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Comment by 762236 | Hacker News Reader

Exercise, and you don't have to worry nearly as much about sugar or other foods. Your exercise should probably include high-intensity for carb oxidation, and low-intensity for fat oxidation (zone 2, for at least 90 minutes). The diets people try are hacks to avoid exercise, and to work around the mitochondrial dysfunction that results from insufficient exercise. Worry about diet when exercise isn't sufficient. We've evolved to eat lots of carbs. When you deplete your glycogen stores, which I do multiple times a week, you have to eat carbs like crazy. Carb restriction hurts athletes.

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I have gone from 33% body fat to 22% in 7 months. It has been purely through moderate calorie restriction but eating the same stuff. I used to swim and do CrossFit and it was so hard to lose weight because I would inevitably have an injury that would prevent me from working out and would lead to weight gain until a few weeks. I have been unable to lose weight for 12 years because I focused so much on exercise and diet when really just doing diet was the key. Once I get to my goal body fat percentage I plan on starting exercising a lot again but until then it’s just 8k steps or so a day. I do agree people try diets to avoid exercise but most people I know do both when trying to lose weight.

Yeah I’ve been struggling for decades to stay at a stable weight, and have found my personal perfect combo that works now is “20% exercise and 80% diet”. Strict OMAD, zero processed sugars, and my dinner is a loaded up feast of a plate full of nice healthy food. Exercise is 1hr walks (at a solid pace) and/or half hour of body weight exercises.

With that combo I’m the healthiest I’ve been since my teens.

Abs are made in the kitchen.

Diet is most important, you can exercise as much as you want but if you're eating 2 Big Macs for every meal you won't last long on this Earth. Most diets I agree are supplements that are designed to make people "feel good" without doing the extra effort to track the foods they are eating. Maybe you mean meal plans/diet plans, because actual dieting is really what slims you down/bulks you up

Exercise is certainly important, but it takes incredible amounts of exercise to burn the calories consumed during just a single super-sized fast food meal. The amount of exercise needed to maintain a healthy weight while regularly eating 4 or 5 thousand calories a day is not doable for most people with jobs, families, etc.

The fact that you can consume in 15 minutes more calories than you can burn in 150 minutes makes it a losing battle, especially since people who are already overweight often find it impossible for exercise for long periods of time due to medical complications.

Diet is the most important aspect to healthy people.

The saying “you are what you eat” has much deeper meaning.

Just look at the obesity levels in US. The millions of people with heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Looks at pictures of people from 1930s depression era, when lots of people were broke and down on their luck. The people look better and healthier, even with eating the meager food they ate with depression era economy.

The food back then were truly organic and natural, real meats and fats. What we call food now are processed blocks of chemical concoctions with added sugar.

My experience is exercise makes less difference for weight loss than diet. Calories in calories out. A choco bar take a decent run to burn it off.

I agree exercise is good but being fatigued I have relied mostly on diet to lose weight. I really enjoy running though so it’s a bit sad.

Exercising is much easier and more straightforward than, you know, actually changing what you eat. Especially when you hate cooking and vegetables.

Easier to eat 1.5k calories instead of 2.5k calories than do a 10k run daily.

> mitochondrial dysfunction that results from insufficient exercise

What does this mean? Can you cite something to back this up?

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