Comment by flexie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by flexie | Hacker News Reader

Just eat less. Much less. And don't drink alcohol, juice, milk, ice tea, or soft drinks. Drink water.

My suggestion:

Skip breakfast. Take a cup of black coffee.

A lunch consisting of a salat made of half a cucumber and a medium sizes tomato and either 1) a can of tuna (in brine, not oil) or 2) smoked salmon (100 gram), will make you quite full without adding more than 200 calories.

Afternoon snack: Lots of chewing gum is a great way to feel full.

Eat a normal dinner. One portion. Why dinner? Because that's usually the social meal and usually the hardest meal to skip. Look at what skinny people are eating if you wonder what a normal potion is. Don't eat two portions. Don't eat dessert.

If you want a drink after dinner, drink carbonated water (club soda) in a nice glass with ice cubes.

Do this, and you will lose around 1 kg per week, give or take. It may sound slow, but it's actually about as fast as it gets and after 2-3 weeks you will notice the results.

It will speed up the process a bit if you walk 1-2 hours a day and exercise 2-3 times a week, but it's really not required. Reducing calorie intake is key.

A couple nits from someone who has owned multiple gyms, done nutrition and weight loss counseling for various specific populations, etc.

1. This is overly prescriptive advice ("eat this exact thing", "no tea!", "no breakfast!", "no dessert!") that isn't appropriate for everyone, and will set a lot of people up to fail.

2. I don't have a problem with chewing gum specifically, but it's a crutch. There's nothing wrong with being hungry and just not eating. Everyone is capable of doing it, we just tell ourselves we're "starving" because we haven't eaten in three hours. Like actual crutches, use them if you absolutely need to, but the sooner you get rid of it the better.

3. Two hours a day is more than most people have the time or willingness for.

4. Calorie intake is irrelevant. Calorie deficit is the key. If you have a very physical job, you can eat more than the person who works at a desk, and lose weight faster than them. Some people will find achieving this deficit easier if they ramp up the frequency, intensity, or length of their workouts. Some people will find it easier by just eating less. The healthiest option is almost always somewhere in the middle.

I feel like 4 is needlessly pedantic because there's no way people in real life are able to realistically gauge their personal caloric discharge except by modulating intake and watching for symptoms of deficit. I know too many people who have been burned by exercise burning too few/too many calories.

Most of your calorie deficit comes from your Basal Metabolic Rate and it's very hard to excercise enough to achieve a calorie deficit. While strictly possible, practically speaking for most people the only term you control in the equation, if any, is the intake.

> it's very hard to exercise enough to achieve a calorie deficit

I don't know what your definition of "very hard" is, but you can burn anywhere from 100-150 calories for every ten minutes of high intensity work (more calories burnt as your weight increases, for the same level of intensity). So 30-40 minutes a day will get you 1500-3k calories over five days depending on your starting weight. Unless you're eating 3-4k calories a day you will very likely lose weight with that level of activity.

Your last sentence is so wrong I'd say it's dangerous. The hard truth is a lot of people "go to the gym" for two hours every day, but end up doing 30 total minutes of low-intensity work. That might be a nice social activity but there is very little physical benefit. Or they go on a 15-minute walk that doesn't get their heart rate up. Again, if you want to do it because it's enjoyable I'm all about that (I love walking my dog). But don't fool yourself or lie to other that you're doing something for your health, because you're not.

Put bluntly, most people just don't work out hard enough. Spike your heart rate, sweat, lift heavy weight and have sore muscles. If you're trying to lose weight, and you don't break a sweat and you're not out of breath, you're not going to get where you want to go. Do a group class like OTF or CrossFit if you aren't sure what to do or want the supervision. But you have to be uncomfortable (not in pain, which is an important distinction) to change your body.

> Put bluntly, most people just don't work out hard enough.

Yup. Most people won't. Certainly not every day. 100 calories for ten minutes of excercise means that you're undoing your one workout you did this week on your first soda.

I think that the threshold of discipline for maintaining that kind of training schedule is higher than the discipline required to cut your calorie consumption. While the math correctly says you can excercise enough to offset any amount of bad eating habits, realistically forcing yourself to excercise is a similar task to forcing yourself to stop eating ice cream or whatever your vice is.

I also think that, as you pointed out, you burn so few calories while doing the type of low intensity excercise that amateurs, myself included do, you're really getting very little measurable impact on your calorie needs. So it becomes an act of self deception: oh I can cheat but I'll make up for it. You won't!

As an anecdote, I’ve been happily somewhere between skinny and sufficiently toned (depending on how much I’m working out) my whole life, and I largely attribute that to the fact I hated my mother’s cooking growing up (sorry mom), so finishing my meals often didn’t happen. I got used to only eating until the hunger signals stopped, not until the full signals started.

Fast forward 20 years later, I almost never finish my meals at a restaurant. I take it home or let my friends finish it or just let them take it away; I’ve already paid for it, I don’t feel any kind of guilt. Especially after moving to the states, I realize that restaurants almost always give you way more food than necessary. I’m consistently blown away by friends who claim to be struggling to lose weight, yet will still get two beers, an app, and a main, and finish all of them. Just eat less!

> I’m consistently blown away by friends who claim to be struggling to lose weight, yet will still get two beers, an app, and a main, and finish all of them. Just eat less!

It's not a struggle to comprehend how to lose weight. They understand that they can just eat less.

Weight gain and loss is much more about biology that "just eating less". There are significant genetic and metabolic factors that contribute to each individuals' appetite and ability to control that appetite.

The stigma around weight gain has been reliant on this argument of overeating for so long, while the research has indicated that there's a lot going on behind the scenes that has to be considered.

"obesity is innate, that weight regulation is not governed by a uniform tally of “calories in–calories out,” and to quote Jules Hirsch, that “there is a biochemical or basic biological element in what it is that we call `willpower.'”5 The views of many Americans notwithstanding, weight is clearly far from being entirely within an individual's control. Genetic predispositions, in tandem with the development of food environments that facilitate overeating and built environments requiring minimal energy expenditure, may help explain why so many Americans are obese today."

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp1400613

I don't doubt that there are genetic and biochemical factors which rule how much we desire food and how often we'd like to eat. I'd go as far as to say nearly every impulse we have can be traced back to a genetic predisposition, one of our greatest gifts as humans is our ability to fight our genetic impulses.

I really love recreational drugs, cannabis and cocaine especially, and I'd hazard to say that part of the reason I enjoy them so much is due to a genetic predisposition. It takes a tremendous amount of willpower for me to control when I use and how much I use, while other people I know can smoke or party once a year and never feel an inclination to otherwise.

I don't think coddling overweight people and telling them that they're only overweight because of genetic and metabolic factors is anymore beneficial than telling an alcoholic they're only addicted for the same reason. Everyone has a cross to bear, and while some are heavier than others, I think it's defeatist to tell people that their obesity (or their addiction) is an innate part of who they are, not a challenge they can overcome.

Obviously I'm no expert, these are just my individual thoughts.

The major difference between your vices and overeating is that you don't need to have some cocaine every day to live. Total abstinence is not an available option for food.

That's a good point, they're definitely not equivalent. If it was societally expected of me to have three small bumps of cocaine every day, I'd have an incredibly hard time not overdoing it.

In general I agree, but I would oppose the "much less" advice.

If one is not morbidly obese, it is much easier to reduce the number of calories by a small amount and adjust to this lifestyle. Short diets with a strong calorie deficit require careful planning to be effective (exact nr of calories, protein, diet breaks etc).

If you assume an average person who is 10kg overweight due to slacking over the last 5-10 years, then we are talking about a daily surplus of 20 calories per day. Cutting your daily intake for around 220 calories will allow one to go back to the initial weight over the course of a year without dramatic lifestyle changes.

To cut these 220calories out, all of your advices apply, I would just not combine all of them in rapid manner. Most humans are not bodybuilders and will not have the willpower to sustain such a diet with appropriate planning.

If you can cope with eating a lot less for 2-3 weeks. It helps a lot. The stomach stretches but if you eat to satisfy hunger instead of eating to feel full. And do that for a few weeks. You will begin to notice that you feel fuller sooner. As your stomach shrinks a bit as it’s not stretched with food. Doctor told me that and wow huge difference, but that 2-3 weeks was hard.

It’s not perfect though. Plenty of people get their stomachs stapled to reduce their weight, lose weight, and subsequently gain much of that weight back because they’ve behaviorally overcome their stomachs.

Not everybody benefits or reacts to skipping breakfast the same. It sounds like IF is a little out of OPs scope.

Having said that, IF altered my relationship with food much more profoundly than going plant based whole foods only. I skip dinner and probably eat what others would call dinner for breakfast way more than average.

This could be personally investigated by someone with a meticulous food journal and periodic (like every 2-4 hours) blood sugar tests. Look for what spikes you.

The portion advice here is so important. I had a job where I travelled, and I immediately gained 20lbs because American portions were so insanely huge and I had been trained by my parents to "eat everything on my plate".

My new strategy is calorie counting and a hard rule that at a restaurant where you don't know what's in the food, small portions, eat half or a third of the meal and then immediately get it taken or boxed up so you don't pick on it while the social aspect of the meal is happening.

For me, skipping breakfast is a no go, because I'll binge lunch. I like to make sure that I have some sort of protein in my breakfast, usually eggs- and I find that I'm less hungry by the time lunch rolls around. But then even more importantly, I try to eat lunch at a set time, even if I'm not totally hungry yet, this way I don't eat too much.

This advice may not be for everyone though, as I usually engage in around 14 hrs of strenuous exercise weekly. So without breakfast, my ability to train is impeded.

Eat the same, eat whatever you crave. Eat junk if you insist but give an occasional serving of fruits and/or vegetables a chance.

Don't ever read the ingredients unless you're deathly allergic to something.

Alcohol is poison, but as long as you recognize that, proceed however the hell you want.

Get a chair that makes you uncomfortable. Sit up straight, move around, take a walk around the block, try moving to music (dancing) whatever you want in private. You'll sleep better, think better, live better as a result. The weight will fall into the range you are ultimately comfortable with. Don't fight yourself.

Water is wonderful, all-the-time.

This is mostly terrible advice. Being aware nutrition and ingredients in the foods you consume is very important. Dont accidentally eat 40% of your daily sugar intake because you were craving a powerade.

The only way to make it without ever reading the labels is to only cook everything from scratch. Else you'll think that eating granola bars every day is good for you, or simply think that hot pockets are normal food.

For sure. We live in an age where foods are engineered to maximize repeat purchase. In our evolutionary history, the main way to get concentrated sugar was to try to take it away from bees. If candy bars were similarly guarded at the convenience store, you can bet that people's consumption of it would be much closer to the recommended level.

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