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Fat loss confusion

Ziggurat said:
You don't really want to lift weights daily, you want a recovery day between each workout (unless you're working different muscles each day, but that's inefficient). And you'll get a good core workout with just heavy squats and deadlifts. You contract the abdominal muscles hard (Valsalva maneuver) to help stabilize the back and keep it in extension.
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Yup - different muscle groups on different days, and you don't need to kill yourself doing it. Work for tone, not purely muscle mass.

You can do that other stuff too, but it isn't really necessary.
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;) Depends on the person and what they deem "necessary". Squats, deadlifts and even pushups/planking are great for your core, but don't allow you to target specific muscles. Things like a dumbell side bend can do wonders for "love handles" because they target your obliques and that can make a big visual difference... and that sounds like what the goal is in the OP.
 
pipelineaudio said:
I see so many conflicting sources of info out there. I have been trying to live by what I see on the JREF so often as: losing weight means calories out>calories in, but it doesn't seem to be that simple.

I was 125 pounds most of my life and 13 years ago a bad medical prescription jumped me to 340 pounds in just a few months. I got pretty serious about seeing critters out herping the desert southwest and before I knew it, as a side effect, I went down to 250 a few years ago.

......
As fat as my stomach is and as heavy as I am, I've never been anywhere NEAR this strong in my life. I quit smoking and have more endurance than ever and my muscles are gigantic compared to what I'm used to and I can fling my bike around like it was made out of balsa wood. I don't want to lose this muscle, just the fat. In freestyle BMX, your knees don't care how big your waist is, only how much you weigh, and I don't like this disgusting giant stomach either.

What can/should I do?
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First note that muscle fiber is more dense than fat. For equal volume of each, the muscle will weigh more .
Second, at over 300 you were essentially weight lifting just by standing up.
I assume the bad prescription was a steroid which also bolstered muscle mass .

Finally, metabolism slows as we age and weight can go up as a result.
All that said, if you are not seven feet tall, yes 250 lb is overweight. But unless you are five feet tall 125 is too skinny for an adult male.

Body mass index of 25 is a good target. Divide mass in Kg by the square of height in meters. If you simply Google bmi calculator you will find one that will do so using Imperial units too. Here's one..Mayo clinic

I note it puts a 125 pound, 5'10" 30 year old male at BMI of 20.8 and calls this very good, contrary to my estimation above.
 
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malicus said:
Ziggurat said:
Garry Taubes plus Mark Rippetoe.
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Throw in some Jeff Volek and Peter Attia and you have a plethora of youtube vids to make an informed choice on the disparity between previous / current thinking.
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Sorry, there's no magic bullet and no good Calories or bad Calories. Some people may have an easier time with very low carb and others may have an easier with higher carb.

I have no idea who Jeff Volek is. Taubes and Attia may qualify as borderline cranks.

I'm certainly not going to accept Attia's claims of superior athletic performance while in a full ketogenic state based on his anecdotes. You are going to do better, generally speaking, with some carbs (how much it matters will depend on the sport).

As for Taubes, his whole thesis seems to be that insulin is the only damn thing that matters for fat gain (therefore, carbohydrates are evil since he probably thinks that carbohydrates are the only thing capable of producing an insulin response). While this is strictly true for a type I diabetic (because if they don't get any insulin they starve to death), it probably doesn't apply so much for normal people with normal endocrine status and physiology. It's simply not supported by the research unless you heavily engage in the very same cherry picking that Taubes accuses others of doing.

I'd recommend reading some posts by James Krieger on the subject:
https://web.archive.org/web/20091118063017/http://www.thebsdetective.com/2009/10/********ter-of-day-oct-7th-gary-taubes.html
http://weightology.net/?p=251
http://weightology.net/?p=265
http://weightology.net/?p=1081

And specifically dealing with insulin:
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=459
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=536
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=571
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=690
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=711
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=724

I think he may have more but it would be subscriber only (and I am not a subscriber).
 
jaydeehess said:
Finally, metabolism slows as we age and weight can go up as a result.
All that said, if you are not seven feet tall, yes 250 lb is overweight. But unless you are five feet tall 125 is too skinny for an adult male.

Body mass index of 25 is a good target. Divide mass in Kg by the square of height in meters. If you simply Google bmi calculator you will find one that will do so using Imperial units too. Here's one..

I note it puts a 125 pound, 5'10" 30 year old male at BMI of 20.8 and calls this very good, contrary to my estimation above.
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You're correct that a BMI of 25 is better than a BMI of 21. See the graph here:
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/09/15/bodyfat-and-age-just-how-important-is-thin/3/

BMI is useful as a population-level proxy for how fat people are, because averages work, and BMI is easy to calculate. But it's really not that useful on an individual level, because it treats muscle and fat as being the same (obviously they aren't), and muscle/fat composition can vary a LOT between individuals, and even for one individual over time. It's much harder to get an accurate measurement of body fat composition than BMI, but body fat composition is really the thing you want to control. Keep the percentage of body fat in a reasonable range (you don't need to see your abs), keep the total amount of muscle mass up, and you're good, even if BMI isn't optimal.
 
I note a few other similar measures such as hip to waist ratio, in which one wants to keep waist less than hip circumference. Perhaps using more than one such average based measure would be in order.
 
pipelineaudio said:
I guess my main question is, how do I lose fat without losing muscle?
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Interval training to burn more carbs. This means short bursts of intense activity, repeated at intervals of lower activity. Jog for 90 second, sprint for 30 seconds, repeat for about half an hour every day. That sort of thing. Doing sustained activity at the same intensity doesn't adjust your body's metabolism the same way. Interval training increases your body's overall energy consumption, in addition to the energy burned during the training session itself.

Steady-state training consumes energy while it's going on, but tends to increase your body's overall energy storage. Even with proper diet, it can be hard to keep the fat off if all you're doing is steady-state.

And resistance training (i.e., weight lifting) for muscle. The good news is, the more lean muscle you build with resistance exercise, the more energy your body has to burn to maintain it. As long as your food intake is scaled to the amount of energy you're actually using, you should see the fat melt off at a rate of about 1-2 lbs a week, while your muscle mass gradually increases.
 
Awesome! Interval training sounds like exactly what I do at the skatepark

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pipelineaudio said:
On the 1000 calorie days I really don't think I ride as hard and the inches start coming back.

I guess my main question is, how do I lose fat without losing muscle?
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1000 calorie diets is not the answer if you don't want to lose muscle.
Instead go for 2000 or even 2400ish and add some kind of weight training to your routine.
 
Now that I think about it, a 1000 calorie diet could actually work against you in the long run by destroying more muscle than fat. Muscle increases your metabolism, fat not so much.
 
madurobob said:
Yup - different muscle groups on different days, and you don't need to kill yourself doing it. Work for tone, not purely muscle mass.
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Tone is not really related to fitness. I am strong and muscular with low body fat, yet my muscles are naturally slack. That is, they feel soft and loose when not engaged. My wife is much weaker and less muscular than I am, yet her muscles feel much "harder" than mine when relaxed. I just happen to have a lower natural tone than she does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_tone

Adding mass is really all there is.
 
pipelineaudio said:
On the 1000 calorie days I really don't think I ride as hard and the inches start coming back.

I guess my main question is, how do I lose fat without losing muscle? I can fast ok psychologically, I spent my adult life as a professional audio engineer, so a dollar a day food budget was a bit high. If its as simple as not eating till I like my fat content I can do that, I just don't want to lose the muscles I grew
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It is very difficult to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Muscle gain requires a small calorie surplus to your resting calorie requirement whilst weight loss requires a calorie deficit. It's possible to do it by stuffing yourself with protein and eating at balanced diet at about 90% of your resting calorie requirement but I really wouldn't want to do it myself, you'll be aching and tired out for six months straight. Give it a go if you want but there's a far easier and just as effective way.

I'd concentrate on the weight loss by doing cardio, plus maybe a minimal amount of resistance training. Then, when you're close to your desired weight you can start your proper resistance training to gain back any 'lost' muscle. The good thing about muscle is that it takes a long time to 'lose' it and no time at all to get it back. Muscle 'lost' during a year of inactivity can be regained in a couple of weeks, no problem (of course it never really went away, hence my quotes, but that's the perception).
 
Modified said:
Tone is not really related to fitness. I am strong and muscular with low body fat, yet my muscles are naturally slack. That is, they feel soft and loose when not engaged. My wife is much weaker and less muscular than I am, yet her muscles feel much "harder" than mine when relaxed. I just happen to have a lower natural tone than she does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_tone

Adding mass is really all there is.
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That's right. What people wrongly refer to as 'tone' is actually the appearance of the muscle through the body fat, i.e. lower body fat, greater 'tone'. They say, "I don't want to be big, I want to be toned," when what they should be saying is they need to lose weight.
 
I can recommend weights and low carbs. Works wonders for me and Queen Catfish. We have been following a loosely "Primal/Paleo" diet (low carbs, no dairy except the occasional bit of cheese, minimal processed foods, lots of meat and veggies and some fruit), and we have never felt or looked better.

We do not count calories at all and eat as much as we like as long as it's within the diet. Both of us are what some would term endomesomorphs, prone to being (quite) fat and heavy and not especially prone to lose muscle mass quickly.

I alternate a month of powerlifting style weight routine and one month bodybuilding style lifting, and that apparently keeps the body in "retain muscle mass" mode. I don't do much cardio except walking. QC tends to do light cardio and much less lifting.

Being a native Philadelphian, I do allow myself the occasional hoagie. As much as I love hoagies, that much bread at once now really makes me feel sluggish and hungry again much sooner than if I had skipped the bread.
 
It's impressive how many experts in diet and exercise frequent this forum.
 
Minoosh said:
It's impressive how many experts in diet and exercise frequent this forum.
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I don't know who you were aiming at, but for my part I am just passing on my recommendation/anecdote. I do not claim to be an expert at diet and nutrition.
 
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