If you have excess body fat...

DareGod

... why do you need to eat?

Why not just ingest the necessary vitamins and minerals as supplements?

Ever wonder about that?

When you think about that, does it make you reconsider your entire attitude and conditioning about food?

Just curious. It's made me reconsider everything about food.

Are we all just addicts?

Genuinely intended as a serious conversation starter. The mocking responses are unavoidable, but please don't lock the thread.

seamus

Well of course food is an addiction. It has to be otherwise we wouldn't eat and we'd die.

"Conditioning" implies we've been lied to or manipulated to do something we don't have to.

But we have to eat, we haven't been "conditioned" to eat any more than we've been conditioned to breathe.

pumpkin4life

The less sugar the better.

If you're a fatty in a bad way then the less carbohydrates the better.

The paleo diet (ignore the bollox eat like a caveman stuff) is a good list for healthy, nutritious foods if you don't know where to begin.

I say all of this as a former fatty for ten or so years and who has been athletic skinny for 2 years at this stage. So I have skin in the game with this kind of stuff lol.

Also intermittent fasting and weightlifting.

Ignore calories in/calories out.

The Backwards Man

I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm dry, and if the Tennent's don't kill me I'll live til I die

Allinall

I generally eat when I'm hungry.

I thought everyone was the same.

Are Am Eye

DareGod wrote: »

... why do you need to eat?

When your stomach is empty your brain creates hunger.

Some approaches have been developed of stapling the stomach or putting a balloon in it.

We all eat because the brain creates the feeling of hunger. It's not a calculated and dispassionate decision based on b.m.i and calorific intake and daily energy output.

Although we have spent a few generations living in a very advanced life we spent thousands of generations as instinctive, hunter gatherers and evolved as such.

Hitman3000

pumpkin4life wrote:

If you're a fatty in a bad way then the less carbohydrates the better.

Can you be a fatty in a good way?

Madam Oblong

Water fasting is practiced by some, look up The Obesity Code by Dr Fung. Basically living off your own fat and taking supplements. Apparently the hunger goes away after a while. If a person is 100lb overweight they can survive for a year with no food on their own body fat!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

My farmer neighbour always insisted eating was just a habit. To settle a bet, he decided to wean his horse slowly off food. He only had it out of the habit when it died.

Grandeeod

I reckon I've been around Boards.ie far too long. Lately, some of the absolute crap that is posted makes me want to weep. My reg date is not accurate. I've been here since 2003 drifting in and out and forgetting passwords etc.

So OP, I can safely say a post like yours wears me out. It comes across as pointless baloney. Seriously? What is your actual point? I'm not long over the Vegan nutter, so maybe I'm a bit fragile.:D

LordSutch

DareGod wrote: »

If you have excess body fat....

Reduce carbohydrates and increase proteins + drink lots of water.

...not forgetting some exercise too.

Good luck.

johnnyskeleton

DareGod wrote: »

... why do you need to eat?

Because your body can only burn body fat at a rate of around 9%, or 31 calories per pound of fat.

If you were chronically obese you could theoretically satisfy your BMR from body fat, but the average person would need over 4/5 stone of body fat to sustain themselves just from body fat, and after about a week or so they would drop below this.

Outside of that, if you had a zero calorie intake your body would start to burn muscle, reduce essential organ fats and eventually leave you extremely weak and emaciated. Over a prolonged period, the stomach would adapt to not breaking down food and so if you were to return to normal eating it wouldn't be able to adjust that easily and you would be pretty ill and need to be medically supervised as you regained weight.

Then, once you go back on to normal food, your body chemicals will tell your stomach "never ever let us get that way again" so your appetite increases and your body's tendency to restore its fat stores increases.

So basically, your body stores fat as emergency stores and for insulation. If you simply stopped eating to get rid of fat it would make you very sick and wouldn't reduce your body fat in the long term.

Ipso

Supplements may be a cause of liver damage. Also you have to be careful you don't go way down the natural/alternative/hollistic rabbit hole.
http://www.consumerreports.org/health/liver-damage-from-supplements-is-on-the-rise/

johnnyskeleton

pumpkin4life wrote: »

The paleo diet (ignore the bollox eat like a caveman stuff) is a good list for healthy, nutritious foods if you don't know where to begin.

....

Ignore calories in/calories out.

Ignore science, trust in fairtales! Are you sure you're giving nutritional advice and not just trying to drum up support for Donald Trump?

Are Am Eye

Society is obsessed with food/weight.
People are stupid in some many other ways it doesn't particularly stand out.
Follow a balanced diet and partake of a moderate cardio-vascular exercise.
And don't be so vain or worried about other peoples opinions.

pumpkin4life

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Ignore science, trust in fairtales! Are you sure you're giving nutritional advice and not just trying to drum up support for Donald Trump?

Are you alright there johnny?

What has successfully predicting the Donald winning the U.S election got to do with a thread on losing weight?

_Brian

Babies are born with the inbuilt ability not to feed when they're not hungry.

Gradually over time we condition ourselves to over eat, messages like "eat all your dinner or there's no sweets" is awful as the child not only stuffs in the dinner but gets the sweets too as a reward.

The addiction to sugar/salt is a problem too as they are basic tastes we crave, awfully easy to keep eating even when you don't need it.

Then there's the whole broken people who eat through a host of issues they carry round.


Also, your body wants to be as successful as it can, store as much food as possible as fat for lean times, just because it is already fat doesn't stop it making you hungry so you'll seek more food to store as more fat. People with no willpower constantly give in to this and pile on the weight.

ceadaoin.

DareGod wrote: »

... why do you need to eat?

Why not just ingest the necessary vitamins and minerals as supplements?

Ever wonder about that?

When you think about that, does it make you reconsider your entire attitude and conditioning about food?

Just curious. It's made me reconsider everything about food.

Are we all just addicts?

Genuinely intended as a serious conversation starter. The mocking responses are unavoidable, but please don't lock the thread.

they are called supplements, not replacements. Nothing can replace actual food and even if it could why would you want to? Food is delicious!. And is there even any evidence that supplements are beneficial?

What do you need to reconsider about food? It's necessary for our survival, it's not like you can choose not to do it without severe repercussions

gramar

DareGod wrote: »

... why do you need to eat?

Why not just ingest the necessary vitamins and minerals as supplements?

Ever wonder about that?

When you think about that, does it make you reconsider your entire attitude and conditioning about food?

Just curious. It's made me reconsider everything about food.

Are we all just addicts?

Genuinely intended as a serious conversation starter. The mocking responses are unavoidable, but please don't lock the thread.

That would probably lead to bowel and intestinal trouble as well as putting a lot of arseholes out of work.

Hector Savage

Interesting, in theory could a really fat person survive for weeks/months with no food - just water + vitamins?

Hector Savage

Hector Savage wrote: »

Interesting, in theory could a really fat person survive for weeks/months with no food - just water + vitamins?

I'm pretty sure i saw an article within the last couple months about a guy who did just that. For ages

sbsquarepants

Hector Savage wrote: »

Interesting, in theory could a really fat person survive for weeks/months with no food - just water + vitamins?

In a word - Yes. But it wouldn't be pleasant.
You have heard of the hunger strikes I presume?

That is what fat is there for - to feed you in the absence of food. It's called ketosis and it's how your body evolved to cope with irregular food intakes, but nowadays very few in the "civilised" world ever go for long without food, but your body keeps making hay (fat) while the sun shines. Then after 30 / 40 years without a break in the sun shine, your as fat as a fool. That was just never a problem when the system evolved!

Winterlong

Going on a diet for me is more about taking an extra 5 minutes to wrestle with my conscience before cracking open the biscuits.

sydthebeat

Eat less, eat better, exercise more

gramar

Winterlong wrote: »

Going on a diet for me is more about taking an extra 5 minutes to wrestle with my conscience before cracking open the biscuits.

Wrestling is good exercise. Well done!

seamus

Hector Savage wrote: »

Interesting, in theory could a really fat person survive for weeks/months with no food - just water + vitamins?

In theory. Water, vitamins & electrolytes.

That's in theory though. When you stop eating, the body undergoes changes in chemistry designed to protect itself and conserve energy. Taking vitamins won't combat these changes, it will simply keep you topped up.

If you persist at this for a week or two and then start eating normally again, you are at risk of developing "refeeding syndrome". This is where your normal metabolism suddenly kicks in, but your body is not prepared for it (it hasn't got enough of the vitamins and chemicals stored up) so you see a sudden slump in essential vitamins as the metabolism burns up what's in storage. Some vitamins your body can't store, like Vitamin B. As a result it can be fatal because VitB is essential for heart function.

It's really not a good idea. Not eating at all is as bad as eating too much.

valoren

Eat more real food. Not makey-uppey foods like breads, pasta, rice, biscuits, crisps, cakes etc.
Cut down significantly on such refined carbohydrates.
There is a huge market for an entrepreneur in the food business to make meals that have higher healthy fat, moderate protein and small amounts of natural, fibrous carbs. The notion that fats are the devil is a nonsense. It is sugar who is the Keyser Soze of the food world.

Eating bread is, metabolically, the equivalent of eating Skittles.
http://www.gnolls.org/905/mechanisms-of-sugar-addiction-or-why-youre-addicted-to-bread/

It is sugar effectively. And so long as you are constantly eating this sugar, you are unable to burn fat.
You're covered in the stuff for evolutionary reasons. When food becomes scarce it's there to save your ass.
Even the leanest runners today have enough fat to fuel hundreds of miles of activity in search of more food.

Unfortunately, with the convenience of modern fake foods, having their sugar an ever constant in your bloodstream and then trying to burn body fat is a waste of time. It's like having a shed full of tuna but you have no tin opener, to use a crude analogy.

Couple eating naturally (and the expense that entails!) with consistent truly aerobic exercise (jogging, easy effort stuff) and the body fat melts off like ice cream on a hot summers day. It doesn't happen over night but with patience and discipline, it works every time.

In 2003, I was 15 stone 3 lbs. Within a year I was 11 stone 5 lbs. Way too thin for me. I'm 6 foot.
Now I'm Just over 13 stone.

Badly Drunk Boy

DareGod wrote: »

... why do you need to eat?

Your body doesn't automatically go for the fat, if you don't eat. Muscle is the thing the body loves.

LordSutch

Liposuction?

gramar

valoren wrote: »

Eat more real food. Not makey-uppey foods like breads, pasta, rice, biscuits, crisps, cakes etc.

Eating bread is, metabolically, the equivalent of eating Skittles.
http://www.gnolls.org/905/mechanisms-of-sugar-addiction-or-why-youre-addicted-to-bread/

Couple eating naturally (and the expense that entails!) with consistent truly aerobic exercise (jogging, easy effort stuff) and the body fat melts off like ice cream on a hot summers day. It doesn't happen over night but with patience and discipline, it works every time.

..any article that preaches 'as a bonus, you’ll find that it’s suddenly much easier to go without food entirely, because your body is learning how to burn fat again!' is probably best not to pay too much attention to.

Cake Man

pumpkin4life wrote: »

Ignore calories in/calories out.

Ehh no, calories in/calories out (CICO) is the basis for any weight loss/gain. Any diet or eating plan whether it's paleo, keto or any other fad on the go all boils down to CICO.

valoren

gramar wrote: »

..any article that preaches 'I]as a bonus, you’ll find that it’s suddenly much easier to go without food entirely, because your body is learning h[ow to burn fat again![/I] is probably best not to pay too much attention to.

I suppose it's referring to intermittent fasting and the benefits of that. I guess if you can go the morning or even a day without feeling ravenous then you are fat-adapted so to speak.

sbsquarepants

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Because your body can only burn body fat at a rate of around 9%, or 31 calories per pound of fat.

If you were chronically obese you could theoretically satisfy your BMR from body fat, but the average person would need over 4/5 stone of body fat to sustain themselves just from body fat, and after about a week or so they would drop below this.
.

I know you're a skeleton so fat just ain't your thing, but even the most cursory glance at your figures and you should realise they're complete nonsense!

31 calories in a pound of fat? There are at least 100 times that many!

If there was a mere 31 calories to be had per pound of body fat, an average weight person - should they have the misfortune to pick up a stomach bug and not eat for a couple of days, would starve to death!

A couple of months back I got a bug and didn't eat anything at all for 4 days. I wasn't exactly running marathons at the time so wouldn't have needed huge calorific input - lets say 1200 to keep me ticking over (that's at least 1000 less than I'd eat).

4800 calories by your figures would require 155 pounds of fat - just to keep me alive for 4 days of watching the big bang theory and feeling sorry for myself - over 11 stone of fat:eek:.
I think I lost about 5 or 6 pounds.

corner of hells

Hector Savage wrote: »

Interesting, in theory could a really fat person survive for weeks/months with no food - just water + vitamins?

Dunno bout weeks or months but a cousin of my dad's fought in Falklands as a para and took part in a march of 60 miles .
Some of the soldiers with less weight collapsed while the heavier built one's lasted longer.

gramar

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I know you're a skeleton so fat just ain't your thing, but even the most cursory glance at your figures and you should realise they're complete nonsense!

31 calories in a pound of fat? There are at least 100 times that many!

If there was a mere 31 calories to be had per pound of body fat, an average weight person - should they have the misfortune to pick up a stomach bug and not eat for a couple of days, would starve to death!

A couple of months back I got a bug and didn't eat anything at all for 4 days. I wasn't exactly running marathons at the time so wouldn't have needed huge calorific input - lets say 1200 to keep me ticking over (that's at least 1000 less than I'd eat).

4800 calories by your figures would require 155 pounds of fat - just to keep me alive for 4 days of watching the big bang theory and feeling sorry for myself - over 11 stone of fat:eek:.
I think I lost about 5 or 6 pounds.

What Johnny is saying is how much of your fat you burn as calories not
how many calories are in a pound of fat. If I go for a 10km run I'll burn 800/900 calories. My watch (very scientific and accurate I know) tells me of the calories burned, about 9/10% of them came from body fat.
The rest came from the glygogen stores in my body.

sbsquarepants

Oh right, sorry took it up the wrong way!

Hector Savage

So speaking about unhealthy eating, Christian Bale to lose weight quickly for his role in The Machinist - just ate an apple and a tin of tuna a day. Presumably he also took in vitamins and water obviously, but is this kind of extreme diet wise ? He would have had doctors of course checking him daily - I think Robert De Niro did something similar for Raging Bull except he ate like **** for 3 months.

whoopsadoodles

gramar wrote: »

What Johnny is saying is how much of your fat you burn as calories not
how many calories are in a pound of fat. If I go for a 10km run I'll burn 800/900 calories. My watch (very scientific and accurate I know) tells me of the calories burned, about 9/10% of them came from body fat.
The rest came from the glygogen stores in my body.

Your watch also takes into account the amount of calories you would have burned if you had not run - your BMR. So the actual run itself is probably closer to 600-700 hundred and it's why people who take up running often put on weight as they don't realise this and eat excess calories.

Neon_Lights

Anybody here ever water fast? I've been tempted to try it.

gramar

whoopsadoodles wrote: »

Your watch also takes into account the amount of calories you would have burned if you had not run - your BMR. So the actual run itself is probably closer to 600-700 hundred and it's why people who take up running often put on weight as they don't realise this and eat excess calories.

That's absolutely true.

Cina

Neon_Lights wrote: »

Anybody here ever water fast? I've been tempted to try it.

it's a terrible idea, like most diets.

it's a common misconception that you need to do these ridiculous diets, the only thing you need to do is burn more calories than you eat, you don't need to change what you eat*, you need to eat less of it and exercise more.

That said, I would definitely recommend replacing other drinks with water, i.e. coffee, coke etc. 8 glasses of water a day (2 litres) whilst you are trying to lose weight. It's what I did and it really helped, and you feel absolutely fantastic because it basically cleanses your whole body, but never ever replace food with water!

*Obviously, if all you're eating is sweet foods and takeaways then that doesn't really help your overall health and you should probably change and eat healthier!

Wood

gramar wrote: »

My watch (very scientific and accurate I know) tells me of the calories burned, about 9/10% of them came from body fat.
The rest came from the glygogen stores in my body.

What watch is this gramar? I'm in the market for a new one myself.

Neon_Lights

Cina wrote: »

it's a terrible idea, like most diets.

it's a common misconception that you need to do these ridiculous diets, the only thing you need to do is burn more calories than you eat, you don't need to change what you eat*, you need to eat less of it and exercise more.

That said, I would definitely recommend replacing other drinks with water, i.e. coffee, coke etc. 8 glasses of water a day (2 litres) whilst you are trying to lose weight. It's what I did and it really helped, and you feel absolutely fantastic because it basically cleanses your whole body, but never ever replace food with water!

*Obviously, if all you're eating is sweet foods and takeaways then that doesn't really help your overall health and you should probably change and eat healthier!

It more so appealed to me as it induces proper ketosis. While also flushing the **** out of your body. Your metabolism would slow down mind, however if you have enough condition and are providing your body with the required nutrients I don't see any harm

Madam Oblong

While I do think water fasts etc are too extreme, there's absolutely no reason that we need to eat 3 meals a day other than habit. Intermittent fasting, having 2 or even 1 meal a day instead of eating all day long has a lot of benefits and is probably the simplest thing to do. Don't overthink weight loss. People think they're going to die the minute they get a hunger pang.

J. Marston

Water fasting.

That might be the most miserable thing I've ever read.

ford2600

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Because your body can only burn body fat at a rate of around 9%, or 31 calories per pound of fat.

If you were chronically obese you could theoretically satisfy your BMR from body fat, but the average person would need over 4/5 stone of body fat to sustain themselves just from body fat, and after about a week or so they would drop below this.
QUOTE]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here with a typo.

You say rate and yet provide no unit of time??

It had been thought that 1g/min was peak fat oxidation in humans; which would equate to 9 calories per minute or 540 per hour. More than plenty to sustain us even at moderate levels of exercise. If keto adapted athletes rates of over 1.5g/min have been recorded.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026049515003340

Maximum fat oxidation/RER is primarily dependent on exercise intensity

While fasting to lose weight is dumb and will fail in all probability, occasional fasts/intermittent fasting/fasted training can be benefical for health and also is a training tool to increase fat oxidation rates/mitochondrial bio genesis.

The ability to do a 24 fast is very useful in the modern world, when travelling or when very busy etc. We have loads of hardware to deal with 24/48hr. For me they are trivial.

The need to constantly eat; 3 meals a day being necessary/breakfast most important meal etc are all Western society norms and ignore our adaptability.

In general acute stresses like fasting, HIIT, cold adaptation etc are unpleasant when doing them but beneficial/rewarding for optimum health. In the modern world we have become soft as fcuk and run from anything resembling hardship.