Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - Losing 20-22 pounds

The Big D · 11-03-2009, 01:32 PM

Good to hear you're exercising.

As fas as optimal diet for weight loss, there's three issues with the all carbs diet.

1) Your body runs on blood sugar. Carbs are the easiest to convert to blood sugar by virtue of already being sugars or close to it. So a calorie of carbs produces more blood sugar than a calorie of protein or fat. In other words, carb calories count more.

2) You need protein to build muscle (which I'll explain why it's important in a bit).

3) Simple carbs (ie. sugars) cause blood sugar spikes, which cause insulin resistance over time, which in turn makes it harder to use sugars and easier to get fatter. Complex carbs, fats and protein are converted to blood sugar more slowly, so they don't cause this problem.

It sounds like you've changed the diet plan a little bit to be more balanced, which is good, but you should be aware of these issues.

As far as why muscle exercise is so important for weight loss, it's the single most effective way to burn calories. Exercising major muscle groups to exhaustion for an hour burns about 700 calories, which is more than an hour's worth of almost any type of cardio (except running). Both cardio and strength work also include an after-burn period, but I think strength training lasts longer. Past the after burn period, though, cardio's done whereas the benefits of strength training live on

1) calories spent "repairing" muscles (maybe a few hundred over the next few days)
2) calories spent building new muscle (maybe 1000/lb of muscle)
3) protein that would otherwise be converted to sugars is instead used to build the new muscles (roughly another 1000 per lb of muscle)
4) The muscle has to be fed in the future, and eats about 10 calories per lb per day.

That means that if you held diet constant, and put on say 6 lbs of muscle (realistic for a small woman), it would almost by magic consume 12,000 calories up front being built, which is over 3 lbs of fat. Then, over the next year it would consume 60 calories per day or a total of 21,900 calories for the year. That's another 6+ lbs of fat. The result is that at the end of the year you'll be 9-10 lbs lighter than you would have been (again, diet held constant) not even counting the calories burned working out, after burn, or repairing the muscle you already have.

In other words, building muscle can reshape your metabolism for life.

11-03-2009, 01:32 PM	#8 (permalink)
The Big D Banned Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 215	Good to hear you're exercising. As fas as optimal diet for weight loss, there's three issues with the all carbs diet. 1) Your body runs on blood sugar. Carbs are the easiest to convert to blood sugar by virtue of already being sugars or close to it. So a calorie of carbs produces more blood sugar than a calorie of protein or fat. In other words, carb calories count more. 2) You need protein to build muscle (which I'll explain why it's important in a bit). 3) Simple carbs (ie. sugars) cause blood sugar spikes, which cause insulin resistance over time, which in turn makes it harder to use sugars and easier to get fatter. Complex carbs, fats and protein are converted to blood sugar more slowly, so they don't cause this problem. It sounds like you've changed the diet plan a little bit to be more balanced, which is good, but you should be aware of these issues. As far as why muscle exercise is so important for weight loss, it's the single most effective way to burn calories. Exercising major muscle groups to exhaustion for an hour burns about 700 calories, which is more than an hour's worth of almost any type of cardio (except running). Both cardio and strength work also include an after-burn period, but I think strength training lasts longer. Past the after burn period, though, cardio's done whereas the benefits of strength training live on 1) calories spent "repairing" muscles (maybe a few hundred over the next few days) 2) calories spent building new muscle (maybe 1000/lb of muscle) 3) protein that would otherwise be converted to sugars is instead used to build the new muscles (roughly another 1000 per lb of muscle) 4) The muscle has to be fed in the future, and eats about 10 calories per lb per day. That means that if you held diet constant, and put on say 6 lbs of muscle (realistic for a small woman), it would almost by magic consume 12,000 calories up front being built, which is over 3 lbs of fat. Then, over the next year it would consume 60 calories per day or a total of 21,900 calories for the year. That's another 6+ lbs of fat. The result is that at the end of the year you'll be 9-10 lbs lighter than you would have been (again, diet held constant) not even counting the calories burned working out, after burn, or repairing the muscle you already have. In other words, building muscle can reshape your metabolism for life.