I became addicted to running, and lost 26 lbs. All thanks to ChatGPT

I agree, but the power of conjuring manageable workout plans without sifting through piles of over optimized forum posts really lowers the barrier to entry.

That analysis paralysis gets me off the wagon a few times a year when I seek to level up my workout game.

There was a SSC post a while back about how every new kind of psychotherapy works great at first, and then reverts to the mean over time.

Gotta be the same idea - some guy thinking "I'm going to be so successful once I prove my new concept works!"

you take motivation where you can get it. if Internet points got him to run a literal extra mile, good for him! I'd love to lose 26 lbs.

Turns out this is how olympic athletes do as well. They run *a lot* of kms slow (at least their slow pace, that to us mortals looks very fast) and few fast.

Look for the book called 80/20 running if you wanna go deep

Yes. The same is true of any athletic pursuit. You have to build the habit first.

Want to strength train? Go and do a bench press. It doesn't matter the weight. It could be just the bar. Just learn the technique. Don't overdo it, you will be sore. Keep it fun.

Next week you can try more.

In fact, the same may be true of many things.

You cannot outrun your diet. All of the weight loss came from dietary changes. Running as an exercise is really good for you but if you're not an actual athlete only contributes marginally to calories burnt.

I burn roughly 2000 calories for doing a 20km run, a bit more than an hour and a half of running, heart rate of 170 to 190bpm. There is 1300 calories in a large big mac meal [1]. Its stupid easy to consume excess calories. For the next day or two after a 20km run I feel so famished that I could eat 6000 to 8000 calories a day after that.

[1] https://www.calorieking.com/us/en/foods/f/calories-in-meals-...

> He ran for 3 months - the end of the first month only running a full mile - and lost 26 lbs by the end of the third month? How?

To recontextualize the math, losing 26 lb of fat in 90 days is about the same as a 1,000 calorie deficit per day.

By no means impossible, but certainly an effort, including the dietary aspect of ignoring how your body will want to eat more-than-before to compensate.

Anecdotally, I'm currently doing a lesser 400-500 deficit per day (-4lb/month) just through dieting. Not for the first time, I did it for a year a long time ago, then slowly backslid.

I guess it depends on where you’re starting at and what else you’re doing, like a diet.

26 over three months does sound like a lot but not impossible. Anecdotally, I broke my leg and had surgery in January and gained 20 lbs over 9 weeks of being on crutches. I’ve been slowly getting back to being active and running again. But also have been strict with my diet at the same time. I’m down 7 lbs just this month. I don't see why I won't continue that or make even more progress next month.

For me doing the exercise doesn't burn as many calories, but after I run, I want to eat healthier. If I've been sitting around all day, an ice cream cone sounds good.

If I was just reminded of how hard it is to burn 100 calories - it's not. So I think there's perhaps a subconscious nuance here.

Please get all medical advice from a medical professional.

What I've heard is that 2 pounds a week is the "safe recommended limit" for weight loss. 3 months is 12 weeks or 24 pounds, which is about 26. 2 pounds a week works out to, give or take, a 1000 calorie deficit. That's very, very easy to achieve if you're working out regularly. At the height of my exercising period a couple of years ago, I was burning > 3000 calories a day. There were some days I had to actually eat extra just so that I wasn't hilarious under my required calorie amount. On a 3500 calorie day, eating a healthy 2500 calories is proper work.

This was my first reaction also. I have lost >26 lbs in 3 months. It’s quite doable but you need to be very strict about… your diet. Somebody isn’t telling the entire story.

Just to remind people of the physics!

10 lbs of fat is 36,000 calories. Which is:

- 82 miles of swimming

- 240 miles of running

- 700 to 900 miles of biking

26 lbs obviously being 2.6 times that: 200+ miles swimming, 600 miles of running, 2400 miles of biking.

So as you point out, 26 lbs lost isn't going to happen even if he ran that 1 mile every day for 3 months. The ONLY way is substantial caloric deficit through dieting/reduced food intake.

2 pounds per week is a typical recommended max. 3 months is 13 weeks. So 26 pounds in 3 months is fine.

My water heater stopped working a few weeks ago. I told ChatGPT what I was seeing and it told me which part to replace. I had never worked on a water heater before and fixing it was no problem with its instructions.

OTOH, I didn't realize until I got in there that there's only like 3 parts in a water heater so it wasn't as complicated as I imagined but I didn't have its breadth of knowledge.

I mean, if he just googled a few websites he'd get the same information. I guess these days there's enough blogspam (ironically, increasingly AI generated) that having an LLM cut through it if you aren't sure of what handful of reputable sources you should check for a given topic might be a slight effort and time-saver, but it isn't providing anything that's not fairly immediately accessible.