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Comment by sedeki | Hacker News Reader

I lost 35 kgs since February this year, up until now in October. I want to lose 10 kgs more, then I'll have 10% body fat and will look fit.

Yes, it's all about ability to self-regulate.

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I don't think 10% body fat is going to be achieved through self-regulation/calorie cutting alone.

10% body fat is an EXTREMELY low %. I don't think that is realistic for most people outside very athletic folks. Reducing to 10% body fat requires a significant change in diet, not just reducing consumption, but actively changing your macro mix AND keeping a fairly strict regimen of strength training and cardio to keep the fat off.

I think losing weight as most folks (including yourself I think) agree with is reduction of calories. Then optimization of calories / lifestyle / workout regimen seem to be the next areas.

Maybe the root cause is different for different people?

How do you self-regulate? My wife is able to, I'm not very able to. She can just decide to lose weight and does it. I've only successfully lost weight during times when I was so stressed I couldn't eat.

This isn't meant to sound to flippant, but try to increase physicality to the point where you don't have to think as hard about calorie intake. A brisk one hour walk on hills can easily burn 600cal. At the same time, your BMR will go up due to increased fitness

>> A brisk one hour walk on hills can easily burn 600cal

This is optimistic to the point of being close to a lie. Most people walking for an hour are going to burn closer to 250-300 cal. At the pace and terrain to double this you're not really "walking" anymore, and it's certainly not "easy". The idea of "exercising your way out of overconsumption" is entirely flawed and disproven.

A 250-300cal/hr walk is a casual stroll. Don't move goalposts here. Perceived effort will change from person to person. Besides, I meant the number goal is easy, not the effort. But you knew that and wanted to twist my statement to fit your view.

A quick google search results in a range from 400-600cal/hr for brisk, hilly walks. You could also use the word "hike" but that requires nature which some people don't have access to.

>The idea of "exercising your way out of overconsumption" is entirely flawed and disproven.

Obvious one would still be attempting to reduce calorie intake throughout this scenario. But for the people who say "exercise just doesn't make a difference in my weight loss" - that is indeed flawed. You can absolutely exercise your way into a deficit. Perhaps you haven't had that experience. To that, I would say your workload is probably not high enough to experience it.

I cam tell you, that idea works pretty well. With added bonus that you gain stamina and strength.

Exercise is proven to improve your health results.

Just get used to being hungry and your stomach being empty. You don't need to do anything when you're hungry, you won't starve.

I completely agree with this, yet people have a hard time accepting it because hunger evokes so much emotion.

Eating food with a focus on satiation helps with this. It's normal to feel hungry, but you can offset it to a degree with proper food choice. Hell, I'm hungry right now

> How do you self-regulate?

You are not hungry. You are bored. Purge snacks from your house. Purge sodas from your house. Purge sugary anything from your house. Never buy treats in sized over one serving. Only buy one treat at a time.

Are you able to fast for an entire day?

You trying to lose weight isn't self-regulating, that is you manually regulating your weight.

The fact that you have 30kg excess weight to lose shows that there is an issue with self-regulation.

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