I love grilling and smoking meat and so did my coworkers when I was working at the fire department. So they were always going on “protein diets”. They usually lost some weight to begin with, but every single one of them gained it all back and more within a period of time. The ones who did this repeatedly developed sometimes severe health problems.
I had one coworker who was an amazing meat chef. His weight kept boomeranging up and down. He eventually ballooned up to over 400 pounds and had to be reassigned to communications. He then developed type 2 diabetes and other health problems and had to retire.
The attractive idea with “protein diets” seems to be that it is a way to eat more calories than your body needs without gaining weight. Despite the massive amount of nutritional misinformation that people choose to believe there are no shortcuts which are healthy in the long run.
In the long run if you want to lose weight there is no substitute for eating less calories than your body burns. It is difficult to burn enough extra calories with exercise alone to lose much weight especially considering most of us reward ourselves with some sort of snack after a workout.
Changing habits that cause one to make unhealthy and excessive food choices is usually the most effective way to lose weight. Most of us were taught to clean up everything on our plates when we were growing up. One thing that you can do if you are fond of eating out is to only eat half of what you are served and put the rest in a doggie bag.
Good advice. Sometimes, the best advice is not really a surprise at all.
You nailed it. Number of cals still count. But both quantity and quality of food do count. So the meat guys should have done everything they did at your station but eaten only half!
This is exactly the mechanism I'm using to lose weight. Typically called CICO (calorie in, calorie out) I've set my self to a daily calorie limit with the goal so lose about 1-2 lbs a week. I calculate and log my food with the MyFitnessPal app.
I am doing a higher protein, lower carb diet (sort of a loose paleo style of diet) to accomplish this as I've found that the higher protein keeps me feeling fuller longer and carb loading really makes me feel bad. If I do have carbs I try to pick carbs that have more value, like fruit that at least provided nutrients rather than carbs that are really empty like crackers, or bread.
Over time I've found that I use the mindset of exercise as something I do because it makes me feel good, or makes me stronger, but not as a reason to eat more calories.
Low carb diets do NOT count calories. Plenty of people have been on low calorie diets, but do not lose weight like they do with low carb diets. And with a low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet, you never get hungry, mainly because protein, and especially fats, satiate the appetite for a long time. It is a high fat diet. Lots of butter, fats, animal fats, cream, fatty meats. Sounds unhealthy, but it drops blood sugars in type two diabetics, and studies show that, contrary to American Heart Association guidelines, bad cholesterol levels decrease. My doctor says, “whatever you’re doing, keep it up.” My last hgb a1c was 5.3, which is in the normal, non-diabetic range. I eat strawberry shortcake (made with low carb biscuit or cake) with a big glob of whipped heavy cream several times a week. I snack on peanuts, which are practically carb free, because you count net carbs -— the carb count AFTER you subtract the fiber grams. It’s a very satisfying diet. (But unless you go practically carb cold turkey, you’ll need to bake your own breads and crackers, or spend a ton on ready made low carb baked goods.)
What you said about portions is key... restaurants sell two to four portions per person in order to increase profits... you should not eat it all at one sitting.