How to lose fat for Noobs

[MindYourStrep]

I disagree with 3 statements you made, but are of a similar nature.

1) Ketogenic diets have the advantage of lowered insulin levels. Insulin increases fatty acid synthesis and esterification in adipose tissues. The reverse is also true; decreased insulin reverses the synthesis of "fat". This can also be achieved in a much more healthier manner (see below).

1b) This is why it is recommended to not eat many carbs in the morning. Since insulin levels are low overnight, carbs cause hyperglycemic conditions, which leads to a spike of regular insulin synthesis oscillations, causing the above conditions. You should either eat proteins/fats in the morning, or eat something very small a half hour before you eat your real breakfast. This will cause insulin production to increase to handle the carbs without the deleterious insulin spike.

2) Increased protein intake has been shown to increase weight loss in mice.

I can point you to the scientific evidence if necessary, but unfortunately as with scientific literature, it is filled with technical jargon. I do believe this to be a significant factor in weight loss; the effects of insulin on losing weight are very well studied.

Other than those points I like the read. I think mine are a bit more picky for people who need to lose more than just a few pounds.

[Insight]

I disagree with 3 statements you made, but are of a similar nature.

1) Ketogenic diets have the advantage of lowered insulin levels. Insulin increases fatty acid synthesis and esterification in adipose tissues. The reverse is also true; decreased insulin reverses the synthesis of "fat". This can also be achieved in a much more healthier manner (see below).

This sounds good in theory, but has not been shown to have the long-term effect you would expect (greater fat loss for keto diets) in practice. There are other hormones involved in lipogenesis than just insulin (namely ASP).

Check out some of the following references:

Das SK, et al. Long-term effects of 2 energy-restricted diets differing in glycemic load on dietary adherence, body composition, and metabolism in CALERIE: a 1-y randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Apr;85(4):1023-30.

Aston LM, et al. No effect of a diet with a reduced glycaemic index on satiety, energy intake and body weight in overweight and obese women. Int J Obes (Lond). 2008 Jan;32(1):160-5.

Sichieri R, et al. An 18-mo randomized trial of a low-glycemic-index diet and weight change in Brazilian women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Sep;86(3):707-13.

Raatz SK et al. Reduced glycemic index and glycemic load diets do not increase the effects of energy restriction on weight loss and insulin sensitivity in obese men and women. J Nutr. 2005 Oct;135(10):2387-91.

More reading:

Raben A. Should obese patients be counselled to follow a low-glycaemic index diet? No. Obes Rev. 2002 Nov;3(4):245-56.

Pi-Sunyer FX. Glycemic index and disease. Am J Clin Nutr. 2002 Jul;76(1):290S-8S

Important points on the shortcomings of GI manipulation in the fitness/BBing population.

1b) This is why it is recommended to not eat many carbs in the morning. Since insulin levels are low overnight, carbs cause hyperglycemic conditions, which leads to a spike of regular insulin synthesis oscillations, causing the above conditions. You should either eat proteins/fats in the morning, or eat something very small a half hour before you eat your real breakfast. This will cause insulin production to increase to handle the carbs without the deleterious insulin spike.

See above. Note also that protein causes an elevation in insulin levels as well.

2) Increased protein intake has been shown to increase weight loss in mice.

Not at the expense of energy balance, I would expect. If the two groups were fed isocaloric diets with varying protein composition, I would expect greater fat loss in the high-protein due to both the preservation of lean mass as well as the greater thermic effect of the protein. But keeping carbs and fat the same and upping protein will likely not lead to greater fat loss, I would wager - unless there was a serious protein deficiency before.

I can point you to the scientific evidence if necessary, but unfortunately as with scientific literature, it is filled with technical jargon. I do believe this to be a significant factor in weight loss; the effects of insulin on losing weight are very well studied.

Other than those points I like the read. I think mine are a bit more picky for people who need to lose more than just a few pounds.

You will find that nobody in this group is afraid of the literature

[Mehakever]

Does anyone else store a lot of fat in their chest? Or is that just how it is for males (females store a lot of fat in their lower bodies)?

Mostly stomach and thigh area. For me anyway...

[MindYourStrep]

Well, every one of those articles deal with "Glycemic Index", which is not equitable with carbohydrate intake, nor even insulin index. Carbohydrates (exception: dietary fiber) are going to cause your insulin levels to rise; other sources of energy will not. Regardless of GI, II, etc. Some of your articles are of a fairly low sample size with a low adherence, which is important because many of those articles show that there is a difference in weight loss at early stages.

So here is a list of literature I've compiled on Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diets. As you can see they are fairly recent and from very reputable sources.


content.nejm[REMOVE THIS].org[REMOVE THIS]/cgi/content/short/359/3/229
(2008, NEJM, 322 subjects)


jama.ama-assn[REMOVE THIS].org[REMOVE THIS]/cgi/content/full/297/9/969
(2007, JAMA, 311 subjects)

aje.oxfordjournals[REMOVE THIS].org[REMOVE THIS]/cgi/content/abstract/161/4/359
(AJE, 2005, 572 subjects)

"In conclusion, results from our study suggest that daily dietary glycemic index is independently and positively associated with BMI [Body Mass Index]. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that with increased glycemic index, more insulin is produced and more fat is stored, suggesting that type of carbohydrate may be related to body weight. Our data did not support the current public trend of lowering total carbohydrate intake for weight loss or of lowering glycemic load for weight loss, as suggested by other researchers."


I can get more but it's really quality, not quantity.

I'm not advertising for LCKD, just for correct information.

[godsangina2]

Just got injured in middle of cut, should I keep cutting without lifting or eat to maintenence till I heal Wave_length?

[Spire]

Just got injured in middle of cut, should I keep cutting without lifting or eat to maintenence till I heal Wave_length?

From my personal experience, if I'm cutting at more than a 500 deficit, I need to keep lifting heavy to stop (or minimalise) loss of LBM.

If I had to take a few weeks off, I would opt for either maintaining my weight, or working at a deficit of about 250 or so. That's fairly low deficit, which means you're not setting yourself too far back in terms of fat loss, but also not killing off the much needed LBM.

[Insight]

Well, every one of those articles deal with "Glycemic Index", which is not equitable with carbohydrate intake

They also deal with "glycemic load," which is in fact dependent on the amount of carbohydrate eaten. That's the whole point of using GL as a marker for blood glucose levels vs using GI - it's more accurate because of that reason.

nor even insulin index.

OK, but this contradicts your later statement here:

"In conclusion, results from our study suggest that daily dietary glycemic index is independently and positively associated with BMI [Body Mass Index]. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that with increased glycemic index, more insulin is produced and more fat is stored, suggesting that type of carbohydrate may be related to body weight. Our data did not support the current public trend of lowering total carbohydrate intake for weight loss or of lowering glycemic load for weight loss, as suggested by other researchers."

Carbohydrates (exception: dietary fiber) are going to cause your insulin levels to rise; other sources of energy will not.

Protein will cause an elevation in insulin as well. Note that one of the reasons that II and GI diverge so strongly (e.g. in the case of milk) is that the protein in milk causes additional insulinogenesis.

Regardless of GI, II, etc. Some of your articles are of a fairly low sample size with a low adherence, which is important because many of those articles show that there is a difference in weight loss at early stages.

So here is a list of literature I've compiled on Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diets. As you can see they are fairly recent and from very reputable sources.


content.nejm[REMOVE THIS].org[REMOVE THIS]/cgi/content/short/359/3/229
(2008, NEJM, 322 subjects)

Well, for starters, the diets in this study aren't isocaloric. That itself places some pretty strong limitations on what we can extrapolate from this study. The other thing is that we're dealing with self-reported energy intake - the obese population that this study examines has been shown to severely underreport this.

Note that after 2 years, we're dealing with losses of 4.7kg in the low-carb group and 2.9kg in the low-fat group. That's about 10 lbs after 2 years for the low-carb group and 6.38 lbs for the low-fat group. This is for a group of people in which the men were supposedly eating 1800 cals a day and the women eating 1500 cals a day.

Studies in which these variables are more tightly controlled do not generally show any advantage for low-carb diets, after the initial loss of water and glycogen is accounted for.

See Ketogenic low-carbohydrate diets have no metabolic advantage over nonketogenic low-carbohydrate diets. Note that the "nonketogenic low-carb diet" has ~157g of carbs per day, which is hardly "low carb" in most folks' eyes.

jama.ama-assn[REMOVE THIS].org[REMOVE THIS]/cgi/content/full/297/9/969
(2007, JAMA, 311 subjects)

This is, again, a free-living study. Participants were actively coached for their assigned diet for the first 2 months, and then left alone to apply what they had learned. They were not force-fed food as in some sort of clinical situation, but basically left to apply what they had learned in an ad libitum sense. Energy intake was assessed by assisted self-reporting of data, which is still fairly unreliable.

The point of this study was basically to assess how effective they are - from a psychological standpoint as well - after 12 months. How effective is the Atkins "methodology" vs Ornish and Zone for people to follow in "real world" situations? How easy are the diets to adhere to?

Note that adherence for the four diets varied significantly and generally waned over time. You cannot take a study which was meant, in part, to assess variations in dietary adherance and make biochemical extrapolations about insulin from it.

aje.oxfordjournals[REMOVE THIS].org[REMOVE THIS]/cgi/content/abstract/161/4/359
(AJE, 2005, 572 subjects)

"In conclusion, results from our study suggest that daily dietary glycemic index is independently and positively associated with BMI [Body Mass Index]. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that with increased glycemic index, more insulin is produced and more fat is stored, suggesting that type of carbohydrate may be related to body weight. Our data did not support the current public trend of lowering total carbohydrate intake for weight loss or of lowering glycemic load for weight loss, as suggested by other researchers."

This study seems to be contradicts your other point, which is that GI doesn't have anything to do with it, and that it's carbohydrate intake that matters. Furthermore - this is an epidemiological study from 2005 that found a correlation between self-reported GI intake and BMI. This is hardly applicable to anything, as the study authors themselves are aware. Note the last two sentences that you left off from that paragraph you quoted:

These results add valuable information about the role of glycemic index, glycemic load, carbohydrates, and management of body weight and about the potential prevention of obesity. However, further research is needed to deepen understanding of the relation between body weight and dietary carbohydrates.

This is also reflected in the study abstract:

Results suggest that the type of carbohydrate may be related to body weight. However, further research is required to elucidate this association and its implications for weight management.

Later on, people went on and actually did that "further research" into the relationship between GI/GL and bodyweight, and I gave you four references from that research in my last post. Cliffs: the advocacy of low-GL as a dietary requirement in a weight-loss regime turns out to be neither warranted nor helpful.

[DepDaddy]

Hopefully someone can help...

Story in a nutshell...I was 195 lbs, 5'7...nice sized gut. I cut calories and lost 35 lbs in 3 months. Once at 160lbs I started on a weight training program with a goal of gaining lean mass and maintaining current weight, losing body fat, but content to reach 170. I am at 13.5% body fat and want to get in the single digits, lose the rest of the gut and see the ab definition. I am now currently at 167lbs. Sure that some of that weight gain is muscle, as I have been hitting the weights about 3-5 days a week, but the rest of the gut will not go away.

How do you gain the lean mass yet still lose the fat? Everything I have read states that you have to eat big to gain mass, but how do you increase the calories to gain the mass, but lose the fat? I'm almost ready to start cutting again to get down to 150 - 155, but nervous about losing the muscle I have gained. I consume about 160 - 170 grams of protein a day, both in whey and food...keep carbs and fat low...but still strugglin'. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks!

[beatso]

Hi guys.

just like to say this is an amazing post.
a friend of mine pointed me out to it.

i've been following the steps provided and i am starting to feel and notice the difference.

i just have a few questions id like to ask.

im 5.8" weigh 161lbs. and according to the scales at my gym i have 13% body fat.
but i still have a some ab fat..

what i tend to do is lift mon / wed / fri

on monday i do shoulders + arms.
Wednesday Chest, back and abs
friday legs lower back and abs.

with cardio on a tuesday and thursday.

does that routine seem ok ? or should i be looking at more full body work outs instead of specific muscle groups.

im also on a cut of 1500 calories a day, with two cheat meals at the weekend.

any pointers would be very appreciate.
thanks

[Insight]

How do you gain the lean mass yet still lose the fat? Everything I have read states that you have to eat big to gain mass, but how do you increase the calories to gain the mass, but lose the fat? I'm almost ready to start cutting again to get down to 150 - 155, but nervous about losing the muscle I have gained. I consume about 160 - 170 grams of protein a day, both in whey and food...keep carbs and fat low...but still strugglin'. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks!

I was in the same boat as you a year ago. What I learned - don't eat big to gain lean mass. I was eating like 4000 cals/day (and of "clean food" no less) and gained an assload of fat in a pretty short time. I might have gained like 3-4 lbs of muscle and 11-12 lbs of fat in like a month and a half. The next time I bulk it's going to be at a 500 cal surplus or less.

But if you want to recomp, why not try a calorie cycling thing? More cals on training days, less on off days, make it so your weight stays the same (or slowly goes down), etc. A lot of people on the nutrition forum are into that these days.

[Stendec]

I was in the same boat as you a year ago. What I learned - don't eat big to gain lean mass. I was eating like 4000 cals/day (and of "clean food" no less) and gained an assload of fat in a pretty short time. I might have gained like 3-4 lbs of muscle and 11-12 lbs of fat in like a month and a half. The next time I bulk it's going to be at a 500 cal surplus or less.

But if you want to recomp, why not try a calorie cycling thing? More cals on training days, less on off days, make it so your weight stays the same (or slowly goes down), etc. A lot of people on the nutrition forum are into that these days.

So just a quick question: is recomp really as simple as that? More cals on training days, less on non training days, keep protein levels the same (I'm assuming this), and monitor weight and strength.

Just to satisfy the OCD in all of us, I suppose we could average out the weekly calories?

I'm kinda interested in recomping. I've lost a **** load of weight (80 lbs) but I feel all soft and quite frankly, very small. I've still got a little bit to lose but don't want to get softer. I'm thinking recomping until the end of the year is the way to go.

[Insight]

So just a quick question: is recomp really as simple as that? More cals on training days, less on non training days, keep protein levels the same (I'm assuming this), and monitor weight and strength.

Just to satisfy the OCD in all of us, I suppose we could average out the weekly calories?

I'm kinda interested in recomping. I've lost a **** load of weight (80 lbs) but I feel all soft and quite frankly, very small. I've still got a little bit to lose but don't want to get softer. I'm thinking recomping until the end of the year is the way to go.

There are a lot of ways to recomp. The simplest is to just eat at maintenance calories every day and time some protein and carbs around your workout, which will basically split the day into mini-anabolic and catabolic "phases."

Then all of these carb/calorie cycling variants are basically set up to widen the metabolic gap between those phases and (in theory) make the whole process more effective. You have the IF approach, in which the first half of the day is catabolic and the second half is anabolic. Then you have the calorie cycling approach, where you make some days more anabolic and other days more catabolic. Then you have the UD2-style approach, where the first half of the week is catabolic and the second half is anabolic. Then you have the approach where you spend a few weeks bulking and a few weeks cutting. And then, to take it to an extreme, you have the bulk/cut approach, where the anabolic/catabolic cycles last several months.

I haven't really tested all of these personally so I can't comment, but that's a bit of the theory behind them. The "more cals on training days and less on off days" variant seems to be especially popular. The latest trend is Martin Berkhan's Leangains method, which is a mixture of IF and the aforementioned variant.

[MindYourStrep]

Post

I can't quote your whole post because of the link posting restrictions. It is still my opinion that insulin is a significant player in weight loss; but I really can't expend anymore energy debating this now as I know we'll just go back and forth with source after source.

I think we agree that the jury is still out since these studies will always have inconsistencies and adherence issues. I did find some studies regarding lab rats which seems to support my view (upon only reading the abstracts), but I'm sure given a few minutes you can find one that opposes it. I'm very familiar on the molecular biochemistry of insulin and its physiological role; but issues with diet adherence and other uncontrolled variables will keep us from a definitive answer for a few more years. In theory, I should be right. But as you pointed out, there are many other factors involved with weightloss.

This also supports the fact that everyone has a unique biochemistry, and keto may be more effective calorie-restricted diets for some people, and versa-vice. For some personal experience; I know that I respond very well to keto (in terms of weight loss), although I am on a calorie-restricted diet due to other health concerns about keto.

[sportyaccordy]

I was in the same boat as you a year ago. What I learned - don't eat big to gain lean mass. I was eating like 4000 cals/day (and of "clean food" no less) and gained an assload of fat in a pretty short time. I might have gained like 3-4 lbs of muscle and 11-12 lbs of fat in like a month and a half. The next time I bulk it's going to be at a 500 cal surplus or less.

I feel like this is a rite of passage for all bodybuilders. I had a pig out bulk too and hit my highest weight ever (205 lbs). I'm just off a relatively successful cut and bulking again, and I think this time I will be able to make solid gains while remaining relatively lean. I'm already much stronger than I was at my heaviest weight, so I think I'm off to a good start....

[BigBalledOX]

Almost afraid to post here but I guess I might as well ask and get more knowledgeable people's opinions . . .

Me: 6'4", about four bills, not currently sure of body comp - I need to do some measurements etc but I'm assuming its at least 35 percent - but, I think I have a pretty "big" frame. I've pretty much been badly overweight my entire life and I really, really want to change that. I'm not entirely new to lifting or sports, I played football in high school and a couple years ago I got real serious about lifting and eating clean and dropped a considerable amount of weight, then fell off the wagon, went back to eating garbage, and fattened right back up, but anyways, I'm not a total gym novice though I am no expert either.

My plan is (was?) to lift five days a week for 45 minutes to an hour, work in 30 minutes of cardio (right now I'm still building to that, I'm just gassed after lifting), and change up my diet to getting about 1800-2000 calories daily . . . which I thought sounded like a good plan for quickly losing weight.

Now that I've been reading in this thread, I'm starting to have second thoughts though. Clearly at my current weight, my maintenance is much higher than 2000 calories a day. But since I've made the changes to my eating habits over the last couple days I've never felt hungry, and I don't want to eat that many calories any more anyways, I felt bloated and lacked energy and just generally was miserable on what I was eating before. Granted, I didn't track calories beforehand and clearly I was still exceeding maintenance as I was still gaining weight, but still, I've sort of reached a "tipping point" where I just got disgusted with myself and how I was living and abusing myself.

Based on everything I've read in here, I'm suddenly questioning if what I'm doing is going to be successful in the long-term or not. I really want to lose as much weight as quickly as I can (like everyone does I'm sure) but I didn't know if me being so overweight would make me something of an exception to the rules outlined in the first post of this damn good thread or what? I don't really have a "goal weight" in mind because I don't really know what a healthy weight for me would be since I've never really been at it, but I'd love to get body fat down to 15 percent and kinda go from there.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions or just wants to chip in their two cents, it would be greatly appreciated.

[godsangina2]

I was in the same boat as you a year ago. What I learned - don't eat big to gain lean mass. I was eating like 4000 cals/day (and of "clean food" no less) and gained an assload of fat in a pretty short time. I might have gained like 3-4 lbs of muscle and 11-12 lbs of fat in like a month and a half. The next time I bulk it's going to be at a 500 cal surplus or less.

But if you want to recomp, why not try a calorie cycling thing? More cals on training days, less on off days, make it so your weight stays the same (or slowly goes down), etc. A lot of people on the nutrition forum are into that these days.

Eat big to get big, but you have to exercise properly which you didn't.

[sportyaccordy]

BigBalledOX you've already taken the first step which is good. I would say find out what your maintenance is and eat 500-700 cals less. You might even be able to get away with 1000 cals less, but it's important to start slow.

Also don't be afraid to count calories. You might think you're in a deficit but you may really not be. It's important to diligently keep track and know how much you're supposed to eat.

If you're grossly overweight I think the first 30-40lbs will come off easily. Just find out how much you have to eat and go from there.

[Insight]

I can't quote your whole post because of the link posting restrictions. It is still my opinion that insulin is a significant player in weight loss; but I really can't expend anymore energy debating this now as I know we'll just go back and forth with source after source.

That opinion is simply not supported in the literature. If weight loss were about keeping insulin within a certain range, that would be all over the research done with this, and it's not.

They actually tested your hypothesis as a strategy for managing obesity - see the following study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17587399
Diabetes Obes Metab. 2007 Jul;9(4):566-74.
No effect of inhibition of insulin secretion by diazoxide on weight loss in hyperinsulinaemic obese subjects during an 8-week weight-loss diet.

Due A, Flint A, Eriksen G, Møller B, Raben A, Hansen JB, Astrup A.

Department of Human Nutrition, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, DK-1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark. adue@kvl.dk

The cliffs for this study are that they drugged up obese participants with a drug called diazoxide, which inhibits the secretion of insulin. Insulin levels went down, and weight did not. The primary finding from this study is that chronic hyperinsulinemia follows obesity, not the other way around.

I think we agree that the jury is still out since these studies will always have inconsistencies and adherence issues. I did find some studies regarding lab rats which seems to support my view (upon only reading the abstracts), but I'm sure given a few minutes you can find one that opposes it. I'm very familiar on the molecular biochemistry of insulin and its physiological role; but issues with diet adherence and other uncontrolled variables will keep us from a definitive answer for a few more years.

No. The point of this isn't to just throw studies back and forth. You sent research my way, and I read every bit of it, full text and all. None of the research you sent was actually applicable to your physiological theory, for the reasons I mentioned above. You can't take a study meant to assess the ease of adherence and psychological effectiveness of different diet protocols and extrapolate about how insulin works based on it.

In theory, I should be right. But as you pointed out, there are many other factors involved with weightloss.

In theory, you should not be right. On a fundamental level, what you are saying would violate the first law of thermodynamics. If you could actually gain weight while in a caloric deficit because of insulin spiking - where would the energy to synthesize the fat actually come from, and how would it all work out at the end of the day?

Would BMR be downregulated in the presence of insulin spikes? Would protein be taken out of muscle and oxidized?

For fat to actually be continually stored in the presence of a caloric deficit, one of those things would have to happen - either BMR would have to be lowered enough that you're not in a deficit anymore, or energy would have to come from muscle and/or glycogen stores and get stored in the adipose.

There's no evidence for either of these claims in the literature. The exact opposite is true for the first claim, in fact. What happens in reality is that fat might be stored for a little bit in the short term, but if you're in a caloric deficit that same fat will be burned off by the end of the day.

[Insight]

Eat big to get big, but you have to exercise properly which you didn't.

I went on all pro's routine, stickied in the workout programs section, and stuck with it to a T for months. Are you really going to make the argument that the only routine that works is starting strength?

[godsangina2]

I went on all pro's routine, stickied in the workout programs section, and stuck with it to a T for months. Are you really going to make the argument that the only routine that works is starting strength?

Yup, unless there's another routine that has you adding 30lbs to your squat a week in which case that will work fine too.

[DepDaddy]

I was in the same boat as you a year ago. What I learned - don't eat big to gain lean mass. I was eating like 4000 cals/day (and of "clean food" no less) and gained an assload of fat in a pretty short time. I might have gained like 3-4 lbs of muscle and 11-12 lbs of fat in like a month and a half. The next time I bulk it's going to be at a 500 cal surplus or less.

But if you want to recomp, why not try a calorie cycling thing? More cals on training days, less on off days, make it so your weight stays the same (or slowly goes down), etc. A lot of people on the nutrition forum are into that these days.

That's not a bad idea...It's kind of tough for me though, as I play competitive baseball, and my off days are generally on the days I have baseball games. I try to pack on a few extra carbs on those days to sustain energy levels.

Granted, I know that baseball is not the most active sport in the world, except for the 4 times you get up to bat and the 10 plays a game that come your way.

But you are dead on...I KNOW I have gain mass because I see the definition, however I also see where my gut wants to reform. My chest, arms, back, traps and legs are growing well, but that damn gut is stubborn as hell!!

Thanks for the advice. Will try your suggestion.

[sportyaccordy]

There's no evidence for either of these claims in the literature. The exact opposite is true for the first claim, in fact. What happens in reality is that fat might be stored for a little bit in the short term, but if you're in a caloric deficit that same fat will be burned off by the end of the day.

I will go further and say in a high enough caloric deficit this process probably doesn't even take place as the body is too busy using whatever you ingest in its BMR

Why waste energy processing food to be stored as fat when you're not getting enough calories to begin with.... it would be like starting a rainy day fund when you don't have enough money to pay rent

[BaseJumper]

Not trying to be an a$$, people, but I wonder if this thread isn't getting too much into details and advanced diet techniques. How will a noob feel when he reads the last 100 posts? I guess it's a lot of information, even for people like me, who are less noobs.

[th3pwn3r]

Not trying to be an a$$, people, but I wonder if this thread isn't getting too much into details and advanced diet techniques. How will a noob feel when he reads the last 100 posts? I guess it's a lot of information, even for people like me, who are less noobs.

The noobs AND advanced BB'ers still need to follow the 3 rules for the most part with the exception of training.

[sheikhar]

Prett noob question btw......But how do u keep track of your calorie intake?

[dirtywork102]

Love this thread. Lots of awesome information!

[th3pwn3r]

Prett noob question btw......But how do u keep track of your calorie intake?

You read the nutrition facts and from the serving sizes you decide upon you would add up everything together and that's how much you've consumed. People use sites like Fitday on here BUT I keep track of everything I consume in my head which is pretty easy since I'm not completely retarded.

[Jpm0887]

Prett noob question btw......But how do u keep track of your calorie intake?

I use livestrong.com

[joetehbilly]

Hey guys, I was just wondering, how long should I be working out each day? Considering I don't have access to a gym yet and that I'm 6'0 and 145 lbs. I'm trying to get rid of this excess fat on my stomach.

[sportyaccordy]

Not trying to be an a$$, people, but I wonder if this thread isn't getting too much into details and advanced diet techniques. How will a noob feel when he reads the last 100 posts? I guess it's a lot of information, even for people like me, who are less noobs.

I think this is a valid complaint... none of the discussion really has to do with the 3 rules