The Arithmetic of Weight Loss

Weight loss is simple when you know these numbers:

1) It takes 150 minutes of cardio per week to lose weight.

2) 3500 calories burned above consumption will burn one pound of fat.

3) Every 500 calories below your BMR will result in one pound of weight loss.

4) The USDA recommends 2000 calories per day of consumption.

Everything else you've ever read or heard is poppy**** I have used these numbers to lose 38 pounds in just 3 1/2 months. I use myfitnesspal.com to track my food and exercise. After that it's just a matter of DISCIPLINE, and THAT my friends is what makes it so hard.

That sounds nice.

While the USDA recommends 2000 calories per day for an adult, for years I exercised and ate fewer than 2000 calories a day and never lost weight. I found out why. It had nothing to do with discipline.

It was my resting metabolic rate. My body turns calories to fat if I consume more than 1100 calories a day.

For most people, that would be an incredibly restrictive diet - one that most doctors would never recommend.

I'm glad you found something that works for you, but for many of us, it isn't that simple. BTW - let us know how long you can keep that 38.5 pounds off for.

I'm down at total of 150 in 2.5 years. I'm good with that.

Knitter, 150 pounds gone is quite an achievement. Congratulations. I still have a long way to go myself, about another 120 pounds or so so my journey continues. I'm sorry about your condition but it seems like you have obviously found a way to deal with it.

Assuming that you have maintained your weight for a period of time why do you think it would be any different for me?

Great information it is. Thanks for sharing this.

Uh, thanks doc. Wish I would have known my over eating from depression and PTSD was just a lack of discipline instead. Also should put a bulletin out for people with binge eating disorder that they are just not disciplined enough.

Mershmellow,

I too suffer from depression and I also believe that much of my weight gain was due to depression because I overeat when depressed, but I now control that with meds, and I started on the psychological before starting my weight loss. As for Binge Eating Disorder, I graduated college with a degree in Psychology, so I'm guessing that binge eating disorder is one of those diagnoses that exists to remove personal responsibility from the equation. There are more and more of those with each revision of DSM. If that sounds cynical, I'm sorry but is doesn't make it any less true. Discipline IS the hard part because if it came naturally none of us would need to lose weight.

I started my journey because after returning form the grocery store one Saturday morning I tore into a bag of chips around noontime, and when I reached into the bag at 5 PM there was nothing left. I got an appointment with my doctor the next week and I told her that she needed to refer me over the the Weight Reduction Center in our community right away and then the journey began. My starting weight was 454 and this past Friday I weighed in at 374. My daughter called today from out of state to give me her travel dates for Christmas; the plan being to lose 9 more pounds before she walk through the gate. When that happens that 365 will be a weight that I haven't weighed since she was born 22 years ago. It's going to happen.

Good luck on your continued journey.

Sooooo depression is real but binge eating disorder is a myth?

Guess he couldn't discipline himself out of depression, eh?

Having two degrees in psychology, one of which is a graduate degree in clinical psychology, I find your definition of binge eating disorder ignorant at best and dangerous at worst. It is also scientifically and medically inaccurate. Having a degree in psychology means little to nothing about understanding the pathology of mental illness; it's clinical experience and dissemination which gives one insight into disorders.

At any rate, binge eating disorder has nothing to do with willpower, and also nothing to do with food, any more than anorexia does, or bulimia does.

I totally agree with Donna. I have a master's in counseling psychology, and I would totally defer to the clinical psychologists on this one. People with graduate degrees in clinical psych, that is. I don't think the OP knows what he/she is talking about.