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Comment by tyleo | Hacker News Reader

> Losing weight was extremely challenging and socially isolating.

How was it socially isolating? I’m curious because I exercise and diet and this is not my experience. I understand it being challenging though.

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Eating food and drinking alcohol is a core part of most social activities. When you're losing weight, you can't really fuck up, you really need to stick to your diet. I found it difficult to maintain my diet in social settings (going to a friends party, eating at a restaurant with friends, going to a bar to celebrate something, etc) so I just stopped doing all of those things for 8 months. Like, if you're trying to quit heroin you're not going to go hang out with your old heroin buddies all the time and you're not going to do go near the places that sell heroin. Now, imagine that instead of being addicted to heroin, you're addicted to food, and all of the places that sell heroin are all the places that sell candy or burgers or really anything nowadays, and all of your "heroin friends" are really just your normal friends who have healthy relationships with food. Its really difficult to get away from it. When you're addicted to food, the only real way to improve is to quit it cold turkey style and that means some serious lifestyle changes.

Thanks for the answer. In my own experience I went from eating out every day at work to packing a lunch and eating in the cafeteria. It didn’t mean less socialization at lunch but I did start eating with different people and I realize that is hard or not even an option for some. I set a rule for myself to only eat out once a week and that did the trick.

I also stopped going to a weekly bar event with friends and honestly haven’t talked to them nearly as much since then. Similar to eating out though I eventually replaced that with a watch party/game night/discussion club with a different new group of friends. Those events have drinks but not really as a focus.

I didn’t make all of these changes simultaneously though which reduced some of the challenge. None of it is easy though and I still feel bad for not keeping in touch with some folks I was previously close to.

It probably depends where you live and your social groups. In MT it seems that there are two main groups of people. Those who are into outdoor activities (healthier lifestyle) and your other group which is more adverse to the outdoors and prefer to socialize in Bars or at events. If you fall into the latter, it can be socially isolating if you want to lose weight or maintain a healthy eating habit.

Everyone is addicted to food - what you're describing sounds like a great way to set yourself up for failure.

You can eat socially, you can have days you overeat and then fast the difference, etc. Pigeonholing yourself to super restrictive regimen - for what ? It's not like you have a deadline to lose the weight - and if your routine isn't easily sustainable you're just going to revert to old behavior as soon as something else starts taking your focus.

The only thing that matters with these things is trends and long term adherence.

No, everyone needs food. Not everyone is addicted to it.

Maybe in the loosey-goosey "I'm addicted to chocolate" way, but not in the "I habitually over-consume despite the negative consequences" way.

> Everyone is addicted to food - what you're describing sounds like a great way to set yourself up for failure.

as someone who has to be reminded to eat by their significant other or family lest I fall ill, from a long-line of people with the same trait, no -- not everyone is addicted to food.

I enjoy food, I consume food, but it doesn't produce any level of compulsion like an addiction does.

I just plan for it and eat less before/after event. I also got used to just eating rarer so say skipping dinner coz there is some event in the evening isn't a big deal

That makes sense but it may also be that you just need to make different social circles. There are tons of casual sports teams, for example, and those people are all bonding over playing volleyball casually (not at a high level or something) or things like hiking. Now your social activities are helping you lose weight

Nope, lots of casual sports teams will have people say, "hey we couldn't really socialize during the game, let's go grab a beer afterwards?". Hiking is similar, "hey let's take a break and eat some lunch."

Bring your lunch with you.

If you do order out, get a salad and skip the dressing.

"I brought cookies for the team today, who wants one"

Then take up trad climbing or jiu-jitsu. Ok those aren't for everyone, but your tone is way too dismissive. There are many, many social groups that will naturally encourage better exercise and fitness, if folks are interested.

OP commented on a weight-loss scheme of eating every other day. Given the social attitudes around eating (which I suspect to be the #1 most common social activity), this alone has the obvious potential to eliminate ~%50 of the most likely socializing opportunities.

I agree that eating every other day would be socially isolating but OP stated he ate every other day 7 years after his original bout of weight loss which he said he did, “the old fashioned way.”

They said every other day was easier than "normal" dieting.

You can plan your fasting days around it. If you have some crazy social schedule, maybe this doesn't work. But I don't go out every night.

I find fasting depressing. It makes me incredibly anxious.

Sounds convenient...

If you're not eating every other day you can still go to the eating place and sit with folks. Also you can just talk more since they have to eat and you don't. Sounds like MORE socializing.

This is funny, so the more you talk, the more you are socialising, and if you are listening, you are not socialising?

Also since taunting yourself with food is not a concern, you assume your willpower and concentration is perfect, you never need safety precautions!

You can go work on high voltage cables 80 meters in the air without rubber gloves or safety harness - since you are more agile without gloves, and you save time by not needing to move around the carabiner, you will be more productive!

Don't wear a seatbelt, a helmet, remove airbags, sell your protective gear! Don't buy insurance! Remove safety from your gun! Store your bleach, poisons and fruit juice in identical containers! Leave sharp object lying around on the floor! Don't make spare copies of house keys!

People feel really uncomfortable sitting down to have a meal with someone who isn't eating.

Being the only person eating can feel weird, but if I'm one person among a group I don't feel strange not eating and I've never picked up that it was strange for anyone else. Sometimes I don't feel like eating, and I don't force myself.

Why not just order something with no calories. If I go out for a meal and I'm not hungry, I'll get a salad. It's like 50 kcal.

I eat, get a bunch of vitamins, and socialize.

> If you're not eating every other day you can still go to the eating place and sit with folks.

It sounds like you can't really sympathize because you haven't experienced this, but I can help you empathize if you're interested. Context, I've moved from between 16% and 30% bodyfat several times in the last 15 years, I've struggled with weight my whole life.

For some overweight people, like me, there's a high willpower cost to avoiding food that's present. A strategy for weightloss that's worked for me is to simply remove all snacks from the house, and when I order food, order an appetizer only, or, if I'm with someone, slide half my food onto their plate. If I have to, I'll try to eat half, and then right away ask the waiter to box up the rest or whatever.

Seems silly, right? Why not just take a look at my plate, make a rational evaluation of the calories there, and only eat until I hit within my calorie budget? I'm perfectly capable of making that calculation, I've been counting calories for a decade, I'm pretty darn accurate at this point. So why don't I just do that? Why don't I just work out every day? Why don't I just study my mandarin flashcards every day like I know I need to? Why don't I always put my clothes away as soon as I take them out of my dryer?

I don't have a catchall answer, all I know is that for whatever reason, some or all humans have gaps between their ideal self and their true self, and sometimes you gotta do silly tricks to jump those gaps. A silly trick that works for me is keeping food I shouldn't eat, out of site.

So TLDR when I'm hardcore dieting, going to an eating place with the intention of not eating is an extremely exhausting exercise. There's many opportunities for me to fail there, from when I sit down everyone's looking at the menu (maybe if I just get something small, maybe if I just eat half it's ok) through to when food and drinks come (well I can snack on some of the shared appetizer, that's no big deal). I will quite literally catch my eyes darting from whoever I'm conversing with to a plate of fries again and again. Every single time it happens I have to tell myself "no," with the full list of rational reasons why that "no" is more important than my impulsive desire borne from both hunger and just like, mouth boredom or whatever, to eat the fry.

So knowing that about myself, when I'm hardcore dieting, I just try to avoid setting myself up to fail like that, and thus, it's a socially isolating time. Especially when I lived in the USA and outside of like, rock climbing and motorcycling, there was basically no time people got together that didn't involve food, cause you had to drive or whatever and your hangout time would probably overlap with a meal or two.

It's generally perceived as awkward to not eat when you're with others in a place that's specifically for eating

Because if you want to lose quickly, and once you get the discipline to lose you do want it to be quick, you have to restrict your calories A LOT.

I'm not OP but when I was losing, as a 6"2 male, I was eating between 1200 and 1400 calories a day. This does not allow you to eat anything outside of small meals and drink anything outside of water or diet sodas.

I was still going sometimes to the restaurant with friends but my choice was limited to the unique salad on the menu (which you can't eat whole because it would be too much) and my drink would be a diet coke. Same when we were going to the bar, I would just have diet soda or water.

I was lucky that all of my friends were absolutely supportive and didn't mind at all, but it still limits you. Going to a night club without drinking is not fun at all for example.

I would love to know what sort of healthy cut has a 6"2 male eating that low a calorie count. That is approaching weight class athlete cutting numbers which is near uniformly considered very bad for you.

If he’s not exercising and is largely sedentary then 1400 calories for an adult male is a serious deficit, but not extreme. If he added in an hour of high intensity interval training or something that would be extreme and potentially hazardous.

Someone who is 6'2" would need to weigh 195 lbs to be considered at all overweight. The BMR for a median 55 year old male is around 1800 calories, and thats for someone just marginally overweight.

I don't believe these BMR calculators are reliable at all. I am 45 and 6'1" and 1800 a day keeps me locked at 240.

I don’t think they are particularly accurate either and I know self reported calorie counts aren’t accurate either.

The important thing here is that a 1200 calorie diet for someone that big is an extreme outlier and I’d like to know what the actual protocol was.

If there wasn’t a lot of consideration about actual composition of diet or if this was a longer term protocol I’d be extra leery of it.

You can be healthy with a zero calorie diet if done correctly and for the proper time period, but you should be consulting an expert if you do.

And for anecdata I’m 6’0, 215 and 45. 1700 calories is a crash diet for me.

Yeah, I don't weigh my food, so I am just making educated guesses. The only time I knew for certain how much I was eating was when I ate about 0 calories for an entire month - due to advanced gallbladder disease and a hilarious series of diagnostic missteps. I lost 20 pounds. Gained it all back almost immediately after my surgery.

same

The problem with severe caloric restriction is that your metabolism slows down. This isn't true of water fasting up to 4-5 days at a time where your metabolism increases ~10-15%, and your body produces significant quantities of HGH which help you burn fat while preserving muscle.

Severe caloric restriction diets are actually not particularly effective if your goal is to permanently lose significant quantities of weight and keep it off - once you plateau it really sucks. Of course I mean if you power through and keep at it you will, but IME, periodic fasting is a much easier way to lose weight and keep it off.

Not hazardous, really, as you point out. The whole point of stored fat is to be used.

Citations available on request, I have NCBI links for each of my points but it takes a while to dig up.

I've tried many things and I prefer intermittent fasting over diets and calorie counting. Changing diet a bit is still important (cutting carbs and focusing on stuff that keeps me satiated for longer), but it's easier to manage say going to event (just fast day before/after), or when having some bigger meal for whatever (socializing etc) reason I can always just eat later tomorrow.

Usually one big meal after noon and that's about it, plus occasional coffee or cup of cocoa. If I have event in the evening I just don't eat during the day or get a milky beverage to get me by, then depending on how much I ate I either delay dinner the next day or skip the next day altogether.

What's severe caloric restriction mean, here? From memory I've read that 750kcal and even 1000kcal under TDEE are effective. A TDEE of 2400kcal would be normal for a young 6'2" male who does a bit of light cardio, and 2150kcal wouldn't be unusual for someone who's sedentary.

Some studies, including one that followed The Biggest Loser contestants [1] showed that your basal metabolic rate goes down as much as 23% as a result of significant caloric restriction and remains lower for at least the 6 years of the study - even if the weight is regained. For these contestants the restriction was very significant, though I'm not sure if it's quantified in the study.

Here's another interesting one. Check out the Energy Expenditure section of [2].

> The gross BMR decreased in all the subjects during semistarvation, the average decline being 17.1% after 19 days (54) and 21.4% after 13 days (55). [3]

Based on this data, I would expect your BMR to go down by 20% over a period of three weeks, and remain there for the rest of your life were you to continue this for a while. So you'd have to, as an 'average' person, reduce intake by 500kcal to account for metabolic adaptation, then another 500kcal to lose 1lb per week.

That aligns with your suggestion that 750kcal-1000kcal reduction should show results for most people.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27136388/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673773/

[3] https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/jappl.1958.1...

This amount of calorie would be without taking into account any exercise. Then on top of that, if you exercise (I didn't), you would just eat back the calories you consume via exercising to not be at an unhealthy level.

I would _strongly_ suggest you consult a qualified dietician or physician before cutting that dramatically.

Potassium. They always forget the potassium.

> Going to a night club without drinking is not fun at all for example.

This is where coke and mdma come in.

I'd rather fast day before/after than go to event only to be miserable when everyone around me is eating food I want to eat

Be overweight, bust out your healthy lunch at work. People will flat out tell you "Oh, it's so good you are trying to be healthy." So already you are being told that they thought you didn't care before and you have finally decided to make the "right" decision.

Slim people hear this in response to eating healthy food, too. In my experience, people are genuinely impressed/inspired to see healthy meals, or feel guilty about consuming junk they brought with them (so their comments are actually to themselves, small reminders that this is perhaps how they ought to be eating).

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