Introduction

I have >20% fat I think. Measurements coming soon. I would like to go to 10%. But first I need to understand what I need to do.

YouTube

I start with this ted talk on dieting.

How much you weigh depends on how much you eat and how much energy you burn.

Hunger and energy are controlled by brain!

Your brain does its own thing.

The brain has its own sense of what you should weigh!

Set point 10 - 15 pounds.

It works like a thermostat. Keeps things stable.

Responding to weight loss as though you are starving… fat or thin brain response is the same.

If you do loose, then you are hungry and muscles burn less energy, i.e. metabolism is supressed.

Apparently people who lost 10% of BW 250 to 400 cal less as metabolism is supressed

That means they lost weight at Metabolism rate of X%. And now their brain thinks that they are startving and reduces the avg burning of energy with a metabolism rate <X% (250-400 cals less).

So at 10% less BW if someone was consuming 2600 cals. To stay at that for the near future, he needs to eat 2200 cals as his MR has decreased.

A succesful dieter must eat “400 cals” as compared to someone of the same weight class.

He has to continue to eat less forever to stay there.

Oh God!

Set points go up, but they do not want to go down.

Successful dieting doens’t lower your set point, even after 7 years!

Changing food environment

Temporary weight gain can become permanent, if you stay at somethin for too long

Don’t be too hard on yourself or others pandian!

intuitive eaters and controlled eaters

less likely

hunger activity and metabolism

Overall message seems to be that dieting sucks and that we should eat mindully. What does it mean: most people who diet gain back their weight in 5 years. Some go higher as these kind of controlled eaters have it easy to binge. We have limited will power and this might not be the best place to spend it on.

Risk of death in obese people can be brought to normal if you drink in moderation, exercise 3 times a week and eat “enough veggies” and smoke less.

What and why?

I think I am fat. I have a good belly. I am ashamed and not comfortable with my body. I eat the sweets and cakes I find in my pantry. I used to not worry about it.

Is it any surprise that I am more serious about it after someone made fun of me as to why I was still flabby? even after working out for almost a year now. This is a sad state of affairs though. I want to tell myself that I would have done it anyways, but I doubt thats the case knowing me so well all this while.

10% bf% is really cool in my opinion. I don’t need to show abs. I just want to look good (to whom?)

As a by-product

With lifting I have if not completely, atleast partially lost the idea of having huge muscles, 1. becuase it takes a lot of time and 2. I enjoy the process of becoming better and maxing out. Every time I beat my record or even just purely improving and maxing out is great.

Should I cut?

An STM I guess is at 10%. I often heard him say it is related to longevity but on the contrarty I keep seeing evidence otherwise here and in the earlier linked youtube video.

Also in a few weeks I am going to india, I would like to start my journey although its quite late I think.

As kramer says, “Newman and I are comfortable with our own bodies”

I think it doesn’t matter what the evidence says, I just want my 10% body fat. It gives me motivation to cut sugar etc.

Questions to be answered

Is following the scooby diet and its prediction enough?
My weight almost always has remained at 61+-3 kg. I don’t go out of my way. I eat happily. I eat less fried food though. Why?

Why I have not become fatter?

My point being eating some extra cookies doesn’t suddenly make you fatter. Plus since september I have been doing quite some intense cardio. 4 times a week of 20-24 min cardio and 2-3 hrs basket ball once a week. I eat as I wish, or the normal amount. I don’t weigh too much, I make sure I my protein content is on point and the rest are in the ball park or even more.

And yet my weight is still the same. Shouldn’t have all the running brought down my weight?

If you say I am eating more, I was always eating more.

I don’t have numbers for my fat % count before. But I don’t I improved or sucked. I have remained on an average the same.

This is a hard problem and I need someone to tell me how this works and I am not going to be able to figure it out.

But scooby has a chart, I could check with scooby as well.

How to only burn fat?

The reason that cardio has gotten a bad reputation for burning muscle is that most often, people couple drastic diets with cardio in their effort to “cut” after “bulking” – its why I hate the whole bulking and cutting mentality. ) Its the drastic caloric reduction that is responsible for the muscle loss, not the cardio! If you don’t consume enough protein and enough calories, your body will cannibalize your muscles – a good safe limit is not to reduce your calories by more than 20% below your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), to find a muscle-safe caloric intake for dieting please use my calorie calculator. - scooby

Cardio does not burn muscle mass, crash diets and bad nutrition burn muscle mass! 20-40min cardio every day is not only good for your health but it can help you add muscle as well.- Scooby

ALL the mass was lost in their legs – why? Overtraining!!!. So if these athletes can run 43 miles (6 hours) every day all summer long without losing any upper body muscle mass, certainly YOU can jog for 30 minutes without losing muscle mass! - Scooby

Remember, your body is really smart and it wont burn muscle unless you do something really stupid like running 3000 miles or doing a drastic fad diet. - Scooby

Right now no threat of burning away muscle as we are not going overboard. Not going overboard!

Does taking excess protein add fat?
Sugars and fat?

Plan

Scooby chart and prediction. Test it. Measure every week.

Based on Scooby’s chart , I expect to reduce weight by 0.1 kg per month. I will check how much BF% this is per week.

1965 cal per day 3 meals a day 40g Protein, 90 g carbs, 14g fat

For this I am going to build an index of things I an eat or not.

For the next one month this is what I want to do @ 10% caloric reduction to get to 1kg less of fat.