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Comment by AnIdiotOnTheNet | Hacker News Reader

Eh. the articles argument appears to be that even though nutritionists, physicists, and dieters all agree that eating fewer calories than you expend causes weight loss, it isn't easy for a variety of factors. No shit. The thing is, it is the simplest expression of what needs to happen, and there is no getting around it.

I was once well north of the weight of the subject in the article and have since shed about half of it and kept it off for years. I've been through all the games your brain and body play to try and get you to eat more, and all the fad diets out there sound to me exactly like those games. It's nice to believe you don't have to suffer to reach your goals, but it isn't true and anyone telling you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

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There's also good evidence that people don't maintain that weight loss over time despite maintaining their lower calorie consumption. Because base metabolic rate is something that the body can adjust, just like if you had less money to pay for heat, you could just put less heat into the house.

The role of hormones (especially insulin) in regulating fat storage and whether stored fat is available to the body as energy is better understood now, and much has been documented about how high insulin combined with low calories over time results in a lowering of the metabolic rate (resulting in stalling weight loss and then weight gain) rather than sustainable weight loss.

Also "it's nice to believe you don't have to suffer to reach your goals" is a silly and moralistic thing to say. But it typifies the american "scientific understanding" of weight loss. Fat is immoral, suffering is virtue, therefore in order to lose your immoral fat you must suffer.

Just look at all the massive success of those in the IF and keto community in living joyful lives, not deprived, losing fat etc. etc. And then look at all the people for whom calorie counting has completely failed. The information is out there (shruggie)

>There's also good evidence that people don't maintain that weight loss over time despite maintaining their lower calorie consumption. Because base metabolic rate is something that the body can adjust, just like if you had less money to pay for heat, you could just put less heat into the house.

Well, it's not just some fixed calorie amount they need to take for an eternity. It's the amount that corresponds to their current weight and muscle mass. As those change over time (and their base metabolic rate changes), they should change their calorie target too.

>Also "it's nice to believe you don't have to suffer to reach your goals" is a silly and moralistic thing to say. But it typifies the american "scientific understanding" of weight loss. Fat is immoral, suffering is virtue, therefore in order to lose your immoral fat you must suffer.

Actually the 'silver bullet' is more typical of the american "understanding" of weight loss.

There's no silver bullet. No pain, no (weight) loss.

LOL ok, so "eat a diet and time your eating in a way that promotes healthy hormone balance and use of fat as energy" is a silver bullet but "use our magic equations based on state of the art info from 1958 to calculate your daily food needs and all your food and exercise as numbers and if your equation balances you'll lose weight" isn't. Sure.

You don't need any magic equations. It's really much more simple than that: if you're not losing weight, eat fewer calories until you are.

In fact, just weight yourself each day, and unless you weight less than the day before, eat very little. Repeat, and you'll shed weight (the so-called "graph/grid paper diet").

https://kottke.org/09/07/the-steve-ward-diet

>"eat a diet and time your eating in a way that promotes healthy hormone balance and use of fat as energy" is a silver bullet

If it promises you to lose weight without limiting your calorie intake (e.g. have your weight loss cake and eat it too), then yes.

>but "use our magic equations based on state of the art info from 1958 to calculate your daily food needs and all your food and exercise as numbers and if your equation balances you'll lose weight" isn't

The laws of thermodynamics don't change because we don't have good formulas to calculate the exact amount of calories a person has a basic metabolic rate just based on their weight and height...

Calories still matter, and you should still limit your intake -- whether you do it approximately by "state of the art info from 1958" or with modern medical tests and expensive equipment. Or you know, just with eating less that you normally do, even without counting calories (if you ate 1 steak per day, and you change it to 1/2 a steak, you're eating half as much calories, even if you don't know how many exactly). Skipping BS deserts will cut even more...

No great science required, millions of people have lost way by just eating less...

Some people don't want to lose "weight", but "fat" (often specifically "subcutaneous fat", often from some specific body area).

If you're already very fit and lean, but have some stubborn fat around the "love handle" area or elsewhere, "eat less" doesn't cut it any more. Sure you can reduce that area, but not completely, and while the rest of you turns into an ugly skeleton.

>Some people don't want to lose "weight", but "fat" (often specifically "subcutaneous fat", often from some specific body area).

The latter people are then delluded, surgery aside, you can't lose targeted fat from a specific body area. You lose fat across your body AND from that area, or you don't lose fat.

At best, you can trait that area and build some muscle next to the fat.

> Just look at all the massive success of those in the IF and keto community in living joyful lives

I'm not convinced most of those evangelists have actually lost and kept off significant amounts of weight, and nearly everything they say reads like a sales pitch so I'm not inclined to trust it.

> Also "it's nice to believe you don't have to suffer to reach your goals" is a silly and moralistic thing to say. But it typifies the american "scientific understanding" of weight loss.

Saying you can achieve your goals with less effort if you BUY NOW is even more american. Even if no one is asking you to actually pay money for a program, they're still shilling an idea.

Somehow, among weight loss subreddits, /r/keto (and more specialized cousins) and /r/fasting stand out with a lot more success by average people who aren’t trying to sell anything.

Keto and fasting are fighting an up-hill battle: the only thing you can sell is guidance, and that is freely available. The keto bar/additive industry is minuscule.

Yeah, it's one of the regular "personal anecdote + some few random expert quotes" sensationalist article that comes several times per year pointing to this or that direction.

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