Hi !
So I recently started to watch what I eat.
I got rid of mcdonalds, pizza, sugary drinks, and yogurts.
Needless to say it's already a gigantic improvement, I feel better and look much better.
BUT, I get really confused about calories intake and "fat per gram" ...
From what I understand, basically, what matters to watch your weight, is the calories intake.
What the food is made of, is what will determine if you feel "full", if you have enough energy, if you're not hungry later, and if it has overall good effects on your health (heart etc...), but has no incidence on your actual weight if you are matching your calories intake (whether you want to lose weight or maintain it).
Am I completely wrong ?
Thanks for helping me figuring it out !
Basically I want to lose a bit of weight, before hitting the gym because I don't want fat and muscle to stack (my body does that).
Hi OP this is Lombax's wife a registered Family Nurse Practitioner. First of all, congrats on making the decision to change up your diet and striving for a healthy lifestyle. The fast food is going to make a huge difference in itself. My husband and I have actually been making some major changes in our own diets over the last 3 months or so and some of what I've learned has been eye-opening and actually goes against the grain of what is generally accepted as what is healthy. Some major misconceptions out there:
-Fats are bad. Ok, there's a lot of history behind this, but basically in the 1950-60s, there were two trains of thought: either fat was the bad guy or sugars were. Sugar won, fat lost. And I'll go into the sugar thing in my next point, but as for the fat, this was blamed as one of the major reasons we get fat... but what is not publicly clear, is that this was based on faulty studies that were biased by the researchers conducting them. Think about it like this.... humans have been eating fats (particularly saturated fats) for hundreds of thousands of years. Our bodies know how to process them. What are bodies are confused about are the new seed and plant based fats (or the even more foreign trans fats). Think about it... did our ancestors squeeze a bunch of soybeans to get the oil from them to cook with? Basically, what I learned, is that fats found in nature are what are bodies need. They are hugely important. Fats are demonized, but without them, we will become depressed and infertile (our hormones need fat). Our brains are made of fat. Without fat, our thoughts become sluggish. I'm not concerned about my cholesterol going up for a variety of reasons (which I won't get into here), but if you do have concerns, have your practitioner check your lipid density size... the total cholesterol, HDL, and LDL don't tell you squat about your true health. Do watch out for high triglycerides, though. A great book that goes into this is The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz. I have been getting full fat dairy (raw, yea NH!), butter and meats for the last 3 months. I haven't drop dead from a heart attack. I've lost 2 dress sizes. And I have more energy then ever before.
-Sugars. Ok this is a biggie. When I say sugar, I don't simply mean table sugar, but all the foods that turn into sugar in your body. This is the glycemic index. Basically, if what you eat makes your blood sugar go crazy high, you want to avoid it. The goal is to keep a nice stable blood sugar and you will not only avoid the crazy energy spikes, but also the intense feeling of "I have to eat something now or I'm going to kill someone" feeling. I call this the "Hangry" feeling. So, what foods do this? Mostly carbohydrates. Sorry to all the pasta, bagel, bread, white potato, rice, and cereal lovers out there, but these foods all make your blood sugar rocket up. And once this happens, unless your energy output can somehow burn this (and we're talking marathon running here), your body will protect itself by storing the sugar as fat. Now, I'm not anti-carb. Fruits and veggies are carbs (though have lowered amounts). Another great book that I read about this is Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health by William Davis. Fun fact on "healthy" whole grain toast: 2 slices actually raise your blood sugar faster and higher than a snickers bar. Seriously.
-A calorie is not a calorie: Sorry to say, but calorie in doesn't equal calorie out. When I found this out, I was like "What???? Of course it is, that's just basic math, right? Nope. Let me tell you a true story. My mom and I walked across England in 2 weeks last summer. 200 miles in 14 days, non-stop, averaging about 15 miles a day. Guess how much weight I lost? None. Not a single pound. Guess what I ate? Well, oatmeal or some eggs with toast in the mornings (maybe some fruit or yogurt). During the day, we never really stopped for lunch, but instead ate mixed nuts, crackers, cheese... typical trail food. Then at night we would have a nice meal in a local tavern. It really wasn't crazy. So, you must be like, well, you must have had a nice slow meander through the countryside if you didn't loose anything... no major effort, right? Nope... we walked at a pretty good clip and if you know England, you know that there are many, many hills and mountains. Plus we each carried a 10-20lb pack the whole day. Conservatively , we probably burned between 2500-3000 calories/day. And the average woman needs about 1200 calories just to live. So you figure we burned around 4000-5000 calories (walking and basic living) per day minus around 2000 for food, giving us a minimum 2000 cal/day deficit. So if one were to assume that it takes around a 3500 calories deficit to loose a pound of fat, we would have been 1 pound gone every two days, or about 7 for the trip. Didn't happen. Why? A fascinating book on this is The Calorie Myth by Jonathon Bailor. He talks about how your body weight set point is actually what controls your weight. And how to change it.
Sorry about the length of this post, I could probably go on for hours about this. Essentially, what I've been doing is following a more primal/paleo diet and using both strength and high intensity interval training to get me going in the right direction. I've been trying to focus on the quality of my food (from locally sourced produce and animals from local farms that are humanely raised and then humanely butchered (really important if you eat animal fat to do this, as conventionally raised animals have many toxins and undesired hormones stored in their fat). It is a bit more expensive, but I feel better, look better, and will be living a healthier life. I really can't put a price on that.
And please, please don't worry about what other people think of you at the gym. Who cares what anyone else does? And we all have a layer of fat under our skin (subcutaneous fat). This is just a part of being human. Sure, some of us have more than others, but we all have it. Just put on your favorite music (or podcast,) and get your groove on. Personally, nothing makes me happier than going outside for a long walk. I don't bother with an expensive gym membership either... a pair of sneakers, some free weights, and a good hill to sprint up are all I need to get in a superb work-out. Good luck with everything...
-By the way, if you are into podcasts, one of my favorites is "Fat Burning Man". Check it out, I think you'll find it really inspirational!
but of course looking at my body, I know that I have work to be done and won't be satisfied until I'm as perfect as I can be. I don't want to build muscle, I just want to be skinny :/
