I occasionally listen to Aaron Clarey’s YouTube videos when I need an excuse for playing a few rounds of Tetris. I tend to agree with most of what he says, but on a few rare occasions he makes statements that only make me shake my head. In particular, a lot of what he has to share on dating seems rather questionable. In one of his videos on picking a girlfriend, he made such a statement. A clueless guy wrote him an email, asking for advice. One of Aaron Clarey’s suggestions was to “pick a diamond in the rough”, and polish it. By this he meant to go for a woman that has been overlooked because she was fat. Aaron Clarey then went into hard-core mental masturbation mode, talking about how you could slim her down and shape her, pun intended.
In fantasy land, it may indeed be possible to pick up a fattie, make her your girlfriend and turn her into your ideal woman. In fantasy land, I deadlift 1000 lbs. The first big mistake is the assumption that fat women might have more pleasant personalities. The misguided belief is that they are just like hot women, just fatter. This is complete hogwash. It is not the case that you will get a fat girl, make her starve herself, and then get a slim cutie with a pleasant personality. No, not at all! In my experience, women who take better care of themselves are all-around more pleasant people. Beautiful people tend to be nicer, they tend to be smarter, and they tend to be healthier. With a fat chick, you are getting the worst possible combination: poor looks, a shitty personality, and poor health. Besides, can you even imagine fucking a fat chick?
We have to ask ourselves how women end up getting fat. Whatever the reason is, it’s not a good one. Maybe she hates herself and needs to stuff her face as a means of finding comfort. Maybe she never bothered to learn about nutrition. Or maybe she just does not care. After all, it’s not as if you get fat and don’t notice it. No, fat women know that they are fat, and instead of putting the damn fork down, they demand that we throw out billions of years of evolutionary preferences and start finding fatties attractive so that their oh-so fragile egos do not get hurt.
Furthermore, there is a rather devious psychological mechanism in play that will likely keep a fat woman from slimming down. It boils down to some guy picking her, so she knows that she was good enough for him. Of course, she may have to have settled for a loser due to a lack of options, but that loser is in no position to tell her to slim down. But even if he did: the assumption was that if you turn a fattie into a slim cutie, you end up with a hot girl. More likely, though, a fattie-turned-hottie quickly realizes that she can now get men of a higher caliber. She thus would not tolerate her loser of a boyfriend any longer and quickly trade up.
Of course, all of this neglects the immense effort it takes to lose weight. Chicks manage to fatten up really quickly, but losing that weight is an immense struggle. We are talking about multiple years. Thus, even if Joe Loser would get his fat girlfriend to slim down — by the time she gets slim, she will be a lot closer to wall-hitting age. Thus, in all seriousness, why would any guy with at least half a brain ever pick a fattie?
Ever so harsh on plump women…! I accept your fats, however 😀
Haha! You have a good spanking waiting for you.
Sleazy have you hit the “wall” ? Say it ain’t so Sleazy and Sleazy’s Gal!!!!!
Hahaha! The wall for men shows up between 65 and 70. For the time being, I’m fine.
Haha! His good genes have fooled people into thinking he’s roughly a decade younger than he really is…I was one of them. But don’t take it from just me; others have been mistaken too. Once, we got our IDs checked before we entered The Spoons. That must’ve been because of me and not Sleazy, but the bored bloke took a look at Sleazy’s anyway and was utterly baffled by the contrast between his face and ID. “How old ARE you??” It was amusing! And obviously very flattering for him.
I think saying that men only hit the wall between 65 and 70 is pushing it too far, though.
Those were good times in Cambridge. 🙂
A lot of Americans truly don’t know how to lose weight. Rather than counting calories, they think you need to eat “healthy” and exercise.
I lost 30 lbs with zero exercise and living on fast food – but only 1800 calories a day. When I tell people this, they literally refuse to believe it. I was an exception. It’s not like that for most people, they say. You have to exercise. You need to eat lots of vegetables. You can’t eat unhealthy things like pizza or rice. And so, they never try to lose weight for more than a few days because they tire of jogging on a treadmill and eating steamed vegetables.
Count calories and eat fewer calories. It really is that simple, but 90% of people and about 99% of fat people refuse to believe this.
Okay, so you lost fat but your body still suffered as you were subsisting on fast food.
Great it worked for you. But a fast-food diet isn’t healthy. And most people will gain weight twice as fast afterwards. If you really want lasting effects. You need to change your lifestyle. Changing your lifestyle is often hard in the beginning. But after the first year it starts to become routine. After that you’ll look better and feel better. And there wont be a yoyo effect. Picking a sport you really like can make things much easyer. I use to give marshall arts training to both men and women. Jogging on a treadmill is boring. Marshall arts isn’t. And with marshall arts there will always be someone paying real good attention on what you’re doing. The focus is put on learning to fight. But you will lose weight in the process. And it will increase your mental strength at the same time. Jogging on a treadmill is a almost mindless task. People will have nothing to distract their mind from the fact that they are not happy with their body. They will give up when they dont make progress fast enough.
With marshall arts training we are trying to make both body and mind stronger. People will be focused on learning new skills and perfecting them. They will feel good about making progress in this way. Losing weight can be a slow process. And people will often become depressed when it doesn’t go’s fast enough. It’s not good for the mind to be focused on the negative when trying to improve yourself. I trained women that were unsuccessful at losing weight before. They came to learn self-defence and lost weight. While at the same time they learned useful skills and are becoming more confidant about themselves. This approach works better. Jumping from the scale on the treadmill and back isn’t really motivating.
Testing comments functions
(one of my comments crashes the commeting function for some reason)… testing if it’s commeting in general, or that particular comment…
It’s not a general problem. Feel free to email me the details, and I’ll have a look.
How did my body suffer, Aaron? I was eating the same diet as before, just less food.
Fitness is about muscle mass and cardiovascular endurance. They’re separate issues from fat loss.
It almost seems like the argument is: “Better to be perfectly fat, than imperfectly thin”.
If you want to lose body fat, you need to eat fewer calories. That is all.
Do you now want to argue that the only difference between nutrients is their calorie content? For starters, I would assume that fast food contains significantly less vitamins than a wholesome meal.
Not true. This perfectionist minmaxer promoted myth is the main reason people can’t lose weight.
Fact is, if you lower your calories you will be healthier than most people in the western world. Doesn’t matter where those calories are coming from. Just lowering your calories (without changing the quality) and being physically active puts you in the top 10% of health.
Add a salad before each meal and a helping of lean protein, bam, you’re in the top 5%. Even if the rest of the meal is “junk food”.
In terms of health and weightloss, the 80-20 is:
– total number of calories
– eating enough veggies & protein
– doing exercise
Look up the Marc Haub experiment (the “twinkie diet”)
He went from eating a healthy diet (but too many calories), to purposefully eating the most outrageous junkfood diet, while limiting the calories and having a salad and adding protein.
Mind you, he exaggerated the junkfood thing to an incredible extreme. He made this diet junkier than any actual human being actually could possibly eat. Nobody actually has a diet as “junky” as his was… yet…
His health improved by switching to a junk-food diet. He made this experiment to prove that the total number of calories are the main factor. This isn’t even controversial in science. Everybody knows this.
That’s right… He went from a healthy diet to an unrealistically outrageously extremely junky diet… and his health IMPROVED This is because he lowered the overall amount of calories.
This doesn’t mean you SHOULD eat junk-food. It means that if you have to choose from the two compromises
A) counting calories, adding a salad to each meal and adding some moderate easy exercise
B) finding and sticking to the perfect diet (but not counting calories)
Option A gives better results. In almost all cases. The myth that you automagically eat less calories by “eating the right foods” is a myth propaged by the food industry.
Alek, what do you mean by eating junk food improved health? Did they only look at short term effects? While calorie restriction sounds great and all, most ppl actually cannot sustain such a diet because of the permanent hunger which requires too much willpower. I believe the best diet is just get rid of all processed food, like fast carbs. Non processed foods keep you full for alot longer with less calories. The human body evolved to run on those foods and carbs is just a recent invention.
Also I believe there is a recent study that says carbs increase mortality and another that says junk food damaged sperm cells thus decreasing male fertility and promotes aging. In other words serious longterm negative health effects that wont be visible much in the short term. So msybe your study just ignored the longterm effects and looked at just the short term effects
” The myth that you automagically eat less calories by “eating the right foods” is a myth propaged by the food industry.”
– This is absolutely true,and I actually tried to post regarding this a few days ago but my internet connection went haywire and wouldn’t let me post it so I decided to forget about it till you posted again now.
I was able to learn all these facts from this guy,who I think is about the closest guy I know of to the “Aaron Sleazy of the fitness industry”:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-to-lose-fat/
(You should also check out his “beginner weight training” routine,its about as simple of a routine as you could get.)
Honestly,I don’t get why a lot of fat/unfit people(who need this info the most)reject this info. I was personally ECSTATIC to find this info out,knowing this kind of info,you can then design your fitness routine in a way that most suits you,and that’s something you’ll be able to stick to in the long term.
The only thing missing now is a machine that counts calories(and macros)for you. There is actually already a cup that measures that calorie content of your beverages called the “Vessyl”
http://dailyburn.com/life/tech/vessyl-smart-cup-calorie-count/
But unfortunately,no machine that automatically counts calories in food yet as far as I know. I’m just hoping one comes out soon.
Jon, read the comments until you get it. You either lack reading comprehension, or just skimmed it. If you read more carefully and still need clarification, I will oblige.
Why do you need an excuse for playing Tetris? 🙂
I think hot women has a perfectly inelastic demand curve whereby in contrast fatties have no demand until the price goes down to zero and then too there is relatively no demand for fat shit bitches. So I think that talking about what fatties think is futile. It doesn’t matter what they think.
85% of women that had bariatric-surgery, divorce their husband’s within two years time. When your woman suddenly starts losing a lot of weight. The relationship is over. Thousands of ex-husband’s have supported their wife’s during their struggle to lose weight. Only to be tossed aside after she was successful. She will leave her husband if she thinks she can do better. So if your wife is losing a lot of weight and is totally focused on her appearance suddenly. Call your lawyer. Start securing your money. She will divorce you. Or she will cheat. Probably both.
85%? Where do you get that. People are getting divorced at high rates anyway.
I don’t remember exactly were. It was early this year. And most feminist were responding in the predictable way. It’s all the husband’s fault. because he’s a controlling freak. He’s oppressive if he doesn’t like it when his wife is fucking with other men. These women are right to divorce their husband’s. They shouldn’t stand in the way of their wife’s expressing their sexuality by fucking other men. Bla bla bla yada yada.
You guys should take a look at the full beauty project and stop fatshaming and abuse your thin privilege. These are ppl with feelings…
Jon: Maybe you should look at harpooning the whale.
But Jon, we are people too and we have an aesthetic sense, so how about these fat bitches respect our feelings and go loose weight instead of causing us visual pain.
We can play that game both ways you idiot.
You need to consider the feminist perspective! Men are suppressors and thus it’s impossible to hurt their feelings. Also, men are supposed to accept any woman. In particular, top-shelf men are supposed to readily accept garbage-tier women as partners. It totally makes sense, right?
Oh, I’m sorry – you’re right.
I’ll get my thin-surpressing-white-male-privilege in check immediately.
My bad.
I pick up fat women all the time. I pick ’em up, walk ’em down the street…
…y’know it get’s me yoked…
It’s better than farmers lifts and when ya drop ’em, they don’t make the thud of weights…
BTW, Aaron, have you ever read the real guide to manliness? Jack Donovan’s book, the Way of Men?
You seem uncucked and red pilled. I figure your a fan of Donoan, the man’s man.
No, I haven’t read any of Jack Donovan’s books.
For reason the myth about “vain, bitchy beatiful people” won’t die. I don’t get how people can promulgate it if they’ve ever lived in the real world.
In the real world the most beautiful women tend to the nicest and most pleasant. They are the most likely to make you feel good about approaching them, asking them out or making a move.
No, she won’t bang you out of niceness. But a 9 or 10 will make you feel great for trying. She might even set you up with a friend. It’s the six-in-a-tight-skirt-acting-a-ten that tends to be nasty.
We had a post on MS about this:
https://matingselfishness.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/myth-dateless-men-are-only-bitter-because-they-shot-out-of-their-league/
What this means in practical terms. If you’re a male six, your range (girls you can get) is 6-8. So go for the eights, they’re nicer people (on average).
Yes, you might get less yesses, but the “no-s” coming from eights are much better for your confidence. It’s better to “fail” with a 100 eights than to get harshly rejected by 10 sixes. Most of these eights will become friends who set you up with a friend, job etc…
P.s.
This is obviously a generalization. There are plenty of sixes that are angels. But we’re just talking probability.
I’m not saying reject the pleasant six who approaches you or initiates first. Try to be super kind to those and try to reward them for the effort. Help them from becoming a “bitter six”.
I’m just saying if you’re gonna take a risk with showing interest first, don’t gamble on sixes. Eights are a much better gamble.
To this someone might correctly point out that eights don’t tend to settle with or commit to sixes. (The research on assortative mating shows this).
You might conclude “Sure you can get the occasional nice eight, but won’t she just ditch you when she gets a serious relationship offer from an eight man? Isn’t it better to settle for sixes as a girlfriend?”
If you’re looking for a girlfriend, remember that other qualities go into your suitability as a mate.
Focus on getting above-average finances, physique, status etc.
That way you can keep girls who are on the high end of your range. So if you’re a 5 man, that would be a 7 girls.
Alek Novy: 10s can react bitchy when they are approached in a inappropriate way or time and place. I had a long-term relationship with a 10. She wasn’t approached just one time a day. She was approached 10 or more times every day. We had a protocol for dealing with guys hitting on her. It becomes a routine. Sometimes she had to tell 3 guys no just on her way to the supermarket. At sometimes she would just get tired of it. Mostly she would decline in a polite manner. But after 5 dude’s in a hour time her mood wasn’t as friendly anymore. She heard every one-liner a thousand times. No matter how original the guy thought he was. Most dude’s have no idea how to speak to a 10. They are not more difficult to get. You just have to approach them differently. Approaching her on the street like the PUA’s do isn’t going to work with a 10.
AlekNovy: Most guys rate girls much to high. A lot of times they would rate a girl a 10 while she’s just a 7 in my book. So when they say 10s are bitchy. Mostly they are referring to actual 7s or 8s. Sometimes you hear guys giving girls like Lauren Southern a 10. She was a actual 7 in her prime. Mabey she could have past for a 8 on a good day with lots of make-up. But she was never a 9 or a 10. The problem is that she probably thinks she is. So when a guy thats a 7 would hit on her. She wouldn’t be interested.
AlekNovy: I totally agree that 10s are often the nicest and most pleasant. Unless you try the PUA stuff. That’s simply a no no with 10s. They have to deal with that stuff every day. It’s never going to work on a 10.
Most guys do in fact refers to 7s with too much makeup as a ten.
It’s very simple to do a test if a girl is a 9 or 10. It’s not “how often she gets hit on”. It’s “how often does she get job offers based on her looks”.
How many millionares have invited her to party at a yacht? How many celebrities does she know? How many ads has she been on? How many invites does she get to high-status events?
I’ve heard excuses like “nah she wasn’t into that modelling stuff, but she’s definitely a ten”. Trust me, no girl will refuse making 500$ just to appear for a couple of minutes in a music video or ad.
She might not go into modelling full-time, but it’s impossible for a 9 to have zero appearance credits.
http://www.omaha.com/livewellnebraska/fitness/omaha-woman-who-lost-pounds-competes-in-vegas-figure-competition/article_a146d341-b66a-5067-85ab-ed0bc9aa01f5.html
Have to admit, some transformations are really impressive
Yes, the efforts needs to be recognized.
Yet, 2 things:
-The skin is fucked up, you can see it on the belly part – irreparable
– Her tits. They where hanging when she was fat, and they’ll hang the same way if she takes of that push up bra she’s wearing – reparable, but a quality intervention will be expensive.
Even if we discount the age difference I’d rather fuck the blonde chick next to her in the “before” picture than her in the “after” picture.
What I’m saying is, once the damage is done it’s game over. This goes for age and obesity. Better pick a woman with the right parameters from the start.
What immediately struck me that she got invited to give talks now that she managed to shed her excess weight. Yet, wouldn’t it make much more sense to listen to someone who had the foresight not to become obesely fat in the first place? This ties into your comment because a former fattie won’t ever fully recover, so she should at best serve as a warning example along the lines of, “girls, if you ever get that far, you may recover somewhat, but you never ever won’t be normal again”.
I disagree. That’s like saying a former alcoholic who managed to beat the addiction – shouldn’t give speeches to other addicts. Only a person who’s never started drinking in the first place.
Obesity is basically food addiction. It’s like alcoholism.
That’s a good point, which I hadn’t considered.
I think we would be better off as a society if we actively promoted healthy living. In this case, this means campaigning for healthy nutrition and low alcohol consumption. For that purpose, using people who lead lifestyles worthy of emulating would be a better example than a former food or alcohol addict. One could make the point that obesity in the US is so rampant that it makes more sense parading around people who managed to lose weight.
No Alek, your alcohol comparison is BS.
Contrary to food, alcohol consumption is optional.
Aaron’s argument stands, that listening to someone who actually took a deeper look into what is unavoidable anyway is better than to someone repairing the damage from not lookong into it.
What’s a better example – a correctional facility or an entrepreneur workshop?
There’s a difference between leading by example and the threat of consequences.
Excess food consumption is also optional. Even though I agree more with your position, I see value in Alek’s argument as well. However, I think I would use such a person only ever as a negative example.
Except we don’t all have the same satiety level. Your body might be calibrated to feel full at 2000 calories, another’s at 3000.
It’s easy for you say this if you’ve been a lifetime skinny dude. Try forcing yourself to eat 1000 calories a day for a month and report back. How does it feel? Not too good eh?
Well that’s how genetically unfortunate people feel when they eat 2000 calories. Dudes, stop bashing those of us who’ve had to work 10x harder, just be grateful you got lucky in the genetic lottery.
Alek,
Do you (personally) have to experience some level of hunger every day in order to maintain decent body composition?
I believe food palatability does influence caloric intake. For example:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2012/02/palatability-satiety-and-calorie-intake.html
“The more palatable the food, the less filling per calorie, and the relationship was quite strong for a study of this nature. This is consistent with the evidence that highly palatable foods shut down the mechanisms in the brain that constrain food intake.”
@GMoney: common sense combined with my own experience tell me this is very true.
Give me a good, well-seasoned steak and I can gobble down a couple pounds. Can’t say the same about some dull homemade tortillas.
It is like when you eat the desert despite feeling full after the main dish.
That’s why it is easier to control caloric intake if you ditch the sweets and sugary drinks. I don’t know a single person who is eating healthy but is still fat. Most people who claim to eat healthy actually cheat, they eat healthy 99% of the time but now and then eat a whole packing of icecream or they drink a lot of sugary drinks. People don’t realize that for each packing of icecream consumed you have to starve yourself. Merely returning to normal diet after that won’t lead to weigh loss.
Alek is right that losing weight ultimately comes down to reducing your caloric intake no matter what food you eat. However it is much easier to restrict your caloric intake if you eat healthy food than if you have bunch of junk food in your fridge.
@the last commenters
Yes, I wasted many years of my life trying that approach. The “if you eat the right foods your satiety will go down enough to where you can be lean and never feel hungry”.
NO. An already learn person can use this trick to become a little leaner. A fat person only becomes a little less fat. It doesn’t work to make a fat person not fat.
The two biggest regrets I have in life is how many years I wasted on
– The “It’s all about the food type” scams
– PUA scams
Fact is that this approach has a very limited effect, and it keeps getting promoted by:
– The food industry
– Naturally lean people
If you’re 180 pounds with a “free-for-all diet”, you might find that you become a 160 pounder when switching to the world’s most satiating food.
THE FALSE ASSUMPTION people then make is “hey if the 260 pounder switches to this diet, he’ll be 160 pounds too”. WRONG! The difference is the same. By switching from a junk food diet to a “super-satiating food” he’ll go from 260 to 230.
It has a RELATIVE effect, not an absolute effect. I fucking wasted like 2/3 of-a-decade of my life becoming an expert on “healthy nutrition”. I spent so many fucking years being the chubby dude with perfect nutrition.
You know when I finally leaned out? When I fucking ACCEPTED calorie budgeting. Oh, and I lowered the “perfection” down to about 70%. That means the diet is 70% clean, 30% not so amazing food. That’s when I finally leaned out. After wasting a huge portion of my life on being a fucking chubby health nut with “the perfect diet”.
Have you considered that like everything else it works best in moderation?
Back when I was a health-nut with 100% healthy diet, I was hangry and ravenous and battling cravings all day long. It was impossible to eat less calories, because I had to eat all the “healthy calories” i could cram in my mouth just not to feel like a shit from battling all those cravings.
When I finally let go of the brainwashing and accepted that a more imperfect diet is worth trying. It worked better. By “giving myself permission” to have “some bad foods”… let’s say 20-40% of the calories were from “imperfect sources”, it became EASIER to eat less.
It was actually HARDER to eat less when I ate 100% of these supposedly “healthy super-satiating food”. I had been brainwashed for so many years that anything less than 100% is “bad” and makes you a bad person.
I had spent years not touching a single bite of anything not “super healthy” and being one hangry mofo. When I finally let go, I lost the weight by accepting balance.
Have you tried potato fasting alek. Supposedly combining yoghurt and potatoes gives most essential nutrients and au natural potatoes satiate alot and is low calories.
100% right diet I agree is no good. I douse my healthy dark green vegs and broccoli in lots of soy sauce. I also eat dark chocolate.I also eat lots of eggs white rice and nuts(unprocessed peeled by hand) But asians are naturally lean. I only gain weight when I eat too much junk.
@Alek
Real world results beat scientific studies any day in my book. Sounds like you achieve better satiety and less hunger when you include a good chunk of “bad” foods. I guess going from 80% junk to 30% junk is helpful, but going from 30% junk to 10% or less junk is counterproductive and makes you *more* hungry.
The problem I found with calorie counting is that it’s a huge pain in the ass, and it is difficult to estimate calories precisely. Yet erring by 100 to 200 cals is enough to stall weight loss and even crossover back into weight gain. I used to weigh and measure all my foods, but eventually gave it up. It is especially impracticable when eating out.
-> Do you literally count your calories or do you just eyeball it?
Also my experience with exercise has been that weight training is good for building muscle, but any other exercise just makes me more hungry and any calories I burn are offset by eating more.
-> What role does exercise play in your weight-loss?
I agree that it’s a much better decision to allow yourself to consume some food from less healthy sources sometimes, than trying to eat clean 100%. Unless you’re Sleazy and don’t get affected by cravings at all. He’s not mortal in that regard.
Are you implying that scientists are pushing “100% clean eating”, because that would be false. The science and scientists aren’t the one pushing this minmaxy nuttiness, it’s internet bloggers, minmaxers, granola hippies etc. The ones with no science background who misinterpret summaries of studies.
Read some books by actual nutritional scientists. The best results have been achieved by behavioural scientists. Those who study the psychology of weightloss and habit formation, etc…
“The problem I found with calorie counting is that it’s a huge pain in the ass, and it is difficult to estimate calories precisely.”
Here’s my secret ^_^ It’s a priceless trick/tip.
– You don’t need to be precise in your counting
– Yet, with this trick you can be precise in predicting how much you are eating, how much you will lose etc
—
So you can be precise without being precise? Here’s this mind-fuck mind-blowing trick (it really works)
—
Assume that you always make the same errors. I don’t obssess with precisely measuring everything to a gram. I round up. Calorie counting takes 2 minutes of my day. If I don’t if I had 4 or 5 slices, I log 5-and-a-half slices. If I put sauce on my meat, I don’t measure the sauce to the gram so that it’s “precise”, i round up to the nearest tablespoon.
Now, what’s going to happen will annoy OCD people… But you get a number that’s “incorrect”, however still precise (in practical terms). Over a month of doing this your app tells you that you eat on average 2300 calories a day. (whereas if you had measured precisely, it would have been 2100 calories)
It doesn’t matter that the number isn’t precise, because you’ll always make the same error (over a month). You can even call them “GMoney calories” for all it matters. They don’t need to be calibrated to other people’s calories, you’re not in a scientific experiment.
They just need to be correct for GMoney… In other words if gmoney eats 2300 eyeballed calories this month, then next month if he eats 2300 eyeballed calories he’ll have the same results.
Make sense? Because you’re still the same person doing the eyeballing. It doesn’t matter if your “2300 calories” are really 2100 calorie if measured in a metabolic ward. You’re the only one who’ll reference them.
Aaron apologies for triple-posting the same comment. The comment process timed out and had to hit refresh two times. It actually posted the same comment 3 times. Feel free to delete the last 2.
No problem.
All of it. It’s the only way I can lose weight without being hungry.
– Diet only gets me down to “not obese”
– I use exercise to get lean
– In other words, what I do with my diet lets me maintain at 20-23%
– Exercise helps me reach 12-15% bodyfat
I do hours of LISS. It’s the only type of cardio that doesn’t increase my appetite. So I actually eat at maintenance, and produce all of my caloric deficit with cardio.
– So let’s say that after a month of tracking calories (a better term than “counting”) you get that your maintenance levels is “2200 eyeballed calories”.
– Let’s say you want to guarantee a weightloss of 4 pounds a month
– 2200 – 500 = 1700 calories
But to be on the safe-side, say that you’ll need to achieve an average of “1600 eyeballed calories” to guarantee a 4 pound-per-month weightloss.
Because you’re working off of estimates, you’ll lose AT LEAST 4 pounds a month (or more). In case your eye-balling is off. Make sense?
– Underpromise and overdeliver
– Assume your eye-balling skills are roughly static (which they are)
You’ll lose x pounds (or more), because you’re using the concept of “erring on the side of caution”. That way you always get what you planned “or better”.
This is how you can use calorie tracking (not “counting”) with ease and effortlessness, without having to be obsessive about it. It doesn’t matter how “off” your tracking is from the actual number of calories, if you’re always off by the same amount (which you will be).
But also add the concept of ‘erring on the side of caution. If you think you ate 1 or 1,5 tablespoons, log in 2 tablespoons. Simple. This way you always get the results you plan for (or better).
@Alek
Thanks, that makes perfect sense. Do you have a favorite app for tracking calories?
Do you still experience hunger in order to maintain a lean body composition? In other words is it a reasonable goal to maintain decent body composition and experience minimal hunger?
@Alek
You also mentioned books by nutritional scientists/behavioural scientists. Which books would you recommend?
Well it obviously is possible for some people. Aaron Sleazy is one of them.
– Some people can just “eat clean” and find that they’re never hangry (and by that I mean the kind of hunger that kills your productivity and energy).
– For me it’s possible to be lean with no hunger ever, in fact I feel full of energy and like i’m having the culinary time of my life… but only if I use intermittent fasting
Basically I eat 90% of my calories in the last 1/3 of the day. Have a 70% clean diet, and do lots of LISS. I was able to maintain 12-15% bodyfat when I did this, kept it for a couple of years, no energy issues, no problems. Super easy to maintain the 12-15%.
But then I had some business-related stress and had no time for LISS, so I balooned back up to 20% due to having no LISS. Had a year like that, added the LISS back in, and now I’m leaning back down. Now that I have time for LISS.
Sorry, I meant to say, people only need to focus on “eating clean” and they automagically find they eat just the right amount to be lean (12-15% bodyfat). They don’t have to focus on anything else.
This is why I mentioned the 70% clean again, because it’s individual. All of us have to trial & error to find what works for us.
– For me when I have a 100% clean diet I end up eating 2500-3000 to feel full
– When I have a 50% clean diet I end up eating 2500-3000 to feel full
– When I have 70% clean diet I end up eating 1800-2100 to feel full
So that happens to be “alek’s most hunger-killing ratio”. For everyone it’s different. And that’s why I hate it when experts share what works for them as if it’s a universal. No… the science is clear. Every study shows responders and non-responders to any dietary approach. There isn’t “one right way”. Yet so many people treat this shit like a fucking religion.
(Obvious example): When you force people to eat low-fat, some end up eating less, some end up eating the same, some end up eating more. But if an expert finds that “low-fat” works for him, he fucking preaches it like a fucking religion and conveniently ignores that the studies say it backfired on x percent of subjects.
Note, this is in the long-term. Almost all of the major nutritionary tricks work in the short-term. People initially eat less when they switch to a “vegan diet” for example. But many subjects (over time) find a way to over-eat while still being vegan.
A vegan fundamentalist will purposefully only quote studies (or the part of the study) that shows people losing weight while being new-vegans. This is before they’ve dicovered how to make vegan-friendly super-tasty meals that you can over-eat.
And eating 1800-2100 has me at 20% bodyfat.
– So by eating a 70% clean diet (and eating all my meals in the last 1/3 of the day), I’m always full of energy, always feel like I have the most fun and amazing enjoyable culinary delight of a diet (because of those 30%)… And I’m 19-21% with plenty of muscle… It’s effortless.
– If I add LISS to all of this, I end up being and maintaining 12-15% bodyfat while still having that “always feel like I have the most fun and amazing enjoyable culinary delight of a diet”
Alek if you say theres no approach that works for everybody why are you so positive on calorie restriction? Doesnt it mean it wont work for some? Or do you mean as long as one can overcome its disadvantages somehow like hangryness then it works? But that works for each approach or not?
– Consequently, yes, when I ate a 100% clean diet I was at 25 bodyfat.
– And I was doing “running 3-4 times a week”, which also sent my hunger through the roof additionally
So imagine being this fat dude for years, busting your ass off and working harder than 99.9% people… and then experts telling you that “if you’re fat it’s probably coz you’re not eating clean enough or a couch potato”.
That’s why these kinds of experts need to be called out and pushed back on each time.
Pure “caloric restriction” doesn’t work for me either…
Let’s define some terms:
– “caloric restriction” in it’s purest sense would mean something like “I must eat no more than 1800 calories today”
This doesn’t work for me any better than forcing myself to eat 100% clean. It backfires in the exact way. I just end up overeating eventually, in this case I’ll have a 4000 calorie binge after days of feeling hangry with that restriction.
So no… I don’t claim “calorie restriction” works for “everyone”. It doesn’t even work for me.
– now on the other hand, “calorie tracking” or alternatively “calorie awareness” is completely different.
It’s not a method. It’s just a measurement and a long-term goal setting “tool”. It’s actually method agnostic. You can use any method you want and combine it with calorie awareness.
Let’s say you’re currently eating 2400 a day. And you’re 20 pounds over your ideal goal.
– calorie awareness (math and physics) would say “hey, I need to become the kind of person who eats 2000 calories a day. ”
It’s not “I have to restrict myself to 2000 calories on purpose like a robot”. That would be caloric restriction.
Instead it’s working from the end result backwards. So it’s like “I need to test different methods until I find a method that makes me eat less than 2000 on average”. It’s over the long-run.
So you’re currently eating 2400 a day. You then say, hey what would happen if I skipped dinner? And you find that by skipping dinner your average goes down to 1900 over the next month.
Or you discover the low-carb method and decide to try it. After a month you find that your average is 1800.
Make sense? It’s not a method. It’s a way of measuring the effectiveness of different methods.
(But but but alek, all your examples involved eating less calories!!!)
They don’t have to. Let’s take the same example. The guy maintaining weight at 2400. He could try to spend 400 more.
So in his case he would:
– try different forms of cardio to find the one he enjoys and produces 400+ extra burn a day
– track his eating to make sure that his food intake isn’t going up.
Some forms of cardio make you hungrier. So calorie awareness and tracking lets you know if your cardio is having the desired effect.
So again, it’s a measurement/awareness tool. Not a weightloss method. A way to measure if a method works for you.
I think after you have gained about 10%-15% more excess fat body weight (stressing on excess) it is near impossible to lose it without eating like a pauper and exercising hard like a slave. One should therefore try to not gain that weight in the first place.
But if you have gained that weight, there is only one and only one way left for you. Bariatric surgery is a good way to go from obese to normal. Denying that is a joke.
That being said, you probably won’t ever be normal if you let yourself gain a lot of fat in the first place. But that’s fine and losing a lot of fat is the next best alternative.
Hi Aaron,may I ask if my previous post went into your spam folder or something? I recall trying to post something here(to back up Alek’s point about the whole calorie counting subject) but when I did,it didn’t even go into “moderation” (where u can see your post but no one else can yet) which I assumed was just a site glitch but the post still hasn’t appeared here.
Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, your post got caught in the spam folder. I just restored it.
GMoney: “What role does exercise play in your weight-loss?” You can burn calories. But also get healthier. A healthier body will clean it self from poison that lots of people call food. If you have a unhealthy lifestyle, your appearance will reflect that. If you have a healthy lifestyle, your appearance will reflect that. It’s not rocket science. Some of it is genetics. But mostly lifestyle. You should eat the calories needed to do your activities. More activities more calories. if you burn more calories then you eat. You’ll burn your body’s reserves and lose weight. And yes you’ll feel hungry. At that point you’ll have to practice self-control. Just like any other addiction. It can be hard to break bad habits. The only problem with food addiction is that you can’t stop eating completely. So you’ll be tempted every day to fall back in your old habit again. That’s why you need something to district yourself. Sports will give you distraction and help you lose weight at the same time.
Look for a sport you really like. If you like doing it. You won’t see it like a task. Just try different sports you’re interested in. Pick the one you really enjoy. Sports shouldn’t be a negative experience. It’s okay if it’s challenging. But if you hate to do it, you’ll never stick with it long-term anyway. Even playing golf would be healthier then sitting on your ass. You won’t lose weight as fast as other sports. But it’s better to walk from hole to hole in the fresh air. Then sitting infront of the tv stuffing yourself with unhealthy snacks. Any improvement is a positive. Even if it’s a small one. The same go’s with cooking. Try cooking healthier food you can enjoy. Instead of eating nasty tasting products that are marketed to lose weight. You never going to stick with it anyway. Losing weight should be a long-term goal. Shortcut’s will fail most of the time.