Weight Loss or Weight Gain Thread "2012"

[RareGMFan]

Dude, this honestly helps out so much, I really appreciate it. However, what exactly does drinking a gallon of water a day do? Does it help with weight loss? I've been reading online some articles and a lot of nutritionists have been saying the gallon of water a day thing can sometimes hinder more than benefit you, they're even doubting the 8 glasses of water a day thing.

The best diuretic is....well...WATER! Also, considering how much of your body is made of water, and that if you're exercising hard like you SHOULD be if you want results, you're loosing that much more, it's critical to make sure you're getting plenty of water (even more so than the average Joe who doesn't work out needs for overall health). BTW, a lot of nutritionists don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. I still remember one of them doing a presentation in a high school class, and when someone asked "does creatine work", she responded with "no, it's a fad". You're better off talking to serious athletes and weight lifters who know a bit about the science behind what they're doing if you want serious and accurate answers.

I don't usually eat that big of a breakfast, it's usually something very small just to get my metabolism working before going to the gym.

A small meal isn't going to get the metabolism going. It's going to make your body think you're starving/can't find food, to which your body's response will be to slow down your metabolism. It would also make it hard to get the most out of your workout if you've had nothing to eat for x hours overnight, and don't eat much of anything before going to the gym. I'd at least make sure you get some eggs and a bowl of oatmeal, or something along those lines.

Now if you're ONLY doing cardio in the morning, then skipping a meal before hand is actually not a bad idea because you will have nothing but stored fat to run off of first thing in the morning. However, you need to make sure you're getting some proteins and complex carbs in immediately after the cardio.

My tiredness has even gotten to the point where I went to the doctor to check out, and he said it was normal, nothing to be worrying about. But honest to God, I would finish from the gym, return home, eat something, and I would HAVE to sleep anywhere from an hour to two hours after returning from the gym from how tired I was.....

.....I might not be eating as much as I need to, but only because I am focusing on losing the weight. Muscle definition can wait a bit, I honestly just want to get rid of this fat that I've had on me for the past 10 years.

....just as I mentioned in my previous post, for most people, fatigue is due to not eating enough. You are putting an extra demand on your body. You HAVE to feed it more fuel. It's like putting 1 gallon of fuel in your car, driving it really hard, and expecting it to reach 40 miles. You're going to run out before you reach your destination.

Secondly, the worst thing you can do to your metabolism is restrict calories too much. Obviously if you're consuming 4-5000 calories a day, that needs to be cut down drastically. But dipping down to 1000 or 1500 calories is going to mess up your metabolism big time as well. As I mentioned earlier, if your body doesn't get enough of all the calories it requires in a day (proteins, carbs, fats, etc), it will assume you're starving, to which your body's natural reaction will be shutting down the metabolism. It will start becoming very reluctant to let go of the fat you already have, because it's going to assume that this is it. What you have left is all it's got to survive off of, so it has to ration it very carefully. Not to mention if your protein intake gets too low, your body will resort to tearing down muscle tissue since all muscle tissue basically is amino acids/protein. So now the only weight you're really loosing is muscle, not fat!!

On the other hand, eating the smaller meals more frequently has the opposite effect. When your body realizes all the calories it needs to function and survive off of are coming in from an outside source (your foods), it will start burning the access fat stores that it feels it no longer needs. You'll be feeding your muscles protein on a regular basis as well as supplying your body with the protein it needs for a huge variety of other functions so that you can not only spare your existing muscle tissue, but BUILD on them. You'll also feel better because nutrients are coming in on a steady, consistent basis instead of having huge spikes in all your nutrients followed by nothing for the next 6 or so hours.

Best analogy I've heard is comparing your metabolism to building a fire. If you throw in poor quality/water-logged wood, and/or don't throw wood in their often enough, the fire will dwindle away and die. If you want to keep the fire blazing, you need to feed it quality wood, and keep it coming often.

Remember, you don't want to loose "weight". You want to loose FAT!

RARE, what do you think about IF? been looking into it, seems itll be alot easier than 27 bagillion meals a day. especially seeing as my work environment wouldnt tolerate me having three to four meals there.

Sorry, not sure what you're referring to with IF.

I actually lost the weight in a month, don't know why I said 2. But yea Ik temporary changes aren't supposed to work buts its fine for me right now. I'm not really that overweight but idk...

....your story is all over the place. First you said you lost 25 lb in 2 months, but then your math didn't add up (205 - 185 = 20, not 25). Now you're saying you lost the weight in 1 month. Shenanigans!!