Weight Loss : the first 20 is the easiest?

[gt6267a]

A number of times on this board, we have talked about weight loss. Why do we finish the pint of ice cream, have the third piece of cheesecake, or … One thought that never seems to get discussed, why is that it is easier to loose the first 20lbs than the last 20lbs?

At a certain height / weight isn’t the number of calories burned known, number of calories eaten knowable, and therefore the ability to control the difference known? If one keeps the difference the same throughout, shouldn’t weight less be a linear process? No one seems to talk about it as such.

Tboughts?

[big shanty]

My guess is that if you go from nearly sedentary to fairly active, you lose a lot of weight initially because your calorie expenditure is increased, and your intake probably does not increase much because you are being very fastidious about what you eat, as you are just beginning the weight loss process. Also, the extra weight you are carrying around is, in effect, acting as ankle/a*s weights, so your calorie expenditure for a given distance of walking/running/biking is higher than it would be if you weren't carrying that weight around. As you get more fit, you may increase your calorie intake to "fuel" your efforts, maybe more than necessary?? If I knew the keys to weight loss plateaus, I would be rolling around in a pile of money instead of reading a bike discussion board!!

[SoCalSteve]

A number of times on this board, we have talked about weight loss. Why do we finish the pint of ice cream, have the third piece of cheesecake, or … One thought that never seems to get discussed, why is that it is easier to loose the first 20lbs than the last 20lbs?

At a certain height / weight isn’t the number of calories burned known, number of calories eaten knowable, and therefore the ability to control the difference known? If one keeps the difference the same throughout, shouldn’t weight less be a linear process? No one seems to talk about it as such.

Tboughts?

Weight Watchers is a great place for this. Their "point" system takes all of this into account and when you excercise, it gives you "bonus" points.

It truly does work and the best part is that you can eat whatever food you want...As long as you know the calorie/fat/fiber content.

www.weighwatchers.com to read about it.

Good luck,

Steve

[Xyzzy]

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

I went from 280# to 150#, safely, using this "diet". I am 6' tall.

I'm currently at 205# right now but plan to be back at 165# this summer and 150# by fall. I injured my knee last summer which effectively took me off the bike and didn't change my diet to reflect the reduced exercise. I also have been dealing with some medication issues. (I have bipolar disorder.)

I started my "diet" on January 1st, at 215#.

Useful tool:

http://www.physicsdiet.com/

There are no mysteries to weight loss. The initial weight loss a lot of people see is water weight.

I gained 65# in about 4 months of inactivity. It will take me 2-3x as long to lose it. Had I not been so depressed and overly medicated, I would have caught the weight gain early on. The charts and graphs that the Hacker Diet uses predicts future weight gains and helps you adjust your intake.

[dgauthier]

(. . . ) One thought that never seems to get discussed, why is that it is easier to loose the first 20lbs than the last 20lbs?

At a certain height / weight isn’t the number of calories burned known, number of calories eaten knowable, and therefore the ability to control the difference known? If one keeps the difference the same throughout, shouldn’t weight less be a linear process? (. . . )

The reason is that weight loss *isn't* a linear process. As you lose weight, your body burns fewer calories, both when resting and when active.

Your basal metabolic rate (the amount of calories your body consumes keeping itself alive) varies with body weight. It requires more energy to keep 250 pounds of flesh alive than it does to keep 175 pounds of flesh alive. Light people require fewer calories to stay alive than heavy people.

In addition, when you exercise, a light body burns fewer calories than a heavy body. This is especially true for a sport like cycling, where so much of the workload involves moving one's own weight around; as you lose weight, you burn fewer calories on any given route.

You *could* lose weight in a linear fashion - if you could keep your caloric deficit constant. However, since your body is burning ever fewer and fewer calories as it loses weight, keeping a constant caloric deficit would require performing ever greater and greater amounts of exercise and/or consuming ever smaller and smaller amounts of food. This is, of course, undesireable, and would eventually lead to overtraining and starvation.

It is healthier, and more natural and practical, to consume a fairly constant amount of calories and expend a fairly constant amount of calories. Under these conditions, body weight wil fall (or rise) as appropriate, until a level of balance is eventually reached that eliminates any caloric deficit (or surplus).