Friday, August 5, 2016

Lose weight to increase value

If you want to figure out how to increase your SMV/MMV, you can easily pick up a point or two by losing weight:
There's no doubt about it: Americans are getting heavier and heavier. But new U.S. estimates may still come as a shock -- since the late 1980s and early 1990s, the average American has put on 15 or more additional pounds without getting any taller.

Even 11-year-old kids aren't immune from this weight plague, the study found. Girls are more than seven pounds heavier even though their height is the same. Boys gained an inch in height, but also packed on an additional 13.5 pounds compared to two decades ago...

According to the report, the average weight of men in the United States rose from 181 pounds to 196 pounds between 1988-1994 and 2011-2014. Their average height remained the same at about 5 feet, 9 inches.

The average woman, meanwhile, expanded from 152 pounds to 169 pounds while her height remained steady at just under 5 feet, 4 inches.
All right, that's just crazy. 5'4" 169 is 60 pounds more than is ideal for that height. Seriously, it's not that hard to lose weight. I'm in my 40s and I just went from 192 to 179 in six weeks in order to get my abs back and prolong my soccer career.

No second helpings. No snacks. A tall cold juice for lunch. A moderate amount of exercise. That's all it takes. You can even have dessert! And it's well worth it.

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suspect that not being overweight (or even less overweight than average) greatly helps when trying to get with younger women, too, since men get fatter as we get older. Dad bod and all that.

And yes... there are fat women all over the da-n place. Yuck. Note that the percentage increase in average female weight was larger than for men.

Jehu said...

Just having a BMI in the not-overweight range typically puts a woman into the 75th or so percentile these days in the US. It's pretty vexing. A guy pretty much needs to be in the Beta range or higher on your scale to command much worth having.

R Beisert said...

As a matter of fact, you can do a great amount of weight loss by skipping what is often called "the most important meal of the day."

After a few hours of not eating carbohydrates or large amounts of protein, your body begins to metabolize fat for energy instead of carbohydrates. During the transition, however, your insulin usually outpaces the free-floating carbs in your system, making you lethargic and hungry. This prompts you to eat more carbs, which in turn keeps you from burning fats.

When you're asleep, though, you go through this unpleasant stage without being able to eat. That means that you wake up burning fat. Going straight back to carbohydrates means you kill the fat burning stage for most of the day, but waiting a few hours (say, until you would normally eat lunch) keeps you burning fat for longer.

Of course, restricting carbs through diet does pretty much the same thing over the entire day, but it's a harder step for most people to take.

Krul said...

Also, losing weight just feels really good. I'm not talking about the feeling of accomplishment you get when you see lower numbers on the scale or see that slim body in the mirror. I mean you just feel better all over after getting closer to your ideal body weight; it sorta tingles. I guess it's because you're physically lighter, your body doesn't have to work as hard to keep you alive, etc.

I know. A month ago I started taking this guy's advice. I cut all refined sugar, wheat, and starch in favor of meat, green vegetables, dairy and nuts. Since then I lost 10 pounds without being dissatisfied or hungry (except during intermittent fasts).

tz said...

Karl Denninger has written extensively - He lost weight without exercise, but then did couch to 5K and far more.

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231438

Seriously, it's not that hard to lose weight.

It isn't. Also see dietdoctor.com for more tips. But you have to stop doing what the Government recommends. You need to break your sugar addiction, and get into ketosis - if you are overweight your appetite will disappear when you flip your body's switch from carbs to fats, you can literally lose your appetite for weeks (but you need salt and vitamins/minerals and a bit of protein).

Jeff aka Orville said...

That's one of my daily affirmations..."I don't eat bread, grain, pasta or sugar".

Dropping the diet sodas was big too. Now on the rare occasions I have one, it leaves me feeling worse and pissing like a horse.

YJLAW said...

Learning to do what's right for me. Still learning to cut the beta bs habits from my life, but carbs almost eliminated, sugar gone, caffeine still an issue, graduated from fat ass to split set workouts...it affects everything. Participation in anything and everything, more invites to events, more time on dance floor, more time with women I thought were out of my ballpark, and I like me a hell of a lot more than I did. Fat isn't just a body killer, it's a soul killer. (And best of all, bacon and eggs for breakfast almost every day...)

August said...

If you've been fat all your life, you are probably seriously underestimating the truth of Vox's statement. Don't. It is like a 'through the looking-glass moment' when you hit the right weight, and suddenly you find young, attractive women giving you these strange looks you have never seen before. Or you are idling wondering why these girls are loitering in front of you and your ability to order coffee, only to have the lady behind you in the line tell you they were desperately waiting for you to talk to them.

Clay, Bill Clay said...

That lunch juice is a nice tasty cran-grape from Oceanspray, right?

John said...

Cernovich get you to juice fresh, Vox?

ThirdMonkey said...

If your waist is more than half of what your height is, do 100 reps of "put the donut down." Get that ratio down to 46% and you'll look and feel pretty damn good.

ScottC said...

If you want to lose weight, do pushups every day (if you're new, do 2 sets to exhaustion with 60 minute rest intervals, but after a month do 3 sets of 15-20 with 60-90 intervals), farmer's walk with light dumbbells and high rep leg presses once or twice a week. The fat will melt off like wax.

Unknown said...

Scott C,

Most people will get very mediocre results for fat loss with exercise alone. It's almost exclusively a diet issue. You can't outrun your fork, as they say. There is no realistic way for a normal person to do enough exercise to burn off an extra 1500 or 2000 calories a day.

Running only burns about 100 calories a mile. Something like pushups, even less.

You could take the average fat chick and make her do as many pushups as you want - If you don't change her diet, the fat is definitely not 'melting off" anytime soon.

Verne said...

Wow the average woman is 169 lbs and only 5'4". My wife is 5'6" and weighs less than that. Me I'm fat 5'11 200lbs. No wonder I keep getting people wondering why I am losing weight.In the land of the fat me and my wife are thin. Though my old wight was 185 due to living in a weight room and my wife had a mere 115 lbs on her. I so pity the young men of America. They will never see a beach filled with girls who are not at all overweight

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

Lifting, HIIT, Paelo.

Anonymous said...

@secretoftheinternet

One thing you have to keep in mind is that exercise increases your muscle mass and your basal metabolic rate. I remember reading about various Biggest Loser contestants who kept bloating up after they had their major weight loss, because they still had the metabolic rate of their fatter selves.

Unknown said...

@VFM #7634

That's very true, but it doesn't make quite the difference most people hope it will, especially for women. Building more muscle does increase the amount of calories you will be burning at all times (working out AND resting), but most people are not going to build enough muscle to burn an extra 1000 or 1500, etc. (and you can get that many calories from ONE fast food value meal). It would take adding roughly TWENTY POUNDS extra of solid muscle to burn an extra 1000 calories a day at rest.

So like I said, I don't care how many pushups the average fat american women does, she is not adding 20 pounds of muscle from it. SO the diet absolutely HAS to be fixed.

You have to do professional athlete levels of training to be able to eat the "SAD" (standard american diet) and not get fat.

Keep in mind there are NUMEROUS amazing benefits to regular intense resistance training, regardless of fat loss, so everybody should be doing it.

ScottC said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ScottC said...

secretoftheinternet, in my experience, diet is not the issue. It's the sedentary lifestyle. Overweight people sit around all day at their desks. They are not burning off their calories. It's possible to be an overweight vegan if you don't exercise at all. If you change the condition that is causing the weight gain, the calories will burn off.

ScottC said...

This is all anecdotal, but my older relatives ate more fat than people my age, but they were thin. They worked on farms. If you're just sitting around in an office all day, you don't need to eat very much. The people I work with a dumpy, but they don't seem to eat a lot. They're physically inactive.

Kat said...

Based on these statistics, you don't even have to lose weight. Just don't gain anything and your SMV will increase with time as everyone else gets fatter!

Unknown said...

Intermittent fasting.

The Sasquatch said...

The change is truly astounding. I went from 360 to 215 (a good weight for me. I'm built like a lineman) in my 20s. Not only did I get more attention from the ladies, all that discipline made everything else in my life better.

I'm almost 40 now and, due to a serious leg injury (and laziness) and a more demanding job (and laziness) and 4 kids (and laziness) and laziness, my weight crept up close to 300 again.

I'm on the way back down and, while its not as easy as it was when I was 25, its not hard. And the ladies...they like it, too. Especially the wife

The Sasquatch said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gulo Gulo said...

My wife and I have been pretty much wheat* and sugar free* since 2011 . I hit the gym three times a week - doing heavy lifts. She goes to yoga at least four times a week.
For a couple ,in our early 40's we look much healthier than anyone we know around us. We got comments regularly about it.
It really is not that hard - it just takes a disciplined lifestyle change.

* We each eat one slice per/day of Ezekiel sprouted bread and occasionally have an ice cream when out and about.

dc.sunsets said...

Fatties wear out their joints faster, too, but the same often is true for people who participate in sports (esp women, whose joints are far less robust...makes me cringe when I see women obsessively jogging. Wait until all the little girls whose daddies had them in soccer these past 20 years hit their 50's and discover the joys of no knee cartilage.)

My wife's coworkers bracketing her age have already had joint replacements. Both are fat. Surprising it is not.

In our coming Zombieland, the fatties surely will go first.

I find it unnerving to be the only not-fat adult man on most beaches I've visited.

Jeff aka Orville said...

Every morning when I go to "no judgements" gym, I see this poor ectomorph doughboy furiously going on the treadmill. He's there when I get in, and still going at it when I leave, for six months now, and I swear he has not lost an inch.

I've not lost a lot of weight, but I've moved my inches away from the gut. You gotta move metal and stay away from the bread and pasta.

dc.sunsets said...

Tip to young adults: give up almost all wheat-based foods, processed foods, refined sugars and soft drinks now, before you build up visceral fat. It is difficult to eliminate visceral fat once it's on board.

Your doctor is often too stupid to realize that promoting a low fat diet by logical definition means promoting a high carb diet (and no, a high protein diet is not low fat & low carb because protein consumed in excess is still burned as carbohydrate. All foods other than fats generally end up in the Krebs Cycle.)

Mr.MantraMan said...

Look at the ingredients if it has an ingredient added that ends in "ose" put it back.

Matt said...

I always lost weight quickly when bringing my own lunch to work. Rice or potatoes with vegetables, a lot of water and juice. It didn't matter the season because I sweat my balls off even in the winter. Commercial plumber.

And for.me, eating only lunch is better. Coffee time and then lunch puts the weight back on.

Ominous Cowherd said...

``Look at the ingredients if it has an ingredient...''

Just stop there. If it has ingredients, steer clear. Green, leafy vegetables and fat meat don't have ingredient lists.

Kentucky Headhunter said...

To be specific, you want to lose fat and not "weight". I trained 15 hours a week (all cardio) for 3 months for my first full Ironman race, and didn't lose a pound of fat or gain a pound of muscle. I was skinny/fat (wt 185 and ht 6 ft). I still ate what is probably the normal american diet including lots of fast-food crap. I followed a training schedule, but didn't keep a journal.

Prior to that when training for my first marathon, I ran up to 60 miles a week (avg <7:30min/mi) and was able to get down to 158, but only combined with significant calorie restriction. I went to bed HUNGRY, but consoled myself that breakfast was only 8 hours away. If I ate "normal" calories, I wouldn't lose a pound that week. I followed a schedule and kept a journal including my daily weights, how I evaluated my effort during the workout, and how I was feeling generally (tired, pumped, blah).

Now, in my late 40's, I'm back to 198, but I've been lifting heavy for close to 3 years. I wear a 44 jacket and have a 32 in waist. Girls 30 years younger find reasons to talk to me when I take my kids swimming. I can still run sub eights for 3 miles, but i've backed off on the cardio significantly since it really does have diminishing returns after that for me.

So, I concur with the exercise alone won't get it done crowd, but more importantly you have to figure out what works for you. Try something for a month. Go 100% at it. (Be careful if you haven't exercised in a long time, and don't cut calories to 500/day so that you pass out.) If its not working, then try something else until you find what works for you.

Aeoli Pera said...

169 requires a fireman's carry over the threshold.

Aeoli Pera said...

Remember: lift with your legs, not your back.

Whisker biscuit said...

Everyone is different. I cut my calories down to 1700 a day, and ran for 30 minutes on the treadmill. I lost 15 lbs in a month. I even ate sweets; just in moderation. I'm not sitting on my ass all day, so that helps, too.

Desdichado said...

Since when is 5'9" the average height of men in America? Sounds like a bunch of Hispanics have brought that average down.

Anonymous said...

I was wondering about the role if immigration in moving that statistic. All the Hispanics I see are short and fat. Very round.

mickthequick1976 said...

Juice has a lot of sugar, sugar is poison.

Natalie said...

Hah - good to know I'm "above average."

Girl talk, but I find that what works for me is planning one satisfying meal a day. I can eat lightly for a couple of meals (breakfast/lunch typically) if I can eat one really filling meal. No snacks beyond maybe a cheese stick or a little dark chocolate after supper. But doing that feels less like depriving myself for some reason, and it really does work for me. However, I'm also a nursing mom, so go ahead and chuck 500-800 calories into my base requirements. I'm not at my ideal weight, but I'm able to reliably lose the baby weight plus a few extra pounds.

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