CthulhuSaves
New member
Hiya,
I've been dieting for some time, and have lost about 180 pounds so far (have 125 to go). My approach is one of simply eating healthy, normal portions, and trying to eat a little bit under the amount of calories that would be required to sustain someone at my target weight (I'm a big guy, and am skinny at 230). I didn't want to starve myself to get there, as that always results in rapid weight gain when someone resumes eating normally. Oh, I should also mention that, quite naturally, I ended up with type 2 diabetes as a result of my gluttony (don't say that in the diabetes forums, though. They're convinced there's no connection and will scream like they've been stabbed at the mere suggestion of it).
One thing that's begun to drive me crazy is trying to understand the correlation between calories and actual food mass. Eating fewer calories seems to work most of the time, but I'm repeatedly experiencing a stall in the diet that doesn't make a lot of sense. Sometimes it seems like the actual, physical weight, or bulk, of the food itself causes me to either not lose anything, or even put a few pounds back on, and this is when the calories of the food are way under what I'm allowed.
How can this be? Let me give you some specifics...
I'm 47, male, and at my top weight hit 540. Yeah, it got that bad. I'm down to 355, with a target weight of 230, which is actually lean for my frame.
I'm shooting for around 1700 calories per day, max, which gives me a few hundred calorie leeway from the number that I'd need to maintain a weight of 230. If I stick to this without variation (easier said than done), I experience steady weight loss. However, there's a problem, which I'll get to momentarily.
My diet is thus:
Dinner typically consists of some "heart healthy" soup (a few hundred calories) and half a bag of California style vegetables (I got bored with the standard kind). Sometimes I mix things up, once or twice a week, by eating ground turkey made into burgers (yes, I throw some cheese one them, so sue me).
The soup/veggie combo is just a few hundred cals. The turkey meal pushes up to around 12-1300, but still (barely) keeps me under the limit.
Breakfast and lunch consist of:
-Egg whites equal to two or three eggs (20-25 calories per "egg")
-3 small turkey sausages (about 100 calories total)
-2 slices of toast (low carb bread, 45 calories per slice)
It's a decent, healthy filler, and with such a low caloric value, lets me use it for those times when I'm inexplicably hungry between meals, especially on "soup days."
I also drink a lot of coffee (a shot of cream, but no sugar) and 0-calorie tea.
Now here's where things get weird. The breakfast meal is only about 250 calories, so I can eat an extra portion once or twice in a day to keep from feeling hungry and still come in way below the calorie limit (can't do that on turkey days, though). However, sometimes it seems like doing so puts a halt to the weight loss, even though I've only eaten a fraction of the calories needed to sustain my current weight. I'm full-up on low-calorie food, and somehow it seems to act like I've swallowed a barbell. How in the world can someone maintain a weight by eating only half the calories needed to, supposedly, sustain that particular weight? This makes absolutely no sense to me.
Even if the food hasn't passed yet, there's still the "burnt fuel" aspect to consider, which should still produce a visible deficit. And yet, time and time again, I see spurts of no loss, or even some gain. Just baffling.
Can someone please explain this to me? What the devil is going on? What am I missing?
I've been dieting for some time, and have lost about 180 pounds so far (have 125 to go). My approach is one of simply eating healthy, normal portions, and trying to eat a little bit under the amount of calories that would be required to sustain someone at my target weight (I'm a big guy, and am skinny at 230). I didn't want to starve myself to get there, as that always results in rapid weight gain when someone resumes eating normally. Oh, I should also mention that, quite naturally, I ended up with type 2 diabetes as a result of my gluttony (don't say that in the diabetes forums, though. They're convinced there's no connection and will scream like they've been stabbed at the mere suggestion of it).
One thing that's begun to drive me crazy is trying to understand the correlation between calories and actual food mass. Eating fewer calories seems to work most of the time, but I'm repeatedly experiencing a stall in the diet that doesn't make a lot of sense. Sometimes it seems like the actual, physical weight, or bulk, of the food itself causes me to either not lose anything, or even put a few pounds back on, and this is when the calories of the food are way under what I'm allowed.
How can this be? Let me give you some specifics...
I'm 47, male, and at my top weight hit 540. Yeah, it got that bad. I'm down to 355, with a target weight of 230, which is actually lean for my frame.
I'm shooting for around 1700 calories per day, max, which gives me a few hundred calorie leeway from the number that I'd need to maintain a weight of 230. If I stick to this without variation (easier said than done), I experience steady weight loss. However, there's a problem, which I'll get to momentarily.
My diet is thus:
Dinner typically consists of some "heart healthy" soup (a few hundred calories) and half a bag of California style vegetables (I got bored with the standard kind). Sometimes I mix things up, once or twice a week, by eating ground turkey made into burgers (yes, I throw some cheese one them, so sue me).
The soup/veggie combo is just a few hundred cals. The turkey meal pushes up to around 12-1300, but still (barely) keeps me under the limit.
Breakfast and lunch consist of:
-Egg whites equal to two or three eggs (20-25 calories per "egg")
-3 small turkey sausages (about 100 calories total)
-2 slices of toast (low carb bread, 45 calories per slice)
It's a decent, healthy filler, and with such a low caloric value, lets me use it for those times when I'm inexplicably hungry between meals, especially on "soup days."
I also drink a lot of coffee (a shot of cream, but no sugar) and 0-calorie tea.
Now here's where things get weird. The breakfast meal is only about 250 calories, so I can eat an extra portion once or twice in a day to keep from feeling hungry and still come in way below the calorie limit (can't do that on turkey days, though). However, sometimes it seems like doing so puts a halt to the weight loss, even though I've only eaten a fraction of the calories needed to sustain my current weight. I'm full-up on low-calorie food, and somehow it seems to act like I've swallowed a barbell. How in the world can someone maintain a weight by eating only half the calories needed to, supposedly, sustain that particular weight? This makes absolutely no sense to me.
Even if the food hasn't passed yet, there's still the "burnt fuel" aspect to consider, which should still produce a visible deficit. And yet, time and time again, I see spurts of no loss, or even some gain. Just baffling.
Can someone please explain this to me? What the devil is going on? What am I missing?
