84 replies to this topic

[DR01D]

How is someone supposed to be physically active if they consume a low amount of calories?

My base calories per day are 1850. On days that I work more or lift weights I eat more. The body needs a lot less than most people consume.

A lot of Americans are eating 3000 calories per day and living a sedentary lifestyle.

Edited by DR01D, 28 May 2013 - 10:51 PM.

[misterE]

How is someone supposed to be physically active if they consume a low amount of calories?

That is actually a pretty good question-- one that has been making CR seem very unfeasible to me as a somewhat of an athlete. I think intermittent fasting is a better option here.

Intermittent-fasting is probably a better option, but on a day to day basis, you must eat enough calories to function and feel good. I believe the key is to eat plenty of the "right type" of calories.

Being an athlete and all, you should be able to appreciate the importance of carbohydrates in fueling the workout and replenishing the depleted glycogen stores after the workout. Most endurance athletes "carbo-load" before activity... they don't "fat-load". "Hitting the wall"; a reference to: exhaustion during exercise, is due to a depletion of stored-carbohydrate (glycogen).

[alecnevsky]

How is someone supposed to be physically active if they consume a low amount of calories?

That is actually a pretty good question-- one that has been making CR seem very unfeasible to me as a somewhat of an athlete. I think intermittent fasting is a better option here.

Intermittent-fasting is probably a better option, but on a day to day basis, you must eat enough calories to function and feel good. I believe the key is to eat plenty of the "right type" of calories.

Being an athlete and all, you should be able to appreciate the importance of carbohydrates in fueling the workout and replenishing the depleted glycogen stores after the workout. Most endurance athletes "carbo-load" before activity... they don't "fat-load". "Hitting the wall"; a reference to: exhaustion during exercise, is due to a depletion of stored-carbohydrate (glycogen).

I carbo-loaded my entire life -- it's not enough. You can only store so much in your liver and muscles and "hitting the wall" is essentially a brain phenomenon. I relegated some of the low to medium-intensity activity to be sourced by fat stores which I did via making my metabolism more flexible, i.e., nutritional ketosis. But yeah I get it, you want everyone to eat starch.

[Hebbeh]

Unprocessed foods + low calories (this one is key) + physical activity = the best odds of good health and longevity

How is someone supposed to be physically active if they consume a low amount of calories?

Seriously, you need to cowboy up and quit being such a wuss. I've been involved in weight class athletic competitions most of my life, starting when I was 12 off and on throughout life. And if I wasn't actively competing, I was working with someone that was. Many of the toughest athletic competitions are weight class based and by nature, you have serious athletes that are lean and shredded to begin with, dropping a weight class to make the team or win the gold. Boxing, wrestling, power/Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, and martial arts of all kinds from peewee leagues all the way through the Olympics and eventually professional sports. These are all weight class based events and it is not only common but the norm that you will find competitors at all ages and all levels of competition pushing themselves beyond the limits in grueling workouts on minimal calories to maintain or drop their weight class. Always in single digit body fat % and never grumbling about it. And these are not a few elite athletes but thousands and thousands of kids at all age groups from grade school, high school, college on through Olympics and professionals. Often they will fast for 24-48 hours before a competition to make weigh-ins and then compete in as many as 5 matches over 2 days to win gold. And I can guarantee all these kids are pushing themselves through long grueling workouts, sometimes twice a day, in addition to leading a normal life which will include school and/or a job....and doing it on far less calories than you're consuming with your pasta and potatoes. Like I said, quit being a wuss and man up. I know 12 year-olds with more balls.

[DR01D]

Being an athlete and all, you should be able to appreciate the importance of carbohydrates in fueling the workout and replenishing the depleted glycogen stores after the workout. Most endurance athletes "carbo-load" before activity... they don't "fat-load". "Hitting the wall"; a reference to: exhaustion during exercise, is due to a depletion of stored-carbohydrate (glycogen).

My breakfast is 542 calories. 47% of my calories come from carbs and 42% come from fat. I eat lots of nuts with my breakfast. I finish eating before 6am and I work hard until noon without a problem. I own a landscaping company. If I work hard my lunch needs to be around 1,200 calories. On an easy day it's only 700 calories. I eat more protein in my lunch and dinner.

The average, obese office worker probably eats twice what I eat. Plus they're eating processed junk.

I should add that I'm not a very, big guy. I weigh a little less than 150 pounds although nearly half of that is muscle. If I was a bigger guy I'd have to eat more to maintain my weight.

[DR01D]

Being an athlete and all, you should be able to appreciate the importance of carbohydrates in fueling the workout and replenishing the depleted glycogen stores after the workout. Most endurance athletes "carbo-load" before activity... they don't "fat-load". "Hitting the wall"; a reference to: exhaustion during exercise, is due to a depletion of stored-carbohydrate (glycogen).

Maybe if I was a competitive athlete I'd need to carb load. I don't know, I'm not that good.

However the average person doesn't need to do that even if they work hard or lift weights. A low calorie diet is fine.

[DR01D]

He does contend that Sat fats are better relative to carbs however, which is reassuring.

I'm sure he is right. Processed carbs are the worst. A bowl of tortilla chips (which I love) or a piece of cheesecake (which I love even more) is pure garbage. I try not to even look at that stuff.

[misterE]

DRO1D, are you familiar with the concept of calorie density? Fat has 9 calories per gram compared to carbohydrate, which has 4. One table spoon of olive-oil has more calories than a pound of broccoli! Since fat is more calorically-dense than carbohydrate, you are able to eat a greater volume of food with less calories, if you choose low-fat/high-carb foods like rice, barley, or whole-grain pasta compared to eggs, cheese and butter.

[DR01D]

DRO1D, are you familiar with the concept of calorie density? Fat has 9 calories per gram compared to carbohydrate, which has 4. One table spoon of olive-oil has more calories than a pound of broccoli!

Oh yeah. I eat a huge pile of raw vegetables with my lunch and dinner. It definitely helps keep me full. CR would be hard without those vegetables and virtually impossible if I ate a lot of processed carbs. I'd get too hungry.

I eat a lot of raw nuts with my breakfast and despite their small size I stay full until lunch.

25 pistachio kernels (84 calories)
12 almond kernels (82 calories)
20 peanut kernels (59 calories)

It could be the fat content. I'm not sure.

[DR01D]

I almost forgot.

I recently added more nuts to my breakfast.
10 pecan halves (98 calories)

My new breakfast is 640 calories, not 542.

Protein: 11.1%
Carbs: 40.9%
Fat: 49.9%

I eat more protein in my lunch and especially dinner.

Edited by DR01D, 29 May 2013 - 03:59 AM.

[DePaw]

Fats have over 55% more calories per gram than carbohydrate, making them calorie-dense

Or you could argue you need to eat 82% more weight to get the same calories from carbs as more fat. Making less total weight of food on a high fat low carb diet to a low fat high carb one, giving less total body weight.

DRO1D, are you familiar with the concept of calorie density? Fat has 9 calories per gram compared to carbohydrate, which has 4. One table spoon of olive-oil has more calories than a pound of broccoli! Since fat is more calorically-dense than carbohydrate, you are able to eat a greater volume of food with less calories, if you choose low-fat/high-carb foods like rice, barley, or whole-grain pasta compared to eggs, cheese and butter.

There's a hell of a lot more to satiety than filling the stomach, otherwise eating contests wouldn't exist for a start!

[DePaw]

My diet is high fat yet I'm losing weight like mad despite increasing calories from when I was eating a higher carb diet, explain that MisterE! On my old diet I was neither gaining or losing weight, and had been weight stable for several months, after switching to my new diet I instantly started to lose weight and have continue to do so...

Old diet: 80g protein, 120g carbs, 90g fat = ~1600 calories.
New diet: 80g protein, 30g carbs, 150g fat = ~1800 calories.

Breakfast: 4 eggs, 1/3 cup cream.
Dinner: 200-250g meat, usually pork.
Supper: 1 tbsp cacao, 1/2 cup cream, 1 cup whole milk.
Once a week: 300g carrots, 2 apples.

I eat breakfast usually at 1pm as I'm just not hungry until then, then dinner at 6pm and supper just before bed at 10pm.

Don't say it's the thermogenic effect of protein or anything like that as protein has stayed the same, only fat and carbs have changed.

Also to clarify my carb source on the old diet where potatoes, whole-grain bread, and oats. All foods MisterE claims are so great for weight loss.

Edited by DePaw, 29 May 2013 - 10:36 AM.

[platypus]

I try to choose the most calorie-nutrient dense foods. I don't think it's a good idea to get your body used to have it insides stretched my a voluminous meal three times a day.

[misterE]

My diet is high fat yet I'm losing weight like mad despite increasing calories from when I was eating a higher carb diet, explain that MisterE!

You're undergoing lipolysis and proteolysis due to a lack of insulin.

[Chupo]

DRO1D, are you familiar with the concept of calorie density? Fat has 9 calories per gram compared to carbohydrate, which has 4. One table spoon of olive-oil has more calories than a pound of broccoli! Since fat is more calorically-dense than carbohydrate, you are able to eat a greater volume of food with less calories, if you choose low-fat/high-carb foods like rice, barley, or whole-grain pasta compared to eggs, cheese and butter.

This graphic is simplistic nonsense. Where were my stretch receptors when I used to go to bed with a stomach so full that I'd wake up in the middle of the night because I'd aspirated some food that had come up out of it? Granted, that was a SAD diet and this did not happen when I was on McDougall probably because gastric emptying was faster without fat. The SAD diet (carbs and fat) caused hunger with reduced gastric emptying so was a double whammy. The starch based diet though, was very hunger inducing. I would gain weight unless I restricted calories but then I'd be miserable, couldn't think straight, get tired, and angry. That or be fat again? No thanks.

On low carb, high fat, (low to moderate protein) I can feel satiated all day from one single meal. And it is a relief to not have a full stomach all the time! You feel lighter with more energy. When I go without eating or want to restrict calories, it's not a miserable experience. I don't get weak and shaky or angry. Hunger is not disabling. It is tolerable.

[alecnevsky]

[DePaw]

My diet is high fat yet I'm losing weight like mad despite increasing calories from when I was eating a higher carb diet, explain that MisterE!

You're undergoing lipolysis and proteolysis due to a lack of insulin.

Lowered no complete lack. But according to you I should be getting fat and sick eating so much fat. I was obsessed with food before I made the switch, had to eat several small meals throughout the day cos I was hungry, now a meal makes me feel full for hours, and sometimes I forget to eat until 5pm because of the lack of hungry, yet I have plenty of energy all day despite not eating! You can't do that basing your diet on carbs...

On low carb, high fat, (low to moderate protein) I can feel satiated all day from one single meal. And it is a relief to not have a full stomach all the time! You feel lighter with more energy. When I go without eating or want to restrict calories, it's not a miserable experience. I don't get weak and shaky or angry. Hunger is not disabling. It is tolerable.

I have found this also, sometimes I forget to eat until 5pm because of the lack of hungry, yet I have plenty of energy all day despite not eating! I will then eat a single large meal in the evening and sometimes do this two days in a row. Ketosis is liberation from hunger.

[InquilineKea]

For what it's worth - when I asked Rafael de Cabo what fats he fed to mice under a "high-fat" diet - the diet that resulted in decreased lifespans, it was coconut oil that he fed to the mice.

He said that outcomes *do* vary significantly based on what type of fat you feed mice. Coconut oil was seen as bad.

It's not just saturated vs. unsaturated. It's also the type of saturated fat. Stearic acid (e.g. the type in chocolate) is okay. Other types of saturated fats are more worrisome.

Stearic acid is ok for mice but coconut oil is bad? That doesn't seem like a normal mouse diet. Is this another case of "mice aren't people"?

Stearic acid wasn't one of the fats that he tested. He tested fish oil, olive oil, coconut oil, and something else.

What I meant with stearic acid was with humans - we already know that stearic acid is probably the least harmful of saturated fats.

[madanthony]

Unprocessed foods + low calories (this one is key) + physical activity = the best odds of good health and longevity

How is someone supposed to be physically active if they consume a low amount of calories?

Seriously, you need to cowboy up and quit being such a wuss. I've been involved in weight class athletic competitions most of my life, starting when I was 12 off and on throughout life. And if I wasn't actively competing, I was working with someone that was. Many of the toughest athletic competitions are weight class based and by nature, you have serious athletes that are lean and shredded to begin with, dropping a weight class to make the team or win the gold. Boxing, wrestling, power/Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, and martial arts of all kinds from peewee leagues all the way through the Olympics and eventually professional sports. These are all weight class based events and it is not only common but the norm that you will find competitors at all ages and all levels of competition pushing themselves beyond the limits in grueling workouts on minimal calories to maintain or drop their weight class. Always in single digit body fat % and never grumbling about it. And these are not a few elite athletes but thousands and thousands of kids at all age groups from grade school, high school, college on through Olympics and professionals. Often they will fast for 24-48 hours before a competition to make weigh-ins and then compete in as many as 5 matches over 2 days to win gold. And I can guarantee all these kids are pushing themselves through long grueling workouts, sometimes twice a day, in addition to leading a normal life which will include school and/or a job....and doing it on far less calories than you're consuming with your pasta and potatoes. Like I said, quit being a wuss and man up. I know 12 year-olds with more balls.

Ok, I was looking for a place to post and this one tee'd me off enough that the place I post shall be here. I may be a wuss or not, but if I run out of glycogen on a cycling trip, which I do at 25-30 miles and yet have to cycle back to the car - sometimes 40 or 50 miles total (so THERE is the sucking up and pressing on), I feel for DAYS like an elephant is sitting on my chest - I have trouble breathing, I have no energy, every movement - even of my fingers causes lactic acid and muscle burn, I am too tired to read, everything seems like an incredible amount of work - even carrying my purse (which I admit can be weighty!), and I even lose muscle tone. I have 3 genes that cause high blood pressure, but I have measured and that is not it. I have had an ECG and it shows sinus bradycardia, otherwise normal so I don't think that's it. I had a blood test long time ago that detected KETONES. That was the only thing ever found. I think ketones are the most horrible deleterious things! So if you are out of glycogen and your body needs more sugar than it can get burning fat (I have those slow twitch muscle fibers for endurance, not fast twitch for speed), what does it burn? When I did 100 miles marathons when I was younger the normal lactic acid produced did NOT feel like this and COULD BE ph balanced and removed via calcium pills. This - idk how to prevent it nor how to clear it out. And I think if I went on long enough (NOT WUSS) then it might kill me. I don't have enough energy to run my brain afterward so how can I have enough to run my heart? I am up tonight because if I lay down I can't really breathe. Forget all this WUSS STUFF - athletes DROP DEAD from "not being wusses" ALL THE TIME.

Edited by madanthony, 09 August 2013 - 06:49 AM.

[madanthony]

Being an athlete and all, you should be able to appreciate the importance of carbohydrates in fueling the workout and replenishing the depleted glycogen stores after the workout. Most endurance athletes "carbo-load" before activity... they don't "fat-load". "Hitting the wall"; a reference to: exhaustion during exercise, is due to a depletion of stored-carbohydrate (glycogen).

My breakfast is 542 calories. 47% of my calories come from carbs and 42% come from fat. I eat lots of nuts with my breakfast. I finish eating before 6am and I work hard until noon without a problem. I own a landscaping company. If I work hard my lunch needs to be around 1,200 calories. On an easy day it's only 700 calories. I eat more protein in my lunch and dinner.

The average, obese office worker probably eats twice what I eat. Plus they're eating processed junk.

I should add that I'm not a very, big guy. I weigh a little less than 150 pounds although nearly half of that is muscle. If I was a bigger guy I'd have to eat more to maintain my weight.

I hope you log in again. Any advice for cycling more than 30 miles if I run out of glycogen at 30 miles? I figured at some point I'm only using the amount of calories in a slice of bread so should not need to do much special. I have tried sports drinks and o.j. in the past. Recently I've tried eating spirulina protein packets in water halfway out...my body does not seem to like them (seems like I retain water after those packets). I've also tried eating a cinnamon roll immediately before setting out. Didn't work. The times recently that I had this elephant sitting on my chest feeling afterward were both times I was racing home for fear of being struck by lightning so maybe adrenaline figures in. I cannot imagine eating 1200 calories in one meal! I don't want to GAIN weight cycling! Thanks in advance!

Edited by madanthony, 09 August 2013 - 07:18 AM.

[OpaqueMind]

Can you guys recommend some good sources of dietary fat in light of my aims of minimizing omega-6 and general contaminant intake; which rules out non-organic, non-grass fed meats and above average quantities of nuts.

I've been moving my diet around for so long... it's frustrating that almost everything seems like it will kill you slowly, according to the evidence. I used to eat low-carb but started incorporating in sweet potatoes in order to train martial arts. Living in a house of carb-eaters I've now slipped back into my old ways... and I just re-realised today after eating a sizeable amount of potatoes at a restaurant that eating carbs makes me feel like shit. The abundance of conflicting information is dis-heartening, and my perception of these contradictions has allowed me to slip unconsciously into unhealthy eating patterns again. So I would be very grateful if you guys could tell me what are some good, sustainable sources of fat, of which I can predominantly compose my diet and maintain optimum brain health. See my primary goal is the optimization of brain-power... 5 extra years of 'life' means nothing to me in comparison.

[rwac]

eating carbs makes me feel like shit.

First of all, was it greasy potatoes? because vegetable oil can do that all by itself.

Otherwise, you might be suffering from some sort of gut bacterial overgrowth. Eating a (raw) carrot salad after starchy meals helps me quite a bit.

[OpaqueMind]

eating carbs makes me feel like shit.

First of all, was it greasy potatoes? because vegetable oil can do that all by itself.

Otherwise, you might be suffering from some sort of gut bacterial overgrowth. Eating a (raw) carrot salad after starchy meals helps me quite a bit.

Yeah it was actually. Thanks for the heads up on that, I never knew vegetable oils could make you feel that crap! In general I avoid them like the plague. I will have to experiment more with my eating habits in order to discern the culprit. My previous question is still pertinent and I continue to aim for a low-carb way of being. The clarity of ketosis is highly beneficial for me.

[rwac]

Yeah it was actually. Thanks for the heads up on that, I never knew vegetable oils could make you feel that crap! In general I avoid them like the plague. I will have to experiment more with my eating habits in order to discern the culprit. My previous question is still pertinent and I continue to aim for a low-carb way of being. The clarity of ketosis is highly beneficial for me.

I know exactly what you mean. I've been there too, but the "clarity of ketosis" is just an effect of stress hormones like cortisol (released to promote gluconeogenesis). Unfortunately, not only can't you store glycogen in such a state, elevated cortisol will wear you down over time.

[Aldrich]

Both the amount and structure of food consumed impact bodyweight control, the purpose of this study was to figure out whether and by what procedure unwanted nutritional fat results in greater fat build up than does unwanted nutritional carbs.....