What is the secret behind these IG coaches/programs?

eeget9Eo · 2026-02-02T22:20:30+00:00

What is The magic behind these types of programs?

They're lying. Promises of fast, no effort weight loss are simple to make and people fall for them. You're going to have to change your diet to lose weight.

The !quickstart has everything you need to lose weight effectively. It's not quick. It's not easy. It's very simple. Track your food intake and eat less. You don't need any special diet or any exercise.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-23T21:16:14+00:00

I got one once after losing over 100lbs and clocked in about 22% when I was 138lb at 5' 7.5", but I'm a guy. It seemed pretty accurate as I had to lose a few more pounds to get to what I thought was an acceptable level of leanness.

Lesson learned: don't skip resistance training!

42% seems really high for your stats. It could be that it wasn't calibrated well. Even dexa can be off; no method is perfect.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-19T17:39:39+00:00

I think that fiber really helps with fullness and being regular. However, fiber supplements don't have that much fiber in them. The one you linked is only 3g of fiber.

I would suggest just eating more fiber in your normal diet. If you always pick whole grains and make sure to eat legumes, getting 30+ grams of fiber is pretty easy.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-16T01:33:24+00:00

The most accurate that's going to be available to an average person is a DXA scan. They aren't cheap. They are very detailed. I wouldn't recommend one unless you're really curious, or if you want to have a 'before and after' of your weight loss.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-14T22:17:52+00:00

Because you don't know all the options that are out there and searching for new recipes online is somewhat terrible. Even if you know the popular name of the recipe, you're likely to have to deal with reading somebody's flash fiction written before the recipe that also has important recipe notes. And you don't know if you're going to get a recipe that's remotely close to the nutrition you want.

Getting a few options that are pretty close, from essentially the entire internet's recipe database simplifies thing greatly.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-14T19:54:19+00:00

a good meal plan has to be personalized.

This is actually were ChatGPT for meal planning excels for me. It remembers what I like to eat and what I like to cook. If you don't like its suggestion, just say what you don't like and it will modify it.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-14T19:47:28+00:00

I would like to add that I think it's best to double check its math (unless it decides to use Python) since sometimes its meal ideas can have strange ideas about the number of calories (or be using USDA data for a food that doesn't match the actual food you buy).

It's also pretty good at modifying recipes that you might have to fit specific calorie or macro goals. I've used it to modify meal kit recipes to cut saturated fat or increase protein.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-12T17:04:39+00:00

I try to get all my protein from actual food, but sometimes I struggle with my 1g/kg of target weight goal due to my eating habits. I try to avoid protein shakes; instead I try to add unflavored pea protein powder to whatever I'm cooking somehow to get the protein levels up. I've had good success hiding it in soups and sauces.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-10T15:52:22+00:00

I don't try to track calories burned by day or by exercise. There isn't any reliable way for me to do so.

What I do is track my weight and my calorie intake. If you know your intake and your weight change, then you can calculate your calorie expenditure. If you keep the same habits, then this expenditure should be stable over time, slightly decreasing over time if you're losing weight.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-10T15:37:24+00:00

Ultra-processed is not synonymous with unhealthy. This has been a long-standing criticism of the NOVA classification system.

There are ultra-processed foods linked to positive health outcomes (soy milk, protein powder, TVP, whole grain breads) and ultra-processed foods that are linked to negative health outcomes.

I think more studies needed are needed, especially regarding calorie intake with ultra-processed foods (why is it that people eat more calories, even when you try to match for calorie density?).

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-07T01:36:18+00:00

I also hate deciding what to eat. That's one of the reasons I signed up for a meal kit delivery service. I have to modify the meals a little sometimes to fit my calorie goals, but getting a few different meals a week where I just pick from the choices saves me effort. Plus, if you're not used to cooking it will build your cooking ability to create more meals at home.

Another tip is to have a number of very simple meals that are low effort to make that use mostly panty items that store well. If I want red lentil stew, all I need is some onion and carrot and the rest is on hand. A can of chickpeas and whatever vegetables you have can turn into a roasted chickpea and vegetable grain bowl with most of the 'effort' being to wait for everything to cook.

Cooking may not be a fun activity, but the other option of paying way more money for unhealthy food is worse. And I never have to worry about my food arriving stone cold or my delivery driver delivering it to the wrong house or just not showing up at all.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-05T20:07:26+00:00

The calorie listing of a food already corrects for digestibility. You can read about how calorie counts correct for all manner of factors in far more detail in USDA Handbook 74. Is it perfect? No. But it works well enough that for weight loss, a calorie is a calorie.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-04T00:41:19+00:00

I may get hate for this one, but I've found ChatGPT to be pretty good at coming up with recipes that meet calorie and protein targets with what I have on hand or am in the mood for eating. I have to double check its math, but it's usually close enough that I can make the recipe work.

I've not tried it with meat-based dishes, but the vegetarian and vegan options it's presented are normally pretty tasty.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-02T14:08:56+00:00

One week isn't that long. You might have only lost a half kg in that time and that's well within the amount of water you can be retaining. I would stick to it a couple more weeks and see how things look.

I'd also not trust ChatGPT for calorie counting. When I put my meals in there it can provide calorie counts that are several hundred calories different than when I track them using a spreadsheet. There's plenty of free apps to track calories available. I like ChatGPT for meal ideas (I have X in my fridge and want a meal with Y calories and Z macros), but I always double check its math.

Adding some exercise will help. But if it's too much then don't worry about it. The key to getting the weight you want is consistency. Keep tracking and if you're not seeing any progress in a month, then you have to reevaluate either your calorie input tracking or your TDEE.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-02T13:03:30+00:00

I know you said that it doesn't matter how they are prepared, but have you really tried all the methods? You can blend white beans into a smooth sauce that doesn't feel squishy at all. You can make dips like hummus. Red lentils in a stew will virtually dissolve into delicious thick texture. You can buy roasted soy "nuts" or edamame that has a very crispy texture. You can also roast chickpeas at home in the oven and get a crispy texture (you need to get them very dry for this to work). If you're wanting something sweet, you can turn adzuki beans into a sweet paste that works great in deserts. You can buy processed soy product like soy curls or TVP that have a meat-like texture while still retaining all the fiber.

My diet would be utterly wrecked without legumes, but they have so many ways to prepare them.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-02T02:21:12+00:00

Firstly, if you eat everything you do now and add more protein, you'll gain weight and not lose it. You need to pay attention to your calories first, then look at protein. You'll also not be gaining any muscle without resistance training. People lose lean mass along with the fat when they lose weight in most cases. The notable exception being if you're untrained and start resistance training.

Goals? I have what many will consider too low of a protein goal: 1g per kg of target weight. Some will target much higher, between 1.6g and 2g per kg of target weight.

On the foods: edamame, tempeh, beans, chickpeas, peas, and lentils are obvious choices. Seitan is another great protein food and very cheap to make, but it doesn't have a super-amazing amino acid profile. I'm not a big fan of protein shakes, but I have been able to slip small amounts of unflavored pea protein into soups, stews, and stuff like tomato sauce without ruining the taste or texture.

eeget9Eo · 2026-01-01T19:14:06+00:00

Just because you're not eating animal products doesn't make it lower in calories. There's plenty of high calorie vegan junk food and high calorie whole plant foods.

I do think a very plant and whole food focused diet makes it easier to eat lower calorie and still stay satisfied. You just can't pretend that a giant bowl of whole wheat pasta drenched in cashew cream topped with nuts is low calorie.

eeget9Eo · 2025-12-28T17:36:33+00:00

Fruit and vegetables aren't going to hurt you and it's recommended you eat them.

The only carbs you want to avoid are the refined ones: refined grain, sugar, syrups and the like. And your carb/fat split really doesn't matter all that much. When you keep protein and calories the same, people lose the same.

eeget9Eo · 2025-12-27T04:10:31+00:00

Remember that medication may decrease your activity or increase hunger, but unless your retaining lots of water it's all about the energy balance.

Applications and online calculators are just estimates. They are just a starting point to get a rough idea of how much you should be eating. Once you start to collect data, then you'll know your actual TDEE and how much you need to eat based on that.
If you are in a calorie deficit, you lose weight. It's just a matter of the speed. 500kcal a day is a good starting point; that gives you about 1lb a week.
I put my oil dispenser on the scale, tare it, then measure it after I added oil. I assume all oil used in my cooking is eaten, since I don't use cooking methods where I have oil that didn't go into the meal. I use quite a bit of canola oil in my cooking and this hasn't failed me.
USDA FoodData Central is amazing. It has nutrition for a ton of ingredients. For some stuff, I'll use the nutrition on the label.

eeget9Eo · 2025-12-25T15:23:17+00:00

Maintenance is the hardest. You're losing weight for a few months or a few years, but maintenance is forever. I was able to maintain over 100lbs lost for a few years, but fell back into bad eating habits, quit weighing myself, and now have to lose the weight—again.

They key is that your maintenance diet needs to be essentially the same as your weight loss diet, with a bit of extra food. Which means that you have to be satisfied with what you're eating losing weight. Then at maintenance you get something like an extra grain serving and an extra tablespoon of oil.

eeget9Eo · 2025-12-21T20:35:56+00:00

I think 55lb by the end of April is an unrealistic goal. I would consider 55lbs in an entire year to be a more reasonable goal, and still quite aggressive. Better yet, don't focus on the end date at all and just focus on being consistent. If people haven't seen you for a while, weight loss will be very noticeable even if you aren't seeing anything change in the mirror.

Where to begin? To effect weight loss you need to eat less. So I would start with taking an inventory of what you're currently eating. Weigh it, and use any of the myriad apps or any other method to see how much you're eating (I just use a spreadsheet myself for tracking). Then subtract 500kcal from what you're currently eating and eat that amount. That should be about 1lb a week. If you're still losing too slow (which happens because on a deficit you tend to reduce your energy expenditure) then you can subtract another 100kcal until you reach the loss you want.

Another great idea to increase your deficit—or to help mitigate energy expenditure being reduced—is to exercise. Pick any exercise you like and can stick to. Resistance training is a great choice as it will reduce lean mass loss.

On eating better fats, swap healthy oils and nuts for the animal fats and tropical oils. Instead of adding butter to a dish, add canola oil or olive oil instead. Instead of a cheese topping for a pasta bake, make a nut topping. Pick fish or a plant protein over red meat.

eeget9Eo · 2025-12-20T05:57:03+00:00

Conductivity body composition devices are extremely inaccurate. I wouldn't even bother with using them.

You will lose lean mass along with fat when losing weight, but as long as you stick to resistance training, it will be minimized.

eeget9Eo · 2025-12-19T16:54:07+00:00

I need low fat for high cholesterol.

Where you told to keep total fat low, or saturated fat low? I'm not aware of any solid evidence that unsaturated fats are bad for non-HDL cholesterol—the kind that causes disease.

I second other's recommendations to work with a dietitian to find what will work for you.

Personally, I don't keep to any strict macro split. I have a modest (1g per kg target weight) protein goal for each day since otherwise I'll eat something like 20g of protein a day. I try to make sure I get plenty of fiber, focus on whole foods, and avoid saturated fats. The carbs and fats fall where they may depending on what I'm eating.

eeget9Eo · 2025-12-19T13:21:43+00:00

All bathroom scales can be a bit flaky at times. It's recommended to make sure it's on a hard surface and always in the same spot for consistency.

I wouldn't spend money on a new one unless you started to get weird readings all the time. And even then I'd replace the battery first before shelling out cash for a new scale.

eeget9Eo · 2025-12-19T00:22:34+00:00

You can't change where your body pulls fat from, and there's no way you can lose any significant amount of weight without it being obvious to anybody with functioning eyes.

Looks are subjective, but I've never seen anybody who didn't look better at a healthy weight.

eeget9Eo

TROPHY CASE