Anyone else trying to lose weight?

[emotional leper]

Well, some of the pregnant ladies I know swear by special moisturizer creams that are for reducing the look of stretch marks--- what I don't know is if this works after the stretching has already occurred. If this becomes an issue, eventually I'll be able to tell you one way or the other...

dw

Stretch marks are like any other scar tissue -- they may diminish in visibility over time, but they are never going to go away completely.

[MsMary]

I remember reading recently that if you take off weight more gradually, you are less likely to develop stretch marks cause your skin has time to shrink to your accommodate your weight loss.

Or something like that.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Hmmm, I like MsMary's answer better. EL, you might be the more medically accurate one - but I deem your answer unpopular.
As my wife would say, "I prefer hope to the facts any day."
dw

[MsMary]

What I said didn't refute what EL said.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Product need is the reason we shop, but packaging determines which item we buy in aisle 12.

[storm]

There's really no evidence that the timing of when you eat relative to sleep, exercise, or what-have-you makes any difference in how your body metabolizes the food.

I'm sorry, but you are way off the mark on this statement. Exercise has a huge impact on metabolism, especially when it comes to glucose clearance time.

Source #1
"Effects of Resistance Training on Insulin Sensitivity in Overweight Latino Adolescent Males", Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, American College of Sports Medicine pp. 1208-1215

Taken from the Results of the abstract:
"Significant increases in upper and lower body strength were observed in the resistance training versus the cardio group. The RT group significantly increased insulin sensitivity compared with with the C group (P<.05), and this increase remained significant after changes in total fat mass and total lean tissue mass (P<.05). Compared with baseline values, insulin sensitivity increased 45.1 +- 7.3% in the RT group versus -.9 +- 12.9% in controls (P<.01)"

Source #2
Acta Physiol (Oxf). 2008 Jan;192(1):127-35
"Individuals with insulin resistance are characterized by impaired insulin action on whole-body glucose uptake, in part due to impaired insulin-stimulated glucose uptake into skeletal muscle. A single bout of exercise increases skeletal muscle glucose uptake via an insulin-independent mechanism that bypasses the typical insulin signalling defects associated with these conditions. However, this 'insulin sensitizing' effect is short-lived and disappears after approximately 48 h. In contrast, repeated physical activity (i.e. exercise training) results in a persistent increase in insulin action in skeletal muscle from obese and insulin-resistant individuals. The molecular mechanism(s) for the enhanced glucose uptake with exercise training have been attributed to the increased expression and/or activity of key signalling proteins involved in the regulation of glucose uptake and metabolism in skeletal muscle. Evidence now suggests that the improvements in insulin sensitivity associated with exercise training are also related to changes in the expression and/or activity of proteins involved in insulin signal transduction in skeletal muscle such as the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and the protein kinase B (Akt) substrate AS160. In addition, increased lipid oxidation and/or turnover is likely to be another mechanism by which exercise improves insulin sensitivity: exercise training results in an increase in the oxidative capacity of skeletal muscle by up-regulating lipid oxidation and the expression of proteins involved in mitochondrial biogenesis."

...if you do a pubmed search "resistance training and metabolism", you can find 1700 citations in which resistance training improves insulin sensitivity, lipid oxidation and increased protein turnover.

[emotional leper]

Stretch marks are a scaring of the dermis that occurs when you gain the weight, not when you lose it.

Sorry.

[storm]

Stretch marks are a scaring of the dermis that occurs when you gain the weight, not when you lose it.

Sorry.

Yup!

Bottom line is stretch marks form from a rapid expansion of the dermal and epidermal layers relative to underlying tissues. They aren't fat tissue specific either, as pregnant women know, as well as bodybuilders...i have scarring from just inside my armpit to halfway down my bicep on both arms from lifting weights while i was going through puberty.

[aliantha]

Re stretch marks: Yup, you get 'em when your skin stretches, not when it (ideally...) snaps back. Unfortunately, I can tell you this from personal experience....

There's really no evidence that the timing of when you eat relative to sleep, exercise, or what-have-you makes any difference in how your body metabolizes the food.

I'm sorry, but you are way off the mark on this statement. Exercise has a huge impact on metabolism, especially when it comes to glucose clearance time.

Yes, but that's not what she said. She said there's no evidence that metabolism is impacted by the time of day you eat. And she's right.

My mom used to say that you shouldn't eat after 6pm because you'll put on weight. Well, okay, if you eat dinner at 5pm and go to bed at 10. But if you don't get home from work 'til 6 or 7, when are you supposed to have dinner? In that case, a "no snacking after dinner" rule makes more sense than a specific time cutoff.

But that said, brains are wacky things, and any way you can trick yourself into staying out of the cookie jar is okay in my book.

[MsMary]

There's really no evidence that the timing of when you eat relative to sleep, exercise, or what-have-you makes any difference in how your body metabolizes the food. [Bolding added by MsMary]

I'm sorry, but you are way off the mark on this statement. Exercise has a huge impact on metabolism, especially when it comes to glucose clearance time.

I did not say that exercise has no impact on metabolism. What I said was that the timing of when you eat relative to when you exercise during a given day has no impact on how you metabolize food.

None of what you cited refutes that.

Clearly, if you exercise once and then don't do it again, there will be a difference in metabolism. Clearly, the effect will not last in the absence of exercise.

But for the purpose of metabolism, it makes no difference if I eat my cake before or after I exercise. That's what I was saying.

[storm]

There's really no evidence that the timing of when you eat relative to sleep, exercise, or what-have-you makes any difference in how your body metabolizes the food. [Bolding added by MsMary]

I'm sorry, but you are way off the mark on this statement. Exercise has a huge impact on metabolism, especially when it comes to glucose clearance time.

I did not say that exercise has no impact on metabolism. What I said was that the timing of when you eat relative to when you exercise during a given day has no impact on how you metabolize food.

None of what you cited refutes that.

Clearly, if you exercise once and then don't do it again, there will be a difference in metabolism. Clearly, the effect will not last in the absence of exercise.

But for the purpose of metabolism, it makes no difference if I eat my cake before or after I exercise. That's what I was saying.

Ok...i'm going to ask you to prove it. Because you said that timing has no impact on metabolism... since i showed two studies that show that glucose disposal, lipid oxidation and insulin sensitivity are improved via resistance training, it is a logical conclusion that carbohydrate ingestion prior to resistance training is not going to be metabolized the same way thus impacting metabolism in regards to nutrient timing.

Also, show me some factual information that shows liver and muscle glycogen levels are not impacted by time of meal. Glycogen is lower in the morning because you just spent 8 hours fasting, so how would the percentage of serum glycogen not be relevant to nutrient timing? Glycogen is also lower post exercise, so again the amount of carbohydrate that can be consumed without spillover is greater than if glycogen stores were full.

[storm]

Re stretch marks: Yup, you get 'em when your skin stretches, not when it (ideally...) snaps back. Unfortunately, I can tell you this from personal experience....

There's really no evidence that the timing of when you eat relative to sleep, exercise, or what-have-you makes any difference in how your body metabolizes the food.

I'm sorry, but you are way off the mark on this statement. Exercise has a huge impact on metabolism, especially when it comes to glucose clearance time.

Yes, but that's not what she said. She said there's no evidence that metabolism is impacted by the time of day you eat. And she's right.

My mom used to say that you shouldn't eat after 6pm because you'll put on weight. Well, okay, if you eat dinner at 5pm and go to bed at 10. But if you don't get home from work 'til 6 or 7, when are you supposed to have dinner? In that case, a "no snacking after dinner" rule makes more sense than a specific time cutoff.

But that said, brains are wacky things, and any way you can trick yourself into staying out of the cookie jar is okay in my book.

Since I'm at disadvantage as to the level of education possessed by both yourself and Ms. Mary, i will give you the benefit of the doubt. But, if you tell me she's right, prove it...I have heard the timing doesn't matter debate for years on bodybuilding boards...no one has ever shown a single piece of research to validate the claim...this venue is different because y'all are not 250lb bodybuilders juiced to the gills telling me that their 6-packs are proof enough.

Nutrient timing does not say "no food after 6pm", the premise is that glucose metabolism slows as the day progresses, which can be validated scientifically (let me know if you want studies)...the prevailing thought among nutritional biochemists and nutritional researchers is that if carbohydrates are lowered through the day and fatty acids are increased (so carbs with breakfast, post workout and post-post workout, fats in all other meals, protein in all meals) that macronutrients will be utilized as much for tissue repair and anabolism as possible and the least amount of lipogenesis (this doesn't account for people who eat 25% or more above maintenance levels).

[aliantha]

Since I'm at disadvantage as to the level of education possessed by both yourself and Ms. Mary, i will give you the benefit of the doubt. But, if you tell me she's right, prove it...I have heard the timing doesn't matter debate for years on bodybuilding boards...no one has ever shown a single piece of research to validate the claim...this venue is different because y'all are not 250lb bodybuilders juiced to the gills telling me that their 6-packs are proof enough.

Nutrient timing does not say "no food after 6pm", the premise is that glucose metabolism slows as the day progresses, which can be validated scientifically (let me know if you want studies)...the prevailing thought among nutritional biochemists and nutritional researchers is that if carbohydrates are lowered through the day and fatty acids are increased (so carbs with breakfast, post workout and post-post workout, fats in all other meals, protein in all meals) that macronutrients will be utilized as much for tissue repair and anabolism as possible and the least amount of lipogenesis (this doesn't account for people who eat 25% or more above maintenance levels).

Any chance you could restate that in English for the liberal arts majors among us?

Look, I will never be a bodybuilder, or any other sort of serious athlete. I have no interest in having 6-pack abs. I need to lose probably 65 lbs. and I have a substantial bay window (if you will) that I am interested in whittling down. I understand why competitive athletes would want to tailor their food intake to the degree you're talking about. But for my purposes, it's kind of beside the point.

[aliantha]

Sorry in advance for the double-post. And apologies if I came off snippy in my last post, Storm.

I used to be a reporter, so it's second nature to me to check stuff out. So after I posted above, I did a quick Google check on the issue of time of day one eats v. weight loss/muscle retention. I did not see anything as specific as what you're recommending, Storm, but admittedly I didn't go very far into it. I did get the sense, however, that this issue (caloric intake v. macro nutrient intake) has been hotly debated in bodybuilding circles for decades. So I'm pretty sure we're not going to resolve it here at the Watch.

The bottom line is that nutrition is an evolving science. Thirty years ago, nutritionists recommended counting calories. Twenty-five years ago -- the last time I got serious about weight loss -- we were counting fat grams. More recently, it's been grams of complex carbs. Today I ran across an article from Prevention magazine saying you should include monounsaturated fats in every meal, and eat four small meals throughout the day. The gods alone know what it will be tomorrow. And this is all advice from the *experts*.

I've been at this weight loss thing for easily 30 years now, off and on, and at this point it all just makes me tired: tired of analyzing what I'm buying, tired of counting some new number on the box, tired of keeping track of every bloody mouthful. The thing that really, really appeals to me about the WW Core program is that *I don't have to keep track of anything*. They give me a food list. It's all healthy stuff. I eat from the list 'til I'm full. Done. The only time I have to write anything down is if I stray from the list -- a powerful inducement for me to stick to the list, since I'm so sick of keeping track of what I eat.

Anyway. Sorry for the rant.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

...the prevailing thought among nutritional biochemists and nutritional researchers is that if carbohydrates are lowered through the day and fatty acids are increased (so carbs with breakfast, post workout and post-post workout, fats in all other meals, protein in all meals) that macronutrients will be utilized as much for tissue repair and anabolism as possible and the least amount of lipogenesis (this doesn't account for people who eat 25% or more above maintenance levels).

Any chance you could restate that in English for the liberal arts majors among us?

Macronutrients are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Tissue repair and anabolism are body-maintenance terms for fixing damage and feeding and expanding your existing musculature. Lipogenesis is a fancy term for new fat storage. The disclaimer is his info only works if you aren't consuming in excess of 25% of the calories needed to maintain your existing weight.

He is saying that (his citations back him in showing) there may be certain times of day for your body where it is more beneficial to eat foods of a different Protein/Fat/Carb ratio, because your metabolism levels wax and wane throughout the day, so depending on your body, some times may be better than others for eating certain foods. By extension, if you analyze and play with these times and foods, while keeping within 25% of your RDA of calories for the day, you can influence your body way from making new fat cells.

In fact, you can look at the South Beach and Zone Diets as a distant variant of this idea - not in timing different food ratios throughout the day, but that by always consuming Fats/Carbs/Proteins in the same("correct") ratios, you are ensuring a balanced diet that when combined with exercise tips you towards burning stored fat instead of creating more.

dw

[DukkhaWaynhim]

The hot joy of all this information about weight loss, is that none of it matters if it doesn't work for you. My mom has been on some form of diet my entire life - today it is NutriSystem. Different yo-yo, same up-and-down trip.
The best we can do is band together, share the info we have, and then speak about what works for us.
The reason why the info cycles, changes, and contradicts itself is that there isn't any one way: rather, that the ONE guaranteed way - total OCD analysis of everything and keeping a balanced ledger of food and exercise - is tedious, time-consuming, sucks the fun out of life, and hardly anybody has the time, patience, or attention span to do it for long.
So, we resort to easily-memorized mantras, tricks, schemes, diet foods, drinks, programs - all designed to deconstruct, reconstruct, approximate, or fox the above system that works but nobody wants to follow.

It is tiresome. Oh, and we live in the land of plenty, with plenty of corporations in the business of selling you rich foods that have shareholders that want dividends, so you get adverts that tell you "You deserve a break today, so eat THIS."

So, I'll just quote C3PO: "We're doomed."

[aliantha]

The hot joy of all this information about weight loss, is that none of it matters if it doesn't work for you. My mom has been on some form of diet my entire life - today it is NutriSystem. Different yo-yo, same up-and-down trip.
The best we can do is band together, share the info we have, and then speak about what works for us.
The reason why the info cycles, changes, and contradicts itself is that there isn't any one way: rather, that the ONE guaranteed way - total OCD analysis of everything and keeping a balanced ledger of food and exercise - is tedious, time-consuming, sucks the fun out of life, and hardly anybody has the time, patience, or attention span to do it for long.
So, we resort to easily-memorized mantras, tricks, schemes, diet foods, drinks, programs - all designed to deconstruct, reconstruct, approximate, or fox the above system that works but nobody wants to follow.

It is tiresome. Oh, and we live in the land of plenty, with plenty of corporations in the business of selling you rich foods that have shareholders that want dividends, so you get adverts that tell you "You deserve a break today, so eat THIS."

So, I'll just quote C3PO: "We're doomed."

I did NutriSystem for about 15 minutes back in the '80s. After a couple of weeks eating their food, I analyzed the diet. Back then, at least, it was an 800-calorie-a-day, high protein program (they put protein powder in everything, even the hot chocolate mix -- made it taste funny). My condolences to your mom....

Oh, and thanks for the translation.

[Vain19]

Am I too late to join in on this?

[MsMary]

Not at all. All are welcome to join this interesting discussion!

[Vain19]

Alright, when I was three my doctors put me on steriods for my asthma, and kept me on them on and off until I was sixteen. As a result, at the age of sixteen I weighed roughly in the area of 400lbs. In the past four years, I've dieted, and done some weight and cardio training and have able to get down to 280lbs, but I'm still trying to loose about 65 more. Unfortunately, I've hit a plateau, where I don't gain any weight, but I'm not shedding any either. Any thoughts?