Losing weight after age 30... is the only solution to starve yourself?

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OP here. I guess I can't use the same name from my OP. Glad to see my thread from 4+ years ago is still getting traction. After another year or so of experimenting with my diet I did eventually find a consistent way to keep myself around 160 lbs. It pretty much just came down to potion control. I'm less strict with my diet than I was back when I was pushing 170, it's just that I eat less. A couple of years ago when I was super fit and running PBs I got down to about 155, but that only lasted a few months. I'm currently coming back from surgery and haven't run for 3 months, but have maintained 160 lbs through common sense portion control.

So now that I'm 34 I think I've answered the question I posed back when I was 30: do you have to starve yourself to lose weight? I believe the answer is no, but you do have to be willing to not be satiated all the time and put up with a little hunger during the day. As long as I'm not going to bed hungry (so that I can get a good night's sleep), I can tolerate SOME huger during the day.

So then how do I manage insulin? What do I do?

Be very careful about when/how many carbs you eat. Eat them when you are going to use them - before/immediately after physical activity.

Here's my amateur understanding of it. Eating carbs triggers insulin release - that release tells your body that it is ok to run off of glucose and promotes fat storage. Your body basically says "we have plenty of energy available, we can use it now and store it for later". In the absence of insulin the opposite is true: "we have no energy available, use the fat stores instead"

If you are spiking your insulin all day long, you'll basically just use glucose for fuel all the time, not using fat for energy as much as you could be. This is especially true if you aren't active.

If you don't eat as many carbs, you don't spike your insulin, and can use more fat for energy as a result. In terms of macros, fat does not effect insulin, protein has some effect on insulin, and carbohydrates have the largest effect. So, subbing out carbs for fats and proteins goes a long way to controlling insulin, and the energy source your body uses as a result.

I would also add in that spiking insulin levels causes you to be hungry again not long after eating a meal. Thats why the people eating a ton of carbs push portion control because if you eat until you are satiated you will be eating meals and snacking throughout the day and gaining weight.

If you eat until you are full on eggs and steak, you will not feel the need to snack all of the time and you can eat whenever you feel hungry.

In my experience, this is 100% true. Since cutting down on carbs, I'm pretty shocked at how infrequently I actually feel hungry. When eating high carbs, I'd get really testy if I didn't eat constantly. Now, if I'm getting hungry, its more like "I should eat something in the next couple of hours". There's no urgency in finding something to eat at all. Energy levels are super stable all day long.

The biggest downside is that running is abysmal at anything above an easy jog. Its definitely not ideal for training, but it is absolutely working for me in terms of leaning out.

Have fun with anemia and other issues.

Calories in vs calories out aren't nonsense at all. If you're not in a caloric deficit it's impossible to lose weight.

The quick version is that your body won't burn your body fat if your insulin is elevated. Insulin is released to remove glucose from the blood. If you don't consume things that elevate your blood sugar your insulin levels will be lower and it will be easier to lose body fat.

In general, if a food spikes your blood sugar it will lead to elevated insulin levels. The Glycemic Index tells you which foods are worst and best for keeping your blood sugar stable.

Keep your carb intake low. If you do eat carbs eat them earlier in the day so you burn them off during the day. Try to eat complex carbs like vegetables rather than simple carbs like chips and gummi bears.

All fasting is great for you. If you can manage it intermittent fasting will greatly reduce your caloric intake and level off your blood sugar/insulin which speeds fat loss.

Atkins/keto/carnivore are all low carb diets which follow the same principle of keeping blood sugar and insulin low.

They all basically boil down to if a caveman couldn't find it don't eat it which makes a lot of sense if you consider that our metabolism evolved eating that way for hundreds of thousands of years.

I think what they are trying to say is that if you eat mostly fats/proteins, you don't need to worry so much about calories. You can only eat so much chicken breast and avocados before you just don't want anymore, and then you're not hungry for hours after. Its pretty easy to eat four pieces of cake though, and you'll be hungry again in 45 minutes.

100% agree.

Dieting success is all about hormones and the most effective way to boost satiety and minimize the hunger and cravings is by eating real food and cutting out or limiting the processed carbs.

Has the OP tried eating just a little bit at a time, but more often? A steady blood sugar helps reduce hunger. It helps for me to weigh the same as in high school and I'm age 71. Same philosophy on the running itself. Be steady and ready.

No, that doesn’t make much sense coz caveman also died early of bacterial infections and lack of antibiotics for one.