Posts by kariqk

That's great!  Congratulations!  I bet you look great in your new clothes, and I know you feel great in them!

Original Post by irebel:   I don't think there is anything wrong with eating 1300 cals, but it may not be sustainable. if 2500 works too, well duh, I would defo eat that much. But that is not the case as I gain eating that much in my experience. 

Rest assured, I do not have the willpower to starve. ;) 

Actually, Irebel, there is something wrong with you eating 1300 calories given your age.  The absolute minimum for a sedentary teen girl is 1500, and you aren't sedentary so that would be way too few calories for you.  Actually, 1300 is too few for most women over 21, but certainly way too few for you. 

Original Post by larienkoci:

Men get a 10% boost from muscle mass, that means ladies have to work 10% harder and stay 10% more committed to our diets. Women gain muscle too and we get the same metabolic boost from each pound of muscle as men. It is time to pick up the weights!

The part in bold is pretty much what I've been saying.

Congratulations to both you and your husband on your weight loss.  Losing around 10% of your body weight is always an accomplishment!

I referred in my topic starter to men who say 2 pounds per week of weight loss will be possible for women, rather than what percentages of body weight you could lose.  So imagine if you were being told that you ought to have lost 20 pounds in that time, because your husband lost 20 pounds - no allowance made for difference in height or starting weight.  That's the advice that a lot men are giving, and that's what I am objecting to.

thhq, I can imagine that maintaining a 1000 calorie deficit, or anything close to it, when you were at a bmi of 26 was incredibly difficult.  I don't think anything else.  Never would.  I hope that if you had to do it over, you would take it a little easier on yourself and aim for a 500 calorie deficit, though.

Larger picture, taking what thhq said and developing it into a case study, what I'm saying is this: the average man (in the US) is 5 ft 9 inches; the average woman is 5 ft 4 inches.  Assume they are both 50 and have a bmi around 26 (176 for him, 152 for her) and moderately active. 

He burns 2560 calories.  To maintain a 1,000 calorie deficit (which he shouldn't do) he eats around 1550 calories. That isn't many, but it gives him a 50 calorie "cushion" above the minimum for a man.  She burns 2010 calories.  She can't get to a 1,000 calorie deficit without eating under the amount that would provide her adequate nutrition. Hence it is possible for him to lose two pounds per week, and not possible for her.  He can lose weight faster and "easier" than she can.  Not "easily" but "easier."  To get the same deficit she not only has to eat less, she has to exercise more.  She has to work harder.

That type of difference was a key part of what I said in my original post, and what a lot of the advice-giving guys don't stop to think about.

Men do need more calories, so that's part of it.  Also, there's an attitude among some women, especially young women, that it's not acceptable to say you ate healthy and did good.  No matter what, you simply must say "I was horrible!" and criticize yourself.

Not all women do this, you understand.  I've never done it myself.  I'm the opposite:  "I ate a huge piece of chocolate cake and still made my calorie target!  Suck it women who are only eating 1200!"  Actually, I've never told anyone to suck it, either, but I really like being able to add treats.

I didn't use any numbers here intentionally.  It wasn't intended to be a post full of detailed, precise information.  It was intended to be more casual and general.  I wanted to avoid the precise debate about numbers you seem intent on having.  But, here goes:

Of course it's always easier to lose weight when you have more weight to lose, and harder when you have less weight to lose.  Naturally.  Did anything in my post imply otherwise?

And by the way - why on earth would you even consider what it would take to lose two pounds a week when you're already at a healthy weight?  That makes no sense to me at all.  If you're responding to what I said in my first paragraph, then please understand that I'm not saying that all men say those things or have that attitude, just that it's something that happens at times.  I've never seen it from you, but there are a few frequent posters who have said basically that at one time or another.  I'm talking to them, not you.

(Are you really burning 1600 calories at a BMI of 25?  how tall are you?  My current BMI is 25.7, and if I was sedentary, I'd burn around 1600 calories.  Since I'm not, I burn around 2000.  I'm just trying to get the math straight in my head here.  It's not adding up for me).

I think there are a few reasons why the majority of people on the NWLR are women:

Women are more likely to join it, just because women by nature are more likely to share about weight and weight loss.  Men tend to regard it as something they do themselves and they don't really think about sharing. Just look at the number of posts by men versus the number of posts by women, I'm sure that the membership here skews female, but not as much as the board does.

Also, men are less likely to even try to lose weight.  A man who is a few pounds overweight doesn't feel social pressure to lose it.  A woman who is a few pounds overweight does.  The more overweight she is, the more pressure she feels about her weight.  In my experience (very subjective here) men don't even consider weight loss until they are obese, and even then many don't seem to take it too seriously.  It's too much a "woman thing" for some of them, or something.  So I think there are just fewer men trying to lose weight.

I get the feeling that you think I'm trying to belittle what you've done, and I'm not.  Losing weight and keeping it off is a great accomplishment, regardless of gender.  I think it's great that you've done so.  It's just that your biology made it a bit easier for you than it would have if you were female.

How old are you?  How much do you weigh?  What's your calorie target?  How much exercise are you getting?

My guess is that you're probably not eating enough, so your body drives you to binge to make up for the days you undereat.  But without the above information, I can't be sure.

If however, you are getting enough calories, then I'd try to figure out what it is that triggers you to eat too much and come up with alternate strategy.  If you eat out of boredom, find something else to do to fill that time and drive the "so bored!" feelings away.  If it's stress, then learn a stress management technique and do that when you feel like reaching for food.

Original Post by dannyc249:

My idea of light lifting is to go to exhaustion, but not spot training, since those last two reps you could get with the help of a spotter could actually cause you to lose muscle if your caloric and protein intake isn't high enough, so I guess light was the wrong word to use.

As for cardio, interval training on cardio machines will burn more fat for her, in my opinion, than weight training, since her body chemistry is different from a males. The same chemicals won't be released from intense weight training that lead to great burns in males since her testosterone levels will be low. But I agree to some extent. She should definitely weight train before she does cardio, because this is when she will have the most energy and get the best strength training workout, then do cardio after her carbs have been expelled. But I think 20 minutes of weight training, followed by 30-50 min of cardio, will do that trick.

Actually, no.  Cardio is even less effective at burning fat for a woman than it is for a man.  Cardio exercise can really blast the fat for some (though not all) men, but it doesn't do the same thing for women.  The only real way a woman like the original poster can be sure she's losing fat is by maintaining a small deficit (250/day is usually recommended) and weight lifting to maintain her muscle while she loses.

Cardio exercise, sad to say, doesn't directly help a woman lose fat.  It's a great thing to do because you get all kinds of health benefits from it, but weight loss for women is all about calorie control.

Welcome!  I have a few suggestions that I think will be helpful:

• Be prepared to forgive yourself.  So often, weight loss efforts seem to fail because a person has one bad day and then thinks "what's the point!"  or decides that they have failed and just gives up.  Don't let that happen.  Everyone has days where they eat more than they should.  Everyone.  The difference between the person who succeeds at weight loss and the one who doesn't is the successful loser gets back on track immediately.

• Make a habit of writing down everything you eat.  Keeping a food diary is the single most powerful dieting tool known to humanity.  Just keeping track of what you're eating is usually enough to inspire you to make better choices.

• Be stubborn.  This is a lifelong change you're talking about.  Keep your eyes on the goal of being a healthier, more fit person, and don't let anything come between you and that goal.

Best of luck to you!  You can do this!

I agree that your deficit sounds fine.  I would encourage you to try to get a little more protein in your diet.  When you're eating at a deficit, you need more protein than when you're eating at maintenance, to help maintain muscles and metabolism.  I always suggest people aim for a minimum of 1 gram of protein for every 2 pounds of body weight, so 140 grams is the target I'd suggest.

Original Post by arupiper:

Your BMR at your current weight is about 1600 calories.

Your BMR at your desired weight is about 1500 calores.

What i'm about to say is very unpopular, but here goes.

I think the calculators at this site are way off. Unless you are doing true phsycial labor as part of your daily activity, you burn the same amoutn of calories as if you laid on the couch all day. Modern life is about as active as laying in bed. And no, walking to your car and going to the grocery store doesn't count as 'light activity'. So when i see people complaining that they aren't losing weight eating 2K a day, i'm not surprised.

The exe4rcise calculators are off too. Remember that weight loss is 90% diet, and 10% exercise. People vastly overestimate calores burned at exercise.

I would set your calorie goal at the BMR for your current weight, continue your exercise, and weigh yourself after a week.

 

I have not found this to be the case.  Based on my own experience and that of others who have used the calculators, they are either pretty accurate or they will actually underestimate your calories burned. 

Using sedentary and logging my exercise dramatically understated my calories burned when I first started using the site, by several hundred per day, and I'm not a particularly active person or at least I wasn't before I started losing weight. I When I added a second 30-minute walk, the difference became even more dramatic.

If you check the calories burned at "sedentary" and at "lightly active" you'll see that the difference is only a couple hundred calories.  It doesn't take much activity to burn an extra 200 calories over the course of the day, and yes simple things like grocery shopping and taking care of a child can be enough to move you from one level to another.

Any way, I agree with the others that it's better to start with a higher calorie level and drop down than start too low.  The only exception would be if you know you are going to be extremely easily discouraged, and even then I'd think it was a bad idea, but better than just giving up.

During my weight loss, I never ate less than 1600 calories, and usually ate between 1700 and 1800, so it's entirely possible to lose weight while eating that much.