Help! I'm Horrible at Losing Weight

I've been messing around the past few days with an app called MyFitnessPal, not necessarily with an aim to explicitly dieting, but more just trying to understand what effect just using it (tracking exercise and food intake) might have on my behavior. If nothing else, I think it makes me more conscious of what I'm eating, so i don't just mindlessly eat whatever I can lay my hands on. That's pretty much my view of MFP as well (sidenote: MFP is your nexus for connecting things like Garmin to other fitness tracking things like Fitbit scales, etc) - it makes you conscious of what you're putting in your body. And once you're aware of it (it's easy to get to 2000 calories a day) you can start to bend towards good healthy decisions. My problem is that I'll mindlessly eat everything in the kitchen (how delicious oreos look after a swim!) and then try to run/swim myself to "work it off." Remember: We're not overweight according to our BMI - we're merely too short. In my case, like a foot short.

I've been messing around the past few days with an app called MyFitnessPal, not necessarily with an aim to explicitly dieting, but more just trying to understand what effect just using it (tracking exercise and food intake) might have on my behavior. If nothing else, I think it makes me more conscious of what I'm eating, so i don't just mindlessly eat whatever I can lay my hands on. Separately, I've also concluded that I don't need to eat breakfast as soon as I get up. I'm an early riser, generally between 4:00 and 5:00, and usually either swim or (more often) ride to work. I'm often no hungry first thing in the morning. Might as well wait until I get to work, if for no other reason than it delays the day's feasting.

I was at the Boston Science museum recently and they have a new installment which shows people from around the world with the foods they typically eat during a day. It shows total calories, height, weight, age, location, when foods are consumed, etc. There are really some interesting things I picked up on. There was nothing at all to show that calories have anything to do with weight. I have to say, this mirrors what I've seen with my friends and family. Tiny women who were just generally active throughout the day with indoor and outdoor chores could eat as much as 2000 calories more than Sumo wrestlers who worked out for hours. Typical daily calories ranged from 2400-5,000. So, what gives? Here are my observations from the exhibit: - People who had more movement throughout the day fared better than those with large chunks of sedentary time. Even those who worked out or trained regularly. - People who split their meals evenly or ate more foods during the morning and daytime fared better than those who skipped meals or had one large meal with several small meals. It was noted that the secret Sumo wrestlers used to gain weight easily was to workout all morning on nothing but water and tea then feast and relax the rest of their day. Their calories were middle of the road and their nutrition choices were average. - People in warmer climates fared better than those in cooler climates. I'd be interested to find out if this was due to more vitamin D, more outdoor activity or more fresh foods. - People who ate more fresh or "traditionally prepared" foods were far better off than those who included foods distributed for mass consumption. By traditionally prepared I mean: pickled foods, cured meats, breads and cheeses that were made locally seemed to have no negative impact on weight. There was one woman who seemed to subsist on fresh bread, deli meats and cheese alone at a size that appeared healthy. But those who included mass produced breads, mass produced meats, packaged cookies, packaged cakes, cereals, chain restaurant foods, etc fared worse. - Those in northern climates who ate more fish were trimmer than non-fish eating northerners. - Diets with less processed sugar fared better than those who ate more. Copious amounts of fresh fruits and breads seems to have no impact on weight. - Diets without alcohol fared better than those who included it even small amounts. Those who managed to stay lean with the inclusion of alcohol tended to eat much less than the average person. - The amount or ratio of vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy products or meats had so discernible impact on weight. It seemed no number of vegetables could undo the effects of mass produced foods. - The number of calories people eat and have a healthy weight for their height seems to be much higher than diet research would suggest. The takeaway points I got from this: - Never skip meals. - Don't end load your day with most of your food. - Drink less if you want to eat more. - Don't stress about calories - make sure you're eating the best quality food you can and skip sweetened foods (a LITTLE honey or maple syrup seemed fine). - Try to keep yourself moving. You can't undo sitting damage even with the best workouts. - Eat fish (because I'm in the northern part of the states). - Get outside. None of this of course helps loose weight but I think if you view your weight loss as practicing for maintenance, it's still helpful in guiding. Add more habits of successful people and the long term outcome will hopefully be one that has less rebound. Thank you for posting this info 2tall:)

I think lots of us tend to fall into one of two camps-- The majority, I suspect, in the swimming world would like to believe we are the masters of our own destiny, and that with the right combination of grit and volitional behavior, we can dramatically alter our body mass and sustain this for the duration. The minority, of which I count myself a member, believe that for some aspects of our physiology, our influence is, at best, modest. There are multiple biological and environmental forces that we can't overcome, or at least not for year after year. In fact, some of these forces may well be entirely hidden to most of us, from infection by AD-37, a type of adenovirus strongly linked to obesity, to unforeseen consequences of Global Warming itself. To wit, here is an excerpt from an article I wrote on obesity several years ago. Dr. Astrup's hypothesis may fail to prove out. But the larger point is that causes for obesity are likely much more complex than the average person realizes, and the Eat Less/Move More mantra--while seeming to be so intuitively obvious--may, in fact, be as misguided as many now-debunked aspects of the Conventional Wisdom. Remember when homosexuality was widely considered a lifestyle "choice" that could be "fixed" by reparative therapy? Few people believe such hogwash today. I suspect that the Eat Less/Move More Rx. will one day such join discarded ideas in the scrap heap of Pseudoscience. Excerpt: Last year, Arne Astrup, M.D., a renowned obesity researcher at the University of Copenhagen, proposed a fascinating idea that sounds like science fiction but has nevertheless generated considerable interest among scientists worldwide. Given the global weight gain seen in humans and animals alike, Dr. Astrup reasoned, there must be some common environmental factor shared by all. Diets, livelihoods, access to technology, health care: These vary dramatically all across the fattening globe. Not so the atmosphere that all of us must breathe. For eons, the concentration of carbon dioxide across the earth has hovered steadily between 180-280 parts per million. Thanks to fossil fuel combustion, this has changed dramatically in less than a century. Last May, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that average daily CO2 levels have increased to 400 ppm, a figure not seen for at least three million years, long before humans evolved. What’s more, this increase has been accelerating in virtual lockstep with the expansion of global waistlines. To Dr. Astrup, this is more than just a statistical coincidence. His argument is physiological. The more CO2 we breathe, the more acidic our blood becomes. This, in turn, increases the firing rate of orexin neurons, newly discovered brain cells that are exquisitely sensitive to changes in blood acidity. “Orexin” derives from the Greek word for appetite—an apt soubriquet for nerve cells that so powerfully drive our urge to eat. The faster our orexin neurons fire, the more unconscious edicts we receive to stuff ourselves and head for the couch. In his analysis, Dr. Astrup estimates that increases in atmospheric CO2 during the past century are enough to increase the average firing rate of our orexin neurons by 1 percent. If anything, this may be an underestimate because modern humans spend considerably so much more time indoors, where CO2 is even higher, than our ancestors did a century ago. For a pilot study, Dr. Astrup and his colleagues recruited six young male volunteers, who agreed to be exposed to higher than normal levels of CO2 in a special respiration chamber. The result: a 6.1 percent average increase in calories they consumed. What’s more, this change took place in a mere 7.5 hours. “I’m quite familiar with Dr. Astrup’s work,” says Angelo Tremblay MSc, Ph.D., a professor at Laval University in Quebec and internationally prominent authority on environmental contributors to obesity. “His idea certainly merits further investigation.” Larger-scaled studies are already underway. But don’t hold your breath—you’ll only spike the carbon dioxide in your blood.

Avoiding alcohol is easy for me, not interested. Now put a piece of chocolate cake in front of me and watch out!