Men and the weight-gain obsession

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by gator7_5

Yeah, so? Your eating habits are strange to say the least. Binging and fasting isn't normal. And I think that should be taken into consideration by others when being lecturing about eating habits and health. And fwiw, I never said to ignore you, but that its hard to take your opinion seriously.

Point is, I'm not advising anyone what I'm doing is right. I'm not trained in health and fitness. I'm just saying its possible to gain strength, muscle, and lose fat.

But it's okay to binge for a week.

Gotcha!

Note to others: pay this nutcase no heed.

[LeafUF]

Binging is never a good thing, many people do it everyday without the fasting, which is definitely worse. Fasting is normal, in fact its a part of just about every major religion. So, fasting has been commonly practiced for all of written history. Here are just some of the ways to incorporate fasting into your lifestyle if you so choose.

Eat Stop Eat

Leangains

Ripped Body

Warrior Diet

Carb Back-Loading

8 Hour Diet

That last one is from Men's Health and while I dont agree with it necessarily I think you can see that fasting is now about as mainstream a way of eating as six meals a day. And there are success stories using these approaches all over the place.

[Dreamliner]

And you know what ? I don't care what the f*** people call it. I call what I do "not eating breakfast." And the reason I don't eat breakfast is because ... wait for it - I'm rarely hungry until lunchtime.

Cutting-edge, I know.

[Dreamliner]

And let me address another lie that's circulating about me and my changing views: that I used to tell people that they don't have to give in to every hunger pang, but now I'm supposedly telling them to stuff their faces every time they're hungry.

It's a lie, of course. Basically, I'm discouraging people from starving themselves in order to conform to distorted cultural expectations.

[LeafUF]

The first rule of IF is to not discuss IF. People's first instinct is to think you have an eating disorder.

[UFNut]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner

And you know what ? I don't care what the f*** people call it. I call what I do "not eating breakfast." And the reason I don't eat breakfast is because ... wait for it - I'm rarely hungry until lunchtime.

Cutting-edge, I know.

I sometimes drink coffee w/ cream or whole milk for breakfast, and other times I slam down some bacon/sausage/steak & eggs, hash browns, w/ fruit & nuts, etc. Just depends on how I feel....Other times I skip lunch or dinner, or both if I'm not hungry.

I've always found the "intermittent fasting" label to be silly....it's called not eating breakfast....going 18hrs without eating is not starvation, lol.

[LeafUF]

Neither is going 24. I have been doing that once a year since I was 13. Some people do it once or twice a week. The key is to eat normally after a long break from eating.

[Dreamliner]

I think it's fine to take a break from eating. Clearly, nobody is going to die if they go a day without eating. I do on occasion. But not as an exercise in asceticism. And certainly not for health. Usually it's because I've binged a bit and am a little sick of food.

Now, the reason I am reluctant to recommend this strategy to others is that, frankly, I've come to believe that people are different. Yes, I really do believe that there are lots of people who are hungrier than I am and are less prone to be satiated than I am.

Put another way, I am not inclined to believe that I have more willpower than other people. I rather suspect that I have nothing to boast about in being naturally thin.

I really do believe people these days (don't think they're weak-willed) when they tell me it's difficult for them to go for more than a few hours without eating.

[Dreamliner]

But when I do get hungry for breakfast, this is what I like to do:

[exiledgator]

Originally Posted by LeafUF

The first rule of IF is to not discuss IF. People's first instinct is to think you have an eating disorder.

QFT

I've had avid fitness enthusiasts raise an eyebrow at me. I no longer tell a soul.

[Dreamliner]

Don't tell your mom especially. It's like saying, "Hey Mom, I found this nice old Vietnamese lady, who's going to do a nipple ring for me, cheap!"

[rburnett]

Originally Posted by gator7_5

It's definitely possible.

I about double my caloric intake if I run for 20 minutes and lift heavy weights 4 days a week. I litterally eat 4 times a day on the days I work out until I feel like I am going to pop, then I'm starving again 2 hours later. If I didn't eat like that while working out regularly, I'd probably faint every day.

I can gain a couple pounds in a month of pure muscle and maybe shed the 1/2# of fat I have to spare if when I dedicate myself to it.

I gain mass, strength, and even slim down my waist and get much more defined abs. (I have to be losing weight. According to Dream, and this is no smartass comment, you can only see defined abs if you lose weight)

The trick, you see, is to be born with an EXTREMELY HIGH metabolic rate. High enough to the point that I think I should be some kind of scientific study.

I'm the guy who goes on a cruise and eats and drinks all week and walks off the ship 3 pounds lighter. If I don't continually workout with heavy weight, build muscle or at least maintian what I have, I shrink. muscle, fat, everything. People have told me for 15 yrs it will end, but I'm 37 and I don't see any sign of it.

You're right, though, the other 99% of people are screwed.

You drink a lot of beer too.

[Dreamliner]

Actually, 7_5's experience, and mine, collide with the 'calories in/calories out' theory. At roughly 6-0 145, I can eat 3,000 calories or more, for a number of days, and not gain any weight. I require sustained force-feeding just to gain a few pounds. My energy expenditure is WAY off the BMR estimates.

By calories in/calories out I mean the notion of adding or subtracting 500 calories and gaining or losing a pound a week. It simply doesn't work that way for a lot of people. It may not work that way for most people. Too many variables involved.

[ATL_Gator]

From an engineer's perspective...

You CAN NOT VIOLATE "Energy in = Energy Out + Energy Stored". If you can, you should write a paper on it and you might win a Nobel Prize. After that, I would then begin work on a perpetual motion machine, as that would probably land you a second Nobel Prize.

To say that you are an outlier to the "traditional BMR/Energy expenditure estimates" is one thing, but to say you can violate a fundamental law is dead wrong. Besides, the ESTIMATES are just that... estimates based on a population of people. Similar to making the statement that ALL people with BMI over 30 are fat obese people with no physical capability. (Jay Cutler at competition weight is something like 40 BMI).

[Dreamliner]

Again, in the end ... it does boil down to energy balance. But what people don't get is the body is extraordinarily resourceful in its ability to utilize calories more efficiently (when calories are in short-supply) and its ability to shunt resources away from one bodily function after another in order to hold onto fat.

I think it's illuminating that John Barban, the one guy on the internet who swears by the BMR calculators, acknowledges that weight-loss aspirants have to continually recalibrate their BMR's in order to reach more extreme goals. And one of his clients acknowledged that, in the final stages of his 'leaning out' he was getting 1,200 calories a day and walking upwards of fifteen miles a day.

And we haven't gotten to the wanting the weight back part.