wolfchild

I don't think anybody here is anti-cardio, and I don't recall anybody ever saying anything about giving up riding a bike or going hiking.

wolfchild

I love white rice, I eat a lot of it, it's my main source of carbs. My other carbs which I eat everyday are oatmeal and dried figs...Carbs are definitely not the enemy.

mcours2006

Losing weight and maintaining it is not easy, as a rule. Most people will struggle with this. Discipline is not easy. Postponing gratification is not easy. What is easy is to call all those people who are overweight or obese lazy, weak-minded, ignorant idiots who eat too much and move too little, because, after all, look how easy it was for you to attain the body you wanted, right? If you can do it anyone can. Is that it? Pllllease!

wolfchild

I agree...It's a lot easier to overeat chocolate chip cookies and oreo cookies then it is to overeat steak and potatoes. It's a lot easier to create an energy imbalance by guzzling soda pop than drinking black tea.

wolfchild

I realize that there are certain people out there who suffer from extreme obesity and it's very hard for them to loose weight....But for an average person who is only 10 or 15 or 20 pounds overweight it shouldn't be that hard, especially if they are a cyclist or a fitness buff.

AlmostTrick

Others have pointed out ways to tell, like how their clothes fit and how they feel. But I agree that weighing yourself is certainly a helpful way to monitor! Strictly speaking, it doesn't need to be done every day though, no matter what ones goals are. But of course it won't hurt. Personally, I just find seeing the same numbers boring.

Agreed, carbs aren't the enemy, but some are better for us than others.

Altimis

Rice (carb) itself, does not cause water retention unless you were glycogen depleted or serious imbalance salt-potossium.

As expected, you will gains back glycogen weight that bounded to water intake when you eat carb but not fluctuate more than 1-2lbs (1kg).

The real villain here that cause water retention was low fluids intake (of course, water, not sugar drinks), high salt intake, imbalance electrolytes from sweats and not fill it up.

I eat carb a lot, I eat a tons of sugar, I loved gummy bear jelly, its so yummy. I downed 180g of sugars the throat and not notice any bloat at all. I also downed 1.5 gallon of water a day.

Its took me 2 months for my body to adjust for water intake that much after I been "low water intake" for years. There no overnight fix.

KraneXL

Really? Then what of generalizations, summaries and averages? When you ask someone how they are feeling do you really want or need to know every minute by minute detail?Hence, one example against weighing too often.The "enemy" no. But when carbs are consumed you do need to proceed with caution.
Unless you're an olympic class athlete that's way to many carbs. Also, there is bloat (some show it a lot more than others). Just ask someone else for their objective opinion. Or better still, take a before/after photo.

mcours2006

Back on topic, here's an interesting short read:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/...aily/77584478/

And here are some less interesting longer reads:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4846305/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1002/oby.20946

Summary:
"The findings from prospective, longitudinal studies provide evidence that regular self‐weighing has been associated with weight loss and not with negative psychological outcomes."

I interpret the 'not with negative psychological outcomes' to mean that it, in fact, doesn't mess with your mind.

OBoile

Not if you use a little common sense.

OBoile

In my experience, I would say this depends on how many carbs you're eating normally. Increasing your intake tends to cause some temporary weight gain due to water. Cutting them causes temporary weight loss. Eating your normal amount causes no change.

OBoile

Neither of these will tell you as quickly, or as accurately as a scale.

AlmostTrick

True, which is more important if ones weight regularly fluctuates up and/or down more than a few pounds. Mine does not. Do I still need to weigh myself every day? Maybe just on days I eat rice?

OBoile

I never said you need to weigh yourself every day.

Amitoj

Please quote the original post that you refer. It makes it easier to discuss. In this case, you doubted my claim without quoting me. Don't be lazy.

Yes, that's what I implied. Thanks for clarifying it.

Correlation does not imply causation.

Case in point being the recent fall from grace of fish oil.

Yes, I dont eat just rice. I eat it with other food that has salt in it. But I love it so much that I binge on it once a week. Naturally, my weight would go up by 3-4 pounds the next day but then go back to its average value in a couple of days. Once I saw the pattern, I stopped worrying about the spike. And after some time, I stopped weighing myself every day.

AlmostTrick

Oops, "Should I weigh myself everyday" wasn't aimed only at you, and wasn't really meant as a serious question. Just trying to have a little light hearted fun here.

It wasn't out of laziness I didn't quote you. The claim seemed ridiculous to me, hence the reason I didn't want to call you out by name. But it still seemed worthy of mention, and comment.

Apparently I was wrong, and one can gain 3-4 pounds overnight from eating rice the day before. I learned something on BF today!

Amitoj

Still incorrect. What you have learnt is that there is a user on BF whose weight fluctuates if he eats a certain type of food. Anything other than that, I don't know where you are getting that from.

Seattle Forrest

Nobody (except you) said one can gain 3 to 4 pounds overnight.

Seattle Forrest

The last time I tried to eat Ben & Jerry's was about two months ago. It was a day I had skied ~15 fast miles. (Nordic skiing is like a cross between running and road cycling.) I had burned off a lot of glycogen and wanted to put some sugar back into me to replenish it with. Anyway, I got through about 1/5 pint, I just physically couldn't eat any more. When I was a kid, I could eat table sugar by the spoonful, but I lost it somewhere along the way, too much sugar turns my stomach. (For what it's worth, I can do Haagan Daaz; Ben & Jerry's is just too sickly sweet.)

But most of the world doesn't seem to have that problem. So I shouldn't be drawing conclusions from my own experience here.

AlmostTrick

Seattle Forrest

Crap. Apologies.

KraneXL

I've managed to cut out all processed foods but I'm still addicted to carbs (fruit juices) and they remain my biggest challenge to date. I eat complex carb too but even they can add up.

To my credit I've managed to cut consumption of the juices in half (50/50 juice/water mix), but I haven't yet been able to cut them out completely. I've tried several times but just end up suffering extreme withdrawal systems and feel miserable.

As fir obesity in America, its not just the over consumption, but the sedentary lifestyle that goes with it. I've seen teenagers wait for the elevator to go down one floor.

bbbean 

Context is everything. If your body is used to a high carb diet, some extra rice is only relevant in terms of the calories. However, if you are on a lower carb diet, throwing a dose of high GI carbs into the mix without some sort of activity to burn them off (i.e. a race or big ride) will cause you to gain weight for a day or two.

That's not the same as saying rice causes weight gain. However, the impact of added carbs to short term blood sugar and fat storage is well known.

bbbean 

And yet the western world is full of people trying to lose those 10-20 lbs.

If you have the self-discipline, metabolism, and body chemistry to be able to easily lose weight, I salute you. I can only assume you are a perfect physical specimen. But you should be able to look at the numbers and see that you are an anomaly. Weight maintenance is a highly complex and overdetermined phenomenon, and there are a host of behavioral and societal issues involved, to say nothing of individual genetics, body chemistry, etc.

Certainly the vast majority of people could lose weight with a few tweaks of their diet and activity level. But that's not the same as saying it would be easy.

bbbean 

Interestingly, those are all made up of data. Its hard to generalize, summarize, or average an n of 1.