When the scamdemic was pushed the hardest, gyms were forced to close. Back then, I did not have enough space for a little exercise corner at home, so my workout regimen suffered. I also had a few phases were I needed to put in some extra hours. Consequently, I gained a little bit of extra fat, which I did not even really notice. In the meantime, my life has stabilized again. On a recent business trip, however, it became quite obvious that I should perhaps lose a few pounds, and all just because I had the time to take a long bath that made me ponder about my stomach.
I am not nearly in as bad a shape as you may think. My estimate is that I am carrying about 8 pounds of excess fat that just needs to go, and I am currently working on it. Within a week I have lost two to three pounds already, and it has been pretty straightforward. It is not even much of a burden. In fact, I could make an argument that my life even improved somewhat. Here is my approach: only have one meal a day, i.e. dinner. In my case, this is even a somewhat bigger portion, covering the basic nutrients, just less of them. This is all I eat during the day. There are no snacks at all. During the day, I drink plenty of water. One immediate consequence is that you will have a bit more time for yourself as you are skipping two meals a day.
Of course, such a radical approach means that you will frequently feel hungry. You will get quite used to it, and a glass of water probably helps as well. On a related note, I am sure that a lot of people in the Western world do not even know what hunger feels like. It’s really not that bad, and if you have every heard of people having “hunger pangs” or being “hangry”, i.e. hungry and angry, then stoically enduring feelings of hunger for hours will put this into perspective. My mood does not change when I feel hungry, but perhaps this is more of a personality issue.
It is probably not sustainable to starve yourself every day until you have reached your weight-loss goal. My current approach is to have one bigger meal on Sunday (close to two portions), but still only one meal (closer to 1.25 to 1.5 portions). Otherwise, I have a slightly bigger meal once a day. I have been wondering if a schedule of fasting for five days, followed by eating normally for two days, would work, but I think there is value in consistency so I will stick to my current plan.
Of course, it is important to keep track of your weight. Your weight fluctuates, depending on when you last ate or drank something. You cannot control when to take a dump whereas you probably empty your bladder quite regularly. I weigh myself every morning after getting up, and I do so right after using the toilet. You will notice some fluctuation in your weight, some of which is due to how often you poop, of course. Should you not make any progress, and by this I refer to a consistent downward trend, not the occasional day-to-day improvements, you should probably start counting calories. I have not done so myself yet, but there is nothing I eat that provides me with an inordinate amount of calories, as far as I know, so I am fine without.
My advice probably works for people who do not need to work physically. Mental work also consumes energy, but it is not quite the same as, for instance, hauling heavy object across a factory floor for eight hours a day. Thus, I do not want to make any recommendations for people who do hard physical labor. Perhaps you may need to follow a pattern of fasting on your off-days, but this is mere speculation.
Hi Sleazy!
Last time you saw me having a medium mid fat belly. I have been working hard these 2 months and see great progress.
I did have only 1 meal before, but it comes at cost where my whole body looked very skinny, and with some fat that I could not lose.
Right now, my belly is much smaller. I have only 2 meals per day. I eat breakfast and dinner, I don’t eat lunch, I cut out all the sweet drinks such as sugar cane juice, lemon tea, or any sweet snacks. I run 2-3 days a week, lift weight 2-3 days per week. I have a minimum of muscle growth in the chest area. I still persist to lose more belly fat.
Like you, my appetite is not very strong. I don’t have a very urging need to eat even when I am hungry. After a while, you stop feeling hungry.
For guys like Alek Novy, it seems to be a really uphill battle, because the feeling of hunger is just too intense and pressing that they cannot stay away from food.
I’ve actually been losing weight for a while now. Effortlessly. I’m at my lowest weight since 2018. And I keep losing weight, without even trying. I think I already shared half my “secret” in one of the open threads.
Btw, I have been fasting for 15 years now. I was part of the original fasting forums and communities before it was cool. In fact back then it was like some weird insane idea, people would tell you that you are insane when you tried to explain to them. Fasting was like some weird cult thing that only insane people would try.
Just like every other dietary approached, it only worked temporarily, then I just ended up eating the same calories. So even at my peak weight I was doing this fasting regimen 365 days a week. I still managed to eat that many calories in such a small window.
Anyway, back to why I started losing weight again. A combination of two things:
1) Cardio. This is kind of old-school, but even 40-50 years ago bodybuilders were saying that massive cardio is the only way for guys like us to lose weight. I’ve never lost weight without massive cardio.
I was just too busy with business, and then recovering business losses from covid until recently, so no time for massive cardio. I’ve restarted it recently, and losing weight.
2) Those walks I had where I got disgusted with how flabby and fat chicks have gotten. I literally lost my appetite, disgusted with food. I can’t eat more than basic sustenance, some days I have to conciously get myself to eat so as to not end up losing muscle. I’m literally disgusted with what has happened in society. Those walks and looking at all the fatties help maintain this feeling.
So perhaps you don’t have that supposedly “overwhelming feeling of hunger”, as I previously thought.
Perhaps it is the genetic distribution of fat. I remember you said your body stored more fat in the face than in the body.
My genetic makeup determines that I store fat more in the belly than in the face. My jawline has become more defined as I lose weight.
Just to clarify, this is a complete misunderstanding of what I have ever said. It was not about “inability to stay away from food”. In fact I have been fasting for close to 15 years now. That means staying away from food for most of the day.
It was about the amount of calories that was would “satiate” me and give me energy. About the size of the meals once I did eat them (after long period of fasting) Make sense?
It’s no longer true in any case. Thankfully tons of fatties on the streets to make me disgusted with eating more than sustenance. So that feeling of disgusts seems to be overriding the satiety setpoint.
In some texts that I read, the importance of aerobic exercise is more than anaerobic activities. Come to think about it, you don’t need to lift weight if you don’t want to gain muscle, but if you don’t do some moderate and intense cardio, your health may be at risk down the line, assuming that you eat more than your daily energy expenditure.
I still do, but the disgust is a stronger emotion than the hunger. So I just don’t eat coz I’m disgusted and getting flashbacks of all the fatties walking around.
In fact there was a very successful hypnotist who helped people (Paul Mckenna), and one of his techniques (if nothing else worked), was to associate disgust with some of the most calorie-dense junk-food.
Now I think he only used this for actual food addicts. I’ve never had that. I could eat the same high-calorie amount from 100% “health food”, and I had a high setpoint eating no junk food, and fasting. So just total calories.
He used it on people who are fat due to being addicted to certain foods. Like had them associate larvae crawling all over the food, stuff like that. To where they were too disgusted with the food to eat it. It does show the power of disgust as an emotion.
What do you guys think about the amount of protein necessary for muscle gain?
I have seen recommendation of eating over 100g of proteins per day.
This looks like a very high amount of that nutrients to take.
I suspect that this shit comes from those Whey Protein manufacturers. They have been pushing this stuff all around.
I know a kid who has a wonderful chest, but he just eats normal Vietnamese meal. Maybe he has good genetics. But I have seen guys who get great body naturally without eating that much protein.
It does. Brad Pilon release a book summarizing all the studies. The science shows much lower numbers. Much, much, much lower. It’s not that the fitness industry (completely sponsored and living off of pounds of whey sold) slightly exaggerates, they’re outright fucking lying. It’s insane how much they lie about protein to an insane degree.
Thanks, I will have a read.
This shit must come from America, the land of great liars. I guess you must allow those loudspeakers who lie their ass off because it is “freedom of speech”. But when someone tries to “raise a concern” about the reality, you must be silenced and blackmailed.
I think besides pure gram-age of protein ingested is the source of the protein. For example, eggs are about the most readily converted source of protein that gets easily turned into human tissue. While animal tissue sits below eggs and whey protein being less bioavailable than animal tissue. So, in theory you would get way better mileage by just eating 4-5 eggs for breakfast and having a good piece of salmon for dinner than you would by ingesting 125 grams of whey alone.