Hacker News Reader

Comment by chatmasta | Hacker News Reader

I really don't understand why people have so much trouble staying fit. Granted if you're already fat, you have a lot of work to do to get back into shape (I say "back into shape," because nobody is born fat). But the formula for maintaining a healthy body is really pretty simple.

- Avoid junk food (if it comes in a vacuum sealed bag, it's junk food)

- Avoid sodas, juices, and other high sugar drinks. If you choose to indulge yourself, don't finish the whole thing - the portion is probably too big anyway.

- Exercise at least a few times a week. Meaning, break a sweat and keep it up for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour. Eat (or drink) protein afterwards.

- Only eat when you're hungry. Stop eating when you're full.

- Listen to your body.

View on HN

> Listen to your body.

I hate this advice. When I'm exercising, my body is telling me that I'm tired and that I should give up. When I'm eating chocolate, my body is telling me that it's delicious and I should have more. Sure, there are things that you probably should listen to your body about, but there are just as many that you should ignore and overcome.

When I don't lift for a few days my muscles get "itchy" and antsy until I lift again. It's a really uncomfortable feeling to stop if you lift weights regularly.

Crack addicts also get withdrawal symptoms, it's not necessarily a sign of being in a good situation. I'm glad for you that you're in a position where your urges steer you in a healthy direction, but that doesn't make "listen to your body" always good advice.

i lift 3 times a week (strong lift regimen) - i never had lifting craving in last 3 years. so.... bodies are different :)

Try laying off leg lifts for a week while working an office job, even through weekends. This means spending most of your time sitting or sleeping.

Addiction comes in many forms, as does willpower. Not understanding it means you are probably fortunate to not be susceptible or predisposed to addictions.

There have been studies in animal populations where certain members of the population are observed to keep returning to opium fields while others will come just once and then never return.

Many of us can think back to our own childhoods and recall that, depending on your geography, the choices of what you could buy at the store were fairly limited in terms of fruits, vegetables, and produce. Getting fat wasn't something people used to worry about.

When your job 'forces' 10+ hours of inactivity a day in the office + commute and the only house you can afford requires driving everywhere, and cheap entertainment is passive TV/Computers. And most food is minimally nutritious and pumped full of empty calories so your body says eat more I need X.

It's easy to see how people get out of shape.

There are so many bad lifestyle choices our society accepts as normal so people get overwhelmed by all the changes they should make

- Long work hours, mostly sitting

- Long commutes

- Portion sizes way too large (in restaurants I am often full after appetizers)

- Eating at the desk, eating late at night, skipping meals

- TV watching

- Nothing reachable by walking

- Not enough sleep

- Not enough vacation

- Most foods in stores that are labeled "healthy" are not healthy

You need a certain level of stubbornness to realize that the generally accepted lifestyle is so far away from reasonable that almost everything that's considered "normal" needs to be changed.

Exactly, I notice people that become unemployed tend to lose weight, sleep better, get in shape ect not because they try but because the 9-5+ grind promotes a lot of bad habits. As a friend put it, I get 2 hours of 'me' time every week day, I don't spend 1/2 of that working out.

That said while the default is bad you really can live a healthy lifestyle without to much work. It just takes planning to avoid spending 10-15+ hours a week in a car etc.

I started a job in the burbs about six years ago, and people all but laughed at me for walking to lunch. But most of the office was about four or five years younger than me.

A couple years in and they all hit the same wall I had, clothes stopped fitting, too much stress eating. No exercise, sleep problems.

By the time I left we occasionally had almost the entire team out walking to lunch together.

Ok, maybe I should have said "I don't understand how people who want to stay fit have so much trouble staying fit." If you want to stay fit, you won't make stupid excuses like "I don't have time" or "all this junk food I'm eating tricks me into being hungry!"

It's perfectly consistent to want to stay fit, and at the same time have staying fit on your priority list as something like #3, behind e.g. succeeding at your career, or spending time with your kids, or getting adequate sleep, or whatever.

"I don't have time" is a somewhat common situation for anything that's important but not #1 important, since a single priority area can easily sometimes take all the waking hours in a week and more than that (on account of e.g. "sleep debt"); and getting an hour for something you want means taking that hour away from something you need.

Because we are constantly taught that grand gestures are a solution to all your problems.

Since lack of discipline is a character flaw, the confirmation bias is that since I can't follow through on my grand gestures that I'm a bad person and I should just give up. My fate is sealed, better luck next life.

The minority's view is that discipline is a lot like a muscle, and that you need to be able to identify ways to exercise it without injuring yourself. Start small, work up, be aware of your limits. And yes, you're going to feel ridiculous at first because what kind of a baby can't safely do X and Y?

Yeah, good point re: "grand gestures." I think we see this especially in tech or "millenial" circles, where people think that there's a life hack for everything. The many studies on dieting/weight loss/exercise only further perpetuate this myth, so that people spend more time looking for "the right way" to stay in shape than they do consistently practicing a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the right one.

It's hard to be smart/make conscious decisions when you're stressed out, and you're probably going to be even more stressed out if you're poor and/or uneducated.

You really dont understand why something apparently intuitive for you is difficult for someone else?

> Only eat when you're hungry. Stop eating when you're full.

I have no idea why people need to be told this or what it even means.

By definition, if you're full you can't eat anymore and you've already crossed the threshold of hunger some time ago.

It might be simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy to implement. I'm too skinny, I forget to eat and have a hard time paying attention to when I'm hungry. Not that I never feel hungry, but my hunger drive is not powerful enough to keep me at a healthy weight, I must choose to eat extra, using calorie counting and a rough knowledge of how much I should eat.

If it's so simple why are so many people overweight? Seriously.

In most countries they are not. It's really only a big problem in the US, where portion sizes are absurdly large and fast food is cheaper than anything else.

> . . . fast food is cheaper than anything else.

This actually isn't remotely true. It's far cheaper to buy more nutritious foods from the grocery store (especially in bulk) and then cook your own meals: http://www.leannebrown.ca/good-and-cheap.pdf

You can't have organic beef every night, but you can nutritionally and calorically out-gun fast food for the same (or a smaller) amount of money.

I can buy 10 pounds of potatoes for $5. Ten pounds of french fries at a fast food place are going to cost me much more than that. Yeah, I know, I need to buy some cooking oil and some salt, too, but it's still clearly a financial win to cook it myself.

How much do you value your time?

Depends. If I was going to be home anyway, and bored, wondering what to do with myself? Having to cook can be positive. If I'm in a rush? Fast food can be worth paying for.

But if I'm poor, the difference between a ten-pound bag of potatoes and one fast-food meal can really matter.

High, which is why I cook: To get the same quality as I can make myself costs a minimum of 5 times at much in a restaurant. I'm not the best cook in the world by any means, it is just that most "restaurants" serve flavorless garbage for cheap and I won't eat that. Once you decide that quality actually is a factor the economics change.

A also believe that healthy meals can potentially increase my lifespan and quality of life within that lifespan. (I don't know if science backs this up). When I cook for myself I'm assured that cheap by unhealthy foods are not hidden in my meals - even the most expensive restaurants won't do that. (Trans fats and excess salt are two examples)

Assuming you value your time at $0/hour

This is not just a US thing. See http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/obesity.html and http://www.who.int/gho/ncd/risk_factors/overweight/en/

Interesting, thanks for the link. Further research led me to this wiki article [0] containing a partial hypothesis:

> Reasons for this issue include mining operations that have left not much arable land; as a result, much of the local diet is of processed, calorie-dense, imported food such as Spam or corned beef, rather than fresh fish, fruit and vegetables

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_Pacific

Reply on news.ycombinator.com