Hacker News Reader

Comment by jvanderbot | Hacker News Reader

I did this too! For months (almost a year) I used descriptions, pictures, and measurements of food to get rough calorie counts. My diet is pretty simple and repetitive.

I would occasionally check the estimates, maybe once every few days for meals I wasn't already pretty sure of, and it was generally accurate. Where it was extremely inaccurate was on portions, and anyone who has dealt with computer vision could tell you, you can't get scale from a picture. So I'd have to weigh some meals or ingredients, which would generally make things more accurate again.

So, I think it's possible, but you need multimodal data and grounded with regular checks.

View on HN

About once a week I ask ChatGPT to give me a reasonable diet for recomp with weight loss. It consistently insisted I have at least 7 meals consisting of at least 30g of protein per meal, but the protein source can't be whey or casein. When I ask "why" it cites a bunch of studies ... but most of those "studies" are N=1 of a college or Olympic level athlete. If, instead, I grab a large scale lateral analysis, it says "3 meals" with about 1/2 of the protein.

It'll defend both sides (mutually contradictory) to the death. NOTHING will budge it from its initial stance.

To be fair this is a reflection of the general state of nutritional science and the actual answer seems to be "it depends on your genes".

Some people do well on 6 small meals, others do well on no breakfast and two large ones. Studies can't tell you anything useful about that, you have to experiment and find out what works best for you

The answer does not really depend on genes. There are personal preferences, there are sex differences (women prefer more carbs), and the biggest component is where you are and in which direction do you want to go to.

But in terms of physiology the answer is quite clear:

1. The protein is the most important macro to get, no matter if bulking or cutting. It is the building block.

2. Whatever the amounts (0.8g-1.8g/kg of bodyweight, depends a bit on a situation and the willingness to lose some potential marginal gains), try to divide your daily protein somewhat evenly between meals.

3. Pareto principle, you get the most benefits by having 3 meals. 4 if you really care about small differences and want to optimize. 5 meals give negligible additional benefits, for professional athletes who want to be anal.

4. So basically eat at least 3 meals and up to whatever works for you practically speaking.

It's not that difficult or ambiguous.

Optimum meal timing in particular I believe is heavily influenced by genes - I have friends who never eat breakfast, survive on black coffee until 1PM, then eat a lot in the evening and feel good doing it. If I do that I feel terrible.

So yes eat 2g/kg protein but the best way to time that in terms of meals, best specific foods to eat etc is definitely influenced by your genes

It's all about subjective habits.

But physiologically speaking there is no difference in the optimal recommendation in terms of protein synthesis: protein should be evenly divided between evenly spaced meals.

If people decide that this non-optimal way of life fits them better, then go for it. But let's stop with the "I feel better this way, therefore biologically my body works differently than any other human body." BS.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com