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Comment by autokad | Hacker News Reader

actually, almost ANY diet works. if you are over weight and reduce your calorie intake: you.will.loose.weight.period.

people have a tendency to either not adhere to the diet over time or not partake in the diet at all by listening to people say: all these other magical factors effect your weight, why bother? negative platitudes if you will. 'its not that 4000 calorie a day diet that is making you fat, its genetics!' etc etc

while its true gut bacteria makes a difference, it is also true and proven that gut bacteria adjusts to your food intake. it is more likely that a persons weight problems can be moderated by diet and exercise than anything else. diet is most easily moderated by good eating habits.

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> actually, almost ANY diet works. if you are over weight and reduce your calorie intake: you.will.loose.weight.period.

What we are saying here is that you reduce your calorie intake within the range where gut bacteria can act, it might not have any effect, or even negative effect.

If you reduce your calorie intake below the level gut bacteria activity matters, you will lose weight, but only if you can sustain the diet for basically the rest of your life.

If the diet doesn't fit you, you will be fighting your body every single day, and your body might cave in and it becomes your new norm, or you can't stand it anymore and go back to your previous behavior.

Fighting your body until it gives up is such a brute force method it's just hell on earth (we say "your body", but litteraly you're punishing yourself). Experimentally the vast majority of people won't be able to brute force their behavior And metabolism, and have to find a diet that fits them. S

What I'm saying is sustaining low calorie intake is a result of having a diet that works. The relevant part is to find that diet in the first place.

Oh please. I was 230+ lbs six years ago (30% bf or so), and now I'm 194lbs at around 15% bf.

I lost 15% of my weight and kept it off. It's not that hard. It's not punishing myself, it's going to the gym and taking protein supplements. The "diet that works" is eating a lot of protein because it's the most filling.

You kind of contradict yourself then. Or are you saying eating high protein in the solution for everybody? I find eating high fat to work for me.

High protein is definitely the solution for everyone.

But how high depends on the level of activity and total caloric consumption. You can eat both high protein AND high fat. 40% of calories in protein, 50% of calories in fat, 10% of calories in carbs would be an example of a diet high in protein, fat and low in carbs.

For weight lifters I would recommend 1g of protein per pound of lean tissue (approximate) and the rest of the calories in carbs or fats however you want to distribute those, but some carbs before a workout.

Note, going to the Gym is also a great way to put on weight, so, I wouldn't correlate "going to the gym" and adding/losing weight. There's good research that shows even high-metabolic activity like running 5 miles/day isn't correlated with losing weight (though it is well correlated with increased aerobic capacity).

Basically, any diet whatsoever will result in you losing weight. Just measuring/charting your weight is effective too. Chewing 7 times with every bite will do it.

High protein diets are particularly awesome for a number of reasons though - in the first couple months you drop a ton of water, which makes the scale drop quickly, which is emotionally rewarding. And, eating a lot of protein tends to result in more rapid satiation. (Water and Dietary Fiber are good here too - so a simple diet trick is, four glasses of water with every meal).

Protein is also good when you are lifting, so is an important component in building muscle mass...

I put on less than ten pounds of muscle, it hasn't been a good way to put on weight even when I tried to bulk and eat a surplus. When I did eat a surplus I gained fat, and some muscle, but mostly fat. I then cut and lost the fat, but retained very little muscle.

People have a very unrealistic expectation from how much muscle they can gain going to the gym. Some can do better than others, but as for me, I have a very slight frame so I have difficulty putting on muscle mass.

Different results for different people I guess - also your particular workout regime. Doing a lot of heavy lifting (Starting Strength) over nine months resulted in a about 20 pounds of muscle/fat gain for me (but more fat than muscle). This wasn't unexpected, and given my principal objectives were to lift heavy things, I wasn't too concerned. There is a certain amount of satisfaction associated with a 300 pound low bar back squat.

I did SS for 7 months, but the last few months my gains slowed. I gained some muscle and fat, but they changed the scale at the gym and I don't know how much weight I ACTUALLY gained because the old one was off by like 10 pounds and they changed it half way through so it had me confused. I probably gained 15 lbs, half of which being muscle. Didn't gain much more after that, even though I continued working out, nothing has been very effective after the initial five months or so.

My stats after 7 months: https://imgur.com/Pmnmkc8

Two years later, they barely improved: https://imgur.com/P7qGI5n

Yeah, that's expected. SS is a beginner program designed to be done for only 3-6 months. When your progress on your lifts stalls out, it's time to switch to a periodized intermediate program such as Texas Method[1], which will have you doing ramped work sets and taking deload weeks to allow for more recovery time between your max effort sessions.

[1] http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/The_Texas_Method

I wasn't interested in strength gains anyway, so I did a few different hypertrophy programs, but nothing had really amazing results for me.

Yeah, Starting Strength is a gainer program, it's designed to make you as big and strong as you can possibly get in a 3-6 month time frame. I put on about 30 pounds from doing it, mostly muscle in my legs, butt, and back. Some of my gains were fat I'm sure, but probably not very much, because my waist size hasn't changed at all.

kyllo, you didn't say exactly how long you did SS for, but it's my understanding that gaining even 20lbs of muscle in 6 months is virtually impossible:

"Under the best possible circumstances (perfect diet, training, supplementation, and recovery strategies) the average male body can manufacture between 0.25 and 0.5 pounds of dry muscle tissue per week"[1]

For sure SS will get you stronger in an almost magical fashion (I'm currently doing a modified SS program) but expecting to gain 20lbs of muscle in a short period of time is unrealistic.

[1] http://www.t-nation.com/portal_includes/articles/2006/06-154...

Sure, but not all human tissue is either muscle fiber or fat. You gain other non-lipid mass in addition. Some of it is from increases in connective tissue. A tiny amount is from increased bone density. A large portion of it is from retaining more glycogen and water.

Did you see the articles about Zach, one of Mark Rippetoe's trainees? Based on skinfold caliper measurements, he gained 78 lbs in 6 months, 46 lbs of which was lean body mass, and 32 lbs of which was fat: http://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/showthread.php?t...

I hadn't seen that yet so thanks for the link. Amazing gains by him!

there's also no way he's 21% body fat

calipers are just an approximate estimate of someone's body fat percentage, and in this case because of body fat distribution (all the fat is very evenly distributed) they're way off, by as much as 5%

What would you estimate his BF% at based on the photos?

Below 30% (he is thinner than I was when I was 30% bf), but way above 20% because he has significant chest fat

So closer to 25%

Anecdotally, I added 40 miles per week of running (actually performance-oriented running, not just casual jogging) to my lifestyle over the past year and it has had literally zero effect on my weight, or, according to my Fitbit Aria scale, my bodyfat. I also haven't been trying to lose weight and have been doing quite a bit of bodyweight strength exercising, so I am not at all surprised by this. I did drop my resting heart rate to about 55bpm and knock 2 minutes off my 5k time (22min --> 20:00), though, which was my goal.

I believe body fat estimations based upon weight and electrical conductance measurements are really flawed, especially for individuals outside of a quite narrow 'normal'. It's only a little better than a BMI measurement in my opinion. If you want to know, get yourself to a bodpod or some other accurate measurement system.

But do you feel better? I used to be able to run 5k in less than 20 minutes (10k races are very popular here), but now I can't even run 1k.

If you lost fat and gained muscle, you're doing OK :)

going to the Gym is also a great way to put on weight

given a calorie surplus.

I think the first law of thermodynamics has us covered there.

First, congratulations.

IMO "the diet that works" can be anything. For some people it actually can be to eat anything they want, but at specific times of the day (and because for instance, they don't actually want to eat that much, it's just a matter of setting limits or not). I don't believe in a diet working for everyone, I think it's complicated, especially as it can affect a lot of other things in your everyday life, and whatever works for someone is fine.

The main mistake people do is thinking of it as a diet, instead of changing a lifestyle.

If you are dieting for 3 months and then going back to how you were eating before, you're just losing your time.

I've never been fat so can't comment for that part but when I'm cutting/bulking I eat the same things but in different quantities.

It's not about fighting your body, it's about having discipline.

> It's not about fighting your body, it's about having discipline

I like the Scott Adams' approach to discipline: self control, or motivation, is a finite resource. Just like attention span, or muscle endurance. You have to work around it, much as you work around your other limits. Dieting techniques are techniques to work around this limit.

This also means that saying it is about discipline conveys nothing actionable. It's like saying running the marathon is all about muscle endurance. True, but not actionable and thus useless.

> The main mistake people do is thinking of it as a diet, instead of changing a lifestyle.

Yes. It really gets to me when people say they're going on a diet. There's no such thing as "going on a diet." There is only "changing your diet." If you change your diet for a while, lose weight, and then go back to your previous diet, you will gain the weight back.

Worse, you may gain the weight back and more since the diet may have reduced your metabolism and/or made changes to your gut flora.

>>It's not about fighting your body, it's about having discipline

Yeah, and giving up heroin, smoking or alcohol are just matter of discipline as well. People are just lazy slobs who can't control themselves why should we ever think about how to help those people if all that is needed is just stop taking heroin/drink alcohol/smoke cigarettes. Oh, and I've never been addicted to cigarettes/alcohol/heroin so I have found that I just need to cut on those for few months if they affect me somehow. It's not about fighting your body, it's a about having discipline.

I think the author of previous comment meant that changes need to persistent, not transient. One can't just stop taking heroin for few months to improve their health and then go back using it again. Same with food - if you want your weight to stick, you need to adhere to your diet permanently and don't start eating junk food once you hit your target weight.

> One can't just stop taking heroin for few months

That's exactly the point; but not in the way you intended.

>It's not about fighting your body, it's about having discipline.

The whole reason for the lifestyle change is so that you don't need discipline. Forcing yourself to go to the gym against your desire is only going to last so long.

What helps is to realise that "things I enjoy doing" is a flexible category and that by getting good at activities you can move them into that category. This may also mean giving up or doing less of existing hobbies.

I used to play a lot of computer games, now my default activity on a Saturday is to play tennis, go swimming, or climb. There's friends who still structure their free time around gaming, I don't see those friends as much any more because the degree to which we share a hobby has changed.

A lifestyle change is inherently disruptive - almost by definition it will change how you socialise and with whom.

Frequently people want to change their lives without changing who they are (which I understand) but that's inherently a tricky proposition. If old-you was that great, you wouldn't be where you are now.

> actually, almost ANY diet works. if you are over weight and reduce your calorie intake: you.will.loose.weight.period.

This is absolutely false.

1) there's of course the obvious cas where you're consuming 5000 kcal/day and burning 2500, and then cut that to 4000 kcal consumed -- still gonna gain, albeit more slowly.

2) less obviously but perhaps more importantly, reducing caloric intake can reduce metabolism (because your body thinks food is more scarce) and therefore also reduce calories out!

3) the types of foods you eat help determine whether your body stores the energy as fat -- which is triggered by insulin. Replacing fat calories with sugar calories (as was done extensively in the late 20th C rush to low fat foods) even if the total caloric intake is slightly lower can actually accelerate weight gain.

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