Originally Posted by
Seattle Forrest
The fact that people (like @
Darth_Firebolt above) are able to lose weight
shows that it's diet and exercise, he lives in the same world of growth hormones in meat as everyone else.
That was exactly the point I was trying to make. Before putting numbers on it, I was just eating a cheeseburger for lunch, half a pizza for dinner, and 3 eggs with some biscuits for breakfast. After I got an accurate basal metabolic rate for my height, desired weight, and activity level (office worker at the time), I realized how far away from "right" my eating habits were. Getting an accurate number for calories burned per mile or minute of cycling was even harder. For my riding style I eventually figured out that I burn between 20 and 25 calories per mile at my average pace of 13-15 mph on the greenway. Using that number to calculate how far I needed to ride each week to offset any overeating I did really helped me lose weight fast. I finally figured out that 1800 calories was about what I could eat and have a net 0 day. If I ate 1500 and didn't ride, I would lose weight. If I ate 2200 and rode 20-40 miles, I would lose weight.
My job changed and I'm much more physically active throughout the day, and I can ride to work and back now so I'm not as worried about counting calories, but the act of losing 30 pounds in 3 months (2.5, really) gave me portion control that I never had before. I'm 6'0" and I weighed 215 on May 1, 2016. July 31 I weighed under 185. I weighed myself this morning before breakfast and I was at 182, so I'm actually a little lighter than I thought I was. For people that are more than 30 pounds overweight, simply counting calories can absolutely drop weight off their bodies. If you're already fairly in shape, you've already lost all of the "easy" weight, and it's going to require more discipline and macro percentage calculations, but the basic process is still the same. At that point, WHAT you eat starts to play more of a factor in losing weight than HOW MUCH you're eating.