Quote: (03-27-2013 10:26 AM)el mechanico Wrote:
Get into Ketosis and stop playing games!
Yeah, this matches my experience which I think is valuable, because being over 50 it is much harder to lose weight for me.
Nothing has ever worked reliably for me since age 33 except very low carb.
I can follow any suggested diet, but I recover slower due to age so I can't compensate for any diet fuckups ( alcohol, too many nuts which are a trap because it's low-carb and "paleo" --but a medium jar of nut butter is about 3500 calories and I can spoon out a whole jar in a day into my drooling, greedy, gorging mouth. Or a pound of almonds as well.)
One thing to be aware of is that if you break down and have a bowl of spaghetti, carbs bind to water which is loaded into your muscles as glycogen, and this weighs a lot so
you may gain something like 3 pounds in a day which is really discouraging. Knowing what happens prevents falling off diet totally.
Over 50 I can't do insane 3 hour workouts or even more than 1-2 real high-intensity workouts a week, or I'll be exhausted and sore for 3 days and gain all the weight back.
One simple way to do it is
0) Water is the most important nutrient ( of course technically it has no calories but it's the most life-critical)
( As you're entering ketosis I am always pissing like crazy, it seems unbelievable your body can ditch that much water. I believe it's from muscle glycogen burning which then releases the bound-to-it water, the body doesn't replace it because it's accustomed to carb re-supply, so it waits for a while expecting more carbs before it starts switching to fat replacement of glycogen) This big water dump will give you a running start in weight loss which is encouraging because you lose almost a pound a day, but it can't continue forever. It shows you your weight is indeed under your control
1) Lean meat, I only eat salmon and chicken but I guess red meat is OK.
2) Vegetables ( no potatos of any kind, Atkins advised against carrots but I find them so healthy I always feel better eating them. A world better than chips anyway...)
3) Small amounts of nuts ( Atkins advised against nuts, he described it as "almost impossible" to control serving size. I solve that by buying just a handful at a bulk store at a time)
4) Small amounts of hard cheese.
5) Protein powder but not too much, 1 or maybe 2 shakes per day, more can end up as too many calories.
6) A good vitamin and fishoil tablets.
That's all. No fruits, fruit juice, nut butter, milk and most important no grains, potatoes, corn, rice spaghetti, sugar, candy, chocolate--none.
It's not ideal healthwise but for a relatively short time ( you should be able to lose the 5 pounds you want in a month at most.) it's not that bad. Probably healthier than what you normally eat.
It's not ideal but if you follow the above exactly nothing is really tasty enough to gorge on except maybe artificially sweetened protein powder ( I've made that mistake) you WILL
lose weight.
The scale doesn't lie except for brief periods of muscle accumulation. I found that if I ate 150+ grams of protein I didn't lose weight, my body was just converting the excessive (3 shakes a day) protein into carb calories.
Everybody's body is different so don't believe me or anyone else unless the scale agrees with the theory.
I have also read research (can't find citation) that variety in diet actually inteferes with fat loss.
The reason variety is bad is that your brain keeps trying to figure out ways to sneak in more calories because it is famine safety programmed.
So you eat some chili ( with beans, a fair amount of carbs), not calculating the portion size, get 60 grams of carbs and fall out of ketosis.
Then a day later you rationalize that sweet potatos are good for you ( I guess they are) and you eat some of those. So you never lose weight and say low carb doesn't work but you didn't really do it.
You'll probably know it if you get into ketosis. It is a distinctive feeling and you crave food much less.
I generally get some headaches in the few days I am transitioning over to ketosis and take some naprosyn but once you see the scale go down every fucking day almost, it is really worth it.
Atkins figured out a lot of the physiology but a lot of women and civilians do it so bodybuilders etc. don't want to use the word, as it associates them with "civilians" but you can read up on it people have forums where they share their problems and it is a good basic model.