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Comment by kough | Hacker News Reader

Actually, it's pretty hard to eat a whole day's worth of calories in a single meal. I know this because I've tried to, regularly, as part of a longer attempt to gain weight. If you're ordering at McDonald's, your best calorie/dollar ratio [edit: s/your best/my preferred] is the ~800 calorie double quarter pounder with cheese for ~6 dollars. My daily caloric requirements are estimated at 3000 calories based on my age and gender, which means I'd have to eat a little under four of these. The best I've managed is two, and that's even with smoking weed to increase my appetite.

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I find it far easier to consume vast amounts of calories when I'm eating straight carbs as opposed to foods with more balanced macronutrient compositions, such as cheeseburgers. The fat and protein would fill me right up.

I find it pretty easy to eat a whole bag of chips (1500ish kcal) and a bottle of soda (250ish kcal) in one sitting, but I likely wouldn't feel too well an hour or two afterward. Same goes for candy, it's so easy to just eat hundreds of calories when you're at your desk and not thinking too hard about it.

If I were trying to maximize my caloric intake at McDonald's, I'd probably get the burger and also a large fries (500kcal) with the BBQ sauce (I could probably go through 3 or 4 packets at 50kcal each, so that's another 1-200) and a large soda (300kcal), for a total of 1800 kcal. Still not a fully day's worth, but close.

The really hard part is getting sufficient protein for gaining muscle mass, especially if you're lactose intolerant or vegan/vegetarian...

Yup, I was trying to balance everything out and eat the right macros. I ended up settling on a DQPwC and a 10-piece chicken nuggets + 2 packets of ranch sauce + a small fries as my standard order.

That sounds about right. I seem to recall just ordering a 20 piece chicken nuggets and calling it a day, but my struggle is typically weight loss as opposed to weight gain.

Tortured Chicken

Can people please stop the myth of it being hard to get enough protein on a vegan diet? It's easy. Check out the protein values of beans, nuts and lentils. There are incredible athletes on a vegan diet.

Now add a 32oz coke (320 calories) and a large fry (510) and you're at 1,652 calories for what many people would consider a "small" meal. Throw in a 510 calorie McFlurry for dessert and you've just blown past 2k calories in a single sitting.

Have you ever tried to eat that much? The whole point of my comment is that it's very difficult to "blow past 2k calories in a single sitting." Not that it's impossible – obviously McDonald's has a lot of high-calorie foods.

I'm pretty good at the entire eating thing. I could easily see myself eating 2000 calories by eating a large burger, a plate of fries and a few cups of cola. I'm also 6'2" and eat fast.

It's not as hard as you think, depending on the person. At age 17, I ordered a quadruple quarter pounder and ate it while out with friends. I don't remember if I had fries, but I certainly had a large coke with that.

Last time I was out with one of my good friends from high school, he ate two 8 ounce burgers in a sitting. He's probably 5'8" and no more than 150 lbs.

There's a huge variation in people's appetite.

In my early 20s, I once ate a 32 oz porterhouse plus all the trimmings of the meal, plus desert. My wife couldn't finish her prime rib, so I ate that, too - plus whatever else that was on the plate left over.

I kinda fancied myself as John Candy in the Great Outdoors.

Today - things are different; I try to be a little more selective in my meals.

Yeah, in days gone past I would eat that much (and more) on a regular basis.

I've noticed that when I'm used to overeating, it can take a lot of food to hit that point where my brain says "okay, I'm done". When I'm eating a more controlled diet, I hit that full point a lot faster.

There was a time I could eat an entire KFC bucket family meal in a single sitting. That was a long time ago, though. I've found that as I've gotten older, I've also "slowed down" on my eating.

That isn't to say I couldn't stand to eat less, or eat better today.

Nor is it to say I am not overweight - I am. But I've kinda gotten to the point that I just don't want to always be "lookin' over my shoulder" at what I eat. Instead, I just eat what I want to eat, when I want it, and just try to eat less of it. That includes better food, too.

I also try to exercise more; lately I've been doing 3-5 mile hikes with a friend on a Saturday and Sunday (or I'll do them by myself if he doesn't feel like going). I've been thinking about increasing that to a daily regimen (after work).

I also don't drink as much soda as I used to, and when I do, I try to drink only diet sodas. Otherwise I'll drink water (or if I am having a meal at home, I typically drink milk - but not always).

But yeah - there was a time I could easily eat that much, and blow past 2k calories no problem in a single meal. I could probably do it today, if I wanted to (but I'd feel bad afterward).

Plus - while it's easier to do with fast food - it can be done with regular food, too. One good-sized 24oz well-marbled rib-eye, a baked potato with all the fixin's, some kind of vegetable on the side, a salad with dressing, plus a large glass of milk - that's all enough to get you close if not over 2k calories.

>Have you ever tried to eat that much?

Oh, yes. And I'm not even that overweight.

Sorry, but that's batshit insane. My stomach is literally not big enough to handle that much liquid/volume in a single meal.

A huge sandwich, 32 oz of liquid, tons of fries, and then another cup of liquid?

Somewhere about mid-way through that a normal human being should feel sick and stop eating. That's not a "small" meal by any measure.

Go to McDonald's and watch what people are eating sometime. The quantity of food they're putting away may surprise you. Pay special attention to the number of times they go to refill their drink.

Ice is probably >50% percent of the volume though.

>My stomach is literally not big enough to handle that much liquid/volume in a single meal.

You'd be surprised. It's also not about the volume. You can have the same amount of calories in much smaller volumes... -- heck, even in a salad with the right dressing.

And if you add the fact that for a lot of people their intake should be more near 2000kcal and not 3000 you then already have consumed the recommended daily amount. I think 3000 is already on the high side for people of average size with average (low) physical activity.

>Actually, it's pretty hard to eat a whole day's worth of calories in a single meal

I find it effortless. Some IHOP menu items, for example, are like 2000 calories, and I can gulp them in one sitting -- and one 1-2 16oz cokes on top--, and I'm not even that overweight. My "maintain weight" caloric requirements are about 2300 calories.

>If you're ordering at McDonald's, your best calorie/dollar ratio [edit: s/your best/my preferred] is the ~800 calorie double quarter pounder with cheese for ~6 dollars. My daily caloric requirements are estimated at 3000 calories based on my age and gender, which means I'd have to eat a little under four of these.

Why stick it to the best calorie/dollar ratio? All the parent said is that it's easy to eat a whole day's worth of calories in one sitting.

McDonalds large fries: 510 calories. McDonalds Double quarter pounder with cheese: 800 McDonalds 2 packets of ketchup on said fries: 30 calories McDonalds Large Coke: 310 calories

That's 1650 right there.

The Chicken Piccata at Cheasecake factory for another example is 2,120 calories by itself. And that's without any appetiser. Then have a cheesecake after lunch for another 1000. Oh, and a coke for 100 more -- or a coffee with milk and sugar. Total tally? 3320.

Also not sure about this "3000 calories" estimation (unless you're very tall, exercising etc). The commonly cited figure is that the average man needs 2500 calories per day to maintain weight.

Yeah, I've found the McDonald's nutrition calculator to be fun to mess around with:

https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/nutrition-...

For example, if you eat a breakfast of a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit with a hashbrown; a lunch of a quarter pounder and cheese with medium fries, and a dinner of a double quarter pounder with cheese and medium fries, that ends up being 2,580 calories (2,500 is considered the norm for a man to keep his body weight).

If you use that $6 to get 6 $1 McDoubles (are they still $1?) then you can get 2280 calories at 380 per burger.

There's a lot of food on the menu I refuse to eat because it's far too gross. McDoubles are one of them. Should have mentioned that in my earlier comment – some taste preferences are involved.

I think most sedentary people are in the 2000-2500 calorie daily range. When I formed my cached thoughts about this it was looking at a double whopper super-sized meal that would include large fry and large coke and I recall that coming out pretty close to 2000.

> that's even with smoking weed to increase my appetite.

All in the name of science, of course.

I read a large milkshake at McD's has 850 calories, and I cannot imagine it costs more then 6 bucks.

The milkshakes are a ripoff, just buy protein powder and whole milk and make your own at home for much, much cheaper. I wasn't doing a supersize me experiment, I ate a lot of other calories in other ways.

A McDouble is 390 calories for $1.39 and I think you are also missing the fact that a "large" coke is around 310 and we haven't even gotten to the fries yet.

Yep. Anyone who has ever trained for a marathon or other endurance event understands that eating 4000+ calories a day is a chore. On top of the fact that you want these to be "good" calories... Let's just say I ate a lot of rice with veggies.

Which leads to the blunt advice I give most people seeking to lose weight. Sure, you might be genetically predisposed to have a slow metabolism, but at the end of the day "calories in / calories out" is as absolute a fact as it gets (of course, all things in moderation). So I say "You have two options: Eat less, work out more, pick the one you like."

Yeah. I was eating ~1500 calories every day for lunch from McDonald's, plus two big protein shakes (another ~1400 calories), plus a 4-egg scramble with vegetables every morning and a rice/beans/veggies/chicken dinner. That's only a little over 4000 calories and I felt fucking disgusting. It turns out one of the tricks is timing, without a regular schedule I simply could not eat enough because I wouldn't be hungry.

I still think "eat less" is bad advice, because just "eating less" chips/soda/garbage is pretty difficult. I've tried. It requires an extreme and inhuman amount of willpower. Our natural drive is to vacuum up all the easy energy in front of us.

"Eat better" is probably better/more useful vague advice. You can eat a whole lot of salad/veggies and it wont end up being that many calories (so, in this case, you're eating MORE, but consuming less energy/fewer calories). Same with meat. It's hard not to lose weight if you're eating a lot of (leaner) meat, because you feel extremely full after a couple hundred calories worth. If you start modifying your diet, your cravings will change too. It's all about these weird feedback loops.

He never stated "eat less volume of food", so I take it he ment the general term "calories of food".

How you do it doesn't matter. (eat more volumetric food or stop drinking soda, doesn't matter)

Except that it does matter how you do it. There is pretty much no human alive who has the willpower to eat exactly their daily caloric requirement in chips and soda and then stop every day.

> I still think "eat less" is bad advice, because just "eating less" chips/soda/garbage is pretty difficult. I've tried. It requires an extreme and inhuman amount of willpower. Our natural drive is to vacuum up all the easy energy in front of us.

Exactly, so don't have any of that stuff around you. Easy calories makes for easy pounds. If you had to actually go out and get that bag of chips you're craving, you're far less likely to do it. Within a week of abstinence, you're not even craving them anymore.

Eating 4k in a day is a chore if you are used to controlling your intake and eating clean. It's not hard if you eat poorly.

There was once a time that I could put down a Costco box of Goldfish crackers (7400 calories) in an evening of hacking, with a few cans of Coke (another 600) to wash it down with. A package of Oreo cookies is north of 2500 calories. A "single serving" pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream is well over 1k calories.

Eating 4k calories well is hard - caloric density in good foods isn't nearly what it is in bad foods, and you're just going to physically fill up your stomach. Eating it poorly is, sadly, way too easy.

I'll take the walk of shame with you. The wrong mixed drinks can easily be ~300 calories. Down eight of those during a bachelor party and then get tacos from the 2am drunk taco stand - easily ~1600 there. Boom 4k. Then let's say you had a normal 3 meals that day @ 2k calories. You just consumed 6k by friend.

I'm sorry, but the argument 'calories in' == 'calories out' is getting old and is based on incorrect facts and wilful thinking. Be careful with this advice!

First of all, due to a variety of reasons the caloric energy mentioned on the package or menu is a very rough estimate of the amount of ATP which can be generated from it. [1]

Second of all, the psychological effects of dieting, due to the strong habitual, cultural and social effects should certainly not be underestimated. Your statement 'to pick the one you like' already indicates the emotional undertones. Just keeping a tally with calories in vs. calories out ignores this fact, instead of tackling it head on. It is much better advice to talk about making a list of: "if this, then that". For example: "I will always do exercise two times a week, three if possible. On holidays, I will find alternative means." or: "Although with care, I will not obsess about caloric intake during dinner parties.". This kind of advice works long term and creates some easy rules to keep during difficult times.

Thirdly, and most importantly: certain molecules, such as fructose and alcohol, do not participate in the feedback loop to the brain to stop consuming. Although we can practice willpower, it is much easier and tenable to consume these products together with products that contain molecules that do, such as fibers. [2]

Lastly, when exercising, it is not unlikely to increase weight due to increased muscle mass and added fat due to cold water or wind.

[1] Scientific American, fwiw. With a bit more search you should be able to find better references: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-w... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15181085

I think it's quite defensible to say: "The average person will have have better outcomes if they simplify their strategy to counting calories and making decisions on that basis, rather than a more complicated approach, which are unlikely to actually maintain."

It's basically like "ignore air resistance" for most day-to-day physics problems.

> The average person

The average person doesn't escape insulin responses. Counting carbs and preferring fatty foods is easier than counting calories and helps the person far more.

This is valid advice, as long as they pick "Eat less". Generically, you can't outrun a donut.

Well, some people can - I remember a period in my life when I was training about 10 times a week (4 BJJ sessions, 3 endurance sessions, 3 weights sessions) and having trouble maintaining my bodyweight. I was also living rent-free on a grad student stipend and nominally working on my thesis with very few other obligations and about zero social life. I was also in my 20s.

As a 'normal person' the only way I have ever lost weight is by eating less. The idea that you can exercise your way out of Fatfuckistan is absurd once you hit maturity or middle age. If I tried to train 10 times a week (the way I did) now my joints would disintegrate. Conversely, even running a small but consistent calorie deficit allowed me to lose 70 grams a day for a 15kg weight loss (mostly fat), with the same moderate training schedule that I had previously been getting fat on.

I think your advice is naive and does not solve anything. Its like saying "Money in / money out" is as absolute a fact as it gets. so I say "You have two options: Earn more, spend less, pick the one you like".

That advice might be true, bit its also totally useless in solving poverty.

The hole argument for different diets is based on alternative theories of how different foods affect your body and/or mind.

To take absurd example, maybe carrots move energy from building fat cells into a process that converts your blood to carrot juice. You could eat the same amount (in calories) of carrots and something else, spend all the energy and still end up with a different body.

That's what the debate is about. Just telling people to run more or eat less will simply not work. Running (Sports) by it self, is essentially proven to not be effective for weight lost. You can actually train fat people to run marathons.

So what? Fat people running a marathon does not change the fact that calories in/calories out is, not the most effective, but the only way how this works.

Any diets, workout routines, lifestyle changes, etc. will change in input/output ratio that will give different results.

>Fat people running a marathon does not change the fact that calories in/calories out is, not the most effective, but the only way how this works.

No, it's actually not. From TFA: "Still, further research has shown that calories eaten are only part of what determines weight. Our metabolism reflects an interplay of things like genes, hormones, and the bacteria that populate the gut, so how much energy we absorb from what we eat varies from person to person."/

The thing is, you eat less, your body conserves energy when not working out. And the workouts are more challenging because you don't feel like doing them.

Or, you work out more, but then you get a lot more hungry. So you end up eating more. If you try to fight both these conditions, then you end up miserable (i.e., constantly hungry, or miserable when trying to do more exercise).

What is really needed is lifestyle tweaks. For example, if it is a habit to grab a donut or two from the box that someone brings into the office, you need to figure out how to not do that (i.e., relate that donut to doing an additional workout) -- eventually you may be able to convince yourself that the donut is poison, and therefore avoid it.

For the exercise part -- first get in shape (takes about a month or two of daily 1-hour aerobic exercise such brisk walking or using an elliptical). Then, if you are close enough to work, at the start of spring start riding a bicycle to work at least once a week. Then 2 - 3 times a week. A 15-mile ride takes about an hour, and burns enough calories that you don't really have to worry about what you eat.

You can also make a habit out of going for a walk at night for an hour or so -- that should burn around 500 calories. And increase your metabolism. Also, if you typically eat fast food for lunch, change to a sandwich shop, or pack a lunch.

You're just stating laws of physics though which isn't helpful. The idea behind diets is that your body processes different sources of energy differently. For example, it doesn't process antimatter at all despite its numerous calories. Maybe sugar kicks it into hibernation mode, desiring to engorge everything in site. Maybe ingesting mostly fat causes the body to efficiently start to be able to access excess fat reserves. Maybe it's different for everyone depending on genetics.

Stating the laws of thermodynamics to people who are struggling to lose weight or trying to understand how our biology works isnt helpful and just comes across as smug. It's like being a mathematician and looking down on all other fields as just being derived from math.

Given the obesity rates in the US, I think you'll find that, for the average person, this is easier than it is for you.

Try raw cookie dough. Hardly healthy, but far less volume to consume

the $6 range includes the 'meal' with drink and fries - add at least 400 more calories.

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