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Comment by xienze | Hacker News Reader

> don't try to tell me I failed because of a lack of effort, understanding, exercise, "discipline", etc.

Not to be _too_ rude here, but clearly you missed the mark on at least one of those things. If you're burning more energy than you're consuming, it's impossible to not lose weight. Maybe you underestimated how many calories you were consuming, overestimated how many calories you were burning, didn't do it often enough, didn't do it for a long enough period of time, had a few too many "cheat days", or some combination thereof.

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The missing piece is that the body does not burn a constant amount of energy, and often the body's response to calorie restriction is to reduce the amount of energy used. [1]

Play the weight-loss game with your body, and you'll find the goalposts get moved.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9036397/

> and often the body's response to calorie restriction is to reduce the amount of energy used.

Presumably the point at which it's VERY difficult to expend more calories than you're consuming is something of an equilibrium point, or healthy weight. I find it hard to believe that if you're still 100 pounds overweight after having lost say 20 pounds that it's nigh-impossible to find more "fat to trim" in the caloric intake, for example.

Metabolic adaptation is a rounding error. It’s not worth talking about in the context of losing weight if you are starting off as obese.

It’s effectively pseudoscience in the context of these discussions.

The simple fact you use less calories to move less mass is far more of a consequential variable many people forget to account for.

Go for a walk wearing a 100lb weighted vest and the try it without one and the impact will be exceedingly clear.

I count my calories accurately. The problem is keeping consumption that low in the long term. It's not sustainable. Your body does everything to fight you and it only gets harder the further you go.

Well that's where the "discipline" part comes in.

Only if you misunderstood what I said. Your body will determine how much "discipline" you have. Will power doesn't come from some external magical place. It'll be adjusted by your body as necessary to make sure losing weight is hard as possible for you.

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