"Soft Mucles" Even Though I Work Out

[Runenight201]

Thats good. So just build some muscle and loose fat and you dont need to worry about all the ***t people are talking about here in terms of estrogen and all that ***t being the problem

There’s better and worse environments to build muscle and lose fat in... that advice is about as useful as telling obese people to move more and eat less.

But at the highest level you are correct, a low fat, high muscle environment is usually correlated with high levels of T/DHT and low estrogen, especially since this hormonal environment is so anabolic.

To the OP, focus in on any foods that bloat and avoid at all cost. In my experience bloat always leads to water retention, inflammation, poor digestion, and high estrogen. Even starches can do this to me unless I’ve induced serious muscle damage through working out, then starches are necessary.

Lots of meat helps with muscle hardening too. Whether it’s the meat or the protein, I’m not sure, but there was one day this week where I ate a whole pound of chicken in one meal with some fruit and all my muscles got hard af afterwards. It’s unfortunate that I got food poisoning from the chicken cuz I lost all kinds of gains but I’m back on it bout to destroy some pork chops.

 

[superhuman]

There’s better and worse environments to build muscle and lose fat in... that advice is about as useful as telling obese people to move more and eat less.

Exept it works EVERY TIME, its just that fat people diet for 3 days then they binge and than they are ****88.

 

[Runenight201]

Exept it works EVERY TIME, its just that fat people diet for 3 days then they binge and than they are ****88.

Clearly it doesn’t work if they’re still fat. Diets only work when they are sustainable, so giving someone the foundation for building a healthy, tasty, satiating, complete diet proves far more useful than saying you just need to eat less and move more.

One is helpful, the other is condescending.

 

[superhuman]

Clearly it doesn’t work if they’re still fat. Diets only work when they are sustainable, so giving someone the foundation for building a healthy, tasty, satiating, complete diet proves far more useful than saying you just need to eat less and move more.

One is helpful, the other is condescending.

That is true, but to say that calories does not matter and to eat less and move more does not work is horse ***t. But yes if you cant do it, then it does not work but than again, thats why they are fat. To quote Bill Burr: getting lean is hard, getting fat is effortless

 

[Cirion]

Except there are tons of fat people who hardly eat any food, and plenty of lean people who eat lots of food. There is a study (that I'd like to find, and if I can I'll link it here) that shows that people who eat 120% of RDA calories a day are on average leaner and healthier than people who eat 60% of RDA calories a day on average. For every lean 100 lb woman who eats 3000 calories a day (I was friends with someone like this) there is a 300-400 lb man who eats 2000 or less a day. In fact I just got through finishing reading that "genetics do not determine health/sex appeal". Food supply does, and plenty of generous wholesome quality food. Be honest, do any "naturally lean people" you know diet? Probably not. I know a few like these. It's not because they have good genetics. It's because they know how to live a low stress lifestyle and actually EAT and not diet. Actually, genetics can be altered to a degree by healthy living. Aka, "epigenics". If "dieting" worked there wouldn't be an obesity epidemic. No, the real problem is too much junk food that has no nutritional quality and worse has artificial ingredients, and too much stress, not enough sunlight, etc.

Yes, you can lose fat with simple "CICO" but you lose fat through the stress hormone pathway, which primes your body to more easily gain body fat when you try to bring calories back up, which essentially means you have to live off stress hormones to maintain the new weight, which will eventually backfire once your stress reaches a breaking point. Your body is smart and knows how to survive in a stressful environment and will eventually outsmart your attempts to "force" weight loss. The body is actually a wonderful machine that is excellent at keeping us alive even when we abuse it day in and day out. It knows how to conserve energy when we're stupid and try to diet, so that we don't lose all our fat and die. It continues to lower metabolism as we try to cut calories further, eventually stalling fat loss entirely unless we're then dumb enough to fast entirely. Because it DOES work short term is the only reason people even still believe in CICO. True you can maintain it for the rest of your life IF you are insanely strict and always count calories, but have fun with that, I'm done with that life and feeling miserable. When the body cries out (cravings for sugar) its not because it "wants to sabotage your plans" its because you're slowly killing it and the craving is its way to make you eat so you don't freakin get cancer and die.

I used to judge fat people for being porkers too, until I got older and began to realize the truth of the matter and now have much more sympathy for them. They usually lead very stressful lives, have been deluded on taking numerous medications & procedures which actually make problems worse (like dialysis, statin drugs) which tend to promote further stress and further weight gain, work way too much, and sleep way too little, get way too little sunlight, etc etc.

Getting fat doesn't happen because of eating too much food, getting fat happens because of other reasons such as excess stress, eating the wrong type of foods (CICO advocates are quick to say you can eat anything as long as it fits your macros (IIFYM), a highly deluded group of people that led me astray for a while, IIFYM couldn't be further from the truth of what works. What you eat matters a LOT. It needs to be real unadulterated food.)

Nathan hatch talks about this at great lengths in his book. Dieting never worked for him, stopped working for me once I hit age 30, and doesn't work for most people. I can't tell you how many times I've had people tell me "they've tried every diet under the sun without success". It's because, dieting simply does not work. Not long-term permanently anyway. Sooner or later the stress of chronic under-eating catches up to you and your body will rebel.

An example case - I have a 24 year old I work with. He is very lean and athletic by most standards of fitness, he has abs and large arm muscles and has good powerlifting #'s. Except, I can tell he's not healthy. Every time we have a group meeting his eyes are half closed, he yawns a lot, and I've frequently had him tell me he's tired. All tell-tale signs of a slowly lagging metabolism, and all of the exact same things I went through trying to maintain a lean body through the stress hormone pathway. I give him a few more years at best, I doubt he will make it to 30 before he crashes and burns. I've seen what he eats for meals. It's rabbit food at its finest, and not much of it at that. He simply does not eat enough.

The fact that dieting "takes willpower and is hard work" is proof that it's not healthy for the body. The whole point of weight loss is to get healthy (at least that's how most people approach it) but traditional weight loss is NOT healthy and promotes negative hormones like stress, serotonin, estrogen build up in the system. Before you try to accuse me of being lazy and no willpower, I actually have more willpower than most people on this planet. I got down to almost stage level competition lean (handheld BF % checker is inaccurate I know, but it put me at 3% BF and I could feel zero bodyfat everywhere except my middle abs). Used to workout 6/7 days a week, weightlifting AND HIIT, plus < 2000 calories a day, but destroyed my physical and mental health in the process.

It's time the mainstream fitness dogma of "eat less exercise more" dies a quick painful death. It has ruined too many lives. Too long have we believed that a "healthy weight" is equitable to "good health". I will grant you that usually obesity is not equitable to good health, but the reverse is not true, in fact I'd argue most lean people these days are NOT healthy - just look how many mental health problems there are these days.

[END RANT]

If you can tell, I'm kind of passionate about this. I am tired of mainstream fitness avenues wrecking peoples' lives like they wrecked mine. It's time to take back our health and reject the traditional notions of "Health".

 

[boxers]

Your too fat

^ what he said.

 

[boxers]

Except there are tons of fat people who hardly eat any food, and plenty of lean people who eat lots of food. There is a study (that I'd like to find, and if I can I'll link it here) that shows that people who eat 120% of RDA calories a day are on average leaner and healthier than people who eat 60% of RDA calories a day on average. For every lean 100 lb woman who eats 3000 calories a day (I was friends with someone like this) there is a 300-400 lb man who eats 2000 or less a day.

That's really not true at all...

Metabolic Derangement- Extreme calorie restriction edition

 

[Runenight201]

That's really not true at all...

Metabolic Derangement- Extreme calorie restriction edition

Pretty low caliber effort that adds nothing to the discussion

Edit: didn’t see the link

 

[Cirion]

Part VI Fat: No More Fear, No More Contempt

Overweight Means Eating Too Much
Nope.

Statistics from the Healthy Eating Index [Table 10, 1998] show that adults with a body mass index of 20 or less and those with a BMI greater than 30 have similar calorie intakes, as do the two categories between.

Men (ages 18-74) who eat 60% of the recommended daily calories: 3% are BMI 15-20, 36% are BMI 20-25, 43% are BMI 25-30 and 17% are over BMI 30.

Men (ages 18-74) who eat 120% of the recommended daily calories: 3% are BMI 15-20, 46% are BMI 20-25, 41% are BMI 25-30, and 10% are over BMI 30.

Take a close look at that for a moment.

17% of those eating only 60% of the recommended calorie intake are obese. Only 10% of those eating 120% of the recommended calorie intake are obese.

The correlation coefficient is r=0.02594 (p<0.38), and that means that body mass index is not linked to calorie intake.

The next time someone you know decides to comment on a large person needing to stop eating so much, let them know she’s more likely to be eating too little.

Will try to find this Healthy Eating Index article if I can and add it to the link.

CICO is a very entrenched fitness model that I don't expect to die easily, that's why we need to really fight back. I probably plan to write my own book once I fix my own health issues much like how Nathan Hatch did and have proven that CICO is patently false once and for all for myself.

 

[boxers]

That's the on going debate anyways. Im in the camp that says calories is what mostly matters for the majority of people. Although some issues are hormonal, such as thyroid were your metabolism is slightly lowered, but thats easily corrected by taking some thyroid.

Every time its been spot on for me.. When I get really fat im eating whatever I want. When I want to get really lean and hard, i restrict calories ... I have done this on and off for a decade.

If i dont monitor my calories I could easily balloon up to 25% Body fat, but im mindful of calories. Even when im on a lot of T3, preg, aspirin, etc I still will gain body fat by eating more.

 

[Runenight201]

My take on CICO is that it’s too stringent. Who the hell wants to live their whole life counting calories.

I believe if you eat the right foods it’s irrelevant. You instinctively learn to trust your appetite and feed it life supporting nutritious foods.

CICO is for a world where people want to eat junk and get away with it.

 

[Cirion]

And that's why it continues to be believed, because it does "Work" in the sense of you can see results doing it. I would argue in your specific always see body fat gain because you never let your body properly heal from the stress of constantly doing what I call "yo-yo" dieting which is where you diet to get low on body fat, get relaxed on eating, gain body fat back again over time, and then diet again. I believe it was Lyle McDonald who said your hormones recover in just a week or two of taking a diet break, unfortunately that's not the case, it can take upwards of years to completely heal from decades of yo-yo dieting and abuse, and every time you diet again before the body is 100%, you cause more damage, more stress, which makes the body more predisposed to gain fat... yet again.

It could also be wrong food choices. You note you "eat whatever you want". Of course that will make you fat. I'm not giving people authority to eat "whatever they want". It has to be quality wholesome food. If you'll note, Matt Stone followers are usually obese, because they do just that "eat whatever they want". But by doing so you get bad fats (PUFAs), carrageenan gum, iron fortified foods, phytic acids, solanine, all sorts of stuff that trash your metabolism so of course you'll get fat doing that.

Just go to bodybuilding.com and you'll see the average IIFYM supporter eating junk food and often are proud of it and claim it doesn't matter what they put in their mouth as long as they count calories.

I knew a really big muscular dude that seemed to have it all together until he didn't, broke his body up really bad and had to have shoulder surgery. My opinion is it was due to too much peanut butter and other bad foods. He would take a massive scoop of peanut butter to his home made "gainer" shakes. Talk about a PUFA nightmare...

 

[Runenight201]

And that's why it continues to be believed, because it does "Work" in the sense of you can see results doing it. I would argue in your specific always see body fat gain because you never let your body properly heal from the stress of constantly doing what I call "yo-yo" dieting which is where you diet to get low on body fat, get relaxed on eating, gain body fat back again over time, and then diet again. I believe it was Lyle McDonald who said your hormones recover in just a week or two of taking a diet break, unfortunately that's not the case, it can take upwards of years to completely heal from decades of yo-yo dieting and abuse, and every time you diet again before the body is 100%, you cause more damage, more stress, which makes the body more predisposed to gain fat... yet again.

It could also be wrong food choices. You note you "eat whatever you want". Of course that will make you fat. I'm not giving people authority to eat "whatever they want". It has to be quality wholesome food. If you'll note, Matt Stone followers are usually obese, because they do just that "eat whatever they want". But by doing so you get bad fats (PUFAs), carrageenan gum, iron fortified foods, phytic acids, solanine, all sorts of stuff that trash your metabolism so of course you'll get fat doing that.

Lol Matt Stone got me into the most obese, disgusting period of my life. It sure feels great in the moment tho.

 

[Cirion]

Lol Matt Stone got me into the most obese, disgusting period of my life. It sure feels great in the moment tho.

I mean, I get to some degree why he recommends it, because a lot of people are orthorexic and have other eating disorders, and removing restrictions can be healing to a degree, especially if you've been calorie or macronutrient deprived. Unfortunately, it's ultimately misguided advice because it causes its own problems (as you found out).

And this is in fact why CICO has become so prevalent, is that most people who do eat like porkers don't have a lean body, which has falsely been correlated to say that too many calories are the problem. I mean, at face value, it seems reasonable. The problem is many people including myself have dramatically under-estimated the importance of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, etc. These things matter. These things keep you from getting fat. Most people don't wanna be told they can't have wheat, most candy bars, most desserts, or heck most food in general (very hard to find unadulterated food anywhere).

 

[boxers]

And that's why it continues to be believed, because it does "Work" in the sense of you can see results doing it. I would argue in your specific always see body fat gain because you never let your body properly heal from the stress of constantly doing what I call "yo-yo" dieting which is where you diet to get low on body fat, get relaxed on eating, gain body fat back again over time, and then diet again. I believe it was Lyle McDonald who said your hormones recover in just a week or two of taking a diet break, unfortunately that's not the case, it can take upwards of years to completely heal from decades of yo-yo dieting and abuse, and every time you diet again before the body is 100%, you cause more damage, more stress, which makes the body more predisposed to gain fat... yet again.

It could also be wrong food choices. You note you "eat whatever you want". Of course that will make you fat. I'm not giving people authority to eat "whatever they want". It has to be quality wholesome food. If you'll note, Matt Stone followers are usually obese, because they do just that "eat whatever they want". But by doing so you get bad fats (PUFAs), carrageenan gum, iron fortified foods, phytic acids, solanine, all sorts of stuff that trash your metabolism so of course you'll get fat doing that.

Just go to bodybuilding.com and you'll see the average IIFYM supporter eating junk food and often are proud of it and claim it doesn't matter what they put in their mouth as long as they count calories.

I knew a really big muscular dude that seemed to have it all together until he didn't, broke his body up really bad and had to have shoulder surgery. My opinion is it was due to too much peanut butter and other bad foods. He would take a massive scoop of peanut butter to his home made "gainer" shakes. Talk about a PUFA nightmare...

Well you do make some good points thats for sure

 

[Cirion]

I will concede that I won't be 100% confident in my beliefs until I prove it for myself / fix my health 100%. But I've tried the whole "CICO" model of approaching food and all it did was make me more unhealthy, more depressed, and more orthorexic, even when I was in the "best shape of my life". This forced me to start reconsidering the whole model of being lean = healthy as we normally understand it. We always think we have to "beat our body into submission" because it "wants to be fat given the chance", actually, contratry to popular opinion ,being fat is NOT the standard state of the human body, in fact the body tries not to be fat if it can avoid it, but the problem is with so much chronic stress between work, not enough sleep, an annoying spouse or friend or relative, and poor anti-metabolic foods, our body has no choice but to go into a survival mode where it will be apt to put on fat to keep us from dying. Get rid of the stressor, get rid of the fat. Unfortunately, for most people, we think we have to ADD stress to get rid of fat, which is the opposite of how it should be approached. Especially in the West, we abuse our bodies with 80-100 hr workweeks, no sleep, fast/junk food, never go on vacations, don't have meaningful relationships, and are surprised when we get fat. The last thing we need is more stress on top of the never ending stress that is modern life.

 

[bboone]

To quote Bill Burr: getting lean is hard, getting fat is effortless

i agree w your points (people complicate things too much, just eat more and exercise), but if you have good metabolism you'll find that it's way harder to actually get fat than lean down. coming from a calories in vs calories out mentality, you'll struggle to comprehend how come you're losing weight eating 5000 kcal a day on a 2700 tdee, weighing 180 lbs lol