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Comment by knicholes | Hacker News Reader

I'm shocked to see how many people are saying that exercise is the way to lose weight. Exercise is a great way to strengthen your lungs, heart, and other muscles, but it's not going to be the way you lose fat. Diet is the answer. I know this because I've seen it time and time again, and because of recent research showing that a tribe who moves far more than we do burn about the same amount of calories as those who are sedentary. The calories just go to other things.

A very simple solution that definitely works is Clean Simple Eats. They give you a weekly shopping list and the recipes you need to eat every day. I said simple, not easy. It takes will power to stop eating everything in sight. It takes will power to spend so much time in the kitchen.

You don't need a weird tip. You need to do what is time-tested and true. Diet, sleep, and exercise. That's how you'll gain health and a better body composition.

80% diet, 20% exercise

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Exactly this. I'm 30yo, have been overweight most of my life and I've finally learned this. Since last May I've lost 65lbs by simply putting my height, weight, activity level, and age in an online calorie calculator and have weighed myself every day and kept my calories at or under this target. I just started feeling energetic enough to start weight lifting as of one month ago and my weight hasn't changed (started eating +450 more calories a day), but I'm already starting to physically change (slightly more defined arms and chest for instance).

You don't need a fancy diet. Just count calories every single day long enough and you will lose weight.

An added benefit of counting for so long is that I can now roughly estimate the number of calories in food when I'm out with friends. I just factor in those slight cheat outings into the beginning of my day or next day.

That's great! Like you said, the scale can lie. You could be losing fat and gaining muscle mass. In that case, I'd say your next step is to make sure you're eating enough protein in addition to the right amount of calories so as to provide your body what it needs to build that muscle. I use MyFitnessPal to track my macros.

Fun ways to track your progress other than the scale include body measurements (with a measuring tape) and pictures! Or DEXA.

Totally agree but exercise benefits go far beyond calorie burning. More muscle === higher resting metabolic rate. It also helps to put you in a more healthy mindset, in my experience. If both diet and exercise are hard, then focus on diet. But I always drop weight when I’m regularly moving my body.

Yeah, this!

I was doing 13,000km by bike every year for years and kept gaining weight until I hit 122.5kg. I was able to go on a 40km hike, cycle for 200km and bench press my body weight easily, but kept getting heavier. I stopped all excercise except for walking and moderate cycling (I have a habit of watching coding tutorials while on a starionary bike), and started alternate day fasting. I lost 18kgs in 3 months while eating anything I want on the feasting days. Never felt better.

That's insightful and inspiring. What did/do you eat on the fasting days? And on the regular days?

On fasting days, just walking and low intensity cardio. Working as usual. No food, just water.

On feasting days, anything I wanted. Incl. Pizza for breakfast :-)

The amount of muscle mass you obtained, I’m sure, help you loose weight. You essentially did a “cut”.

Because a body that exercises is better able to manage their diet, not just on the calorie level but on the stress and craving abatement aspects. It helps with adherence to diet.

Couldn’t agree more. When you realise to lose 0.25kg a week you have eat at a deficit of 250 kcal per day, that’s already a lot. One snack and you’ve compensated already. Oxygen tricks won’t change that reality.

To add to Clean Simple Eats; get a book like Greg Doucette’s cookbook. His youtube channel is a bit cringe but his food is the real deal. Eating high fiber, high protein and calorie sparse (as opposed to dense) is a huge help to stay full but not eat too much.

exercise is one way to lose weight. Those tribes might move more than most of us, but that does not mean they burn a lot of calories.

I you have a few hours and do an efficient excercise like cycling or rowing, you can burn about 700 kCal once you get in shape. If you can do that 5 times a week you will loose weight (assuming that you have body fat to loose).

You cannot entirely ignore diet and still lose weight, even with hours of exercise. Two American donuts are 700kCal.

An hour exercising is an hour you can't eat in addition to likely sleeping better and longer. You can see this people who hike the Appalachian Trail as well as athletes who train at least 4 hours a day.

I have been experimenting with walking 10+ miles a day (at least 3 hours) and seem to lose weight no matter how hungry I get.

Sleeping can assist with general decision making, and yes removing yourself from food options will obviously help you with a calorie deficit.

However neither of these show the GPs point of "exercise is one way to lose weight".

> You cannot entirely ignore diet and still lose weight, even with hours of exercise. Two American donuts are 700kCal.

100% correct, the only time I've out exercised a bad diet was when I was I was bicycle touring and doing 6+ hour rides each day.

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