates, use them to meet your energy demands from exercise. Great sources of carbs are sweet potatoes, rice, oats, quinoa, pulses, legumes, non-starchy veg, fruit (especially berries)
• Ensure the quality of all foods you eat. Whole foods should be the only option with only a couple of exceptions (whey protein for example). Carbs are the biggest culprit for being processed beyond nutritional benefit. For that reason, be extra careful when choosing your carbs. I should also say that a lot of people aren’t very good at processing diets with a medium to high carb content. A lifetime of consuming the super insulemic over processed carbs that are all around us has left our bodies very sensitive to carbohydrate intake. This is why low carbs are so popular. If you feel you may be sensitive to carbs a low carb approach could be the way for you, at least for the first few months.
Get started with the QUALITY method using something like the above. Portion sizes don’t matter. Your body will sort all that out once it gets used to whole, nutritious foods again.
Foods that disrupt the body’s natural ability to self regulate energy and weight should be avoided. The most common metabolically disruptive foods I see with clients are: Wheat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, and caffeine. Initially, I recommend avoiding them altogether for at least a couple of weeks. Then reintroduce them slowly and in small quantities. Be mindful of how they make you feel and how your body responds. Learn what you can tolerate and what you can’t. Everyone is different.
From my own personal perspective I have the following reactions to typical ‘metabolism shifting’ foods.
Wheat – ruins me. Leaves me bloated, depressed, hungry without knowing why, fuzzy headed and generally low in motivation. I try to avoid at all costs. If I do eat it (like I did over Xmas) I prepare myself for the negative feelings I will have afterwards.
Dairy – similar to wheat just not as bad
Alcohol – I get drunk failry easily but don’t have a huge dip in my blood sugar (as some people do). I rarely crave junk food when I’ve been drinking. Hangovers are OK, if I haven’t got completely ratted. I can comfortably drink 1 or 2 times a week and not need to get smashed when I do.
Sugar – Anything more than a small amount of sugar normally spirals out of control for me. I get a big buzz from sugar and a big dip afterwards. I only crave it when I am having it regularly. Generally I avoid if I’m trying to ‘lean up’ but can deal with it once per week without it sending me bonkers.
Caffeine – My main ‘crutch’ when I’m feeling low. Too much messes me up and my energy is far more stable when I avoid it. One per day is OK, but I try to not have any every 3rd or 4th day to break the cycle. The longer I have it for, the bigger the craving becomes.
Abstaining from all of the above would undoubtedly see far better results in anyone’s fat loss regime. But most people don’t want to take it that far. Knowing what you can and can’t handle and being prepared for any negative consequences when you do have them is the way to go. The odd ‘treat’ or ‘blowout’ is fine as long as it doesn’t lead to a domino effect of negative behaviours.
Financial analogy: All of these foods are like the out of the blue things that disrupt your financial status. Wheat is an unexpected repair to a car, and dairy could be a long lost friend coming to visit for a weekend. Both can be dealt with fairly easily, but a sensible saver would tighten the purse strings for a few weeks after the event to get back to financial parity as fast as possible. If you had a huge cocaine habit in your younger days, and your old dealer was ringing you asking to stay at yours for a week or two you’d probably be better off avoiding it as you know you would not be able to control it. This is how I treat wheat…avoid at all costs!
The QUALITY method relies on consistency of behaviours. You do the right things 90% of the time and the other 10% doesn’t really matter. 1 day in 10 can be used to eat the crap that has caused your fat gain. Make sure the other 9 are good though. Doing well Mon to Fri and being a twat on weekends is simply not enough to restore metabolic harmony. If you want this to work for you, you must be committed. The great thing about it is that you will start to enjoy doing it correctly. The occasional blow out will leave you feeling terrible and it will become less and less appealing. After only a few weeks of clean living you will have more energy, better concentration, better skin, better hair, more motivation and generally a new zest for life. At this point you know your metabolism is functioning well and the fat loss is just a matter of time.
Some useful links for reading and podcasts. While I am not a ardent paleo eating fan, I admire the base philosophies behind it. Eating whole foods that we, as humans, are designed to eat. A lot of my recommended reading is paleo centric.
http://thesmarterscienceofslim.com/
http://paleohacks.com/index.html
http://www.bulletproofexec.com/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
The low carb thing is a load of bollocks. I’m sure it helps some people, simply by virtue of the fact that introducing any discipline to their diet has a positive effect. But calories in vs. calories out is by far and away the most useful and effective form of weight control, whether you want to gain weight or lose it.
I don’t mind people using the whole keto thing if as a dietary regime it works for them, but it is complete quackery and the fanaticism that surrounds it is ridiculous. This video contains a good explanation of it - discussion starts about 6.45
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