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Comment by thomk | Hacker News Reader

You lost 22kg in exactly 2 months doing this?

Having lost a similar amount of weight in 3 months by switching to keto (pretty much the opposite diet from OP, but similar IF schedule) I'm not surprised.

If I'm being totally honest I attribute most of the gains in weight and mental clarity to reduced drinking, particularly before bed. Also apparently the occasional basket of french fries / onion rings was really adding up.

In my case I dropped from 102 kg -> 79kg. I'm tall and naturally very slender, but I'd gained a lot of weight while working at Amazon.

I also attribute the change to quitting a high-stress job, thereby removing a lot of "stress eating / drinking" in addition to using a rigid rule (NO CARBS) to avoid most of the fried garbage I'd binge on.

I'm not that surprised - I was eating and drinking like it was my job to gain weight and keep it on, then I stopped.

I’ve been favoring fish, protein, and veggies for some time, and trying to prefer lean meat, and I’m surprised at how flabby just one greasy meal or large soft drink will make me feel. I can’t really explain it, but it’s like once my body became accustomed to the current diet, I can now feel when I deviate from it. Still haven’t found any evidence for what I’m feeling though.

I had a very similar experience doing this too. Lost about 21kg in 2-3 months and went from 98kg to 77 kg in 3 months which is a lot for a guy who is 5'7. 16/8 IF(Intermittent fasting) , mostly plant based and one day was a cheat day.Didn't exersise at all for the majority of that period and even when I did the intensity wasn't high enough to put a dent in caloric deficit coming for eating less.

I did this 5 years ago and am still doing it and haven't gained my weight back. But I'll say that retaining my weight is harder now.I was 22 when I did that and stabilized at 71/72 kg for couple of years but now at 27 I am stable at 76/77 kg.Although exercising more and maybe having gained some muscle mass might account for that extra weight.My body fat percentage (assessing only visually) seems lowest than it has ever been.

Yeah, that's about 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) per week. Might be possible/healthy if you're starting at 500 lbs, but based on the stats we know that's not the case.

He was borderline obese, probably going on the first "diet" of his life. This is possible, although it's a little faster than is healthy. It will take a while of maintenance to avoid yo-yoing.

Borderline obese is not that high a bar. At 6'3" an "obese" BMI is 240 lbs.

Just for fun, let's use that popular "3,500 calories in a pound" estimate. You'd have to run a 2,750 calorie deficit per day to lose 5.5 pounds consistently, every week for two months. That would be a 24/7 fast, not 16/8. Remember, they said there was no exercise involved either so this is purely calorie deficit. Maybe they forgot to mention a limb amputation.

My suspicion for anyone losing this much weight this fast is that a big chunk is water weight. With a big change in diet there’s a good chance that the body will quickly find a new equilibrium with the amount of fluid cells will retain, especially since both salt and glucose are necessary for osmotic pressure in cells.

I also suspect sudden weight loss from diet change can partially be attributed to mass within the colon. If you have 5 lb of dense food packed in your digestive system, and suddenly eat nothing but high fiber low calorie foods. You’re going to easily shed a couple pounds in the next day or two.

If we assume half of the weight loss was not directly calorie related, a 1400 calorie deficit could easily be 1 american meal a day. Not totally out of the realm of possibility.

Yes, 100%! No word of a lie.

At 7,500 calories per kg you would therefore lose 82,500 calories in one month to lose 11kg. Assuming a generous 31 day month this is 2,661 calories per day. Therefore the required caloric deficit for the day is larger than the total calorie intake meaning no calories would have to consumed to achieve this weight loss.

So how could this have been achieved? It could partly be inaccuracies in weighing, difference in body weight from food contents in digestive tract, water contents etc. The alternative is an increased energy expenditure which could partly account for it. Of note, generally consuming less than 1200 calories a day regularly is thought to be harmful on the basis that it is difficult to get minimum necessary nutrients in this time.

If I have made a mistake in my calculations, someone let me know.

I might have misunderstood what you meant, but it seems like you're saying his problem is that the required deficit to lose that amount of weight in that time is more than a typical daily intake?

If that's the case, it could just mean that his starting intake level was 2*(that deficit), for example. Lots of people just overeat. Apologies if that's not what you meant though.

Ah sorry, I think I see now. Do you mean that his baseline amount he uses every day is less than the deficit, so even if he consumed nothing, it still wouldn't be enough?

If they were eating 5,000 calories a day every day before starting the diet (without being a serious athlete), their starting BMI/weight would have been much higher.

I calculated a similar deficit in another comment, although the "x calories in a kg/lb" number is just a guideline.

Any explanation involving water weight, digestive tract contents etc. would be nullified by the time period. It's not a week or two, it's two months.

I started measuring results 27/05/2019 when my weight was 104kg, BMI 29.43 (I think I started a day or two earlier). 03/06/2019 102kg. 25/06/2019 97kg. 28/06/2019 96kg. 08/07/2019 94kg. 26/08/2019 82kg.

I didn't measure myself at the same hour, and obviously, the measurement dates aren't spaced out equally. When I saw that this approach was working I stopped measuring all together.

Granted it might have taken slightly longer than 2 months to lose the 22kg, I don't really know, but I remember my weight stabilised so I wasn't worried about losing too much weight.

This is assuming it's all fat. Guaranteed at least 30% of that was water weight and fat free mass, depending on whether he was weightlifting and how intensely.

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