How do you guys like your veggies?

[Donut417]

 

Little back story. My doctor recommended I loose a bit of weight and eat more veggies. So Im going to attempt to do so. Im not a big veggie guy. My mom is not big when it comes to seasonings. A couple christams's ago my sister got me a bacon flavored salt kit. Ive tried that on sweet peas and they were more tolerable. So Im looking for recommendations on things I can use to season my veggies. Eat peas, green beans and some times corn. Broccoli is OK but after having the stomach flu last week and throwing it up, I might lay off the broccoli for a hot min.

 

On a side note I have started loosing some of the weight. Gained 10 lbs last year probably between November and January. Ive already lost that.

[wasab]

mostly stir fry with soy sauce. visit a Chinese restaurant and see how they do chicken broccoli. tip: skip dipping the broccoli in oil if you want to be more healthy 

[thrasher_565]

im still working on losing weight. so i was reading in to alot of it and was trying the fasting for a bit or one meal a day and some day go a day or 2 with no food. but i eat too many snacks so im not losing but probly saving some moeny and time not cooking i guess and i dont get hungy. there many ways of doing it just you need to keep doing it for well ever... has to be a life change. im about 205 pounds 510 probably should be about 170ish i would think be working hard i think has keep it at a slow gain i hope.

 

i was in to make smoothy but didnt add too much veges in there so kinda pointless i guess. but you can use frute to mask the tast of vegys.

Edited February 14 by thrasher_565

[wasab]

First step to weight loss is cut out all the chips, soda, candies, junk food, and sweets. This already eliminated like 50% of the reasons people are so obesed compare to 5 decades ago. Snacking on junk food while watching TV/computer is like top 1 contributor to obesity. Eat healthy meals should be the remaining 30% and exercise finally the remaining 20%. 

 

If you want candies, freeze fruits like oranges in freezers and then take it out. Trust me, it tastes just like Popsicles and candies(although cold ones). 

 

Better yet, go on a ketogenic diet and enter into a state of ketosis. This diet is not magic or any "healthier" or "better" than any other weight loss diet. What it does do however is eliminate like 99% of the obesity [food] agent that had made obesity an epidemic since the 1960s. 

 

If you go back in time and wonder how people were so skinny back then... yeah, the junks keto diet excludes are probably the reason. 

 

Combine this with some moderate exercise, weight loss is guaranteed. The difficult part is keeping it off tho. i had successfully lost weight and brought my body mass index to normal only to regain the weights back because I regress to my old habits of eating and not exercising. 

 

2nd time I had much more success because I maintain a healthly diet and regular exercise. I have been at like 23 BMI for the past 3 years now. 

 

Maintain it requires discipline but you are not sacrificing as much compare to weight lose. You eat at a maintenance calories, not a deficit. 

 

Edit: forgot to mention, take some probiotic. Your gut microbiome is known to mind control what kind of food you find to be enjoyable. People who eat lots unhealthy food will have gut bacteria that chemically signal your brain to keep eating these. Vice versa is true. This might be anecdotal but I have been taking this brand of probiotic for the past couple years and I find vegetables just magically taste a lot better. Nowadays I find I crave water spinage(a tradional chinese dish) as well as other veggies like onions more than normal. Oh, also replace all sugary drinks, even fruit juice(if you want nutrient from fruits, just eat fruits, sugary juice has less nutrients and more calories) with green tea. Japanese live way longer and are much skinnier cuz they drink so much of green tea. Loads of antidioxdants to slow down aging. I have not drink normal water for like years. it is always brewed green teas made with eletric kettle. 

[Biohazard777]

56 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

im still working on losing weight. so i was reading in to alot of it and was trying the fasting for a bit or one meal a day and some day go a day or 2 with no food. but i eat too many snacks so im not losing but probly saving some moeny and time not cooking i guess and i dont get hungy.

Then you have about the same caloric intake as before... but you've replaced nutrient rich foods with probably carb only & highly processed junk.
Not a good idea.

As for saving time...

Pour contents of this:

In a bowl, put some extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar on it.
Open a can of mackerel or salmon (or whatever fish you like, prefferably something containing omega-3), and put it in the same bowl.
The only things you need clean afterfards are: 1 bowl, 1 fork.

This is just one example of what you can make in 2 minutes, and isn't complete junk.

As for interimtent fasting, 3 meals is fine. Don't eat right before you go to bed, and don't eat as soon as you wake up and you will have your 12 hours of fasting without even thinking about it.

1 hour ago, thrasher_565 said:

there many ways of doing it just you need to keep doing it for well ever... has to be a life change

Exactly, it has to be a lifestyle change.
So aim for something you are comfortable with, nobody is comfortable eating just one meal a day.

[Stahlmann]

I was in the same boat, albeit probably more overweight, and in October last year I finally decided to commit to losing weight and getting back to a "normal" weight.

 

My recommendation is to think about food services like Hello Fresh. I've been using it since mid last year and it's great. They offer good quality, fresh ingredients and very diverse recipes. Pretty much every meal I've cooked with their recipes was delicious with only 1 or 2 exceptions. And the only reason i didn't like these meals was because I didn't like a certain ingredient, so it wasn't a quality issue is what I'm trying to say. You don't have to really think about what you buy and how to cook it but their recipes always include fresh vegetables.

 

Leaving out fast-food and soda, conditioning myself to not eat unnecessarily or out of boredom, cooking fresh and healthy meals myself and adding regular exercise to the mix resulted in me losing 50 pounds over the last 4 months while also not going hungry. And I still have 20-40 pounds to lose to get to my "dream weight". The line gets blurrier in my case because in addition to losing body fat I've also been building up a lot of muscle tissue recently, so I can't exactly say how much fat i've lost but it's bound to be more than 50 pounds so far.

 

Losing weight is not rocket science, but many people fall into this hole where they try to overcomplicate and overthink things to try and justify to themself why they're not doing it. I'm a pretty lazy person lacking a lot of self-discipline. If I can do it, so can everyone else. You can do a lot of min-maxing when it comes to weight loss or muscle building, and of course every person has some individual genetic differences, but on a basic level it really is as simple as eat healthy, don't eat too much and incorporate exercise into your daily routine. You can eat all the vegetables you want, but to lose weight you need to have a calorie deficit. The size of that calorie deficit is the single biggest factor that determines how much weight you're losing.

 

I probably went in way deeper than necessary, but it's a really important topic to me nowadays so I hope I can give some good tips to other people. Losing weight is by far the best decision I've made to improve my life, ever.

[Needfuldoer]

I don't cook for anyone else and I tend to get bored with having the same thing every day for days in a row, so those microwave steam bags of frozen vegetables are great for me. I can grab whichever one I want, and they won't go bad in a week like fresh vegetables do.

 

Most of the "fresh" vegetables I get are just the bags of precut salad. I know it's more expensive than buying romaine and chipping it myself, but I'm lazy. 

 

When I do cook fresh, steaming is usually fine for most vegetables. When I was growing up my mom always boiled everything within an inch of its life (to the point a fork coasts right through a broccoli stem like it's zucchini and the florets are saturated), so trying out different cooking techniques has been fun. 

[Donut417]

Let me be clear. I didnt ask about how to loose weight. I asked about how to make veggies more tolerable. I have probably lost 20 lbs since January. As far as other stuff is concerns I will differ to the advice of my primary healthcare provider.

 

Like do you guys just use salt + Pepper? or are there other seasonings that work?

[Needfuldoer]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Let me be clear. I didnt ask about how to loose weight. I asked about how to make veggies more tolerable. I have probably lost 20 lbs since January. As far as other stuff is concerns I will differ to the advice of my primary healthcare provider.

That's awesome! Great job.

  

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Like do you guys just use salt + Pepper? or are there other seasonings that work?

A little salt is usually enough for me on cooked vegetables. Carrots are pretty good if you roast them under the broiler and season them with Ms. Dash.

 

For salad, I like the Ken's light Ceasar and light Greek dressings. Sometimes that, bagged salad, and some chicken in a wrap is a good option when I can't decide what else to have.

[thrasher_565]

7 hours ago, Biohazard777 said:

Then you have about the same caloric intake as before... but you've replaced nutrient rich foods with probably carb only & highly processed junk.
Not a good idea.

As for saving time...

Pour contents of this:

In a bowl, put some extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar on it.
Open a can of mackerel or salmon (or whatever fish you like, prefferably something containing omega-3), and put it in the same bowl.
The only things you need clean afterfards are: 1 bowl, 1 fork.

This is just one example of what you can make in 2 minutes, and isn't complete junk.

As for interimtent fasting, 3 meals is fine. Don't eat right before you go to bed, and don't eat as soon as you wake up and you will have your 12 hours of fasting without even thinking about it.

Exactly, it has to be a lifestyle change.
So aim for something you are comfortable with, nobody is comfortable eating just one meal a day.

i dont eat fish so but i do the same thing for like a taco salad . other things are add one baby carrot on top of a pizza and apple.

 

there nothing wrong with fasting.

 

i like penutbutter so thats probly what i would use as a dip for vegys.

 

one guy at work is doing this kinda eats like pepers cucumbers baybyfood as well as a diet coke to loose wait for a wedding  and uses some dip.

[Lurick]

3 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Let me be clear. I didnt ask about how to loose weight. I asked about how to make veggies more tolerable. I have probably lost 20 lbs since January. As far as other stuff is concerns I will differ to the advice of my primary healthcare provider.

 

Like do you guys just use salt + Pepper? or are there other seasonings that work?

Depends on the veggies and the person. I tend to stick to a little salt and some pepper but every now and again a little dash of cajun seasoning or some garlic power/salt can work too. I would get a bunch of various seasonings from the grocery store that look like you might like them and give them a shot on veggies and see if any stand out to you more than others for what you like. There are also some salad dressing style seasonings I've seen too with various flavors that some people like, I'm not sure how healthy they might be but could be worth a look too.

What sucks about that method though is sometimes they only sell x seasoning in large containers and to find out you don't like it and have to toss it can really suck in terms of throwing away money

[Worstcaster]

I prefer them having a cellular structure lacking a cell wall and chlorophyll cooked rare.

[Donut417]

8 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

For salad, I like the Ken's light Ceasar and light Greek dressings. Sometimes that, bagged salad, and some chicken in a wrap is a good option when I can't decide what else to have.

Ive been doing light Italian dressing with my salads, due to little to no sugar content, might also try a vinaigrette at some point. While my A1C is still in the green, its on the upper end and I want to bring it down a little. My doctor also told me to eat the fresh spinach and kale mixes, as romaine and iceberg dont have much nutritional value. I normally add tomatoes(The ones you use on sandwiches because I like them better), some times peppers and or onions. Also got me some walnuts as well.  Thinking of buying some mild banana peppers and giving them a go as well.

 

 

8 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

diet coke

I gave up on pop years ago. Diet is not much better than regular because the artificial sweeteners are iffy at best. The WHO has discovered that Aspartmae potentially causes cancer and I hear Sucralose might cause stomach issues. I mean the sugar free Heresy candy bars even warn about eating too many due to this.

 

8 hours ago, Lurick said:

little dash of cajun seasoning or some garlic power/salt

Never tried Cajiun seasoning, is it spicy? I might pick up some garlic salt and see what that does for me.

 

[Spotty]

I usually put corn, peas, carrot, and broccoli in to a pot of water and boil it. Another pot I'll do potatoes and mash them. Serve that with your meat.

 

I also stir fry veggies like carrot, broccoli, capsicum, snow peas, pak choi if I have it. Bit of oil in a small wok/frying pan so it doesn't stick and then add the veggies. Add whatever takes the longest to cook first (typically carrots and broccoli) then add the other stuff. Keep stirring so the vegetables don't burn to the bottom of the wok. When the veggies start to soften add a splash of soy sauce. I also like adding a bit of chili sauce for extra flavour. You can also buy flavoured stir fry sauces from the supermarket. Can serve it with rice or noodles. I hate waiting for rice to cook so I usually buy pre-made hokkien noodles that you just need to heat in boiling water for a minute or two. You can also get rice noodles or even just use ramen noodles if you prefer. 

 

Really you just gotta find which vegetables you like. Don't like broccoli? Don't add it. Experiment with different stuff. 

 

I'd normally only add seasoning (salt/spices) to vegetables when roasting them. 

[seanondemand]

This time of year in Canada, it’s all about the winter root vegetables, which I just pan roast. Cut some mini potatoes in half, rough chop some carrots into rounds, throw some broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, green beans, whatever’s green and on sale into the bowl, along with a tbsp of olive oil, salt, pepper, toss and spread on a parchment lined baking sheet, bake at 400 til desired tenderness/browning is achieved. Super easy, pretty cheap, lots of fibre, decent nutrition. 

[Lurick]

11 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Never tried Cajiun seasoning, is it spicy? I might pick up some garlic salt and see what that does for me.

 

Most of what I've tried isn't really spicy, maybe a small kick of flavor but nothing more.

[Thaldor]

One magic word: Steaming.

 

Carrots, green beans, broccoli, asparagus, sprouts, potatoes, pretty much whatever you fancy chopped in uniform size (nice big pieces, baby carrots are pretty much the minimum size you would like because you want that steam to get everywhere and move freely), steam for 5-15 minutes, add some olive oil, pinch of salt, freshly ground black pepper and if you want some herbs and lemon juice (butter and honey are also excellent).

 

I would recommend investing into layered pot so you can have good amount of water without needing to care about adding more and couple layers of steaming pots so you can add hard stuff like carrots, potatoes and cauliflowers early and just add the next layer with green beans, broccoli and other soft stuff in the middle (you don't want them too soggy). But you can just use something like metal strainer in deep pot to keep the veggies off from the water (you don't want to boil them, so not in the water, on top of the water in the hot steam). You can also just use microwave safe bowl, put veggies and half-deciliter of water in it, close tightly with lid or plastic wrap and throw in microwave on high for like 5 minutes, check if good and if not add more water and repeat.

 

The best part is, you cannot fail. Try them with a fork and if too hard, let them sit couple minutes more, if they get too soggy, that's the worst, not nice to eat but don't worry, you cannot burn the veggies so just throw them into blender or mash them into purée and they are saved.

[LAwLz]

Just remember that losing weight is more about what you don't eat than it is what you eat. Eating vegetables is good for a lot of reasons, but at the end of the day losing weight is just about getting your body into a calorie deficit. 

You won't lose weight if you just add greens on top of your old diet. You have to subtract things. For weight loss, vegetables are good because they fill you up without containing a lot of calories.

 

 

 

Anyway, what I find is that a lot of people overcook their vegetables, and that is a good way to ruin the taste and flavor.

I prefer to just cook my vegetables slightly. Throw some broccoli into a wok and then just stir around for a little while. The core should still be fairly hard and crispy. That's how I like them.

 

 

A lot of vegetables don't even need that much seasoning if you ask me. Broccoli with some salt on it is great when cooked well.

But a lot of that is probably related to what you are used to as well. If you are used to eating a lot of food rich in fat and salt then it will be a learning curve to get used to more "bland" (or "clean") flavors.

 

I am also a big fan of soups. Cauliflower soup is fantastic if you ask me. Cut a cauliflower into smaller pieces, and boil it with some potato (one or two is enough) some onion, a splash of white wine and one or two bouillon cubes. Maybe add some other spices like cayenne pepper if you want a kick. Then mix it really well with an immersion blender.

Cheap, filling and in my opinion really tasty.

[Agall]

On 2/13/2024 at 9:06 PM, Donut417 said:

 

Little back story. My doctor recommended I loose a bit of weight and eat more veggies. So Im going to attempt to do so. Im not a big veggie guy. My mom is not big when it comes to seasonings. A couple christams's ago my sister got me a bacon flavored salt kit. Ive tried that on sweet peas and they were more tolerable. So Im looking for recommendations on things I can use to season my veggies. Eat peas, green beans and some times corn. Broccoli is OK but after having the stomach flu last week and throwing it up, I might lay off the broccoli for a hot min.

 

On a side note I have started loosing some of the weight. Gained 10 lbs last year probably between November and January. Ive already lost that.

Increasing veggie intake is a nice way to fill your stomach, but it really doesn't fix the root issue with obesity. Being able to self regulate hunger and food intake and exercise regularly are the fundamental skills required for weight management. If your GP is telling you to simply eat more veggies as a response to weight gain, I would recommend validating that information with another professional source for your specific diet and habits.

 

Weight loss is a simple calories in versus calories out equation, both of which have their nuance, but its simply thermodynamics. The type of calories in can affect how many calories you end up spending in many ways, a singular example of thousands being if you're not getting enough cholesterol and vitamin D to produce healthy levels of testosterone, which would have a substantial negative affect your mood, metabolism, etc. Something like that would affect your calories out.

 

There's plenty of people who aren't obese but overweight who could become dramatically healthier on the same diet they eat now by simply exercising regularly. Their weight might not go down, but it'll result in a healthier amount of lean mass and consequently reduce their amount of fat. Its especially important if most of the fat someone has is visceral fat, though having a moderate amount of subcutaneous fat isn't nearly as unhealthy in comparison. Still, food quality does matter, but that might not be as easy to control depending on the region.

 

Regular exercise is far more important in my opinion, since there's data that points to one of obesity's significant comorbidities being a lack of muscle and not just an excess of fat. Either way, insufficient or excess musculature and insufficient or excess fat are both problems, something you don't get with proper diet and exercise.

 

For men especially (I don't research deeply into female nutrition to speak in depth), cortisol is antagonistic to maintaining stable and naturally high levels of testosterone, which directly affects so many aspects of male anatomy. Mood, energy, protein synthesis, etc. Cortisol being a result of stress, where excessive stress to include poor sleep quality can have a significant affect on cortisol levels.

 

Somewhat related but also controversial, the quantity of calories people consume hasn't risen to account for the increase in obesity. The theory I've seen to explain this is that the calories we get today are a lot more processed, which results in easier absorption and less calories spent in digestion. This theory also gets into how more processed foods affect the digestive system and gut microbiome.

 

I personally don't care to eat vegetables, never have, so I have to supplement. I take a KISS approach to dieting overall that's worked well for me over the last few years. I will eat vegetables if they're put in front of me though. I do get annual physicals that include blood work as a way of validating such.

 

In general, regular exercise, ensuring you're getting sufficient protein while filling the rest of your macronutrients with a healthy balance of fats and carbs, then getting sufficient micronutrients are the key. Simply increasing the amount of undigestible carbs, aka fiber, isn't going to make you lose weight but may coincidentally prevent you from over consuming digestible calories. If you're not exercising though, I think that should be your top priority regardless of your weight.

[wasab]

 

10 hours ago, Agall said:

Regular exercise is far more important in my opinion, since there's data that points to one of obesity's significant comorbidities being a lack of muscle and not just an excess of fat. Either way, insufficient or excess musculature and insufficient or excess fat are both problems, something you don't get with proper diet and exercise.

i have to disagree on that. this is what Coca-Cola and those junk food companies want you to believe. exercise is important but not to lose weight. they are important for health and physical fitness but do very little to burn calories for both cardio and strength. Eating one donut plus one can of soda easily refills back the calories you burn jogging for one hour. One pound of muscle only burns about 4.7-7 calories so this means unless you wish to put on 20 lbs of muscle mass, which involves eating at a calorie surplus(necessary for bulking) which increases your fat tissue as well, you will be burning calories well less than that of a donut, or even an apple for that matter per day. this is on top of the fact, many people on their weight loss exercise routine often do compensatory eating which is the psychological phenomenon of thinking since i did such a hard work out of walking for 1 hours+, this means i must have the extra calorie wiggle room for a snack and should treat myself for the good work! The next thing they do is hit the fast food restaurant and eat back double the calories they burn from walking vs if they would normally had they not exercised. 

 

Those big corporations will say exercise rather than diet because they wish to keep selling you those craps and shift the blame back to the consumer's lack of physical activity. you can't outrun a bad diet, which is something almost all nutritionists will tell you. You can easily gain the benefit(for weight loss) of one hour at the gym by just skipping your bag of chips and soda for the day. Those corporations paid a lot of money to fund dubious researches that say the contrary and argue for more exercise as the solution, you know, anything that stops short of saying stop eating junks. Don't believe in them.

 

Americans today only burn like 200ish fewer calories compared to back in the 1960s on average according to research, less than the calories you get from eating two bananas and believe me, even the most sedentary office workers back then is a lot leaner than their modern counterparts. Obesity is 80%+ the garbage people eat, not exercise. 

 

10 hours ago, Agall said:

Somewhat related but also controversial, the quantity of calories people consume hasn't risen to account for the increase in obesity.

 

yeah, this is false and probably comes from one of those "researches" funded by these junk food corps. Nowadays Americans eat 2900+ish calories on average daily, although i say a lot more because these numbers are surveyed and people tend to underestimate their calorie intake. that is well above the 2400 standard for a normal adult. even if this is true, like say you eat at just 100 calories surplus per day, which is less than like say one can of soda, you will become obese in a few years considering 365 days in a year means 36,500 extra calories which easily translates to 10lbs of fat, you do that for 3 years, you are now obese. like i said,  just stop eating junk. 

 

[Agall]

44 minutes ago, wasab said:

One pound of muscle only burns about 4.7-7 calories so this means unless you wish to put on 20 lbs of muscle mass, which involves eating at a calorie surplus(necessary for bulking) which increases your fat tissue as well, you will be burning calories well less than that of a donut, or even an apple for that matter per day.

You don't need a caloric surplus to add muscle mass if you have enough fat. The 'bulk or cut' mentality isn't the only way to add muscle mass, plenty of people have enough fat on them to add a few pounds of easily maintainable muscle that they should already have, even at a deficit.

 

20lbs of muscle mass is excessive even for the 'beginner gains' which, in my opinion, is a terrible/misleading name for the healthy amount of muscle your body wants to have when engaging in regular exercise. For most people, those 'beginner gains' is all they should maintain since past that, you're likely putting on an increasing amount of mass that your whole body (including digestive system) has to maintain, to include the increased likelihood of injury from an incrementally increasing resistance.

 

4 hours ago, Agall said:

Their weight might not go down, but it'll result in a healthier amount of lean mass and consequently reduce their amount of fat.

Reiterate on this point that you quoted yourself. Someone skinny fat who is sedentary at 180lbs might be 'overweight' for their height, but if they had a healthy amount of muscle mass as well, they'd likely be considered obese. Someone like that can simply start working out, pack on a healthy amount of muscle mass, and see where their body composition ends up. Cut afterwards if they're unhappy with whatever subcutaneous fat they have left.

 

44 minutes ago, wasab said:

Those big corporations will say exercise rather than diet because they wish to keep selling you those craps and shift the blame back to the consumer's lack of physical activity. you can't outrun a bad diet, which is something almost all nutritionists will tell you.

Food quality matters as well, of course, and I stated such. I'm not apart of the group ignorant to food quality who think 30g of protein from a Mcdonalds hamburger is the same as 30g of protein from a grass fed locally sourced steak. Still, no matter what, the one variable people can control is exercise, which is important regardless of body composition to maintain a healthy amount of muscle mass now and for the future.

 

There's more important things than just strength when it comes to maintaining muscle mass, to include how it affects insulin sensitivity. Not exercising and thinking dieting will keep you healthy is just ignorant to those other variables.

4 hours ago, Agall said:

Still, food quality does matter, but that might not be as easy to control depending on the region.

4 hours ago, Agall said:

proper diet and exercise.

 

In general, regular exercise, ensuring you're getting sufficient protein while filling the rest of your macronutrients with a healthy balance of fats and carbs, then getting sufficient micronutrients are the key. 

I'll reiterate on these points. You seemed to confuse my lack of repetition of this point with an ignorance to the importance of food quality and proper dieting. The reality is that most people do neither and both are important, but its far easier to convince someone to start exercising than eating healthy, if you had to start somewhere. Regular exercise is self catalyzing in my opinion, once you start and have decided its now something you have to do (just like brushing your teeth) then regardless of whether you want to or not, you'll do it and enjoy that you did it.

 

There's also plenty of people who have unhealthy body compositions who eat healthy who simply need to work out and do portion control, my father being one of them (mostly because of my mother who does proper diet+exercise and cooks the food). For decades he used the excuse of a back injury to not exercise, even though all the doctors he saw told him he's perfectly capable of doing regular exercise. Took enough shame and deep conversation about how it all works to convince him to start, and now he's been exercising regularly for several months and feeling a lot better. No longer having the back issues he thought were a consequence of his injury and not simply a lack of musculature. I had the same problem myself with a few injuries that were solved through adding muscle mass, started in physical therapy and maintained through hypertrophy training.

[wasab]

2 hours ago, Agall said:

You don't need a caloric surplus to add muscle mass if you have enough fat. The 'bulk or cut' mentality isn't the only way to add muscle mass, plenty of people have enough fat on them to add a few pounds of easily maintainable muscle that they should already have, even at a deficit.

 

20lbs of muscle mass is excessive even for the 'beginner gains' which, in my opinion, is a terrible/misleading name for the healthy amount of muscle your body wants to have when engaging in regular exercise. For most people, those 'beginner gains' is all they should maintain since past that, you're likely putting on an increasing amount of mass that your whole body (including digestive system) has to maintain, to include the increased likelihood of injury from an incrementally increasing resistance.

Those beginner gains do very little for weight loss. I don't disagree exercise is important. in fact, it is the 2nd best thing to do for your health after quit smoking but it does very little to cure obesity. As i said, if you wish to be serious about gaining any weight loss benefits out of it, you will need to be a serious body builder, and doing it in a calorie deficit just won't do it.

 

2 hours ago, Agall said:

Reiterate on this point that you quoted yourself. Someone skinny fat who is sedentary at 180lbs might be 'overweight' for their height, but if they had a healthy amount of muscle mass as well, they'd likely be considered obese. Someone like that can simply start working out, pack on a healthy amount of muscle mass, and see where their body composition ends up. Cut afterwards if they're unhappy with whatever subcutaneous fat they have left.

skinny fat comes from a crash diet a lot of time, from people eating less than like say 1200ish calories a day or less. people by this point begin to break down their muscle tissues and not just their fat. if you want to avoid that, simply don't starve yourself and eat enough protein. I can tell many beginner dieters make such mistakes. not only is it unhealthy, it is also not sustainable. most important factor is still your diet. 

2 hours ago, Agall said:

Food quality matters as well, of course, and I stated such. I'm not apart of the group ignorant to food quality who think 30g of protein from a Mcdonalds hamburger is the same as 30g of protein from a grass fed locally sourced steak. Still, no matter what, the one variable people can control is exercise, which is important regardless of body composition to maintain a healthy amount of muscle mass now and for the future.

 

There's more important things than just strength when it comes to maintaining muscle mass, to include how it affects insulin sensitivity. Not exercising and thinking dieting will keep you healthy is just ignorant to those other variables.

yes, if you are talking about general health and nutrition. for only weight loss purposes, every calorie is the same. people have been known to lose weight eating nothing but Twinkies and drinking nothing but sugar water that they call pesi/coca cola as long as they are at a deficit. the only factor, albeit the key factor, it might influence is craving. it is much easier to overeat junk food than satiating ones like eggs or apples. modern-day junk food and fast food are fine tuned by food science to get you addicted so you overeat to the point of obesity. 

 

trust me, if you eat like the holocaust concentration camp inmates, soon enough you won't have any fat in your body at all. it is not healthy of course but it shows how much the food you eat has a drastic effect and the most effectiveness on your weight and fat percentage, in both ends of the extremes. 

 

the root cause of obesity is modern-day junk food. if you compare office workers who sit in their chair all day back in the 1960s vs officer workers who sit in their chairs all day in 2024, i guarantee one group will have less than 10% obesity rate while the other has over 40%. guess which group it is? when you have constant headaches from lack of sleep, your top solution would be to get enough sleep, instead of taking pain killers. for obesity, the top solution is to eliminate junk from your diet and eat healthy, not exercise. the latter helps just like pain killer help but should not be your top solution. 

 

 

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, wasab said:

exercise is important but not to lose weight. they are important for health and physical fitness but do very little to burn calories, cardio, or strength.

I don't remember who said it, but I heard someone say "Diet determines how much you weigh, exercise determines if that weight is muscles or fat", which I think is true in the general sense. 

 

Don't exercise because you think it will make you lose weight. You should exercise because it makes you feel better, live longer, improve your learning capabilities, sleep better, less stressed, improve your mood, and make you look more attractive.

[divito]

[Donut417]

9 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Just remember that losing weight is more about what you don't eat than it is what you eat. Eating vegetables is good for a lot of reasons, but at the end of the day losing weight is just about getting your body into a calorie deficit. 

You won't lose weight if you just add greens on top of your old diet. You have to subtract things. For weight loss, vegetables are good because they fill you up without containing a lot of calories.

 Im staying away from the frozen foods. I dont really eat Fast Food any more. Im making better choices when we go out to eat. I also stopped with the snaking. No more chips and such. I got some Honey Roasted Peanuts if I want a snack. I started eating Greek Yogurt for breakfast (I like to add some type of berries as well) instead of one of those Jimmy Deans Breakfast sandwiches.

 

The biggest thing for me is I dont eat after dinner. I used to eat a nice sized snack many days. The other biggest thing is Im limiting how much sugar Im consuming. I gave up on Candy. I do get sugar from my Liquid Death teas (about 4 mg) but I choose those over the sugar free pure life because the Liquid Death's have less caffeine (30 mg vs 75 mg). But I dont drink the teas at work for lunch, helps me get through the day. I also started eating less bread. Using wraps as an alternative.

 

Basically im replacing all the bull shit I was eating with fruits and veggies. When it gets warming hopefully some walking. If I drop another 28lbs I should be able to use my mom's treadmill, because its only rated for 220lbs. Current plan its to walk Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturday and Sunday. Im also going to try to get out of the house more this year instead of being a shut in.