Weight Loss/ Gain thread Dec 2014 - 2015

o today was my first day doing Leangains.

I had breakfast at 12:30 this afternoon which was a small avo,cucumber and bacon.
Then at 4h I had salami,cucumber and a small avo.

For dinner at 8h I had chicken breast with spinach and feta, cucumber and a tomato.

I had two naartjies as snacks.

After tracking all my intake the whole time, I saw that I still had far too few calories in. So I added a strawberry smoothie consisting of a cup of milk, some strawberries and a bit of xylitol.

Im still in a calorie deficit for the day, which is awesome.

I'm not sure if MyFitnessPal tracked a food source incorrectly,or if chicken and veggies are just really low in calories. But I'm feeling properly stuffed. Will see how tomorrow goes.
 
Looks like a healthy diet. I wouldn't worry too much about sticking to a certain number of calories. Just eat healthily and eat until you are full. I'd recommend against xylitol though - or in fact, artificial sweeteners in general. They still cause an insulin response.

Today I had about 100g of double cream yogurt, 15g of peanut butter, 3 chicken drumsticks, about 6 decently sized prawns, and a homemade waldorf salad. Homemade waldorf salad has one long celery rib, one green apple, a small handful of chopped walnuts, a spoon of chopped onions cooked with some apple cider vinegar and a little sugar, and two spoons of homemade mayonnaise. The yogurt and peanut butter was my snack, the rest was supper.
 
Thanks man. I was worried about the calories because my fitness pal actually warned me that is was dangerously low
 
I think it depends on your current body fat level. If you have more body fat than you want, your body will burn to provide its needs. If you don't have much body fat left, then you better start thinking about increasing how much you eat to avoid losing muscle.

You could add yogurt and/or cream to your smoothie, for instance. Or a bit of peanut butter - its very calorie dense, and rich in both protein and fat.
 
Thanks. I'll add cream and greek yogurt next time, didn't have any tonight.

I've got loads of fat to dispose of. About 15kg would be ideal. Cheers
 
StrontiumDog said:
If you have never done weight training ever, or if you don't have muscle mass to lose then that may be true.

But for anyone with some muscle mass invariably you lose muscle too when losing so much weight. .

If you don't use it (muscle) , your body gets rid of it.
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I used it, but nothing hectic for a while. Lots of mountain bike riding which kept the muscle in place while dropping off the fat. I did not want to build significant muscle though as it's heavier than fat, and would not give me a true reflection of fat loss. I never lost muscle though.

Up until 13 or so years back, I used to weight train twice a day for 1.5 hours each session, and ride my mtb in the forest. Was a great time.
Then moved to JHB and got into a rut. Lost muscle and gained weight.

The process is reversing now. The fat is off and time to get the muscle back. Only 3 or 4 weeks of weight training and the results are fantastic. It's like the body just starts to spring back to what it was.
 
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Well, my weight loss has plateaued, which surprises me. At least, it feels like it has. The scale hovers around the 85kg mark.

For the past 3 weeks, I've been fasting every day, including weekends where possible. I've been skipping lunch and breakfast. Usually I'll eat a snack of yogurt and peanut butter at about 5PM, and then a supper, about the same size as I used to eat.

It amazes me a little bit - I'd expected some movement on the scale by now. How can I eat less than half what I normally do, and not lose weight?

I look the same (to my eyes). It doesn't look like I've lost fat but gained muscle or whatever, it looks like nothing has changed. Hasn't affected my physical stamina or strength in any way.

I've decided to try something a little more extreme, to break through this plateau. I'm going to try longer fasts. I'm going to start fasting for longer than 24 hours. I'm hoping I can do a 120 hour fast next week.
 
Yum, half avo,can of pilchards with lettuce,tomato,red pepper and chopped chillies :( I am going to turn into a fish soon...
 
Ancalagon said:
Well, my weight loss has plateaued, which surprises me. At least, it feels like it has. The scale hovers around the 85kg mark.

For the past 3 weeks, I've been fasting every day, including weekends where possible. I've been skipping lunch and breakfast. Usually I'll eat a snack of yogurt and peanut butter at about 5PM, and then a supper, about the same size as I used to eat.

It amazes me a little bit - I'd expected some movement on the scale by now. How can I eat less than half what I normally do, and not lose weight?

I look the same (to my eyes). It doesn't look like I've lost fat but gained muscle or whatever, it looks like nothing has changed. Hasn't affected my physical stamina or strength in any way.

I've decided to try something a little more extreme, to break through this plateau. I'm going to try longer fasts. I'm going to start fasting for longer than 24 hours. I'm hoping I can do a 120 hour fast next week.
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No dude, somethings not right, surely. Your metabolism probably slowed down and your body's making do with less and possibly going into starvation mode.

Also, isn't IF only meant to be 16 hour fasts?
 
It depends on who you ask. Intermittent fasting can be done with 16 hour fasts, or even 24 hour fasts. In other words, you eat one big meal per day. Other regimes include a 5:2 system where you eat normally for 5 days, and then fast for 2 days per week. On those two days, you can eat no more than 500 calories per day. You also get alternate day fasting, where you skip an entire day of eating, and then eat normally the next day.

I don't know if I have lost body fat, but my body weight hasn't changed. It goes from 85kg to 88kg depending on what time of day I weigh myself. Obviously that variance is normal, because of food, clothes etc.

I would have expected to lose a lot more weight after 3 weeks of fasting at least 16 hours every day though. My calorie consumption has dropped dramatically, and yet this fat still stubbornly stays there.

My hypothesis is that this is because of insulin resistance. I've had abdominal fat - a boep - for over a decade now, which means I've had insulin resistance for over a decade. As long as I still have insulin resistance, I will have excess body fat. This is why I want to do the longer fasts - I think it is necessary to do so to break the insulin resistance and get everything working normally again.

So, last night I ate a spoon of peanut butter, some psyllium husks washed down with water (for fiber), a calcium and magnesium supplement, a zinc supplement and an Omega 3 fish oil pill. That's it. I went to bed hungry for pretty much the first time ever. Its now been over 36 hours since I had a proper meal. I'm going to break my fast tonight at supper.
 
^ Fair enough. I've never been more than 5kg above my matric year weight of 63kg in over 22 years. I am sitting at 61.5kg now. My body seems happy to float around this mark, but certainly if i eat like a king for a week it will shoot up to about 63.5kg.

Yesterday from morning to night i ate two hot cross buns, then two slices of soya seed loaf with peanut butter, then KFC double crunch burger for early supper, steri stumpie type milkshake two hours later, then a 125g bag of Woolworths chips before bed time and i still lost 700g.
 
StrontiumDog said:
^ Fair enough. I've never been more than 5kg above my matric year weight of 63kg in over 22 years. I am sitting at 61.5kg now. My body seems happy to float around this mark, but certainly if i eat like a king for a week it will shoot up to about 63.5kg.

Yesterday from morning to night i ate two hot cross buns, then two slices of soya seed loaf with peanut butter, then KFC double crunch burger for early supper, steri stumpie type milkshake two hours later, then a 125g bag of Woolworths chips before bed time and i still lost 700g.
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I started to gain weight towards the end of high school. By first year university, I had a boep. This was in 2003. I remember weighing 75kg in Std 7, which I think is roughly normal for my height (1.86m). I was about that height in Std 7 - I grew very fast.

I don't know what my weight was when I finished university, but I know that sometime in the years 2007 to 2009, it went up to about 110kg. Maybe 115kg. I used to eat a lot of junk food! I cut down on the junk food, and in 2010, I think I weighed about 95kg.

Since then, I've never weighed less than 86, and usually weigh around 92. So, I've been overweight for a long time. I think that is why this belly fat is being stubborn.

Randhir said:
I've never bothered, but I'm sure you can check your body fat with calipers or using other methods?
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You can - I don't have calipers though. You also get scales that can measure body fat, but apparently they aren't that reliable.

What some people recommend is using a measuring tape to measure your belly/waist. They say it is a good way to check if you are losing fat or not, since obviously weight is not that useful on its own. I might do that - it would be useful to have an objective measure of progress, instead of relying upon my judgment.
 
StrontiumDog said:
@Ancalagon, remind me please, what exercise regime are you on if any?
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Well, I'm actually not sure if I should be doing exercise if I'm on a hectic fasting regime. One author of an intermittent fasting book - Brad Pilon I think his name is - says you shouldn't do hectic fasting (like I want to) and exercise on the same day. It stresses the body too much he says.

Normally I would go for a 5km run once or twice per week and lift weights 1-3 times per week. I'd like to get back to that but I don't want to over do it. Maybe I'll get back to it and just see what happens?
 
@Anca, well just a suggestion but perhaps ease up and go back to a 16 hour fast in order to get some exercise in. Everyone is different of course, but I find I need to exercise at least twice a week to lose at a steady pace. Strenuous exercise twice a week was ample, kickboxing type fitness classes is what did it for me a couple years back.
 
I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking, and I'm going to change my approach.

First, I think my scale is next to useless. I had myself weighed and my waist measured last Friday as part of a Discovery Wellnessday. My weight is 88kg and my waist is 94cm. So, my weight according to an accurate scale is higher than my scale is reporting. Anyway, thats not what interests me, what interests me is the fact that my waist is 94cm. It was 93cm at the beginning of the year when I was exercising much more. Point being, all of this fasting must have resulted in weight loss.

There has been something going around in the back of my mind about the caloric content of protein, and I found an article that seemed to support my theories:http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-context-of-calories/#axzz3n0cHEF4r
The RD’s will tell you that protein has four calories per gram, so when you figure your daily intake, budget calories accordingly. But protein is used by the body mostly for maintaining structure and function. Yes, it can be burned as fuel, but really only as a secondary source
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I think a hectic fast would be a bad idea if I didn't enough protein to sustain my muscle mass. So, my new theory is that I can eat vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, eggs, nuts, cheese and other diary products as long as I get sufficient protein every day. I'm still going to fast for 20 hours every day, but I'm going to eat enough during those 4 hours to sustain me. I might reduce the fast to 16 hours if it gets difficult to take in enough food during those 4 hours.

And I'm going back to doing a normal amount of exercise, including weight training. With my protein intake at the level it should be, I don't have to worry about my muscle wasting away. In fact, I've ordered whey and casein powder to provide extra protein on training days.
 
Ancalagon said:
I think a hectic fast would be a bad idea if I didn't enough protein to sustain my muscle mass. So, my new theory is that I can eat vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, eggs, nuts, cheese and other diary products as long as I get sufficient protein every day.
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Which is what any Keto Calculator would have told you. I assumed you were tracking your macros already.
 
I had some idea of what they were. Obviously my carbs were too high.

In fact, fasting makes sticking to a keto diet easier because I don't have to worry about breakfast and lunch. What I mean is that, previously I thought I had to eat breakfast and lunch. The problem with breakfast is that you have a limited amount of time in which to prepare it and eat it. So, although I'd love to eat bacon and eggs every day, its not practical when you are working. Its similar for lunch - although I'm fine with eating things like nuts, cheese and salad for lunch, the problem is that I'd have to prepare it at home and bring it into work. So, its generally easier to prepare a peanut butter sandwich and bring that into work. Because I'm not forcing myself to eat breakfast or lunch anymore, it frees me from resorting to high carbohydrate foods because they are so much easier.

The other thing is that I was underestimating how much peanut butter I was eating. I thought I was having something like 15g per serving - in reality, it was closer to 60g or more per serving. Sometimes twice a day, which means over 100g of peanut butter every day. That's a whole lot of energy I actually didn't need. One day I weighed a typical peanut butter serving and got the shock of my life!
 
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