Phrases that drive me crazy on CC

1. Starvation mode - this has been complained about a million times before. Yes you need to eat enough calories and not operate at too high of a deficit - yes it will slow your weight loss and possibly make you plateau. Starvation mode isn't a scientific thing and it's not the answer to everything.

2. "Will this make me gain weight?" Short answer: unless the question is "will eating 500 calories over my maintenance everyday make me gain weight" - the answer is no. Eating a cupcake will not make you gain weight. Eating a little too much on one day will not make you gain weight. You know how one day of eating and working out won't make you lose weight? Gaining weight is the same. One day of overeating will not make you gain weight. It's one thing to be upset about a mess up - it's perfectly understandable, but no one isolated incidence will gain weight. You gain weight because of poor habits, not because you went out to dinner once and got something fattening.

3. "I've eaten 700 cals today and I can't eat another bite or I feel like I'll throw up". You are not stuffing yourself silly on 700 calories. It's not a lot of food. And if you really couldn't stomach that much food without feeling like vomiting, you probably wouldn't be overweight.

4. "Omg such a bad binge today, I had a cookie for desert" - That's not a binge. If you were hungry and you ate something to fill you up - you didn't binge. When did you binge? If you didn't need food, didn't want food, got upset or emotional about something and stuffed yourself with anything in sight to cope with it.

5. "I gained 2 pounds yeseterday!" - No you didn't. You are retaining water because of excess sodium, you didn't poo yet today, you may be getting your period soon, your muscles are swollen from lifting, it could be any number of things but I can almost guarentee you that unless you ate 10,000 calories and laid in bed then you did not gain 2 pounds of fat yesterday. 

That felt good :-P Anyone else want to rant?

I identify with the starvation mode problem, I think most of the time, not always but most of the time, people gain weight because they eat too much and exercise too little.  Surely there are exceptions but most of the time if you read journals of  posters who are stuck  they will say "drank a big milkshake" "ate 2 pounds of wings" "indulged in 3 pieces of cake"  etc. and let's face it that is not an indulgence that those of us who want to lose weight can afford.  You can have a wing, not 2 lbs., you can have a beer but not 5, you can have a slice of birthday cake, not half the cake! 

It will be earth-shattering the day that I conclude my weight gain and loss is not closely tied to my food intake and my exercise.  Because I can control those things things and I don't think I can control this body starving while I am eating at least 1200 calories a day.

You mean if I drink a half dozen beers on Super Bowl Sunday and eat half a pizza I'm going to gain weight?...lol...

Original Post by ezzied:

Original Post by lafoutloud01:

3. "I've eaten 700 cals today and I can't eat another bite or I feel like I'll throw up". You are not stuffing yourself silly on 700 calories. It's not a lot of food. And if you really couldn't stomach that much food without feeling like vomiting, you probably wouldn't be overweight.

This isn't always true. Suppose someone had 700 calories worth of vegetables all day. Granted, I'm sure that rarely ever happens, but it could. I certainly know it would fill me up, bloat me out, and make me feel like I'm gonna burst! lol

Very true, I was a vegetarian for a number of years and on days when I would only eat fruits and vegetables I would get to around 800 calories and would feel like I was going to explode.

Original Post by melkor:

 Well, they probably followed the AMA's guidelines and did diet+cardio and left out the strength training. Ever since Kenneth Cooper's incredibly misguided and damaging book "Aerobics" in 1968, strength training has been a totally neglected part of weight management because of the cardio junkies trying to justify their endorphin habit as "healthy". 

 Once you pick up something heavy, you see very different results - Hunter et.al. : Resistance Training Conserves Fat-free Mass and Resting Energy Expenditure Following Weight Loss.

WOW, those are some good results!!! I wish more people knew about this, they pump away in the aerobics section and end up losing all of this muscle mass, and then they have problems... Well there you go. I think more research like this studying the actual TYPE of excercise being undergone is EXTREMELY important, below is another that discusses high volume aerobic exercise with decreased BMR (RMR).

"It appears that the combination of a large quantity of aerobic exercise with a very low calorie diet resulting in substantial loss of bodyweight may actually accelerate the decline in resting metabolic rate."

I disagree with a lot of the strength stuff for the simple reason that most (not all! not all!  I ran track at 175 and looked funny doing it!) overweight people are not exercising at all and do not need strength training until they are much healthier.

Like, my arms and legs are gaining muscle from so-called "cardio."  I have the most defined arm muscles I've had in my life, all from doing elliptical.  And my legs are slowly getting back into shape with running again.

I don't see why I have to lift rocks around to "build strength" when my strength is already building.

Because a routine that includes strength training is orders of magnitude more effective at fat loss than one that doesn't include it.

 Check this out - you tell me, do you want the cardio results, or the strength training results?

Oooh, I want to add to the list!

"Toxins." This includes any reference to colon cleansing, fasting, or their existence in processed food.

A few choice phrases...

"I'm *this height* and *this weight*. I'm not fat, just looking to TONE."

"Should I weight to lose all my fat before I start weights?"

"Is a calorie really a calorie? Can I eat 1200 cals of candy and still lose weight?"

I agree with a lot of things you're annoyed with, but this site is still so much better than most. Another site I go on, a bunch of people think beverages don't have any calories (even if it's chocolate milk) or they say that their body doesn't process liquid calories the same way most people's do, so they don't count liquids. Sooo dumb.

I agree with Melkor, weight training is definitely necessary, if not for ANY OTHER REASON than the fact that muscle makes you burn more calories at rest, so you will lose fat faster and keep it off.

Sure you appear to be getting toned, but coming done from 170's it could be seeing what was already there just having the fat disappear, not necesarily gaining ANY muscle whatsoever. Possibly even losing muscle still...

I think weight training is essential, when i lost stacks of weight in the past I kept it off and I think it was because of weight training, and keeping the muscle mass up (gained during a sick pregnancy - basically bed ridden) So definitely keep the muscle in mind...

Riff, I could eat that amount of food for breakfast...lol.  I have no idea how someone could eat so little and ever be full...

yeah definitely sounds low...

I was hoping riffatrashdi was being sarcastic.

I wonder what the chemical composition of an apple is.  Everybody that whines about chemicals does realzie that even WATER is a chemical compound..H2O and all. Its a chemical...it must be BAD (that was sarcasm).

If you want to whine about mad made twisted around fake-ish stuff go for it but "chemicals are bad" is misleading and overly simplified.

Original Post by melkor:

Because a routine that includes strength training is orders of magnitude more effective at fat loss than one that doesn't include it.

 Check this out - you tell me, do you want the cardio results, or the strength training results?

I too believe that no muscle would be built biking for 30 minutes per day....  Your post doesn't really reference mine except in passing.  I'm saying that the "cardio" that I do is building more muscle than I've ever had (and  thus shouldn't be dismissed as non-strengthening).  You can tell me that I'm losing "lean body mass" forever, but I can see my arm muscles.

Original Post by tealparadise:

Original Post by melkor:

Because a routine that includes strength training is orders of magnitude more effective at fat loss than one that doesn't include it.

 Check this out - you tell me, do you want the cardio results, or the strength training results?

I too believe that no muscle would be built biking for 30 minutes per day....  Your post doesn't really reference mine except in passing.  I'm saying that the "cardio" that I do is building more muscle than I've ever had (and  thus shouldn't be dismissed as non-strengthening).  You can tell me that I'm losing "lean body mass" forever, but I can see my arm muscles.

The only way you can REALLY know, is by getting your body composition done, and seeing is believing

Yes, cardio tears down muscle. What people seem to think is that their bodies are stupid and won't rebuild it. Whenever you walk, run, swim, your muscle is torn down. To rebuild new muscle, the body needs nutrients and energy. For a person losing weight healthily, it then BREAKS DOWN THE FAT to get that energy. Hence you do not lose muscle, you lose fat. And when the fat starts to disappear, you feel like you've built muscle because it reveals itself from beneath the layers of fat.

For breakfast a coffee? What about some food? Coffee isn't a meal. Yes, some people drink massive full cream syrupy coffees and you have to count the calories but coffee isn't a meal.
For lunch two boiled eggs? Not a meal. It's part of a meal. Boiled eggs go with toast or in a sandwich for example.
For that dinner to be 250-300 calories, either you're counting wrong or it's a ridiculously small portion.

Back to the topic...phrases that drive me crazy

You don't need to change your diet, just control how much you eat   How wonderful it would be if we could just take all the same crap we ate that made us 100 lbs overweight and just eat less of it and be healthy.  You can lose weight by eating less crap, but it's still crap, and eating less crap, doesn't make you "healthy" it just makes you skinny and unhealthy...you just won't see the results of that diet for many years.

I know it's possible to eat 800 calories a day - I could make a meal plan too. I know you might not be ravenous. My point is that you're overweight and you're saying "I've been eating 800 cals a day and it's just soooooooo much food. I don't know what to do! I know the minimum is 1200 cals but I just can't stuff myself with anymore food" it's a problem - because even though it's possible, it's not practical, and it's never stuffing yourself. And if you got yourself overweight, than I'm sure your stomach can fit more than eggplant and pumpkin for lunch and tofu and cauliflower for dinner.

Original Post by starrkate:

I agree with a lot of things you're annoyed with, but this site is still so much better than most. Another site I go on, a bunch of people think beverages don't have any calories (even if it's chocolate milk) or they say that their body doesn't process liquid calories the same way most people's do, so they don't count liquids. Sooo dumb.

You know, there was actually a post about that....

http://caloriecount.about.com/omg-drinks-calo ries-them-ft87601

Anyway, yes, some of the things people post on here can be annoying or unknowledgeable, but I don't think they mean to be, or they don't know that a similar thread has already answered a certain question. I don't know how many times I've seen post about the carb/protein/fat ratio.

As for being stuffed on 700-800 calories, I think that you'd have to be trying really hard to eat low-calorie, high-density foods to do that. Mainly vegetables. And if you're doing that, an intake 700-800 calories per day isn't the only problem with your diet. I don't know what to say about people who are overweight and say there are stuffed on that amount though.

I guess what we have to take into consideration is that some people honestly don't know, and that's why they're here, to learn.