Hacker News Reader

Comment by kccqzy | Hacker News Reader

I’m also active and fat. And to me being active is more important than losing weight; I’d rather continue to do those long 2000kcal bike rides on weekends than having a healthier BMI. I’ve heard stories of my own friends bonking during a ride and I decided that I wanted to err on the side of overeating. So semaglutide doesn’t interest me. You aren’t the only one I’ve heard who started to have no energy after being on semaglutide.

That said the dementia benefit mentioned in the article still intrigues me.

View on HN

I know people for whom GLP-1s made them lose weight, have a better relationship with food, and reduce their intrusive thoughts, and left them far more able to be active.

I feel like we’ll eventually find out that how well GLPs work is going to depend on the “why” someone has extra weight.

Being active is great but fat is still dangerous. Let's not lie to ourselves.

> decided that I wanted to err on the side of overeating

The reason you bonk is because you've run out of sugar in your muscles not fat

True, but sugar can be converted to fat in the body. If you eat too much sugar before/during a ride, the extra sugar becomes fat.

Yeah but not at rates significant for a large aerobic expenditure. Fat is how the body stores energy and you can burn fat but you cannot convert fat to sugar fast enough at the end of a long run.

I figured that the way I adapted out of bonking was that my liver stored more glycogen. It's just a wild guess though.

People bonk because they're not eating enough DURING the ride. I'll eat (actually mostly drink) like 120-200g carbs on longer rides. Record is 700g during a 200km ride. I've seen big guys bonk too. It has very little to do with your BF% (although this is nuanced based on power zones and training 'durability' etc, etc).

Going back to my endurance days, I think people bonk because they aren't adapted. After a year or so of pushing through the bonk, and growing up with hypoglycemia if I didn't eat frequently, I got to where I could start out at 5am on an empty stomach and not eat until noon or later. If I did bonk, I'd sip V-8(yeah, really) and instantly recover.

Yeah this was the attitude back in the day and I know some older guys with this mindset but the science on this is pretty clear.

It’s definitely one of, if not the most, currently focused on aspects of endurance sports outside of the actual training.

There are so many active overweight or obese guys, whether it's cycling, swimming or hiking .This myth that inactivity = obesity or that activity fixes obesity or being overweight, need to die. It's not that simple. Hunger signals and how the body partitions/uses food is only orthogonal to activity.

I'm on tirzepatide, a competitive athlete, and have no idea what GP is talking about.

Being a competitive athlete is probably why you have no idea what I'm talking about (and maybe you're not in your 50s). You have a reason to keep your momentum and you are likely more regularly active than I was. Sure I lifted weights, but it was only 2-3 days a week for maybe 6 hours total.

Maybe start lifting weights again? 50 isn't a death sentence; I know a lot of competitive 50s-year-olds.

I'm trying but I've got a toddler and now it seems like every joint hurts. No time to get to a gym and no room for a decent home gym. I did start to do back day again at the Y when we go on the weekend for the pool. We'll see...

A pair of adjustable dumbbells in the corner of the living room is still very doable. Lots of bodyweight exercises too you could look into.

Back squats and deadlifts are both unreasonably effective, and impossible to load sufficiently with dumbbells.

Yeah, this is my problem. I love deadlifts. I even have a bar and several hundred pounds of plates. But they sit under junk in my garage with no hope for unburying them until next year. I have 100lbs of adjustable dumbbells but that's just not the same for me. But in either case the energy and motivation are just not there. I used to love the gym or even working out at home but now meh.

Are you done losing weight? It will probably feel better to go back to maintenance calories than to be in a deficit. And consider lowering your dose, gradually.

Totally understand the young kids thing. Good luck.

One small thing to try is so-called Asian squats while you're playing with your kid.

Hip and groin neuralgia started suspiciously soon after my tirzepatide weight loss. I seem to have gotten it under control after mobility exercises centered around squatting. It took almost six months to get from falling backwards to being able to squat flat-footed. Now it's a comfortable and useful stance.

My theory is the weight loss shifted my center of gravity, calling on muscles and joints that weren't ready for the load. Learning to squat helped the new version of my body relearn how to support itself.

The Asian squat has a very different focus than the squats I do in the gym. In the gym, a barbell back squat puts 200+ lb of weight on my shoulder, I squat down, hold for one second and then come up. In contrast the Asian squat needs no weight, but I need to stay at the bottom position for many seconds. It most likely exercises muscles in a different way than my usual squats. I can hardly do the Asian squats because I don’t practice holding at the bottom position.

People who eat well below their maintenance calories tend to have lower energy levels. That's the most likely explanation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com