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Comment by arkh | Hacker News Reader

It's easier to eat less calories than exercise.

I don't know about easier, but it's certainly more efficient.

How easy it is probably depends on your circumstances.

There are infographics and whatnot out there detailing the caloric density of different kinds of food, that make it clear that, depending on the diet you already eat, you can reduce your calorie intake by vast amounts just by switching up what kinds of food you eat. But it's potentially a more expensive way to eat, and probably a more time-consuming one if you don't already enjoy cooking.

I used to believe that too. Just eat low caloric density foods, right? It makes a lot of sense. So, I calculated the precise caloric density of Everything and ate nothing but <0.8 calories/gram foods with increased emphesis on 0.2 I had to eat truely vast amounts of food to get anywhere near full. We're talking many many pounds of spinach and 8 zero calorie jellos, pound after pound of vegetables and high fiber fruits: like berries.

It does NOT work well at all. Don't get me wrong, it helps a little, but your stomach is extremely smart and it knows alot more about calorie counting than we do. Like it or not, it keeps it's own account of your calorie intake and adjusts your hunger and appetite accordingly.

If you're like me and you're already eating a very healthy diet and you exercise regularly and your still gaining weight, you only have one option: go hungry. Very hungry. Right now, it's the only way. You could exercise a lot more, but either way, you're going to suffer.

That’s also my experience. I do a lot of Thai boxing and I need to control my weight to maintain my weight class. I switched from a balanced diet to a keto diet hoping for change but at the end both averaged the same. The only difference was that with the balanced diet I had to eat twice as much food to actually feel full and work out without being dizzy. Now I am walking down the path of strict calorie intake control, trying to better understand my metabolism tipping point. Working out more has no effect if it does not come with some form of caloric restriction.

Personal experience: I've lost 4lb per months for the last 6 months with no cooking. I'm lazy so I just use microwavable food: 3mn to prepare, I know the number of calories so I can easily stay under my target.

Even with not microwaved but easily made, pre-made soups or veggies are easy to heat and more filing.

Even eating only snacks I can stay under 1.5k per day by just not eating anything on the side.

The trick for most people starting is to not drink your calories: switch to 0% calorie sodas and replace sugar in coffee and tea with aspartame. No fruit juice and check calories as "0% added sugar" usually mean there are a lot of calories.

The insight that I found to be more helpful is that if you want to count calorie losses from exercise as weight loss, you at least need to make sure that you aren't consuming more extra calories than what you burned from exercise.

It can be hard to do this if you don't have awareness over what you typically eat.

It's easier to eat less caloric dense foods than both.

I love stuffing myself full of food, and I suspect others enjoy this too. Knock yourself out with as many carrots as you can have. Eat a full pound or two of cauliflower.

Have you tried it? I did, it's easier only for some time. After you lose about 6-7% of your body weight it's very hard to eat less, your whole behaviour changes.

Being 100% sedentary + eating less calories is pretty difficult.

For some reason unbeknownst to me, exercise makes eating less a lot easier.

Is there statistics for this? I recently dropped 20% of my bodyweight, but didn't find that my behaviour changed at all. If anything as the routines set in it became easier.

Statistics no, but I heard this many times, not believed it and then confirmed this with my body.

Generally a sustained weight loss of 10% is considered to be a good target. It's the around the balance point of "real, tangible benefits" and "can actually be accomplished and maintained".

There are absolutely people who are successful at losing (and maintaining) more than that, but they are a pretty small minority.

I don't have sources in front of me, but this is based on many conversations with my sister-in-law, who is just wrapping up her dietetics internship (after completing her undergrad in nutrition). I'm sure I can get some sources from her later in the day if you would be interested.

I would be interested in reading on this phenomena. I've heard this 10% before, but didn't find there to be much of a bump myself. The diet at no point was particularly difficult to stick to once I'd developed the initial discipline. I did find my strength performance to decrease after about 3 or 4 months, but I don't know if that's due to a particular hormonal shift, or being on a caloric deficit for an extended length of time, and a general decrease in mass making lifts harder.

I tried it - I lost nearly 25% my weight (down from 132 kg to 101 kg) over this year by eating less and walking on foot a lot more. Eating less is certainly having a lesser effect than it did at first, but I'm still losing weight bit by bit.

Walking is very underrated as exercise. People think they have to go to the gym or run a marathon for it to count. In fact, if you're overweight, running could shoot your HR way up (+190). Try walking.

Will have to try walking more, this may be good suggestion.

I did similar a few years ago. Dropped from 172lbs (78kg) to 139lbs (63kg) in 5 1/2 months. Near 21% weight reduction in body weight, just by counting calories and walking (granted, quite a bit). There definitely isn't a "wall" you encounter when losing weight. I tracked everything I ate (often to the gram) and it felt like little more than basic arithmetic.

Had a friend take notice, so he took it up himself. Dropped the best part of 60lbs (27kg) over the course of the year. Very different diet, but again tracked everything he ate (again, often to the gram) and lifted weights instead of walking. He was baffled with how simple it ended up being, but was pleased with himself nonetheless.

Yup.

Dropped 25kg (45ish lb) 3 years ago. Gained 12kg back the next 2 years which I removed during the last 6 months. Still more weight to shed but I know what works for me and what kind of effort it requires: going hungry by eating less.

Like lot of fat-logic people I used to think that exercising was required and even the only thing needed to get fit. "I'll just start exercising and be back to an healthy weight" is just a fantasy. There is no miracle way of doing it.

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