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Comment by tsenkov | Hacker News Reader

Is it?

When you are losing weight for more than a month, I guarantee you, if you are a reasonable person, you wouldn't be losing a donut with those 500 Kcal. You'd instead be giving up 500grams (almost 2 pounds) of tomatoes + 80 grams of cheese + slice of wholegrain bread. That's a meal right there.

BTW, training during weight loss (by caloric restriction, at least) is mostly done to keep your existing muscle mass + keep metabolic rate up. You wouldn't train to create a bigger deficiency. So every calorie you burn through training (even low-intensity) you should intake back as food.

I will be walking for about an 1.5h tonight to "gather" some calories for dinner. I spend my rations for a bit more caloric lunch and now I will have to pay for it. :)

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Yeah, I lost and kept off half my body weight so clearly I have no idea what I'm talking about random internet know-it-all.

Correction: 500 grams -> ~ 1.1 pounds, not 2.

I've also done a substantial weight loss, while staying healthy (you can check my 1st-level comment in this same discussion).

I guess the "random internet know-it-all" is supposed to be me. I am in no way anonymous, btw (you can check my profile for links, in case you want to learn more about me), so maybe you can search for something that I have EVER posted that you are 100% sure was a lie and then try to label me? I find your comment rude and your username appropriate, Ms./Mr. AnIdiotOnTheNet.

Half my bodyweight was roughly 160lbs, that's nearly 4 times what you seem to consider "substantial" so you'll forgive me if I think I have a somewhat different perspective on weight loss than you do.

Besides which, here's what you've missed in your calculations: Precisely because there are lower calorie foods that you can eat, choosing not to eat 500 extra calories is much easier than 500 calories of walking. You can eat three of the meals you described every day (assuming your math is correct, I didn't check) and only consume 1500kcal, right? Since that's bound to be a deficit for pretty much anybody who actually needs this advice, you don't even need to walk at all. You probably should, just don't kid yourself into thinking that it makes up for poor dietary choices.

160 lbs loss and that being half of your weight is a huge accomplishment. Congrats! I hope you did it in a healthy and sustainable way and now feel much better than before. If you don't mind me asking - how tall are you, how long did the weight loss last and for how long have you kept the new weight?

44 lbs is about 1/4 of what you needed to do, yes, but that doesn't mean that my accomplishment is not significant. I wouldn't call a 6-month-long starvation insignificant effort. And 1/4 from a billion dollars is still a lot of money, isn't it? In my case it was 19% of my body weight that I trimmed, I am 6ft 1 and I am about 6 lbs above that previous mark, 6 months after I finished my weight-loss sprint (and this year I will continue to go down).

As I said - I wouldn't exercise to create a deficit. I would do it after I have achieved a big-enough deficit, and would replenish any calories expended through it with food.

So I don't try to argue you should "work" instead of "starve" - I am arguing that you should "starve" to get that deficit in and then "work to preserve muscle; continue burning on a good rate; eat more". Does that make sense?

It's the "eat more" that I don't agree with. That is seriously bad advice for food addicts because your brain will convince you of crazy things in its desire to eat and my experience is that you should never give it any room for excuses.

I'm 5'11". I achieved my lowest weight about 2 years ago and have managed to keep off all but 10lbs of it, much of which I'm confident is muscle. It took me 4-5 years to hit the low mark.

I didn't mean to imply that 44lbs was insubstantial, rather that I've had to operate at a different scale and so have a different perspective on what works and what doesn't.

> I achieved my lowest weight about 2 years ago and have managed to keep off all but 10lbs of it, much of which I'm confident is muscle. It took me 4-5 years to hit the low mark.

Good job.

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